Pinterest experiences 4000% user growth since last year

comScore reports that those using Pinterest are spending the most money online

Pinterest is holding strong as the fastest growing social network of Q1, according to a comScore report out today. Unique visits to social networking sites have increased by 6% year-over-year and Pinterest specifically popped up 4377% since May of 2011.

Other social networks such as Twitter grew 58% since the previous May, LinkedIn grew 67%, and grew Tumblr 168%.  Facebook was the one social network with appallingly low usership growth at a slim 4% -- but the time spent was far above all the other sites.  

When comScore looked at the buying power of the different social network users it was clear that the demographic using LinkedIn had the most money to spend but Pinterest users are the ones putting the most dollars to work.  

Mobile usage

It looks like it won't be long until there are more people accessing mobile Internet activity that via desktops. 

There was a 47% increase in smartphone owners (106.7 million, or 45.6% of U.S. mobile population) between March 2011 and March 2012, according to comScore, and Android now has 51% of smartphone market, up from 35% last year.

Also, the number of people that use both a mobile phone and a tablet is also rising substantially -- up 308% since March 2011. 

And with more people snapping up mobile devices, the growth of reading content on digital devices is seeing steady growth.  In March, 15% of all smartphone owners were reading on their devices.

Commerce and videos

ComScore found that Amazon, Apple, Walmart, Target and Netflix topped the retail sales in Q1 2012. Amazon, in particular, experienced a 30% growth in unique visitors year-over-year.

As more companies improve the experience of shopping online, many are benefiting from people that use the brick and mortar stores as a way to better inspect items and then purchase it online for lower prices or in combination with other items. This practice is being dubbed "showrooming."

Roughly 35% of people surveyed by comScore they had “showroomed” and 50% of those engaging in this practice were 25-34 years old. The most popular categories for showrooming are consumer electronics and apparel, including both clothes and accessories.

In March, 45.4 billion videos were viewed by U.S. users, averaging 243 video per viewer, and representing 33% year-over-year growth.

ComScore reported that as more countries flow online in droves, that the U.S. only accounts for 13% of the online population, down from 66% in 1996.