In the land where parody accounts of celebrities brush shoulders with the insipid accounts of real celebrities literally getting paid to tweet, which is layered on top of millions of actually meaningful accounts, it probably isn’t a surprise to anyone that the United States is home to the most Twitter accounts with nearly 108 million accounts. While fathoming that amount is kind of a headache – seriously, that’s an average of roughly 1 account per 3 people in the United States – it only accounts for 28.1% of all Twitter accounts worldwide. Still, the growth of Twittering Americans doesn’t seem like it’ll slow down anytime since 5.6 million accounts were created in the United States in December 2011 alone.

Brazil and Japan are involved in an interesting contest for 2nd and 3rd place in the Twitterscape. Brazil has actually surpassed Japan in terms of the sheer quantity of user accounts but Japan still exhibits more Twitter activity than Brazil. Between September 2011 and December 2011, the study says, 30% of accounts in Japan posted a message whereas only 25% of accounts in Brazil posted a message. It’s all a matter of which metric you want to weight, but then again, it’s not like there’s a trophy for being #2 Twitter Country (not that there is for 1st place, either). Additionally, Japanese is still the 2nd most used language on Twitter after English.

While the United States might be the girthiest nation when it comes to Twitter accounts, they’re certainly not the most active (you like how that’s a metaphor for a lot of things related to the American lifestyle?). In fact, the distinction of most active Twittering country belongs to the Netherlands. One-third of all accounts located in the Netherlands posted at least one public message between September 1, 2011, and November 30, 2011. Japan and Spain follow in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively, while the U.S. places at 4th in activity. Still, even with the U.S. ranking as the 4th most active country on Twitter, that ranking would surely be lower if not for the sheer heft of accounts existing in the United States.

With so much drama in the Twitter lately, it’s a bit hard to anticipate how these figures will look this time in 2013. By then we’ll have a fuller understanding of how Twitter’s new policy of selectively withholding tweets (if and when they do) has affected users’ activity. Additionally, now that Twitter is expanding languages to be included in their Translation Center, such as Arabic and Farsi, it’ll be curious to see how those changes may affect the landscape of Twitter activity.

Anybody out there got any speculations you wanna bet on? See any changes on the horizon for how different parts of the world might use Twitter? Feel free to share below in the comments.

The Brazilian government will give tax breaks to Foxconn for the production of tablets specified as weighing under 750 grams and lacking keyboards. The taxes that will be affected are the Excise Tax (IPI), Social Contribution Tax (PIS), and Federal Contribution Tax (COFINS)

Here’s the relevant chunk, as reported by Brazilian newspaper Folha (google translation):

According to the ministerial decree published Wednesday in the “Official Gazette”, the company will be entitled to the benefits provided for in Decree 5906 of September 2006. The determination provides for exemption or reduction of the IPI (Excise Tax), PIS and Cofins for companies investing in research and development of technology products.

According to the ordinance today, the rule will apply to tablets with touch screens, no keyboard and weighing less than 750 grams. Also included as accessories, cables, power supplies and manuals that are related to the tablets.

The expectation is that Foxconn start producing devices – especially the iPad from Apple – the factory in Jundiai, São Paulo.

The $12 billion deal to bring Apple manufacturing to Brazil hit some roadblocks in 2011. From Foxconn’s end, it was the ridiculous bureaucracy and high tax rates in Brazil that held up production. From the Brazilian government’s end, Foxconn was simply demanding insane tax breaks.

iPad production was supposed to kick off in July 2011, but these differences of opinion held it back. With the passing of these new incentives, it follows that Foxconn’s Brazilian plant should start pumping out Apple tablets in no time.

[Via AppleInsider]

According to comScore, Brazil was one of only seven markets where Facebook didn’t dominate the social media channel, as of October. Other markets included: China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Poland and Russia.

Here’s what the social media landscape looked like in Brazil by the end of the year:

“Facebook’s rapid ascent in the Brazilian market has certainly been one of the most interesting stories to develop during the course of 2011,” said Alex Banks, comScore managing director for Brazil. “Brazil has always been a particularly social market and currently owns the fifth largest social networking population in the world. But despite the cultural affinity for social media, Facebook adoption had traditionally lagged in the market. That has all changed in the past year, during which the site has tripled in audience size as engagement has grown sevenfold to assume the leadership position in the market.”

Some areas where Facebook saw growth in Brazil:

And the demographic profile:

By the way, Facebook is claiming about 10% of the world’s population these days.

Now, according to reports from iPhone blog blogdoiphone (translated), the mysterious exploding iPhone has stuck again – this time in Brazil.

According to the report, during the early morning hours on November 22nd Ayla Mota awoke to his iPhone 4 on fire, a foot away from his face. Here’s the story (Google translate version, which is obviously not perfect) –

At dawn, I woke up seconds before witnessed the burning of my iPhone when I saw a lot of sparks and black smoke out of the cell. My room was impregnated with an unbearable smell smoke! At that moment, turned off the power switch in the room to remove the phone from the outlet. Soon after, I opened the windows of the room and turned on the fan to remove smoke, that just came out completely on Tuesday morning. I do not hurt, although the unit is about 15 cm and height of my eyes.

You get the picture.

As you can see from the lead image, the thoroughly damaged iPhone sort of resembles the cracked iPhone 4 that caught fire on the Australian flight. The only difference is that the main damage appears to be on the front display in this case. The iPhone that blew up on the Australian flight showed the starting point on the back of the device.

In that case, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau is still investigating the cause. Some have speculated that it could very well be an issue with the battery, which is housed on the right side of the phone.

This makes three high-profile exploding iPhone stories in recent memory. In 2009, there was a report that an iPhone exploded in France, sending glass shards flying in all directions.

Do you know anyone who has had this type of problem with their iPhone? Let us know in the comments.

[Hat tip to Mashable]

Kartik Ramakrishnan, who holds the very relevant title "Vice President, Yahoo Search Transition," wrote on the Yahoo Search Blog, "As planned, we are moving forward with the global transition of certain Yahoo! Search back-end functions to Microsoft’s search platform, and have just completed this process for organic search in Australia, Brazil and Mexico."

Then Ramakrishnan added, "This news is another step forward for the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance as we continue our efforts for a quality transition with our worldwide advertisers and partners."

So it sounds like everything is on schedule and going according to plan.  That’s good news for both companies, and for their users and investors.  (Remember, Yahoo in particular thinks this deal will save it money, meaning the sooner the transition process is completed, the better.)

One other important point: Ramakrishnan promised to provide additional updates as Bing and Yahoo continue to integrate their search operations around the world, so stay tuned.

The lawsuit revolved around several fake profiles set up in Barrichello’s name.  They ridiculed him for being second driver (or more specifically, second fiddle) to Michael Schumacher, and Google wasn’t quick to take the profiles down, despite being notified.

As a result, "A Sao Paulo court ruled that Google took too long to remove fake profiles mocking Barrichello from its website," according to a Grandprix.com article.

Barrichello was awarded $118,000.

Google appears to be suffering something of a losing streak with Orkut.  Consider that comScore recently indicated the network lost its popularity lead to Facebook in India.  Now there’s this lawsuit in Brazil, the only other big country in which Orkut’s been on top.

These developments don’t set the stage for the best possible Google Me launch.  On the bright side (from Google’s perspective), $118,000 isn’t too much to a company with a market cap of $196 billion, and fake profiles aren’t the worst problem a social network has ever had to deal with.

Facebook saw its user base increase by 479 percent in the last year, according to comScore, which means its audience has gone from roughly 1.5 million visitors in August of 2009 to 8.9 million in August of this year.  Not bad.

Twitter, meanwhile, about doubled the size of its user base, hitting 8.6 million this August, and comScore noted in a statement, "Twitter.com reached 23 percent of the entire Brazilian online population, the highest penetration in the world."

Google’s Orkut is still king in Brazil, however, pulling in over 3.4 times as many people as Twitter and over 3.3 times as many as Facebook.  Plus, as the table below shows, Orkut has huge leads in terms of minutes per visitor, pages per visitor, and visits per visitor.

That last set of stats might act as an argument in favor of the success of Google Me.  Or, since Facebook’s beaten Orkut just about everywhere else in the world and is closing the gap in Brazil, maybe comScore’s report indicates Google doesn’t have a good understanding of social media.  We’ll let you decide.

Either way, another tidbit is that "[t]raffic to Social Networking sites grew 51 percent in the past year, with sites in the category currently reaching more than 36 million visitors age 15 and older."

We can’t guarantee the timing of this development, as a couple of details don’t add up.  Problem one: the new Street View images aren’t available at the moment.  Also, although Josh Halliday quoted an official Google blog post, said post doesn’t seem to exist anymore.

Still, according to Halliday, the blog post stated, "We hope this new imagery will help people in Ireland, Brazil, and even the penguins of Antarctica to navigate nearby, as well as enable people around the world to learn more about these areas."

And the images should go live soon, considering that Google isn’t yet facing any legal challenges in these regions.  Indeed, Ireland’s Minister for Tourism, Culture, and Sport is excited about Street View, and Google just took pictures of wildlife in Antarctica.

A couple more facts: this update should cover almost 50,000 miles of Irish roads and at least Half Moon Island in the Antarctic.

UPDATE: Google came through, and all the new Street View images can now be found in Google Maps.

"With this multi-year agreement, we’re displacing our largest search competitor as TIM’s trusted partner," says Melissa Beltrao, Director, Yahoo Mobile Brazil. "TIM Brasil subscribers now have the ability to easily and quickly find topics of interest."

"Partnerships are key to our strategy as they help us build and extend the reach of our mobile services to new and existing audiences around the world," she says.

The partnership, Yahoo says, builds on existing relationships with Telefónica’s Vivo and América Móvil’s Claro, as well as 100 other OEM and carrier partners globally.

According to Yahoo, Brazil has a mobile penetration rate of nearly 95%. TIM, has over 41 million mobile subscribers in Brazil.

In June 2010, about 93 million unique global users age 15 and older visited Twitter from a home or work location. This is an increase of 109 percent from last year of June 2010. Keep in mind that this data excludes usage of Twitter-based applications such as TweetDeck and Hoot Suite.

An analysis by comScore of the five major global regions revealed that Latin America experienced the strongest audience growth, surging 305 percent to 15.4 million users. Asia Pacific ranked as the second-fastest growing region, climbing 243 percent to 25.1 million visitors. The Middle-East Africa jumped 142 percent to 5 million visitors, while Europe soared 106 percent to 22.5 million visitors. North America, where Twitter has reached a higher maturity level than other regions, saw a growth of 22 percent to nearly 25 million visitors in June.

Here are the numbers from comScore:

  Visitation to Twitter.com by Global Regions
  -------------------------------------------
  June 2010 vs. June  2009
  ------------------------
  Total Audience, Age 15+ -Home & Work
   Locations*
  ------------------------------------
  Source: comScore Media Metrix
  -----------------------------
                        Unique Visitors (000)
                        ---------------------
                     Jun-09      Jun-10    % Change
                     ------      ------    --------
  Worldwide            44,520      92,874       109
  ---------            ------      ------       ---
  Latin America         3,792      15,377       305
  -------------         -----      ------       ---
  Asia Pacific          7,324      25,121       243
  ------------          -----      ------       ---
  Middle East -
   Africa               2,058       4,987       142
  -------------         -----       -----       ---
  Europe               10,956      22,519       106
  ------               ------      ------       ---
  North America        20,390      24,870        22
  -------------        ------      ------       ---

*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Across the 41 individual countries currently reported by comScore, Indonesia at 20.8 percent had the highest proportion of its home and work Internet audience visiting Twitter.com. Brazil ranked second with 20.5 percent penetration, followed by Venezuela at 19.0 percent. With Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez joining Twitter in late April, Twitter.com penetration in the country spiked 4.8 percentage points in a few short months. The Netherlands (17.7 percent) and Japan (16.8 percent) rounded out the top five, while countries in Latin America and Asia Pacific represented many of the remaining top markets, including the Philippines (14.8 percent), Mexico (13.4 percent) and Singapore (13.3 percent).

  Top 20 Markets by Twitter Penetration
  -------------------------------------
  June 2010
  ---------
  Total Audience, Age 15+ -Home & Work
   Locations*
  ------------------------------------
  Source: comScore Media Metrix
  -----------------------------
  Location                     % Reach
  --------                     -------
  Worldwide                             7.4
  ---------                             ---
  Indonesia                            20.8
  ---------                            ----
  Brazil                               20.5
  ------                               ----
  Venezuela                            19.0
  ---------                            ----
  Netherlands                          17.7
  -----------                          ----
  Japan                                16.8
  -----                                ----
  Philippines                          14.8
  -----------                          ----
  Canada                               13.5
  ------                               ----
  Mexico                               13.4
  ------                               ----
  Singapore                            13.3
  ---------                            ----
  Chile                                13.2
  -----                                ----
  United States                        11.9
  -------------                        ----
  Turkey                               11.0
  ------                               ----
  United Kingdom                       10.9
  --------------                       ----
  Argentina                            10.5
  ---------                            ----
  Colombia                              9.6
  --------                              ---
  South Korea                           9.3
  -----------                           ---
  Ireland                               8.4
  -------                               ---
  India                                 8.0
  -----                                 ---
  Malaysia                              7.7
  --------                              ---
  New Zealand                           7.5
  -----------                           ---

*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

What’s interesting is that an analysis of Twitter usage via mobile for the six mobile markets currently reported by comScore (U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Spain and Italy) revealed that Twitter is gaining adoption among smartphone users. In the U.S., 8.3 percent of smartphone users (4.2 million people) accessed Twitter.com in a month via the browser on their mobile devices, outpacing each of the European markets. In Europe, 2.8 percent of smartphone users overall accessed Twitter.com (1.7 million users), with the U.K. experiencing the strongest penetration in the region at 5.8 percent, followed by Germany with 3.1 percent and France with 2.1 percent.

  Twitter Penetration Among Mobile
   Smartphone Users*
  3 Month Avg. Ending June 2010
  Total Audience Age 13+
  Source: comScore MobiLens
  -------------------------
                  Twitter    % Reach of
                  Audience   Smartphone
                     (000)      Users
                 --------   -----------
  United States      4,246          8.3
  -------------      -----          ---
  Europe             1,681          2.8
  ------             -----          ---
  United
   Kingdom             793          5.8
  --------             ---          ---
  Germany              322          3.1
  -------              ---          ---
  France               173          2.1
  ------               ---          ---
  Spain                165          1.5
  -----                ---          ---
  Italy                227          1.4
  -----                ---          ---

*Includes only mobile browser access to Twitter and does not include other Twitter-based mobile applications.

comScore says that “For applications such as Twitter that function as an instantaneous broadcast medium, the mobile device represents the ideal platform to engage with this content anytime and anyplace,” added Mr. Mudd. “The advanced web browsing features of smartphones enable this behavior, making it likely to accelerate as these devices gain continued adoption. While desktop-based Internet usage is still king, mobile web usage is surging on a global scale placing applications like Twitter at the forefront of that paradigm shift.”

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