In Your Face, Facebook

Southern Methodist University In coming days watch for this Trend Piece in Your Daily Newspaper: More people are using their Interwebs for online gaming than they are for eyeballing videos or social networking sites. That's according to Dallas-based new-media market research company Parks Associates, which today issued a short report...

By Robert Wilonsky

August 16, 2007

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Southern Methodist University

In coming days watch for this Trend Piece in Your Daily Newspaper: More people are using their Interwebs for online gaming than they are for eyeballing videos or social networking sites. That's according to Dallas-based new-media market research company Parks Associates, which today issued a short report that concludes that 34 percent of "U.S. adult Internet users" play online games every week, while 29 percent watch "short online videos" and 19 percent visit sites like Facebook and MySpace. "Adult" Internet users? Can you be more specific? Nope? Thank for playing.

So, we give. How come games are more popular than Facebook and YouTube? Well, says James Kuai at Parks Associates, "Gaming remains the king of online entertainment, driven largely by casual gaming activities. Gaming also has business advantages. Unlike sites for social networking and video streaming, which rely solely on advertising revenue, casual gaming has more mature and heterogeneous revenue models, including web-based and in-game advertising, try-before-you-buy, subscriptions, and micro-transactions.” That's just sexy talk there. --Robert Wilonsky

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