Some stats out from Nielsen (via Marketing Charts) show that North Americans and Europeans are less enthusiastic adopters of mobile video than web users in other parts of the world.

If 100 is the global average, then the European Union scores 55, while North America comes out even worse at 45.   Compare that to Asia Pacific at 145 and the Middle East, Africa and Pakistan (why that combo?) at 136.

Why is this significant?  Because using mobile video is the tipping point at which people switch from their laptop or PC being their primary Internet device, to their mobile.

This is according to a study by Transpera a year ago, which showed that 62% of mobile video users use their mobile/cellphones to browse the Internet more than they use their computers.

Perhaps one reason for the North America and European figures could be down to increased data capping, with both AT&T in the US and the major UK operators having called time on unlimited mobile data.  If so, pricing is having a real impact on consumer behaviour and online habits.

Meanwhile in Japan, Softbank still allows unlimited data for its iPhone4 plans.   And with the Middle East being quick on the mobile video uptake, UAE telecoms company DU has an unlimited data plan with a ‘fair use’ policy of a whopping 10gb.   Compare that to the fair use policy of Orange in the UK of…750mb.

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Or at least that’s what the majority of (US) 18-34 year old’s say according to the National Retail Federation and BIGresearch (via Marketing Charts).   51.4% now want Internet access on their mobile / cell phones, up from 44.6% in October 2009.

However, while it stands to reason that Generation Y now expects the ability to be online on the go, it is worth looking at the stat for 35-54 year olds.   Almost half (47%) now want to access the Mobile Internet – less than a year ago in October 2009 that statistic was just over 1/3.

Indeed, back in March metrics firm Nielsen found that 36% of mobile social network use is done by 35-54 year olds, 34% by 25-34 year olds and 16% by 18-24 year olds.  As I said in a post at the time, it could well be that many people aged 35+ are supplied a Smartphone as part of their jobs and so get introduced to it as a consumer tool by using it for business first.

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Despite a previous Ofcom report showing that for (UK) 16-24 year olds the mobile phone was the second most essential piece of media behind the TV and ahead of the PC, metrics firm Nielsen says that it’s really people aged 25+, and in particular 35+, who are most likely to be going online via their mobiles.

36% of mobile social network use is done by 35-54 year olds, with 34% being done by 25-34 year olds.   By comparison, 18-24 year olds only account for 16%.   One reason for this could in fact be that smartphones are still fairly expensive and out of the reach of many 18 year olds.   And a lot of people aged 30+ will be issued a blackberry or other smartphone as part of their jobs.

On the Web as a whole, women tend to dominate in social media.   Last year Rapleaf did a study all about women having more friends on social networks than men, while Royal Pingdom looked at 19 sites and found that 53% of users were female.   Nielsen says that this trend is replicated on mobiles – 55% of users are women while 45% are men.

Are mobile marketers getting it wrong?   Rather than trying to aim their mobile campaigns at 19 year old students, should they be turning their sights to 35 year old female business executives?

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A well known rule of thumb in business is the so-called Pareto principle (or the 80/20 rule) that 20% of participants will account for 80% of the activity.   Metrics firm Nielsen decided to test out if the same applies to Twitter – do 20% of tweeple account for 80% of what takes place on Twitter.

The answer is no.   At least in the UK, an even smaller number – 7% – account for 79% of Twitter activity.

Nielsen found that ‘light’ users (less than 2 minutes per month, actually broken across 30 days that is pretty much zero) account for 67% of the audience, medium users (22 mins per month, so still less than a minute a day) account for 26%, while heavy users (1hr+ a month) account for 7% of UK tweeple.

Nielsen’s stats confirm previous ones by Canadian research firm Sysomos, which showed that there is a group of 5% of Twitter power users who are responsible for 75% of Twitter activity.

Similarly, in January, RJ Metrics produced a report saying that only 17% of Twitter accounts had sent a single tweet over the month, which would put Twitter’s ‘real’ user base at around 10-15 million worldwide (with perhaps 700-900k in the UK) as opposed to the 75 million registered users.

Again, the fact that there are probably less than a million people in the UK making habitual use of Twitter shouldn’t matter.   News often breaks on Twitter and, due to the large proportion of bloggers and journalists that listen in on the network, moves elsewhere.

As the founder of spoof political website mydavidcameron.com (lampooning ads featuring the UK Conservative Party leader) found, chatter about his website started on Twitter and then quickly moved on from there to Facebook and finally to the media at large.

Finally, it’s also worth bearing in mind Nielsen’s observations that other networks similarly have a core of power users who dominate.  Three percent (3%) of MySpace visitors account for 63% of time spent on the site while 5% of LinkedIn visitors account for 50% of LinkedIn activity.   A challenge for marketers targeting those networks is obviously to zero in on, and find out who those three or five percent are.

Linking in with its role as a network, which according to Reuters is rapidly gaining ‘tech lock in’, Facebook however has a higher participation rate -  52% of users account for almost everything (98%) that goes on.

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Two charts from the current Economist special report on social networking. First of all, according to Nielsen, “measured by hours spent on them per social-network user, the most avid online networkers are in Australia, followed by those in Britain and Italy.”

By comparison, Americans spent on average six hours a month on social networks in October, almost 3x as much as in October 2007.

Secondly, a chart that again confirms the dominance of Facebook as being for social media what Google is for search. The other day I mentioned a Reuters article questioning whether Facebook was achieving technological ‘lock-in’, becoming a default that’s difficult to shift.

As well as Google, Reuters actually compared Facebook with the introduction of the QWERTY keyboard – introduced in the 1870s as the default for keyboards, and not the best or most logical solution out there but simply the one that stuck.

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