How we spend our time on the web

I have been reading some interesting articles on how people spend their time on the internet. When the internet was first introduced to the world it quickly became a tool for communication and sharing information. Now in 2010, the internet plays a role in just about every business, non-profit society and organisation, and individuals life.

Some of the statistics reported by the Huffington Post relating to internet use by Americans showed that in a single month, a web user visits 2,646 sites and logs on 57 times – that’s a lot of information to be digesting! The report also highlighted the ever increasing popularity of social networking sites, with 70% of American internet users engaging in social networking. While in Brazil, a huge 90% of active internet users participate in social networking.

Another report in the Tech Chronicles of the San Francisco Chronicle reported how people are spending less time emailing and more time instant messaging. The report goes on to state that “In the past four years, people have been spending 37 percent more time getting news and entertainment online and less time communicating and making purchases online”.

Another article on TechPaparazzi listed the top internet brands – by percentage of online user visitors – with Google at 82%, followed by MSN/Bing (on 62%), Facebook (54%), Yahoo (53%), Microsoft (48%) and YouTube (47%).

Finally, this article published on TheOnlineMom highlights the increasing diversity of web users outside of the tech-obsessed younger generations. It shows that social networking rates higher than online gaming, internet and emailing in a ranking of the top ten sectors by share of US internet time.

These articles show an interesting shift away from simple emailing and data sharing, to more complex forms of internet usage. It also highlights the increasing popularity of social networking and the increasing desire for individuals not just to participate online, but to have an ‘online profile’ that is shared with the virtual community.

I’m cheating on my hotmail account

I signed up to hotmail before I even really understood what email was. I was just excited that I could get to use my own name! And I’ve pretty much used that account ever since – it’s a sort of time capsule of my life in correspondence since the late nineties. Sometimes I trawl back through old emails and have a laugh, or cringe, at what I wrote and who I was writing to.

My love affair with hotmail, however, is slowly dying. And it’s for two main reasons. Firstly, I get so much junk mail I have had to set my filter to the highest level, which means I periodically miss important emails that I should be reading. Unfortunately, I learnt a little too late that entering your email address into the world wide web in order to win competitions and prizes doesn’t necessarily come without a price tag. Secondly – and, I didn’t realise it until fairly recently – hotmail has decided to add a signature to each of my sent emails, with a one-line advertisement. Not too big of a deal when emailing friends, but pretty frustrating when you’re emailing your CV to a potential employer.

So I’ve started an affair with gmail. It’s less attractive than hotmail; the interface is strange, and the way it lists emails is confusing, but I’m getting used to it. There aren’t any interactive banner ads, which is great, and the emails seem to be arriving at their intended destination, but I’m still unsatisfied and sometimes I ditch them both to spend an evening with Facebook.

I’m always on the lookout for a better model so let me know if you have any suggestions?

Photography in the Digital Age

I went to see a play on the weekend at fortyfivedownstairs on Flinders Lane in the city. It was a cool little venue and an interesting show; a take on photojournalist’s working in war zones, and the bonds and experiences they share, called Bare Witness.

In one sequence of the dialogue, some of the changes that have taken place recently in terms of digital technology were highlighted. Journalist’s no longer need to rely on physically shipping reels of images from geographically isolated areas with minimal infrastructure. Now, a simple click of a button and images are instantly available on editors’ news desks around the world.

The same is true of the paparazzi, who make big dollars by being the first to sell their images to the tabloids in a fast-paced, high turnover environment. This was highlighted in a documentary I watched, Paparazzi: Next Generation, in which young paparazzi were trailed around London as they stalked celebrities and instantly uploaded and sent off their photographs from laptops in the back of their cars. The only real barrier to the profession seemed to be acquiring the necessary equipment, and possessing the necessary bravado to avoid being muscled out of the next great shot of Paris Hilton leaving a club in Mayfair.

In the digital age, photography can be shared quickly and easily. And it’s not just journalist’s and paparazzi. People are documenting their own lives more and more through social media networks like Facebook, where you could spend an eternity trawling through photos of people’s lives.

Gone are the days where you would drop the film at the chemist and come back in three days, hopeful that some of them turned out ok!

What’s your profile?

Following on from my previous post about politicians using social media to interact with voters, I would like to talk about two interesting aspects of digital media: a) how it encourages interaction between individuals that was previously unavailable in such a widespread way; and b) the flow on affects this has in terms of privacy, accountability and scrutiny – i.e. not only are people expected to communicate 24/7, but the messages that they send are more closely scrutinized. Take for example David Barker, the Liberal candidate in the seat of Chifly, who made racially vilifying comments on his Facebook page and was promptly dismissed (and rightly so) by the Liberal party. Not to mention the numerous instances of employees losing their jobs over casual remarks made on their Facebook pages that they doubtfully expected their bosses to discover.

The ABC has incorporated a Twitter live feed into its Q&A program, and while I can see how this helps the audience at home feel more as though they are part of the debate, I think that it cheapens the discussion because many of the ‘tweets’ are pretty meaningless – for example, “Imagining Bronwyn Bishop and John Howard doing it” commented by one viewer during the Monday 9th August program.

It’s not just politicians that are carefully managing their public profiles online. A recent article in The Sydney Morning Herald found that “Nearly 25 per cent of Gen Y guys said they actively manage their cyber profiles to project their ‘best self’ compared to 14 per cent of their female counterparts”. In a similar vein, this article profiles individuals who are juggling concerns over privacy online, whilst also attempting to be active participants through blogging and social media. It highlights how the potential to reach a large audience through online networks can be exciting and daunting at the same time.

The new age of online profiles, networking, dating, gaming, shopping etc. encourages participation and interaction across networks and between individuals. These WordPress blogs are a great example of the relative ease with which individuals can self-publish and reach an audience. I like that people can choose how, when, why and with who they interact online and will be interested to see what the future holds for digital and social media.

Twitter vs. Gillard

I was reading an interesting article about the role of social media in the context of political campaigning in the lead up to the 2010 election. With the advent of social media, political parties – like businesses, and celebrities – are increasingly engaging with their audience using social media like Facebook and Twitter. In terms of coverage it appears that the Labor Party is streets ahead of the opposition, with a 77 to 23 per cent domination of the social media landscape in terms of volume of conversation (based on data from 25th July 2010). On the day that Julia Gillard joined Twitter and the day that the election was called, there was a huge spike in volume on Twitter. So clearly people are listening and excited about engaging with politicians and political discourse online.

Is this shift from political coverage in traditional media to digital media improving the way political parties interact with the public? Or just providing a simplified version of policy and debate to attract otherwise uninterested voters? In her article, Tiphereth Gloria argues that:

“There’s poor form overall from both Liberal and Labor. They’ve both set up social channels but use them to broadcast messages just like they do in traditional media channels, and they let the emergent community monitor itself.”

Looking at the numbers in the lead up to this election, it would appear that the big winner in terms of popularity is Twitter.