Digital Music Sounds Better Than Ever

Market research company Ipsos recently conducted a poll that found that one in five Americans older than 12 owns some type of portable digital music device. Not surprisingly, younger customers and men are more likely to own such devices. Full story from BBC.

Younger residents have a fast-paced lifestyle that is centered around technologies that allow them to keep in touch with friends and tune out the rest of the world. Older residents, such as empty-nesters, want a refuge from the rest of the world and want to enjoy their music, movies, news and TV without any hassles.

With this in mind, you may want to consider planning your communities to provide better solutions that enable your residents to enjoy their technologies simply and seamlessly. For example, take the MP3 story above: the player that dominates this market right now is Apple's iPod (See our post on 06/08/06). Does it makes sense to offer a docking station for iPods in each unit, or maybe as an upgrade option? In competitive markets, quite possibly. Channel Vision, Sonance and others offer good options at prices that aren't terribly unreasonable. But watch out: Microsoft has an iPod contender of their own on the way.