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Making sense from the digital media fragmentation [Gulf News (United Arab Emirates)](Gulf News (United Arab Emirates) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Dubai: For advertisers and agencies, trying to sift through the mountain heaps of data on consumers' digital preferences can be thankless. More so as these preferences can shift within the time taken to click from one portal to the other. (Or to close one app and open another, for that matter.) "Search engines — the clear cut leaders of the past — are being challenged by the individual user's social media feeds," said Ashish Gupta, Director — Digital Media at BPG Maxus. "There's growth in the use of news aggregating applications such as Google Play Newsstand on smart devices to filter the sources and topics. "Consumers who go straight to their preferred source are still important ... however the younger the demographic, the more hi-tech the approach." Their ranks keep growing by the day. According to the research firm eMarketer, 336.5 million people in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) will access the internet at least once per month this year, which is nearly one-quarter higher than in 2013. ‘Annual growth rates will remain in the double digits through 2015 ... Within four years, the region will register almost 458 million web users, with more than 30 per cent of all residents regularly online," according to eMarketer in the latest 'Global Media Intelligence Report', which was developed in collaboration with Starcom MediaVest Group. The smartphone adoption rates pushes more to engage in web browsing. Smartphone penetration across MEA will grow more than 31 per cent this year, according to eMarketer. ‘Saudi Arabia and the UAE registered penetration rates of at least 72 per cent last year — equivalent to gains of at least 10 percentage points in a single year. In Egypt, by contrast, penetration was just 6 per cent, compared with 5 per cent in 2012', the report said. What it all adds up to is ever higher fragmentation in the way consumers access their content feeds. "We rely on a number third-party tools to aggregate the data and draw our conclusions, but what the data demonstrates, is that today's consumers of content are being channelled from a growing number of sources," said Gupta. "Today's consumer is content hungry ... consumption habits are changing dynamically within the region as the choice of devices on which you can consume content is growing. You can literally read the news and watch videos anywhere all the time. "Consumers are actively looking for more access, deeper engagement with content and brands, interconnected devices, more and more apps related to their lifestyle, always connected with social media and a second screen to transform their traditional TV viewing experience. These viewers will become even more demanding and look to new sources of content consumption that suit their requirements and taste." (c) 2014 Al Nisr Publishing LLC . All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |