Guess it had to happen, and it did, last week. Hitwise figures show Facebook's national domination as the most popular U.S. web destination. For the week ending March 13, Facebook grabbed 7.07 percent of all U.S. web traffic, barely beating Google's at 7.03 percent.
See the graph above; clearly Facebook has been steadily rising in traffic since last year. Traffic to Facebook increased 185 percent compared to the same week last year, whereas visits to Google increased only 9 percent.
Compared to the rise of social games on Facebook (like Farmville and Mafia Wars), there was little happening at Google to encourage traffic growth.
However, when measured by reach .... the percent of the U.S. population that visit ... Facebook still has a way to go. Comscore, another analytics firm, ranks Google as the top site by reach, with 81 percent of the U.S. population. According to Techcrunch, Facebook's reach ranking still has it behind Google (and Yahoo and Microsoft, for that matter) at 53 percent of the U.S. population.
The rise of social media in the last few years has created exponential growth in web usage. Here's a "real time" app that shows just how dynamic and active the social side of the web is. It helps put the growth of social media in context:
Here are some of the key data points that the ‘Media Count’ is based on:
20 hours of video uploaded every minute onto YouTube (source YouTube blog Aug 09) Facebook 600k new members per day, and photos, videos per month, 700mill & 4 mill respectively (source Inside Facebook Feb 09)
Twitter 18 million new users per year & 4 million tweets in April 2009 sent daily (source TechCrunch) ... now 50 million Tweets per day in February 2010 (source: eConsultancy)
900,000 blogs posts put up every day (source Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2008)
YouTube daily, 1 Billion videos watched per day, $1mill bandwidth costs (source Comscore Jul 06; Dec 2009 SMH)
Second Life 250,000 virtual goods made daily
Text messages 1,250 per second (source Linden Lab release Sep 09)
Money – $5.5 billion on virtual goods (casual & game worlds) even Facebooks gifts make $70 million annually (source Viximo Aug 09)
Flickr has 73 million visitors a month who upload 700 million photos (source Yahoo Mar 09)
Mobile social network subscribers – 92.5 million at the end of 2008, by end of 2013 rising to between 641.6-873.1 million or 132 million annually (source Informa PDF)
SMS – Over 2.3 trillion messages will be sent across major markets worldwide in 2008 (source Everysingleoneofus sms statistics)
It's undeniable: social media are here to stay. Every non-profit, regardless of size, needs to think about their presence in this sphere.
Grace Groner was exceptionally restrained with her money.
Her clothes came from rummage sales. She never owned a car. She lived in a one-bedroom house.
She was orphaned while quite young, and came of age during the Depression. Thus, her character was naturally frugal.
She had very fond memories of her college days. So she set up a small scholarship program for her alma mater, Lake Forest College. She told them she planned to contribute more upon her death. But no one guessed it would be such a huge gift from one living so modestly.
When she passed away in January, at the age of 100, her attorney informed the college president what that gift added up to. Groner's estate was worth $7 million.
Here's the college president's reaction:
I'm glad that the college was stewarding her lifetime gifts; clearly, they knew her and had the opportunity to thank her while she was alive. I can just imagine that Grace derived some pleasure out of knowing the secret surprise that they'd receive upon her death.
She worked as a secretary for Abbott Laboratories for 43 years. In 1935, she bought 3 shares of Abbott stock for $180. Those three shares are the asset that blossomed into $7 million.
The millions should generate more than $300,000 a year for the college. The money will help dozens of Lake Forest students pursue internships and study-abroad programs that they may not have had the chance to take advantage without Groner’s hefty donation.
Aside from the $7 million donation, she also left her small house to the college, which will house scholarship winners who benefitted from her donation.
But this story is one to add to the host of others told through the years: you never know which of your donors has the capacity to make a transformative gift to your institution. That's why it's incredibly important to be nice to ALL of your donors. Thanking the "little old lady" who sends in $5 twice a year is just as important as fussing over the six- and seven-figure donors. Fundraising basics 101, I know, but one of those fundamentals that is all-too-easily forgotten. Stories like this one provide a reminder.
A generous spirit; a life well-lived. Thank you, Grace Groner.
JK Rowling, of course, authored the bestselling Harry Potter fantasy. Her creation -- a spellbinding, seven-installment series -- brought her from rags to riches.
At her Harvard University commencement speech, JK Rowling offers some powerful, heartening advice to dreamers and overachievers, including one hard-won lesson that she deems "worth more than any qualification I ever earned."
Her heart-felt comments encourage us to reach out to help our friends, our community, our government, and our world. Enjoy.
Helping you understand how to help people experience the joy of giving to their favorite causes. With 30 years of senior leadership experience in philanthropy, including executive management, I specialize in leading people to ask others personally for significant gifts to impact their charitable cause.
I possess broad knowledge of major and planned giving concepts -- acquired through 14 years of successful practice -- but my real specialty is organization change management.
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