Fancy Bar Graphs of the Week: Zero Surprise–the Youngs Love New Media More Than the Olds
by Kara Swisher
Posted on September 3, 2009 at 1:22 AM PT
Every week, BoomTown is calling all those who make cool graphs, charts and stats done prettily about tech to send them to me pronto.
I am–truth be told–a secret stats fanatic. A bargraphaholic. Yes, even a closet pie-charter.
The last set of data I posted was a comparison of the share and consumer loyalty of the three big search engines–Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo (YHOO) and, of course, Google (GOOG).
This week, in its annual survey of consumer technology attitudes and adoption, titled “The State of Consumers and Technology,” Forrester Research found that…wait for it, wait for it…the kids love the Internet!
As you can see in the chart labeled 4-1 below (click on the image to make it larger), new media beat traditional media for consumers younger than 40 years old, in terms of hours spent.
Still, the under-40 group also use traditional media, through both online and television channels, as you can see in the chart labeled 4-2, although TV is the most likely way everyone accesses most big-media offerings.
Well, except the Weather Channel, which leads in “cross-channel media use,” which means it is doing swimmingly in diversifying its distribution.
Lastly, in the 4-3 chart, as with the first chart, while Web sites like News Corp. (NWS) social networking site MySpace and its rival Facebook show up on the 10 most regularly consumed channels for the youngs, the olds are still mostly chomping on networks, newspapers and cable.
In other words, traditional media’s demographic is the group more likely to die first! But at least they’re loyal!
Comments
I guess the question that should be asked is will the current “youngs” continue doing what they do (Facebook, Myspace, Comedy channel) until they die, or will their habits change along with (hopefully) a greater focus on serious things, as well as a lessened ability to focus on tiny characters on a tiny screen for 6 hours a day.
Should those that have captures the “youngs” now adapt in order to keep them, or just let them fall out of their user base to be replaced by new “youngs”. Similarly, should those entities that have capture the “olds” just sit and wait for people to age into their user base, or try and expand to capture younger users as well.
There is value in specialization and trying to be all things to all people can backfire. International organizations are letting their Chinese branches be run by people over there etc.
Facebook (for example) is at risk in trying to be a single unified presence, while “Murdock Inc.” has a dozen(?) properties that don’t even talk to each other.
I think the solution is somewhere in-between.
Posted by Mac Beach at September 3rd, 2009 at 1:09 pm