In 2006, 28% of online teens in the United States wrote a blog or online journal.  According to a study by the Pew Internet and American Life project, the number of teens in the United States who blog now is just 14%

That’s a 50% drop.  Where did they go and what are the doing now?

Social networking is the cool thing today.  While just 8% of teens surveyed in the study claimed to use Twitter, a full 73% of online teens cited that they use social networking sites, particularly Facebook.

Even cell phone usage has dropped among U.S. teens who turn to mobile devices for texting and other short form communications instead.

While Pew’s research indicates that blogging has dropped in popularity since 2005 among the 18-29 year old audience, it has gone up among the 30 and older audience, which supports Pew’s findings that teens and younger audiences are typically early adopters of technology (such as blogging and text messaging) while older audiences take a longer time to try the same new technology.

Every generation has its fads and trends that they embrace and are remembered for.  Will the current generation of teens be remembered as the Facebook generation or will they move onto the next cool tool or trend just as the thirtysomething (and older) crowds are getting on board with those same tools and trends (and thus, making those tools and trends uncool by association)?

You can get more information about the Pew study here.

Image: Flickr

November 2009 marked a new milestone for online video viewing.  According to a new report from comScore, over 170 million Internet users in the U.S. watched online video in November 2009 for a total of nearly 31 billion videos viewed during the month.  That’s a new record, which demonstrates that comScore’s predictions for the future of online video viewing made in June 2009 appear to be well on track.

Google-owned online video sites (which include YouTube) are far and away leading the pack in terms of the number of viewers and videos viewed, but Hulu is showing impressive momentum — more than doubling its stats from less than a year ago as reported by Nielsen.  Check out the stats below:

Top 10 Sites by Number of Videos Viewed in November 2009

Top 10 Online Video Sites by Number of Unique Viewers in November 2009

Online video represents one of the biggest opportunities for businesses and individuals to grow their online reputations in 2010.  You can follow the link to check out some of the Authoritative Content video publishers who are already making names for themselves online and syndicating their video content through Newstex.

Technorati released its 2009 State of the Blogosphere report recently.  This year, nearly 3,000 bloggers were surveyed in September.  Survey results were combined with data from the Technorati index and Lijit.

The results are very interesting, showing that the growth of the blogosphere isn’t going to slow down anytime soon and the blurring of the lines between traditional media and new media will continue indefinitely as more and more authoritative content publishers join the blogosphere.  Interestingly, the State of the Blogosphere 2009 reports that 35% of respondents have worked in traditional media as a reporter, producer, or on-air personality, and another 27% currently blog and work in traditional media.

Technorati sums up the future of blogging succinctly:

“Blogging is the next step in a process of advancing communication from radio to TV to Internet messaging.  The breadth and depth of the blogosphere allows sophisticated information — and special expertise — enhanced range.  … The next generation of blogs will be more action-oriented, not just commenting on real time events but driving those events.”

The State of the Blogosphere 2009 report divides bloggers into 4 primary categories, which directly reflect the type of content they produce and their goals for their blogs as follows:

• Hobbyists: 72% of survey respondents were classified as hobbyists who blog for fun and self expression.  They don’t make any money from their blogging activities and few have the desire to monetize their blogs in the future.
• Part-Timers: 15% of survey respondents were classified as part-timers who blog to supplement their incomes but not as a full-time job.  Most part-timers blog to attract new business clients or to share their expertise.
• Self-Employeds: 9% of respondents were classified as self-employeds who blog full time for their own company or organization.  Self-employeds are also the most active users of Twitter (88% of self-employeds use Twitter).
• Pros: 4% of respondents were classified as pros who blog full time for a company or organization that they don’t own.  They blog to share their expertise and attract new clients for the business they work for.

The demographics of survey respondents are also very telling.  Overall, bloggers are more affluent and educated than the general population.  75% have college degrees and 40% have graduate degrees.  33% report annual household incomes of over $75,000 while 25% report annual household incomes of over $100,000.  Professional and self-employed bloggers are even more affluent with nearly 50% reporting annual household incomes over $75,000 and 33% reporting annual household incomes over $100,000.

A significant distinction between hobbyist bloggers versus part-time, self-employed and pro bloggers is the amount of time bloggers within each group spend working on their blogs.  Hobbyists are likely to publish posts less frequently (once a week) and they spend a smaller amount of time doing activities related to their blogs each week, too (fewer than 10 hours per week).

It’s amazing to consider that blogging — a tool that was originally used as an online journal — has grown to be an essential source for authoritative content.  I can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2010!

Image: Technorati.com

Sysomos conducted an interesting study about bloggers and online video engagement that sheds light on how bloggers are sharing online video content.  With Nielsen reporting that over 11 billion online video streams were viewed in the United States during the month of September 2009 by 139 million unique users (24.8% and 11.3% growth compared to September 2008, respectively), there is no doubt that online video is only going to get bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

With that inevitable continued growth in mind, Sysomos decided to study how bloggers were using the tools of social media to engage with and share online videos.  The assumption of the study is simple and follows the rules of common sense — if bloggers find online videos interesting enough (good or bad) to link to them from their blogs or embed them in blog posts, then they must be trying to share those videos so others can engage with them, too.

To get data, Sysomos studied over 100 million blog posts between July through September 2009 and identified links and embedded videos from YouTube.com, Blip.tv, Dailymotion.com, Metacafe, MTV.com, Vimeo.com, Hulu.com, Yahoo! Video, Google Video, Break.com, MySpace.com and MSN Video.

Following are some of the most interesting statistics from the sudy:

• YouTube is the most popular site for embedding and linking videos with 81.9% of linked and embedded videos in blogs coming from (or leading to) YouTube.  Vimeo is second with just 8.8% share.  Daily Motion has 4.0%, MySpace 1.1%, and Google 1.0% (remember, Google owns YouTube as well).  Each additional site in the study accounts for under 1% of links and embedded videos.
• 20-35 year old users share video through their blogs more than any other demographic group.  77% of users are under 35-years of age.
• Men share videos more than women.  60% of all users are male.

Check out the chart below for the overall online video sharing stats from the Sysomos study.

There is no doubt that the growth of online video is poised to skyrocket, and the opportunity to create and share your own Authoritative Content online videos is wide open!

In a new study conducted by iVillage, BlogHer, and Compass Partners, eMarketer reports that  53% of U.S. women age 18-77 who use the Internet participated in some form of online social media in March 2009.  Of those women who use social media, 3 out of 4 (75%) use social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn.  More than 1 in two (55%) use blogs.   Check out the stats below:

12 million U.S. women (29% of the women who actively used blogs in March 2009) posted to blogs, and 8 million (8%) actually published blogs, while the remaining 22.7 million (54%) read blogs.  Those are some big numbers, and they’re showing no signs of slowing down.  In fact, blog usage is taking more and more traffic away from traditional media everyday.  Check out the stats below to see the 1-year change in media usage habits:

So what do all these numbers tell us?  Social media has reshaped the way people share and receive information.  There’s no going back now.  It’s an exciting time to be a member of the blogosphere and online community!

Images: eMarketer

Last month, I published a post that described how statistics show video is an essential element of websites, but how do people find those videos?  Turns out bloggers play a huge role in driving traffic to online video.  In other words, if you want your online video to be seen, or potentially go viral, you need to connect with bloggers and get them talking about it.

According to a study by Tubemogul.com, blogs drive more traffic to online video than search engines, social networking sites, social bookmarking sites, and email combined — a lot more.  Check out the statistics from the study below:

• Search engines = 11.18%
• Social networks = 3.66%
• Social bookmarking sites: 3.19%
• Video search engines = 0.63%
• Email/IM = 0.05%
• Everything else (almost 100% blogs) = 80.88%

What do these statistics tell us?  Approximately 4 out of 5 online videos are viewed thanks to blog referrals.  Are you connecting with bloggers to drive traffic to your online videos?  Are you producing online videos yet?  Now is the time to get started!

According to a recent report published on eMarketer, the U.S. online video audience is expected to grow to 190 million people by 2012.  That’s 88% of the entire online audience.  Furthermore, 80.9% of that audience is expected to be watching online ads by 2012.  Believe it or not, that number is not very far out of reach.  In 2008, 73.6% of the online audience was already watching videos, and 67.2% of the online audience wss already watching video advertisements.  See the chart below for more details.

But wait – there’s more to this story!

A report from comScore tells us that online retail videos are also working.  From October 2007 to October 2008, the number of visitors to retail websites grew by 4%.  However, the number of visitors to retail websites who watched videos on those sites grew by 40%.  Check out the stats in the chart below.

So what are website owners doing about the changing online trends?

In an October 2008 survey of U.S. online retailers by Knowledge Marketing, 43.3% responded saying they planned to increase the amount of video or streaming media available on their websites, making it the number one advanced site feature that online retailers plan to add to their sites in 2009.  Take a look at all responses in the chart below.

Based on these statistics and trend predictions, it certainly seems that including video on your website and syndicating it through Newstex Video On Demand is an essential component for success in the future.  The online audience is already looking for online video content, not just for entertainment, but also for company and product news and information.  Are you ready to meet that demand?