The Xplanation

Welcome to this morning’s Daily Research Update. Today’s themes are iPads, newspapers, and the Internet. If you want more context for this research, take a look at our Education and Technology Trends for 2010. You may also be interested in our Weekly Research Index, or you can follow our live, daily research on our Current News page.

(Click here to see a simple listing of today’s suggested reading)

With the imminent release of the iPad, lots of folks are predicting sales projections and market penetration. Yesterday, one analyst threw out the prediction that Apple will be building 5 million iPads in the first half of this year. Who is going to buy all those iPads? For now, gadget people, Apple enthusiasts, and younger business people (and students). In coming years, however, they may be destined for much younger children.

In all our excitement over the iPad’s possibilities for text, multimedia, and gaming, there’s been hardly any consideration of the lucrative children’s market. But the iPad is perfect for kids in a lot of ways–its larger screen is much easier for kids to manipulate than an iPhone or other smartphone, and the full-color screen and fast processor allow for bright, colorful apps with motion, which ebook readers like the Kindle can’t handle. The iPad can act as a picture book, coloring book, audiobook, TV, educational game player, and visual toy–and Penguin’s not going to let that potential pass them by.

At least one other company is already feeling the heat of the iPad’s virtual popularity. Amazon knows it has to respond in a big way and to evolve the Kindle beyond its simple e-reader status. Its first step toward competition is simply building a better Web browser interface for the Kindle.

Of course, if e-readers and tablets aren’t your cup of tea, maybe a netbook is in your future. Approximately 40 million will ship this year. Then again, why mess with all of that if you have a smartphone? Speaking of mobile phones, check out this great infographic. Interesting statistics include: “In Taiwan, there are more cellphones than people. About 7% of all mobile data goes to movie information. And Google owns nearly 100% of the mobile search market.”

Also, first videos are going up from this past weekend’s TEDxNYED sessions, and first up is Lawrence Lessig with his talk on copyright, the mixing of culture, and openness. This is a good primer for understanding the legal and cultural issues that are facing us in the digital information and publishing age.

Also from TEDxNYED, George Siemens shares his notes from his presentation on “Collapsing to Connections.” I particularly enjoyed this quote from his conclusion. “When we distribute control, we also distribute responsibility. We can no longer blame others for systems that are not functioning well. We can’t blame schools. We can’t blame government. Or even corporations. We need to take up the responsibility trail that is created by control distribution.”

Over in the media world, there is somber news indeed for the newspaper industry.

While sales have fallen an average of 27.4% at newspaper companies in the last two years, profits have plunged 1.7 times faster, according to an analysis of the financial statements of the publicly held publishers. The average 45.9% dive in profitability at the publicly traded newspaper companies since 2007 represents not only serious financial challenges for the companies but also threatens the quality of the journalism that such major publishers as Gannett, McClatchy and the New York Times Co. may be able to produce in the future.

In a similar vein, Google trotted out its Chief Economist to talk about newspaper revenue and had these statistics.

• About 40% of Internet users say read news on the Web every day.
• Time spent on online news sites is only about 70 seconds per day, compared to 25 minutes spent reading a print edition.
• Online news readers tend to read at work, not for leisure, so they don’t have much time to stick around and are thus worth less to advertisers.
• Overall, less than 5 percent of newspaper ad revenues come from the online editions.
• Search engines account for 35 to 40 percent of “traffic to major U.S. news sites,” according to comScore.
• The cost of printing and distributing print editions, makes up about half the cost, while editorial operations only make up 15 percent.

While publishers continue to struggle with the transition to the Web, the general public has embraced the Internet and most even view it as ‘a fundamental right’.

Almost four in five people around the world believe that access to the internet is a fundamental right, a poll for the BBC World Service suggests. The survey – of more than 27,000 adults across 26 countries – found strong support for net access on both sides of the digital divide. Countries such as Finland and Estonia have already ruled that access is a human right for their citizens.

Suggested Reading

Apple To Build 5 Million iPads In First Half 2010, Analyst Says | Tech Trader Daily | Barrons.com

Penguin’s iPad Demonstration Asks: Are Kids Destined to Grow Up With Tablets? | Dan’s FC Blog | Fast Company

Amazon’s First Response to iPad Hype: A Better Browser for Kindle | Technomix | Fast Company

The Rise of Netbooks | GigaOM

TEDxNYED Talk by Lawrence Lessig

Collapsing to Connections « Connectivism

Google’s Chief Economist: “Newspapers Have Never Made Much Money From News”

Reflections of a Newsosaur: Publisher profits dive 1.7x faster than sales

Like It Never Even Happened: Thoughts On Teaching

BBC News – Internet access is ‘a fundamental right’

Cellphone Overshare | Mobile Market | Gizmodo