Views of Net users young & old: Studies

Lots of international (individual and family) Internet-user data has been released via various studies this past week, courtesy of Symantec, Google, Yahoo, and Skype. Symantec's Norton Online Living Report was very family-oriented, having gathered the views of 9,000 adults and young people in 12 countries! Some interesting findings NetworkWorld led with were that "one in five children admitted getting caught doing something their parents didn't approve of," and parents are using a variety of means to keep better tabs on their kids online activities. "The UK, for example, has the highest usage of software to control Internet use," e.g., filtering or online curfews. A few other interesting findings: "1 in 5 online youth are more willing to communicate with their family about touchy subjects online than on the phone or in person" (great idea - let a text message about your concern kick off a calm parent-child conversation); "89% of online adults and 90% of online children agree that the benefits of using the Internet outweigh the risks," but 60% of parents feel kids spend too much time online. In another just-released sponsored by Google, Yahoo, and Skype, 90% of users in France, Germany, and the UK expect their Internet service providers to offer open and unrestricted access to the Web, Reuters reports. And the New York Times reports that a survey conducted in the US by TRUSTe, the privacy nonprofit, found that "more than 90% of respondents called online privacy a 'really' or 'somewhat' important issue." But in a separate story, the Times asks the good question, "When Everyone's a Friend, Is Anything Private?"

Online video: More amazing growth data

The growth of US Web video-viewing is pretty phenomenal. We viewed 13.5 billion online videos this past October! Not "million" - "billion"! That's a 45% increase over October 2007, according to comScore's latest figures. ComScore measures by the companies that own the sites - so Google topped the list (its YouTube represented 98% of its video-viewing traffic) at 5.4 billion videos viewed (39.7% share). The rest of the top 10 video sites were more clumped together in traffic numbers, the only surprise being Hulu.com's rapid rise to the No. 6 position. Here are the US's 10 biggest video-viewing providers, going down from Google: Fox Interactive Media (mostly MySpace) at about 520 million (3.8%); Yahoo Sites 363 million (2.7%); Viacom Digital 305 million (2.3%); Microsoft Sites 286 million (2.1%); Hulu 235 million (1.7%); Turner Network 228 million (1.7%); Disney Online 127 million (0.9%); AOL 123 million (0.9%); and ESPN 105 million (0.8%). BTW, amateur video producers with the most viewers at YouTube are now "earning six-figure incomes from the Web site," the New York Times reports, because of the ads YouTube puts with them (it has a revenue-share program). See the Times for examples.

Ever more mobile social Web

Like our children now, we in the future may have so many people in our phone address books that we'll need help remembering where we met them. At least that's what Yahoo's new social app for phones seems to illustrate, as just-unveiled oneConnect expands its market from young early adopters to us. "The centerpiece is a tab called Pulse, where it integrates Facebook, Twitter and other networks on to the same page. That's where you can see the latest status updates and photos uploaded, and with one click you can get to that person's address card. On the address card, it lists how you know that person, through Facebook or MySpace, for example," the Washington Post reports. For now, it's only for the iPhone. That was just one of the social features announced at the latest CTIA trade show. Verizon Wireless unveiled SocialLife, allowing users "to view messages, approve or deny friend requests, post comments or photos, and update status or profiles on their mobile phones," the Post reported separately. SocialLife, at $1.49/month, "works with MySpace, AsianAve, BlackPlanet, FaithBase, GLEE, LiveJournal, MiGente, Photobucket, Rabble and MTV Tr3s. SocialLife costs $1.49 a month." Verizon Wireless also has a deal with Facebook called "Ringback Buddies," with which Facebook users can browse, buy and manage their ringtones from within Facebook and view their friends' favorite music (and buy it) to play when those friends call. Finally, an email company, Visto, announced its "living address book." Basically it puts all your social networks into one place on your phone. "The service includes Yahoo!, AOL, Google Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and Photobucket, and sends out notifications of new pictures, posts, and other events from your favorite contacts."

Yahoo's new social site

Called Mash, Yahoo's social-networking site is still being tested (people join by invitation only right now), the Times Online in London reports. "Mash has already been dubbed 'an homage to Facebook' – but with a difference: users of the new Yahoo site can edit each other’s profiles." As a New York Times blog puts it, "Think the Wikipedia version of a social network." Now there's a scary thought. But, as with Wikipedia, changes can be changed back, and the profile owner has the controls: "If you don’t like this game at all, you can change settings to allow just people marked as best friends or family to edit your profile, or you can keep the crayon box entirely to yourself," the New York Times blogger adds. Here are some interesting UK social-networking numbers cited by the Times of London: "One in four UK people with an Internet connection at home now uses a social networking site - rising to nearly a third among 15 to 24-year-olds." And here's Reuters on Mash.