‘Pokemon Go’ launched as an app last Wednesday in America, New Zealand and Australia and from what I can tell it’s pretty much just Pokemon on your mobile phone, although it’s slightly different because you have to move places in the real world in order to find rarer Pokemon and get to Pokemon gyms so you can fight other users etc.
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The app sounds like a really cool idea to be fair and it seems like it’s completely exploded since it dropped last Wednesday, as it’s now estimated that it’s more popular and has more users than Twitter. This data was collected by Android and they estimate that the app is installed on around 5.6% of all Android phones currently in existence. That’s more than Tinder so yes, Pokemon really is more popular than sex.
The stats don’t stop there though, as ‘Pokemon Go’ is also the number one on the Google Play store at the moment, beating back established heavy hitters like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram. The average rate of engagement from people using the app is twice that of Snapchat and Google searches for Pokemon are at an all time high and by a considerable amount.
‘Pokemon Go’ really is taking over basically. You’ve got to bear in mind that this data is only for users of Android mobile phones too, so chances are that across the board the figures are even higher. It’ll be interesting to see if the game can maintain its momentum over the coming months or if it’s just the initial buzz getting people excited, but it certainly seems as if it’s going to turn into a true social phenomenon.
The only issue is that it requires users to spend a lot of time with their heads down, focusing on their phone (as if people didn’t do enough of that already). And even 24 hours after its release, people were already announcing that the game was taking over their lives, with some people purposely missing their morning trains or skipping lunch in order to walk around catching Pokemon for 30 minutes. Sounds like this could be the transition period from when humans turn from phone addicts to full on phone zombies.
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I’ve only really got one question now – when the hell are they going to roll this out in the UK? I wanna see what all the fuss is about. In the meantime though, check out this official Pokemon lingerie. No, I don’t know why that exists either.
