Anyone who's visited a Gannett website knows the company has found what may be a goldmine in sites devoted to mothers. (See, for example, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle's RocMoms.) I wondered why women got all the extra attention until I ran across some of the latest research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The study was of teenagers, but it offers clues about overall gender differences online.Pew found that girls continue to dominate most elements of content creation. "Some 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys," the study says, "and 54% of wired girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys. Boys, however, do dominate one area -- posting of video content online. Online teen boys are nearly twice as likely as online girls (19% vs. 10%) to have posted a video online somewhere where someone else could see it."
I'm not surprised. We've known that women tend to be more expressive through words, while men gravitate more toward visuals. How does that translate into content? Look at the Democrat and Chronicle, one of the few Gannett papers to run what amounts to a men's version of a mom's site. Researching the idea, the paper found that men wanted lots of pictures on what became RocMen. The paper's managing editor for multimedia, Traci Bauer, wrote about how RocMen came about in the Aug. 9 issue of News Watch. For good measure, RocMen features video prominently with its way offbeat Mark the Intern YouTube recommendations. His pick at the moment I'm writing this post: Moped Dance! Crank up the volume and watch:Use this link to e-mail feedback, tips, snarky letters, etc. See Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the sidebar, upper right. Or leave a note in the comments section, below.
[Image: this morning's Democrat and Chronicle, Newseum]
You ask why all the sites for moms and not dads. If I recall correctly during my time at a Gannett paper, it was driven by advertising. Advertisers want to hit the mom segment because they generally make the day-to-day budgeting decisions for households: what groceries to buy, what the kids will wear, etc. And there's no real section of a daily newspaper that draws in that segment, unlike men, who are the traditional audience of the sports section.
ReplyDeleteD'oh! Thanks. I shouldn't have followed the money trail -- something I usually do.
ReplyDelete