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not the coolest
Users still rely on traditional media for much info
By Marty Beard
The web has made significant incursions into the lives of North Americans but it has yet to become an indispensable medium, still ranking behind television and newspapers as a primary source of information.
"Web content is popular but not invaluable to online consumers," according to a recent study from Forrester Research.
Just 23 percent of internet users say it is their preferred information source.
Still, the internet has made inroads, and one area is in credibility: Ninety-five percent of wired consumers in the U.S. and Canada say that they trust online content.
But users remain frustrated about many aspects of the web, among them its speed.
Thirty-eight percent of users say they’d log on more often if sites didn’t take so long to load.
Nineteen percent say they’d take advantage of online content more often if dialing up didn’t take so long.
Other areas of discontent are web ads and the quality of content. Some 26 percent complain that ads discourage them from using internet content more often, and 10 percent say that the material they encounter online is not sufficiently in-depth.
High-speed internet access could solve some of those problems, but it will be some time before it is widely adopted.
Forrester’s figures indicate that just 14 percent of wired households go online with a broadband connection.
Another complaint users have about the internet is its lack of portability, with just 3 percent of consumers having wireless internet access.
In its study, which polled 10,000 internet users in the U.S. and Canada, Forrester found that the web is still an ancillary source for a lot of information.
Television is still preferred for time-sensitive information, sports, weather and news, with just a third saying they turned to the internet first.
Seventy-three percent of online consumers flip on the tube for the latest weather. Just 19 percent turn to the web for weather.
Sixty-five percent look to television for general news, compared to 11 percent who go online and 37 percent who read the newspaper.
For sports news, 36 percent of people prefer television, 21 percent prefer newspapers, and 9 percent prefer the web.
The newspaper remains the No. 1 medium for classified ads, movie listings or show times.
Thirty-seven percent prefer the paper for real estate and job listings. Eighteen percent, in contrast, prefer the internet for job listings, and 13 percent go online for real estate information.
The areas where the web is the primary medium include reference, travel and health information, tech news, and adult entertainment.
According to the report, the web has cornered the market on reference information, with 54 percent of consumers preferring it over other media.
Fifty-one percent of wired individuals prefer the internet for travel information, compared to the 9 percent who prefer newspapers and magazines.
And 14 percent of online consumers prefer to get their adult entertainment from the web, compared to 4 percent who look to television.
Forrester found that people are still resistant to paying for online content, with only 9 percent of those polled saying they would agree to pay for access to their favorite sites.
Of those who would be willing to pay, however, 68 percent would opt for a subscription rather than paying for access to individual articles.
But by 2003, the study predicts, that will change, with about a third of users being willing to pay for online content.
January 18, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
-Marty Beard is a staff writer for Media Life.
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