Ever wonder how much activity goes on in social networks? Here’s a handy graphic that tells a very compelling story. In just 60 seconds:

• 20,000+ new posts are created on Tumblr
• 13,000+ hours of music are streamed on Pandora
• 600+ new videos are uploaded on YouTube
• 370,000+ minutes of voice calls take place on Skype
• 695,000+ status updates happen on Facebook
• 98,000+ updates are posted on Twitter

I expect these numbers to increase 3-4 fold over the coming year as social media gains usage across untapped geographies, mobile devices and newcomers. The adoption curve for social media is quickly becoming steeper and steeper, creating opportunities to disrupt and innovate.

For a while, you’ve been able to make a physical book from your Facebook content. Now, see it in cinematic form. Intel partnered up with Japanese agency Projector to turn your Facebook profile into a short film in a microsite called Museum of Me. It pulls photos, status updates, video and comments to generate a beautiful visualization as if it were part of a museum installation. Quite clever and very high production quality. Definitely worth checking out. If only they made it available for export — onto your Facebook profile. Now that would be meta.

• Mobile web users will overtake desktop web users
• Traffic generated from 20 homes in 2015 = Total traffic of the entire internet in 1995
• There will be 788M internet users who access it via mobile only
• Mobile payments will account for over a quarter of online payments

Fast forward a year to yesterday’s iPad 2 introduction. As I watched the keynote, you could easily get sucked into the blazing fast dual-core A5 chip, the thinner & lighter body or cameras. If it wasn’t the hardware, maybe it was the forthcoming iOS 4.3 software, the new iMovie or GarageBand releases. If you read between the lines, these were significant but tactical executions of a greater strategy at play.The underlying message that Steve Jobs delivered was about a shift in usage patterns and purpose. The iPad is no longer an lightweight consumption device, but now becoming a content creation tool and integral part of businesses as diverse as hotels to dental offices. However, the most poignant moment of the video was the segment on how the iPad is being used to help autistic children become independent. No amount of customer research or insight could have created that use case or predicted that a 10″ piece of glass, metal and electronics could give the gift of independence. Just ask Howard Shane of Children’s Hospital Boston or Shannon Des Roches Rosa who believes in miracles. Check out the video below, starting at 2 minutes in.

On a good day, I take about 20 minutes to get ready for work each morning. Design student Alex Trimpe helps visualize what can happen on Facebook during those 20 minutes.

• 1M links shared
• 1.3M photos tagged
• 1.4M event invitations sent
• 1.8M status updates
• 1.8M wall posts
• 2.7M messages sent
• 10.2M comments made

I have clients who would be ecstatic to see those kinds of results over a campaign or even a year. And to think all of that happens before I head out the door.

A few years ago, I was working on an anti-counterfeiting project and RFID was an option under consideration. At the time, the RFID industry thinking was primarily around supply chain management, security and other tracking-related activities. However, when I realized RFID tags could be unique, some marketing opportunities clicked in my head. Imagine registering your new product by scanning them in store and attaching it to your customer profile. Many years ago,

Many years ago, Prada pioneered the use of RFID in retail, incorporating it into its flagship SoHo store. Each item of clothing had a unique tag, and when brought together in a changing room, would display the clothes on models as well as in a collection. Neat idea and ahead of its time.Fast-forward to the present and a few developments have corroborated, which may make for a tipping point in RFID in marketing applications. The economies s and sophistication of tags along with consumer appetite for connected devices has lead WeSC (We are Superlative Conspiracy) to develop a prototype shoe that uses RFID tags to connect people via social networks. These include:

• Gaining access to special events
• Registering shoes at retail stores
• Connecting to friends on social networks
• Checking into social venues
• Tracking participation in scavenger hunts

When combined with location-based services, RFID-enabled shoes could yield a whole new class of connected devices that could bring another dimension to mobile computing.

Are original films always better than their sequels? The folks at BoxOfficeQuant decided to answer that age old question using objective, publicly available data – Rotten Tomatoes scores and gross domestic ticket sales. They used some simple yet effective means of displaying data and created a visualization mapping out movies and their sequels. Movies above the horizontal dotted line were better based on Rotten Tomatoes reviews. The size of each bubble denotes how well the movie performed financially. Based on the large number of large bubbles, there’s quite a bit of money to be made creating sequels. However, I think most movie-goers would like to see more bubbles above that dotted line, regardless of size. Click to see a large version.