US LAGS IN SOCIAL MEDIA CREATION, PER SURVEY

Brian Morrissey of Adweek quotes a new survey that says the US lags behind many other countires in Social Media.

Here is his article:

Consumers in the U.S. and Western Europe are more likely to be passive participants, while those in emerging markets often create content

April 18, 2008

-By Brian Morrissey

UM survey finds that domestic consumers 'love to watch.'

NEW YORK A new global study of social media use reveals that the U.S. severely lags behind Asian and South American countries in participation rates.

Consumers in the U.S. and Western Europe are more likely to be passive social-media participants -- sharing videos and reading blogs -- while those in emerging markets often create content through blogging, social networks and video and photo sharing sites.

"By and large, in the U.S. we're a country of voyeurs," said David Cohen, U.S. director of digital communications at Universal McCann, which conducted the study. "We love to watch and consume content created by others, but there's a fairly small group that are doing that creation -- unlike China, which is a country of creators."

The Interpublic Group media agency has charted a steady rise in participation rates for social media in the third phase of an 18-month research project. In its first survey, conducted in September 2006, a little over half of respondents said they read blogs. In the latest survey, over 70 percent did.

Thanks to the emergence of YouTube, watching video clips has become mainstream. While 30 percent said they watched video online in UM's initial survey, over 80 percent said they had this year. Less than 30 percent of respondents said they set up a social network profile in 2006; over 60 percent did two years later. (The survey shows big increases in nearly all online sharing activities, such as listening to podcasts, subscribing to RSS feeds and commenting on news items.)

UM surveyed 17,000 Internet users worldwide in March 2008 as part of an effort to track the global rise of consumer-generated content and online communities.

While it found social media is a global phenomenon, UM charted significant differences, mainly cultural, in terms of how people use social media.

In the U.S. and Europe, consumers are avid consumers of social content while less likely to create their own compared to other markets.

A little over 60 percent of Internet users in the U.S. said they read blogs, but just 26 percent had created one, compared to over 70 percent of Internet users who blog in South Korea and China.

Consumers in Asian countries are also much more likely to read blogs: 92 percent of South Koreans read them. In China, 88 percent read blogs.

Comments

[Jaap Bloem]

Interesting amigo. However no surprise at all of course, since sudden e-mancipation is likely to spur an activity burst, certainly in the regions mentioned.

By all means, do check this: Half of EU citizens on the net, but rural Europe left behind (http://euobserver.com/9/26012).

Note: I'm aware of the fact that Western Europe by no means equals the European "Union" (cough!).

[Nishad]

Scott

Dunno if you caught this one

Web to be bigger than TV in UK in 09
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23996785/