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In a previous lifetime (before the Internet) I worked for a traditional media company. We developed books, videos (VHS) and a variety of periodicals. While I was lucky enough to see the writing on the wall and move into the "eMedia" stream, I still try to keep up with traditional media trends.
Yesterday, a friend emailed me the following information compiled by a site called Kenradio, which tracks the growth of the consumer electronics market. Not that anyone should be shocked, but it is startling to see the pervasive growth of "New Media".
The same mailer provided an interesting collection of "New Media Statistics":
$159 bln will be spent on digital home devices in 2006
$667 bln spent on mobile services by year-end 2006
$865 mln of Internet ad money to go to social networks in 2007
1.1 bln mobile phones to sell in 2007
100 mln Internet-based TV subscribers by 2010
11% of mobile phones can display video
13% of current peer-to-peer downloaders would pay $20 per movie
13-14% of TV time for men and women 18-49 is out of home
2.3% of online ad spending in 2006 to go towards video ads
2.73 TVs, 2.55 people in average US households
30% of mobile video users watch mobile TV
49% of moviegoers research the movie on the Internet before going
55% of social network visitors view streaming videos
81% of consumers unsure of the right high-def DVD format
81.2% of US households have DVD players, 79.2% - VCR machines
Online movie download market: iTunes - 67%, MovieFlix - 19%, CinemaNow - 9%
Top Christmas gifts this year: digital cameras, cell phones, MP3 players
Video ads market shares: Yahoo! - 24%, TimeWarner - 14%, Microsoft - 11.4%, Viacom - 8.5%
Viewed TV ads to decline by 23%
These numbers are not small trends, they signal that a major shift has already taken place. Electronics, video-on-demand, mobile communication are all an accepted, normal part of life. Not just that, they are pervasive. For me, I'm on my home computer (after work) 2-3 hours, I order movies from NetFlix (no more video store), I watch videos on YouTube for entertainment, and I haven't touched a newspaper in six months, but read more news than ever before...But very little of this has to do with "work".
So how does this carry over into the workplace? Not as much as you would think...
With the trends above, the familiarity that the normal worker has with technology, and all the talk of Web 2.0 and people based media; you would think that there would be more advancement. I throw this question out to the CR4 community, because as technical professionals, we should be pacing this change.
Why is the technical market so slow to adopt Web 2.0 practices? How can this expansion of technology use be refocused to improve the technical market and the workplace?
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Users who posted comments:
Dr.Sreenath (1), Mevel123 (1), six bits (1), Yuval (1)