MaxxoMedia Digital Media and Entertainment Trends

Image via CrunchBase

Digital Clarity, a specialist digital marketing agency whch recently polled over 1300 people under 25 from a cross section of the UK has reported that UK Under 25′s not only media stacking with 80 per cent using a second screen to communicate with friends when watching television – 72 per cent Twitter, Facebook or mobile applications to actively comment on shows as they are watching them and they are significantly swapping remote controls for iPhones as the ‘Social TV’ trend takes over.
The ‘Social TV’ trend is proving hugely popular with young people as it allows them to instantly comment on their favourite shows to friends in different locations via the web or mobile phone.

As appmarket.tv previously reported, a joint Nielsen and Yahoo US study late last year found that the trend is already well established with over 86 per cent of mobile internet users choosing to communicate with each other in real-time during broadcasts. Now ‘second screening’ or ‘media stacking’, as it is referred to in the States has become common place in the UK too.

Social networking has risen among all age groups in the past few years, particularly among teens and younger adults. 73% of online teens used social networking sites in 2009, compared to 47% of online adults. Breaking down online adults into older and younger demographics, 72% of adults 18-29 use social networking sites, compared to 40% of their counterparts 30 and older, according to research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Social networking adults in all age brackets favor Facebook by a wide margin, with older adults preferring it slightly more. Seventy-three percent of all adults 18 and older who use social networking sites have a Facebook account. Broken down by age demographic, this includes 71% of adults 18-29 and 75% of adults 30 and older.

Web 3.0 is all about recommendations, free services, intelligent (semantic) searches, and information that’s no longer random data, but tailored, highly intuitive and delivered in real time. Identifying some broad trends that dominate the new crop of Web tools and services which are in tune with the next generation of the web – Web 3.0 site worth bookmarking.

Mobile applications have long been aimed at giving subscribers information specific to their whereabouts, but now we’re seeing even more intelligent ideas. Loopt.com is a new one this year that blends our love of social networking with location-based services. It’s has been described as a ‘social compass’ as it detects not only where you are on the map, but also pinpoints your mobile friends in the vicinity. Loopt is US-centric at present, but the company says it working on looping up Europe. I personally have become a fan of FourSquare and I’ve gone many associates addict to it.  

Maps: Google street map hit the news early this year with its controversial drive-by views of people’s front doors and people themselves. But, Google doesn’t have a monopoly on innovative mapping. Openstreetmap.org is about people mapping everything from great hiking routes to off-piste ski runs or and wine tours, and it’s mapping the world.

By Mark Levy, CEO MaxxoMedia

I thought I had the social network angle all covered with my Facebook profile, Linkedin profile, Plaxo, my website and a blog. But then I noticed people “Twittering” and “Zanneling” through my Facebook updates and I was intrigued. What were these new strange verbs, I thought?

So I went over to www.twitter.com and www.zannel.com and I looked around.

What I found was people of all ages, all across the globe sharing their lives in bite size bits — sharing web pages, photos, news stories and conversations being overheard. More bits sharing ideas, new product launches, videos, bookmarks and slideshows. Even more bits with moments of the mundane, the sad and the peculiar.

Then I dug a little more and found that there are many more sites with strange names, encouraging people to share their interests, loves, hates and lives. Some of the sites share information with other sites. They create a daisy chain effect where, for instance, I can Zannel a new video of the woodpecker harassing me during my conference calls, and it will feed the link to my Twitter account, which then feeds Plaxo and Facebook.

But what if you wanted to share and collect all the information on all your friends regardless of which site they are using?