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Archive for the ‘social media’ Category

I’ve been doing some research for the FSB and I thought I’d put down some information I’ve picked up – all of this is bang up to date.

Amazing as it seems, up to a third of the world has Internet access. That might not sound a lot but think of the people who will never have access – those parts of the world for example where they’ve gotten themselves into a situation where they are utterly controlled or they don’t even have electricity. If for the sake of discussion we discount those people – it’s fair to say that the majority of people who are going to get access in the near future, already have it.   Even at home in the UK there are those (primarily age-related) who simply don’t see the point and are not interested.

As for who’s using what.. PC sales seem to have levelled off whereas tablet sales are going through the roof right now – no doubt this Christmas will have an affect on that – apparently 47% of American kids want an iPad (I’d imagine a very small percentage will actually GET one). So the big drivers right now are smartphones and tablets and as we know, iPad and Google Nexus are the two big names here right now.

Right now, more broadband is consumed by mobile devices than fixed devices and the theory is that by 2015 (only a couple of year) that’ll be more like 4:1 in favour of mobile!

There are currently 6 bullion mobile phone users, 1 billion of those being users of smartphones but in current SALES, Smartphones are sailing ahead of the older feature phones which are starting to die off. As you’d imagine the whole thing is definitely age-related with the highest users of Smartphone being by younger people with more cash to spend. But of course once hooked as they get older there will be no way they’re going back… China, incidentally has 25% of smartphone sales and that puts them at around twice the size of the US market.

The Internet used to be full of free content – which made it hard to run a business from it but of course that has all changed – iTunes, Netflix (and similar), buying and selling on Ebay all play a major part today in the massive and every-increasing commercialisation of the Internet. Digital advertising has gone from just about zero in 1995 to around 20 billion pounds today.

For American companies at least – and limiting to those in the media and tech areas, around 40% of their income is now digital – i.e. online. For advertising, TV still keeps the lead (42%) – but online advertising is coming closely behind and advertising in print is starting to go very much downhill (9%). Newspaper advertising in particular has dropped through the floor (I don’t know about you but I haven’t bought a newspaper in years).

On the subject of digital photography, we all know that Kodak are stuffed – who would have thought… but today, phone cameras are now giving traditional cameras a run for their money not because they are as good but because they are far more convenient.

As a life-long amateur photographer, I gave up on film as far back as 1997 and only a couple of years ago I gave up on large bulky cameras as being just too much like hard work for hot holidays… the convenience of the phone camera and the ability to send to Facebook etc. straight from the phone was the main driver. Throughout it all however I’ve sorely missed the quality and control that comes with a DSLR. Then out of the blue the traditional cameras are fighting back – I’ve just bought the new Samsung Android camera – a full-blown Android unit with a decent lense – the first of it’s kind. I predict that a variation on this will become the norm (pending people coming out of their comfort zones) and that non-updatable, proprietary camera interfaces will hopefully soon die out. For now I’m ahead of the pack and enjoying every minute – I just wish someone would invent decent batteries!

One wonders what it would be like to to transport 10 years into the future. The changes are likely to be far more dramatic than the changes we’ve seen in the previous 10 years – but making predictions is probably a fool’s game.

Happy New Year from Maureen and I to everyone.  I wonder how your NYE went?

By teatime on 31st Dec in our part of the Northeast, the roads were freezing over and as usual the council were failing to keep with the programme.  The plan was to set off to our friend’s place and park the car there. They would then take us to our destination “Derwent Manor” – to celebrate the end of, for many, one of the worst years in living memory.

With roads reduced to blankets we set off, rarely getting over 10mph for fear of heading straight on into the nearest hedge. With the help of a little grit, we parked the car up for the night and headed off in Bob and Margaret’s Lexus which, I have to say handles icy roads superbly. As you’ll see in the pictures below, everyone had a marvellous time, dinner at 8pm (we sneaked in our own champagne) and after a superb show by a “Take That” tribune band, the party went on until the early hours of the morning.

On the assumption that a picture is worth a thousand words….

So, we had a great night and now it’s 2010, the start of a new decade – and hopefully a much nicer one. I’m busy reading a book by the founders of Ecademy, a leading social network..who quoted a speech by David Cameron, leader of the conservatives and for better or worse the guy who will head up the next government… and I quote:

“Today, in a speech to the Open University, I set out our plans for a radical redistribution of power back to the people: from the state to the citizens; from Whitehall to communities; from bureaucracy to democracy. This is a massive, radical change. But I believe that through decentralization, accountability and transparency we can take power away from the political elite and hand it to the man and woman in the street”.

Let’s hope that 2010 is the start of a new and exciting decade! Happy New Year everyone!

There are those who feel that social networking is a fad… this video then is well worth watching and might prove something of an eye-opener.  I only wish that companies who make these things would remember we don’t all live in America… Non-the-less – this is interesting stuff.

So, is social media a fad… or the biggest shift since the industrial revolution? You decide!