This page is for you if you’re one of those people who needs to see hard numbers for a concept to make sense.
Communication:
According to Stephen Covey, Most of us spend anywhere between 66% and 75% of our time reading, writing, speaking and listening. Around 45% of that time is spent listening – or at least hearing.
NLP practicioners tell us that a mere 7% of what we say is actually in the words we use. Another 38% is in the way we speak –tone, pace, inflection and so on. All those subtleties are lost in the written word.
The final 55% of any message is, according to NLP, communicated visually – by posture, facial expression, gestures etc. These are definitely lost in print, but some can actually be picked up without being seen. Just listen to someone at the other end of the phone. I’ll bet you have a reasonable idea of the expression on their face – and that you’re not far wrong.
So you have a chance of conveying at least 45% of your message, probably more, through audio, as opposed to no more than 7% in writing.
Your message is also at least three times more likely to be remembered when it’s communicated by the spoken, rather than the printed word.
Online Trends:
In 2007, as I prepared to write the original Savvy business plan, I did a lot of research into online trends in general and new media trends in particular, in the UK and across the globe.
Web Useage:
In the UK, across Europe and in the US, this had risen by an average of 125% between 2000 and 2007. China’s web useage had gone up more than 600% in that time. This made them the biggest single nation online – even though the percentage of their population actually using the web was still quite small. The result of that, as I saw it, was huge potential for even more growth.
Back in 2000, the net had been primarily a communication tool. By 2007, more and more people were using it as an information resource. In the States, the percentages of each kind of user had more or less reversed in the last four years.
On Demand Services:
The demand for “on demand” services was definitely rising, with 35% of those surveyed across Europe in 2007 stating that they watched tv online – and that was without those who recorded programmes on their own dvrs (digital video recorders) or accessed them at their own convenience via one of the On Demand services, which were beginning to be offered by all the major broadcasters.
Podcasting:
Here, trends were also on the up. The majority of people were still listening via their computers than downloading to a portable player; but portable players were starting to appeal to an older, more professional demographic. By January 2005, twenty-two million American adults owned mp3 players. This was “the tipping point” – the point at which players moved from being a niche product for kids and became a mainstream adult accessory.
One survey showed that in the US, two thirds of those with cars which allowed them to connect an mp3 player to the in-car stereo system listened on the move.
Podvertising:
This is another composite term, for advertising included in podcasts, either as distinct ads or as part of the content. Germans, it seemed, particularly disliked their favourite radio and tv shows being interrupted by ads, but 66% of those surveyed said they were much more open to an advertising message attached to an On Demand item, like a podcast, provided it was relevant to them.
France had been slower than some of its European neighbours to adopt these new technologies, but by 2007, it was the third largest online advertiser in Europe and some of its biggest brands were experimenting very successfully with podvertising.
The trends are still heading upwards. A 2009 Ipsos Mori survey on the popularity of podcasts found that 14.5 million people listen online
every week – up almost 2 million on the previous survey; nearly nine and a half million download to a portable player – up over a million on the previous figures.