What a year of numbers for social media and the Web. Take Twitter for example. Approximately 70% of its nearly five million users registered for the service in 2008 according to HubSpot’s Q4 2008 State of the Twittersphere report. This is but one of many quantitative gems that cap an impressive year of social media growth. The following stats represent a slice of the past year’s activity that I found most impressive.

Google Search - As if there were any doubt, Google continued to hold the top search engine spot with 63.5% of traffic. More impressive to me – although also expected at some point – was Google’s YouTube individually surpassing Yahoo and Microsoft according to the comScore Expanded Search Query Report as referenced on ZDNet’s Between The Lines blog (also thanks to Brent Leary for Tweeting it.)

Google Chrome - Another boon for Google was its Chrome Web browser tallying 10 million users just 100 days after its release. Google also lifted the Beta tag from Chrome, noting that its “goals for stability and performance have been met.” This was a significant move considering many Google apps its senior are still labeled Beta, and an aggressive move in browser/search war terms versus Microsoft and others too.

Facebook - With a 140 million active users and 600 thousand joining daily (according to Inside Facebook and as reported by ReadWriteWeb), Facebook is the juggernaut of social media and online communities. And while Twitter posted impressive numbers of its own this year, ReadWriteWeb calculated that if Facebook were to hold steady at 140 million users while Twitter’s current growth continued, it would take Twitter 36 years to catch up. Two popular and powerful tools, yet a world of difference between them at least as far as uptake is concerned.

Blogosphere - In September Technorati released its annual State of the Blogosphere report. I blogged a bit on it referencing the Universal McCann data that measured 184 million people worldwide having blogs, and 346 million reading them – a ton of content generation for sure. I also found the report’s Day Five data (Brands Enter The Blogosphere) about blogger participation in Web 2.0 activities interesting. The fact that bloggers use other online tools isn’t at all surprising, yet their percentage of activity for things like commenting on other blogs (84%), watching online videos (68%), sharing photos (48%) and using Twitter (41%) confirm that integrated communications are prevalent and expanding. The connected world is now, and its proving out and documenting itself daily.

There’s much more I’m sure. These are just a few social media and Web tools that proved why they’re elite this past year. Lots of social media predictions for 2009 are popping up too. I’ll leave you to surf those out, and will continue my observations of and additions to “the conversation” in the New Year.

Why did Charlie Brown pick that crappy tree?

Guts, people!

Sure, he was a bit timid at first, having faced many challenges throughout Peanuts lore – “wah wah, wah wah wah, wah wah,” his parents and teachers would often say about him – but he had a vision, followed it, and everything eventually worked out. By the end of the classic holiday television special, all the naysayer kids were literally helping him decorate his tree and gathering around it to sing praises. It was Chuck’s critical mass moment.

While watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas” for the umpteenth time, it struck me that this simple approach is faring well (with growing frequency) for entrepreneurs and businesses using social media. There are a lot of horror stories and gaffes out there too, yet I have to believe that many online success stories have an ounce of Charlie Brown logic in them — that energizing mix of nervousness and optimism that drives one forward.

Following your vision instead of buckling to critics is making many people successful in the online world – more than you and I have time to absorb from a Google search – but here’s a few to support my point.

• Michael Buckley was featured in the New York Times earlier this month for his successful YouTube entertainment gossip show. The production cost for Buckley’s video endeavor? A couple grand for the camera, less than ten bucks for his backdrop and lighting, and basically the guts to go forth and do it. The Times reported that Buckley quit his day job at a music promotion company in September when his YouTube advertising profits exceeded his former salary.
• A LinkedIn success story has also been making the rounds this month. Jeff Ragovin says he’s used LinkeIn to generate “two to three million” in business for his company, Buddy Media, a social and digital media consultancy. Ragovin’s story has a little more elbow grease to it than others. He cites best practices in the LinkedIn Blog testimonial, and it appears through good LinkedIn networking, sound decision making, and some patience he’s been able to incrementally add revenue to Buddy Media’s bank account. Nice job.
• And finally, from a simple Google search I learned about Mark Siegel who, with the aid of blogging experts Patsi Krakoff and Denise Wakeman, can happily attribute $875,000 of new revenue for his Golfasian Web business to his Thailand Golf Zone blog. I really like this one. Highly targeted content to a very specific audience, that’s well rewarded for its differentiation.

These out-of-nowhere stories are quite inspiring when you reflect upon them. Even in a down economy there are great ideas out there percolating and looking for a home. Good grief… time I figured out one of my own!