MaxxoMedia Digital Media and Entertainment Trends

From KenRadio.com
The role of mobile internet access in evolving digital lifestyles is the cornerstone of the second typology of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) users. The typology places ICT users into 10 groups and, notwithstanding variation across the groups, the groups fit into two baskets, with the groups’ collective judgments on mobility being the pivot point.

1. Motivated by Mobility: Five groups in this typology – making up 39% of the adult population – have seen the frequency of their online use grow as their reliance on mobile devices has increased. For these groups, growth in frequency of online use is linked not only to increasing broadband adoption, but to positive and improving attitudes about how mobile access makes them more available to others. Across the groups, a lot of variation exists regarding what these changes mean to users. Some find this extra connectivity a platform for self expression. Others are not entirely positive about ICTs’ impacts on their lives.

From Kenradio.com

A growing number of mobile phone subscribers worldwide are taking online social networking to the streets. The U.K. leads Europe in mobile social networking on a percentage basis — with the U.S. boasting comparable numbers. In the U.K., approximately 810,000 mobile subscribers, or 1.7% of all mobile subscribers in the country, visited social networking websites on their mobile phones in the first quarter of 2008. That reach percentage was twice as high as it was in other major European markets?though similar to the U.S., where 1.6% of all mobile subscribers (4.1 million in all) accessed social networks via their phones in December 2007.

What’s A Blogger?

Bloggers are younger and higher percentages are Hispanic & African American than the general population. A higher percentage of Democrats than of Republicans are blogging.

Now that Blogging might better be called a market segment rather than a market niche, it’s useful with regard to positioning the marketing message to understand what a Blogger looks like, as distinguished from the rest of the population. According to the BIGresearch Simultaneous Media Survey, 26% of all adults say they regularly or occasionally blog. Of those:

• 53.7% are male
• 44.7% are married
• 28.4% hold a professional or managerial position
• 10.4% are students.

Bloggers tend to be younger, averaging 37.6 years old, compared to 44.8 for adults 18+ (the “general population”). Ethnically:

• 69.7% of Bloggers are White/Caucasian (vs. 76.1%)
• 12.2% are African American/Black (vs. 11.4%)
• 3.7% are Asian (vs. 2.0%)
• 20% of Bloggers are Hispanic, compared to 14.8% of adults 18+

From Kenradio.com

The World’s Broadband

Four European Union (EU) nations have the best broadband deployment rates in the world. The Single Telecoms Market Progress Report has shown that Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden saw penetration rates in excess of 30 per cent at the end of last year. Along with the UK, Belgium, Luxembourg and France, these countries saw higher rates than the US in 2007, with some 19 million EU broadband lines added last year.

From Kenradio.com

61% high speed Internet users watch/download online video content at least once a week and 86% do so on a monthly basis, compared to 45% and 71%, respectively, in the 2006 study, according to a new study by Horowitz Associates. News and user-generated, non-professional content are the most often viewed genres, followed by movie previews/trailers, music videos, and previews/segments of TV shows. Weekly viewing of full episodes of television shows doubled from last year, with 16% of high speed Internet users watching TV online on a weekly basis.

NBC and ABC are the networks Internet users mention the most frequently for online TV content, with Grey’s Anatomy being the most often mentioned TV program viewed online. While consumption of broadband video has grown, the study shows that television is still the preferred platform for traditional TV content. The vast majority (70%) of Internet users who watch TV online say do so because they missed the episode on TV. 18% of these respondents say they watch TV shows online to watch them a second time (after having watched them on TV), or that they watch TV shows online just when they happen to find them or when someone else tells them about them (20%). Conversely, 13% Internet users who watch TV shows online say they watch them directly online, and not on regular TV.

By Georg Szalaifor The Hollywood Reporter

Aug 22, 2007

NEW YORK — Personal time that consumers spend on the Internet is rivaling their TV time, with user-generated content and networking sites among the most popular destinations for entertainment seekers. Plus, people seem more open to mobile content and are looking for more traditional entertainment offerings on their mobile devices than previously thought.

These are among the findings of a new IBM survey of consumer behavior in the digital age, which suggests that studios, advertisers, ad agencies, content distributors and other industry players must continue to adjust their business strategies amid changes in media usage and consumers’ increased expectations for control and community.

Among key lessons for studios: Make your content available everywhere, but don’t expect to get paid for every platform. And keep an eye on key influencers on the Web to succeed in creating word-of-mouth.

The survey is part of an IBM study on the future of advertising, set to be released in the fall, and it showed that consumers are divided over their preferences for free online content with ads or subscription fee-based content without commercials. About a third is for free content, but about 20% are willing to pay for the HBO-style model, according to IBM.

“Given the rising power of individuals and communities, media and entertainment industry players will have to become much better at providing permission-based advertising and related consumer-driven ratings services,” said study co-author Bill Battino, communications sector managing partner at IBM Global Business Services.

Boys and younger teens are more likely than girls or older teens to post false information on their online profiles; 64% of profile-owning boys post fake information compared with 50% of girls who do the same. Younger and older teens exhibit another split, with 69% of younger teens posting fake information versus 48% of older teens, all according to a new report from Pew Internet & American Life Project reports.

How Teens Use Social Networking Sites
* 55% of online teens have profiles
* 82% of profile creators have included their first name in their profiles
* 79% have included photos of themselves
* 66% have included photos of their friends
* 61% have included the name of their city or town
* 49% have included the name of their school
* 40% have included their instant message screen name
* 40% have streamed audio to their profile
* 39% have linked to their blog
* 29% have included their email address
* 29% have included their last names
* 29% have included videos
* 2% have included their cell phone numbers
* 6% of online teens
* 11% of profile-owning teens post their first and last names on publicly-accessible profiles
* 3% of online teens
* 5% of profile-owning teens disclose their full names, photos of themselves and the town where they live in publicly-viewable profiles

Most teens are using the social networks to stay in touch with people they already know, either friends that they see a lot (91% of social networking teens have done this) or friends that they rarely see in person (82%). 49% of social network users say they use the networks to make new friends. 32% of online teens have been contacted by strangers online – this could be any kind of online contact, not necessarily contact through social network sites. 21% of teens who have been contacted by strangers have engaged an online stranger to find out more information about that person (that translates to 7% of all online teens). 23% of teens who have been contacted by a stranger online say they felt scared or uncomfortable because of the online encounter (that translates to 7% of all online teens).

From KENRADIO.COM

A new study by Ipsos analyzed online video behaviors, at the end of 2006 58% of Americans age 12 or older, with Internet access, had streamed some form of video content online…100 million Americans, or 44% of the overall US population age 12 or older. The YouTube phenomenon has caught on with Americans, and given their appetite for video, the ability to select and watch exactly what you want online has become a strong lure for many consumers. And it’s instant gratification for entertainment lovers. The report goes further to say that 28% of Americans age 12+ have downloaded a digital video file, with a significant amount of overlap between these two types of digital video formats – so many consumers who stream video also experiment with downloading video online. Teens and young adults are the most likely to stream video online: three in four of all teens age 12-17 and young adults age 18-24 in the US have ever streamed digital video content online. The demographic of the typical video streamer skews younger, are more likely to have higher incomes, and be highly educated.

Teens and young adults, on average, have stored 20% of their entire video library either digitally (stored on a hard drive) and/or have burned this content onto DVD-R, says the report. The size of consumers’ digital video libraries will continue to grow as the streaming and downloading market matures. Shorter video clips are by far the most preferred type of video file accessed today by Internet users. Three quarters of all digital video streamers have streamed short news or sports clips, while two thirds have streamed amateur or homemade video clips. 40% of those that have streamed or downloaded video content have accessed YouTube, and many in the past 30 days. Other video file sharing sites such as MySpace and Google Video are also common destinations for video streamers, with about one in five ever having accessed these two sites overall.

From KENRADIO.COM

The number of broadband subscribers worldwide at 281.3 million as at end 2006, this represents growth of 31% for the year, according to a report from Point Topic. The top ten list of broadband countries shows little change although China continues to close the gap on the US, down to 5.4 million from 8.6 million a year ago, after adding more than 14 million lines in 2006.

However France was the country that achieved the highest growth in the top 10 in 2006 with over 40%. Although other countries outside the top 10 are growing faster in percentage terms (India with 152%, Turkey 88%) the net adds in the ‘Top 10′ broadband world generally continue to outstrip other countries. Worldwide, DSL remains the most popular broadband access technology with a 65.7% market share. DSL accounts for 87% of all broadband subscribers in the Middle East and Africa ? the fastest growing broadband region ? and 82% in the European Union (EU). The EU added 17.5 million DSL subscribers in the year to maintain its position as the world?s number one broadband and DSL region. Of the other broadband access technologies, fiber to the home or other close location (FTTx), now delivers more than 10% of broadband services across the world. Less than 1% of broadband is delivered by satellite, accounting for 784,750 subscribers.

From KENRADIO.COM

988 Billion Gigabytes of Digital Information Created in 2010

In 2006, 161 exabytes of digital information were created and copied, continuing an unprecedented period of information growth. This digital universe equals approximately three million times the information in all the books ever written – or the equivalent of 12 stacks of books, each extending more than 93 million miles from the earth to the sun. According to IDC, the amount of information created and copied in 2010 will surge more than six fold to 988 exabytes, a compound annual growth rate of 57%.While nearly 70% of the digital universe will be generated by individuals by 2010, most of this content will be touched by an organization along the way – on a network, in a data center, at a hosting site, at a telephone or Internet switch, or in a backup system. Organizations – including businesses of all sizes, agencies, governments and associations – will be responsible for the security, privacy, reliability and compliance of at least 85% of the information.

The incredible growth and sheer amount of the different types of information being generated from so many different places represents more than just a worldwide information explosion of unprecedented scale. It represents an entire shift in how information has moved from analog form, where it was finite, to digital form, where it’s infinite. From a technology perspective, organizations will need to employ ever-more sophisticated techniques to transport, store, secure and replicate the additional information that is being generated every day.

FROM KENRADIO.COM

People who use wireless internet “show deeper engagement with cyberspace,” according to an American study. While 54% of internet users check e-mail “on the typical day,” 72% of wireless users check daily. Just under half of wireless users get news online every day, compared to 31% of internet users at large. The Pew Internet and American Life Project survey asked 798 US internet users about their wireless habits and sampled almost 2,300 people overall. The report characterised wireless as connecting to the internet using a wi-fi or mobile network. The survey found that the number of internet users with wireless at home nearly doubled, from one out of 10 in January 2005 to one in 5 by December 2006. About 80% of those with wireless access at home also had broadband internet. According to the survey, about 80% of laptops had wireless capabilities and 88% of laptop users said they had used a wireless network at home. About six in 10 had connected somewhere outside their home or office. Just over a third of laptop users used a wireless network at work. People under 30 were also the most likely group to access the internet wirelessly. Of those surveyed, 37% of the category had connected wirelessly from any location, 40% have laptops, 26% have wireless networks at home, and four in 10 have internet-enabled mobile phones. The Pew survey sampled 2,373 US adults, 18 and older between 30 November 2006 and 30 December 2006. Of these, 1,623 were internet users and 798 of those were given wireless internet access questionnaires.

Here is a great article from Podmetrics on growth projections for Satelite Radio, HD Radio, MP3 Players and Terrestrial Radio

As part of Bridge Ratings’ on-going study of audience attrition of traditional radio and subscriber and user growth of alternative digital media, we now publish quarterly insight comparing projected use and growth. Included here is an update to our findings published since March of 2005

While initial estimates showed solid growth for satellite radio for 2006, the reality proved less impressive than prognosticators originally thought with total actual subscribers reaching 13.6 million through 2006 compared to original satcaster estimates of near 15 million. XM finished 2006 with 7.6 million subscribers – up 27% over the company’s 2005 year-end number.

Meanwhile, Sirius satellite radio made tremendous strides during 2006 due to significant leverage from the addition of Howard Stern, Martha Stewart and sports franchises along with strong marketing and word-of-mouth. At the start of 2005 Sirius registered 1 million subscribers and finished 2006 up 83% with 6.0 million. Bridge Ratings projects a sector increase of 3.9 million subscribers during 2007 with XM at 9.12 million and Sirius at 8.34 total subscribers.