The Pew Internet and American Life Project released its latest home broadband adoption report late last week, showing not only the expected continued steep rise in broadband use, but also a high proportion of Internet users creating content.
As of March 2006, 42% of all American adults had a high-speed Internet connection at home, up from 30% as of March 2005. Growth was particularly strong in African-American households with broadband adoption in this segment growing by 121% year-over-year.
For the first time ever, DSL eclipsed cable modems as the top broadband technology — 50% of the homes had a DSL connection, while only 41% had cable high-speed connections. (I find it hard to believe that the remaining 9% of homes had a satellite or Wi-Fi connection, but the directionality of DSL v. cable is what counts.)
The really interesting data point is that 35% of all Internet users (including those who have used the Internet at work), or 48 million people, have posted content to the web, either through blogs or web pages or sharing venues where artwork or video can be posted. But an even bigger proportion of home broadband users, 42% or 31 million, have created content and put it online.
The survey also queried respondents about VoIP and came up with some surprising findings. First, 61 million people had heard about VoIP as of December 2005, an 86% jump in familiarity when compared to the previous year. Secondly, half of all VoIP customers still hang onto their landline phones. (Hat tip to ClickZ.)
Update: John Murrell at Good Morning Silicon Valley has this great observation on the study’s findings, one worth underscoring given just how out-to-lunch so many traditional content suppliers are.
This is the rude awakening awaiting any media company that’s still snoozing. Consumers are no longer restricted to consuming. “It’s the mass talking to the mass,” said Jesse Drew, associate director of technocultural studies at the University of California-Davis, specifically talking about video-sharing site YouTube but laying out the general principle. “Now there’s no central spigot that everything comes out of.”
Cynthia Brumfield at 12:46 PM|Comments(0)
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