Who Are The "Digitally Savvy?"
A new report put about by consumer and media research firm Scarborough Research has revealed some interesting information about the section of the U.S. population that's being called the "digitally savvy." These are the consumers who are more likely to own high-tech items like DVRs, satellite radios, and VoIP phones and are more likely to engage in Internet activities that include blogging, downloading music, and other web 2.0 activities. In other words - they're us.
Where They Live
What might be the most surprising reveal to come out of this report are the locations of the most digitally savvy cities in the U.S. Austin, Texas was number one, where 12% of the surveyed respondents were classified as being digitally savvy - nearly twice as likely as the national average. San Francisco, on the other hand, only came in at #10, beat out by other California cities like San Diego and Sacramento, as well as other large U.S. cities like Las Vegas (#2), New York (#9), and D.C. (#5), among others.
Who They Are
Additionally, the report found that the Digitally Savvy were a luxury-oriented group - more likely to own second homes, shop in high-end stores, travel more often, and drive expensive cars. This is probably due to the fact that they were 132% more likely to have a household income of $150K or more. They also skewed towards being young (77% under 44) and male (56%).
These figures also seem to jive with the earlier reports on today's iPhone owners. Like this "Digitally Savvy" group, iPhone owners were also richer than average - 40% higher than the U.S. median.
Both groups tend to be early adopters of new technology, mainly because they can afford to do so. Unlike the general population, who needs to wait for prices to come down before purchasing newer technology, this group has no problem dropping hundreds of dollars to obtain the latest gadget.
Looking Beyond the Digitally Savvy
According to Gary Meo, SVP, Print and Digital Media Services at Scarborough Research, this is an important group to monitor because their shopping patterns could "presage behaviors of consumers across the country."
While that may be true to a point, simply watching the behaviors of a group of rich, predominantly male, young adults for the latest trends would be mean missing out on other important trends that could also be capitalized on by those looking to tap into the currently unmet needs of a particular group. This is how the Wii became a big hit, for example - by introducing a platform for casual gaming that didn't focus on primarily guy-centric, intensive, and often violent titles.
If the technology industry was to look beyond the early adopters - a group clearly not representative of the whole population - would there be an opportunity here as well to come up with the next new revolutionary idea or service? Unfortunately, we may not know, as a good portion of the industry itself is the early adopter crowd, developing for the early adopter crowd, blogging about the early adopter crowd, and selling to the early adopter crowd. In fact, the apps that have broken through and gone on to mainstream success have some decidedly un-early adopter-like features - like MySpace with its cut-and-paste HTML backgrounds or Facebook's lack of RSS for the News Feeds. In fact, it seems that the key for mainstream success is to not cater solely to the most digitally savvy of users, after all.
Image credits: Fast Hands by laffy4k; Steve Jobs by DuneChaser
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University age students and young 20ish adults probably are the most digitally savvy out of all the age groups; they also probably have the lowest overall income if they are no longer living at home or receiving income from their parents.
This may be especially true for younger freelance Designers, Programmers, Vidographers etc. - looking for their big breaks while perfecting their crafts.
No mention of Silicon Valley (San Jose, CA), where I live? What a surprise, NOT! Our last Mayor, Ron Gonzales, was a bit a sleep at the wheel when the dot.com bit hit.
I read this post with great interest and was quite intrigued about what I read. I have not read the entire report but took a quick glance at it.
I wonder where and how they got the sample for this survey? Digitally savvy folks in upper income bracket? I don't think that is always the case...I would think it would be mixed bag, but then I only have anecdotes and not a survey to back up my observation. I was also quite surprised to learn that none of the cities or towns in the Bay area made it...I thought Palo Alto would have made the cut :-)
I am wondering if a large section of the people polled for this survey are young people living at home with their parents?
This survey certainly got me thinking about the definition of "digital savvy."
Kamla Bhatt
I consider myself digitally savvy but I'm not "rich" -- infact im from thee hood. But i did get an iphone on june 29th last year. I charged it to the game. But with statistics come exceptions.
The last part
"In fact, it seems that the key for mainstream success is to not cater solely to the most digitally savvy of users, after all."
Is so true. You can't teach a dope-dealer how to subscribe to an RSS feed.
Amen Sara - the echo chamber of early adopters only developing for each other does not always mean you get the best solution
What does work - developing solutions - not technology - that solves a human need!
-D
I agree. I like to pay attention to what my non-tech friends get into and my kids (yes they are more than a tad biased and ahead of the curve) like.
My perspective on things like FriendFeed, Facebook, iPods, etc ... far, far from the mainstream.
Those of us who do this for a living ... interesting how we are thinking and pushing forward and how things develop when they hit the mainstream.
I wonder was a mainstream RSS will look like, for example.
@Kamla Here's more info on the study -
Data comes from a Scarborough Research USA+ National Study -
*A comprehensive, syndicated annual survey of 81 Top-Tier and 15 Mid-Tier local markets
*Annual sample of 220,000+ adults
*Average local market samples range: 2,000 to 11,000
*Measures demographics, shopping/retail behaviors, product consumption, entertainment/leisure, media usage
Can you believe I had no idea what savvy was untill now..interesting:) Thanks guys for the post.
"....They also skewed towards being young (77% under 44)". This comment alone has made my day.
I drew quite a few different conclusions from you on the report. I think Scarborough's data offered many more conclusions than they drew. My thoughts are here. http://sophisticatedfinance.typepad.com/sophisticated_finance/2008/05/the-digital-savvy.html
Now we can call it the Silicon Fallacy.
Austin is the place to be.
Hey, I'm fairly digitally savvy and live in the #1 city in the article, but I'm hardly wealthy... (2nd home? I don't even have a 1st home) but isn't digitally savvy a nice way of saying "happily geeky"?