Counting eyeballs… Gen-Ys have more faith in their employers… The cost of retiring: rising… Are you in the in-crowd? Families that play together… Mothers shop online…

• Counting eyeballs
• Gen-Ys have more faith in their employers
• The cost of retiring: rising
• Are you in the in the in-crowd?
• Families that play together …
• Mothers shop online

Counting eyeballs

As Australia’s advertisers get together to lobby for a new way to measure audience in the $1.4 billion online advertising industry, it’s happening in the US too.

Rivals Nielsen and comScore are developing new metrics that go beyond page views and cookies to evaluate Web site and search-engine usage through time spent and the number of ad impressions served. The changes in part reflect the rise of broadband video sites, in which users may spend a greater amount of time viewing a single page, rather than scrolling through multiple pages, according to CNNMoney.com/Investor’s Business Daily.

Gen-Ys have more faith in their employers

Gen-Y employees in the US are more likely than older workers to believe their employer will be loyal to them, according to an Adecco survey of almost 2500 staff reported by Inc.com.

The survey found 13% of Gen-Ys do not believe their employer is loyal to them, making them the least cynical employees. At the other end of the scale are employees aged 65 and over, 21% of whom do not believe their employer is loyal to them.

On the whole, however, a majority of workers – 56% – feel they are appreciated by their employer, while three-quarters of them say they are committed to their employers.

A relatively high 20% also said they do not currently have any worries at work. Of those who did have worries, work/life balance, not enough pay rises, and the rising cost of health care were the top three work-related concerns.

The cost of retiring: rising

The cost of a modest retirement has increased 8.8% over the past three years, according to the Westpac/Association of Superannuation Funds in Australia standard of retirement costs index.

The rising cost of food, and petrol prices are the main culprits. Falling costs of recreation goods and services helped offset the rises. On a modest retirement income, couples spend $135 a week on food, couples on a comfortable retirement income spend $180 a week on food.

For a comfortable retirement, a couple needs $48,374 a year, up on $44,733 three years ago. For a modest retirement, a couple needs $26,154 a year, up from $24,049 three years ago, according to the report.

Are you in the in the in-crowd?

Nearly half of all non-executive board seats in Australia’s Top100 companies are held by 123 people, reports the AFR today. So if you haven’t nabbed a spot on a board yet, it will be tricky to crack into the ‘in-crowd’.

Women are less likely to be in the club: making up only 11%. But once in, they are more likely to have two or more seats.

The average income for a non-executive director is $162,339 and non-executive chairman earn on average $372,793. Nice work if you can get it.

Families that play together …

A survey of over 7000 consumers has found that 80% of adults who have kids or grandkids who play computer games themselves play the odd game with them, according to a PopCap survey reported by Marketing Charts.

Of those 2,298 “family gamers identified by the survey, almost 80% were female and 95% were 30 or over, a big difference from the primarily male, primarily young mainstream gaming demographic.

Almost half of survey respondents identified themselves as mothers of children who play casual games, and 36% said they were grandmothers. Among males, 16% and 6% of respondents identified themselves as fathers and grandfathers, respectively.

And the reason the play? It seems quality family time is the main reason. Over 90% of family gamers said that they felt the games provided an opportunity to “bond with, or better relate to” their children or grandchildren

Mothers shop online

Mothers rely heavily on internet searches before making purchases online or in traditional stores, according to a US study unveiled by DoubleClick Performics. Of the nearly 1000 mothers surveyed, 86% said search engines are the fastest way to find information, according to MediaBuyerPlanner.