Digital Media Statistics

CNN's research says 27% of us share 87% of news links.

CNN has been researching how news articles are shared through social media, identifying different motivations for sharing and the increased benefit for advertisers who feature on recommended news pages.

The delightfully named 'Pownar' research (which might sound like one of Batman's weapons, but actually stands for 'power of news and recommendation') was conducted over two months with 2,300 consumers using tracking and surveying. It also used eyetracking and biometrics to measure readers' engagement with stories.

The most influential news-sharers, and the group which shared 87% of the stories in the survey, only accounted for 27% of all the users - tallying with previous definitions of a minority of highly active web web users that contribute a majority of content online.

The big social networks - Facebook Twitter, YouTube and MySpace, accounted for 43% of all links shared, email 30%, SMS 15% and instant messenger 12%.

Researchers identified three primary motivations for sharing...

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/oct/07/cnn-recommendation-social-news