Media's ageing audiences: Peggy Sue got old - The Economist

The noisy disruption of media business models by the internet in the past decade has obscured a profound demographic transformation. Whether they are buying music, listening to the radio, reading newspapers or watching television, media consumers are ageing even more quickly than the overall population. Rather than trying to reverse this trend by attracting younger people, many companies are attempting to profit from the greying of media.

As your audience ages, approachability matters more. Kids see a new technology like a video game: a challenge to figure out. Their elders see it as work.

But the greys have money. As the article notes, "people aged 60 or over spent more on pop-music albums in 2009 than did teenagers or people in their 20s".

This is a strong—though generally overlooked—incentive to make new technologies feel comfortable and familiar.

Usability week ending December 19th

Thursday, 16th December, 12:17 PM
Web developers must add #mobile web development to their skill set or risk losing clients. Here's the landscape: http://j.mp/fsZMkT

Thursday, 16th December, 10:43 AM
Why the studios will lose the “war” with Netflix: http://j.mp/hWrvsD #netflix #streaming #ux #vod #ott

Wednesday, 15th December, 8:22 AM
Making user and customer experience a business competency (videos and transcript): http://j.mp/fmTWJW #ux #cx

Tuesday, 14th December, 8:20 AM
RIM BlackBerry -- when product development teams kill #usability, how to recognize it, and what to do about it: http://j.mp/e7GS4x

Monday, 13th December, 12:59 PM
Average U.S. consumer now spends as much time online as watching TV, according to Forrester research: http://j.mp/i73E87

Monday, 13th December, 9:51 AM
Making an iPhone app? Use great iPhone apps every day--designing with conventions in mind will eventually come naturally: http://j.mp/fDPzgd

via twitter.com/terretta

Online video week ending January 24th

Friday, 22nd January, 6:35 PM
Why @Firefox supports the #HTML5 video element, but only for #Ogg #Theora: http://j.mp/8ngedQ @vimeo @youtube #vod #h264 #patents

Friday, 22nd January, 9:29 AM
Conan puts online #video distribution rights fees to comedic use, licenses costly Rolling Stones track for comedy skit: http://j.mp/8SI3Cd

Thursday, 21st January, 5:47 PM
In past 2 years, over 12 telcos/carriers entered CDN biz, all by re-selling or partnering with a pure-play provider: http://j.mp/5ZCZNq

Wednesday, 20th January, 9:47 AM
RT @TechCrunch: Watch Obama’s State Of The Union speech LIVE on your #iPhone next week: http://j.mp/7nJofi #streaming #video

Tuesday, 19th January, 3:36 PM
#Cisco says avg employee in enterprise watches 4.6 hrs of #streaming video a month, to double over next 2 years: http://j.mp/4TABIl #vod

Tuesday, 19th January, 2:55 PM
Got Windows 7 but no TV tuner? You don’t need one to watch streaming video (even popular TV) on a Media Center PC: http://j.mp/5TK8cs #vod

Tuesday, 19th January, 12:04 PM
À-la-carte pricing could inject huge uncertainty into cable, channels might not get enough subscribers to survive: http://j.mp/8iqz4M

Monday, 18th January, 6:44 PM
#ESPN could provide live streams of sporting events to #Microsoft Xbox Live: http://j.mp/5KJFpQ #streaming #vod #xbox360 #sports $MSFT $DIS

via twitter.com/advection

Broadcasters face challenge of armchair revolution

According to analysis seen by The Times, increasingly popular video-on-demand (VOD) is challenging the business model of commercial television.

A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the accountant and business adviser, suggests that consumers’ growing appetite for VOD could lead to broadcasters losing a further £280 million from annual advertising revenues if they continue to focus their efforts on cost-cutting and fail to cash in on the boom.

PwC suggests VOD services needs to sell ads at 3x the CPM (cost-per-thousand) of television to break even. Coincidentally, The Simpsons pulls in $20 per thousand on TV and $60 per thousand on Hulu.

Back in June, Bloomberg reported CBS's David Poltrack saying, “The reason people are paying such a high premium for these ads on the Internet is they do have a captive audience,” Poltrack said. “You know you have eyes on the screen.”

After all, the point of video on the Internet isn't to replace TV. It's to have a two way, and measurable, dialog with each viewer.

Usability week ending November 1st

Friday, 30th October, 4:06 PM
Handling user errors using specific and helpful messaging, boosted conversions by 17%: http://j.mp/2qMOp0 #ux #ui #ia

Thursday, 29th October, 2:31 PM
Qualify leads using sign-up forms, with less sign-up friction and more qualified responses: http://j.mp/1bkthO #ia #ux #usability

Wednesday, 28th October, 5:18 PM
The underutilized power of the video demo to explain what the hell you actually do: http://j.mp/I1pZU #ux #ia #video #streaming #usability

Tuesday, 27th October, 2:38 PM
Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, WeFollow, Revision3, shares 9 ways to grow to one million users: http://j.mp/1ovjsI #ia #marketing #startup

Monday, 26th October, 7:49 PM
Making your app easy lowers barriers to entry and bounce rates, increases conversions, makes/breaks success: http://j.mp/VYpKD #ux #ui #ia

via twitter.com/terretta