By Meredith on 5 February 2010, at 16:45 pm 
The Digital Divide is commonly known as the widening gap between technology “haves” and “have nots” – with “have nots” resulting from a lack of access to technology or lack of money to get “digital.” It’s an important problem that needs to be addressed and there is a lot of attention and effort trying to do just that.
But there’s another Digital Divide that is transforming the world of communications and entertainment that could also have profound consequences. It’s a Generational Digital Divide.
There is a growing gap between the entertainment and communications behavior of the younger generation and the older generation – with “older” being a relative term. If you’re 40, even if you’re online many hours a day, and texting to keep in touch with your children or buddies, you still don’t qualify.
Recent research shows that the younger generations are:
- Multi-taskers: 68% are texting while watching television, 73% are IM’ing
- Texting over voice calling: 13-18 year olds are sending 10,000 text messages a month. That’s 10x what 35-45 year olds send.
- Real-time messaging versus email. Email is for “formal” communications.
- Prolific in their communication and online social interaction, producing 7x the content in Social Networks then 35+ year olds.
- Processing information in fundamentally different ways – typically in smaller chunks – as covered in the Atlantic Monthly’s “Is Google making us Stupid ?“
- Demanding simplicity in how technology works, they’re no longer willing to spend hours setting up their various equipment.
- Expecting multi-screen (TV, PC, Mobile) control over what they want to see and how they want to communicate .
Every company in the entertainment and communication space needs to pay attention to this generational digital divide, or they risk the chance of following in the footsteps of the newspaper industry, plagued with a shrinking audience and shrinking revenue opportunities.
Are you and your company on the wrong side of the divide and unaware of this changing behavior. I suggest you focus someone in your organization who’s on the “other side” of the Divide with the task of intimately understanding this audience – while they’re not paying the bills now, they will be soon. The time to build loyalty is now.
Communication and Entertainment Companies can cross the chasm and bridge the generational digital divide by delivering multi-screen services that let people get their entertainment across any device – TV, PC, Mobile (for example, the “TV Everywhere” movement led by Cable Operators) and even more importantly let people communicate across any device. Because, to quote James McQuivey, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research- ”Communications is even more primal than entertainment.”
And Communication doesn’t just mean voice, it means SMS, MMS, IM, Facebook and other social network messaging services
If traditional companies don’t understand this and act, new companies – with names we might recognize now and many we haven’t heard of yet, will be the winners. Case in point — who would have put Apple and Google in the same category as telcos five years ago?
By John on 3 February 2010, at 21:11 pm Not all Social TV has to take place in the living room. Recently, TV network Bravo teamed up with website Foursquare to get viewers to visit real-world locations related to Bravo TV shows like “The Real Housewives”, “Top Chef” and “Shear Genius”.
Foursquare is a “check-in” website that enables users to broadcast their current location to all their friends, using the Foursquare application on their mobile phone, the Foursquare mobile website or by sending an SMS. Foursquare provides a list of nearby places to select from or users can enter their own locations. By viewing a feed of recent check-ins from friends, users can easily meet up with others nearby. Foursquare has implemented two unique incentives for users to check-in – becoming The Mayor and Badges. The Mayor is the user who has checked into a place the most often. Many places now offer special discounts or benefits to The Mayor, so competition for Mayorship can be fierce.
Badges are special icons which are earned for performing a variety of activities. There are close to 100 badges that have been unlocked so far, and more are being developed over time to coincide with new locations or events like the South By Southwest (SXSW) conference. Some examples of Badges are:
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Bender - That’s 4+ nights in a row for you! |
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JetSetter - Hopping around the world one airport at a time… congrats on your 5th airport check-in and safe travels! |
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School Night - Checking-in after 3am on a school night? Well done! |
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Photogenic – You found 3 places with a photobooth! |
The partnership with Bravo has created new Badges for checking-in at over 500 Bravo-tagged locations. Not all of these new Badges have been unlocked yet, but some of those that have been found so far are:
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Real Housewife – Way to drink, eat, shop, and spa like a Real Housewife! |
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Top Chef – You wear the term “foodie” as a badge of honor, and now have BRAVO’s Top Chef Badge to prove it. |
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Fashionista – You’ve found the key to BRAVO’s Launch My Line insignia. Now, go find us some sales! |
Bravo’s efforts are creating conversations around their shows as viewers read tips and attempt to get the Badges. Twitter user @db managed to unlock several in the past few days:
Using the Social TV classifications laid out in this post by Gary Hayes, the Bravo-Foursquare partnership is a light form of “Alternate Reali-TV” – where the physical interactions in visiting tagged locations becomes part of the overall viewing experience. TV show Lost used a more elaborate version of this concept in The Lost Experience, where viewers searched the web, commercials, and email for clues into the show’s secrets. These extra opportunities for interaction give viewers something new to talk about, which they will probably do using one of the other forms of integrated Social TV. We’re thinking about that with our Chime and Chat products.
Have you unlocked a Bravo Badge? Do you see “Alternate Reali-TV” being a valuable add-on to traditional TV watching?
By Kate on 1 February 2010, at 21:47 pm We caught a few good posts recently on the Social TV space and thought we’d share them with you.
Social Media Meets Online Television: Social TV Brings Television 2.0 To Your TV Set [Robin Good, 27 January] – The revolution that is Social TV.
Report: Top 10 driving forces of digital marketing in 2010 [netimperative, 1 February] – Nice! Social TV is listed among the top influencing factors for digital marketing for this year.
Hulu’s Pans for the iPad, Mobile Internet [GigaOm, 29 January] – CEO Jason Kilar hints that Hulu might be moving towards mobile….
Social TV Forum London – Will social media interactivity bring value for TV users ? Check out some of the other great questions they’ll be addressing on 16 March in London.
Do you have any other news worth items to add to the list?
By Steve on 29 January 2010, at 15:09 pm  As always, Apple creates great stuff…no news there. When I look at the iPad, I can’t help but think of what future iPad generations will bring. For starters, I don’t think it’s a stretch to see voice, SMS and MMS services added – seems like this version will make it easier to use my Facebook page. Yes, a giant iPhone where I can read a book while I send a text…Why not? In fact, why not have the ability to answer a call to my mobile number either on my iPhone or iPad? No, I don’t see holding the iPad up to your ear – likely Bluetooth or headphones. Or, why can’t someone send me a text message to my mobile number and I can receive it on my iPhone and iPad?
Maybe I’ll be able to plug my cable TV or connect my Roku box to my iPad…who knows. And if I can do that, and I can text message, that means I can talk to people at the same time. Who knows, maybe it could be another form of a virtual viewing party. Is it possible that the iPad eventually replaces your books, mobile phone, TV and computer? – it could happen. Thankfully, it definitely replaces the screen on the IP-enabled refrigerator concept!
Whether I’m right or wrong about the giant iPhone taking over the world doesn’t really matter…but what is clear is the devices are going to come in all shapes and sizes and continue to rapidly evolve faster than consumers can keep pace. No matter how the devices continue to evolve, there will be one common thread amongst them – communications. People always want to communicate with one another, and I see the iPad adding the same ability to communicate with friends and colleagues that your iPhone provides today – and, done right, you should be able to seamlessly enjoy both.
By John on 27 January 2010, at 18:16 pm 
In his dissertation, Transforming Audiences – Patterns of Individualization in Television Viewing (PDF), Jakob Bjur of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden studied the way in which TV audiences have changed their viewing practices over time. TV viewing has always been a social activity; however, Bjur has found that it has declined from 45% of all TV viewing being social in 1999 to 37% in 2009. He lists several key changes demonstrating how the viewing experience is becoming more individualized.
Television viewing is turning solitary [as] a practice, and heterogeneous, [as] an experience. – Jakob Bjur
Space and Time-Shifting
Viewing times tend to spread out over the day, instead of being tied to specific time blocks as they have in the past, such as Prime Time. Bjur believes that is related to the increasing ability to watch TV wherever we like and whenever we like. DVRs, Video On Demand, and Internet video sites allow the freedom of choosing to watch shows outside of their normal time slots. Multiple devices like PCs and mobile phones allow viewers to escape the single show at a time experience of the TV. Bjur found that:
As receiving technology gets more portable, television can be consumed anywhere. The line of change brought about by space-shifting is consequently that television technology goes from home-centred to individual centred, and television viewing from leisure time centred to spread over the day.
Fragmented Television Consumption
As the amount of available content has exploded, viewing habits of household members are becoming varied and are no longer focused just on the big name channels. New channels are constantly appearing, dedicated to specific interests such as cooking, game shows, classic TV, and more. The enables each viewer to cater to their own specific tastes, which may not appeal to others in the household. Bjur states:
We no longer live in an era where a singular program is summoning the nation and delivering the subject of tomorrow’s lunch table discussion at the workplace and school. This era was ended as a consequence of cable and satellite and the last nail in the coffin, if needed, was set into place by digitalisation of the terrestrial network.
As viewers spend less time in front of the same shows in the same room, the social aspect of TV watching naturally declines. So, is Social TV destined to disappear? It doesn’t appear to be. As we discussed previously, social interaction also can depend on the type of show being watched – live TV encourages more participation. While the intra-family social experience declines, there is an explosion of extra-familial social interaction. Online discussion forums such as TelevisionWithoutPity.com enable viewers to find and talk with others who watch the same shows. Viewers can also interact online via Hulu.com’s Facebook application. Back in the living room, viewers are already using their mobile phones to text with their friends while watching. It won’t be long until that experience is integrated smoothly into the TV screen itself. Social TV is not dying, but new technologies need to continue to help bridge the gaps that watching wherever and whenever has created.
Are you still watching TV with your family? Have you shifted your viewing patterns or found a like-minded TV community online.
By George on 26 January 2010, at 20:27 pm  When you’re creating a product that increases in value the more people use it – and more directly, then more of their friends use it – how can you quickly reach that critical mass?
Since what you’re trying to do in essence is to build a social network, you look to ways to leverage existing social networks. It’s the old adage – don’t reinvent the wheel.
Additionally, you make it as easy as possible for them to cross platforms. It’s the slightly newer, but just as important adage – “make it so they don’t have to work too hard.” Last week, Gene wrote about what a person’s digital identity really is. Part of this concept is maintaining consistency and being able to transfer that identity such that you’re not having to recreate yourself time after time again.
Finding a way to accomplish both of these can be very powerful.
Let’s look at Facebook as an example. It’s popularity and growth across all demographics is quite the story. Many people who never considered an online social network 12 months ago are now addicted to reading and posting updates, photos and games like Mafia Wars and Farmville.
In the not-so-distant past, the only way for a software developer to tap into this social network would have been to create an application within the Facebook infrastructure that would help leverage the viral nature of Facebook to quickly expand your userbase.
But what if you already have your own website, back-end database and users, and you want to bring people to that website?
Enter Facebook Connect – a set of APIs for developers that allow users to bring their identity and connections everywhere. Using Facebook Connect, users can have a more personal experience on your website without requiring them to enter personal information or create a new profile, login, etc. As website developers know, each additional mouse click and required field creates tremendous “drop-off” of site traffic. Facebook Connect allows users to login with their current Facebook credentials – or if they happen to be currently logged into Facebook on another browser tab, all they need to do is click on the Facebook Connect button.
Many sites have seen tremendous traffic increases just months after implementing Facebook Connect. But keep in mind, implementing these types of tools is no guarantee of higher site traffic – you still need to provide a compelling reason for users to visit, stay, return and invite others.
But assuming that you and your marketing team have already worked through many of these issues, by offering a way to easily tap into existing social networks and making it easy for users to use their digital identity from social network to social network, tools like Facebook Connect can bring your site and business to the next level.
By Cappy on 21 January 2010, at 9:32 am SMS is seeing a surge of use in the days following the earthquakes in Haiti. The American Red Cross [http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.94aae335470e233f6cf911df43181aa0/?vgnextoid=d2b1416215d46210VgnVCM10000089f0870aRCRD] has raised over 25 million $US using a n SMS campaign that is now known to be the largest example of text-based charitable giving in history.
The campaign is a joint effort run by Mobile Accord [http://mobileaccord.wordpress.com/2008/02/02/text-donations-have-arrived/] and the mGive Foundation [http://www.mgive.com/] in coordination with the U.S. State Department.
Over 2.5 *million* SMS donations have been received so far. The campaign is simple: mobile users text the word ‘HAITI’ to the shortcode 90999 which authorizes a one-time charge of 10 $US to be added to their mobile bills. The American Red Cross is reporting that 100% of the money is donated to Haitian quake relief efforts. According to DMNews [http://www.dmnews.com/red-cross-raises-24-million-for-haiti-via-text-builds-mobile-database/article/161766/] the text campaign has raised about 20% of their total Haiti-related funds. This is stunning considering that Verizon reported that in all of 2009, “previously the biggest mobile giving year in history”, the total amount of mobile donations to ALL charities was less that $US 4 million [http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/messaging/5112.html].
Even the White House [http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/us-government-haiti-earthquake-disaster-response-update-0] and US Department of State [http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/text_haiti_25_million] blogs have issued pleas urging readers to donate using SMS. Other relief agencies are now using the same approach. Both the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund [http://clintonbushhaitifund.org/] and singer Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund [https://co.clickandpledge.com/advanced/default.aspx?wid=23093]) have seen impressive responses.
What’s compelling is the amount of the donations received so far using SMS. Julie Ask, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research, said that “increased convenience and trust on the part of consumers” have greatly contributed to the SMS campaign’s overall success. Even more interesting is the fact that the Red Cross’s core demographic tends to skew a bit older – showing that adoption rates of a technology once the domain of Gen Y is aging gracefully and being adopted by a wider age group than traditionally thought.
“It’s easy to do. People see an ad and they don’t have to go home and write a check and find a stamp. The hurdles are so low for this,” she said. “As we see more established brands like the Red Cross using these types of campaigns, more and more people are getting more comfortable doing more with their mobile phones.” ( source http://www.dmnews.com/red-cross-raises-24-million-for-haiti-via-text-builds-mobile-database/article/161766/).
 SMS is seeing a surge of use in the days following the earthquakes in Haiti. The American Red Cross has raised over 25 million $US using a n SMS campaign that is now known to be the largest example of text-based charitable giving in history. Over 2.5 *million* SMS donations have been received so far.
What’s compelling is the amount of the donations received so far using SMS. Julie Ask, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research, said that “increased convenience and trust on the part of consumers” have greatly contributed to the SMS campaign’s overall success. Even more interesting is the fact that the Red Cross’s core demographic tends to skew a bit older – showing that adoption rates of a technology once the domain of Gen Y is
aging gracefully and being adopted by a wider age group than traditionally thought.
“It’s easy to do. People see an ad and they don’t have to go home and write a check and find a stamp. The hurdles are so low for this,” she said. “As we see more established brands like the Red Cross using these types of campaigns, more and more people are getting more comfortable doing more with their mobile phones.” ( source ).
By Kate on 20 January 2010, at 13:40 pm  Angel Gambino has joined the MediaFriends Advisory Board. With a passion for technology and media consumption, Gambino’s expertise will add significantly and positively to MediaFriends’ business goals and will help support its initiatives in new media and Social TV. “Angel brings a unique combination of social media and content expertise to our Advisory Board,” said Meredith Flynn-Ripley, President and CEO of MediaFriends. “We’re excited to work with Angel in this rapidly evolving social networking and new media area.”
Gambino is enthusiastic as well stating, “I am thrilled to work with the talented team at MediaFriends who are paving the way towards more seamless social viewing experiences that are proven to engage and retain audiences.”
Read more for the full press release, and more on Angel’s background.
By Gene on 15 January 2010, at 13:33 pm  What makes up the identity of a person in the electronic world? Their email address? IP address? IM Screen Name? MAC address? Twitter handle? The list could go on. One common element of all of these identity forms is that they are dynamic (they have a high probability to change over time) or some people may not have email/IM/Twitter/etc. Even a MAC address, which is a static element tied to one’s PC, mobile phone, STB, etc., will change when the person upgrades or changes to the latest and greatest new hardware device.
With the advent of Number Portability (NP) throughout much of the world, a person can keep his or her telephone number for their whole life if they wish (assuming residence in the same country). This number is the one element that crosses & combines the old “analog” world with the (moderately) new IP world. Virtually every human being on the planet from the most technically sophisticated to the goat herder in Botswana can and will likely have a mobile phone, or if they don’t now, eventually they will.
There are those in the world that say an email address, a SIP address, or IM screen name might become the new “common identity” for everyone. The one flaw with that assertion is the fact that, because language is based on sets of letters, non-Latin based languages such as Asian, Middle Eastern, African and Indian that use different letter sets do not lend themselves to such mediums, and they haven’t been adequately incorporated into the mix.
However, a phone number is universal across the entire world, regardless of language, so it’s natural that the phone number could be used as the worldwide identity. Additionally, more and more people are starting to use their mobile phone – and the number connected to it – as their only phone number. To boot, they’re taking their phones with them everywhere they go, and doing just about everything on them.
It is therefore that much more significant and crucial that real-time messaging mediums such as SMS/MMS not be thwarted by mediocre implementations of products that use SMS/MMS in the IP world, where the phone number – the unique identity – is negatively affected, or worse yet, replaced with a corporation’s own identity, such as a short code, used for their own commercial interests and inhibiting the consumer’s use of their own mobile number.
Because a phone number is the one element in the electronic world that provides a unique electronic ‘identity’ of an individual like no other electronic identification association – email, IM screen name, IP address, etc. – that has permanence and universal recognition, it is “who I am,” and therefore critical that with any product involving SMS/MMS, my ‘identity’ remains pure and true.
What do you consider your digital identity? How strong of a component is your phone number in this identity?
Photo credit: SLS Advertising Services
By Cappy on 13 January 2010, at 20:06 pm SMS Aging Gracefully: Older Consumers Using SMS As Much As Voice
Recent research released by Tekelec [http://www.tekelec.com/] has shown that 60% of 45 year-olds were just as likely to use SMS as they were voice calling on their mobile devices [http://www.qwasi.com/news/blog/sms-preferred-mode-of-communication-on-mobile.htm]. SMS is also increasing in popularity when compared to email [http://blog.mediafriendsinc.com/2009/12/16/sms-voice-or-email-its-sms/] as the daily preferred means of communication. Another interesting finding of the study was that > 80% of the respondents believed that they would receive a response more quickly via SMS than either voice message or email. And over a third of them indicated their SMS use would likely increase in the coming year. This bodes well not only for the carriers but also for services that depend upon SMS as a means for communication as well as new applications of SMS combined with traditional technology.
Clearly more and more research shows [http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10038634-94.html] that SMS is becoming more popular with all age groups as a the de-facto means of instant communication. And consumers want to use their current devices to do it[http://blog.mediafriendsinc.com/2010/01/06/people-want-social-tv-ashlee-vance/]. But it doesn’t stop there. Devices are ABI Research [http://www.allbusiness.com/media-telecommunications/telecommunications/13318900-1.html] recently released a report showing that device-to-device (or machine-to-machine, or M2M) SMS traffic will increase more than 40% between 2008 and 2014.
 It is well established that SMS has become the dominant form of communication for teens, but often the assumption has been that older users do not use SMS very much. Recent research released by Tekelec has shown that 60% of 45 year-olds were just as likely to use SMS as they were voice calling on their mobile devices. SMS is also increasing in popularity when compared to email as the daily preferred means of communication, with over 80% of the respondents believing that they would receive a response more quickly via SMS than either voice message or email. And over a third of them indicated their SMS use would likely increase in the coming year. This bodes well not only for the carriers but also for services that depend upon SMS as a means for communication as well as new applications of SMS combined with traditional technology.
Interestingly, Twitter may be having an effect on driving SMS into an older demographic. Recent data points to the fact that middle-aged users (35-44) may be the predominant demographic on the ubiquitous site. This has undoubtedly had an effect on making SMS’s 160 character limit more palatable to older users who traditionally may have found it too limiting.
Clearly more and more research shows that SMS is becoming more popular with all age groups as a the de-facto means of instant communication. And consumers want to use their current devices to do it.
Are you seeing increased adoption of SMS in older demographics among friends, family or customers? What do you think has been the motivation for this adoption?
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