Blog Reading doubles in 12 months, RSS triples & Social Networking up 50%
Ten percent of consumers read blogs once a week or more, said Forrester Research at the opening of its annual Consumer Forum. That’s double the 5 percent who browsed blogs in 2004.
Real Simple Syndication (RSS) use tripled in the same period, from 2 percent in 2004 to 6 percent this year, while use of social network sites such as Friendster.com and MySpace.com increased from 4 percent last year to 6 percent in 2005.
"Technology has given consumers an option to tune businesses out, and tune each other in," said Forrester research director Chris Charron in a statement. "On the flip side, technology has given businesses an opportunity to gain greater customer insights at a lower cost."
From InformationWeek
GALLUP NEWS SERVICE September 27, 2005
Full article here
(Only) Half of Americans say they trust the mass media when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly, according to Gallup’s annual Governance survey. Trust and 
confidence in the news media is up significantly since last year, but it is still slightly lower than what Gallup has found in recent years.
When Gallup first asked this question in 1972, trust and confidence in the mass media was much higher than it is today, with 68% Americans expressing confidence in 1972; the high point on this measure came in 1976, when 72% of respondents said they had a great deal or fair amount of trust and confidence in the media
My comment.
Mass media conferred absolute power to the few who had the financial (brand) and political clout to manipulate it.
Since absolute power corrupts absolutely, mass media became seen as corrupted. Mass media promulgated brand messages are longer believed, and expert commentators found, one after the other, to be paid by one lobby group or other. The truth is now being outed by consumer generated media (iPod battery life, Kryptonite locks etc)
No wonder people dont believe the ads any more!
Sorry for the gap …. 9 month old baby having a bad time with teething! Download dad_trying_to_sooth_ethans_gums.jpg
But did find this article, ( thanks to Ian at Frontiering) which has some great factoids to support their explanation of the success of word of mouth
Such as
- Consumer in control – 44% of people online in the US, create content eg blogs, discussion boards, post reviews
- Growing Distrust of Advertising Messages – 88% of people will trust a recommendation from a friend, but only 56% trusted news organisations, 47% television and a tiny 27% trust “experts”. Only 8% trust celeb endorsements as an indication of any positive quality.
- Customers are defending themselves against marketers – 87 million have signed up on the do-not-call register (in some states it is up to 60% of the working population) and use of spam filters is extremely high.
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism’s 11th Annual Survey of the Media has just been released Download RebuildingTrust.pdf
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51% of journalists use blogs regularly
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28% of them relying on them for day–to-day reporting
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but only 1% believing they are credible
The report describes the love-hate relationship that journalists have with blogs, often depending on them to give them the heads up on breaking stories.
Of course, they also have to then compete with the "Citizen Reporter" blogs that are often better placed to comment on stories that they are.
- 49% of journalists have lost trust in corporations over the last year
- 49% have not changed their level of trust
Leaving only 2% feeling that coroporations are more trustworthy
Pretty sad reading really, they dont trust eachother, they dont trust corporations and they now have to depend on a media (blogs) they compete with as blogs are often the best source of information.
I opened my copy of the Economist enewsletter this morning and scanned the headlines before going to get breakfast
- Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines filed for bankruptcy
- Ford has to sell Hertz
- EBay confirmed that it was buying Skype
As always, each interesting in their own right
It was not till I was about to close the email to read it later that I realised a pattern …mabe the thought game I posted about before, is actually coming true sooner that I had thought.
Delta and Northwest – both spend heavily on traditional advertising, but get negative word of mouth because they provide a poor experience, and are being put out of business by Southwest who spend a lot less on advertising, but get positive word of mouth.
Ford has always spent heavily on traditional advertising but has (overall) not enjoyed a positive reputation (read word of mouth driven perception) against the Japanese manufacturers.
Ebay spends over US$2 Billion to buy Skype, a tiny Luxembourg based business that has never spend a dollar on traditional advertising, but has a product that is so interesting that its users recommend it to each other – to the tune of 60m users in 2 years at last count.
Surely the writing is starting at appear written pretty large on the wall …..all the marketing in the world will not keep you afloat if you have a product that is only adequate.
So in the Advising Vs Word of mouth debate, I think this delivers a knock down punch – here is proof that
- word of mouth can overpower huge traditional advertising budgets
- word of mouth will deliver huge value ($2b in a few years) and traditional advertising is not required.
