Studies now reveal that more and more people now trust social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube to provide them with information about health-related issues. Would you trust medical advice doled out on a social network?

A study conducted by PwC Health Research Institute in the USA has found that one-third of users in the U.S. would trust the health related information made available to them on a social networking site.

The information could range from research and the sharing of symptoms, to opinions about doctors and the effectiveness of various therapies available.
About 90% of those surveyed in the 18 – 24 year age group said that they would trust the medical information shared by others on social networks. 80% of users in this age group also said that they would be willing to share personal medical information through these social networks.

Those in the older age group of 45 – 65 years, however, were found to be less likely to share their information or trust information available through the social networks. Only about 45% of this age group felt that social networks were trustworthy in medical matters.

The survey, which was conducted across 1,060 people in the USA this February, found that 45% of people would let information gained through social media affect their decision to take a second opinion. 34% of them said that this information woud help them to take a particular medication. Users generally agreed that they would trust information given by doctors, but only 42% would trust information given by insurers and only 37% would trust information given by pharmaceutical companies.

Different Attitudes

Only about 2 years ago, in 2010, medical information passed on through social websites had been run down as being from the ‘Wild West’, but now it is being accepted more and more, showing a change in public attitude towards social media and even the Internet as a whole.

Attitudes towards healthcare in the UK and rest of Europe are quite different to that in the States. For one, it’s free for citizens of the UK and most European countries to visit a GP. Healthcare costs in the USA, on the other hand, are high enough to scare off some people and make them resort to seeking medical advice online.

Moreover, advertising medicines and medical services on TV and other media is quite common in the USA but completely absent in the UK and Europe. This could result in people in the US being more receptive towards medical advice from an online medium than users on this side of the Atlantic.

While 290 million individual Americans (or 114.7 million American homes) own a television set. In contrast, the number of people online in the USA is only 211 million, the number of users above 13 years of age accessing the mobile Web is 116 million.

Interestingly, the number of individuals working on a laptop or desktop computer is about 192 million, while the number of consumers with a mobile phone is 232 million. Through these stats, one could infer that almost 20 million users access the Internet exclusively via a mobile device and the scope of growth for mobile Internet access far exceeds that for the wired Internet.

288 million users watch traditional TV while 143 watch it through the internet. 111 million users use time-shifted TV and 30 million users watch TV on their mobiles. While traditional television viewership is still higher than mobile ownership, this number could fall over time.

Having multiple TV connections in a home is growing increasingly common, with over 35.9 US homes having four or more TV sets, 28.3 million having 3 sets each, 32.7 million having 2 sets each and only 17.7 million having just one TV set.

57% of mobile users have feature phones while 43% have smart phones. This means that only 43% of the current US mobile user base is able to substitute mobile TV for traditional viewing. Android remains the most popular smartphone operating system with 43% of the market share followed by the iPhone with 28% and RIM Blackberry having 18%.

Users in the over-65 years age group watch the most amount of TV averaging 46 hours and 16 minutes per week, while those in the 12 to 17 years category watch the least with an average of only 22 hours and 24 minutes per week.

Among mobile video users, YouTube is the most popular channel followed by FOX and ABC. The Facebook and Twitter apps are more common among women, while Google+ is more popular among men for some reason.

On a worldwide scale, it was found that while devices such as HD TV, 3D TV, Internet-connected TV, smartphones and tablets are already quite popular, a substantial number of other consumers are still at the stage of planning to get these devices in the near future. So, the market for different forms of electronic devices continues to be very exciting, and can be expected to grow still further.

It has been found that the following of a candidate on Twitter, can give a very good idea about how he will eventually fare.

When the number of Twitter followers of a candidate gains momentum, it has been found that his poll results follow suit. On the other hand, when the number of Twitter followers falls or stops gaining ground, his poll results are also negatively affected.

This trend had been predicted a while ago by Zach Green, CEO of Twitter election research 140elect. Now he has proven his theory based on the performance of the candidates.

He says that Newt Gingrich got a lot of new followers after he announced his candidacy on May 11 and then again after a good debate performance on September 7. At the same time his overall standing in the polls has also improved.

In comparison, Rick Perry received a boost following the announcement of his candidacy on August 13, but he has lost ground since then, in the polls. Concurrently it was found that a lot of people on Twitter have been mocking him rather than following him.

Other candidates such as Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann have followed similar trends. When the number of their followers rises, they also make good gains in the polls, but when the number of followers falls, they lose ground.

Herman Cain too has lost Twitter followers as well as poll points following allegations of sexual harassment leveled against him.

Do these signals indicate that Twitter will be able to accurately predict the results of the GOP poll results? Or is it just a coincidence?

Data collected for the report shows that the number of U.S. adults paying at least 1 visit per month to Twitter.com has gone down from 9.54 million in November 2009 to 8.25 million in November 2010.

While this figure alone would indicate a decline in usage, the average number of visits per month has gone up by 37% in the same period. In November 2009, the average number of visits was 7.3. In November 2010, that figure rose to 10.

Average time per session & Average visits to Twitter in the USA

However, the duration of each visit has gone down slightly during this period, from 15 minutes and 12 seconds to 13 minutes and 12 seconds. This shows that users now prefer to make more frequent but shorter visits to Twitter, rather than fewer but longer visits as they were doing earlier.

The report shows that the average time being spent for by Americans on Twitter is now 2 hours and 12 minutes per month, compared to 1 hour and 51 minutes a year ago.

These findings collectively show that while Twitter might not be growing in popularity as spectacularly as it did in 2009, its users are finding new and more interesting ways to use the site, thereby increasing its net usage.

Usage patterns have changed considerably compared to what they were just one year ago. In the last quarter of 2008, Nielsen found that users accessed the Internet while watching TV for almost two and a half hours every month, and almost 57.5% of TV viewers used the Internet and television simultaneously at least once a month.

One year later, in the last quarter of 2009, Nielsen found that the amount of time U.S. users spent on the Internet while watching TV had grown to three and a half hours every month, and almost 60% of TV viewers used the Internet and television simultaneously at least once a month.

Fears that TV viewing would reduce drastically due to the growing popularity of the Internet and mobile videos seem to have been unfounded. TV viewing has actually grown steadily along with the Internet. One of the reasons for this could be access to DVRs, which allow users to watch their favourite TV programmes at their convenience.

DVR systems are now found in 35% of all American homes and are growing in popularity. Viewers between the ages of 25 and 34 watch time shifted TV for about three and a half hours every week while those over 65 years of age do so for just over an hour.

Online video usage has also gone up by 16% in the last year, and surprisingly, almost 44% of online video viewing is done at work.

The number of active mobile video watchers has also gone up from 11.2 million to 17.6 million, which is a rise of 57% between the last quarter of 2008 and the last quarter of 2009.

The above mentioned statement is only applicable to those online marketers who use the names or photographs of celebrities, to endorse their products without having taken the consent of the celebrities concerned.

While this has been a very common practice for a long time now, talk show host Oprah Winfrey has decided not to take this practise lying down anymore.

Mashable reports that Oprah, along with Dr. Mehmet Oz and The Illinois Attorney General’s office, has filed a lawsuit against over 50 marketers for using her name to promote their products without her consent.

The lawsuit filed by Attorney General Lisa Madigan, charges 3 suppliers and a local affiliate marketer of acai berry products, for misleading consumers, by offering free trials and then charging them through their credit cards, even before the trial product reaches them. The scammers also makes it very difficult to cancel the order or to stop payment.

The suppliers named in a press release by the Illinois Attorney General are Advanced Wellness Research, its successor Netalab and its former President Nicholas Molina, Crush LLC and its owner TMP Nevada Inc and Amirouche and Norton LLC and Larby Amirouche.

Reuters reports that a lawsuit has also been filed in New York for copyright and trademark infringement against about 50 companies for misusing names, pictures, voices or trademarks and leading consumers to believe that their products have been tested and recommended by Oprah and Dr. Oz, which is not the case at all.

Following the filing of the lawsuit, an online affiliate ad network Azoogle, sent an email to its members, warning them about the possible consequences of using celebrity names without permission.

These lawsuits might have the desired effect, in the short run, but unscrupulous marketers will always find ways to exploit the law unless more celebrities decide to take action against such marketers and bring more of them to justice for brand abuse.

In an attempt to criticize the health care reforms suggested by the Barrack Obama team, Republican Sarah Palin commented that the British NHS did not value human life enough as it had put on an ‘Orwellian’ financial cap, and it left people to die.

She obviously could not have expected that her comments would have raised such a hue and cry among the Britishers.

Once these comments were publicized, several thousand British nationals, loyal to the NHS started tweeting on ‘#welovethenhs’. They commented on how the NHS had saved them or their loved ones from time to time, and about how good the scheme was, as it even took care of those who did not have the financial resources for their healthcare needs.

So much so, that even the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown felt compelled to comment on the issue through Twitter. His Tweet said, “NHS often makes the difference between pain and comfort, despair and hope, life and death. Thanks for always being there.

According to statistics available, more than 20,500 tweets have been sent out on the subject of the NHS, since it started on Wednesday, making it a ‘trending topic’.

The only drawback of topics becoming so popular on Twitter, is that unscrupulous users and spammers make use of these hashtags to spread false news and to attract attention to their own sites, and it possible that this may soon happen to ‘#welovethenhs’.

After a very encouraging opening on Friday, with collections of $14.4 million, the rest of the weekend turned out to be something of a damp squib by comparison. While Friday’s collections made observers predict a first weekend collection of around $50 million, the actual takings at the box office amounted to only about $30 million, which is a very big let down, and rather unusual.

Trade analysts and others from the field, are suggesting that the popular micro-blogging site Twitter caused the downfall of the movie. It is believed that reviews sent out on the social platform could have discouraged prospective viewers from going to see the movie.

While this may certainly be true to an extent, one needs to evaluate objectively why the tweets sent out were so largely negative in the first place.

Could it be possible that the movie was really not what the audiences may have expected, and therefore it did not do well?

The article on Time.com indicated that the second Transformers movie and Ice Age both performed very well during the same time frame, in spite of both being in their second week.

The trend for Bruno on Twitter, seen above, shows a definite spike on Saturday, with Bruno-related tweets accounting for 0.71% of all tweets, followed by a steady descent. The same pattern was seen a week earlier, for Transformers, albeit with a much higher peak – 2.13% of all tweets – followed by a sharper decline in discussions, as seen below.

Comparing Twitter streams for Bruno and Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, both have equal numbers of positive and negative reviews today.

However, the real reason becomes more obvious when we compare the US and UK markets. Tweets from the UK are largely positive, which probably reflects its success at the UK box office – 2nd biggest opening ever for an 18+ movie – whereas tweets from the USA focus on the gay content and the sexual obscenities.

Cultural differences, especially rampant homophobia in the USA, are probably a big factor that could explain why the movie is faring poorly in the USA. Another factor could be that the movie is just plain bad. To be fair, though, it is certainly possible that the existance of Twitter allowed viewers who could not stomach the flamboyant homosexual fashion designer to spread their views faster than normally would have been possible.

The web intelligence company Hitwise has now released some data that should come as a big surprise to most people. According to a study carried out by them recently, in the space of just about 3 years, the viewership for blogs in U.K. has gone up by 208% compared to just a 70% increase in traffic to traditional news and media sites.

It was found that between May 2005 and June 2008, the percentage of web traffic which accesses blogs has grown from just over 0.3% to 1.19%. That is approximately 1 in 84 internet visits.

Of course this is a growth of blogs and personal web sites in general and not of any single blog.

The increasing popularity of blogs is very well illustrated by the fact that during the announcement by 3G iPhone – the iPhone site received more hits from blogs than from traditional sites.

When compared with the growth for readership of blogs in the UK, the growth for readership of blogs in the U.S. is rather poor. Although it is generally assumed that Americans are very aware and concerned about the social media, it has been found that only about 0.73% of internet traffic in the U.S. showed an interest in going to blogs and personal web sites.

The United States government are buying AdWords units that link to a page on the America.gov portal,  telling America’s side of the story:

http://fpolicy.america.gov/fpolicy/security/

This page shows various subjects of international interest such as America’s foreign policy matters, the up-coming U.S. presidential elections, human rights stories, Middle East topics, peacekeeping, confronting terrorism and the US’s work with NATO.

The (rather unrealistic) intention might be to try and lure terrorists who show an undue interest in these stories and thus crack down on terrorism. The ads are visible to Internet visitor on the content network and to searchers looking for keywords such as “terrorism”, “Middle East peace”, “human rights”, “press freedom”, “renewable energy”, “food aid” and “US elections”. The ads are only shown to Google users in Canada, the UK and the UAE.

Jonathan Margolis from the Bureau of International Information Programs, which has released these ads says, “We are trying to engage, inform and influence foreign audiences. Before you can do either of the last two you have got to find some way to engage them . . . We found that when you launch a website and if you want to attract a target audience, Google ads are a very effective way of drawing people to the site.”

The U.S. government is spending $25,000-$30,000 per month on these ads and and additional $15,000 per month on ads in Farsi and Arabic, which have generated about 300,000 impressions per month.

Surely the US could have thought of better ways to spend that money rather than trying to buy a change in public opinion?

The findings are based on a study of over 22,000 mobile users, carried out in the last quarter of 2007. The results of the report indicate that:

• The number of consumers who remembered seeing mobile ads has increased 38% between the 2nd and 4th quarters of 2007.
• Teenagers are far more likely to recall mobile ads. Asians and African Americans are more likely to recall these ads.
• SMS text messaging is the most popular form of ad response, and was used by 26% of the users, while click-to-call was used by 9% of people.
• 32% of those studied sid they were willing to accept mobile advertising if it could lower their mobile bills, 13% would accept mobile advertising if it improved the media content available amd 14% were open to mobile advertising if it would be relevant to them.
• 23% of users expect that mobile advertising will increase in the near future.

While advertisers continue to look for ways to connect with users through their mobile devices, the quest for acceptable mobile advertising is not complete. Only 10% of the users surveyed found mobile advertising acceptable.

As of now there is no consistent yardstick to measure the performance of mobile ads and this leads to advertisers feeling as if they were fumbling in the dark. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! have launched a number of services for mobile and programs to enable marketers to place ads on mobiles. This can only mean that the mobile ad market is set to take off in a very big way and a lot of money is at stake here.

Read the full press release from Nielsen

Advertising spend grew strongly in some media and declined in others. Internet advertising was the clear winner, unsurprisingly, with a 23.2 per cent increase in the first half of 2007 versus the same period in 2006. Other gainers were national magazines, U.S. national Sunday supplements, outdoor, spot TV markets 101-200 and Spanish-language TV.

Network radio advertising showed the greatest decline year upon year, falling 8.5 per cent from the first half of 2006. The Internet advertising numbers do not include paid search advertising. Had PPC advertising numbers been included, the disparity between network radio and Internet advertising growth would have been much starker.
Seven out of the top 10 advertisers in the USA decreased their advertising expenditure in the first half of 2007. General Motors and AT&T were the two companies with the most drastic ad expenditure cuts. GM axed more than a quarter of their budget as advertising for many truck brands was reduced.

Advertiser spending for the Top Parent Companies is shown in the graph below:

Source: Nielsen Monitor-Plus

Pharmaceuticals, motion pictures, wireless telephone services and direct response services were the only categories in the top 10 where advertiser spending increased this year. The increases ranged from 1% to 6%. The automotive sector showed the greatest decline (10%) in advertising budgets.