by Amanda Lenhart, Kristen Purcell, Aaron Smith and Kathryn Zickuhr, Pew Internet & American Life Project

Summary of Findings

Since 2006, blogging has fallen among teens and young adults while simultaneously rising among older adults. As the tools and technology embedded in social networking websites change, and use of the sites continues to grow, youth may be exchanging ‘macro-blogging’ for micro-blogging with status updates.

Blogging has declined in popularity among both teens and young adults since 2006. Blog commenting has also fallen among teens.

* 14% of online teens now say they blog, down from 28% of teen internet users in 2006.
* This decline is also reflected in the lower incidence of teen commenting on blogs within social networking websites; 52% of teen social network users report commenting on friends’ blogs, down from the 76% who did so in 2006.
* By comparison, the prevalence of blogging within the overall adult internet population has remained steady in recent years. Pew Internet Project surveys since 2005 have consistently found that roughly one-in-ten online adults maintain a personal online journal or blog.

While blogging among adults as a whole has remained steady, the prevalence of blogging within specific age groups has changed dramatically in recent years. Specifically, a sharp decline in blogging by young adults has been tempered by a corresponding increase in blogging among older adults.

* In December 2007, 24% of online 18-29-year-olds reported blogging, compared with 7% of those ages 30 and older.
* By 2009, just 15% of internet users ages 18-29 maintained a blog — a nine-percentage-point drop in two years. However, 11% of internet users ages 30 and older now maintain a personal blog.

Both teen and adult use of social networking sites has risen significantly, yet there are shifts and some declines in the proportion of teens using several social networking site features.

* 73% of wired American teens now use social networking websites, a significant increase from previous surveys. Just over half of online teens (55%) used social networking sites in November 2006 and 65% did so in February 2008.
* As the teen social networking population has increased, the popularity of some sites’ features has shifted. Compared with activity in February 2008, a smaller proportion of teens in mid-2009 were sending daily messages to friends via social networking sites, or sending bulletins, group messages or private messages on the sites.
* 47% of online adults use social networking sites, up from 37% in November 2008.
* Young adults act much like teens in their tendency to use these sites. Fully 72% of online 18-29-year-olds use social networking websites, nearly identical to the rate among teens, and significantly higher than the 40% of internet users ages 30 and older who use these sites.
* Adults are increasingly fragmenting their social networking experience as a majority of those who use social networking sites (52%) say they have two or more different profiles. That is up from 42% who had multiple profiles in May 2008.
* Facebook is currently the most commonly used online social network among adults. Among adult profile owners, 73% have a profile on Facebook, 48% have a profile on MySpace and 14% have a LinkedIn profile.1
* The specific sites on which young adults maintain their profiles are different from those used by older adults: Young profile owners are much more likely to maintain a profile on MySpace (66% of young profile owners do so, compared with just 36% of those ages 30 and older) but less likely to have a profile on the professionally-oriented LinkedIn (7% vs. 19%). In contrast, adult profile owners under 30 and those 30 and older are equally likely to maintain a profile on Facebook (71% of young profile owners do so, compared with 75% of older profile owners).

Teens are not using Twitter in large numbers. While teens are bigger users of almost all other online applications, Twitter is an exception.

* 8% of internet users ages 12-17 use Twitter.2 This makes Twitter as common among teens as visiting a virtual world, and far less common than sending or receiving text messages — as 66% of teens do — or going online for news and political information, done by 62% of online teens.
* Older teens are more likely to use Twitter than their younger counterparts; 10% of online teens ages 14-17 do so, compared with 5% of those ages 12-13.
* High-school-age girls are particularly likely to use Twitter. 13% of online girls ages 14-17 use Twitter, compared with 7% of boys that age.
* Using different wording, we find that 19% of adult internet users use Twitter or similar services to post short status updates and view the updates of others online.
* Young adults lead the way when it comes to using Twitter or status updating. One-third of online 18-29 year-olds post or read status updates.

Wireless internet use rates are especially high among young adults, and the laptop has replaced the desktop as the computer of choice among those under age 30.

* 81% of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 are wireless internet users. By comparison, 63% of 30-49 year-olds and 34% of those ages 50 and older access the internet wirelessly.
* Roughly half of 18-29 year-olds have accessed the internet wirelessly on a laptop (55%) or on a cell phone (55%), and about one quarter of 18-29 year-olds (28%) have accessed the internet wirelessly on another device such as an e-book reader or gaming device.
* The impact of the mobile web can be seen in young adults’ computer choices. Two-thirds of 18-29 year-olds (66%) own a laptop or netbook, while 53% own a desktop computer. Young adults are the only age cohort for which laptop computers are more popular than desktops.
* African Americans adults are the most active users of the mobile web, and their use is growing at a faster pace than mobile internet use among white or Hispanic adults.

Cell phone ownership is nearly ubiquitous among teens and young adults, and much of the growth in teen cell-phone ownership has been driven by adoption among the youngest teens.

* Three-quarters (75%) of teens and 93% of adults ages 18-29 now have a cell phone.
* In the past five years, cell phone ownership has become mainstream among even the youngest teens. Fully 58% of 12-year-olds now own a cell phone, up from just 18% of such teens as recently as 2004.

Internet use is near ubiquitous among teens and young adults. In the last decade, the young adult internet population has remained the most likely to go online.

* 93% of teens ages 12-17 go online, as do 93% of young adults ages 18-29. One quarter (74%) of all adults ages 18 and older go online.
* Over the past 10 years, teens and young adults have been consistently the two groups most likely to go online, even as the internet population has grown and even with documented larger increases in certain age cohorts (e.g. adults 65 and older).

Our survey of teens also tracked some core internet activities by those ages 12-17 and found:

* 62% of online teens get news about current events and politics online.
* 48% of wired teens have bought things online like books, clothing or music, up from 31% who had done so in 2000 when we first asked about this.
* 31% of online teens get health, dieting or physical fitness information from the internet. And 17% of online teens report they use the internet to gather information about health topics that are hard to discuss with others such as drug use and sexual health topics.

Read the full report at pewinternet.org.

via [Pew Research Center]

It’s a trend too important for the marketing department alone.

When Sony Electronics’ Drew Martin speaks at this week’s Forrester Research IT Forum event in Las Vegas, he’ll be talking about his department’s work on establishing a “social media platform” as an example of how information technologists can promote innovation within their companies.

Of course, defining a social media platform is not much like defining an enterprise technology platform. The latter usually consists of a set of concrete specifications for specific items like databases and software. A social media platform, by contrast, is more nebulous. Most elements of such a platform are run by independent online media companies whose technology and business plans are in flux and which are outside a chief information officer’s control.

But Martin, who is senior vice president and CIO for Sony ( SNE – news – people ) Electronics in the U.S., says he is helping educate others in his company about social media trends and teaching them new styles of collaboration inside Sony. The work, he says, is an example of how IT can go beyond delivering basic computing services to make a broader contribution to a company.

Martin says social networking at Sony is catching on. It is beginning to influence product development through products like the Dash, a wireless digital photo frame that contains a Linux-powered Web browser. The IT organization influenced those developments, even though it doesn’t oversee them directly, Martin says. He talked with Forbes recently about that role.

Forbes: You’re a CIO, but you are talking about social media. At most large companies isn’t social media more of a concern of the marketing department as opposed to IT?

Drew Martin: I’d want to disabuse you of that notion, that it’s purely a marketing concern. Social networking is going to have very broad implications. Obviously, marketing is one. Actually, it was Forrester that alerted us to the idea that you need to change how you think about marketing and not just think you can have one website that you expect everyone to come to, where you one-way communicate about your product and your brand. You need to create forums that allow for two-way communication. We’ve addressed that by putting ratings and reviews on Sony Style, for example.

Another area where this has broad implications is with our employees. The next generation coming into the workforce has another way of collaborating–on social networks. So we’ve had to figure out how do we create an internal Facebook or MySpace. Because that’s just the way the next generation operates–they don’t just do e-mail.

We also understood that social networking would influence our product development–many of our products would become social networking devices. That would include any of our connected products, like cameras that can upload to the photo-sharing sites.

What’s IT’s contribution beyond promoting the concept of social networking?

Well, my talk is a little less about social networking per se and more about IT being an enabler of innovation within the company. But we are very proud that the IT department was involved early on in spotting the trend.

What other examples of innovation would you point to?

The only other one I would talk about, which is related, is creating internal social media sites to identify innovation within the company. We ask for employee ideas and hold contests for product development and R&D. Employees can then vote on each other’s ideas and improve upon them. This is a way for us to tap into the power of innovation from all of our employees, not just the ones in R&D.

Is that a custom application, or were you able to find commercial software for that purpose?

It’s a combination. I would always stop short of implicitly or explicitly recommending products, but we were able to find a third-party, cloud-based product from a company that specializes in gathering ideas from employees and letting the employees vote on them. For speed to market purposes, I would always rather find a product that’s existing than reinvent the wheel.

How does this sort of work compare with heavy-duty IT tasks like upgrading enterprise systems?

That’s actually one of the main things I want to talk about. There are certain things IT departments have to do that are in the utility category–such as providing low-cost, secure and reliable infrastructure. That’s where we spend the majority of our budgets and the majority of our time. Secondly, we need to be a responsive partner when people within the business have requests for some new feature or application.

But then we need to have some thought leadership around innovation and technology. Some IT departments get so caught up in the utility aspect that they don’t have the time or the budget or the credibility to have the innovation conversation.

David F. Carr is an information technology columnist for Forbes. Contact him at david@carrcommunications.com.

via [Forbes.com]

A shocking 21% of young adults said they would turn down a job if it didn’t allow them to access social network sites or their personal email during work hours, according to a new global survey of workplace attitudes and behaviors by Clearswift, a software security company. This is part of a larger phenomenon which is blurring the lines between individuals’ private and professional lives, Clearswift found in its survey of 1,600 managers and employees in USA, UK, Germany and Australia, performed in January and February.

As noted, the trend is especially pronounced among younger adults. Among employees ages 25-34, Clearswift found that 57% do personal tasks like checking social networks, emailing, and online shopping while in the workplace. On the other hand, 66% of all employees (of all ages) say they stay later or work through lunch to make up for the time they spend on personal Internet use.

Interestingly, men are more likely than women to do personal tasks in the workplace. 48% of men said they log into social network sites at work compared to 36% of women; 69% of men check email, versus 54% of women; and 34% of men shop online, versus 20% of women.

Generally employees and managers seem to be on the same page about personal activity in the workplace, although there is some understandable discrepancy: 62% of employees think they should be able to log into social networks or access personal email from work, versus 51% of managers. Despite the difference, managers would do well to leave the subject alone for the sake of harmony in the workplace, as 79% of employees said their most important professional demand — above role, title, and pay — is being trusted to manage their won time and use the Internet as they see fit.

via [Mediapost.com]

Marketers should take pause before embracing Facebook’s ”Like” button.

With Facebook approaching 500 million users worldwide, a virtual battle of giants is brewing between Facebook and Google–a battle over users, and more important, over data. Facebook’s revenue is still dwarfed by Google’s, but it appears Facebook is slowly gaining the upper hand in terms of valuable user data.

Thanks to recent developments, the site might collect user information that no other company, even Google ( GOOG – news – people ), has been able to collect so far. As part of its quest for better targeting data, Facebook realized it had to spread out and escape the social channel–and it seems the Open Graph will put Facebook Connect to shame.

Here’s a snapshot of the different approaches the two rivals are taking (granted, Google has been trying to crack the social graph, but with limited success thus far):

Facebook’s expanding universe poses a true dilemma for marketers and publishers, and the cost/benefit equation should be carefully examined. On the one hand, since any “Like” on a site then appears on a user’s feed, the universal “Like” button has the potential of sending more traffic back to the original site, giving publishers an incentive to put (more) Facebook buttons on their pages.

Traffic might further increase thanks to the fact that Web users can now signify their preference for a brand by “Liking” the page that represents it on Yelp, for example, not just on the official brand page.

Furthermore, as users get a more personalized experience thanks to the social media giant’s social plug-ins, satisfaction levels should rise, resulting in more time spent on sites and possibly more visits (again, more traffic). All of this points to more site engagement for marketers, and advertising revenue potential for publishers.

But implementing Facebook’s plug-ins comes with a price. Technically the sites are giving Facebook data from their own real estate (to use Facebook’s words), and cannot see the data in that piece of real estate.

CNN, for example, does not actually see the Facebook plugin activity–this resides in an iframe box that’s on the site for Facebook to populate. CNN doesn’t know who the user is or who his or her friends are–Facebook does. The contextual marketing, the personalization, is done by Facebook, not the site. Users might credit CNN with the improved experience, and that’s great, but that’s just part of the equation.

The question here is one of control: Do you give up control of the social element of your site to Facebook? For sites with no built-in social features, this might be an easy choice–it’s an instant way for them to move into social arenas. But for sites that already rely on their own social features, this is more complicated. The implication is losing actual control over the site’s social elements: Facebook will own all the data.

Marketers and publishers need to look for ways to tap into the rich data that is being accumulated on their own real estate, or else become blind to it (interestingly, it seems that so far publishers aren’t too concerned: 50,000 of them implemented Facebook’s new social plug-ins within a week of the launch).

Marketers should also be cognizant of the personalization/privacy trade-off Facebook’s changes offer for users. For some, the plug-ins might prove extremely useful, for others, plain creepy.

Finally, the new link between likes/interests and pages will result in yet more data entering users’ feed streams. That added data might easily be viewed as spam, rendering the freshly installed “Like” buttons useless.

Recommendations For Marketers
Examine the role of each element in your digital ecosystem. What is now the role of your site? What is the role of distributed content? Now that the two can be so easily connected, should they be connected? What would the connection serve?

Take a hard look at your real estate. Do you have social elements? Are those features strong enough? Should you go your own way, and invest in strengthening them–or do you try to leverage Facebook’s social plug-ins? Remember, this might not be a “make or buy” question, but a “make or sell/give away” one. In light of Facebook’s changes it’s more important than ever to have your own digital assets, in the form of customer relationships and data.

If you take the Facebook route, test and learn. Test the social plug-ins to see which ones work for you–that is, which generate more valuable traffic. Iterate and optimize page placements, sizes and copy. Make sure your users don’t freak out in the process.

Also, if you take the Facebook route, make sure you are privy to the data collected on your real estate. Ownership of user data (and the ability to analyze and manipulate it) is the most important issue here. The data gathered matters both for virtual real estate (traffic and revenues) and for physical brand equity (since data learnings could have implications on physical-world marketing).

If you wish to explore even more, consider the possibility of implementing the deep instant personalization tool. Facebook has not revealed its intentions regarding partner base expansion, but that expansion seems likely.

If you don’t take the Facebook route, you’d better have a social strategy. It should include much more than media strategy, and it should include a vision beyond Facebook (that’s right, being on Facebook does not constitute a social media strategy). Take the time, invest the money and prepare yourself for organizational change.

On second thought, even if you do take the Facebook route, you need a social strategy. In contrast to the recent language change (from Fan to Like), this is much more than an ad copy or fan page vocabulary issue. This is about your social strategy.

Facebook’s slew of changes will transform the web. Marketers should take the time to make sense of the barrage of announcements, and find their place in the new, uber-social Web.

by Jonathan Kish is executive vice president and director of strategy, MRM Worldwide.

via [Forbes.com]

First, take a look at the Trendrr chart on the left. Note that Greyson — Greyson Michael Chance, a 12-year-old Oklahoma boy whose parents blessed him with an awesomely Twitter-ready, SEO-friendly first name — has lately had more Twitter buzz than Jonas Brothers and Lady Gaga. On Monday, a peak of 2,530 tweets name-checked him in one hour (vs. Jonas Bros.’ recent one-hour peak of 902 tweets, and Gaga’s 373). A couple weeks ago, nobody had heard of this kid. I decided to rewind the tape on this rather stunning tale of instant fame:

1. On Wednesday, April 28, Greyson posts a video of himself singing and playing the piano on YouTube: “Me performing ‘Paparazzi’ by Lady Gaga at Edmond’s Sixth Grade Festival.” (Edmond is the Oklahoma town where Greyson attends Cheyenne Middle School.) Various female classmates in the audience, visible behind him, seem bored or amused, while others appear to be smitten.

2. People pass around links to the video. In fact, at 12:53 p.m. on Tuesday, May 11, my editor at Ad Age, Sheila Dougherty, sends me an e-mail with the subject line “Watch your back, Bieber” that contains a link to a post by Jezebel blogger Dodai Stewart titled “Sixth-Grade Boy Captivates Girls By Singing Lady Gaga.” Stewart spotted the video that morning in a post by New York Magazine “Vulture” blogger Edith Zimmerman (“Sixth-Grade Boy Performs Stirring Rendition of Lady Gaga to Rapt Female Classmates”). Zimmerman spotted it earlier that day in an unbylined post at influential Internet meme spreader The Daily Wh.at (“Kickass Kid of the Day”), which spotted a Monday post by blogger Endswell at The High Definite (“The best part of the video is the female crowd visibly transitioning from wondering if this kid is gay to wanting to touch his penis. Also, nice job kid”). Endswell spotted it on social news website Reddit, which is owned by Condé Nast Digital. The video was posted by Reddit user icedev on Monday, May 10, with the headline “Lady Gaga’s ‘Paparazzi’ + 13 year old boy = Awesome” (icedev apparently guessed at Greyson’s age).

3. At 4:05 p.m. on May 11, Ellen DeGeneres tweets “Never been more excited to have someone on my show. This is a 12-year-old 6th grader. He’ll be on Thursdays show.” She provides a link to his YouTube video.

4. In a 4:17 p.m. post that same day titled “Little Lord Gaga: Greyson Michael Chance’s ‘Paparazzi’ Is A Web Sensation,” Yahoo Music blogger Lyndsey Parker spreads the news that this “mega-talented kid” has been booked on “Ellen.” Parker notes that, “As of this writing, the video has gotten more than 36,000 views.”

5. Also on May 11, Reddit user icedev adds a comment to his earlier post: “First Reddit submission about this video = 23 hours ago. First tweet about this video = 20 hours ago. First Digg submission about this video = 14 hours ago. YouTube hits when I submitted = 517 hits. YouTube hits now = 118,541 hits & will be playing on Ellen. Reddit, you just made this guy viral.”

6. On Wedneday, May 12, a snippet of Greyson’s star-turn makes “ABC World News” in a surprisingly lengthy (1:44) — for the evening news — report that marvels over the fact that he was not only the one boy in the school who had the guts to get up and do a solo at the Sixth Grade Festival, but that he sang “of all things, Lady Gaga’s ‘Paparazzi’.” “A story that struck us part ‘Billy Elliot,’ part ‘Glee,” Diane Sawyer says in introducing the segment.

7. Ellen’s producers fly the kid and his mom out to Los Angeles, and on Thursday, May 13, she devotes an eight-minute segment to the remarkably charming and self-possessed Greyson. Ellen stuns the kid by having Lady Gaga call into the show while he’s sitting there, and Gaga tells him, “Don’t be nervous today, you’ve already won over everyone’s hearts…. Just have fun and give a performance of a lifetime.” And you know what? He does!

7a. I’ll just interrupt myself here and say that while Greyson’s school video was impressive, my eyes actually welled up a bit by the end of his performance on “Ellen.” Not so much because it was such a great performance — which it was — but because it was one of those rare moments during which you could see a person’s life transforming in real time. Sure, it was cool that he got tens of thousands of views on YouTube, but watching him knock one out of the ballpark on national television you just knew this kid’s life would never be the same again (with millions of YouTube views to follow). Amazing and terrifying.

7b. The boilerplate line about Greyson Chance is that he’s “the next Justin Bieber.” But I think he’s more like the next… Cher. I don’t mean that as a dis! Seriously, in his “Ellen” performance he totally sounds like Cher to me when he’s really belting it out. He’s got that kind of awesome, old-fashioned vocal power.

8. Throughout the weekend “Greyson” is pretty much constantly a Top 10 trending topic on Twitter.

9. Conspiracy theories begin to spread. On Saturday, May 15, The Christian Science Monitor runs a rather idiotic story titled “Is Greyson Chance’s serendipitous YouTube rise a ruse?” and subtitled “His meteoric ascent to millions of YouTube views and maximum-exposure media tour have some questioning whether there’s a Big Media hand behind sixth grader Greyson Michael Chance.” The piece cites his “high-quality camera work” (huh?), “high profile, catchy material” (kids in school talent shows and on YouTube don’t tend to cover funeral dirges!), “and an integrated marketing plan right out of the gate.” Gimme a break. The boy didn’t even start tweeting until May 16. (Sample tweets: “I am writing some new music! Hope it turns out into something..:)” and “On my way to my Semi-Final soccer game! I love soccer! I have played it my whole life! Wish me luck!”) Yesterday The Christian Science Monitor backpedaled in a piece titled “Greyson Chance: What is real in an age of media manipulation?”: “Reports so far suggest that the Greyson Chance YouTube video is legit. But media experts warn that the Internet is rife with staged events made to seem spontaneous.” Duly noted.

10. As of this writing Greyson has nearly 18 million views for his original “Paparazzi” cover, plus nearly 3 million for “Broken Hearts” (“A song that I have fully written. The lyrics and music is all by me. It still needs lots of work but tell me what you think!”) and more than 2.5 million for his other original (lump-in-your-throat) composition, “Stars” (“The story to this song is about a wife who dies of cancer but then she goes to heaven in the ‘Stars.’ Then the husband shortly after her”). There are unconfirmed reports that Greyson has signed with Interscope Records, but his family isn’t talking.

IN CONCLUSION, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I have this to say: Though Greyson Chance will surely enter pop-cultural history as one of the great viral success stories of 2010, I just want to point out that his rise to instant fame just underscores the point of my “Media Guy” column this week: that a lot of what seems most intrinsically viral in our culture actually traces back to the simple power of television.

Let’s review: Talented kid got a decent, but not breathtaking, number of views for his Lady Gaga cover, with a big assist from impressed bloggers. (Remember, Yahoo Music’s Lyndsey Parker wrote that his video had just 36,000 views as word was spreading that he’d been booked on “Ellen.”) Then Diane Sawyer basically told her millions of viewers to go on YouTube and watch the video. And then Greyson appeared on “Ellen,” charmed and vowed everyone, and of course he spiked even more on YouTube and Twitter in the aftermath.

I’m with blogger Endswell: Nice job, kid.

via [Advertising Age]