It’s early 2014 and we are recovering from the holiday season and starting to get back to our routines. What better time to look back at the events of 2013 and see how they impacted internet usage around the globe.
For the second year in a row, we noticed a dip in online traffic during the SuperBowl, known as the “SuperDip”, and of course Twitter was a-buzz about the Royal Baby.
To re-live the glory of 2013, see below for our Top 5: Best of 2013.
5. Untold Stories of the Global Internet Phenomena Report. While media coverage of the Global Internet Phenomena Report focused on the growth of real-time entertainment, there are plenty of facts and figures we were impressed with, includnig the emergency of cloud storage solutions, and an increase in median usage on mobile networks.
4. Google Outage Impacts Internet Traffic. Google is a major mover and shaker when it comes to Internet traffic. So it wasn’t a surprise when we noticed an outage during August 2013 impacted consumer Internet traffic in North America by a very brief 15-20% decline
3. Take Me Out to the Ball…or Let’s Watch it on MLB.TV. For those unable to attend baseball’s opening weekend in person, MLB.TV was the next best thing and people were streaming games in record numbers.
2. Africa is Among Fastest Growing Regions in the World. Africa is one of the most diverse and fastest growing regions in the world. The data in our Global Internet Phenomena report shows how unique their mobile Internet usage is. Web browsing dominates the downstream category with and communications is a close second.
1. Netflix and YouTube Dominate Downstream Internet Traffic. Netflix continues to be the unchallenged leader for traffic, accounting for 31.6% of downstream traffic during peak periods. YouTube continues to see growth in its share, now accounting for nearly 20% of peak downstream traffic which is up from 9% from earlier 2013.
Beyond those key highlights, we saw some interesting trends emerge in 2013 and we are looking forward to seeing how the internet and online usage evolves in the coming year. After all, the internet is our business.
