The weather outside was frightful, but the breakfast was so, well, you know the rest. Expeditionaries braved the chilly rain this morning to welcome Dr. Kris Markman to the December Social Expedition Breakfast. She offered up some insight into the hard numbers of social media use and just a taste of the academic research currently underway on everything from perceptions of MySpace to the podcasting community.

Much of Dr. Markman’s talk felt like a look in the mirror; the statistics represent who we are as a social network site using population, from our median age to the specific messages we communicate through even a simple status update. Dr. Markman led off her presentation with a huge number — 46. That’s the percent of adult web users who use social networking sites. SNSs, as she called them, have hit the mainstream. Of those users, 73 percent have a Facebook account, while 48 percent are on MySpace, 14 percent on LinkedIn and just 6 percent on Twitter.

One of the key functions of the SNS that is increasing in prevalence is the status update. 19 percent of adult web users share or read status updates through Twitter or another platform, which Dr. Markman noted would include the Facebook status. Status updaters, she said, tend to be younger adults and tend to be early adopters who are highly plugged in.

But perhaps even more interesting than this increase in status interest is the categories of updates Markman introduced. 80 percent of updaters are called “Meformers,” who post self-focused, “me-now” messages. Just 20 percent are considered “Informers,” who share links or information through Twitter and status updates. Both groups occasionally indulged in the more peripheral categories, opinion/complaint and random thoughts.

Teenagers are a whole different animal, tweeting mostly to follow and interact with celebrities, and obsessed with the number of times they’ve tweeted. The statistics go on, and you can download and read Dr. Markman’s full presentation by clicking here. You’ll see more in the slides about the newly emerging racial breakdown of MySpace usage, incredible increases in online video viewership and a taste of Dr. Markman’s own research on podcasting — who podcasts, why they do it, what keeps them involved and more. It’s particularly interesting to us, because we’ve got a podcasting project in the pipeline to get Memphis podcasters together to talk shop. Keep watching here for more information soon.

Tags | Dr. Kris Markman, facebook, MySpace, podcasts, Social Expedition Breakfast, Social Media