LDS Media Talk

There are now more than 100 million active Web sites on the Internet–double the number we had in May 2004.

In 2006, we saw dynamic growth with 27.4 million new sites — 3.5 million in October alone!

Blogs and small business Web sites drove the explosive growth this year, with huge increases at free blogging services and strong demand for low-priced domain names and shared hosting accounts.

Read more about the explosive growth of Web sites at Netcraft.

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The US population recently reached 300 million, according to the US Census Bureau.

63% of the US population (180 million people ages 3 and older) uses the Internet at least once a month according to eMarketer.

51.4% of the US Internet users (92.6 million) are women; 48.6% (87.5 million) are men.

26% of all US Internet users (46.8 million people) are 50 and older. That percentage has grown quite a bit in the last few years.

40.1% of children (ages 3-11) and 73.7% of teens (ages 12-17) use the Internet at least once a month.

14% of the US population (42 million people) is of Hispanic origin, according to the US Census Bureau, and 16.7 million of them are Internet users, comprising 9.3% of all US Internet users.

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As the Hispanic population in the US grows in size and influence, their use of the Internet also grows. A recent study found that there are more than 16 million Hispanic Americans online (55% of the total US Hispanic population), and 77% of those online have broadband access.

They use the Internet heavily for shopping: 77% use it to learn about brands and 72% go online to compare prices.

Beyond shopping, 43% of Hispanic US Internet users use it for social networking, 68% use instant messaging, 63% share photos, 52% read or post blogs, 40% talk on a phone using the Internet, and 48% visit news sites.

For more information on this subject, see eMarketer. They also have a more extensive report Hispanic Youth Online: Language and Culture Define Usage.

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“The content of the Internet, and who is creating it, is changing.” That’s the lead sentence from today’s eMarketer story.

According to Nielsen//NetRatings, user-generated content sites comprise five out of the top 10 fastest-growing Web brands. “User-generated content sites” include sites for photo sharing, video sharing, blogging, personal Web sites, Wikipedia (5 billion page views monthly), and even Mormon Wikipedia. This is increasing evidence that users expect to contribute content to sites as they consume content, both increasing the value of the site and drawing more participants. Most of these increases are due to viral (word-of-mouth) marketing.

Note the huge growth rates in the following sites from July 2005 to July 2006: ImageShack 233%, Heavy.com video site 213%, Flickr image site 201%, Artist Direct music site 185%, MySpace 183%, and Wikipedia 181%.

So, how do we capitalize on this trend in a way that provides good content about the Church on the Web?

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The latest Nielsen//NetRatings release on podcasting reports that 6.6% of the US adult online population — 9.2 million users — have recently downloaded an audio podcast; and 4% — 5.6 million users — recently downloaded a video podcast.

To put that in perspective, the figures put the podcasting audience on a par with US Internet users who publish blogs (4.8%), and online daters, (3.9% of the adult online population).

Internet users between the ages of 18 and 24 are almost twice as likely as the average user to download audio podcasts, followed by users in the 25-34 and 35-44 age groups. Video podcast downloading, however, trended slightly older, with 25-34 year olds indexing the highest.
For more information, see eMarketer.

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According to the latest figures from comScore Media Metrix, blogs are not merely becoming mainstream, they are turning into a flood of information. Or, as iMedia Connection put it, “blogs are now as ubiquitous to the web as reality shows are to television.”

Traffic to blogs continues to grow, up 56% over the past year to 58.7 million visitors, and that represents 34% of the total Internet audience.

Read more at http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1004072

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The article at http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/11/17/HN$100laptop_1.html explains the One Laptop Per Child initiative, which aims to produce a $100 laptop computer for distribution to children in developing countries. It features a hand crank that generates the two watts of power the machine needs to operate, it uses a Wi-Fi mesh to connect to the Internet, and runs open-source software. The machine can be folded in different ways to serve as a computer, electronic book or media player. All of the components are chosen for low power usage and low cost to make the portable computers as inexpensive as possible.

If this laptop project gets off the ground, it has interesting possibilities for the Church. Remember President Kimball’s 1974 talk to the Regional Representatives (“When the World Will Be Converted,” Ensign, Apr. 1984, p. 3) where he talked about the enormous potential of the transistor radio and how the Church should use it to broadcast the gospel message? This is light years ahead of the possibilities of the transistor radio. Have we, as a Church, even tapped the potential use of the transistor radio, let alone the possibility of rich media delivered over a $100 laptop?

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In 2005, more people in Japan accessed the Web with cell phones than with a computer.

Learn more on InfoWorld.

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Today there are 30 billion Web sites. (According to David Brown, Chairman of Motorola, “The New Economy – An Engineer’s Perspective,” 15th International World Wide Web Conference in Scotland, May 22-26, 2006.)

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In late in 2005, the world reached a milestone as Internet access became available to one billion people worldwide. Approximately 845 million use it regularly.

Asia-Pacific is the largest broadband region containing nearly 40% of the world’s broadband households. Latin America was the fastest growing broadband region, with 70% subscriber growth.

Source: Worldwide Online Access: 2004-2010 (see http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1003975 for more information).

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