Housing: ‘The Recovery Is Here’

We had spotted multiple stats on housing in the past. We spotted this today:

“”What are important are sales and inventory, and those are pointing in the right direction,” said Christopher Thornberg, a principal at Beacon Economics who was one of the early callers of the housing crash. “I would say that by the end of the year, they should translate into better prices.”

Thornberg added, “The recovery is here.”
…
“This is not a robust recovery, but I feel confident that we are not sitting here lingering,” said [Ivy Zelman, chief executive of Zelman & Associates], who predicts that home prices will end the year up about 1%. “There really is more meat to the bone.”"

Statistics Source: LATimes via CalculatedRisk

Image Source: FrumForum

For Interesting Statistics Everyday, Find Statspotting on Facebook and Follow Statspotting on Twitter

Every Fifth Patent Is Filed In The Area Of .. ?

Well, this is not so difficult to guess. We spotted this today:

“As if anyone needed another data point to grasp where the hot money is heading, a new report has found that about 21 percent of all patents in the first quarter of this year were for mobile technologies.

The study compiled by consultant Chetan Sharma examined approximately 7 million patents granted both by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the European Patent Office. What she found underscores the trend that has been long in the making. In the last decade, the number of mobile-related patents granted by the USPTO and its European counterpart have soared: The U.S. logged a 390 percent increase while the European market witnessed a 173 percent increase in mobile-related patent grants.”

Statistics Source: CNet

For Interesting Statistics Everyday, Find Statspotting on Facebook and Follow Statspotting on Twitter

‘We Do Not Want You To Borrow E-Books’

We have always wondered, what could possibly be the incentive for publishers behind the whole ‘lending e-books’ thing, particularly when it comes to public libraries. We had spotted multiple e-book stats, kindle stats and nook stats. We spotted this today:

“Want to borrow “The Help,” the novel by Kathryn Stockett? On New Jersey’s state e-book consortium, 375 people were waiting for a copy recently. At the New York Public Library’s Web site, 193 members had put a hold on a digital edition of Stieg Larsson’s trilogy, which begins with “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”

How about the immensely popular novel “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E. L. James? Thirty-three people were waiting for the e-book on the Seattle Public Library’s site.

“We hear a lot of frustration,” said Christopher Platt, the director of collections and circulation operations at the New York Public Library. “It’s rational. We don’t expect our readers to understand the complexities of the publishing industry.””

Statistics Source: NYTimes

For Interesting Statistics Everyday, Find Statspotting on Facebook and Follow Statspotting on Twitter

Foreclosure Sales Picking Up

We have spotted multiple housing stats in the past – we have written about jobs numbers as well. We spotted this today:

“Last month, LPS reported that foreclosure sales increased 29% month-over-month in January. Note: The sequence is 1) a loan goes delinquent, 2) if it doesn’t cure, after several months, the foreclosure process begins (this is called the “foreclosure inventory”), 3) then the foreclosure is completed “foreclosure sale” and becomes REO (lender Real Estate Owned), and then 4) the REO is sold. Sometimes during this process, the loan will cure or a short sale approved, and not all loans in the foreclosure inventory reach “foreclosure sales”.”

Statistics Source: CalculatedRiskBlog

For Interesting Statistics Everyday, Find Statspotting on Facebook and Follow Statspotting on Twitter

Meet The ‘Personal Cloud’

We had spotted multiple cloud computing stats – we spotted this today:

Image Source: Bostinno
“There’s no doubting the cloud invasion. But the research firm Gartner believes the personal cloud will replace the PC as the center of our digital lives sooner than you might think: 2014.

“Major trends in client computing have shifted the market away from a focus on personal computers to a broader device perspective that includes smartphones, tablets and other consumer devices,” Steve Kleynhans, research vice president at Gartner, said in a statement on Monday. “Emerging cloud services will become the glue that connects the web of devices that users choose to access during the different aspects of their daily life.”

Statistics Source: Wired

For Interesting Statistics Everyday, Find Statspotting on Facebook and Follow Statspotting on Twitter

World’s Largest Mobile Social Network

Instagram it is. We had spotted some instagram statistics before – we spotted this today:

Image Source: Socialnomics
“Since Christmas the mobile photo network Instagram has gained over ten million users. This makes Instagram the largest mobile only social network with a global reach.
Foursquare by comparison is on around 22 million.
Instagram hasn’t officially announced these figures, and they aren’t published anywhere else as far as I can see.”

Statistics Source: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Put this into context – we know there are more smartphone users than other mobile phone users in the U.S. We also know that there would be about 1 billion smartphones shipped by 2015. 25 Million is not huge – but it is definitely not small either.

For Interesting Statistics Everyday, Find Statspotting on Facebook and Follow Statspotting on Twitter

Dwolla’s Neat UI Trick (Step-By-Step)

Well this is an out-of-pattern post at statspotting – this post is a reaction to a WTF moment I had with Dwolla today. It feels real bad to feel stupid. Really.

(I had to open a new account with a different phone number just to get the screenshots. I took the option of taking the pain and shouting out loud. I really, really wanted to write this post with screenshots)

1. Opening a Dwolla account was a breeze. Typical email validation etc. wow.

2. Then comes a phone validation. wow.

3. Then comes this:

“Please Verify Your Social Security Number. Your security is very important to us!Verifying your Social Security Number will help us keep your account secure by limiting fraudulent activity. If you do not know or have your Social Security number, we require that you upload a photo ID (e.g. driver’s license, passport). Once uploaded, this could take 1-2 business days to process. Upload Photo ID”

(Screenshot below)

One would believe that the process of uploading photo ids introduces a delay,and hence would just go ahead with sharing the SSN- assuming that he or she just wants to open an account immediately. Simple? I think so. Then, once you share your SSN, thinking that you will now NOT have the 1-2 day delay in verifying your identity, you see this:

“Thank you for providing your SSN. Dwolla support will review the SSN for account verification. You will receive an email after a customer service representative has reviewed the account.This process is typically complete within 1-2 business days.”

(Screenshot below)

WHY DID THEY NOT TELL ME IN THE FIRST SCREEN, THAT IT WILL TAKE 1-2 DAYS EVEN IF I PROVIDE MY SSN?

I cannot think of a single reason why they wouldn’t do that, except this: THEY JUST WANT YOUR SSN MORE THAN THEY WANT YOUR PHOTO ID. Simple.

It feels real bad to feel stupid. Really.

For Interesting Statistics Everyday, Find Statspotting on Facebook and Follow Statspotting on Twitter

PayPal Repeats MapQuest’s Mistakes

At one point in time, MapQuest was the king of directions on the web. Locations, geography, directions, maps – it was all MapQuest. But they never built any layer of intelligence on top of the data they had – no tagging for quite some time, no commercial mapping of interests/availability – no walkscore type apps possible bcos of no api for quite some time – no social layer (check-ins, anyone?) – tonnes of mistakes. So what happened? Google Maps, Foursquare.. you name it.

In a lot of ways, PayPal is repeating the mistakes that MapQuest did. It has been sitting on top of customer buying methods and preferences for ages, but no intelligence layer added. For all the data they had, they could have been a blippy (okay, not blippy) or a Square or a Mint or a … you name it.

We spotted this today:

” EBay Inc.’s PayPal business, aiming to challenge Groupon Inc. and LivingSocial.com in the market for online daily deals, plans to start offering coupons tailored to users’ buying habits and mobile-phone locations.

The company will make its first foray into mobile deals in the first quarter of 2012, partnering with some of the top 200 U.S. merchants, PayPal President Scott Thompson said. PayPal is chasing a daily coupon market that may more than double to $4.17 billion by 2015, according to research firm BIA/Kelsey.”

Statistics Source: BusinessWeek

Our reaction: Finally.

For Interesting Statistics Everyday, Find Statspotting on Facebook and Follow Statspotting on Twitter

Startups: Burn Rates At Different Stages

We spotted this today:

“Building Product Stage – I would strongly recommend keeping the monthly burn below $50k per month at this stage…
Building Usage Stage – I would recommend keeping the monthly burn below $100k per month at this stage ..
Building The Business Stage – I would recommend keeping the burn below $250k per month at this stage.

A good rule of thumb is multiply the number of people on the team by $10k to get the monthly burn. That is not the number you pay an employee. That is the “fully burdended” cost of a person including rent and other related costs”

Statistics Source: AVC

For Interesting Statistics Everyday, Find Statspotting on Facebook and Follow Statspotting on Twitter

It’s official: Google Owns Half of The Internet

If we did not know that already. But this one is purely from a revenue perspective – and we assume that web advertising is the most significant way Internet companies monetize. We spotted this today:

” It pegs Google’s share of the overall Web ad market at 44 percent, a number that has been steadily increasing for years, with the exception of a one-year hiccup in 2009.

The other takeaways are also old news: Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL are foundering and have been for years (hence their new alliance). And Facebook is starting to generate a real ad business — as opposed to just a very sticky Web site.”

Statistics Source: AllThingsD

For Interesting Statistics Everyday, Find Statspotting on Facebook and Follow Statspotting on Twitter