Category: Other

Female bloggers register three times as many domains as male bloggers

The results of my third blog survey suggest that three out of four Swedish bloggers are female (76.2% vs 23.8%). Statistics from .SE (The Internet Infrastructure Foundation) now support the view that women are dominating the Swedish blogosphere. According to a press release, female bloggers registered 18% of all new private domains in Sweden (.se) during 2007 while male bloggers only registered 6%. That is almost exactly the same female/male ratio (75% vs 25%) as in my survey.

Danny Aerts CEO at .SE says that men traditionally have always registered more domains than women and that this is the first time women are in majority.

.SE says that at the beginning of 2007, about 5% of the individuals who registered a domain intended to use it for a blog, and at the end of the year the percentage had doubled.

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Social networkers motivated by social interaction

A new Swedish think tank called Forum Internet has published findings from research about business models, financing and motivations behind online communities. It is a bit unclear where these conclusions come from, but according to a presentation on its website, research shows that people are motivated by the following when they participate in social networks and online communities:

• To distance yourself from “everyday life”
• To display yourself
• To express yourself
• To explore others
• To be part of a group
• To build relations
• To join a category

I find some of these motivations to be quite vague and hard to understand. What does it mean to distance yourself from daily life? Is it just passing time or to be entertained? I would also like to argue that there are other motivational factors that are not as “social”, such as using technical features (sharing objects like photos or links) or getting access to information.

Either way, I think this research appear to support the view that “social interaction” is the main motivation why people use social networks.

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Danish kids positive to social networks

The Danish Media Council has published some findings from an online survey about Danish children and young people’s use of social network sites. One conclusion from the survey is that there is too much focus on the negative sides. Instead, social networks and communities have become a natural and positive extention to kids’ normal lives.

2,400 children between 12 and 18 years of age have participated in the survey. Only 34.1 percent of the respondents say their parents have talked to them about their usage of online communities.

These kids spend lots of time on chat portals, social networks and communities. As many as 30.9 percent spend more than 2 hours a day and 29.5 percent spend 1-2 hours a day.

Via Malene.

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