Yeah, But It's The Cool 10%
Not very many people apparently give a fig about online communities:
[from Has Social Networking Gone Too Far? by Thomas Claburn][...]
Among those aware of online communities, 50% said the best reason to use them was to keep in touch with friends and family. A mere 16% wanted to view and share media content with people of similar interests.
Perhaps more noteworthy, 61% of the total public -- based on the 1,004 American adults surveyed -- are not interested in online communities and 18% said they don't have the time for them.
[Kathy] Sheehan [of GfK Roper Consulting] says "there will be a shakeout" among social networking sites.
But don't give up on social networking yet. Sheehan observes that among the young and influential -- the most active 10% of the public and a leading indicator of market trends -- online communities are "almost interchangeable" with offline ones.
Watch the trendsetters, and never believe people when they say they don't have time for something: they simply need to stop watching TV and they'll have hours per day available!
Out tonight with my cousins and a few other offline people, I ended up (as always happens) talking about "online life". I explained Twitter, presence, Facebook, blogging -- the usual stuff.
I'd seen my cousin's girlfriend and messaged her on GTalk a couple of times, and she told me tonight she saw my messages but didn't reply because she's to afraid of starting to talk for hours, and can't afford it right now.
What might be missing here (for somebody like her) is the awareness that when starting with a new thing (IM for example), one is likely to overdose for some time (a few days, weeks, months?) before getting sick from having eaten too much chocolate, and coming to a more normal/productive/reasonable use of the tool.
At the end, she said this to me, which sums things up nicely: "you know, what you're saying is really interesting, because I don't feel I have the time for these things, but listening to you, I get the feeling that you actually save time with them."
Posted by: Stephanie Booth | March 07, 2007 at 03:06 PM
It's true about stopping watching tv but I fear I have gone to far the other way. Watching TV at least relaxes the brain!
Posted by: Chris Garrett | March 08, 2007 at 04:43 AM