Data released by mobile operator body the GSMA has revealed Facebook dwarfs all other mobile internet traffic, accounting for almost half of total page views from the 16m people going online via their mobile in December.

Initial Mobile Media Metrics (MMM) data from three operators shows 16m unique users viewed 6.7bn pages, spending 4.8bn minutes online during December.

This number will grow following the addition of data from T-Mobile and 3 within weeks.

The top ten sites browsed accounted for 70% of total page views and time spent online via mobile. Facebook was the most popular site with almost 5m unique users, ahead of Google with 4.57m visitors. O2, Orange and Vodafone portals followed, ahead of Yahoo, the BBC and Microsoft.

Mobile domains owned by Apple and Nokia made up the remainder of the top ten sites.

Facebook also claimed the lion’s share of total page views, with 2.64bn in December, beating Google into second place with 894.3m page views. Bebo, Ebay and Flirtomatic also appeared in the top ten sites with the highest page views.

Facebook saw the most amount of time spent on its mobile site in December, accounting for 2.16bn minutes during the month, with Google again second, claiming 395.6m minutes.

Google has attributed a slow down in growth for the fourth quarter of 2007 to the difficulty of making advertising work on social networks. The search company has reported a 17% increase in profits, but says that it has seen a drop in the "paid clicks".

It has reported revenue of $4.83bn (£2.43bn) for the quarter to December 31, which is a 51% increase on the same quarter in 2006 and a 14% increase on the previous quarter.

Google says a revision in the company's formula for showing advertising clicks led to the reduction in revenue.

The search company's founder Sergey Brin says: "We had a challenge in Q4 with social networking inventory as a whole. I don't think we have the killer best way to advertise on social networks."

The company says it has been the reducing the clickable area around its ads to decrease the number of accidental clicks and increase effectiveness for marketers.

Google paid MySpace owner News Corp $900m (£452m) in 2006 for the right to deliver ads to the networking site's 70 million-plus users.

Surely Google have learnt that those people who use social networks don't want to be bombarded with adverts? Consumer backlash against instrusive advertising (think only of Facebook's Beacon) will not change so the approach of those seeking to commercialise has to, let alone those who allow advertising on their sites. Ultimately it's the marketers who need to take responsibility to find new ways to engage with their audience.

The Queen's decision to launch her own channel on YouTube has sparked all sorts of debate however while I am a traditionalist I am of the belief that it is demonstrating another positive step to make the monarchy relevant to a new generation without in any sense undermining the institution.

The Queen was swift to grasp the importance of television when her Christmas message was televised for the first time 50 years ago and once again she is embracing popular culture.

Today it is no longer quite the fixture it was - but Her Majesty has risen to the challenge. Last year, her Christmas message was, for the first time, issued as a podcast while this year it will be carried on the internet. The aim, says Buckingham Palace, is to make the message "more accessible to younger people and those in other countries".

With eight grandchildren ranging in age from 30 years to just one week, the Queen is no stranger to the ways of the young (she does, after all, text). What could be more natural than to decide, at the age of 81, to deliver your message through the medium they actually use?

The PR agency behind the Antarctic cruise ship sunk by an iceberg last month has warned PROs to ensure their clients are media trained for any crisis situation.

‘Even if you do not think you will have a crisis, make sure your most senior person in every country is media trained,’ warned Mulberry Marcoms CEO Chris Klopper.

Klopper said the Explorer accident had been a ‘lesson’ for him and the account team working for travel client G.A.P Adventures. He said he was relieved that UK sales and marketing director John Warner had been taught to deal with the media, after the ship’s disaster and passenger evacuation sparked a worldwide press frenzy over the weekend.

‘We put John on every TV and radio station, and he was able to calm and reassure,’ said Klopper.
The account team at Mulberry worked all Friday and throughout the weekend. It handled a 24-hour press office, dealing with international media and with foreign offices and embassies trying to track down passengers.

Klopper also told how he used a coincidence as positive PR leverage during the crisis. ‘A Danish guy proposed to his girlfriend in a lifeboat,’ he said. ‘This was like manna from heaven and, with the couple’s knowledge, we then majored on this to give a positive twist to the whole rescue management story.’

Mulberry will now work with G.A.P Adventures to ¬rebuild its reputation and prevent travellers who have booked trips from cancelling.

While the crisis was handled well there are a couple of additional lessons that should be taken from this episode. First is to ensure clients also have a plan of action in readiness of any potential crisis. Secondly it should have been highlighted that the travel company had commendably ensured that their website was also well managed with daily updates and contact points for press and friends and relatives of passengers. However, as part of the process to rebuild the company’s reputation it’s worth considering interviewing (video) the passengers who were involved to see them talk about their experiences and how G.A.P Adventures handled the whole incident.

Certainly a company living up to its name although this may not be one for the brochure!

Using the Internet to watch TV programming is now pretty much everyday practise for almost all broadband users and we anticipate we'll be using it even more and more to watch video online as demand increases even further. In one new release it has been stated that Broadband subscriptions across the globe will surpass 536m by 2011, and DSL will account for half the market. The research forecasts that broadband service revenues will exceed £74bn in 2011. In a separate piece of news from Which? it has been revealed that despite internet service providers promising broadband speeds of up to 8Mbps, the average download speed is 2.7Mbps. The consumer magazine found that the lowest speed was just below 0.09Mbps and the highest was 6.7Mbps.

So now that we are watching more TV on the web the appetite to replicate the TV broadcast standard online is growing. Watching webTV is already an excellent experience if you have a good broadband connection - just try any of the on-demand shows that we've produced ourselves at www.webchats.tv to see what I mean, but we still strive to replicate that TV experience whereby the minute you push the on button, or change channel, the picture is there, and there is not even a second's 'buffering'. With the accelerating growth in rich media isn't it about time the service providers lived up to the definition of their title by upping their game to provide broadband of a high and consistent quality while proving they value their customers through improved service levels? The customer is always right, even online.