iPod - cyberpop!

tech boom(ers)

February 16, 2010 By sem 4 Comments

Who knew that Boomers were such media-hungry digital infovores? New research on the media use habits of the age 45 to 54 consumer demographic by the CRE Mapping Study shows that they consume more TV and more Internet media than any other cohort.

Digital Boomers account for about one-third of Web traffic on a typical day, according to The Pew Internet and American Life Project. “In their younger years, they eagerly adopted new technologies such as Walkmans, VCRs, PCs, DVRs and the Internet,” said Lisa E. Phillips, senior analyst at eMarketer, and “most carry that adaptability into their 50s and 60s.”

What’s more, Boomers are active online social networkers, with about half maintaining a profile on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Trends in socialTV programming and promotion are now purposefully designed with the Boomers in mind.

With all of this tech savvy behavior, it’s no wonder that Harlequin Enterprises is following Boomers into social gaming. Harlequin was already way way out in front in developing ebooks—though others are following suit, to capitalize on cross-generational trend in mobile lifestyling, and digital Boomer-consumers’ love of reading and gadgetry. Coming up next: more gadgets with easy-to-see buttons and simplified functions (like this CosyPhone) for the over-50 set and their tired, screen-weary eyes.

Filed Under: ebooks, gaming, media use, mobile, social networks, television, video Tagged With: BlackBerry, cellphone, facebook, gaming, Internet, iPhone, iPod, mobile, smartphone, social media, social networking, social networks, TV, twitter, YouTube

mGenerations connect

December 6, 2009 By sidneyeve Leave a Comment

Student spending on digital technology at all-time high, but both millennials and their parents (even grandparents!?) are hip to the mobile and connected life, surveys show

Today’s college and university students are buying more high-tech gear than ever before, spending $6.5B this year—an increase of 6% YOY, according to new figures by Harris Interactive. This level of purchasing power represents a 40% increase over the last four years, as students snap up mobile technologies, laptops and smartphones, in record numbers.

Three-quarters of college/university students report owning a laptop, camera, and an mp3 player, while fewer than half of them have a desktop computer (46%).

However it’s not just the digital natives who are buying (into) mobile media—a new study by Motorola found a distinctive cross-generational trend in mobile lifestyling. In fact in their survey, Motorola’s market researchers learned that Gen Y, Gen X, and the Boomers expressed an almost equal “desire to be constantly connected.”

Admittedly, it isn’t too surprising when a consumer electronics company in the business of selling mobile gizmos produces market research indicating that people love gear-to-go, however these trends in (a) upward levels of mobile spending and (b) increasing cultural appetites for always-on connectivity, are evident elsewhere.

For example, Gartner research included mobile applications on it’s list of the top ten strategic technology trends for 2010. “By year-end 2010, 1.2 billion people will carry handsets,” Gartner reported, and those handheld computing devices will enable “a rich environment for the convergence of mobility and the Web.” According to The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, about 70% of Canadians own a cellphone in 2009—and that figure rises to 80% in urban centres. The CWTA claims that mobile communications technologies are among “the fastest growing consumer products” in history.

According to NPD analysts, about 40% of kids in the US have an mp3 player in 2009, as compared with six per cent in 2005. The figures for kids with cellphones are considerably higher—in Australia a study published this year showed upwards of 70% of the 4-14 demographic owned handhelds.

Filed Under: mobile Tagged With: BlackBerry, cellphone, digital, iPhone, iPod, laptop, media, mlearning, mobile, mp3, notebook

silver surfers

July 11, 2009 By sidneyeve 1 Comment

The surge in aging Baby Boomers and wired seniors online is making waves in social networks, marketing, and mobile gadget design.

According to the Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Survey, “larger percentages of older generations are online now than in the past, and they are doing more activities online,” such as searching for health information, emailing, shopping, and gaming. Wired seniors are also flocking to social networking sites to fight boredom, isolation and loneliness. Being connected to each other and to family in socnets is “a reason to keep on going,” according to web-savvy seniors interviewed in The New York Times.

Facebook Fades to Gray

Of course there are niche social networks for mature users to connect and communicate, but trending data indicates that Grandma and Grandpa are also using the sites most popular with Gen Y. According to Facebook’s own demographic data, in the previous six months there has been a significant shift in the site membership, such that the number of college users declined 20% and the number of facebooking highschoolers dipped 15%. During the same period however, the number of users over 55 years of age jumped from just under 1 million to almost 6 million. Analysts are describing this trend as the graying of Facebook.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: media use Tagged With: Apple, cellphone, digital divide, facebook, IM, iPhone, iPod, mobile, sms, social networking

hashtags & halos

June 28, 2009 By sidneyeve Leave a Comment

Music lovers and social networking: surveys suggest a connection between users tweeting-about & trying-out tracks and buying them.

This week a report released from NPD Group shows that one third of Twitter members bought a CD in the previous three months, and one-third bought an mp3—figures that are significantly higher than for the online-but-non-tweeting among us.

Fast Company blogger Kit Eaton reflected on the findings, commenting on what appears to be a halo effect, whereby tweets emanating from within your social network about favorite and emerging music leads to increased sales—also known as the “trusted referral” model of social media marketing.

Although he does not mention it, Eaton’s comments are connected to the popular #MusicMonday hashtag ritual on Twitter, when music lovers tweetout links to the tunes they love–often pointing to YouTube, but increasingly directing followers to other music sharing twitter apps (the top ten of which, according to Mashable, are reviewed here).

“It’s possible that people who Twitter are just generally more social people, who may be inclined to buy more music,” Eaton speculates, noting that this phenomenon isn’t likely specific to Twitter, since music news sharing is obviously part of the network effect on MySpace, Facebook and other social media sites.

But it is true that in a general sense, media use begets media use. And in terms of music, research shows that when listeners can try before they buy the result is they often do in fact buy (and as Adam Ostrow pointed out on Mashable, this is a key argument used by supporters of filesharing music sites like Pirate Bay). A 2009 European study interviewed 2000 people over the age of 15 and found that people “who download music illegally are also 10 times more likely to pay for songs than those who don’t.” And for retailers, the music sampling model makes good business sense, according to new research in The International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising. There researchers found that “longer, higher quality free music samples engage more listeners and reduce the number of ‘free riders’… making it more likely that the fan will buy the full product, whether that’s a CD or a track download.”

[Read more...]

Filed Under: music Tagged With: digital, iPod, millennials, mp3, music, social networks, twitter

microboredom vs. the mLife

May 24, 2009 By sidneyeve Leave a Comment

UK Professors measure the tyranny of offline boredom versus the pleasure of continuous connectivity via everyware mobile digital tools and toys.

A new study released this week from the London School of Economics and the University of New England has concluded that mobile phone users are not stressed or anxious by virtue of being always-on. On the contrary, researchers found that having access to data and voice communication via smartphones actually decreases stress, in part because of how it fills “dead time.”

This phenomenon is connected to what researcher Michael Bull called the evolution of the “culture of no dead air,” resulting from the widespread adoption of iPods and other portable mp3 music players. In his analysis, Bull describes how continuous consumption of a private soundtrack while moving through public spaces, profoundly affects one’s orientation and daily urban experience of time and space.

Connectivity withdrawal and mundane dead-air results in moments of (what Motorola calls) microboredom for those accustomed to having always-on digital music, texting, gaming and the like. Handheld gizmos and gadgets offer to “saturate” those fleeting free moments with “productivity, communication, and digital distractions,” observes Carolyn Y. Johnson, in The Boston Globe. “Today, distraction from monotony is not merely available,” Johnson writes, “it is almost unavoidable.”

In the UK study released this week, rather than experiencing mobile digital gadgets as an electronic leash, or irritating disruption, university researchers Michael Bittman, Judith Brown, and Judy Wajcman learned of the comfort and pleasure in continuous connectivity experienced by heavy users of mobile technology. The British Professors concluded that smartphone devices such as Blackberrys and iPhones, though “originally marketed as business tools” have today evolved into “instruments for life.”

What we might call, the mLife. [Read more...]