Archive for the ‘Reports’ Category

Nielsen Report on How Teens Use Media

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

A new Nielsen report on the myths and realities of teen media trends reveals How Teens Use Media. Here are a few of the findings:

  • Teens are NOT abandoning TV for new media: In fact, they watch more
    TV than ever, up 6% over the past five years in the U.S.
  • Teens love the Internet…but spend far less time browsing than adults: Teens spend 11 hours and 32 minutes per month online—far below the average of 29 hours and 15 minutes.
  • Teens watch less online video than most adults, but the ads are highly engaging to them: Teens spend 35% less time watching online video than adults 25–34, but recall ads better when watching TV shows online than they do on television.

nielsen_howteensusemedia_june09

M-Libraries: Information Use on the Move

Friday, June 26th, 2009

mlibraries2

A new report on mobile technology adoption and libraries was published by University of Cambridge, authored by Keren Mills of the Arcadia Programme.

“The majority of respondents primarily use their phones to make calls, send text messages and take photographs, although they like to know that the other functionality is potentially available. respondents’ use of different forms of media on their mobile phones was mostly limited to viewing photographs. Some used their phones to listen to music or watch videos, but very few used them to listen to podcasts or audio books and only a small number read ebooks or journal articles. Some respondents commented that they prefer to use their iPod or other media player to access these other forms of media.”

Twittering at Academic Conferences

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

The Wired Campus points to a new study titled How People Are Using Twitter During Conferences presented at this year’s EduMedia Conference in Salzburg, Austria. The paper surveys academics at five recent conferences to determine the usefulness of Twitter as a communication “back channel” at these events.

“Microblogging at conferences seems to be an additional way of discussing presented topics and exchanging additional information. It is not limited to the face-to-face audience or the location of the conference. Microblogging rather allows virtually anyone to actively participate in the thematic debates. Our research shows that several conference speakers and attendees are using Twitter for various purposes. Communicating and sharing resources seem to be one of the most interesting and relevant ways in which one microblogs.”

The State of America’s Libraries Report

Monday, April 20th, 2009

The American Library Association has published a 40-page report titled The State of America’s Libraries stating that “Library use increases dramatically as economy sags; funding declines”.

“A Harris Poll released in September revealed that 68 percent of Americans have a library card, an increase of 5 percent since 2006. In-person visits increased 10 percent in the same period, and 76 percent of Americans had visited their local public library in the year preceding the survey, compared with 66 percent two years ago. Online-visit data were even more remarkable: 41 percent of library card holders visited their library websites in the year before the poll, compared with 24 percent in 2006.”

Also see the press release and download the print version here.

via Stephen’s Lighthouse

ACRL Strategic Thinking Guide for Academic Librarians

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

The ACRL has published a new environmental scan of academic libraries in the wake of today’s economic challenges. This 8-page guide “considers three important drivers in the current environment and poses questions to stimulate conversations and action in your libraries and on your campuses.”

  • Driver #1: The Economy and Higher Education
  • Driver #2: Students
  • Driver #3: Technology

via Stephen’s Lighthouse

U.S. Texters Send 1 Trillion SMS Messages in 2008

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

Yahoo!Tech reports that U.S. wireless subscribers sent 1 trillion SMS messages in 2008, three times the 363 billion text messages sent in 2007. “That comes out to about 3,700 text messages annually—or 10 texts a day—for every cell phone subscriber”.

And SMS messaging is even more popular with college students, 94% of whom send and receive text messages according to a recent study by Ball State University. The survey of 300 college students found that text messaging is now the main form of communication amongst college students.

via Textually.org

Mobile Report from Pew Internet & American Life

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

The Pew Internet & American Life Project published a new report titled The Mobile Difference today. The study is based on two surveys which were conducted beween October - December 2007 of over 3,500 respondants. Here are some key findings of the report:

  • 8% of adults use mobile devices and broadband platforms for continual information exchange to collaborate with their social networks
  • 7% of adults actively use mobile devices and social networking tool, yet are ambivalent about all the connectivity
  • 8% of Americans find mobility lighting their information pathways, but have comparatively few tech assets at home
  • 61% are anchored to stationary media; though many have broadband and cell phones, coping with access is often too much for them

Profiling Social Networks: A Social Tagging Perspective

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

The March/April 2009 issue of D-Lib Magazine includes the article Profiling Social Networks: A Social Tagging Perspective written by five authors from across the globe. The article analyzes the social tagging behavior of members on Delicious, Flickr, and YouTube from 2005-2007 in order to gain a representative profile of each community. Their dataset includes 1 million bookmarks and 9.3 million tags from Delicious, 300,000 photographs and 1.4 million tags from Flickr, and 500,000 videos and 1.35 million tags from YouTube.

“After analyzing social tagging behavior in Delicious, Flickr and YouTube, it is apparent that tagging activities have increased tremendously from 2005 to 2007. An increasing number of individuals are using online social networks to tag resources for purposes of storage, access, and retrieval, both for themselves and for the purpose of sharing those resources with others. Through tag analysis, it is possible to develop a portrait of the social culture of a network and, in some cases, to identify trends of emerging or waning topical interests among users.”

Boomers Fastest Growing Consumer Tech Users

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

accenture

According to Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion, a new Consumer Electronics Usage Survey from Accenture indicates that Baby Boomers are adopting consumer technology nearly 20 times faster than younger generations. Meanwhile usage and adoption by Gen Y seems to have leveled off. According to the report, Boomers:

  • Increased reading blogs and listening to podcasts by 67 percent year over year; nearly 80 times faster than Gen Y (1 percent)
  • Posted a 59 percent increase in using social networking sites—more than 30 times faster than Gen Y (2 percent)
  • Increased watching/posting videos on the Internet by 35 percent—while Gen Y usage decreased slightly (-2 percent)
  • Accelerated playing video games on the go via mobile devices by 52 percent— 20 times faster than Gen Y (2 percent)
  • Increased listening to music on an iPod or other portable music player by 49 percent—more than four times faster than Gen Y (12 percent)

More coverage:
Twice: Accenture: Interest In Cellphones For Entertainment Is Picking Up - Baby Boomers Leading The Way

TechPulse 360: Older Americans Embrace Technology Faster Than Younger Ones

PC Magazine: Move Over, Kids: Boomers Catching Up in Tech War

Technorati Attention Index Lists Top Sites Linked To By Bloggers

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

The blog search engine Technorati issues the Technorati Attention Index which reports the top mainstream media websites that bloggers link to the most. This report will be updated each month. Here are the top ten, be sure and check out the full article for the full list.

  1. YouTube
  2. New York Times
  3. BBC News
  4. CNN.com
  5. MSN
  6. guardian.co.uk
  7. Washington Post
  8. Yahoo! News
  9. Reuters
  10. Los Angeles Times

via TechCrunch

Twenty-Nine Reports About the Future of Academic Libraries

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

John Dupuis, Head of the Steacie Science & Engineering Library at York University in Toronto has compiled a list of Twenty-nine reports about the future of academic libraries. All of the reports are freely available. Here are just a few, be sure and check out the full post for more:

via Stephen’s Lighthouse

Pew Report on Twitter and Status Updating

Friday, February 13th, 2009

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has published a new report on Twitter and other applications which enable users to update their status online.

Key Findings:

  • As of December 2008, 11% of online American adults had used Twitter or other status update service.
  • Nearly one in five (19%) online adults ages 18 and 24 have ever used Twitter and its ilk, as have 20% of online adults 25 to 34.

“As with many technologies, enthusiastic users have used Twitter for more than just answering the question, “What are you doing?” Twitter has been used to help organize and disseminate information during major events like the 2008 California wildfires, the recent American elections, the Mumbai massacre and even the January 2009 crash of US Airways flight 1549 into the Hudson River. Janis Krum, a passenger on a ferry that rushed to the scene, took a photo of the plane with a cell phone and sent it out via his Twitter feed.4 Twitter and other status updates have also been used for many other purposes including the airing of complaints against companies, sharing ideas, forwarding interesting material, documenting events, conversing and flirting.”

Generations Online in 2009

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

pew_generations

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has published a new report titled Generations Online in 2009 which breaks down online activities by generation. After defining the scope of the generations, the study goes on to summarize that Teens and Generation Y are the most likely to utilize the Web for entertainment purposes while older generations use the Internet primarily for conducting information searches, email, and online shopping. However there are some universal activities that span the generation gaps such as downloading videos, online banking, travel reservations, and job searching. The report has an excellent chart which breaks down each activity type by generation.

2009 Horizon Report

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

The New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) has published the 2009 Horizon Report. This annual report identifies six emerging technologies which will have a significant impact on teaching and learning and will be adopted over the next 1-5 years. This year’s key technologies include:

  • Mobiles (i.e., mobile devices)
  • Cloud computing
  • Geo-everything (i.e., geo-tagging)
  • The personal web
  • Semantic-aware applications
  • Smart objects

Adult Social Network Users Quadruples Over Four Years

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

A new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project reports that the number of adult American social network users has quadrupled from 8% in 2005 to 35% today. Although this number is not as impressive as the 65% of online teens who are social networkers, it actually represents a larger segment of the US population. Here are some of the reports’ findings:

  • 75% of online adults 18-24 have a profile on a social network site
  • 57% of online adults 25-34 have a profile on a social network
  • 19% of online 45 to 54 year olds have a profile
  • 10% of online 55 to 64 year olds have a profile
  • 7% of online adults 65 and older have a profile