Like many moviegoers, I’m eagerly awaiting the film version of the classic Alan Moore Watchmen comics, opening Friday. Although I’ve been getting most of my information about the movie through friends, and most recently an article in Wired, I wondered where people are going online to learn more about this highly-anticipated fill.

I analyzed where people who used terms including the keyword ‘watchmen’ on major search engines were directed over the last 10 weeks. The chart below shows the top 10 sites that these people were referred to by keyword share and the percentage of all traffic generated by searches including the keyword ‘watchmen’ that went to a particular site.

Even though the studio site was the #1 destination for these searchers, and official movie sites figured prominently into the top 10, much of the search traffic for this film was referred to social media sites.

• The official studio site was the #1 destination for searchers in this period: about 18.5% of people who searched for “watchmen” keyword were directed there. In fact, ‘watchmen’ was the 4th most popular keyword for warnerbros.com in general, generating almost 3% of the domain’s total search referrals over this same period.
• Wikipedia, at 18.4% of keyword referrals, was a close second in terms of most referrals, ranking above dedicated movie site IMDb.
• Social media sites took up three of the top 10 spots:
  • YouTube ranked fourth. Although the Watchmen-related videos were posted by individuals, one member did say the studio had given him permission to use official copies.
  • Blogspot was #9 by keyword referral, and MySpace rounded out the top 10.

In the next few weeks it’s likely that the flow of traffic to Watchmen-related destinations will change as people considering going to see the movie search for reviews. Visits to other review and social media sites – like Rotten Tomatoes (#11), Facebook (#12) and Twitter (#21) – will likely increase. Still, the fact that so much of this initial search traffic is going to social media sites before the release date suggests that the channel is an important information source for audiences even weeks before they buy a ticket.

So movie marketers take note: social media matters even before the movie is released. And, it’s making Watchmen look pretty cool.

See you at the movies.

Last week, I wrote about how the ownership of consumer electronics capable of shifting content is not limited to Americans in their late teens and 20s. While these products offer consumers more choice in terms of viewing media across time, place and device, they also introduce more complexity into the purchase process.

The question is, are the consumers shopping for these time shifting devices - like laptops, DVRs, portable media players, iPhones and other Smartphones - shopping for consumer electronics differently? To find out, I looked at results from a recent Compete survey.

As we can see in the chart:

• Those who are planning on buying a shifting device in the next 12 months (dark blue bars) were more likely to do their homework, spending more time on research and consulting more information sources.
• The people who weren’t planning to buy a content shifting device (light blue bars) were more likely to say that complexity wouldn’t change their behavior and that they’d let someone else do the shopping for them.

People in the market for shifting devices are probably more technically savvy, but they are also investing more time and effort into their research. In addition to shopping for devices that can be more complex to use, these consumers also need to understand emerging technologies and services that help them shift content across time and across device, whether it’s working out how to stream movies from Netflix to their TiVo, find the online videos they want to watch, or transfer video files to their Smartphone.

What does this mean for CE marketers and retailers? There is a lot of information online, but consumers need resources that help them sift through the clutter and choose the products and services that will enable them to shift content in the ways they want, without a lot of hassle and at a reasonable price. If retailers can come up with a way to present clear options alongside a place to purchase products and services, they would not only make consumer’s visions a reality, but also make strides at converting browsers into buyers.

For more on how consumers are researching and buying CE products that help them to shift content, and how other industries have dealt with complexity and the burden of choice, join us for “Shifting Content Across Time, Place and Device”, a free webinar tomorrow at 2pm EST. Click here to register.

There’s no question that our increasing ability to shift content across time, place and device is bringing about major changes in how we interact with media. The challenge and the opportunity lie in how rapidly the landscape is changing and how quickly young Americans are adapting to it. TVWeek recently reported that nearly two times as many Americans aged 18-34 have watched content via an online video than through a TiVO or other DVR.

Such changes may be deemed media-worthy, but is shifting content just a young people’s game? The short answer is no - although younger Americans tend to have several devices capable of content shifting, so do those in their late thirties through early fifties.

In a recent survey, we asked respondents what consumer electronics products they own, and identified some of these as likely content shifting devices: laptop computer, MP3/Portable media player, Digital Video Recorder (DVR), Apple iPhone, and other Smartphones. The data, split by age group, appears in the chart below.

• People aged 25-34 were the most likely to have at least one content shifting device.
• Adults 18-24 were the most likely to own four or more of these shifting devices, but not much more than those aged 25-44.
• More than half of respondents 18-44 own at least 2 shifting devices.
• Among those aged 55 and over, we see a noticeably larger percentage of “non-shifters” who did not own any of these devices than among any of the respondents 54 and under.

More ways to shift content continue to become available, and consumers are embracing their newfound freedom on a wider range of devices. Netflix recently announced that one million people, more than 10% of their membership, have downloaded their Xbox Live application since it was introduced in November, enabling them to stream video from Netflix to their television through the gaming console. The recent popularity of netbooks and smartphones could lead to even more demand for online video streaming with consumers in their mid-thirties to early 50s.

The takeaway for CE marketers, telecom service providers, and content producers is that many Americans already have the means to shift content on one, if not multiple devices. Assessing and serving that demand effectively will grow increasingly important in the years ahead.

For more on the size and potential of the content shifting market and how the practice is changing media consumption, join us on February 19th at 2 pm EST for “Shifting Content Across Time, Place and Device”. Click here for more information or to register.

The video game industry and its’ customers are changing. I grew up when consoles were starting to become a common household device, but thought of as a children’s toy. Despite being a fairly avid gamer through my teens, I never would have guessed that my friends and I, now in our late twenties and early thirties, would be spending our evenings playing Rock Band or facing off in Wii Boxing at dinner parties.

In addition to some shifts in consumer behavior, we’ve also seen changes in how games and consoles are developed and marketed to appeal to “non-traditional” or “casual” players of all ages. More intuitive and physical game play in popular titles like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, as well as the Wii Sports package seem to interest a diverse audience. With its marketing, Nintendo has been making an effort to appeal to women and seniors. Research by Compete has also found that games are among the most popular applications downloaded by iPhone and Smartphone owners.

Still, when we think of adult video game enthusiasts, we generally think of people in their twenties who grew up when video game consoles were common in US households. Are adult video game enthusiasts on the web all children of the 1980s and 90s?

Not all, but as we can see in the chart, a large proportion do fit that profile. Adults 18-34 were well represented in this group, making up 46% of video game enthusiasts online (orange bars) but only about 38% of the overall adult internet browsing population.

Not surprisingly, on the other end of the spectrum, Americans aged 55+ make up a fairly small percentage of video game enthusiasts – just 9% - even though they represent about 20% of adults online.

Marketers may want to consider expanding their consumer base to include more of those people in the middle, between 35 and 54, many of whom did not grow up when video game consoles were common in U.S. households. About a quarter of video game enthusiasts are between 35-44, and 19% are between 45 and 54.

The latter group is particularly interesting when you consider that it is more than 2.5x bigger than the 55-64 cohort and, in the next few years, will be making up more and more of the 55+ demographic. If they retain their interest in gaming as time goes on, the makeup of this segment over time will likely change to include more older Americans.

Although interest in video games may not have broken down all generational barriers yet, their appeal seems to be increasingly unrelated to consumers’ ages and the technology they grew up with, opening up exciting opportunities to create products and campaigns for a diverse, and possibly larger, customer base.

However, this diversity also suggests that marketers may have to start moving beyond demographics to a more sophisticated set of behavioral analytics to reach video game enthusiasts effectively on the web. Are they ready? Stay tuned.

Interested in learning more about how consumers shop for and use Consumer Electronics? Join us at 2 p.m. EST on February 5th for our next webinar featuring results from a joint study with the Consumer Electronics Association on older Americans and technology. Click here to register.

At industry conference after industry conference, whether it’s for content producers, consumer electronics manufacturers, or service providers, digital content shifting is a central topic of discussion.

Digital content shifting is relatively new, so it will likely take some time before all consumers adopt it on a regular basis, but what do they want now? To begin to answer that question, I looked at what people who had shopped online for telecommunications services had to say about how important digital content shifting was in their decision-making process.

As we can see in the chart, control over content matters to people shopping for TV service, but some types of control are more important to consumers than others. DVR capability was considered important by 57% of respondents, while 47% said access to content through a provider site was key. On demand content selection and the ability to access computer files - like music and pictures - through the TV doesn’t seem to be nearly as important to those shoppers.

This may be true when people are shopping for TV services, but does it factor into their decision differently when it comes to the possibility of buying cell phone service from a telco provider?

Here we see a pattern similar to the one we observed among the TV service shoppers: some types of content shifting are more important to consumers than others. However, we also see a lower percentage of respondents overall saying that these shifting capabilities really factor into in their decision-making process than we did in the previous example.

These results suggest that most telco shoppers are looking to shift and control the flow of content, but shifting content between devices isn’t top of mind yet. Consider the relatively low importance placed on accessing TV content online, watching mobile TV from a cell phone, and controlling a DVR from a wireless device versus DVR capabilities and access to content through a provider site. In those cases, the most important thing about digital content is gaining control over timing and flow of content on a particular device, not moving media from one device to another.

What might this mean in the short to medium term? For service providers and content producers, empowering people to access media content on a number of different platforms for a single price might be more important than enabling them to move it across devices. By extension, the key for CE manufacturers might be to provide consumers with devices that make this type of shifting as simple and convenient as possible with different service providers.

For the longer term, free movement of media content may be the next step. Stay tuned.

While getting a cup of coffee the other day, I saw an Amazon Kindle in real life for the first time. Considering the extensive press about the device in the last several months, I’ve been surprised not to see more people using them.

Back in October, Oprah featured the Kindle on her show, an announcement that created a lot of buzz, and the device sold out around Christmas. So, I wondered how much traffic the Kindle has attracted over the last few months.

• Interest in the Kindle surged the week of Oprah’s endorsement, attracting more than half a million visitors, 2.5x as many online consumers as the week before
• The momentum seems to have carried the device into the holiday shopping season, with interest dipping in November, but still remaining well above the “pre-Oprah” weeks
• Between Thanksgiving and mid-December, nearly 400,000 people looked at the Kindle online each week

With recent interest booming, the slight decline leading up to Christmas may seem odd. But remember that Amazon sold out of the device in December and couldn’t deliver it before Christmas. All things considered, the strength of the Kindle’s online interest around the holiday season has been remarkable.

According to Amazon’s website, the Kindle is still sold out. Will we be seeing more in 2009? Much of that will depend on converting interest into sales in a tough economy – at $359, the Kindle isn’t as accessible or as versatile as other portable media devices like the iPod. Still, with diverse and affordable content, rumors of a new version coming out in early 2009, and a lot of buzz, I wouldn’t be surprised to see one the next time I head to Starbucks.