The numbers give you a sense of the enormous impact technology has on the world.

Technology’s most obvious impact has been on the way we communicate. Take a look at the numbers pertaining to email, blogging, and tweeting.

• 107 trillion emails were sent last year
• 152 million blogs are active today
• 50,000 blogs get created every single day
• 25 billion tweets were broadcast last year
• 150 million people use Twitter

Technology companies, harnessing network effects, have reached the size of the largest governments and economies in the world. This will have profound impacts on society, and only now are we confronting these issues.

• The combined market capitalazation of IBM, HP, Microsoft, Apple, and Google is $1 trillion
• 14 countries have a GDP more than $1 trillion
• 190 countries have a GDP less than $1 trillion

• If Facebook was a country, it would be the 3rd largest in the world
• 650 million people have accounts on Facebook
• Facebook is projected to reach 1 billion accounts later this year

While people are increasing connected to the network, machines are as well. Data collected from sensors is increasing at an enormous rate.

• The Large Hadron Collider collects 1TB of data per second

At the same time these numbers are increasing, the time it takes to adopt new technology is decreasing.

• Radio took 38 years to reach 50 million people
• TV took 13 years to reach 50 million people
• The Internet took 4 years to reach 50 million people

The video is full of interesting statistics. Imagine what the statistics will be in 5 or 10 years.

/via O’Reilly Radar

increasingly capable of sending messages and pictures to groups of people, not just to a single recipient (the historical pattern of phone use).

Having been using an iPhone 3G since the day of its release, I can attest that this statement is true, and its group messaging capabilities are only increasing.

Looking at my personal behavior, Facebook and Twitterrific are two applications that I frequently use on my iPhone. I can update my status, as well as glance at the status of my friends and the people I follow. I’m not communicating one-on-one, but rather with an entire group of people who are important to me.

Another interesting aspect to this is the rise of feed-centric updates, popularized by Facebook’s news feed. Upon login, a summary of recent activity from your friends is displayed. Importantly, you read this information at a time that is convenient for you. That stands in stark contrast to typical one-to-one communication, which is often inconvenient for the recipient, who is interrupted by a ringing telephone or an IM window popping up.

Social networking is reaching mainstream audiences at the same time that the Internet is arriving in usable form on mobile phones. The phone, being such a personal device, serves as the perfect complement to a social network. The future implications as these two communication tools converge will be astounding.