Europeans are watching videos online 150% more now than a year ago and 169 million in 10 European nations “frequently [go] online.” These are just a few of the results released by the European Interactive Advertising Association who conducted 7,000 random phone interviews this past September. Almost half said they used the internet for social networking sites and 16-24 year olds are going online more than they are watching regular TV. But, my favorite bit of information is regarding those over age 55 which the study calls “silver surfers”; they increased internet use by 12% over last year. The survey has been conducted by the research branch of the EIAA, Mediascope Europe, for the past 5 years. On a side note the EIAA members’ networks, which include AOL Europe, Yahoo! Europe and Doubleclick, account for 79% of the European online audience. How’s that for monopoly? 

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In a move to expand their audience Marvel is putting 2,500 issues of aging comic books online. For $9.99 a month or $4.99 a month if you sign on for the entire year you’ll be able to view first editions right in your web browser. The president of Marvel Publishing, Dan Buckley said “we don’t have our product intersecting kids in their lifestyle space as much as we used to” as his main justification for this move. That sure sounded like a fancy way of say “kids are online so we’re going to be online.”

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DC, which is owned by Time Warner, is already putting issues up on MySpace as is Dark Horse Comics. Marvel currently has more of the mainstream comic franchises (Spider-Man and Fantastic-Four) and is looking to capitalize on the heightened interest in these stories by putting the comics with the characters back-stories online. The only loser in this is the collector and the comic shop industry who might see a decrease in price for that mint edition “Amazing Spider-Man” they’ve held on to since 1963.


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