Greenberg begins with the point that it’s important to know what’s going to be big in the future, not just now.

Brown gives findings on her survey on web activity (on general audience).

• Over 2,300 respondents
• Internet no longer cutting-edge but fact of life
• Almost ¾ go online every day.
• 1/3 of us would rather email than call a friend
• 1 in 3 say the Internet is their primary source of news.

However,

• Few trust what’s on the Internet
• They tend to trust TV and newspapers more than the Internet

There are still people who:

• Go to the bank to make deposits

1 in 3 have read a blog
1 in 10 have written a blog

SXSW participants

• 65% have Instant-messaged
• 85% read blogs
• 65% write blogs
• 65% online dating

More men read blogs, even the elderly – over 20% read blogs.

General audience - 1 out of 4 visited a blog in the past 24 hours but they’re fussy about who they visit.

SXSW – 60% have read a blog in the past HOUR.

General audience - 10% wrote blogs in the past 30 days.

Internet still used to keep in touch with people.

Yahoo!

Yahoo’s stats on What people Are(n’t) doing on the Internet.
Yahoo!’s OMD studies is public domain on the web. Advertising Week 2005. [Note to self: Search for this online and link to it from here]

83% of Chinese have an MP3 player!

Communication (Email) is the killer app for youths, followed closely by Instant Messaging.
Koreans top the list for web search 82% and blogging 62%.

Music is the most-searched subject. Males search for sex, second. Someone asked why sports was less popular. It’s probably because with music, there are so many more artistes to search for.

Top sites: Google (1st), Myspace (2nd), Yahoo! (4th)

Yahoo!’s top pages:

1. Search 19+m
2. Mail 18m
3. News 9.5m

[If we can’t find the PPT on the SXSW website, we can email michelem@yahoo-inc.com]

Nielsen Buzzmetrics

26% of searches are in the first person (Google).

Case study – large appliance company who suddenly received fan mail for one of their washing machines! They asked NB to leverage on this new-found popularity.

NB surprisingly found out that half the customers were male, as opposed to company’s strategy of marketing to 99% females. Word of mouth worked.

Brown feels there’s a shift towards people having control – ‘My media’. They choose what blogs they want to read (e.g. RSS feeds) and what shows to record (Tivo). At the same time, Kalehoff feels there are so many brands that it’s hard to compete.

My rating: 4/5. Greenberg is a clear and effective moderator. The statistics are very useful to know, although there’s not very much interpretation and predictions on it.