I was doing some research earlier today, got sidetracked and came across the following totally unrelated but eye catching numbers.

While I’d usually just turn to the nearest person next to me and say, Hey, check this out, that’s all sorts of crazy (Hi, Sasha), I’m home alone with but a ‘puter and a blog to reach out today (cue violins).

A World O’ Spam

  • In 2003 45% of all email was spam, an estimated 15 billion messages a day.
  • Today, 97% of all email is spam, an estimated 164 billion messages a day.
  • Spam now coststhe US $42 billion — and the world $142 billion — a year in anti-spam measures and lost time.
  • Eight-three percent of today’s spam directs users to a Web site set up to infect a user’s computer with malware.
  • In November, Facebook won a $873 million settlement against spammer who used the social network to spam.
  • In May, MySpace won a $234 million settlement against a different spammer doing the same.

Sources: Network World and ars technica.

And now — as our Monty Python friends would have it — for something completely different:

Facebook’s, like, Really Big

  • Facebook estimates that it has 140 million users and they spend approximately 2.6 billion minutes on Facebook each day.
  • It’s estimated that 600,000 new users sign up per day.
  • More than 13 million users update their status every day (hello).
  • The average user has 100 friends.
  • Facebook hosts more than 10 billion photos, with 700 million new photos uploaded each month.
  • Facebook has 19 million active user groups

Sources: Data Center Knowledge and Facebook PR.