Socially Aware Blog: Americans’ increasing obsession with social media
A special report:
Morrison & Foerster’s popular Socially Aware Blog is out this week with a thought-provoking infographic that delves into Americans’ increasing obsession with social media, along with their increasingly fractured attention spans. Some of the statistics MoFo has compiled might surprise you:
• The amount of time the average person spent monthly on social networking more than doubled between 2006 and 2011 – from 2.7 hours to 6.9 hours
• More than half of TV viewers are multi-tasking in front of the tube: 61% of viewers surf the Internet while watching TV; 29% use Facebook while in front of the TV
• Social media now accounts for 18% of time spent online
• The fastest growing segments of social networking users are men of all ages and people over 55 years old – both groups grew by more than 9% between July 2010 and October 2011.
• Facebook is the undisputed leader among social networking sites: Visitors spend an average of 6.75 hours on the site each month – nearly twice the amount of time spent on Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, and GooglePlus combined.
• The percentage of Americans who have a social-networking profile has more than doubled in recent years – from 24% in 2008 to 56% in 2012.
You can view the entire Time Spent Statistics infographic here.
And “that’s not all,” as they say. Here’s some of the other content you’ll find on the latest issue of Socially Aware.
• There’s a piece on the California ’s continuing crack-down on app makers that don’t comply with the state’s Online Privacy Protection Act (OPPA). That law, you’re recall, requires that commercial website operators, online service providers and mobile app developers that collect personally identifiable information from California residents to post a conspicuous privacy policy – even if the company itself is based outside of the state. Earlier, California AG Kamala Harris told app developers they had six months to comply with the law, or be notified of violations. Last month, Harris’ office said it would start notifying as many as 100 mobile app developers that their products do no comply with the law and they have 30 days to get in line.
• In another Golden State story, there’s an examination of the latest legal case involving the enforceability of website’s terms of service (TOS) agreements, Nguyen v. Barnes & Noble, Inc., especially as it relates to so-called “browsewrap” agreements. (Those are the pesky little TOS agreements accessible through a hyperlink that hover at the bottom of a web page, which few people actually read.) The plaintiff sued the company after he was unable to buy a tablet computer at special promo price; the company, citing its browserwrap, tried to force the case to arbitration. But a court found B&N’s TOS agreement was unenforceable because it was not considered adequate notice — the actual TOS was practically hidden where visitors might never see it. Consequently, Socially Aware notes, website operators should consider more positive methods of obtaining users’ TOS consent.
• A report regarding popular site Cafepress.com, which recently suffered a legal setback when a U.S. District Court denied the online “print on demand” provider’s motion for summary judgment against claims for trademark infringement.
About Socially Aware
Social media sites are transforming not only the daily lives of consumers, but also how companies interact with consumers. Here at Morrison & Foerster, across all of our practice groups, we are seeing complex, cutting-edge legal issues arising out of social media. As with the Internet boom during the mid-to-late 1990s, social media is generating new legal questions at a far faster pace than the law’s ability to provide answers to such questions. In an effort to stay on top of these emerging issues, and to keep our clients and friends informed of new developments, Morrison & Foerster publishes this blog devoted to the law and business of social media.
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*No compensation was received in exchange for the posting of this data.
