Global Digital Media - Key Trends and Growth for Online Entertainment

In 2010 almost a quarter of the global population access the Internet, which is quite remarkable considering this has risen from around 5% at the start of the decade. More growth is expected ahead as the Internet economy and mobile broadband continue to develop, particularly in the developing markets.We now have tools at our disposal which are revolutionising our social and economic environment. Mobile and online social media sites are a good example of how the new tools can be used and show the great potential that the Internet, Web 2.0, mobile, email and broadband infrastructure have to offer.The Internet has become a great source of entertainment with many different services available.



As well as social networks, some of the most popular online entertainment services include gambling, gaming, online dating, online music and online video. In the next few years the overall global entertainment and publishing industry (online and offline) is expected to be worth a couple of trillion dollars.Current social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, Second Life etc have all bought new innovations to the digital media landscape and while some have been more successful than others, this type of experimentation is extremely valuable for this evolving market.Online video in particular is becoming recognised as a powerful format for entertainment, communication and generally providing an enhanced online experience. Google’s YouTube continues to dominate in 2010 in terms of the number of viewers and broadcasts streamed. New business models are also emerging that explore different ways of generating revenue from such sites.The leading Internet Media companies also continue to look for other opportunities presented by mobility, cloud computing, home media, infrastructure etc. The emerging markets have also not escaped attention; China in particular is seen as a growth opportunity. Google remains the most popular web property worldwide.These companies also have a vested interest in making sure that the digital economy is developed and, like most others, are frustrated by the extremely slow pace at which the telcos are upgrading their networks. They will do anything to nudge the process along, or to kick-start developments and evidence of this emerged with Google’s announcement that is would become involved in building Fibre-to-the Home networks.This report provides valuable insights and analysis into the key trends taking place in the online entertainment sector with a look at the broader developments facilitating change. The report includes an overview of the global Internet market including statistics on popular web properties; time spent online, search engines, Internet hosts, leading countries in terms of number of Internet users etc. The report identifies the leading online sources of entertainment, supported by broad global statistics and provides a more detailed look at the important and fascinating social media and online video sectors.The report also provides a global overview of the digital media marketing and advertising sector. A broad regional overview of general developments towards a digital economy are provided for North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific.Market highlights:Facebook has become one of the most popular web properties worldwide and more recently has also gained recognition for the large photo-sharing site it has become.Online games based on virtual worlds are proving popular; Zynga’s YoVille and Farmville, accessed via Facebook, now have millions of users each month. Short adverts placed at the start of humorous or popular videos are becoming more common. These short videos gain notoriety by circulating the world via sites like Facebook, YouTube and television programmes.Australian’s spends some of the largest number of hours on social networks, as do Britain, Italy and the US.South Africa has more Twitter users than Japan, China, Spain and the Netherlands.Online entertainment is growing strongly in the Middle East, despite battling for user attention and advertising dollars with the phenomenon that is Arab pan-regional FTA DTH satellite TV. The local industry gained much greater prominence in the region and world-wide with the purchase by Yahoo! of Jordanian company Maktoob in 2009.During 2009 over 1.4 million New Zealanders shopped on-line, a 2.4% increase over 2008.Online entertainment in North America continues to grow rapidly, both in terms of choice of online entertainment available and numbers of users. For instance, in early 2010 an estimated 90 million US Internet users were accessing online gaming sites on average at least once a month.Data in this report is the latest available at the time of preparation and may not be for the current year.

Global Online Advertising Industry