Media Usage Drop

In a recent article, Emily Tan attributes a drop in media usage measured on a per person basis to the growing use of the web. Not since 1997 have consumers spent less time consuming media relative to the prior year. She shared findings from Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) that the average person in 2006 spent 3,530 total hours, or an average of 9 hours and 40 minutes per day consuming media, which is less than they did in 2005. But the drop is due to people’s change in consumption of traditional media, such as broadcast TV, newspaper and magazines.

Not surprisingly, people have shifted their consumption to technology, or to the web—thus web usage is has increased, not dropped, and it is now considered by many as a mainstream medium. It’s is the leading medium used by people at work and the second most widely used medium at home behind TV. Even with TV, people now TiVo or DVR shows and watch them later only to fast-forward through commercials, or even fast-forward to the specific few minutes within the program that they want. Or through news aggregators and the like, they use the web to find broadcast TV news clips, or funny tidbits from Jay Leno’s opening monologue on ‘The Tonight Show’ from the night before.

Despite the fact that people spent less time consuming media in 2006, total media or communication spending in 2006 rose 6.8% to $885.2 billion dollars. Forecasts call for total spending to reach $900 billion in 2007 and as much as $1.2 trillion by 2011. But this will primarily be to the benefit of online/web spending and at the expense of newspaper.

Do you think traditional mediums such as newspapers and magazines are on the brink of extinction? Will the web ever replace them completely? If so, how long until we are truly a paperless media consumption society—to where we retrieve all of our news online? 5 years? 10?

What’s your take? Join the conversation and tell us if we’ll ever see a world without printed newspapers or magazines, or will there always be a hard copy consumer?

Social Network Security

In a recent Advertising Age (AdAge.com) article by Jeremy Mullman, he outlines the two sides to the debate over identity verification technology on social networks to keep sex offenders out, as well as keep underage children from logging in with say, their parents login and password information.

The crux of the debate seems to be over whether identity verification is even attainable, or if the attention it is getting is more of a political play. Some feel there really is no fail-safe way to verify all visitors, yet proponets for tighter security say that those who can be ID'ed and who should not be on the network are better than nothing. Regardless, social networking experts don't seem to be concerned if safety ID verification mechanisms are put in place, citing that gatekeeping access to social networks based on certain permission levels could actually ehance the user experience.

What’s your take? Join the conversation and tell us if you think secure social networks are even possible. Or, will parents simply have to take a more active role in their children's online lives to help maintain their online safety?

Convergence

For years electronic and technology manufacturers alike have been predicting and claiming that technologies such as computers, TVs, stereos, phones, personal daily assistants (PDAs), etc. will continue to converge into one device. Thus, one day we will theoretically watch TV, check email, surf the web, answer the phone, listen to music and shop from the same device within our home.

While various companies have arguably introduced converging products—with debatable success (i.e. the MP3 phones, Interactive or Computer TVs—that allow for checking email or surfing the Internet), none have really had the sticking power or have garnered the predicted market share. Why?

Are we as consumers just too finicky? Do we ultimately want to own multiple devices? Does the thought of one device that does everything disinterest us because we don’t want to be bored with the same gadget day in and day out? Subconsciously, do we not want the convenience that one converged device might offer?

Is it impossible in today’s technological age for one device to everything well? Will a camera phone ever have the picture quality of a digital camera? For example, will sideline photographers at a pro sports game someday just snap shots with their camera phones?

While the technology lends well to leverage convergence, do our lives not? In order for each device to be most effective, do they not have conflicting requirements? For instance, in order for your mobile phone to become your phone, PDA, MP3 and computer all-in-one, what would it optimally look like? You likely want it small to be your phone, but big enough to type on to replace your computer. It needs to be light-weight and compact in order to listen to music while you exercise, but big enough that you won’t easily loose it as your PDA.

What’s your take? Join the conversation and tell us if we’ll ever see an all-in-one device, or is convergence just a pipe dream?

Social Media

Ten years from now, will we ever leave our houses?

If we don’t already, we’ll all be able to work from home, order groceries from home, get all of our entertainment delivered – maybe even our kids will go to school at home through video-linked teaching. The only thing we’d need to leave our houses for would be to meet other people – or would we?

Whether that’s your ideal futuristic vision or the prelude to a 21st century version of Dante’s Inferno, the technology that will make it all possible revolves around social media. Social media is the umbrella term for instant messaging, blogs, MySpace, and every other form of online communication, all of which have flooded into mainstream web use in the last couple of years.

While wildly popular, they have also been received with skepticism and fear. After all, that hilarious prank your friends videotaped in high school no longer disappears in a pile of defunct VHS tapes, it instead premiers on the worldwide Top 10 list on video-sharing website YouTube.com and is part of the public domain forever. (So much for your political career.)

Internet fatalists claim that social media is contributing to the destruction of our culture and society by enabling people to have impersonal interactions via the internet instead of face-to-face encounters. There are plenty of studies from reliable sources, including Stanford University , that say that the internet is the ultimate isolating technology. Then again, people said that about the telephone in the early 20th century, too.

On the upside, social media, when used well, can be a great connector and communicator. Whether that means you and your friends stay more connected through blogs, your employees use instant messaging or inter-office RSS feeds to keep each other up-to-date whether they’re in or out of the office, or your customers get a regular podcast of your latest product developments, social media can work to your advantage.

What’s your take? Join the conversation and tell us how and why you use (or don’t use) social media.