Late 2012 and early 2013 has revealed an important shift in Internet usage trends that will, undoubtedly, significantly impact online publishers in the coming months.
Late 2012 and early 2013 has revealed an important shift in Internet usage trends that will, undoubtedly, significantly impact online publishers in the coming months.
Chitika Insights has observed a continually increasing number Internet searches for the term “sloth”, the medium-sized mammal native to the jungles of Central and South America. Today, another milestone was hit – daily search queries for the animal’s name have now surpassed the number of searches for “Facebook”…
…and “talking dogs”….combined. Yes it would have been appropriate to have spit out your coffee when you read that.
This interesting trend in Internet usage points to only one conclusion. A sizable migration of these creatures to the United States and Canada. Most notably, the interests of sloths appear to diverge from those of the Internet as a whole, suggesting an opportunity for the astute online publisher.
Chitika Insights has determined some of the key aspects of the demographic profile of the typical sloth Internet user:
- The major sloth population centers by size are in Seattle, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and Little Rock, while the the major population center by sloth density is in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region.
- Favorite sports: professional hockey in general, and the Swedish Elite League in particular, dressage, and chess boxing.
- Sloths are very interested in space travel, and actress Kristen Bell
- Sloths tend to be apolitical but do aspire to possess greater wealth
One key takeaway from research is that sloths are rapidly abandoning the social network Facebook, preferring tumblr in growing numbers.
In order to curb potential fallout from inadequately reaching the rising tide of sloth Internet users, Chitika has assembled the following suggestions for Facebook:
- More promoted content about jungles, tender shoots and leaves, and edible insects.
- Make Facebook pages load more slowly to provide opportunities for napping and allow for the slower sloth metabolism.
- Provide a “leaf-based” user interface, or “Sloth Mode,” to make sloths feel at home, with an option to invert the on-screen content to ease viewing while hanging from a tree limb.
- Ads during Hockey Night in Canada.
We see no indication that the boom in sloth Internet usage has peaked in our data, but going forward we expect slow but steady increases in sloth activity, because really, they’re sloths.
