Sympatico/MSN held its annual Digital Ad summit last week, attended by a crowd of marketers, agency types and media. Presenter Jeffrey Cole, director of the L.A.-based Center for the Digital Future, shared key trends gleaned from the research field, specifically from a year-over-year study entitled The Digital Future Project. The Project explores the influence of the Web on Americans and in this year’s study, Cole found that for the first time in its history, kids are watching less TV because of the Net.
Cole also notes that now that the Net has been around for a number of years, he is seeing some pushback from the more advanced Web user. ‘They are saying ‘enough already.’ They don’t want it to rule their lives,’ said Cole. Also observed is the diminished difference between new Web users versus the more advanced set. Five years ago, those new to the Net played video games and participated in chat rooms. Old users read news sites and traded stocks. Now, both old and new users share the same behaviour, buying online almost immediately. ‘This is most apparent in countries with a high broadband penetration,’ said Cole. ‘Including the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Canada and the U.K.’
He identified these major trends:
Trend: Where content used to be created by the few for the many, content is now created by the many for the many.
Content is now created by the user; keeping blogs, displaying photos, and maintaining their own site. People younger than 18 want to create their own content, he said. ‘I want my 15 megabytes of fame, and not my 15 minutes of fame. People think they can affect change online.’ Cole also notes that 45.1% of respondents cite social networking sites as ‘very important. But when companies and the government touch the world of social communities, the audience tends to leave.’
Trend: The Net has affected Media use.
The Net has caused major declines in the print newspaper industry and Cole predicts that many newspapers will disappear. ‘For any print reader that dies, that reader is not replaced by another,’ he warns. News magazines such as Time and Maclean’s are on the wane as folks can get this info online, according to Cole. He predicts, however, that prestige titles such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and GQ will thrive off-line forever as ‘the experience offline is different than the online one. Plus, people like the ads in them.’ The only media unaffected by the net? Books. Both non-users and users of the Net read at the same rate.
Trend: Internet entertainment is going mobile.
‘There are two ways of growth,’ said Cole. ‘The rise in small screens on the go, and the rise in big screens in the home.’ Cole says the reason why small screens work is because people want the net everywhere. Cole predicts that Net user levels will reach TV user levels – ‘not as soon as 2010, but more like 2030,’ he said.
