Archive for the 'Podcasting Statistics' Category

Universal McCann has published a new report that suggests that new media is rapidly becoming mainstream media around the world.

The comparative study looks at social media trends through three “waves”:

• Wave 1 - September 2006
• Wave 2 - June 2007
• Wave 3 - March 2008

Research highlights:

• Social media is a global phenomenon happening in all markets regardless of wider economic, social and cultural development.
• Asian markets (not including Japan) are leading in terms of participation, creating more content than any other region
• All social media platforms have grown significantly over the three Waves: Video Clips are the quickest growing platform, up from 31% penetration in Wave 1 to 83% in Wave 3
• 57% have joined a Social Network, making it the number one platform for creating and sharing content: 55% of users have uploaded photos, 22% of users have uploaded videos
• The widget economy – 23% of social network users have installed an application – 18% of bloggers have installed applications in their blog templates
• Blogs are a mainstream media world-wide and a collective rival to traditional media (184m bloggers world-wide, China has the largest blogging community in the world with 42m bloggers) – 73% have read a blog, 45% have started a blog
• Social media has strong impacts over brand’s reputation – 34% post opinions about products and brands on their blog – 36% think more positively about companies that have blogs

The report offers additional details on Internet media use:

Video Sharing:

• Brazil leads on 68%, Asian countries dominate (not including Japan)
• Significant variation in involvement (Hungary 16% < Brazil 68%).
• High frequency of involvement: 20% are uploading every day

Watching video clips:

• Growth is universal across all countries (31% to 82% global reach seen in all markets)
• Lowest difference between markets of any social media platform (Range 63% – 99%)
• Very high frequency medium: 71% weekly reach

Downloading podcasts

• Growth massive between Waves 2 and 3 (from 21% to 49% world-wide).
• China is the world’s biggest podcast market (74% use, with an estimated 45m users)
• Actively involved medium: 18% listen and download everyday

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According to the most recent Tech Poll from radio research firm Jacobs Media, the audience for podcasts is up 87% year to year among rock radio listeners.

Here are some of the highlights of their research:

• New technology continues to rapidly move into radio listeners’ lives. This year, the “big gainers” in terms of occupying their time includes streaming video, iPod ownership (and podcasting), and text messaging. Almost the entire sample now owns a cell phone and has access to a hi-speed Internet connection.
• In-home radio listening is declining, as respondents continue to utilize other media in their residences.
• A variety of things are cutting into people’s time listening to radio:
  • Reading news online
  • Social networking sites (continuing to grow)
  • iPods/mp3 players (getting bigger every year)
  • Podcasting (up 87% year to year)
  • Streaming radio
  • Music sites like Pandora, iTunes
  • Video games (which was trending down last year)
  • Cell phones (which continue to be huge)
  • DVDs
  • TiVo/DVRs (which leads to more television viewing)
  • Video sites like YouTube
• Nearly six in ten respondents own a iPod/portable media player, an increase of 23% over last year’s poll. And the iPod’s presence in cars continues to rise.
• HD Radio is going nowhere fast - awareness is limited to about 1 in 100 people surveyed.
• Three in ten (28%) respondents (whether they own an iPod or not) say they’ve downloaded/listened to a podcast.
• Two-thirds (69%) of those listening to podcasts are very or somewhat willing to access a free podcast that contains an introductory commercial from a sponsor.

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eMusic, the world’s second-largest digital music service after iTunes, today announced that it has sold more than 200 million downloads since establishing its current subscription model in November 2003.

The total comprises music downloads sold in the U.S. and the E.U., where eMusic has been available in all 27 E.U. nations since September 2006. The company is now selling more than 7 million tracks a month across all territories.

The 200 millionth track downloaded was “Fiery Crash” from Andrew Bird’s Armchair Apocrypha (Fat Possum Records).

“As more choices emerge for consumers in the digital music space, eMusic continues to grow, attracting new customers and selling more music every day,” said eMusic President and CEO David Pakman. “We’ve been ahead of the curve on DRM-free formats and price since day one, and we believe these numbers show that eMusic continues to sell more digital music than any other service apart from iTunes.” (more…)

Internet video viewing will grow massively this year, according to research from Accustream. Professional and “user-generated video” (UGV) views are expected to grow by 43.4% in 2008, following a 57.6% increase in 2007.

Other highlights of the research:

• Partner Channels on YouTube, for example, accounted for a 10.6% share of total video views in 2006 - 2007, forecast at 15.4% in 2008.
• Comedians/Directors captured 8.9% total viewing share on YouTube in 2006 - 2007 and forecast at 11.1% in 2008.
• Universal Music Group claimed the top channel partner position, with a 29.1% share, according to AccuStream.
• Combined, Partner Channels, Comedians and Directors made up 19.5% of total views on YouTube in 2006 - 2007, and forecast at 26.5% in 2008.

Their research also digs into the relative strengths of user generated vs professional video:

• Entertainment captured a combined 17.1 billion views, for a 33.1 share, with professional sites owning a 52.4% launch share, and UGV hosting networks the remaining 47.6%.
• Music video (including artist info, mash-ups, spoofs, tour videos etc. on UGV networks) captured 12.5 billion combined views, 55.6% owned by professionally managed sites and brands compared to 44.4% for UGV.
• News is almost completely dominated by professionally managed sites, with a 93.8% share.
• The Sports category remains largely the domain of professional, formal partner or syndication-powered websites, with an 80.7% share compared to 19.3% share for UGV networks. Sports on UGV networks typically include extreme events content and spectacular wipe-outs.

New research from comScore confirms one of the more important new media trends - that young people are abandoning newspapers for Internet media.

As a result, newspaper readership is getting smaller and older.

���That current generations are growing up getting their news online for free is an indicator that print circulations are likely to continue their decline,��� said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore.

Younger News Consumers Less Likely to Read Print Newspapers

Heavy print newspaper readers show a strong skew towards older age segments, while the non-newspaper reader segments skew younger.

• Those age 65 and older are nearly 3 times more likely (index of 296) than average to read the print edition of newspapers 6 times per week.
• Those age 18-24 are 38 percent more likely than average to not read a print newspaper at all during a typical week.

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A scandal has broken out over the fact that the most-viewed video of all time on YouTube, Evolution of Dance, has been beaten by a fan video for the song Music is My Hot Hot Sex.

A lot of people are crying foul - not just because the Hot Hot Sex video is so bad, but because YouTube’s stats suggest that many of the video’s views may have been generated by spambots.

Does Hot Hot Sex Really Belong On Top?

Waxy.org did the stats rundown.

“There’s still a possibility that this torrent of traffic is coming from a legitimate external source, but it seems increasingly unlikely,” they concluded. “It’s either a bug or some form of cheating.”

ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick has a different view, suggesting that the clip is “a defining video for the current era online - the heady days and American flavored story of “well, golly look at that” user generated content are over.”

While Kirkpatrick acknowledges suspicions around the video’s ranking, he suggests that globalization may be a factor in the Hot Hot Sex video’s popularity.

“YouTube now gets a majority of its viewer ship from outside the U.S. so it only makes sense that the #1 video of all time isn’t from the U.S. There are now three of the 20 all time most viewed videos on YouTube with non-English titles,” notes Kirkpatrick. “Non-native English speakers and other languages are an essential part of US culture and English titled videos are of course viewed substantially outside of the US - but the growing internationalization of the site can’t help but increase the prominence of non-English videos. The victory of Hot Hot Sex is a strong signal of the global reach of YouTube.”

Jackson West at NewTeeVee offers a more skeptical take:

“After Andy Baio called ‘bulls**t’ on CANSEI DE DER SEX Music is My Hot Hot Sex, there���s been renewed interest in stats-gaming on YouTube,” notes Jackson. “The video is still online at 91,195,785 views and counting, but it���s no longer listed as the most viewed all time”

Is Google The Real Culprit Behind The YouTube Sex Scandal?

While these explanations are all plausible, there’s another, simpler explanation: Google may be responsible for the success of Hot Hot Sex.

Check out what Google brings up for “hot sex”:

If you’re at the top of number one search engine Google for “hot sex”, you’re going to get a hell of a lot of traffic.

Does Hot Hot Sex really beat The Evolution of Dance? I’m skeptical.

Videos after the jump. Take a look and let me know what you think.
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Libsyn has announced an update to it stats offering will be released on Monday.

Addressed in this release:

• lack of updates for new files
• low numbers for past 9 months
• speed to load stats UI
• accuracy of data
• user agents list (zune, appleTV, iPhone, miro, etc added)
• real trending data over time.. per month/week/day downloads of episodes or entire show
• general confusion from v.1.5.2

The “old stats” 1.5.2 will continue to be updated while “new stats” 1.6 continues to catch up for some users. They expect to stop updating the old stats offering by the end of the month.

Two thirds of all Americans are dissatisfied with the current state of journalism, and most now regard the Internet as their most important source of news, according to a new Zogby International survey.

The survey also found that while most Americans (70%) think journalism is important to the quality of life in their communities, two thirds (64%) are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities.

Other highlights of the research:

• Nearly half of respondents (48%) said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, an increase from 40% who said the same a year ago.
• 55% of those age 18 to 29 say they get most of their news and information online, compared to 35% of those age 65 and older.
• Overall, 29% said television is their main source of news, while fewer said they turn to radio (11%) and newspapers (10%) for most of their news and information.
• Just 7% of those age 18 to 29 said they get most of their news from newspapers, while more than twice as many (17%) of those age 65 and older list newspapers as their top source of news and information.
• Web sites are regarded as a more important source of news and information than traditional media outlets - 86% of Americans said Web sites were an important source of news, with more than half (56%) who view these sites as very important. Most also view television (77%), radio (74%), and newspapers (70%) as important sources of news, although fewer than say the same about blogs (38%).

The survey has clear implications for podcasting and new media - people are looking to the Internet for news and information, but may not be ready to trust new news sources. The onus is on new media sites to establish a track record and build that trust.

Overall, the survey finds the Internet not only outweighs television, radio, and newspapers as the most frequently used and important source for news and information, but Web sites were also cited as more trustworthy than more traditional media sources - nearly a third (32%) said Internet sites are their most trusted source for news and information, followed by newspapers (22%), television (21%) and radio (15%). (more…)

People now spend twice as much time surfing the Web as they do watching TV, according to new research from IDC.

IDC surveyed nearly one thousand Internet users for the survey. They found that:

• The Internet is the medium on which online users spend the most time (32.7 hours/week). This is equivalent to almost half of the total time spent each week using all media (70.6 hours).
• People spend twice as much time on the Internet as they spend watching television (16.4 hours).
• People spend eight times as much time on the Internet as they spentd reading newspapers and magazines (3.9 hours).

“The time spent using the Internet will continue to increase at the expense of television and, to a lesser extent, print media,” said Karsten Weide, program director, Digital Media and Entertainment at IDC. “This suggests that advertising budgets will continue to be shifted out of television, newspapers, and magazines into Internet advertising.”

The data also show that consumers tend to use the media they grew up with. The older the respondents, the more they consume TV, newspapers, and magazines; the younger they are, the more the Internet displaces usage of traditional media.

Using search engines (84% of respondents), mapping and navigation services (83%), personal research (77%), and using email (76%) are the most frequent online activities.

Most marketers believe that television advertising has become less effective in the past two years. As a result, marketers are interested in exploring new ad formats and new forms of video commercials, according to the the latest TV & Technology survey conducted by the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) and Forrester Research, Inc.

Highlights of the study include:

• Sixty-two percent of marketers believe television advertising has become less effective in the past two years.
• Close to half of the advertisers surveyed have already started to experiment with new ad types to work with DVRs and video on demand (VOD) programs.
• Advertisers are eager to try new ad formats, including ads in online TV shows (65 percent), ads embedded in VOD (55 percent), interactive television ads (43 percent), and ads within the set top box menu (32 percent).
• Eighty-seven percent of respondents said they intend to spend more on Web advertising this year.

• Media agencies are getting better at helping clients deal with new media. Only 28 percent of respondents reported that their media agency is ill-equipped to address the changes in TV advertising, compared to 47 percent two years ago.
• Creative agencies did not fare as well, with 47 percent of marketers indicating that their creative agency was still ill-equipped to help deal with changes, a slight improvement from 55 percent of marketers two years ago.