The Industry Standard has published it’s latest research on the group of people we knew as nerds or geeks in school and it transpires that they are now much travelled, high spending, well rounded individuals whose lives are, by no means, ruled by their PCs.
The report ‘How Geeks Pass Their Time’ identified 27 million ‘techies’ in the US who were found to be avid consumers of much more than just hi-tech computer hardware. 44% were found to have a household income of over $75,000 and around 50% were in the ‘Bill Gates’ age bracket (35-54).
Reaching this age group via advertising ought to be a fairly simple process as they are also avid devotees of popular TV programmes such as Frasier and Friends and they digest a higher than average amount of newspapers and magazines.
Online ‘Geek’ Behaviour
| Sent email in the past month |
78% |
| Surf the net for fun |
51% |
| Go online every day |
30% |
| Play online games |
21% |
| Have been online for 5+ years |
15% |
| Have visited an online chatroom in the past month |
11% |
| Listen to internet radio |
7% |
The Industry Standard used MediaMark’s consumer behaviour study which polls 26,000 Americans each yer about their buying habits. The Standard’s ‘Tech Enthusiasts’ were those respondents who use the Internet, have a home computer and own two or more high-tech gadgets.
