traffic

Google+ users spend increasingly less time on site

Next to Google+, Facebook is proving to be the social-networking behemoth.

Facebook users spent an average of 7.5 hours on the site during January, according to stats released today by research firm ComScore and detailed by The Wall Street Journal. These numbers dwarf all other social networking sites, most notably Google+ where users racked just 3.3 minutes for the whole month.

In fact, Google+ users are spending increasingly less time on the site as the months go by. In December users spent 4.8 minutes, down from November when users spent 5.1 minutes, according to Bloomberg.

When … Read more

Pinterest addresses copyright issues with opt-out option

As Pinterest grows at break-neck speed, it has to iron out kinks along the way. One of the issues that's been floating around the Web recently is the idea that "pinning" might actually be violating copyright laws.

"The last few months have been a whirlwind here at Pinterest," the site's co-founder Ben Silbermann wrote in a blog post today. "As a company, we care about respecting the rights of copyright holders."

Silbermann explains that as of today, Web sites will be able to opt-out of having their images used by Pinterest's … Read more

AT&T data traffic doubling as users complain about throttling

AT&T is trying to help customers understand why its data network is overtaxed but its throttling policy isn't winning them over.

The carrier's data traffic has doubled each year since 2007, according to John Donovan, a senior executive VP for AT&T technology and network operations. Over the past five years, data traffic has grown by 20,000 percent.

And who's the main culprit? The smartphone, of course. The iPhone likely factors into that equation quite heavily since it debuted in 2007.

"The growth is now driven primarily by smartphones," Donovan said … Read more

Number of mobile devices to hit 8 billion by 2016, Cisco says

If there were any doubt the world is going mobile, it should be tossed out the window today.

A Cisco Systems' forecast, released today, claims that by 2016, there will be over 8 billion handheld or "personal mobile-ready" devices operating globally. In addition, nearly 2 billion "machine-to-machine" connections, including GPS systems and medical applications, will be in use.

All those devices will drive mobile data traffic up 18-fold, reaching 10.8 exabytes per month, or 130 exabytes a year, by 2016, according to the Cisco report officially dubbed the Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Traffic … Read more

Google dominated U.S. searches in January

Big surprise, Google continued to reign over all other U.S. search engines in January with 66.2 percent share, according to data released today by market researcher ComScore.

Not only did Google overshadow all other engines, it also managed to take some of Yahoo's traffic and grow by 0.3 percentage points.

Yahoo did not have it easy last month--users' searches decreased by 0.4 percent putting it at 14.1 percent share. It was the only search engine not to increase share or at least keep the status quo in January.

Over the last year, Yahoo's … Read more

Brazil sues Twitter users over speed trap and traffic tweets

Twitter might have to decide quickly whether to start its new policy of removing tweets on a country-by-country basis.

Today, the attorney general of Brazil filed a preliminary injunction to block tweets and suspend the accounts of Twitter users who use the social-networking site to warn people about radar locations, speed traps, and DUI checkpoints in the Brazilian state of Goias, according to the news group O Globo.

The Brazilian government claims that these Twitter users are putting people in danger since police can't properly do their jobs and that the users are also breaking the country's penal, … Read more

Waze uses crowdsourcing to keep drivers out of a jam (video)

When it comes to mapping out the best driving route to your destination, sometimes the most direct route turns out to be the longest thanks to traffic congestion.

Silicon Valley startup Waze has designed an app to enable drivers to alert one another of road conditions by sharing real-time traffic information.

It takes a user's information such as where they are and how fast they're traveling, as well as the same information on others in the vicinity who are using the app. It then combines that data to figure out where the traffic is and where it isn'… Read more

Pinterest nearly equals Twitter and Google in referral traffic

Pinterest is now the fastest growing site for referral traffic, according to a new study by content-sharing company Shareaholic. If Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn's referral traffic were added up, they still wouldn't drive as many users as Pinterest.

The premise behind Pinterest is for users to gather, organize, and share things they find on the Web, such as home decorations, clothing, and food. The end result is curated pinboards that are meant to help friends discover new items or get inspiration. Currently, Pinterest is invite-only.

In the study, Shareaholic aggregated data from more than 200,000 publishers that … Read more

Beat The Traffic to debut new iPhone and iPad app at Macworld

Beat the Traffic will unveil Beat The Traffic 2.0 app for the iPhone at the Macworld iWorld 2012 event being held January 26-28 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

A team of 100 beta-testers will begin using the new Beat the Traffic app, which lets travelers view real-time traffic conditions--such as accidents, traffic congestion, and roadwork delays--and adjust their travel plans.

The new Beat the Traffic app offers interactive maps and additional surface street details; it also lets motorists retrieve travel times and live camera views.

The app will be available for free for the iPhone and iPad … Read more