Pew Internet has a new report out today, Generations 2010, that looks at Americans’ daily use of the Internet. While some of the findings are just what you’d expect [more young people are accessing the Internet via mobile devices like phones and laptops? Gee!], other results of the study were somewhat unexpected.

Following up on last year’s first “Generations” study, Pew researchers found that Gen Xers [people aged 34-45] and older groups are making gains on the Internet-happy Millenials [18-33 year-olds], going online for more than just email and search.

Millenials lead the pack in use of social network sites like Facebook, but the oldest Americans [74 and up] are the fastest-growing user group, quadrupling from just 4% in 2008, to 16% this year. The percentage of all adult internet users who watch video online jumped 14 points in the past two years, from 52% in May 2008 to 66% in May 2010.

However, certain “key” internet activities are becoming more uniformly popular across all age groups. These include email, search, getting news, buying things, making charitable donations, and downloading podcasts.

Participation in most of the online activities undertaken by Americans increased from 2009 – 2010, with one notable exception: blogging. According to the study’s authors:

Only half as many online teens work on their own blog as did in 2006, and Millennial generation adults ages 18-33 have also seen a modest decline—a development that may be related to the quickly-growing popularity of social network sites. At the same time, however, blogging’s popularity increased among most older generations, and as a result the rate of blogging for all online adults rose slightly overall from 11% in late 2008 to 14% in 2010. Yet while the act formally known as blogging seems to have peaked, internet users are doing blog-like things in other online spaces as they post updates about their lives, musings about the world, jokes, and links on social networking sites and micro-blogging sites such as Twitter.

Other interesting, sometimes surprising results of Pew’s study include the following:

YouTube has announced a new version of its home page – making it cleaner and more attractive, but also showing less information, which may make the update less appealing to power users.

The new layout features a “river of news” reverse chronogical view of new videos in the main column and promoted content in the right column.

You can view the new home page here.

David Lynch wants you to direct his music video.

Lynch – best know for directing cult films like Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet and the TV series Twin Peaks, has released an electronica single, Good Day Today / I Know, and launched a music video competition to promote the track.

There will be 10 finalists chosen for each track, 2 based on votes and 8 selected by Lynch and Genero.tv.

The winners will be selected by the man himself, announced on Jan 3 and will each receive £2,000.

Details at the Genero.tv site.

It looks like it will be downhill for old media from here on out – people in the US are now spending as much time using the Internet as they do watching TV.

According to Forrester research, people are spending equal amounts of time online and watching TV:

• Generation Y has long reported spending more time online;
• Gen Xers now claim to spend more time online than watching TV;
• Boomers now report spending an equal amount of time on both activities; and
• Senior Boomers still report watching more television.

According to Forrester’s Jackie Rousseau-Anderson, people aren’t spending less time with TV – they’re spending less time with print media.

Edison Research has made available this year’s edition of The Current State of Podcasting, a study of American podcast consumers’ attitudes and behaviors. The 2010 report is Edison’s fifth annual study and was unveiled earlier this fall at Blogworld in Las Vegas, and combined information from the Edison Research/Arbitron Internet & Multimedia series, along with previously released data from The American Youth Study 2010 and the Edison/ADM Consumer Attitudes to Podcast Advertising study, also from 2010.

Principal findings of the study included:

• The percentage of Americans who have ever watched or listened to a podcast is 45%, up from 43% one year ago. This equates to approximately 70 million Americans 12+.
• The podcast audience has migrated from being predominantly “early adopters” to more closely resembling mainstream media consumers.
• Podcast consumers index very highly for social networking behaviors.
• Two-thirds of podcast consumers have listened to digital audio files in their vehicles by connecting an iPod or other MP3 player to their car audio system.

Somewhat surprisingly, despite the growing numbers of smartphone [iPhone, Android, etc.] users, podcasts are being consumed primarily at the computer, and less frequently than last year via the mobile device or “dedicated media player” like the iPod or Zune.

YouTube has released its list of the top videos of the year – the most-watched videos of 2010, compiled based on the view counts of videos uploaded during 2010.

November 2010, the most-watched YouTube videos (excluding major label music videos) were:

1. BED INTRUDER SONG!!! (now on iTunes)
2. TIK TOK KESHA Parody: Glitter Puke – Key of Awe$ome #13
3. Greyson Chance Singing Paparazzi
4. Annoying Orange Wazzup
5. Old Spice | The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
6. Yosemitebear Mountain Giant Double Rainbow 1-8-10
7. OK Go – This Too Shall Pass – Rube Goldberg Machine version
8. THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE – Trailer
9. Jimmy Surprises Bieber Fan
10. Ken Block’s Gymkhana THREE, Part 2; Ultimate Playground; l’Autodrome

Amazingly, the Bed Intruder Song has had over 47 million views – more than most major label music videos this year.

Mechanical Engineer and rocket tester Destin has solved the problem of jerky video forever by creating ChickenCam – the chicken-powered Steadicam.

Now we just need a chicken big enough to carry an iPhone……

According to new research from The Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) that looks at how the iPad is affecting how people get news, the iPad tops both the Web and print for getting news.

Highlights of the research:

• iPad news consumers prefer newspaper apps to newspaper websites; less likely to use print.
• The vast majority of those who read news on their iPads each day prefer to use a newspaper’s app for reading news and feature stories as opposed to using a Web browser to navigate the newspaper’s website.
• The more one uses the iPad for news consumption, the less he or she uses printed newspapers.
• There’s a statistically significant correlation between iPad news consumption and the likelihood of canceling their print subscriptions.
• One out of 10 report that they have canceled their subscriptions to printed newspapers and switched to reading digital newspapers on their iPad.
• Nearly all of the respondents (99%) indicated that they used their iPad for some period of time during a typical day to consume news.

The trend could be another blow to traditional newspapers, especially given predictions for explosive growth in tablet computer use in 2011.

Audio equipment manufacturer TASCAM has released a new recording application for the Apple iPad. The Portastudio is based on – and nearly the same dimensions as – the TASCAM Porta One four-track cassette recorder that debuted back in 1984. The Portastudio app records four tracks, one at a time, with VU meters and a virtual “cassette transport” that gives the app a vintage look and feel.

While only one track can be recorded at a time, the Portastudio has controls for EQ, gain, L-R pan and a master fader.  A four-position selector switch assigns which track Portastudio records to, and input trim and limiting are applied to the input before recording. Audio can be recorded form the iPad’s built-in microphone or a microphone plugged into the headset jack. The iPad will record from the built-in microphone if standard headphones are plugged into the jack.

The cassette-tape styling features may feel odd to a generation of users who never have used FF and REW buttons, but are charming nonetheless. When an audio project is complete, the app can mix the recording to a stereo track that appears in iTunes, or users can use their preferred audio editor, and/or online music sharing site Soundcloud. Mixes are saved as CD-quality WAV files inside iTunes.

Portastudio by TASCAM is available now via the iTunes App Store for $9.99.

http://tascam.com/product/portastudio

Zoom has introduced a new portable video recorder, the Zoom Q3HD, that offers both high quality sound and 1080 video in a portable package.

The Q3HD uses the same microphone capsules as Zoom’s H4n Handy Recorder, a portable digital audio recorder. With two on-board, studio-quality condenser mics configured in a wide 120° X/Y pattern, the Q3HD gives you true stereo imaging.

The Q3HD also displays audio meters, allowing you to quickly monitor and set your levels. Set the gain to High or Low to record in soft or loud environments. Or use the Q3HD’s Auto Level to automatically set the right recording level.

The suggested price for the Zoom Q3HD is $299.99. Details below.