• We’re convinced that 13-year-old girls are slowly taking over Twitter, based on this chart. Chile was the most popular of the week (though WhatTheTrend would disagree), but Justin Bieber and “Jonas” (which we used to cover both the Jonas Brothers and Joe Jonas’ solo career) were right behind. Twitter should consider expanding trending topics, because they’re slowly becoming less useful.

• It seems like every freaking day now. We don’t necessarily think it’s our place to tell a bunch of teenage girls what to think, but the Justin Bieber love is a bit much. This kid, at the tender age of 15 (he turns 16 on Monday) seems to have Twitter’s trending topics by the throat. And tonight, there he was, right behind Chile. You know, a massive earthquake that’s killed hundreds. Our question: Is he really taking over Twitter? We did some research.

His YouTube roots

• Usher discovered him on YouTube. Perhaps it’s fitting that Bieber, teen pop’s first true social media phenomenon, was discovered that way. The interesting thing is that the videos prove that he’s really talented, and just happens to be pushed by the major labels. Interesting. source

Bieber’s rank on the charts

• 6th Bieber’s album peak, which he hit back with “My World” back in December source
• 16th Bieber’s single peak, which he hit in October with “One Less Lonely Girl” source
• 2nd Bieber’s Twitter peak, which he’s at this week, according to tracker What the Trend source

• Why is he peaking now? Simply put, he has a lot of buzz behind him – he sang the opening line to “We Are the World 25,” for example – and, more importantly, he has a new album
  coming out at the end of next month. That was quick.

Popularity against major news stories

• Chile For now, Bieber’s popularity with teenage girls can’t hold a candle to one of the largest quakes to hit in 50 years.
• #hcr Last year, health care was more popular than Bieber. After Scott Brown’s win, Bieber consistently trumps it.
• Haiti While the Haiti quake was huge at first, of Twitter, Bieber has started topping the crisis in recent weeks.

Popularity against major pop stars

• Jay-Z The rapper basically owned Twitter the week of his album release in September. But he faded quickly. Bieber hasn’t.
• Gaga Lady Gaga might be the best comparison to Bieber – consistently popular week after week, moreso than Bieber.
• Miley On the teen-pop front, his biggest competitor is losing her grip in terms of social media influence. Bieber’s ahead now.

Conclusion: Is Bieber as popular as he looks?

• perception Every time you look at the trending topics, the perky teenage boy seemingly has the site in his (and his record company’s) pocket.
• reality Bieber has never straight-up owned Twitter’s real estate, but he has shown a lot of consistency over the last month or so. source

• What Google was for search, YouTube is for video. Five years ago, the little-video-site-that-could registered its domain. And despite some early changes, it hit the popular consciousness fully-formed and just about perfect at what it did. And as huge fans of the site, we’d like to offer a little history on YouTube.

Early 2005: The (somewhat-disputed) roots

• The company storyline YouTube started after a group of friends (who were former PayPal employees) were at a dinner party and realized there wasn’t an easy way to share video. So they made it themselves. The rest is history.
• The other storyline YouTube came about as an attempt to make a video version of HotOrNot (yikes), but the model eventually (and fortunately) evolved into something a lot less like Chatroulette. The rest is history.
• Why two storylines? The masterminds behind the site reportedly realized a good origin story was the best way to push the idea to angel investors. Whether or not that’s true, it totally worked. The rest is history. source

May 2005: The first video

• The guy in this video, Jawed Karim, worked with founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen to start the service. While he didn’t have a huge role over time, he’s immortalized in the site’s first video. The lesson to learn from this? Bring more to the table than “Elephants have long trunks.”

Early 2006: Three reasons why Youtube got huge

• embeds YouTube made Flash embed codes a downright essential part of sharing video online. It was the spark that brought blogging to its logical next step.
• ease YouTube wasn’t first to the game. Vimeo had been around since 2004. But YouTube made it so easy, anyone could upload. Which helped it blow up quick.
• ethics At first, one could argue that YouTube’s ethics were light, which meant copyrighted stuff got on the site easily. But it also helped it build an audience overnight.

Mid-2006: The Google buyout

• $1.65 billion to hitch its wagon on the next big thing

• » At the time: It seemed questionable to many whether or not Google’s purchase was the right way to go. It was Google’s biggest purchase ever up to that point, and even if the site was heads and shoulders above Google Video, the fact it had no revenue model was risky.
• » Today: It’s pretty clear that Google was the right company to buy YouTube. Their support brought a lot of innovation, bandwidth, clout and opportunities to monetize. And it helped Google itself learn how to diversify its model. Even though it’s super-expensive to run due to the high bandwidth costs (and Google has yet to recoup its investment), it’s something of a crown jewel.

2006-2007: Three iconic early videos

• 
  “Charlie Bit Me” It has 160 million views, and counting. It’s the most-viewed video in the site’s history, and quite possibly the cutest thing we’ve ever seen. Besides this.
• “The Bus Uncle”This odd little bit of arguing in Cantonese was one of the earliest clips to gather a huge audience and draw massive media coverage in Hong Kong (of all places).
• “Guitar” Pachelbel’s Canon, as famous of a piece of music as it is, probably never got 69 million views before this South Korean kid got his grubby hands all over it.

2007: Growing pains

• $1 billion the size of the lawsuit Viacom hit the site with in April of that year; it’s still pending to this day (and we still miss Daily Show clips on YouTube)
• 10% the amount of traffic YouTube takes up over the ENTIRE Internet in 2007; it’s more than the Web’s entire bandwidth size in 2000

2008-2009: Growing gains

• 25% share of Google searches from YouTube source

• » Lots of videos: By October of 2009, YouTube was shoving through 1 billion views a day, a point which suggests the site’s gone beyond mere fad and is simply a part of everyday life.
• » Lots of bandwidth: YouTube’s bandwidth costs, depending on who you ask, are astronomical, but Wired notes that Google has so much clout (thanks to all the fiber optic cable they own) that bandwidth may in fact be a non-issue.

2008-2009: The mainstream takes notice

• 
  “Pork And Beans” Over time, the mainstream media got really good at manipulating the medium, and Weezer’s viral-encompassing clip was the best example. YouTube > MTV.
• “JK Wedding Dance” As great as this clip was (and it sure helped Chris Brown’s sagging career), the way it was used as a financial vehicle for the record companies was most interesting.
• 
  Boyle-mania The second-best-selling album of 2009 was sung by a middle-aged virgin with a heavenly voice. How? Simple. YouTube made Susan Boyle into a new kind of superstar.

2010: YouTube’s next step

• The Internet evolves at break-neck speed. We launch products quickly and constantly iterate to stay one step ahead of it. Our goal? To set the standard in online video delivery.
• YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley • In a message noting the company’s fifth anniversary. YouTube is big enough that it can set the standards for online video, and their next step will be by pushing HTML5 and high-definition video into the woodwork, along with growing the library of content to include more traditional types of video to complement its user-submitted offerings. A good start for a big player. source

• 30% increase in Lego’s sales during a recession source

• 73% of teens use social networking, a number that keeps going up
• 18% of teens blogged in 2009, down from 28% in 2006
• 70% of teens own a computer, most of those being laptops

• The most popular site for teens? MySpace still, surprisingly. Facebook is generally more popular among adults, and just 8 percent of teens tweet, even though 19 percent of adults do. The average teenager is the modern equivalent of a ’90s AOL user. source

• 35% increase from 2008; 26.6 million watched source

• $6.7B size of Microsoft’s profits in their second quarter – that’s way above analyst estimates
• 60% increase in profits between the first quarter and second, despite some lagging divisions
• 60M number of units Microsoft sold of its Windows 7 OS – it’s a massive freaking hit source

• 25% of Brits may vote for Nick Griffin’s racist love child source

• 85% of Americans have cell phones; it’s not higher? source

• 22% Gray Davis’ approval rating at the time that Arnold Schwartzenegger was elected in a recall
• 27% Arnold Schwartzenegger’s current approval rating; he’s nearing Planet Hollywood in popularity source