When Boomers were kids, playing in the stream meant just that. But now, it refers to a generation of kids “with the average preschooler now more able to play video games than ride a bike or tie a shoe, and with three-quarters of all middle school- and high school-age kids already owning a phone.”

So when, how much and from whom should our kids be learning about digital technology? After all, we can't leave it all up to Salman Khan.

Sara DeWitt, VP of PBS Kids Interactive, believes the transmedia approach to learning works best with kids today and comments on the ease of touchscreen technology in this video from SXSW 2012: "How Kids Learn With Technology."Continue reading...

According to the latest 2012 State of the News Media report from Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2011 truly marked the tipping point for a new era of digital media consumption and sharing.

In the new "new media" landscape, Pew's landmark annual consumer research underscores the widening gap between the news and technology industries as a small, powerful group of digital behemoths increasingly consolidate and control our digital lives and become media titans in their own right.

“Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and a few others are maneuvering to make the hardware people use, the operating systems that run those devices, the browsers on which people navigate, the e-mail services on which they communicate, the social networks on which they share and the web platforms on which they shop and play,” says the study.Continue reading...

Consumer Goods companies need to think and act more their retail partners as their participation in social media and online storefronts increase.

An Economist Intelligence Unit report, New Directions: Consumer goods companies hone a cross-channel approach to consumer marketing, sponsored by Oracle, reveals that 41% of respondents surveyed plan to sell products directly to consumers in 2012, a 24% increase over those currently offering direct sales.Continue reading...

Tired of "planking" and "occupying"? TIME's top buzzwords of 2011 also include "leading from behind," "haboob," "99 percent," "manscape," "mantyhose," "mankini," "cone of uncertainty," and "Arab Spring."

The latest vocabulary blacklist by Michigan's Lake Superior State University, meanwhile, singles out coined words and phrases to banish from our collective vocabulary including "occupy," "ginormous," "shared sacrifice," "win the future," "blowback," "man cave" and "the new normal."

Lexicographer Grant Barrett commented in Sunday's New York Times that at least one of the words that defined 2011 ("occupy") won't disappear any time soon:

"In 10 years, some of last year’s words will be relics. We’ll think of them the way we now think of the decades-old phrase “gag me with a spoon.” Others have already proved their staying power. Who could argue that the new sense of “occupy” isn’t already a keeper, even starting as it did late in the third quarter of 2011? A movement so well labeled, if not cohesive in thought and action, that its name instantly lent itself to variation and satire."

From zumba (exerdance) to wallpapering to nephrops, (a.k.a. a Dublin Bay prawn or Norwegian lobster), the Google Zeitgeist list of the year's top search terms offers a peek inside the planet's collective obsessions, passions, curiosity and downright nosiness. And that's just in the United Kingdom.

Google’s list is evidence that “the entire country has turned into one huge version of the Daily Mail,” quips Gizmodo U.K. about the celeb focus of Britain's top searches (and the world's most-trafficked online news hub, the salacious Daily Mail's website.

Beyond revealing the spirit of the times, it's also a fascinating local snapshot. In the U.S., Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga were top searches, while in the U.K., the the Royal Wedding was the “fastest rising search query” and the British commoner formerly known as Kate Middleton among the top ten fastest rising people.

"From local celebrities in Finland to Singaporeans looking for news on the revolutions in Egypt and Libya half a world away, people turned to Google to learn more about what was happening on the world stage," Google's Amit Singhal wrote on the company's official blog.Continue reading...

It’s no secret that how consumers spend their time on media varies with age, so it’s fascinating to look at two recent studies (US and UK) to get a bead on how the generational shift in media consumption is advancing.

According to the latest Generational Strategies study from Frank N. Magid Associates, during the 9-5 workday more consumers use Facebook than watch television. The sole exception is Boomers, who prefer TV to Facebook, although 26% of those surveyed use the social network during work hours.Continue reading...

Eager to reach "the next billion consumers," BBDO, Microsoft and Ipsos have joined forces "for a proprietary study of multi-platform campaigns leveraging both creativity and technology to identify a ground-breaking framework for marketing success," which they released at the Cannes advertising festival this week.

What's unique about this study, according to Microsoft Advertising's blog post — is the methodology and findings:

"Unlike other digital advertising multi-screen research, we took an approach that has never been done before and applied psychological archetypes—or models of a person or behavior—to put personalities to each device. (These archetypes were pioneered by the influential psychiatrist Carl Jung.) With the study, we set out to determine what’s going on in people’s psyche and understand their emotional connection and response to each screen – the PC, TV, Mobile, etc. For instance, we found the mobile phone is like a ‘lover’ – it’s the most intimate of all the devices you interact with each day, therefore ads should be highly relevant and appeal only to you."

Above, watch BBDO's worldwide CMO, Simon Bond, and Microsoft's global advertising VP Marc Bresseel discuss the research. Bond had more to say after the panel, below.Continue reading...

Even though Google just hit an astounding benchmark of one billion monthly unique users, a milestone the search giant passed in May, another tipping point in the US is worth noting: consumers are now spending more time on mobile apps than on the web.

Underlying this behavioral shift to mobile is a platform shift, as the number of smartphones and tablets shipped in 2011 exceeded those of desktops and notebooks.Continue reading...