In an interesting bit of research recently published, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that Internet participation has been increasing across ALL generations.  No surprise, the younger you are the more likely you go online using more channels (there’s a lot more 20-somethings at MySpace than there are older boomers).  But important to note that age is almost irrelevant to some kinds of online activities, like researching products:  all ages do that at about the same rate.

In other words, SEARCH and using online resources to learn about products and services is so common at all ages that it is a MUST for marketers no matter what you are marketing.

Greg Sterling over at Search Engine Land posted some nice graphics about Pew’s Generations Online project.  I’ll share a couple tidbits here, but you might want to check it out.

It wasn’t surprising to me that the Gen X (ages 33-44) and younger Boomers (ages 45-54) make up a big chunk of the adult Internet population (45% of it between them), although the younger Gen Y group is proportionally larger (ages 18-32 with 30%).  And it wasn’t too surprising to see the pattern of certain Internet activities across these generations:  the younger you are the more likely to play online games, use social networking sites, or create a blog.

But what was a little surprising, and encouraging, was that for some activities, there is very little difference in participation rates across generations.  94% of Gen Y use email; 91% of the Silent Generation (ages 64-72) do.  90% of Gen Y use search engines; 85% of Silent.  65% of Gen Y makes online travel reservations; Silent: 69%.  Research products online:  Gen Y – 84%; Silent – 73%.

You get the picture.  Why it matters is this:  the activities that are most likely to lead to sales are common across generations.  Until we get a better handle on how to use all the social sharing, social networking, social news sites out there for marketing products, this will probably continue to be true.  And the change toward social media marketing is not going to be an easy road — the participants in those networks are sophisticated about their independence, and they (mostly) do not want direct marketing appeals.

We are left with limited options for social media marketing.  One important avenue is brand development.  Companies that operate in niches where they can have an impact via brand can benefit from participating in social media.

Of course, then they have to actually participate actively and faithfully, and that’s another story.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch reported yesterday that Facebook is now twice the size of MySpace worldwide, measured by monthly unique visitors. MySpace is still #1 in the U.S., but extrapolating the traffic data predicts that Facebook will overtake it sometime later this year.  Facebook’s registered users has been growing explosively.

However, MySpace users also used their social network much more intensively.  According to socialmedia blog, MySpace users spent 17.5 billion minutes online compared with 9.3 billion minutes for Facebook, generating 40 billion pageviews compared with Facebook’s 18 billion.

Anyway you look at it, these are staggering numbers.  MySpace claims it is succeeding in monetizing this traffic, while Facebook continues to push for user growth.  For me, the more interesting thing is how these giants will push my world around.  We already know that social media generate the huge buzz we depend on for ‘viral’ marketing with content syndication and links between publishers (see the two above?).  But how is that going to affect the core function of search in the online world?

I don’t think Google is worried.  But search functions can become a lot more specialized.  Think about looking for real time insights into a developing event:  wouldn’t you search Twitter?

Everyone likes a tidy little factoid to make a bigger point.  The folks at ITBusiness share this one:  for the average website, 61% of traffic originates in natural (organic) search.  41% of traffic is from Google alone.  So:  SEO is the place to start.  ’Nuff said.

Google is adding to your choices in browsers. Comic fans can get a great intro to the power of this beast in this story about the development and  Beta launch of Chrome. Given Google’s close support for Firefox, I’m not sure why they want/need a browser of their own, but it will be an open source project, like Firefox, initially just for PCs and later for Mac. You can download it to your PC if you want. I will try it, won’t you?

Search Engine Land talks up a recent change in Google search results that highlights synonyms — type ‘running’ and you might get ‘jogging’ as a highlighted result.  Check it out in your own searches.

A couple weeks ago Google launched a new Beta service called Insights (similar to its Trends, if you’ve used that).  I think you would have fun playing around with this for a few minutes (or hours:  it’s a little addictive) to learn something about your favorite search terms.  You’ll see trends over time and by region for those terms, and you can filter the results by category.  Note:  the category filters change the results a lot!  And, you can use some of your standard search tricks to manage the analysis, like adding a negative term to limit the output (san luis obispo -county).  Enjoy and profit!

The Pew Internet & American Life Project released a summary of its latest round of research on Internet usage on August 6.  The quotable tidbits:  almost half of adults (18 or over) use search at least once a day, while just 13% use a social network once a day.  The takeaway:  despite the explosive growth of social networks and the continuing popularity of email (remember that ‘killer app’?), search is increasingly the portal to the Internet. You have to get search right for your website before you do anything else, which should come as no surprise.