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Brits stereotyped by app popularity chart

Fair weather trends

Google Maps and Yahoo Weather are Britain's most popular apps, industry data reveals.

According to research from comScore on behalf of GSMA, Google Maps - which comes pre-loaded on most Android devices - was accessed by 6.4m unique users in April 2011, while Yahoo Weather hit second with 3.57m.

Considering we spend most of our day moaning about rain, and a good chunk of it navigating the route home among streams of arse-to-mouth traffic, the news is of little surprise.

The penchant for social networking is growing though and, somewhat predictably, Facebook was high in the popularity rankings sitting in third place. Astonishingly, despite its worldwide popularity, Angry Birds didn't even make the top 20.

Here's a list of the ten front runners:

Total Connected App Users - 8,753,197
1. Google Maps - 6,419,503
2. Yahoo! Weather - 3,567,047
3. Facebook - 3,456,442
4. Google Mobile - 2,554,329
5. YouTube - 2,438,348
6. eBay - 1,195,496
7. Sky Sports Live Football Score Centre - 1,004,085
8. Yahoo! Stocks - 959,289
9. WhatsApp Messenger - 798,656
10. Sky News - 732,374

I always thought our obsession with weather spurred from a lack of trust in weather forecasters, although it turns out we've been moaning for centuries. Historically, discussing the weather has its roots in social networking of a medieval kind, being a neutral topic to engage with 'womenfolk', and ever since the age-old weather talk has been interwound in our DNA like crumpets and a perfect cup of tea.

The transition into modern meteorological tech was surely as inevitable as a change in the weather. ®

Yahoo! Stocks?????!?

Definitely a pre-installed app - who would be daft enough to invest in stocks i this economy!

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Obviously incorrect

Not a single "adult" application on that list...

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When thinking of our British friends...

I am always reminded of the time I was telling my sister that I hadn't realized that her friend was gay. She replied that he was not, he was British. From then on I always make sure that when I am about to make a generalization about someones sexual orientation I am always sure to check myself and ask "Is he British?"

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This reminds me

When I went to college - long long ago*, I found an extra subject in my timetable - Sociolinguistics.

Apparently, we Brits talk about the weather with strangers so that we can size up the other guy. It is something we all have common experience of and we make some (sometimes dodgy) conclusions about the other guy based on his accent, vocabulary speech style and so on.

I think we still do this and are adding in more personal analysis by seeing the other parties smartphone and adding conclusions about it as well.

I feel a thesis coming on...

(* Oh yes, what was the course? Civil Engineering. I am sure someone will see a connection there. I never have.)

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Weather talk

IMO people talk about the weather as a way of discussing their innermost feelings!

If on a hot day, someone says how wonderful the weather is then you can be pretty sure they are happy inside, if they complain about how awful the heat is then there could be a deeper explanation ;)

Those people who ramble about how great it is to go running through the fallen leaves, or crunching about in deep snow probably have a different outlook to those whingeing about the overcast skies, or freezing cold ;)

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