News Goes Social: 75% of online news consumers get news socially and 52% share news socially

A new study from PEW Internet research shows that news is moving increasingly online & mobile and is getting increasingly social & participatory.

The internet has surpassed newspapers and radio in popularity as a news platform on a typical day and now ranks just behind TV.

Some of the most interesting stats:

Online News Consumer are Less Loyal:

News is Increasingly Portable, Personalized and Participatory:

Portable : 33% of cell phone owners now access news on their cell phones.
Personalized : 28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from sources and on topics that particularly interest them.
Participatory : 37% of internet users have contributed to the creation of news, commented about it, or disseminated it via postings on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter.

Where do People get their News in a Typical Day?

78% of Americans say they get news from a local TV station
73% say they get news from a national network such as CBS or cable TV station such as CNN or FoxNews
61% say they get some kind of news online
54% say they listen to a radio news program at home or in the car
50% say they read news in a local newspaper
17% say they read news in a national newspaper such as the New York Times or USA Today.

37% of Internet Users Have Contributed to the Creation of the News:

News is Customized:

28% of internet users have customized their home page to include news from their favorite source or topics
40% of internet users say an important feature of a news website to them is the ability to customize the news they get from the site
36% of internet users say an important part of a news website to them is the ability to manipulate content themselves such as graphics, maps, and quizzes.

Some food for thought….

2009 is The Year of Twitter – Yes, Twitter is Officially the Top Word of 2009

It is official. Twitter is popular.

According to the Global Language Monitor “twitter” was the most popular word of 2009.

That is right. Twitter beat out major international news events like H1N1 (3rd place) and the election of President Obama (second place).

Shocked? I was (and I’m a social media junkie). Is Twitter (in the context of the website) even acknowledged in the dictionary?

Also amusing, twitter is defined as “the ability to encapsulate human thought into 140 characters”.

Also surprising was that 2.0 was rated #6 (and defined as “The 2.0 suffix is attached to the next generation of everything”).

Interestingly only 1 web word made the top 10 phrases – “Cloud Computing”.

This information really highlights the significance of the web in the mainstream.