Teens Just Don’t Blog or Tweet [STATS]

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A new study published today by Pew Internet finds that teens and young adults are blogging less and using social networking sites more, with the prominent exception of Twitter.

Pew’s Report surveyed 2,253 American adults and 800 U.S. teens to get a reading of how they use the internet, which gadgets they own, and which social media tools they use the most.

Some of the data will surprise you.


The Internet’s Everywhere


Here’s a no-brainer: young adults use the web far more than older adults. In its study, Pew found that 93% of teens and young adults go online, compared to only 38% of adults over 65 years of age. It surprises us that 7% of 12-29 year olds still don’t browse the web, but some just don’t have or can afford access.


Among those teens going online, 63% say they go online at least once a day, with older teens more likely to go online than younger teens.

Most are connecting with high-speed connections as well. 76% of families with teenage children have broadband connections, while 10% still use dial-up, 8% have no computer, and 4% have a computer but no Internet access. For comparison, 49% of families used dial-up in 2004.

The Internet’s getting faster and more accessible. As computer prices drop and Internet access becomes more readily available, we should see these Internet usage numbers continue to rise.


The Laptop Is More Popular than the Desktop


In terms of gadgets, more teenagers have cell phones (76%) than a computer (69%). More than half of 12 year olds own a mobile phone, while a rather impressive 83% of teenagers carry a cell phone in their pockets. That number only rises with age — a full 93% of 18-29 year olds own a cell phone.

The mobile trend even continues into the computing realm: laptops have overtaken the desktop for those under 30. 66% of adults 18-29 own a laptop, while 53% own a desktop. Other interesting trends: males are more likely to own a cell phone, income dramatically affects computer ownership but not cell phone ownership, and race is a non-factor when it comes to the percentage of adults using cell phones.



Teens Just Don’t Blog. Or Tweet.


As you might have guessed, Pew found that teens are avid social networkers: 73% of 12-17 year olds, in fact. They are posting pictures, commenting on status updates, and sending IMs.

What they aren’t doing much of, though, is blogging and tweeting.

Pew’s study finds that blogging has dramatically decreased in popularity with the younger crowed since 2006, where 28% of teens reported that they were bloggers. Now that number has dropped to just 14%. Interestingly enough, lower income households (under $50,000) report more blogging than higher income ones. With Facebook, Twitter, and other social tools to keep your friends updated about your life, blogging just isn’t as necessary.

Perhaps we shouldn’t include Twitter in that list of social media tools teens use, though. As we’ve reported on multiple occasions, teens don’t tweet, and Pew’s numbers don’t disagree with that assertion:


Yes, only 8% of teens use Twitter, remarkably small when compared to most social networks. Only one in ten high schoolers use Twitter. Among this small group though, the girls are more likely to be microblogging: 13% of 14-17 year old girls reported using the service.


Conclusions: Teens Aren’t Heavy Content Creators


First, it’s important to note that most of this data was taken from September 2009. A lot changes in social media in a five month period.

With that said though, the trends seem clear: teens love to be online, but they’re not terribly interested in writing blog posts or maintaining a stream of tweets. Creating content takes time and energy that they’d rather exert on Facebook, texting, YouTube, or other online activities. And of course, they have school and friends.

Let’s face it: teenagers haven’t had the time to build up expertise, life experiences, or a career that would merit content creation. Without that expertise, less people are inclined to listen to what they have to say, and without that knowledge, teenagers have less to talk about.

As my colleague Barb Dybwad also brings up, a teenager’s social circle is far smaller and more closely defined than an adult’s network. Perhaps this is why more closed networks like Facebook are more appealing to teenagers than Twitter, which is a completely public experience. Blogging was a more intimate experience a few years back, which could also explain why more teens have abandoned personal blogs over the last few years.

Combined, it means that Twitter just might not be for the average teenager. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Tags: blogging, internet, Pew, stats, study, teens, twitter

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Het nieuwe studeren: colleges volgen op je iPhone

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iTunes U op de iPhone / iPodMet ruim 200.000 colleges, presentaties, video’s en podcasts is iTunes U een van de grootste en snelst groeiende bronnen van gratis educatieve content. Tal van internationaal gerenommeerde universiteiten zoals Stanford University, Harvard en Oxford University, UC Berkeley en MIT maken er al gebruik van. En sinds 2 februari bieden ook de Technische Universiteit Delft en de Open Universiteit, als eerste in Nederland, lesmateriaal aan via iTunes U. Lees meer

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Is de app het nieuwe businessmodel voor media?

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Vanavond wordt hoogstwaarschijnlijk de nieuwe tablet van Apple gepresenteerd. En als we TechCrunch mogen geloven wordt het een soort extended iPhone.

Met de komst van de apps op de iPhone is er ook een nieuw businessmodel ontstaan voor content. Kenmerkend is:
- apps combineren software (functionaliteit) en content (inhoud/entertainment) en voegen daardoor waarde toe
- apps zijn alleen bruikbaar op een specifiek apparaat
- apps zijn niet makkelijk deelbaar of kopieerbaar
- winkel altijd bij de hand voor nieuwe aankopen
- er is een laagdrempelig afrekenmodel voor kleine aankopen (‘in app’), voor bijvoorbeeld een nieuwe editie van een krant
- iedere partij kan zelf apps bedenken en toevoegen

Als de tablet nog meer beleving (lees: schermgrootte) gaat toevoegen aan de apps, dan is de weg vrij voor uitgevers en omroepen om nieuwe inkomstenstromen aan te boren gebaseerd op een massa aan kleine bedragen.

Interessant om te zien is dat de New York Times een aparte divisie Reader Applications heeft opgericht die zich alleen maar gaat bezighouden met dit soort apparaten.

Ze beseffen als geen ander dat je in de strijd om de gunst van de consument in het digitale medialandschap alleen overleeft met topcontent plus topfunctionaliteit plus topdesign.

Developers en interface designers krijgen dus een steeds grotere rol in mediabedrijven. Dat was overigens ook de verbindende factor in de presentaties van Erik Huggers (BBC), Matt Thompson (Reynolds Institute) en Chris Thorpe (The Guardian) op ons event van 10 december jl.

Bereik
Een ander interessant aspect is bereik. De tablet zal niet vergelijkbaar zijn met de iPhone, die een doorslaand succes is. Iedereen heeft een telefoon nodig, dus in de keuze voor een iPhone speelt altijd mee dat er toch gekozen moet worden voor een nieuwe telefoon. En waarom dan niet zo’n coole iPhone.

Die noodzaak is er (nog) niet in de aanschaf van een tablet. Waarom zou je? Nog een apparaat erbij. Het zal dus nog wel even duren voordat er massabereik is.

Aan de andere kant heeft Apple met de iPod al bewezen een compleet nieuwe productcategorie tegen hoge prijzen in de markt te kunnen zetten, dus waarom niet met een tablet. Ook het succes van de Kindle bewijst dat er een behoefte is.

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The Price of Ebooks for the Apple Tablet: $12.99 or $14.99 [Rumor]

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/XgbFYDh6lsM/the-price-of-ebooks-for-the-apple-tablet-1299-or-1499

Book publishers' last-minute negotiations with Apple revealed by the WSJ: Apple is pushing for bestsellers to cost $12.99 or $14.99—and some books $9.99—with Apple taking a 30 percent cut, like iPhone apps. Publishers set the ultimate price, though.

Despite the higher price to customers, selling books through Apple could actually make less money per book for publishers than through Amazon, who sells a number of bestsellers for $10 by taking a loss (paying the publisher, say, $15). Amazon's latest scheme does look more like Apple's, where publishers want 70 percent of the revenue, but book prices are capped at $10. And it's the $10 pricepoint that's the problem for publishers, both philosophically and practically: They want people to believe books are worth more than $9.99, and they want to set the prices themselves.

On a smaller note, the WSJ says that HarperCollins is trying to wedge its way into the starting up lineup tomorrow (though don't expect to be blown away by what they show). McGraw-Hill, who was pretty gabby about the tablet earlier today, won't be showing anything. And, like we and others, notably Peter Kafka, have said, the WSJ says most publishers are in fact still in the dark about most of the tablet's details, from development to pricing to distribution.

Amazon vs. Apple. Should be a fun show to watch, though if it goes like music, we already know who's going to win. I wonder if the publishing industry should be quite so keen on that. [WSJ]

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NYTimes creates an “E-Reader Division”. Interesting Timing. s tablet?

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NYTimes creates an E Reader Division. Interesting Timing.The New York Times clearly knows something we don’t and is expecting big changes ahead.

The news organisation is creating a new department titled e-Reader Division lead by a Yasmin Yamini as general manager.

The internal memo announcing the appointment and new division was posted by Wag de la Valley via 9 to 5 Mac.

One of the most intriguing parts of the memo, “expected growth support a change to view them collectively as a profit generating business.”

Interesting time to announce it. Full memo below.

NYTimes creates an E Reader Division. Interesting Timing.

NYTimes creates an E Reader Division. Interesting Timing.

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MusicDNA Wants to Compete With Apple's iTunes LP Format - But Will Anybody Care?

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musicdna_logo_jan09.jpgFor the most part, digital music has killed the liner notes that used to come with CDs. Now, MusicDNA, a new file format that looks a lot like Apple's iTunes LP format, wants to bring liner notes to the 21st century. MusicDNA is a new rich-media extension for digital music files that enriches songs and albums with additional data like lyrics, videos, RSS and Twitter feeds, as well as up to 14 additional pieces of metadata like mood and tempo. Artists and record labels will be able to ship up to 32GB of data with these files.

Sponsor

MusicDNA is the creation of Dagfinn Bach's Bach Technologies. Bach worked on building one of the first MP3 players in 1993. One of the most prominent backers of MusicDNA is Karlheinz Brandenburg, one of the co-inventors of the MP3 format. The company plans to ship its software in the spring.

Just a Wrapper

music_dna_screenshot.jpgIt's important to note that MusicDNA doesn't propose a new format for encoding the music itself. Instead, MusicDNA is simply an XML-wrapper for music files. In theory, this should make it easier for music labels and artists to adopt this new format as the actual music file will be compatible with virtually every MP3 player on the market. These devices will just play the MP3 track and ignore the rest of the data. To get access to the additional information, though, you currently have to use MusicDNA's own player. The company plans to release plugins for iTunes and Windows Media Player later this year.

Is MusicDNA Doomed?

We have to wonder, though, if anybody is really interested in yet another proprietary file format for distributing music. While the iTunesLP format hasn't exactly caught fire yet (though the mythical Apple tablet could change that), Apple isn't likely to license this technology from Bach. It's also important to note that Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI have developed their own file format for bundling music files with additional content.

At this point, it seems rather unlikely that MusicDNA will be a major success. While the developers claim to have 10 partners on board for the launch, none of these are major labels. Unless MusicDNA can get the major labels to give up their own format and to drop support for iTunes and the iTunesLP format, this venture isn't very likely to succeed.

Discuss

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Google Voice Finally Comes To The iPhone (AAPL, GOOG)

How Many Is Too Many Twitter Followers? [Social Networking]

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It's not really a problem for me, with my single-digit Twitter following, but anecdotal evidence shows that once a social networking community gets too big, the back-and-forth that created it evaporates. What I'm saying is, Ashton Kutcher is very lonely.

A Wired editorial defends the idea of online obscurity, that those smaller groups and their casual sense of community have something that should be admired and retained. Once a group gets too big, members fade into the background, not wanting to speak in front of such a large audience, and in the case of Twitter, the person being followed becomes larger than life. It's an interesting idea—should we be more vigilant in protecting the small groups of which we're a part? [Wired]

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