Message from Michael - Social Network Rise - October 13, 2010

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        October 13, 2010                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

      THE POWER OF SOCIAL NETWORKING

      ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED

      REACH OUT AND TOUCH

      COCKTAIL CHATTER – ANDY GRIFFITH – TELENOVELAS – MAN VS WILD

 

 

      THE POWER OF SOCIAL NETWORKING:  Okay, no cutesy headline, just the facts.  All that hullabaloo about social networking?  It’s true.  Two studies show the global power of social networking in what is becoming a seemingly digital village.  The first, by CNN, shows the power of sharing.  The stand-out factoid -- a quarter of online ‘sharers’ account for nine out of ten of all the stories shared worldwide.  Specifically – 27% of sharers account for 87% of the news links.  And the prime way to share?  Of course – social networking, which accounts for nearly half (43%) of all peer-to-peer news sharing.  Emails account for a third (30%), with SMS (15%) and IM (12%), about even.  The second study, by TNS, shows that people are spending increasing amounts of time on social networking sites, rather than email, especially in developing countries, even though, the authors note, social networking has only become ‘mainstream’ in the last few years.  The stand-out factoid in this study – people who are online use the Internet as their ‘number one media channel’ more (61%) than TV (54%), radio (36%) or newspapers (32%).  A caveat – the survey is of ‘online users’ and not the general population.

The CNN study of 2,300 people worldwide, and codenamed Pownar (for Power of News and Recommendation) identified what it called – and this is language for my research-oriented readers – a three-tiered semiotic wheel comprising the three types of codes of narrative, theme and underlying message.  Putting that in simpler language, two-thirds (65%) of the stories being shared are about on-going news stories; A fifth (19%) of the shared stories are breaking news stories; And a sixth (16%) of the content being shared falls into the ‘quirky or funny’ category.  The average global user shares 13 stories a week and gets 26 stories a week.  Personally I find it interesting that the vast majority of shared stories are about on-going news events, like the Chilean miners story.  Anyway, the ‘sell point’ of the study is that such shared, or recommended, stories have greater impact.  Advertisers associated with shared stories get a ‘bump’ in their approval ratings, so to speak, from being associated with such stories.  (The Pownar study is a follow-up to a previous CNN study code-named Grapevine, but which I could find little original material on.  So, any help from my CNN friends would be welcome.)

The TNS study of 48,000 people in 46 countries shows some striking differences between what it calls “rapid growth markets’ (meaning what we used to call third world or emerging countries) and “mature markets” (meaning countries with long established economies.)  The email example cited above, for example.  In rapid growth markets, such as Latin America, the Middle East and China, people spend an average 5.2 hours a week on social networking sites compared to four hours on email.  In mature markets, it’s the reverse with people checking their in-boxes an average of 5.1 hours a week, while spending ‘only’ 3.8 hours a week spent on social networking sites.  The same reversal of attitudes can be seen in blogging and photo sharing.   People in rapid growth markets are two to three times more likely to actually write a blog than people in mature markets.   For example, four out of five online users in China (81%) and half the online users (51%) in Brazil have written their own blog or ‘forum entry’ compared to only a third (32%) in the U.S.  Nearly everybody in Thailand (92%) and most of those in Malaysia (88%) and Vietnam (87%) have uploaded photos to social networking sites or photo sharing sites.  By comparison, only a quarter (28%) in Japan and under half (48%) in Germany have done so.  The most ‘social country’ in the world is Malaysia where people have an average of 233 friends on social networking sites, followed by Brazil (231) and Norway (217).  The least ‘social country’ in the world is Japan where people ‘only’ have an average of 29 friends on social networking sites, followed by Tanzania (38) and, somewhat of a surprise to me, South Korea (50). 

Why the difference?  TNS Chief Development Officer Matthew Froggatt suggests that in mature markets where people have been online for years, the Internet has become “a commoditized item that consumers take for granted.”  In rapid growth markets where the infrastructure is only just being built, the digital world is offering them a chance to transform the way they live, develop and interact.  As a final note, TNS has created an incredible interactive website, again for my research friends -- discoverdigitallife.com where you can play with the data to your heart’s content.

      ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED:  That seems to be the appropriate descriptor for people and online video, if one listens to the results of a recent survey about web video content.  The study by Frank Magid and Associates says people who watch online video are two and a half times more likely to be engaged with the video than people watching traditional television.  Now, of course, it should be noted that the study was done for Next New Networks and YouTube.  But that aside, the figures are impressive.  More than half (54%) of those surveyed, ‘deemed’ Web original content to be just as, if not more, entertaining than what they view on traditional television.  More telling in defining engagement are the numbers showing what people do while watching either Web original content or traditional television.  More than a third of Web viewers (37%) surf the web while watching video, while nearly two thirds (60%) of TV watchers do.  A little more than a quarter (28%) of people watching Web original videos talk to others while watching, but more than half (52%) of TV viewers do so.  And only one in five Web original viewers (19%) do things around the house while Web original video is playing, but, again, more than half (52%) of TV viewers do so.  In other words -- and if you think about it, it may seem obvious – Web original content viewers are paying more attention.

      REACH OUT AND TOUCH:  And that’s what some newspapers are doing quite effectively with their online properties, according to a study released by The Media Audit of newspaper websites.  The top newspaper website in the country is that of the Ann Arbor News in Michigan which reaches more than half (55.7%) of all adults in its MSA.  What makes that particularly interesting is that the newspaper has cut back from a daily print version to a twice-a-week print run on (oddly, to me) Thursday and Saturday.  (I say ‘oddly’ because I’d always understood Wednesdays and Sundays to be the best print days.)  Not surprisingly its online edition outperforms its print edition in terms of reach.  That’s only true of one other newspaper – the Madison, Wisconsin, Capital Times, where the online version reaches more people (42.8%) than the print version (30.8%).  It came in number five in the rankings.  In most cases, the print version still reaches more adults than the online version… another point which I found surprising.  The New Orleans Times Picayune which took the number two spot, for example, reaches three quarters (70.3%) of the adults through its print product but ‘only’ half (52.5%) through its online product. Syracuse New York’s The Post Standard came in third in terms of online penetration (49.4%) compared to 74.1% for its print product.  The Washington Post, which is probably as well known for its website nationally as anything, came in fourth, reaching just under half of the local market online (47.2%) and more than half (58.2%) with its print product.  The report did not show any combined totals, which many newspapers are now selling.  Rounding out the top ten in newspaper websites are Reno NV,  Grand Rapids MI, Birmingham Al, Allentown PA, and Albany NY.                 

      COCKTAIL CHATTER:  A belated Happy Birthday to The Andy Griffith Show which celebrated its 50^th anniversary, having first appeared on October 3^rd, 1960, at 9:30 p.m. following The Danny Thomas Show.  The show ran for ‘only’ eight seasons, ending in 1968, but of course it has lived on, in re-runs ever since.  And here’s the factoid to ponder.  According to calculations by Robert Seidman on the website TVbytheNumbers, airings of The Andy Griffith Show on TVLand in one month equaled 90% of ALL the viewing on Hulu for one month.  

Two Spanish language Telenovelas accounted for ten of the top 100 new shows to premier this season.  The two, Soy Tu Duena and Hasta Dinero, took positions ranging from 43 to 73, according to figures released by the TVB, Television Bureau of Advertising.  Of course the TVB report, which looks at Broadcast and Ad-Supported Subscription TV, emphasized that Broadcast took 95 of the top 100 spots, but I found the Latino showing particularly interesting as well.  NBC’s Sunday night and ESPN’s Monday night football took the top two spots, but the third position?  Glee… followed by The OT, Two and a Half Men, Dancing with the Stars, Modern Family, Grey’s Anatomy, The Big Bang Theory, Desperate Housewives and The Simpsons.  It should also be noted that this is for the Adults 18-49 demographic. 

I don’t know what it says, but one of the hit shows internationally is The Discovery Channel’s Man vs. Wild.  At least that’s my completely unscientific observation from reading sales transactions, courtesy of the Cynopsis newsletter, from MipCom 2010 which is the International showcase of TV shows.  Man vs Wild was picked up by broadcast groups in Spain, Italy and France.  Keeping up with the Kardashians appears to be a hit in Australia and the Philippines.  And the one I love, although I don’t know why, China’s CCTV picked up The E! True Hollywood Story.  There’s a whole message in analyzing what shows sold overseas, and when I get some spare time at four o’clock in the morning, I’ll do that.

Finally, it should be noted in the TV Cocktail Chatter column, that one-time PBS powerhouse KCET in Los Angeles has broken away from PBS and is going independent.  Officials there cite the fee increase demanded by PBS which amount to $7 Million of the station’s $37 Million as the key reason.  The move makes KCET the largest independent television station in the U.S.  It should be noted that KCET is one of four PBS member stations serving Los Angeles.

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