When you look at the iPad app store, one thing becomes clear very quickly. Social networking is not the most popular use of the iPad. Far from it. In fact, just one of 12 of the top paid iPad apps over Memorial Day weekend (as pictured above) was social networking related. The vast majority were games, with a sprinkle of BBQing, music and productivity joining MyPad+ for Facebook.
Consumer use of social media on the iPad reflects some startling statistics that show social’s impact on daily consumer life is less than one would think. In fact, only Facebook and YouTube get any serious attention, between 20-50% of Americans use them regularly (depending on interpretation). The rest of the wide variety of social tools are well, niche social networks.
So, has social in fact been relegated to a supporting form of online media? Is it the relationship tool and feedback line of the web, really just a feature set for online marketing? If current online media usage is any indication then one would have to conclude yes, social is an important, supporting set of online media.
A recent study by Sandvine shows that social networking doesn’t even rank in the top five bandwidth activities online though real time communications (chat) does. In fact, social networking looks like it peaked in 2010 according to the chart above. Of course, this measures bandwidth use, and peer to peer file sharing and real time entertainment (like Netflix) are bandwidth hogs. Social media tends to be text -based, thus it is not bandwidth intensive.
Still the indicators from the variety of data sets point to a conclusion: Social media is not the principal actor in online media. Does this mean we are in a bonafide hype bubble? Or perhaps people don’t want to talk on social networks a majority of the day, just for proportionally smaller parts? What do you think these data sets mean?
The data is not surprising. Most of the people I know with smartphones do not have Twitter accounts and rarely, if ever, use Facebook on their devices. Rather they use their iPads, iPhones, Android and BlackBerry devices to play games, make and send phone calls and text messages, and use office productivity tools.
I see this is the future we are heading towards…
thanks for the post. very interesting information!
I suspect that Facebook and Twitter usage is actually captured in the “Web Browsing” and “Real-Time Entertainment” categories, and/or that “Peak Period Aggregate Traffic” is actually a indicator of bandwidth consumption and not time spent.
Inconceivable to me that combined Twitter and Facebook usage alone doesn’t make the top 5.
46 million Americans is roughly 20%. And does check, mean like check you mail? What kind of use are we talking here? Not as impressive as it may seem. Also, the yellow color denotes social networking in the chart. Thanks for your counter opinion, still skeptical.
Agreed on the “check” stuff, and I think overall we agree the idea that the hype > reality. Would have liked to see what specifically was included in their various categories though, was unable to get any more detail from their site. Still suspect there was an issue of bandwidth versus time spent. Thx Geoff.
I think social media isn’t a big bandwidth consumer so the 2.7% could represent a lot of low bandwidth cunsumers. Or it could be a hype bubble, that wouldn’t surprise me at all. But then when it comes to effective communication, I am a multi-channel kind of girl, not all my eggs in a SM basket.
Yeah, it’s got an important role. It’s not an extra, but they hype seems overextended to me give the stats. Again, supporting actors win Oscars, too, but… You get my point.
I think that social is just being under-utilized. You hear lots talk about “social”, but it seems like few organizations really know what it means, and even fewer know how to employ it well. Until it becomes something that busineses and non-profits can really integrate into their relationship with their donors/customers, we won’t see social used pervasively.
As a side note, I have heard that Apple’s release of iOS5 may integrate Twitter much deeper into the OS. It will be interesting to see if this leads to further adoption of Twitter itself, or changes the way it’s used in the first place!