ShareThisBy JOE GAROFOLI
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
New media is no longer just the province of the pubescent. A growing share of its audience is old. Ancient. Like, even over 40.
According to a September study of YouTube users by Nielsen NetRatings, a leading online analyst, one-third of the video sharing site's audience is over 45 years old. The same research found that more than 30 percent of the folks flitting about social networking powerhouse MySpace.com are between 35 and 49; 27 percent are over 45. A third of iTunes users are in their wealth-building years. Even the audience for Xanga.com, a less-heralded online social networker, is stumbling toward middle age, with 20 percent of its population over 45.
Other corners of the new media world are swelling with what was long considered old media's core audience. The average age of casual video gamers is 41 _ and half are women, according to comScoreMetrix, another online analyst, though other analysts say that both estimates might be high. Podcasting consumers: 47 percent are over 35.
All told, the digital revolution illustrates a theory heretofore popularized only by pudgy, balding men in too-tight pants:
Forty is the new 30, baby.
Analysts say new media is bringing the generations closer because age is less relevant online. Ask the generation of lonely hearts who have lied about their age on Match.com.
"It's not about age or gender, it's about how fast your broadband connection is," said Erin Hunter, executive vice president of comScore's Media and Entertainment Group.
Today's 41-year-old gamer isn't intimidated by technology; he grew up playing Pong. A 42-year-old woman feels comfortable on YouTube; then again, she grew up shopping online. A 64-year-old passes around salacious video he found on YouTube because the application is so easy to use.
Plus, the 35-plus generation has the cash to afford the technology.
"This all speaks to the evolution of where new media is at now," said Heather Dougherty, a senior analyst with Nielsen NetRatings. "The audience for it is comfortable doing a lot of things online, and they're comfortable with the technology.
"A 40-year-old probably has more in common with a younger person these days than may have been the case a while ago. They're adapting to the new media a lot quicker than other generations did."
In the gaming world, many fortysomethings have evolved into what the industry calls "casual gamers," someone who plays for 30 minutes a time, as opposed to the hours a younger person spends in front of a screen.
"Most casual gamers are someone who is very busy, who uses games as a quick diversion, a way to take a casual break," said Shannon Loftis, an executive producer with Microsoft Game Studios Publishing.
Loftis isn't surprised that half of casual gamers are women. When the 41-year-old Seattle resident meets with her mothers group _ a mix of working moms and stay-at-home parents _ they bond over the brain-teasing games they enjoy.
While casual gamers tend to be older and hard-cores skew younger, there is a lot of crossover, Loftis said. "The age categories are quite broad."
Age isn't the barrier in the social networking world that it is in the real world, said Sonja Baumer, a researcher at the UC Berkeley's Digital Youth Project.
"People tend to affiliate on the basis of their interests and preferences and attitudes," said Baumer, whose research focuses on YouTube.
However, she cautioned not to draw too many conclusions from the ages YouTube users give on the site. "There are some serious methodological problems in studying the age of YouTube audience," Baumer said. "People often fake their age there."
Aiding the demographic shift to new media are traditional media companies like NBC, which is co-opting YouTube and other sites to market its TV shows. When CNN mentions the latest hot YouTube.com video on its newscasts, analysts say, an old media audience checks out the new media site. At National Public Radio, where 5.5 million podcasts are downloaded a month, 54 percent of its podcast audience is under 34 years old, according to podcasters who answered an NPR survey. But only 25 percent of NPR's radio audience is 18-34.
"Last year, podcasting was for the hobbyists and the lunatic fringe," said Elisabeth McLaury Lewin, publisher of PodcastingNews.com. "This year the suits are involved. They smell money, and they want to get involved."
How long will it be cool?
Yet there's nothing like having "old" people get into something new and cool to suck the hipness out of it. As San Francisco advertiser D.J. O'Neill said, "As the saying goes, you can sell an old man a young man's car, but you can't sell a young man an old man's car."
O'Neill points to his 64-year-old dad. Before the online boom, O'Neill said, his father would mail photocopied bad jokes and racy cartoons to friends. "The other day," O'Neill said, "he sent me a video link from YouTube."
