Tumblr Hits 20 Billion Total Posts

Tumblr has hit a major milestone — 20 billion posts — a huge increase from the 12 billion posts figure it reached in November.
“Forgot to make a big deal of this earlier, but Tumblr crossed the 20-billion-post mark Monday night,” said a tweet from the official Tumblr account, with a link to Tumblr’s About page, which sports a counter showing the total number of Tumblr posts.
Currently, the number sits at more than 20 billion posts, 51 million of which were created today. Tumblr currently has more than 49.7 million total blogs and is due to hit the 50 million milestone any day now.
The rapid rise of Tumblr in the past year has been nothing short of amazing. In June 2011, Tumblr announced it had more blogs than WordPress.com — more than 20 million. It took less than nine months for Tumblr to double that number.
For comparison, WordPress powers more than 72 million blogs, about half of which are hosted on WordPress.com.

The simplicity and ease of use of Tumblr on one hand and similarity to microblogging services such as Twitter on the other, have apparently hit the right spot with a large number of users. One thing Tumblr still lacks is a viable business plan — despite significant funding. 

25 Outstanding Kitty-Themed Tumblrs [LOTS OF CATS]

1. Cats. Where They Do Not Belong

 

From the creator: "I decided there is not enough internet space devoted to pictures of cats trying to fit into anything they can, so I have graciously decided to take on this challenge."

We thank you.

2. Contortion Cats!

 

As far as "collections of contorted cats" go, this is particularly fine one.

 

3. The Kitten Covers

 

You'll get nothing but whiskers and win by following The Kitten Covers.

4. Dream Cats

 

With images of "girls and cats, cats in soft focus, cats on film and dream cats" you're sure to find something Pin-worthy here.

5. GIF Cat

 

A GIF-based blog slaving to "make the internet a better place."

6. Writers and Kitties

 

"Where literature has whiskers and pointy ears." You'll find plenty of vintage pics of literary types and their feline friends.

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7. Cats in Clothes

 

There are no surprises here. Just cats. In clothes.

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8. Garfield Minus Garfield

 

"Dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle," Garfield Minus Garfield is surreal and funny.

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9. F*** Yeah Kitties

 

Simply celebrating cats.

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10. C$shcats

 

Cats plus piles and piles of cash make for strangely compelling viewing.

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11. Review of My Cat

 

This blog contains reader "reviews" of their cats, rating them on appearance, sociability, usefulness, huggability and a final, overall grade.

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12. Cat Watching You Have Sex

 

"You've always pretended they weren't watching you get it on. You've always been wrong."

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13. Worldy Cats

 

Cats from all corners of the globe feature on this feline-themed travelogue.

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14. Cats That Look Like Ron Swanson

 

Even if you don't know who Ron Swanson is, you should get some laughs here.

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15. Barely Feral

 

Barely Feral says it answers the question "what if there was a porn site designed by cats for cats?"

It's an X-rated answer, so adult-only click-throughs, please.

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16. I ♥ Cat Gifs

 

"All cat GIFs, all the time."

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17. Stoned Cats

 

Drugs are bad. If you're not convinced, check out what they have reduced these poor animals to.

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18. Cats in Front of Macs

 

This blog shares the "pain" of cats getting in the way of your laptop/iPad/iMac, etc.

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19. Aw Yeah Pudgy Kitties

 

If you like a cat with a bit of meat on its bones, this blog is for you.

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20. Celebrity Pussy

 

As "your premier source for celebrities with cats," Celebrity Pussy is both a fabulous online image library and we to like imagine, a constant source of disappointment from, ahem, certain Google users

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21. CAT SCIENTISTS OF THE 1960S

 

Lest we forget the important work done by cat scientists during the Sixties.

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22. F*** Yeah Cats

 

More cats.

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23. We Are the 99 Purrcent

 

The Tumblr home of the occu-paw movement.

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24. Cats in Ties

 

There's a joke somewhere about "The Long Tail," but we'll just say this is splendidly niche.

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25. The Cat Scan

 

Finally, our favorite cat-themed Tumblr is the glorious The Cat Scan.

It is probably responsible for a large percentage of cat scratches in recent years as kitty-owners try and persuade their recalcitrant pets to sit still on a humming, flashing box of evil long enough to be scanned.

Those that succeed -- we salute you!

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Facebook Pages Race To Adopt Timeline, 8M Of 37M+ Upgraded In 10 Days

On March 30th, Facebook will forcibly migrate all Pages onto the Timeline redesign, but Facebook tells me it only took 10 days for 8 million of the more than 37 million Pages that have been set up to opt into the change. The stats are a sign of success that show the added features are ones admins want, considering tons of Facebook Pages get set up and forgotten about.
However, it will take a while to see whether Timeline actually helps Pages market more effectively. So far the most popular Pages that have switched haven’t seen growth rates increase. With more to look at, the Like button might be overshadowed.
Reach Generator which launched at the Facebook Marketing Conference and allows Pages to pay a fixed fee to guarantee distribution of their content to over 75% of their fans is picking up customers. Dr. Pepper reached 83% of its 8 million U.S. fans over a 28-day period, had a 140% increase in people talking about it on Facebook, and saw an 80% increase in engagement. Ford plans to buy logout page ads where big photos of their cars can be featured, which wouldn’t fit in Facebook’s tiny traditional sidebar ads.
Typically when Facebook launches redesigns they’re met with fear and apprehension. But Timeline’s big flashy cover banner seems to be pretty for Page admins to resist. There are some concerns about the removed ability to set a custom promotional app as a default landing page, but those are offset by eagerness for pinned posts, bigger photos, and more presentation flexibility.

Brands also probably didn’t want to get left behind by competitors, leading roughly 1 million Pages per day to migrate to Timeline in first days after its launch. Now they’re likely taking the time to go back, hide irrelevant or weak posts, and add milestone moments to their story. 2 weeks after launch and 2 more before the forced migration, Facebook tells me a “significant percentage” of Pages have switched. In its S-1 Facebook noted that 37 million Pages had been set up as of December 31, 2011.
While the long-tail of Pages are actively migrating to Timeline, Facebook’s most popular Pages have been conservative with their adoption. Only 8 of the top 20 Pages have migrated, and none of those have seen their rate of new fans increase significantly according to Inside Network’s PageData tracking service. In fact, some are seeing slower growth, possibly because users have to re-learn where the Like button is.

IDC: Apple’s iPad Rules Tablet Sales Today But Android Makers Will Overtake It By 2016

With news of Apple’s new iPad selling out its first run due to overwhelming demand, 2012 is off to a galloping start for the tablet market; and because of that IDC is upping its forecasts for how many “media” tablets will be shipped this year. The analysts predict that the number will top 106.1 million units, up from their previous forecast of 87.7 million units, due in part to strong demand for that new iPad, but also a number of other devices at a range of price points.
Indeed, while Apple will continue to be the single biggest tablet maker on the market, Android, collectively, will continue to hold its own against it, with some notable devices like the Amazon Kindle Fire doing particularly well. But it will not be until 2016 — four years from now — that IDC thinks that Android shipments will outnumber those of iOS.
Even though the Kindle Fire was available only in the U.S. in Q4, IDC says that the $199 device accounted for 16.8 percent of all tablet shipments in Q4 2011, or some 4.7 million units, making it the largest “Android” vendor. Samsung, despite its multiple Android tablets, was bumped down to second-biggest Android maker with a 5.8 percent share of the market. Barnes & Noble and Pandigital, the other top Android tablet makers, both saw their shares of shipments slide. The tablets to watch, it seems, are those that combine low price with high content promise.
None of that was a match for Apple, however, which accounted for 54.7 percent of all shipments in Q4, or 15.4 million units. While that was a rise of 110 percent over the year before, that still did not outpace the overall growth of the tablet market, which IDC says grew by 155 percent between the two quarters. Overall, Android tablets accounted for 44.6 percent of all sales, while RIM’s PlayBook slipped down to 0.7 percent from 1.1 percent a year before.
A couple of things worth noting about IDC’s numbers, taken from its quarterly tablet and e-reader tracker:
Although many predict that e-readers will eventually die a death blow dealt by tablets, for the moment their fortunes look okay. They grew less than half as well as tablets did — up by 64.3 percent between Q4 2011 and 2011 — but they are still on the rise, with e-reader makers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kobo in total shipping 10.7 million units in the quarter.
IDC gives no weight to Microsoft and its new, tablet-friendly Window 8 platform in its “media tablet” forecasts. As we saw last month, there are a number of devices being built on the OS, and if you believe all the reports, there will be more coming from the likes of Nokia to add to that. These are not expected to start shipping in earnest until much later this year. In its forecast, “others” apart from iOS and Android account for only a tiny sliver of overall shipments — and, by default, sales.
And that’s the other point always worth remembering about shipments. This tends to be the metric tracked most closely by analysts, because they get their numbers from device makers but also the channels that receive and distribute them; the shipment numbers are based on estimated demand. Ultimately, though, sometimes these shipments are out of sync with how a product actually gets bought — although analysts usually say that in the long run those corrections are accounted for with fewer shipments in subsequent quarters.

Eyeing An IPO, Kayak 2011 Revenue Up 32 Percent To $225M; Net Income Up 21 Percent

Travel search giant Kayak just posted new revenue numbers for the fourth quarter and full year 2011 in a new S-1 filing with the SEC. As we heard last September, Kayak put its IPO plans on hold until market conditions improve. Now that the markets are more stabilized, it should be interesting to see when Kayak makes the push to become a public company. For the year, Kayak generated $224.5 million of revenues, up 32 percent from 2010.
Net income for the year was $9.7 million, up 21 percent from 2010′s net income of $8 million For the fourth quarter, Kayak saw a 27 percent increase in quarterly revenue, posting $53.9 million in Q4 2011 sales. In contrast, revenue grew 28 percent in the third quarter.
But the company says that typically its highest revenue quarters are the second and third quarters.
Kayak says it finished 2011 with 899 million user queries processes for travel information, representing growth of 42 percent from 2010. For 2011, Kayak had 7 million downloads, up over 70 percent from 2010.
Despite the IPO being on hold, Kayak has been consistently trying to improve its core product and add additional functionality. The company has been heads down on product development and improving customer experience over the past few months, as the company battles with Google in the travel search space.
In December, Kayak redesigned its iPad app and consolidated the app with its iPhone cousin. The company’s website most recently got a big UI upgrade, creating a more universal and comprehensive consumer experience across all Kayak platforms: web, mobile web and apps. And the search engine just debuted direct booking for flights.

Games Bring in the Most Revenue for Sohu in the 4th Quarter

Despite government crackdowns on social media users, social games continue to grow in China.  Sohu’s (NASDAQ: SOHU) fourth quarter financial results are in, and the largest share of the company’s revenue came from games, which brought in $123 million and showed an increase of 34 percent year-over-year and 6 percent quarter-over-quarter.
Sohu.com, Inc. is the parent company of the Chinese language online media destination www.sohu.com; the interactive search engine www.sogou.com; the games information portal www.17173.com; the real estate website www.focus.cn; the online alumni website www.chinaren.com; the wireless value-added services provider www.goodfeel.com.cn; the online mapping service provider www.go2map.com; and the developer and operator of online games at www.changyou.com/en/.
The company’s business model is based on brand advertising, sponsored search services, online games, and wireless value-added services like downloadable ringtones. Overall revenues are at an all-time high of $246 million, representing a 42 percent increase over the fourth quarter last year.
In May 2011 Sohu’s subsidiary Changyou bought the majority stake in the online gaming company Shenzhen 7Road Technology Co. for $32.76 million. Changyou’s games include the martial arts game “Tian Long Ba Bu” and a new massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) called “Duke of Mount Deer” for hard-core gamers. In December, Sohu sold its 17173 website to Changyou for $162.5 million and will provide tech support and advertising for around $30 million.
Said Dr. Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO of Sohu.com Inc., “For online game business, in 2011 Changyou achieved healthy growth in its MMO game portfolio and diversified into other fast growing areas such as Web-based games. In 2012, with our leading game information portal 17173.com under its leadership, Changyou will jumpstart a platform-based initiative.”
Next quarter, revenue for 17173 is expected to be between  $7 million and $8 million – a $4 million to $5 million drop from last quarter. Co-president and CFO Carol Yu explained that the first quarter of the year is always a slow season for online gaming advertising, and that new game launches have been affected by the early arrival of the Chinese New Year holiday.
NASDAQ.com has a good analysis of Sohu’s net income, which dropped despite the increase in revenue. To read the transcript of the earnings call, click here.
Image by sevenke via Shutterstock.

Want to Print Facebook? Better Get 11.5 Billion Sheets of Paper [INFOGRAPHIC]

Printing a year’s worth of Facebook statuses would be equivalent to printing more than 500 million Oxford English Dictionaries, a new survey found.
Sure, it would be a waste of paper, but a UK online cartridge retailer thought it would be interesting to find out how much paper would be needed to print a year’s worth of Facebook statuses if the website’s 800 million users updated once per day. The answer — 11.5 billion sheets.
Of course, there are a few stipulations for cramming the statuses onto paper — each of the estimated 292 billion status updates would be an average of two lines, which is equivalent to 584 billion total lines; the statuses would be printed on 8.3-by-11.7 inch paper in size 11 point Arial font.
The print job would be expensive — the ink alone would cost about $194.5 million or 147.2 million euros. To compare, England could build two more of the London Eye with that amount of money. It would take 573 million hours to read every Facebook status posted in a year, which is how long it would take to fly around the globe 8.5 million times, according to Cartridge Save, the online ink cartridge retailer who compiled the facts.
The UK company surveyed 2,102 UK Facebook users by email to calculate numbers for the infographic. Of those surveyed, the average UK Facebook user spends 32 minutes per day reading on Facebook, and 62% of respondents write one status about two lines in length per day.
How much paper and ink do you think was used when people sent snail mail on a daily basis to communicate with family and friends years ago?

 Infographic created by Cartridge Save