Digital Lifescapes

It seems that senior executives at big media companies are still not quite sure if Facebook and Twitter are friend or foe -- relative to their legacy advertising-centric business models. Granted, the realm of online media used to be more predictable when there wasn't much innovation and all the big players could anticipate their collective lack of creativity. But it was just a matter of time before someone would come along and disrupt their quiescence. According to the latest market assessment by eMarketer, Facebook and Twitter have taken evolutionary steps to become publishing platforms for news -- not just text, also video, photos and entertainment content. "Users are learning that the more they share, the more they discover," said Paul Verna, senior analyst at eMarketer . "And the more they discover, the more likely they are to turn first to Facebook for content they used to get elsewhere." Since late 2011, Facebook has been gradually rolling out i...

ComScore released the results of a recent global market study in a report entitled "Top 10 Need-to-Knows About Social Networking and Where It’s Headed." The goal of this report is to frame the current state of social networks through the lens of how users around the world have grown to use them over time. This report addresses questions such as: How extensive is consumer usage of social networking and how does it vary by country? What is the current rate of social networking adoption in different parts of the world? Which sites are driving this adoption in different markets? How are these consumer usage dynamics changing over time? Where do these trends appear to be headed in the future? The report includes a summary of the current state of social networking activity -- as measured via passively observed digital consumer behavior -- providing background research and analysis on this topic. The top ten insights are: Social networking is the most popular online activ...

ABI Research has been studying how mobile device usage is influencing the ways in which consumers access and interact with social networking services. The results of their latest market study provide insights that will help marketers understand the implications of several closely related trends -- both near-term and long-term. Social networking may soon become a predominantly mobile activity -- that trend could directly impact the current business models and ultimately effect numerous key players within the leading platform ecosystems. The number of people accessing social networks from mobile phones will exceed 550 million in 2011, and that figure will more than triple to over 1.7 billion by the end of 2016. That means over two-thirds of the global user base of social networks will use smartphones and other mobile handsets to access these services. For Facebook, the growing importance of mobile is both an opportunity and a serious strategic challenge. On one hand, m...

When most industry analysts profile digital marketing and online advertising in North America, the focus is typically on the U.S. market. That said, Canada has a relatively high internet access penetration and growing social network usage rates. According to a recent eMarketer report, Canadian social network users view social media as their online home -- a hub for communication, entertainment and information. "Canadians readily adopt social network activities, often at rates higher than users in the U.S., but gaining the trust of users on a social network is a brand manager's biggest obstacle," said Mike Froggatt, eMarketer research analyst. In 2010, eMarketer estimates that about 15.1 million internet users in Canada will have visited social networking sites at least monthly -- up from 13.6 million in 2009. Penetration will rise from 59 percent of the internet audience this year to 68 percent by 2014 -- when 18.4 million people in Canada will be socializing on...