Is Digital Behavior Gap Growing?

Over time, differences in technology adoption across generations or between regions tend to close. So some might argue the differences between younger users and older users in the U.S. market suggest a gap is widening.

Others might argue the differences in adoption only mean older users are going to start using the same tools younger users favor.

Gen Y is particularly mobile savvy, Forrester Research notes. Some 85 percent of consumers in the Millennial demographic regularly send or receive text messages, compared with 57 percent of all US consumers over the age of 18.

About 27 percent of Millennials access social networks on their mobile devices (compared with 14 percent of all US consumers) and 37 percent of Millennials access the mobile Internet, compared with 23 percent of all US consumers.

I tend to think this means older demographics increasingly will adopt those behaviors as well. It seems to have happened with virtually all earlier online and mobile behaviors, and one would do well to bet with the historical trend, rather than against it.

Forrester Research

Social Networking Grows, Content Creation Doesn't

Social networking continued to grow over the past year, but content creation did not, Forrester Research says.

The number of people who joined social networks increased by 11 percent in Europe, 18 percent in metro China, and 11 percent in Australia. By comparison, North America saw slightly less growth, with only an 8 percent increase.

On the other hand, between 2009 and 2010, no markets exhibited growth in the number of people who create social content.

"A lack of growth in social creation translates into a lack of fresh ideas, content, and perspectives," says Forrester Research Consumer Insights Analyst Jacqueline Anderson. "For example, one third of online consumers in the US regularly watch user-generated videos on sites like YouTube.

But, only 10 percent of US online consumers upload videos they've created to public sites. The traits required to create social content are unique, and at this moment, the consumer market interested in these behaviors has plateaued, Anderson says.

Forrester Research

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

There has been lots of chatter about the degree of job creation over the past two or so years, with some observers commenting that the current administration is doing much better than the former presidential administration at creating jobs.

click on images for larger view.

The old adage--that there are lies, damn lies and statistics--applies here, for the careful. All the first graph shows is that there has been a steep and deep recession.


The claim that the current administration already has created more jobs than the former administration clearly is false. That would require foreknowledge of the actual rate of net job creation (new jobs minus lost jobs) for the entire year of 2010, and all we have now are projections.


If one assumes the current rate of job creation--290,000 net new jobs for the remainder of 2010--the net job loss since the start of January 2009 would be 1.8 million, the sum of 4.7 million lost jobs in 2009 and 2.9 million potential jobs created in 2010.

In other words, the number of net jobs during the current presidency during the period 2009 to 2010 would be a loss of 1.8 million.

The other Bureau of Labor Statistics shows job creation over a wider period of time. The years 2000 to 2008 were no picnic,showing a rate of job growth far lower than we had seen in prior decades. That suggests a structural change of some sort. But the data also suggest why the "jobs created" claims have to be seen over a broader time span.

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Is Social Media a Fad?

Hardly anybody thinks so, but it is worth asking the question, I suppose.

IBM's view of the enterprise "data tsunami" or "exaflood"

IBM's view of the enterprise "data tsunami" or "exaflood."

Why Innovation is So Tough in the Communications Business

There are a ton of reasons why innovation is so difficult in the communications business.

"It won't work," "impossible requirements," "we can't do anything about it at the moment" and "business processes won't support it" are the broad categories within which you can probably imaging dozens of separate examples within each category.

The list of barriers is amusing and accurate, but also illustrates why highly-complex systems are resistant to desired innovation.

The Litany of Excuses Stifling Communication Innovation

Is Windows Phone 7 Too Late?

Windows Phone 7 might have been a huge hit, says Matt Burns at CrunchGear. It might have been the true iPhone killer, says Burns. It might have even become the dominant mobile platform. But it won’t, Burns argues. It’s an iOS, Android and BlackBerry world now and there isn’t room for anyone else, he argues.

That's a challenge Microsoft simply has to overcome. There's at least one possible new angle here: Windows Phone 7 is optimized for communication, not apps. That’s a key difference. Where Apple is focused on apps, and Android on mobile Web, Windows Phone 7 arguably is focused on ease of communication.

That is a segment Windows Phone 7 could ride: a smartphone optimized for ease of communication, rather than apps or Web or email, video or conferencing.

Windows Phone 7: Solid Platform, Sorry Future