People Get Nearly $1000 In Uncaptured Value From Online Media

People get a lot more value from digital media than they actually pay for, according to new research from The Boston Consulting Group.

There's a $967 gap between the amount people value online media, and the approximately $165 that they pay for it. And that value's only going to grow in the future.

That outstrips offline media, people get about $1600 in value but pay a much higher cost, $696 on average.

This study points to a huge opportunity for media monetization, especially on the web.

There are a number of things behind the trend. The first is that more and more online content is written or designed for the web as opposed to just transferred from offline sources. Additionally, there are more and better tools for accessing media.

The number of devices someone has significantly improves the value they get out of online media:

People get a significant amount of uncaptured value here, and businesses will step up advertising and data mining to profit. To take advantage, businesses need to make sure their content is available for and suited to a wide variety of platforms. Second, there's more room for monetization, moving beyond banners to more interactive forms of advertising.

It's not just media properties either, big brands are increasingly in the content game, and as long as it's good, people will consume it and derive value. The key is to balance between making money and being appealing. Consumers enjoy online content so much that most are willing to stand for quite a few more ads.

Find the report here