Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Value Of Digital Content


Although 51% of Americans have experienced a computer crash where they lost all of their digital files, 39% admit they have never backed up their computers, or haven’t done so in more than a year, according to a new survey by Wakefield Research and Carbonite. The general lack of preparedness is surprising in light of the fact that 40% of Americans feel like they would never be able to recover, recreate or repurchase all of their documents and files if their personal computer crashed. It’s even more surprising considering the insights that the study uncovered regarding the significant value many Americans assign to their digital content, including:

  • 50% would rather lose all of their vacation time for an entire year than lose all of the files on their computer.
  • 38% of married Americans feel that it would be worse to lose everything on their computer than to lose their wedding ring.
  • 62% said they would pay to get back their lost data if their computer crashed; 21% said they would pay $500 and 27% said they would pay as much as they needed to get their documents and files back.
  • People would go to extremes to immediately recover all of their data if it were lost: 34% would give up beer and wine for a year; 31% would give up coffee for a year; 23% would give up their cell phone for a month; and 18% would give up their free time to mow their neighbor’s lawn for a year.

Other findings:
  • 82% of Americans keep electronic files only and the majority of these files are nowhere else but on their computer hard drive.
  • The most popular files people store digitally are photos (55%), music (46%), résumés (42%), addresses (28%), phone numbers (27%), and financial documents (22%).
  • The average American has more than $400 of digital music and movies on their computers and, for one in four, the music and movies are worth more than the computer itself.