Case Study...#4

4. Is the size of the audience any different now than before the impact of new and digital media (or has the pattern of usage changed)?

There is a high increase of social networking user; there is a rise of 58.5% in the last year. The highest audience users are between the ages of 18-24. However the age range has expanded and children who are 12 can have Facebook. Social networking sites have become extremely popular amongst young audience. However Facebook and Twitter do have older audiences, celebrities are also hooked onto to the social networking culture.

This is because there are more applications made available, such as games, video links ect,. UK audience spends roughly about 6 hours on Facebook per day compared to Japan who spend only 2 hours and 50 minutes. However Myspace did not become as successful as Facebook and Twitter, as the new revaluation new and digital media aloowed Facebook, to get their audience hooked to its new technological advances which the social networking site had to offer with many new and creative applications which applied to the Target audience more than Myspace, who was owned by Fox Interactive Media which is owned by News Corporation, but according to comScore, MySpace was overtaken internationally by its main competitor, Facebook, in April 2008, based on monthly unique visitors, as a result it failed to rise to fame, even though Myspace was the very first social networking site to allow people to communicate and interact alongside Bebo.

However now Myspace has changed to music site allowing people to downloads and share files, it is more of an entertainment site rather than social networking site. The new and digital media has had a great impact on the way user use social networking site as the technological advances have allowed audience to make the most of the applications. Twitter and Facebook gained a worldwide audience and are now available in many different languages and this has had a major affect in the audience size compared to a few years ago:

http://everyjoe.com/technology/facebook-losing-18-25-audience/

http://techcrunch.com/2008/08/10/why-twitter-hasnt-failed-the-power-of-audience/