Virtual coffee break - 6th August 2009

OFCOM's latest update on the UK market is out, and no doubt it will prove an interesting read, when I get a moment. Among the headline points, it seems clear that survey respondents would rather lose a limb than cut back on telecom spending, a somewhat unsurprising conclusion, and one which I tried to stress repeatedly during my Telco 2.0 series last year/early this year. A couple of other headline-grabbers are that 21% of internet users have had some experience with VoIP (a 50% increase YoY), and that apparently half of UK internet users (that's 19m people) are on Facebook.

This latter point contains an interesting sub-plot, which is that the proportion of respondents 15 - 24 who claimed to have a profile on a social networking site actually fell from 55% to 50%. Maybe they're shifting to anti-social networking, from Bebo to ASBO, as it were. Or maybe they see the herd of more mature users invading their space and fear being bombarded by ads for laser corrective surgery or invitations to become fans of hip replacement surgery. Churn, baby, churn.

The release of these findings today is ironic to me, coming on the same day as I received a Facebook friend request from a relative in Texas in her mid-60's, and also as ITV, the embarrassing uncle in mid-life crisis desperately in search of a way to remain relevant, gave up the ghost on Friends Reunited. But only after paying a £55m earn-out earlier this year - ouch.