Almost 1 in 3 US TV households – 35.9 million – owns 4 or more televisions, according to a new report on media usage from Nielsen (@NielsenWire). Across the ever-changing US media landscape, TV maintains its stronghold as the most popular device, with 290 million Americans and 114.7 households owning at least one. Online Americans number 211, and 116 million (ages 13+) access the mobile Web.
See the charts of the State of the Media: Consumer Usage Report in full.
A CNET (@CNET) article by Eric Mack (@EricCMack) reports on a new tablet poll by Maritz Research (@MaritzResearch) that simplifies the tablet market into 4 types of tablet customers based on the responses – low-end buyers, newcomers, single-minded buyers, and tablet-committed buyers. Statistically, 3 of the 4 types are dominated by women.
In other words, the profile of the average low-end buyer, tablet newcomer, and single-minded buyer (someone only interested in one particular tablet, most often the iPad) are all women in their 40s.
Single-minded buyers (21%): 60% female, average age is 41. iPad-only. Little familiarity with other brands, 78% purchasing the Apple iPad. 40% make purchase decision within 2 weeks.
Tablet-committed buyers (44%): 56% male, average age is 38. Highly aware of 3 or more brands, open to purchasing any brand. 58% purchasing iPad. 34% make purchase decision within 2 weeks.
Newcomers (13%): 60% female, average age is 46 and 29% over 55. Know Tablet brand names, but nothing else. 58% purchasing the iPad. 28% purchase within 2 weeks.
Low-end buyers (22%): 54% women, average age is 41, buy tablets based on price, want to spend less than $250, 45% purchasing the Amazon Kindle Fire, 39% make purchase decision within 2 weeks.
The household income of all four groups is roughly around $70,000 on average. Even the low-end buyers don't have a much lower average household income, at $62,000 a year.
Also see our previous blogpost, “New Study Reveals Generational Differences in Mobile Device Usage.”
Bookmark and use daily our SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research tab.
According to Nielsen (@NielsenWire), consumers of every age are migrating their online habits to their mobile devices. And teens have more than tripled mobile data consumption in the past year while maintaining their stronghold as the leading message senders.
In the third quarter of 2011, teens age 13-17 used an average of 320 MB of data per month on their phones, increasing 256% over last year and growing at a rate faster than any other age group. Much of this activity is driven by teen males, who took in 382 MB per month while females used 266 MB.
Another report by Nielsen, State of the Media: The Mobile Media Report, provides a snapshot of the current mobile media landscape and audiences in the USA and highlights the potential power of mobile commerce in the near future.
· The majority of 25-34 and 18-24 year olds now own smartphones (64% and 53% respectively)
· The majority of smartphone owners (62%) have downloaded apps on their devices and games are the top application category used in the past 30 days
· The number of smartphone subscribers using the mobile Internet has grown 45% since 2010
· Younger groups text the most. In Q3, teens 13-17 sent and received the most text messages (an average of 3,417 each month).
Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you publish content to your mobile consumer. And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.
In The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic), Peter Osnos (@public_affairs) describes how 2011 has been a year of profound change for bookstores, publishers, and authors.
It is no exaggeration to say that the widespread acceptance of digital devices and a simultaneous contraction of shelf-space in stores qualify as a historic shift. The demise of Borders, the country's second-largest book chain as recently as a year ago, was largely offset by the sale of millions of e-readers and electronic books on a vast scale in a market now dominated by Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Google. In May, Amazon announced that it was selling more ebooks than print books. On "Black Friday," November 25, Amazon said it had sold four times as many Kindles in a single day as it did in 2010. At this rate, it seems increasingly likely that ebooks will match printed books in the next few years, and eventually overtake them.
The popularity of multi-use tablets – Apple's iPads, the Kindle Fire (which has drawn criticism for a variety of technical glitches), B&N's Nook, and several others – has been another dominant feature of the year, serving up thousands of apps for games, music, magazines, and news sites, depending on your choice of device and price. As measured by IHS iSuppli research, and reported in the New York Times, Apple will ship about 18.6 million iPads in this quarter; the Kindle Fire, which went on sale in November, will sell about four million devices; and the Nook tablet will ship 1.3 million. While tablets have scores of uses, ebooks have so far held their own as defining attractions in the digital era. Their role is reminiscent of the way DVDs transformed the movie business in the 1990s, posing a major challenge for theaters while expanding the market for players to be used at home.
Bookstores have finally recognized the enormous potential of ebooks and the threat they pose to bookstores’ future share of the market. Hundreds of independent stores, with the strong backing of the American Booksellers Association, have signed on to a Google-supported system for ebook sales and now need to persuade customers that they can serve them digital products as well as Amazon, Apple, and the other industry leaders. The ABA said that members’ website sales were up 60% over last year, and that business overall was noticeably stronger.
For digital book world (@DigiBookWorld), Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid) wrote the article, “Five Big Stories of 2011 That Will Bleed Into 2012.” He advises readers to watch the following in the coming months:
· As bookstores are closing, the issue of how new books will be discovered by consumers will continue to grow in urgency.
· The new standard in ebook production, EPUB 3 and its inability to “play” with Amazon’s KF8.
· The rise of the Kindle Fire and the role it will play in driving ebook sales, as well as its effect on other tablet sales.
· The opportunity for US publishers to expand into foreign language ebook sales on the international market.
· The “agency pricing model” for ebooks and the corresponding investigation of that model by the US Dept. of Justice.
paidContent (@paidContent) has an entire series reviewing the Highlights of 2011, including "The Year in Book Publishing, By the Numbers" by Laura Hazard Owen (@laurahazardowen).
Stay current with news about the publishing world by bookmarking Somersault’s (@smrsault) SomersaultNOW online dashboard.
The Barna Group (@davidkinnaman) annually compiles a list of top trends it’s observed over the previous 12 months. For 2011 it’s identified the following:
Changing Role of Christianity: Christian leaders are relatively unknown by the majority of Americans; half of Americans believe all people are eventually saved by God.
Downsized American Dreams: Americans’ are increasingly willing to accept limitations in life, including changing their spending and savings habits as well as distinguishing needs from wants. Many are also reducing their financial donations.
Millennials Rethink Christianity: The Christian community is struggling to remain connected with the next generation of teens and young adults. In particular, the church is “losing” many young creatives (like designers, artists, writers, musicians, and actors) as well as young science-minded students (such as medical students, engineers, biologists and mathematicians).
The Digital Family: Technology has become a part of modern life and is deeply embedded in today’s families. Yet, the challenges brought on by technology in the home are not all created by teens. Parents are becoming just as dependent on digital tools.
Maximizing Spiritual Change: Most Americans call themselves spiritual people and Christians. Yet, spiritual transformation is rare and fleeting.
Women Making it Alone: Teenage and young adult women are learning to prepare themselves for a changing social structure. For teens, this means focusing on career now. For young women, this means not expecting to be married until the late twenties, at least.
Another way of determining trends is to see what terms people searched on Google for in 2011. Google Zeitgeist 2011 provides that info:
Video Year in Review
As for what people are watching, there were more than 1 trillion playbacks on YouTube in 2011. The highlight video is below. See the top ten individually.
Matt Carmichael (@mcarmichael), director of information projects at Advertising Age (@adage), suggests the following statistics that mattered most for media and marketing in 2011:
1.) 50 million -- The big number from the Census everyone was talking about was the number of Hispanics, which crested this milestone for the first time. Later the Census and The New York Times found that even more people in the US (51 million) are at or near the poverty line.
2.) 50% +1 -- Some time in 2011 the children being born in the US tipped to majority-minority, according to Brookings Institute demographer William Frey. It'll take the population as a whole, decades before the white population is not the majority, but the newborns are there now. Diversity marketing is in for a makeover.
3.) Half of kids under 8 (and 40% of 2- to 4-year-olds) have access to a smartphone, iPad, or some other mobile media device.
4.) In October 2011 Facebookers in the US spent 136,000 aggregate years on the site, according to comScore.
5.) The US added just 11.2 million households between 2000 and 2010, the -- slowest household formation rate we've seen in a long time. This impacts industries like construction and any sort of household goods and services and is helping to keep the recovery slow.
6.) When asked all the reasons they subscribe to a local paper, 85% said local news, but nearly 4 in 10 said “habit,” according to the Ad Age/Ipsos Observer American Consumer Survey.
7.) Nuclear families account for just one-fifth of all households but more than one-third (34%) of total consumer spending. Nationwide there are 1.3 million fewer of them in 2010 than there were in 2000.
8.) One in three consumers can't afford your product: The 2011 Discretionary Spend Report from Experian Simmons finds 34.5% of households have less than $7,000 to spend on non-essential goods. Just over half have less than $10,000 to spend on entertainment, education, personal care, clothing, furniture and more.
9.) Don't count out old media. Fifty-seven percent of millennials indicated in a study from OMD that TV was the first way they hear about products and services.
10.) For the first time in American history there are now a million more female than male college graduates, according to the Census.
Infographic by Infolinks.
According to the Pew Research Center's (@pewresearch) Internet & American Life Project (@pewinternet) new report, The Civic and Community Engagement of Religiously Active Americans, “some 40% of Americans are active in a church, religious, or spiritual organization. Compared with those who are not involved with such organizations, religiously active Americans are more trusting of others, are more optimistic about their impact on their community, think more highly of their community, are more involved in more organizations of all kinds, and devote more time to the groups to which they are active.”
When it comes to their technology profile, Americans who are members of religious groups are just as likely as others to use the Internet, have broadband at home, use cell phones, use text messaging, and use social networking sites and Twitter.
“Some analysts have been concerned that those who have active spiritual lives might not be as engaged with the secular world,” notes Jim Jansen, author of the report. “We see the opposite. Those who are religiously active are more likely to participate in all kinds of groups and more likely to feel good about their communities. Those who are active in religious groups seem to be joiners. They also are active users of technology.”
Observing the same report, Baptist Press (@baptistpress) offers these highlights:
· 9% of those actively involved in religious groups use Twitter, the same percentage as the general population.
· 46% of those in religious groups use social networking sites—almost identical to the 47% of all adults.
· 60% of both groups use text messaging.
· 79% of those actively involved in religious groups use the Internet while 76% of all adults do so.
Attendance is a factor in determining the percentage of churchgoers involved in social media and electronic communication.
· 54% of weekly churchgoers use Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn—a much smaller percentage than the 71% of monthly churchgoers and 65% of less frequent churchgoers who do so. Pew said the average age of weekly churchgoers could explain the disparity
· 9% of weekly churchgoers use Twitter (15% of monthly churchgoers and 14% of less frequent churchgoers do so).
· 26% of weekly churchgoers make donations online (35% of monthly churchgoers; 27% of less frequent churchgoers).
· 70% of weekly churchgoers who have a cell phone send or receive text messages (80% of monthly churchgoers; 77% of less frequent churchgoers).
· 36% of weekly churchgoers use their cell phone to access the Internet (51% of monthly churchgoers; 45% of less frequent churchgoers).
Also see our blogpost "Mississippi Is Most Religious USA State."
A major research study in 2007, reported in Leadership Journal (@Leadership_Jnl), concluded that Christians can be identified as belonging to one of 5 categories: Active, Professing, Liturgical, Private, and Cultural Christians.
Each group represents about one-fifth of those identifying themselves as Christian, with Active Christians most likely to have a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that affects their beliefs and inspires an active church life; Cultural Christians are least likely to align their beliefs or practices with biblical teachings, or attend church. Between the two is a range of beliefs, commitment levels, and public practice of the faith.
A summary lists them:
· Active Christians (19%): Committed churchgoers, often in positions of church leadership; believe salvation comes through Jesus Christ; Bible readers.
· Professing Christians (20%): Similar beliefs to Active Christians, but less committed to church attendance; focus more on personal relationship with God and Jesus, less on Bible reading or faith sharing.
· Liturgical Christians (16%): High level of spiritual activity; regular churchgoers, recognizing the authority of the church; predominantly Catholic and Lutheran.
· Private Christians (24%): Largest and youngest segment; believe in God and have spiritual interest, but not within the church context; only one-third attend church at all, almost none are church leaders.
· Cultural Christians (21%): God aware, but do not view Jesus as essential to salvation; affirm many ways to God; express little outward religious behavior.
To get a perspective on non-religious people, read USA TODAY's (@faith_reason) article, "For many, 'Losing My Religion' isn't just a song: It's life." And The Christian Post's (@ChristianPost) "Survey: Unchurched Do Not Ponder Life's Purpose, Afterlife."
Stay informed by bookmarking and daily using Somersault’s (@smrsault) SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Religion News tab.
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life’s (@pewforum) Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population concludes that the number of Christians around the world has more than tripled in the last 100 years, from about 600 million in 1910 to more than 2 billion in 2010. But the world's overall population also has risen rapidly, from an estimated 1.8 billion in 1910 to 6.9 billion in 2010. As a result, Christians make up about the same portion of the world's population today (32%) as they did a century ago (35%). This apparent stability, however, masks a momentous shift.
Although Europe and the Americas still are home to a majority of the world's Christians (63%), that share is much lower than it was in 1910 (93%). And the proportion of Europeans and Americans who are Christian has dropped from 95% in 1910 to 76% in 2010 in Europe as a whole, and from 96% to 86% in the Americas as a whole. At the same time, Christianity has grown enormously in subSaharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, where there were relatively few Christians at the beginning of the 20th century.
Read this in full. See the interactive maps. Review the sortable data tables. Take the quiz.
Also see our previous post, "Poll: Religion, Faith Still Important to Most People Around the World."
What are the implications of this information on your publishing agenda? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Religion News Service (@ReligionNewsNow): “Report shows Christianity shifting to Africa.”
Baptist Press (@baptistpress): “Pew: Christianity has become global faith in past century.”
The Christian Post (@ChristianPost): “Christianity Is the World's Largest Religion, Says Pew Forum Survey.”
CBN (@CBNNews): “Christian Population Declining in Europe.”
CNN (@CNNbelief): “Christianity goes global as world's largest religion.”
