Half of Americans think bad weather affects ‘cloud computing’
by Darren Weir (Guest contributor/Digital Journalist)
The survey has found that while many Americans have heard of cloud computing, they don’t really understand what it means. Most believe it can be affected by the weather, while some think it refers to pillows, drugs, toilet paper or a mysterious network.
The survey commissioned by Citrix found that while 54 percent of Americans asked say they don’t use cloud computing, 95 percent of them do use things like online banking, Facebook, Gmail, online gaming, photo or music storage sites and online shopping, all cloud based services.
The survey questioned 1000 American adults last month and found a third of those asked, say they believe the cloud is a thing of the future, even though they are already using it. But despite their confusion, 59 percent believe the “workplace of the future” will exist entirely in the cloud.
About one in five Americans admit that they’ve pretended to know what the cloud is or how it works, 14 percent of them in a job interview. Young Americans are the most likely to fake it (36 percent ages 18-29, 18% ages 30 and older).After learning more about it though, 68 percent say it has economic benefits by lowering costs (35 percent) and encouraging small business growth (32 percent). Among those who hardly ever or never use the cloud, the top three reasons are cost (34 percent), security concerns (32 percent) and privacy concerns (31 percent).
Digital Journal reported last month that even Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is worried about the security of cloud computing.But others see some unexpected benefits of the cloud, like the ability to work from home in their “birthday suit” (40 percent), accessing files from the beach (33 percent) and keeping embarrassing videos off their personal hard drive (25 percent).
This was originally published in Digital Journal [Link]
Survey: People spend more time using social media than email
By David Silverberg
Web users around the world are spending slightly more time on social media sites compared to email, a new survey from TNS Digital Life found.
In September 2010, surfers spent 4.6 hours a week on social sites and chalked up 4.4 hours on email, eMarketer reports. Other online activities respondents said they did weekly included surfing the Web for “Interest” and “Knowledge” and “News.”
According to the survey, email isn’t going away anytime soon. ”Users are still significantly more likely to send and receive email messages on a daily basis than they are to do any other activity,” eMarketer wrote.
Three-quarters of survey respondents check their inbox every day compared to less than half who go to social media sites with the same frequency.
The TNS survey also provided [PDF] insight into social media usage. Respondents were asked what social media activity they wanted to use more, and 42 percent said they wanted to stream more music and video. The least popular activities to pursue included microblogging and responding to blogs.
eMarketer says more than 61 percent of frequent Internet users globally having a profile on a social network.
TNS says the study is the result of analyzing data from 46 countries in September 2010. A total of 48,804 people aged 16 to 60 years old were interviewed.