Linked List: August 14, 2012

Tuesday, 14 August 2012

Nielsen Report Shows YouTube as a Leading Music Source, Especially for Teenagers ★

Ethan Smith, reporting for the WSJ:

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. teenagers under the age of 18 say they use Google Inc.’s video-sharing site to listen to music, more than any other medium, according to a new consumer survey from Nielsen Co., one of many challenges facing record companies as they transition into the digital world.

In addition to treating YouTube as a de facto free music service, young people said they are less inclined than those 18 years old and up to listen to CDs or the radio.

According to Neilsen’s survey results, YouTube is first for teenagers, and third overall, behind radio and CDs. iTunes is fourth. I find this surprising, but disruptions usually are.

Hamish McKenzie on Magazines’ Bundling Problem ★

Hamish McKenzie, following up on David Carr’s aforelinked piece:

I haven’t got a focus group to prove this, but I would bet that anyone who uses reading apps such as Longform, Instapaper, Readability, and Pocket prefers those content delivery mechanisms to bundled magazines. These platforms allow readers to select and sort content in a way that works for them, from disparate sources, without having to deal with cumbersome digital magazine files and swathes of packaged content that simply isn’t relevant, or of interest.

We’re reading, perhaps more than ever, but we’re reading on our screens.

David Carr on the Decline of Magazines ★

David Carr:

The problem is more existential than that: magazines, all kinds of them, don’t work very well in the marketplace anymore.

Like newspapers, magazines have been in a steady slide, but now, like newspapers, they seem to have reached the edge of the cliff. Last week, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported that newsstand circulation in the first half of the year was down almost 10 percent. When 10 percent of your retail buyers depart over the course of a year, something fundamental is at work.