A report today from the Pew Internet & American Life Project suggests social media is fast becoming the communication format of choice among older Americans.

The report surveyed Internet-connected adults in May and found 42 per cent of those aged 50 and older were using social media, up from 22 per cent a year earlier. Among those aged 50 to 64 growth was 88 per cent (47 per cent, compared to 25 per cent a year ago), and among those 65 and older it was 100 per cent (26 per cent, compared to 13 per cent a year ago).

Young adults continue to be the heaviest users of social networking tools, but the report found that  one in five older adults use them daily. Email continues to be the strongest form of communication digitally for older adults --- it is no longer so for younger adults --- but in the last year Pew found that one in 10 Internet users aged 50 and older now use Twitter or another service to update their networks, double the number of a year ago.

The study also found that online news consumption remains high among older adults. Three-quarters of older adults look to the Internet for news and 42 per cent do so daily. Among those aged 65 and older, 62 per cent use the Internet to consume news and 34 per cent do so daily.

There is an important caveat in the study: It is, like all such studies, a survey of Internet-connected older adults. But it does suggest a swiftly emerging demographic of interest for the news business.

The term "hyperlocal" suggests several things: Very granular content on specific places, aggregated content that depicts a new local picture, or subject matter or content that deals with geographic organization, among them. Sarah Hartley, who runs the city blogs for The Guardian, thinks we need to reconsider the term.

She thinks it's more about an attitude than about geography. She's identified 10 features of hyperlocal:

1. The author's participation.
2. The blurring of opinion and fact.
3. The community's participation.
4. Small in scale but large in impact.
5. Medium-agnostic.
6. Obsessive.
7. Independent.
8. Link-loving.
9. Passion.
10. Frugal and economically fledgling.

Are there others? What do you think?

Futurist Ross Dawson spoke this week at the Newspaper Publishers Association conference in his native Australia and delivered a new timeline for the point-of-no-return-to-glory newspaper: 2022. By that time, he expects most media companies will have transformed into thriving new media businesses.

Note that Dawson doesn't say newspapers will die/disappear/dissolve by then, only that their relevance will diminish to the point of irrelevance.

Dawson believes that within a dozen years e-reading tablets won't cost much more than pharmaceutical tablets --- about $10 --- and they will be the primary form of news consumption. He thinks news will be increasingly crowdsourced and that individual reputations of journalists will drive the size of audiences.

Meantime, news companies will need to transform into firms emphasizing social connection.

As for revenue, it will grow but disperse, Dawson predicts.

When you activate something for 500 million accounts, it automatically takes on significance. The move by Facebook to add location-based service to its network is a sign the concept has arrived to the mainstream.

Facebook calls its service Places and it permits check-ins at a variety of, well, places. It strives to help you understand more about your Facebook friends' preferences and traits of consumption and activity.

It complements, rather than competes with, existing services like Foursquare and Gowalla, and its implications for journalism are not revolutionary as much as they're further impetus to get in the game.

While check-ins are bound to become a commodity in the time ahead --- particularly as services provide it more readily --- the rich stream of data that comes from them will be very useful for all companies in the information business.

Journalism will benefit in understanding more about events and places from the user base willing to give access to their locations. But the stream of behavioural data will be even more important.

The shift of searching to getting is at the heart of the Wired.com pair of pieces that identify the decline of the World Wide Web and the rise of the application in our digital lives.

Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff, one a prominent editor and the other a prominent columnist, have produced companion arguments that the Web is no longer what we use --- that the Internet is a mere conduit for the apps that dominate our time online.

"It’s driven primarily by the rise of the iPhone model of mobile computing, and it’s a world Google can’t crawl, one where HTML doesn’t rule," Anderson writes. "And it’s the world that consumers are increasingly choosing, not because they’re rejecting the idea of the Web but because these dedicated platforms often just work better or fit better into their lives (the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen)."

That it's also a more optimal environment for monetization only strengthens the situation, he says.

Wolff, meanwhile, examines how the open Web is closing and reestablishing a corporate hierarchy --- the "collectivist utopianism" is disappearing and a top-down theme is reemerging. The alternative to the Web came as some entrepreneurs sought to have the clout of Google, only without the open-source approach.

Wolff's piece is far more critical of the developments --- of the value of advertising, of the value of the audience, because of search engine optimization. He says we flirted briefly with the "transformative effects" of the Web but now are "returning home" to Apple, Facebook, Spotify and Netflix, all systems that are closed and traditional.

Anderson's conclusion: Blame Us. Wolff's: Blame Them.

Next Issue Media released a study today indicating the U.S. periodical business can recognize $3 billion in interactive revenue by 2014. It's a prediction predicated on some challenging assumptions --- lots of devices, lots of familiarity, touchscreens and colour --- but the Oliver Wyman study identifies some major gains ahead for 230 periodicals:

1. Higher renewal rates of subscriptions if an interactive edition is available --- 64% instead of 55%.
2. Greater revenue from bundled print/interactive packages, something consumers so far like.
3. Bill-me-later interactive editions heavily reduce churn rates to 25% from 45%, again yielding greater revenue.
4. Cross-selling advertising through recommendation engines through the editions will drive revenue from other products.
5. Availability of interactive editions will triple uptake from non-subscribers to the print periodical, to 15% from 5%.

The study nevertheless indicates some immense challenges for publishers: devices need to be encouraged, archival material made available, workflows changed, partnerships established, among other things.

The Wall Street Journal extracted pretty much everything there is to extract from Eric Schmidt, the Google CEO, on the direction and challenges of media. Holman W. Jenkins Jr.'s extensive feature gives over much:

1. Google's focus is ensuring it doesn't lose its strangehold on Web advertising when searching is no longer as necessary.
2. It doesn't mind giving away the operating systems for Android --- if you get a billion people using a device, Schmidt notes, you can do something with it.
3. Brands will matter in the time ahead, which is good news for an otherwise lamentable situation for U.S. newspapers.
4. Targeted ads are the only way Schmidt sees salvation in what ails media economically.
5. Serendipity, that great surprise factor for the media consumer, now can be replicated electronically.

A new forecast today from the Veronis Suhler Stevenson media analysis firm suggests that 2014 will be the year Americans spend more on digital media than on traditional media.

The typical consumer will spend $159.59 annually on Internet and mobile services and $158.15 on such services as newspapers, magazines and books. Overall the typical will spend about $1,080 annually to be connected and served by media.

In its report on the report, USA Today notes that cable and satellite will be the biggest winners. Newspapers, magazines and books will be slight losers.

In journalism, some things never change.

Experienced and inexperienced journalists alike know of something commonly called the "death knock," also known as the "pick-up." Someone dies and your role is to persuade a relative or loved one to tell the story of the deceased (the term "pick-up" means getting a photo for publication or broadcast).

This week in England a journalist is appearing before the Press Complaints Commission (the body that crafts national standards for media) to propose a better system to deal with the sensitive encounter of reporter approaching relative.

Chris Wheal, who had to deal with the death knock when his nephew died, suggests the creation of a pamphlet that breaks the ice and asks about five options:

1. Want to sell to the highest bidder (a more British than North American trait)?
2. Want to tell everyone who calls?
3. Want to tell one journalist to distribute to other journalists?
4. Want to supply printed material yourself?
5. Want to have nothing to do with journalists?

Roy Greenslade, in writing about Wheal's proposal as the media writer for The Guardian, notes the challenges.

Who, for instance, should distribute the leaflet? Wheal suggests the commission; Greenslade says it's not practical. Wheal hints a team of volunteers; Greenslade says that's not feasible, either.

Instead, he proposes that the commission help frame a document that could be handed out by Press Association representatives (thus, without a competitive impetus) at accident scenes and similar situations. Greenslade even suggests police could do so (provided, of course, no crime appears involved).

Two other points Greenslade makes: Young reporters shouldn't be dispatched and older reporters shouldn't think there's only one way to do the job.

Are we moving toward an Ultranet? A possible clue is to be found in Google's public statement today on its discussion with the large U.S. telecom Verizon.

In it, Google and Verizon make clear their support for Net neutrality, meaning basic and equitable access for all, lots of transparency for consumers (except in the wireless field, which is moving rapidly and requires a little more secrecy, they feel), and a widening of broadband availability to communities.

But it also suggests that the broadband infrastructure needs to be a "platform for innovation," not necessarily on the same platform we now receive, for such areas as health services, new entertainment and gaming services, and a so-called "smart grid."

Google and Verizon indicate they want the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to keep close tabs on this "differentiated Internet" proposal. Still, it's the first indication (apart from a New York Times story last week, denied in part) that another layer of digital access and service might be pursued.