Got Connectivity?

We reported recently on ways for organizations to attract and engage visitors to their sites, based on studies managed by Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

There’s more. First, Pew’s studies document the speed with which the Internet is going mobile. In 2000, fewer than half of American adults owned a cell phone, and fewer than half used the Internet. Nobody had wireless connections. (Users made dial-up connections and stored data on their own computers. Remember?)

Today, 85 percent of American adults own cell phones, and 54 percent connect to the Internet wirelessly. More than half now use what is called the “cloud”: “fast, mobile connections built around outside servers and storage,” as Rainie puts it. Think Web-based email as opposed to email you pull down to your hard drive using Outlook.

It was one kind of revolution when we got high-speed Internet connections in our homes. It will be another when we all carry the Internet in our pockets.

Pew’s surveys reveal that not everyone feels the same about the change. More than half of American adults-61 percent-haven’t yet begun accessing the Internet with a mobile device. Of the 39 percent who have, not all are happy about it. Rainie studied both groups and came up with 10 categories, including tips for reaching each. No publication manager will likely need to reach all of these audiences, but it’s worth trying to figure out which ones are yours.

Digital collaborators (8 percent of the population) are married, well-educated, high-earning, mostly male technophiles, about half with children. These guys love their computers and iPhones and know how to use them. You don’t reach them so much as allow them to reach you. They’re the ones who want to collaborate on new projects using your stuff, and they love it if you ask them for advice about new technology you want to try in your website redesign process.

Ambivalent networkers (7 percent) are mostly male college students and recent graduates. The kids don’t use email anymore; they text and chat on Facebook. They have just as much tech savvy as the digital collaborators, but while they feel they must always keep their mobile devices with them, they aren’t necessarily happy about being chained to them. They’re likely to appreciate it if you encourage them not to be online for awhile. More than half also own video game consoles, so think about how to reach them through games.

Media movers (7 percent) are mostly male, reasonably well-educated, thirtysomething email forwarders and vacation-album posters (87 percent own a digital camera). They’re less interested in the Internet as a place to express themselves or find information than as a place to socialize. Entice them by giving them tidbits worth sharing and making those tidbits easy to share.

Roving nodes (9 percent) are highly educated soccer moms who use email or texting to organize their lives. They especially like “cloud” functions they can check anywhere, along with alerts and reminders to help keep them on schedule.

Mobile newbies (8 percent) are older, less-educated women who rarely use computers but have all the zeal of recent converts when it comes to the mobile phone they just got within the last year. Make it easy for them to take the leap to the Web by offering lots of coaching.

Desktop veterans (13 percent) are middle-aged, well-off guys who have been using their high-speed Internet connections for about ten years now, and are content to keep it that way. They have no interest in using their cell phones to do anything but make phone calls. They want self-directed Web-based content without a lot of hand-holding.

Drifting surfers (14 percent) are middle-aged, moderately educated women who have computers and cell phones, but don’t use them all that much. They want to keep using traditional services or content. When they do turn to the Internet it is to gather basic information, and when they have to use an Internet-based service they want tech support because things often go awry on them.

The information encumbered (10 percent) are older white guys who have cell phones and Internet connections but hate using them. To them, technology is an annoyance and one that’s getting worse all the time. They also want to consume older forms of media, and when they must go online they want information filtered and presented to them using classic methods of organization (like indexes, for example, rather than Digg).

The tech indifferent (10 percent) are older, less-educated women. They don’t use the Internet, and while they have cell phones, they don’t particularly like them. Not much different are those who are completely off the net (14 percent-the final group), also older, less-educated women who have neither Internet connections nor cell phones. You might be able to draw in some of these folks with ultra-basic computing or Internet courses, but for the most part they’re best reached offline, in person or on paper.

Lee Rainie spoke at Julie Perlmutter’s by-invitation-only Web Manager’s Roundtable.

Personally, I’m a desktop veteran. How about you?