One third (35%) of American adult internet users have a profile on an online social network site, four times as many as three years ago, but still much lower than the 65% of online American teens who use social networks. The share of adult internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years -- from 8% in 2005 to 35% now,1 according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project’s December 2008 tracking survey. Read More...
As Americans buy products, seek information, plan their social lives, and make personal and business decisions, the lines between media channels in the 21st century have become increasingly blurred, according to the third annual U.S. Media Myths & Realities survey. This melding of media means the content deliverables that were once owned by a specific medium are now found on nearly all platforms – a shift that has helped create an increasingly participatory and fragmented media landscape.
Netpop finds that 76% of US broadband users (105 million) are active contributors to the web via social media (including uploading photos, blogging, rating products and other Web 2.0 activities). Moreover, approximately 29%, or 40 million broadband users are regular contributors to the web specifically through social networking sites and are spending increasing amounts of their online time communicating with each other, both one-to-one and one-to-many. Read More...
One of the reasons that social media is growing so fast that "newbees" on the Web are starting to disappear. With people spending more an more time at home and network TV in the trash one the places that people turn to for entertainment is the Web. The more people use the Internet, the more they learn and experiment with Apps and social media platforms. I also believe that is one of the reasons that videos on the Web are growing, it's mindless entertainment that costs nothing and it's fun to use your computer for multimedia. However what I have been preaching is that although social media is growing you need to keep in mind that like any product within the lifecycle there will come a time of saturation and people will start to drop off as the newness of using social media wares off. There are some demographic segments that integrate social media platforms into their lives but others will find the consistent updating a consumer of time. It would be interesting to see some data on just how often BLOGS on the Web are updated (% by everyday, 2 days etc). It's fun for people to get online but "I have to do this everyday" is going to take its toll.
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