CCi Digital Futures Report: The Internet in Australia

Confirming the stuff we kind of already knew.

On the Internet and Media consumption;

For users the internet is now their most important source of information. Just under seven in ten users described the internet as ‘important’ or ‘very important’ compared to a third for television and less than a half for newspapers or radio.

Internet users spend less time watching television, listening to radio and reading newspapers than nonusers.

Television watching is the media-related activity most affected by internet use. Four in ten users say they watch less television since access while less than a quarter feel they read newspapers or books less.

Around six in ten users would visit an online news service if either a large international or large local story was breaking. Overall, internet users rate the internet as reliable an information source as newspapers and more reliable than television.

However, on the Internet as entertainment;

The internet is an increasingly important source of entertainment, however it is yet to really challenge television or even radio for most users. The proportion of users who describe the internet as a very important source of entertainment is just slightly less than the proportion for television which points to the potential of the internet in this realm. We would expect that as broadband improves in both speed and coverage that entertainment uses will become increasingly important.

An interesting read to get a snapshot of the state of the Internet nation.

CCi Digital Futures Report: The Internet in Australia

Burst Culture | warrenellis.com

I hate jumping on this stuff so long after everyone else, but it's a post worth pointing to.

"I’d like you to ignore, for a while, anything that smacks of Web 3.0, or even Web 2.0, or any of the other dumb ideas that distract from production of actual content on the web. Instead, consider these simple things:

* The hurdle to credible publishing on the web, now, is the nine dollars it costs to buy a domain name from GoDaddy, which can be mapped on to a free Tumblr or Blogger space...

* Bursts aren’t contentless, nor do they denote the end of Attention Span. If attention span was dead, JK Rowling wouldn’t be selling paperbacks thick enough to choke a pig, and Neal Stephenson wouldn’t be making a living off books the size of the first bedsit I lived in."

warrenellis.com » Burst Culture

Corp-pocalypse - Chapter 2

For what it's worth, I do think some of the comments are a little panic-stricken and overblown creating a Media Watch level of ignorance of the medium. Still, rampant, illogical panic is still a sign of the end times.

ABC considers charging for the web | The Australian