â–¶ Reporters’ Insomnia: An Exponent survey of 120 agricultural business journalists gives a glimpse of what keeps reporters up at night: rapidly changing media channel, especially social media. While nearly three-quarters (73%) of respondents say they work with social media on the job each day, about half (52%) report feeling confident using it in their current positions. Other findings include:
• Respondents also worry about budgets (65%), competition for audiences (47%) and the impact of consolidation on the agriculture industry (35%).
• Multimedia technology skills are another concern for journalists, as technology blurs the lines between the types of media. For example, about half (46%) report using broadcast skills in traditionally print-only positions.
• Only about half (51%) of respondents say new media has had a positive impact on their jobs, and half say new media gives communicators an advantage.
Source: Exponent PR
â–¶ Web Trifecta: Despite the almost unlimited nature of what you can do on the Web, 40% of U.S. online time is spent on three activities: social networking, playing games and e-mailing, says a Nielsen study. Other findings include:
• U.S. consumers devoted a collective 906 million hours to sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as to reading blogs, in June 2010. This equated to 22.7% of all time spent on the net during the month, compared to just 15.8% in June 2009.
• Videos and movies were the only other category to deliver meaningful growth, with viewers spending 156 million hours watching clips, TV shows and films in June.
• Instant messaging recorded a drop from 4.7% to 4.0%, or 160 million hours, suggesting that the way people interact on the Web may be undergoing a fundamental shift.
Source: Nielsen
â–¶ Seating Assignments: Research from the Kellogg School found that team efficiency doesn’t solely depend on the talent or output of individuals, but is also influenced by the seating arrangements of groups. Seating groups so all members can easily see each other fosters trust. Details of the study:
• As part of the study, three-person groups seated in rows were asked to complete a task using a shared instruction sheet and answer sheet to encourage collaboration. The participants were then isolated and asked to fill out a questionnaire about their relative contribution to the group, as well as the contributions of the other group members.
• The person seated in the middle routinely took an even one-third of the credit for the task while the two outside participants took more credit (about 45%).
• Outside members tended to undervalue contributions made by the other outside member, believing that this person contributed less than one-third, but they appropriately valued the contributions of the middle member.
• Middle members appropriately valued the contributions of both outside members.
• These results suggested that an inability to see other group members was a major driver of credit judgments.
Source: Kellogg School
â–¶ Women Shaping Web: A comScore study says that social networking sites reach a higher percentage of women than men globally, with 75.8% of all women online visiting a social networking site in May 2010 versus 69.7% of men. Other findings include:
• Women demonstrate higher levels of engagement with social sites. Although women account for 47.9% of total visitors to the social networking category, they consume 57% of pages and account for nearly 57% of minutes spent on these sites.
• Social networking’s reach among women is highest in Latin America, where it reaches 94.1% of females online, North America (91.0%), and Europe (85.6%). Asia Pacific, where low broadband penetration and site restrictions exist, has a 54.9% reach.
• Although men are in the majority across the global Internet, women spend about 8% more time online, averaging 25 hours per month on the Web. PRN
Source: comScore