Digital Lifescapes

I'm attending the Digital Shoreditch Festival, later this month when I visit London, England (my home town). One of the storyline topics that I'll be researching is how the savvy local digital media talent will be capitalizing on the upcoming London 2012 Summer Olympics event coverage. According to the latest assessment by eMarketer, in 2012 the total advertising spending growth within the UK will outpace the rest of Europe and the U.S. market for one reason: the highly anticipated global media buzz that will surround the London Olympics. In February, Strategy Analytics forecast that total ad spending in the UK will increase by 4.2 percent, compared to 3.7 percent in Europe overall and 2.7 percent in the U.S. marketplace. The boost from the Summer Olympics will push the UK closer to the worldwide average of 4.9 percent, which is buoyed by fast growth in emerging markets like China, Brazil and India. By comparison, eMarketer estimates that UK total advertising spendin...

The upcoming London 2012 Summer Olympics is being billed as the most connected sporting event the world has ever seen. The United Kingdom has one of the world's most developed digital ecosystems -- the ICT, software and digital content sectors are estimated to be worth £100 billion combined. According to the latest market study by eMarketer , the UK is considered a leading Digital Nation -- measured by the percentage of the British population that accesses the internet regularly, and the amount of time spent online by those internet users. A near-ubiquitous, multi-layered web infrastructure drives increased adoption. Internet usage is expanding to all demographic segments and it's being accessed via a wider variety of wired and wireless digital devices. "For the three-quarters of the UK population who are web users, the internet is everywhere," said Karin von Abrams, eMarketer senior analyst. "British consumers are accustomed to managing several web-ena...

Preparations for the London 2012 Olympics includes plans for broadband infrastructure upgrades across the UK. Coverage of the sporting events will create a multitude of digital media content, but the ultimate legacy will be a platform for long-term socioeconomic development within the nation. Point Topic predicts there will be over 10.5 million superfast broadband lines in Britain within the next five years. With another 4.6 million cable broadband connections this means that almost 60 percent of broadband customers -- and more than half of all homes and businesses -- will be using superfast speeds of 30 megabits or more by the end of 2016. "It's still a risky and controversial forecast," says Tim Johnson, Chief Analyst at Point Topic. "It is always difficult to predict something which is expected to grow so fast. If the forecast is correct, the number of superfast lines will grow 50 times over between mid-2011 and the end of 2016." But there's unce...