• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, January 4, 2008

Entertainment To Be Created Within Collaborative Peer Groups

"Circular Entertainment," identified by Nokia as a result of a global study into the future of entertainment, predicts that up to a quarter of the entertainment consumed by people by 2012 will have been created, edited and shared within their peer circle rather than coming out of traditional media groups.

 The study, "A Glimpse of the Next Episode" by The Future Laboratory, combines views from industry leading figures with Nokia's research from a sample of 900 million consumers around the world to construct a global picture of what it believes entertainment will look like over the next five years.

 Mark Selby, Vice President, Multimedia, Nokia, said "... the trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups - a form of collaborative social media."

 This circular sharing is described in the report like this:

• Someone shares video footage they shot on their mobile device from a night out with a friend...
• That friend adds an MP3 file soundtrack of the evening - then passes it to another friend...
• This friend edits the footage by adding some photographs and passes it on to another friend...

The content keeps circulating between friends, and becomes part of the group's entertainment."

 Tom Savigar, Trends Director at The Future Laboratory, says "Consumers are increasingly demanding their entertainment be truly immersive..."

 Of the 9,000 consumers surveyed:

• 23% buy movies in digital format
• 35% buy music on MP3 files
• 25% buy music on mobile devices
• 39% watch TV on the internet
• 23% watch TV on mobile devices
• 46% regularly use IM, 37% on a mobile device
• 29% regularly blog
• 28% regularly access social networking sites
• 22% connect using technologies such as Skype
• 17% take part in Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games
• 17% upload to the internet from a mobile device

 The research identified four key driving trends;

• Immersive Living is the rise of lifestyles which blur the reality of being on and offline. Entertainment will no longer be segmented; people can access and create it wherever they are.
• Geek Culture marks a shift as consumers become hungry for more sophisticated entertainment... the boundaries between being commercial and creative will blur.
• A social force in Asia called G Tech, the feminization of technology currently underway, suggests that entertainment will be more collaborative, democratic, emotional and customized.
• Localism, locally-minded sprit emerging in entertainment consumption, will become a key theme whereby Consumers will take pride in seeking out the local and home-grown.

 More information about the study can be found here.