Technology, innovation and adoption are happening faster than ever before. A trip to the mall is a good reminder of how quickly iPods and MP3 players eliminated the CD and stores like Sam Goody. Tablets are the next big technology trend and will likely eliminate personal computers sooner rather than later. The iPad adoption rate was the fastest in history; quickly surpassing the time it took us to move from VHS to DVD. But new technologies are becoming so much more than just digital trends; they’re lifestyle trends that have merged with our everyday existence at a fast speed.
I learned as a little girl that having good manners meant always sharing my toys, but Facebook, Twitter and all things social have revolutionized our thoughts on sharing. Instead of sharing toys or devices, we now share all the details of our lives. Posts on Twitter, an entire timeline on Facebook, circles of random acquaintances on Google+, all of our eclectic music choices broadcasted by Spotify--you name it, we are sharing it. The proof is in social aggregators like Hootsuite that let you monitor your entire digital persona in a single dashboard. And it’s not just the details of our personal lives that we are sharing, we share our work lives as well. Business technologies like join.me, WebEx and Yammer improve how people are sharing on the company clock.
Sharing and communicating are increasingly one in the same. Phone conversations are rare and letter writing is all but dead - unless you consider my favorite holiday invitation tool Paperless Post, where an actual digital invitation that animates the opening of an addressed envelope and letter that is bought with online stamps. Our sharing culture implies a new understanding we have about each other’s lives—one party posts, the other party reads it, but conversations aren’t always required. And the “one to many” nature of our digital interactions has simultaneously increased and decreased the intimacy of communication – we share more intimate details of our lives but as social billboards of 140 characters or less.
Soon sharing the remote around the living room will also be a thing of the past. As broadband speeds continue to increase, consumers are turning to the plethora of streaming video providers to cut the cord. According to Leichtman Research Group, 20 percent of Netflix subscribers use the “Watch Instantly” feature daily, up from 10 percent in 2010. Additionally 78 percent of “Watch Instantly” users watch their Netflix movies and TV shows on a television set. And, Hulu Plus has signed up more than 1 million subscribers while YouTube now offers “channels”, which make professional programming from broadcasters like BBC and Channel 4 available for free. All we need now is a startup to invent a way to channel surf streaming content more easily.
Now, we consume more video content - and in the time and place most convenient for us – than ever and consumers are obviously interested in testing out different streaming TV solutions. I recently got to test out an AppleTV in my own mother’s living room, which leads me to believe that we’ll see a marked jump in cord cutting in 2012. And for those of you who think the trend is relegated to the 25-45 demo that live in digitally savvy metros, think again. My mother is (she’d shoot me for saying her age so I’ll just say “a retiree”) living in a suburb of Indianapolis, further illustrating that adoption is happening faster than you may think.
How, where and when we use the Internet has also changed dramatically since its inception. Smartphones are Internet hubs for travel, dining and games for most, and I’ll be the first to admit that I use my phone as a compass walking down the crowded streets of Manhattan. “Couch commerce” is the latest Internet consumption trend, sparked by mobile phone and tablet usage. IBM released an online retail benchmark study on Cyber Monday 2011, which showed that 10.8 percent of people accessed a retailer’s site with a mobile device, up from 3.9 percent on Cyber Monday 2010, and that mobile sales reached 6.6 percent, up from 2.3 percent in 2010. In addition PointRoll also saw similar results on Cyber Monday, including a specific spike in iPad shopping, with a dramatic 233 percent increase in traffic to ShopLocal circular sites. Being able to shop from the couch within the palm of your hand greatly appeals to the ever-fragmented and increasingly digital consumer. Accessing shopping deals similar to those happening in-store from the comfort of your couch is just another way that consumers are making the most of being able to use the Internet anywhere, on any device.
The link between technology innovation and lifestyle trends is clear and strong. But next year, will I shop from my phone while watching TV from my Roku box and tweet about my purchases? The odds for me are high, but all consumers will adapt at different rates. The way Apple transformed the market with iPods, then iPhones and then iPads is a good indicator, though, that most consumers are willing to let technology dictate the way they live. In 2012, I expect that consumers will increasingly share over multiple platforms, rethink TV once and for all and continue to connect through their mobile devices in new and exciting ways.
