IPOs were recovering at the end of 2009, but still have a ways to go to reach pre-recession levels, according to Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association’s (NVCA) Exit Poll.

“While 2009 was a year many venture capitalists and entrepreneurs would choose to soon forget, the fourth quarter offered signs of hope for the coming year in terms of improved exit activity,” said Mark Heesen, president of the NVCA.

The good news is that IPOs are back at 2007 levels. The bad news is that last two years have been the slowest consecutive years for IPOs since 1974-1975.

There were five venture-based IPOs in Q4 2009, totaling $649.3 million. The total dollar amount was in line with Q2 and Q3 averages, and was more than all of 2008 combined ($470.2 million).

Overall, there were just over twice the number of IPOs in 2009 than there were in 2008 (13 vs. 6), but we are still a far, far cry from 2007, when there were 86. On the positive side, 2009’s average IPO offer amount of $149.4 million was not only double last year’s amount, it is the highest yearly average since the NVCA started tracking the deals in 2003.

“Clearly, we have a long way to go towards a full recovery but we are encouraged by the increasing acquisition values and the number of companies that have filed a registration with the SEC to go public,” Heesen said. “We expect to see a gradual but marked improvement in 2010 and hope to have exponential improvements this time next year.”

Two of the five IPOs were in the IT sector. The two deals were worth $236.2 million. Network-protection-system developer Fortinet, Inc, based in Sunnyvale had the higher exit, raising $156.3 million.

Last night a report on the ethnic makeup of Facebook was released on a note from the Facebook Data Team. After much calculation, the team has determined that though it began with a stronger proportionate presence of individuals with White and Asian backgrounds, it now closer reflects the current online US population.

The conclusion was reached by analyzing members’ last names, since the social networking site does not ask profile questions involving race information. Comparing surnames to data from the US Census Bureau, the Data Team arrived at numbers based on the proportion of each ethnicity that makes up each documented name. Of those named Smith, for example, Census respondents were polled to be 73.35 percent White, 22.22 percent black, and 1.63 percent 2prace (two or more races), to illustrate the three highest incidence rates.

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Experian Hitwise reported today that the number one search term for 2009 was Facebook. That’s really no big surprise, as 5 percent of total internet time is spent on the social networking site.

What is surprising is what happened over at Twitter. The event that was the highest trending topic this year was the Iran elections and the ‘Twitter revolution,’ field reporting and public solidarity with the people of Iran that the microblogging site engendered.

“Among all the keywords, hashtags, and phrases that proliferated throughout the year, one topic surfaced repeatedly,” writes Abdur (no last name given), a researcher at Twitter.

“Twitter users found the Iranian elections the most engaging topic of the year,” Abdur writes. “The terms #iranelection, Iran and Tehran were all in the top-21 of Trending Topics, and #iranelection finished in a close second behind the regular weekly favorite #musicmonday.”

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IDC predicts that more than one billion mobile devices will be used to access the internet in 2013, more than doubling 2009’s 450 million mobile internet users.

To put that in perspective, the global population of total internet users just passed one billion at the beginning of this year.

“With a wealth of information and services available from almost anywhere, Internet-connected mobile devices are reshaping the way we go about our personal and professional lives,” said John Gantz, chief research officer at IDC.

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So far, U.S. online holiday spending is up 3 percent, according to comScore. That’s a fairly healthy increase, all things considered.

As of December 6th, consumers have spent $16 billion online this holiday season.

Online sales have dropped off since Thanksgiving and Black Friday’s respective growth of 10 and 11 percent. Cyber Monday sales grew 5 percent year-over-year to $887 million, while the following week’s sales fell to 3 percent growth before falling into the negative over the weekend.

“After a strong beginning to the week, we saw growth rates decelerate over the weekend to put this past week of holiday shopping in line with our 3 percent growth forecast for the season,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

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In direct contradiction to worries that “text-speak” will forever mar the writing patterns of children, a recent National Literacy Trust study found that kids that use the Web are more literate than those that do not. The casual writing style might even help future writers.

The survey of around three thousand children who text, blog, and use other aspects of the Social Web focused on those between the ages of nine and sixteen. Of respondents, 24 percent maintain a personal blog, 73 percent use IM chat clients, and 82 percent text regularly.

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Analysts were lukewarm on 2009 Black Friday sales, but from all indications, they were better than expected. At least online.

Online Black Friday sales grew 11 percent compared to last year’s, according to comScore. Overall Black Friday sales grew 3 percent, about what analysts had predicted.

ComScore reports that 2009 Black Friday online retail sales reached $595 million, the second highest spending day of the year.

“While this acceleration in spending suggests the online holiday season may be shaping up slightly more optimistically than anticipated, it may also reflect the heavy discounting and creative promotions being put forth by retailers that now encompass the use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter,” said comScore chair Gian Fulgoni.

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Economic downturn can strain consumer trends, or alternatively throw them into high gear. After an initial environment where the former occured, now the latter seems to be gradually gaining ground. Following an estimated 7.7 percent decline in revenues between 2008 and 2009, to $165 billion, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) forecasts a slight uptick (0.6%) in 2010, to $166 billion in revenues.

One new product that Americans will be buying, along with the continual increase of HDTVs and DVR services, are Internet-enabled televisions (IETVs). While Americans are not going to be watching more YouTube on their TVs than broadcast television, the amount of television as well as Internet video that they view are both increasing.

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Eight out of 10 smartphone consumers have problems accessing content, according to Xiam discovery research (PDF). The findings are based survey of over 400 UK and US smartphone users.

(Since comparing networks across countries is not apples to apples, I’ll focus strictly on the US users).

The major problem is that content is slow to load and/or is hard to find. Sixty-one percent of smartphone users reported this problem, while fifty-seven percent had phone/interface issues and 11 percent had payment issues.

Twenty-seven percent of the time, they couldn’t find what they’re looking for.

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Recent research from Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing on Seniors and Boomers that have an Internet connection in the US are more active online than normally reported. The data was released late last month in a press release focusing on the two age groups.

Of US Internet users aged 65 and up, 94 percent use e-mail, 77 percent shop online, and 71 percent look up health and medical information. 70 percent read the news, 59 percent manage finances and banking, and 47 percent play free online games.

For Boomers ages 45 to 64, 93 percent use e-mail, 73 percent read news, 71 percent shop online and 67 percent conduct research. 66 percent pay bills. 39 percent go to networking Web sites or use forums, message boards and chat rooms. Thirty percent watch videos online.

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