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The average friend count on Facebook is 130, and people make an average of 40 visits a month the Social Network, spending more than 23 minutes per stay.

More than 40% of Americans use social media to shop – the equivalent of some 95 million social shoppers – and that number continues to rise. In fact, when asked how often social media is used to shop today compared to one year ago, almost three-quarters of respondents to the Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide SocialShop study confirmed they are using it more frequently.

OK, it’s Facebook IPO day and we’re talking billions of dollars rinsing around the markets. But how does the Social Network stack up against search behemoth Google?

If Facebook were a country it would boast the third-largest population in the world, behind only China and India, while the Social Network has more members than there are people in Europe, according to SocialBakers. In addition, the Coca-Cola brand alone has nearly 100 million more fans on Facebook than there are residents of the US. And brands Starbucks, Converse, Red Bull and Oreo each have nearly five times the number of fans on Facebook than there are people in the UK.

Facebook earns some very strong positive scores among consumers when compared to its social networking peers, but a low trust score could be an area of concern as the company seeks to go to the market with an IPO, according to E-Poll Market Research.

More than one third of UK consumers now read marketing e-mails on their mobile devices, rising significantly to over half among 18-to-34 year olds, according to a new report published by digital agency Steel London. The research also finds that many people who read marketing mails on their mobiles do so to screen them for later reading on a PC or laptop. In light of this, Steel says brands need to rethink their marketing strategies to find the sweet spot that maximises consumer interest across both types of screen.

Unilever has opened a Customer Insight & Innovation Centre in Mumbai, the first such unit for the company in India

Samsung and HTC will increase their share of the UK smartphone market over the next year, but not BlackBerry and Nokia, whose diversified product portfolio strategies do not appear to be paying off, says YouGov.