Almost two-thirds of respondents, according to a study by PRWeek, see digital PR and social media as ‘a real comms and business opportunity’. One-third of respondents, however, is still a bit skeptical although they also show willingness to learn more about the potential social media has as a business tool.

The below charts will demonstrate how organisations are exactly going about understanding and integrating social media into their existing operations. Take a look (click here for pdf):

The video runs through some big events of 2009 (mostly from a US perspective), starting with the heroic plane crash landing by Pilot Sully Sullenberg on the Hudson River, the deadly and widely spread swine flu, NY Yankees victory, the Twitter boom, and finally ending with a clip of Barack Obama.

Although is goes by quite quickly, the video provides an entertaining overview of the year, however you might have to watch it more than once.

Check it out:

Truth is e-readers, iPhones, smartphones, the Kindle and other portable screens are changing and revolutionizing consumer reading habits, and the more new, fancy models continue to be introduced in the market, the more they will draw readers into the e-paper enviroment.

Although newspapers and magazines have been around for hundreds of years, and despite the fact that some people keep buying and reading them because of conviction and loyalty to a particular publication– today they are losing ground to a generation of consumers embracing digital and mobile alternatives.

According to a study by TargetCast tcm, gender and age differs in type of media and way media is being consumed. Some key findings said that to men, printed news is a less relevant source of news and information. Also, men and young adults 18-34 showed the biggest usage decline in newspapers, magazines and radio, while TV and radio ranked as the most important media.

To sum up, men are more willing to adapt their usage habits and shift to online platforms as replacements for traditional media. On the other hand, women are more likely to keep using traditional media and think twice about adopting newer media.

Some significant aspects that mark the main difference between the two types of media is that one opens way for more precise and more effective targeting, as well as, the option for performance measurement and analytics. Print publications, in order to survive, need to come up with alternative models of accountability and measurement together with faster delivery of news.

While many are still using traditional media or new media as much as they have in the past, it is important to understand the difference between men and women’s approach to media consumption in order for the industry to evolve accordingly in a way that is impactful and engaging to consumers.

Read more about the findings by TargetCast here.

Nielsen tells us that in the past year, the number of smartphone subscribers grew from 15 million in Q2 2008 to 26 million Q2 the following year.

In the UK, 55% of iPhone users and 34% of smartphone users have used web search, as opposed to 12% of total mobile phone users, according to data from Google’s Internet Stats page.

Today, it’s not the U.S. that’s leading the smartphone market, it’s Italy whose percentage of smartphone owners is 28%, followed by Spain who’s not lagging too far behind with 23%.

Markets with the most room to grow on smartphone penetration are France (11%), Canada (12%), UK (12%), Germany (12%) and Sweden (13%).

Nielsen stats also show us that smartphone owners continue to be predominantly male, are 65% more likely than the average mobile subscriber to be between the ages of 25 and 34.

Evidently, there’s great potential for growth in the mobile industry one aspect which marketers should not overlook as it represents a great marketing opportunity. More people are changing their habits and adopting these new technologies. More people than ever want to be connected and take the Internet with them at all times.

Broadband will save us from depression and generate an incredible number of jobs. As weird as it may sound, this is what we have been hearing mostly in the western world over the past year. Several governments have included in their stimulus package a plan to increase the access to broadband internet with the hope that it will have a positive impact on the economy. Britain went maybe a bit further by commissioning a report called Digital Britain. Unfortunately, they went about it the wrong way.

The Digital Britain report put the emphasis on the infrastructure (universal access to broadband of 2MB) and then overlooked or partly dealt with other issues, such as digital education or support towards business initiatives. However, one major mistake was that the report was produced in an un-digital way in the sense that the whole process was a Top-Bottom interaction (the government works on a topic, decides what to do and the stakeholders have to deal with the decision) whereas in a digital age it should have been a more Bottom-Up process (thanks to the technology it would have been feasible to collect the views of all the actors and then produce a true overview of the situation). And this mistake gave birth to the Digital Britain Unconference.

When the interim report was published in January 2009 many people from the digital industry felt that the whole project was going in the wrong direction. They started coordinating their efforts, mainly on Twitter, and organized unconferences all around the UK where everyone would be able to express their views on what the report should contain. I attended the one that took place in London at the Institute of Contemporary Arts on May 6th. I was amazed with the creativity and passion of the audience and felt it was a genuine example of what a digital Britain should be like.

Some of the factors that were mentioned suggested that a digital Britain should be a place where everyone has access to a higher quality broadband (8 MB) all around the country, regardless of whether people live in urban or rural areas. People will have the opportunity to enrich their skills with regards to digital activities and business initiatives will also be encouraged and supported.

But more than a report from this group of professionals, what the government received was a manifesto that clearly showed the direction of politics in a digital age: more transparency, more accountability, but above all, the capacity for a small group of well-organized citizens to throw light on a public issue.

A kind of Digital Britain will emerge from all of this, but probably not the one imagined at Westminster.

Text is in Italian, however, you can find the scoop of the story in this post.

Good reading!

There is no doubt start-ups today leverage technology and new media to grow their business particularly in times when people are cutting costs and seeking for the most cost-efficient business-tools.

In Italy, fostering the innovation ecosystem is the mission of the projects which were created to help innovative start-ups meet industrial and financial partners to become known in the marketplace.

A sample of these projects is the magazine Innov’azione, a bi-monthly publication produced by the Italian association of technology and scientific parks (Apsti) available in print and online version at www.lobbyinnovazione.it. The business network ‘Imprese e start up’ (www.startupbusiness.it) is backed up by the Milano Chamber of Commerce, the meeting point for the Italian innovation community where entrepreneurs, enterprises, investors, incubators and Universities can share information, opportunities and experiences.

Percorsi dell’innovazione is the area dedicated to Italian start-ups within Smau, the main Italian technology trade show that takes place every October in Milan, which will also be organized in other Italian cities including Bari, Brescia, Padova and Bologna starting this year. These projects are working together in order to offer new entrepreneurs a wide platform to promote their ideas and projects to attract investors and find industrial partners.

In Italy, the number of start-ups has flourished during last few years, I began to follow this ecosystem closely back in 2005 launching the first edition of Percorsi dell’innovazione and since then all figures have increased: the number of start-ups, the number of risk capital investors such as venture capitalists, business angels, seed capital funds and the amount of money available in funds has also grown exponentially.

An increasing number of Universities started to consider the creation of spin-offs and technology transfer offices as a good opportunity. The role of incubators both within Universities and Science and technology parks is considered today as a key aspect of the ecosystem for the innovation that eventually becomes an enterprise. Currently, there are even privately owned incubators and an increasing number of large and medium size companies based in the country are showing a growing interest towards the innovative start-ups phenomenon and their ideas.

As reported by the BBC, current users of all versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer browser are currently vulnerable to getting hijacked due to a serious security flaw that has yet to be fixed.

It’s been reported that at least seven versions of the browser have been affected by this flaw and as many as 10,000 websites have been compromised.

Tricking the victims into visiting ‘contaminated’ websites is the main objective. Once in the site, user’s computers get infected with a malicious programming code which then allows hackers to take control of the user’s entire PC: personal information, documents, passwords, etc.

“Microsoft is continuing its investigation of public reports of attacks against a new vulnerability in Internet Explorer,” the firm declared in a security advisory alert about the flaw.

Apparently, the unforbidden sites are Chinese and their purpose is to steal passwords that can be sold later on the black market.

Microsoft has announced the flaw is only affecting 0.02% of internet site, however we should bear in mind IE is the default browser for most of the world’s computers; vulnerability is everywhere.

The advice to users, switch browsers!- although Microsoft is seriously battling against this particular action. Instead, they are keeping these news rather quiet while attempting to comfort users by letting them know such threat will be soon resolved.

We can say social media has been the biggest buzz topic this year, mainly due to its practicality and the fact that users find it convenient being on-the-move while at the same time communicating with friends, relatives and work colleagues through these networks. On the one hand, we’ve got the world globalizing, on the other, social media is lowering the barrier.

An impressive amount of content is created using mobile devices such as cellphones, camcorders, etc. Just to give you an insane figure, every minute 13 hours of video content are uploaded on YouTube, which currently attracts a total 240 million unique users. It’s quite different creating and ‘consuming’ content from your personal PC, that’s just sitting on a table, than doing it while on the move through a more capable device.

Today, people are using mobile devices not only for sms, mms, checking messages, but also to upload photos and communicate through social network applications. Advanced mobile devices are being launched in the market continuously carrying the latest technologies and unlimited features that make it convenient all the more.

Killer applications such as YouTube and MySpace enjoy and benefit from content created by mobile devices which is causing mobile social network users to become more and more active.

A recent study from ABI Research shows us social networking and consumer generated media have moved beyond the PC, which means that ‘over time, a growing number of consumers will share photos and use social network messaging and email which will translate to longer and more frequent usage of social networks on mobile’, explains ABI research director Michael Wolf.

The tendency is that more and more consumers are adopting social networking through their mobiles. Its main advantage is that of targeting specific niches in the most efficient manner.  So, Facebook and MySpace, be prepared- you have enormous amounts of advertising inventory so make the best out of it!

Advertising Age’s White Paper presents us with a complete study on recession-time case studies along with some of the most iconic online marketing campaigns that have succeeded during downturns from all industry sectors. Why am I saying this? Just so we can keep our chin up a bit and realize that there’s also a good side to the story.

Yes, it is indeed a dull period, however, we can say the Internet has been a soothing instrument for us and companies themselves in times of economic suppression especially in the midst of the Holiday Season. As Mike Sachoff from WebProNews puts it, holiday shopping has become a bright spot in the woeful economy.

According to comScore, through the first days of this year’s holiday shopping season up to Dec. 7th, online spending has reached up to $15.63 billion dollars. Just between December 1st and December 7th sales summed up to $4.45 billion- 7% more than last year.

“The online holiday shopping season has picked up noticeably since Thanksgiving as consumers have given in to the holiday spirit – and very attractive retailer discounts,” said ComScore chairman Gian Fulgoni, in a statement. “While this growth is certainly a positive development in this tough retail season, it also needs to be put into perspective.

This sudden awakening in spending is definitely good news and it’s bringing us all a little bit of hope regardless of the current situation. Not only that, but websites are becoming more interactive and user-friendly since Internet usage has increased.

Multiple testing of online stores has become critical for retailers. Today, most online stores have added rich-media content like videos, photos and made their sites more interactive and less complicated for users to enjoy hassle-free online purchases.

To read more about comScore’s Holiday shopping research visit www.comscore.com.