2 in 10 Men Sext for Attention [STUDY]

Men are increasingly incorporating technology into their sex and social lives but they’re not quite ready to let it take over, according to a new survey from AskMen.

The Great Male Survey polled men about their social lives both on and offline, and found that the line between the two is blurred more than ever before. While 79% of those polled prefer to court women in the flesh, a sizable 21% are partial to online correspondence, indicating that online dating is shedding its taboo status.

According to AskMen, those surveyed have a generally neutral attitude towards technology; it’s deeply ingrained in their lives, situated on the spectrum of routine somewhere between haircuts and happy hour. Nearly 48% said they’re checking their emails up to the minute they turn the lights out, and 64% said they’re checking their social feeds first thing in the morning. A majority of the group said that technology has enhanced their social lives by either allowing them to keep in regular contact with friends and even expanding their social circles.

The study didn’t bother to quantify how many poll participants use Facebook — at this point, it’s a given. That said, men aren’t very interested in incorporating Facebook into their sex lives. Over half of men polled said a glance at a prospective partner’s Facebook profile is about all the pre-stalking they’re willing to do. And ladies, you will be pleased to know that a practically no men surveyed will scope out your mom’s Facebook profile to see what you’ll look like when you’re older.

Men put little stake in who they or their partners are friends with on Facebook; 47% have no qualms with their partners friending exes and 55% keep exes in their network long after the split.

Men treat dating like finding the hot new sushi bar; there’s no greater endorsement than that of a good friend. When seeking out that special someone, 49% of men prefer to meet women through a mutual pal. Despite the 10% of men that include Googling in their pre-date routine, word of mouth is still the trump card. That bodes well for services like TheDatable, which turns your Facebook friends into matchmakers who can hook you up with eligible friends of friends.

Racy pictures are fair game for a fair few — 18% have said that they’ve sexted to keep up a woman’s interest in the relationship, another 18% have in order to spark interest. Women can rest assured that 83% of guys say they would never share sexts with a friend. Of course, that means that 17% will. Something to keep in mind the next time you’re missing your man on a business trip!

And we can’t let you click away without knowing the most important statistics of all: 62% of men surveyed believe in the existence of aliens. That’s a question you might want to add to the first date checklist.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, linzyslusher

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University of Cambridge conducts largest-ever password study

Do you have a weak password? Probably. Even if you think your password can’t be hacked, there might be a good chance that a lot of other people thought the exact same thing and chose a very similar password. These are the results from Joseph Bonneau at the University of Cambridge, who analyzed passwords from more users than any other password-related study.

Specifically, he looked into data from 70 million Yahoo users. The reason why most password studies are limited is because neither companies nor individual users give out that kind of data. But Bonneau was able to access lightly encrypted versions of the passwords, which gave him enough information to at least see patterns and trends among the tens of millions of users.

“We find surprisingly little variation in guessing difficulty; every identifiable group of users generated a comparably weak password distribution,” he summarized. He also noted that when it comes to accounts that require credit card data to be stored, passwords are only extremely marginally more secure. And another interesting point – “More surprisingly, even seemingly distant language communities choose the same weak passwords and an attacker never gains more than a factor of 2 efficiency gain by switching from the globally optimal dictionary to a population-specific lists,” said Bonneau.

[via VentureBeat]

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Three Of Five Parents Involve Kids In Car-Buying Decisions, Study

It may come as a shock to some automakers, and a few parents, but a new proprietary study from The Family Room finds that three of five parents (57 percent) today involve their kids in car-buying decisions.

The story, originally appearing in Advertising Age, caught our attention, and we wanted more details. In a telephone interview, George Carey, CEO of The Family Room, told FamilyCarGuide that things have changed rather dramatically since the last survey in 2009. At that time, just 38 percent of parents surveyed said they involved their children in the car-buying decision process.

The latest study, conducted in 2011, looked at a number of different categories including automotive, vacations, electronic purchases, and others. The result is a lot of  information about the relative purchase influence of kids vs. parents, how often parents are conferring with their kids on cars to buy and what cars not to buy, as well as what brands are most aspirational to kids and their parents.

Favorite brands – kids vs. parents

Any guess as to which brands are the favorites among kids and their parents? You might be surprised. Kids gravitate toward the Jeep brand as their number one choice, at 18 percent. That’s followed by Chevrolet and Ford, tied at 17 percent each, then Toyota and Honda in a tie at 16 percent, and Volkswagen at 13 percent. Dead last: Chrysler and Mazda, tied at just 2 percent each.

As for the parents, the choices were more clear-cut, involving no ties among the top five choices. Toyota came in at number one with 29 percent, followed by Honda (24 percent), Ford (21 percent), Chevy (19 percent), and Jeep (9 percent). At the bottom and tied at 3 percent each: Hyundai and Mazda.

One point worth noting is that the survey didn’t get model-specific, so there’s no breakdown as to which Jeep or Chevy or Ford or Toyota, for example, kids or their parents most preferred.

Carey did comment, however, that NASCAR, based on many metrics, is the most popular family sport in America today and, to the extent kids are getting information about new cars, this is one source. That may account somewhat for the high percentages for Chevy and Ford, at least where kids are concerned.

What’s changed?

Things have moved from a world where things were driven by what the father or mother wanted to what the family wants. This is a huge potential impact, which, for the most part, Carey said that the automotive industry hasn’t embraced.

Several factors account for the shift toward more parental involvement of their offspring in what type of vehicle the family will buy. Carey outlined four of the most prominent.

1)    Good parenting – Parents’ definition of what constitutes good parenting is shifting. One of the number one values and lessons parents are trying to pass on to their kids today is the skill of making the right choices on their own. One of the ways parents are doing that is giving their kids “more engagement and more responsibility rehearsals” in family decision-making. Parents are teaching their kids to make good choices and evaluate their options effectively while they’re still at home and under the parents’ protection.

2)    Information - Parents are realizing that their kids have more information in many categories than they do. Kids are incredibly aware of developments in technology and consumer products and parents are increasingly likely to turn to them for their authority, to the extent that it’s warranted.

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Following Brands on Twitter Increases Purchase Intent

People who follow brands on Twitter are more likely to both buy and recommend those brands’ products, according to a recent study of online consumer behavior.

The study, conducted by Constant Contact and research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey, analyzed the behavior of 1,491 consumers ages 18 and older throughout the U.S., and revealed a number of details about how people interact with brands on the world’s beloved 140-character social network.

So, just how powerful is the Twitter connection between consumers and businesses? The study found that 60% of brand followers are more likely to recommend a brand to a friend after following the brand on Twitter, and 50% of brand followers are more likely to buy from that brand.

These findings mirror those from a previous report, detailing how consumers interact with brands on Facebook. The study found that 56% of consumers said they are more likely to recommend a brand to a friend after “Liking” a brand on Facebook, and 51% of consumers said they are more likely to buy a product after doing so. The findings from both studies seem to show that customer loyalty is about the same across both social networks.

Any increase in customer loyalty is great news for brands, especially those lucky enough to make the coveted list of followed companies. According to the study, though, the chances of making that list are slim, as only 21% of Twitter users follow brands on Twitter, and of those, 79% follow fewer than 10 brands.

If your brand makes it to that highly sought-after status, you’re in for the long haul — a whopping 75% of respondents claimed that they had never unfollowed a brand on Twitter. This finding, though, contradicts a previous study, which claimed that 41% of consumers have unfollowed a company on Twitter. The trend seems to favor longevity in both studies, however. If a user opts to follow your brand on Twitter, it’s more likely they’ll continue following, rather than decide to unfollow.

When it comes to a consumer’s decision to follow brands on Twitter, exclusivity and access to promotions reign. Here are the top five reasons given by respondents:
64%: I am a customer of the company61%: To be the first to know information about the brand48%: To receive discounts and promotions36%: To gain access to exclusive content28%: To receive content/information to retweet and share with others
For the most part, brand interaction on Twitter is still largely a one-way process. While 84% of followers read tweets posted by the brands they follow, only 23% claim to tweet about the brands they follow.

The study also found that Twitter users are frequent Internet users overall — 50% of Twitter users in the study reported going online more than once per hour. Of Facebook users, only 34% of respondents reported going online multiple times per hour. Facebook and Twitter users both outpace the average Internet user, though, as only 29% of overall users that do not have Twitter and Facebook accounts reported logging on many times within an hour.

Twitter users even use Facebook more than users who stick solely to Facebook — 60% of Twitter users use Facebook more than three hours per week, compared with 49% of Facebook users overall.

The study offered one final nugget of wisdom that should inform how brands on Twitter approach their content strategies — 67% of brand followers expect unique content from the brands they follow. So get to it, social media strategists!

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Cellphones Don’t Cause Cancer

A new extensive study finds no evidence to link cellphone use with cancer.

Over the past couple of years, reports have suggested that cellphones may cause cancer or claimed the opposite. However, the interesting thing about this latest study is that it’s sample size is the entire adult population of Denmark.

Researchers from Copenhagen’s Department of Epidemiology and Public Health divided Danish adults (30 years of age and over) born after 1925 into subscribers and non-subscribers of mobile phones before 1995. The study found that occurrences of cancer among the two groups were nearly equal.

Furthermore, among mobile phone subscribers, the study didn’t find an increased number of occurrences of glioma in the temporal lobes of the brain, the part of the body most directly exposed to cellphone radiation.

The study, of course isn’t without flaws — one doesn’t need to have a subscription plan to use a cellphone. The authors of the study recognized this. “Subscription holders who are not using their phone will erroneously be classified as exposed and people without a subscription but still using a mobile phone will erroneously be classified as unexposed,” the study says.

This prompted the authors to do an additional analysis of the study’s results which reduced the number of cases but also minimized the possibility for misclassification, but the results were very similar.

“In this update of a nationwide study of mobile phone subscribers in Denmark we found no indication of an increased risk of tumours of the central nervous system,” the authors conclude. However, the authors warn that “a small to moderate increase in risk for subgroups of heavy (cellphone) users” cannot be ruled out, which calls for further studies on large populations.

While every study has its flaws and limitations, this appears to be the most convincing and exhaustive report indicating that cellphones do not cause cancer.

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Twitter Revenue to Hit $400 Million By 2013 [STUDY]

The success of Twitter‘s Promoted Products will propel the company into $400 million in revenue in 2013 compared to $45 million last year, says a new report.

Twitter will earn $139.5 million this year, a 210% jump over last year, according to eMarketer. Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst at eMarketer, credited Promoted Products’ success for the rosy estimate.

“Since their debut in April 2010, Twitter’s Promoted Products have proven successful in the U.S.,”

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