Social Media Study Analyzes 'Typical' Web 2.0 User

The heaviest contributors to the Web 2.0 phenomenon -- the people who upload YouTube videos, keep blogs, and tag articles -- tend to be youngish, outside the middle class, and equally likely to be men or women. Unsurprisingly, they also tend to live much of their life on the Internet, and use more than one device to get there.

That's according to a new study by Netpop Research, entitled Media Shifts to Social 2009. The study examines people engaged in what the report defines as one-to-many social media -- uploading photos, blogging, tweeting, file sharing, and so on.

The Netpop report is based on a survey of 4384 broadband users, age 13 and up, conducted in September and October of last year. It purports to provide marketing trend insights on "the new consumer media habits shaping businesses today."

The study breaks down broadband users by how much they contribute to these social sites. Heavy contributors, who on average connect with nearly 250 people a week on a one-to-many basis, make up seven percent of the whole. They are relatively young, with an average age of 33. They're evenly split between men and women. (Surprisingly, women outnumber men among medium and light contributors, but men outnumber women amongst old-fashioned non-contributors.) People making between US$50,000 and $75,000 tend to contribute less than those richer or poorer than themselves, according to Netpop's data.

Heavy contributors tend to be what Netpop Research defines as Online Insiders, who "do more of everything there is to do online" and "see themselves essentially 'living online.'" They're more likely to use multiple devices to access the Internet, including smartphones and publicly-accessible computers. They like to blog, and tend to post content that relates to their interests and reflects their opinions.

The report is available for $500.