USC Annenberg’s Center for the Digital Future Study Outlines Media Habits Likely to Affect your Online Publishing Strategy
Earlier this week in NYC, I heard Dr. Jeffery Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, present to a big publishing company his research titled “Surveying the Digital Future”, a long-term longitudinal study on the impact of computers, the Internet and related technologies on families and society.
In his study, he outlines the media behaviors of 12-24 year-olds vs. 25-54 year-olds. I thought I’d share this with you, as it should impact the way you view and plan your online publishing strategy.
Life of a 12-24
- Will never read a newspaper but attracted to some magazines
- Will never own a land-line phone
- Will not watch television on someone else’s schedule much longer
- Trust unknown peers more than experts
- For first time willing (2005) to pay for digital content – never before
- Little interest in the source of information and most information aggregated
- Community at the center of Internet experience
- Everything will move to mobile
- Less interested in television than any generation before
- Want to move content freely from platform to platform with no restrictions
- Want to be heard (user generated)
- Use IM. Think email is for their parents
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Life of a 25-54
- Read offline newspapers and magazines
- Like mobile for voice (and a few for data) but do not see their world on mobile phones
- Aggregate information online and use RSS (though few know the term)
- Community important for tasks, much less so for social – will stay put
- Trust experts on factual information but rely heavily on reviews of peers on hotels, electronics, etc
- When they create content it is to share reviews and experiences (not diaries or intimacies)
- Rely heavy on personalized portals for news and financials
- Care GREATLY about sources of news and information online
- Heavy into email
These results are just part of “Surveying the Digital Future” project’s sixth year analysis. This year’s report is now available and contains a large module looking at online communities and social networking in great detail. Readers can compare the social networking data and correlate it to six years of attitudes and behaviors online.
The highlights of the report are available here:
http://www.digitalcenter.org/pdf/2007-Digital-Future-Report-Press-Release-112906.pdf
The full report is available for purchase at:
http://store.digitalcenter.org
