The tablet still matters. Perhaps it just matters less than we thought it would.

According to a recent study by research firm IDC, tablet shipments are expected to increase only 7.2 percent in 2014—a huge comedown from the 52.5 percent increase the year before. The results, Computerworld suggests, imply that the sector doesn’t matter for us nearly as much as the traditional PC/mobile combo. And on top of that, we don’t tend to replace tablets every two years, as we do our phones.

“In the early stages of the tablet market, device life cycles were expected to resemble those of smartphones, with replacement occurring every two to three years,” IDC Program Director Ryan Reith said in a news release. “What has played out instead is that many tablet owners are holding onto their devices for more than three years and in some instances more than four years. We believe the two major drivers for longer-than-expected tablet life cycles are legacy software support for older products, especially within iOS, and the increased use of smartphones for a variety of computing tasks.”

The iOS part particularly hits home: According to the study, the market for iPads actually fell by 12.7 percent, while both Android and Windows tablets showed double-digit gains.

Know What They Want

ICYMI: A tale of popsicles, trade publications and audience engagement http://t.co/oj9pYkbUPP #assnchat #csae #asae

— MediaEdge (@MediaEdgeTOR) November 25, 2014

We may be a long way from the dog days of summer, but this piece of genius marketing from RealMatch might still be useful. Long story short, at an event over the Labor Day weekend, when temperatures were still soaring, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution used a clever hook—free Popsicles!—to get people to subscribe to its paywall-driven website. It worked, and well.

The idea, writes Recruitment Advisor‘s Mary Hiers, is to create a hook that gives people something they need just when they need it. And that doesn’t mean the swag you usually see at tradeshows.

“Most people already have enough shirts and hats, so that doesn’t really offer something of value,” Hiers writes. “Instead, you might follow the newspaper’s lead and offer a cup of warm cocoa this winter to people who take the action that you want them to take. Likewise, if you’re a publisher, you could offer a free book to people who take action.” (ht @AssocContent)

Other Links of Note

An event worth digging into: VolunteerMatch’s webinar for nonprofits looking to receive Google Ad Grants takes place December 3.

A lot of us use the internet, but most of us have no idea how it works, according to a recent Pew study.

Who needs Microsoft Word? Plain text files are dead-simple, but in the right hands, they can do mind-blowing things. The Zapier blog has some tips to make them work better for you.

(iStock/Thinkstock)