Well… of course, this is one for the books… I’m right? LOL.
A recent study showed that HALF of Americans HAVE or Want Internet- connected TVs!! This week on our #WebSeriesChat (Wednesdays, 11 AM PST on Twitter hosted by Patrick Bardwell of Slebisodes and Stephanie Piche of Mingle Media TV) the discussion came up on length of an episode and earlier conversations were about what the impact of GoogleTV for Web Series creators. Of course, we all have our opinions and many creators are still creating short-form (3 minute average) length video content while our position at Mingle Media TV is that for our audience long-form (30-60 minute average) length video content is perfectly acceptable (in the past two years, I have executive produced over 3,040 hours of long-form video content.)
Other interesting factoids to contribute to the conversation about Connected TVs, Audience and Age:
- The average age of social networking site users: 37 Years Old
- The average age of a Facebook users is 38 Years Old
- The average age of a Twitter user is 39 years old – and 65% of Twitter users are 35 or older
- Average time spent on YouTube per month in the US: 1:12:20
- An average of 24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute (which is equal to about 150K full length films over the course of a week)
- YouTube streamed 5,799,702,000 videos in June 2010 in the US
- Hulu streamed 598,812,000 videos in June 2010 in the US (about 1/10th of YouTube)
- 36% of YouTube viewers are between the ages of 18-34 and are 50% male
What does this all mean? Well, first there is Venus and Mars to contend with. Men like the remote control option (you know, channel changing) hence the multiple short form viewing of “college humor” type videos…
But then there are women, if we’re going to watch video online, we become invested in that story, the characters and don’t want it to end after 3 minutes… we will watch long form and we are watching it.
I digress… a recent study showed that we are becoming more comfortable with alternative ways of viewing long-form video, including watching those missed TV episodes from last night on Hulu. What does this mean? We need to adjust for our audience – we need to create for our audience… we need Internet connected-TV’s not apps (yes more of my rant).
Organizations like iSuppli Corporation say by 2014 there will be 148 million web-enabled TV’s sold, up from an estimated 28 million in July this year which is double that of 2009.
However, DisplaySearch, thinks the numbers will be higher in their projections with 45 million being sold in 2010 (we still have 2 more months) but only about 119 million sold by 2014. Considering most of us had to buy a NEW TV in the past 24 months due to broadcast changes – a slow down in purchasing web-enabled or 3D TVs are not a surprise to me… but then again, I do connect my Vizio flatscreens to the Interwebs already and surf… remember AppleTV? It’s really not hard if you have a Playstation 3 or MacMini to do it today… our other methods for the other TVs.
So with 50% of us already doing it… what are people in such a huff about GoogleTV? Because they want to sell you apps and try to monetize on apps and make life a living hell with – say it with me… APPS!!
So if there are 221 million US internet users today and about 50% of us are already connecting to the Interwebs…. why are people clambering for the GoogleTV option? why is there a question about how long an episode created for the web should be? Or for that matter, what the future of TV is going to be? By the time GoogleTV is adopted at any high rate to make sense – TV viewers will already have had their existing HDTVs connected to the Interwebs and watching their favorite TV shows on the nice, big FLAT Screen TVs…
Oh yeah… and if you are creating for the WEB – keep in mind that you need to create for your audience and if you don’t have an audience or a plan to build an audience, then I would recommend stepping back and thinking about that as part of your creative process. Nothing worse than losing your audience because you kept them wanting.
Mingle Media TV Network 