The joint BT and University of Essex e-living project has released preliminary results of a two year research project. One conclusion appears to counter music industry concerns about free downloads by those who can afford to pay. The main beneficiaries seem to be the unemployed. Another insight is that "Italians have more new computers and throw away more ‘new’ computers "
The report is downloadable as pdf here ... or read on...
On music downloads the report concludes: "Contrary to the current arguments put forward by the music industry, those people who download music for free are much more (37% ) likely to buy music (online) than were those who had not downloaded free music. For men this effect is 118% but, interesting, for the unemployed it is - (minus) 70%.
"So those who are unemployed (and thus less likely to have money to spend) are very unlikely to buy music if they already download it free from the net. The effect is also stronger in some countries than others. This is the first empirical evidence we have seen for or against the music industry arguments."
Other conclusions suggest techies partner with other techies (or maybe stand each other better), and bright boys stay with it. Nothing said about whether they can or can't find techie partners.
"ICT usage tends to be correlated within couples because people of similar tastes and experience tend to partner in the first place. This is also likely to be reinforced through the mutual influence that shared experience subsequently brings."
"Internet dropouts (those who no longer use the net) are less likely to be male, active online users and have higher education."
Overall, take-up of the Internet has slowed if not stalled in several countries. Israel and Italy however are showing an upturn... what is it with the Italians, a throw-away Net culture? Is it a style thing? I want to know more, but the newsletter is reticent. This is a European Community 5th Framework IST Programme research project, so perhaps national sensitivities have to be respected.
Thanks to Keith Hampton's blog for alerting me to the report
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