New Report: Social Media Gone Wild!

(MoneyWatch)  A new report by NetPop Research gives us some data to back up what most of us have been experiencing anecdotally the past few years: Online communication, especially within social media networks has simply exploded.

The report says that overall communication online has increased 18 percent since 2006, as opposed to time spent on entertainment, which has declined 29 percent.

These trends are not contradictory, because online entertainment is shifting, according to the Center for Media Research, to a "small, powerful proportion of social media contributors fueling Web activity through blogs micro-blogs, social media, video and photo sharing."

Here are a few highlights from the report:

• Approximately 105 million Americans now contribute to social media sites.
• Social networking has grown 93 percent since 2006.
• Around 7 million Americans are power users of social media, through six or more activities, and connecting with 248 people on a "one to many" basis during their typical week.
• Over half (54 percent) of all micro-bloggers post or "tweet" daily, but around 72 percent of younger micro-bloggers (under age 18) post or "tweet" daily.

From a media industry perspective, several aspects of these trends are worth noting. These self-perpetuating communication networks are the equivalent of a new A.P. or Reuters. As many before me have noted, breaking news has become every bit as likely to occur over Twitter as via conventional media channels.

So, it is incumbent upon media workers to monitor Twitter for leads and to build connections. Any attempt to build audience in new media requires a viral distribution model, and these sites are where that action is.

When you combine all of this social activity with the kinds of geo-coded, "hyper-local" platforms I've been covering lately, and a second key element of an emerging business model begins to take shape. The advertising model is flipping, and the distribution model is flipping as well, particularly when you add in the mobile factor.

Users are driving all of this change, of course. Media businesses have got to find a way to monetize both their contributions to and their exploitation of these new marketing and distribution opportunities. Brands, including credible news brands, will be created, extended and/or destroyed in places like Twitter.

Widgets are readily available to colonize social media sites. Any news company hoping to survive very far into this still-young century had better get with the program before the program leaves them in the dust of Death Valley.

Remember: A tweet in time leaves the competition behind. (I said that.)