Posted on 07/13/2002 8:16:19 AM PDT by Dallas
Those who surf the Web using a Mac tend to be better educated and make more money than their PC-using counterparts, according to a report from Nielsen/NetRatings.
The study also said Mac users tend to be more Web savvy, with more than half having been online for at least five years. And the Mac faithful are 58 percent more likely than the overall online population to build their own Web page and also slightly more likely to buy goods online, according to the report.
"With above-average household income and education levels, the Mac population presents a very attractive target for marketers, both online and offline," the research group said.
TS Kelly, director and principal analyst at NetRatings, said that his company decided to publish the study after noticing the differences between the demographics of Mac owners compared with overall PC owners. Kelly said Apple Computer is a client, but he said Apple did not commission the study nor was it made aware of the results prior to the report's publication.
Kelly said the greater affluence and education level of those who surf using a Mac is attributable in part to the company's comparatively pricier machines, as well as to their perception as a status symbol and their greater market share among those in the publishing and design industries.
"Any time you lower a price point you always see a broadening of the audience that is probable to buy it," Kelly said.
"Apple customers may be educated, but our customers are smart enough to have chosen Gateway, which offers the best value," said Brad Williams, a spokesman for the PC maker.
Apple has been aggressively targeting PC owners in its latest ad campaign.
Although Apple sales typically represent less than 5 percent of the overall U.S. personal computer market, 8.2 percent of Americans who surf the Web at home do so using a Mac, according to the study. Nearly all the rest of those who go online--89.4 percent--do so using a Windows-based PC.
Nielsen/NetRatings said that 70.2 percent of Mac users online have a college degree, compared with 54.2 percent of all Web surfers. That, combined with their longer surfing histories and their greater willingness to buy products via the Web, makes Mac consumers a prime catch for marketers, Kelly said.
"In many cases that is a market advertisers are looking at when they are promoting new products or upscale products," Kelly said.
A representative for PC maker Dell noted that it doesn't seem to be lacking for customers and that half of those customers buy their PCs over the Web--a sign that Windows users are also adept online.
The study notes that although there are clear benefits to marketing to Mac owners, it can be tough to target them specifically.
Once upon a time, marketers could target personal computer users as a whole to reach a more-educated, higher-income base, however the demographics of those with a personal computer have become more similar to the demographics of the overall population as personal computer penetration has grown. Kelly said advertisers can still reach upscale crowds in other ways, such as targeting those who have a broadband connection.
The trouble can be mostly relieved by
* increasing the memory allocation of the Finder; but that is a tricky bit of adjusting for the novice; best done by using ResEdit 2.1.3, I use settings, Max: 1004544 / Min: 196608 and have not had difficulties;
* increasing the memory allocation of the various applications; Microsoft's suggestion for Excel 2001 is 6344, but I use 30720, and same for Word and PowerPoint;
* increase (via the Mouse control panel) the Mouse travel response by just one "tick" mark "above" the setting you normally have used;
* disable the Web Sharing control panel and extension files;
* disable the Sherlock and Find extensions;
* disable the Speech control panel and extensions files; i.e. disable all the voice stuff.
At least once a day, rebuild the invisible Desktop Files.
Mac's need to be restarted through the day, to refresh the Finder memory stack, so to speak.
And a hot tip: If you are using SCSI drives, you must enable the Term[ination] Power [jumper] of the drive mechanism(s); the SCSI cards "out there" can supply Term Power, but I've found that data pumping becomes more reliable when using the hard drive's, though on internal SCSI hard drive installations, I allow the Termination to be set by the card(s). So, again, the internal SCSI hard drive's Term Power is enabled, it's Termination is disabled --- the SCSI card does not supply Term Power, but the card does supply Termination.
I routinely use a utility known as File Buddy 6.0.6, to find the invisible Norton Anti-Virus "NAV ... " file and Trash it, in order that it be made anew upon a restart. That file acts as an invisible Desktop File of sorts, for Norton's software, but it also becomes "confused;" but you cannot "rebuild it;" you can only replace it.
Oh yeah, Trash on occasion, these preferences: "Open Transport ... ," "Memory," and "Persistant RAM."
I routinely Trash all Internet-related cache files and "clean out" the cookies.
Thanks for the tips, First_Salute, but all this begs the question, how is this different and "easier" than the PCs?? To be honest, this sounds considerably worse than just turning on and using my PC with Linux and Win2000 (and soon, Lindows). This new commercial blitz pounds into us the message that "I just install the software and it works! No device drivers etc." Yadda, yadda, yadda.
If I have to monkey around with the guts of a computer, it might as well be a PC, where there are more tools, documentation for me to use. And I have yet to twiddle with my registry to do it.
I have read studies that said people who do graphic intensive sites, such as porn-related, use MACS. I suppose going down the road of immorality, being queer is next.
It's about all Mac-users vs. all PC users.
What does "group identity" politics remind you of?
It kinda reminds me of the left.
Has reflexive leftist thought penetrated even into this conservative enclave?
Should I be worried?
It's possibly not. Fortunately nearly all of that information applies to Mac OS 9 and earlier, and is not relevant under Mac OS X. Especially the part about restarting daily; Mac OS X easily stays up for months.
Or, you could just upgrade to OS X and you won't have those problems.
LOL!!!
5.56mm
I put it this way: a Mac is the family Chevy: for those that just want to turn the key and go to the store without knowing about pistons and gears and spark plugs.
A PC is an italian sports car: for people who like to be in the garage on Saturday, covered in grease, the engine spread out on the floor in bits. Every Saturday.
Who is smarter? Well, the italian sports car nuts know more about engines and how they work. In fact they know more about cars in general.
The Mac is for know-nothings; the PC is for hackers and digerati. The Mac is for the brie-and-Chardonay Marin-county Birkenstock crowd; the PC is for rough-and-ready folks who actually do work. The Mac is designed to impress interior designers; the PC is designed to impress engineers.
Or to put it in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" terms, the Mac is for Romanticists; the PC is for Classicists.
Etc.
--Boris
I suppose you think Rush is too liberal.
As far as software goes, there are thousands of programs available for my Mac, there are tens of thousands available for my PC at work. The reality is that in my entire life I have used less than 50 programs, and in any given week I use less than 10.
At home my Mac just keeps on trucking--at work my PC is updated by some systems administrator every day.
For home or small office use the Mac is easier and cheaper. If you can aford a systems administrator to do nothing but work on your computers the PC is better. But, in most business settings the real costs of anything walk around on two legs.
PCs got popular because lots of folks were seduced by the low initial cost.
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