|
When was the last time you viewed and updated your profile on
Facebook, Friendster, LinkedIn, or MySpace?
Probably, a few minutes after you started
working? Or before you finished your first cup of coffee for the
day?
Yes, you are probably connected! — To your
friends from high school and college. To your relatives and family
inside and outside the Philippines. And even to total strangers with
the same interests, beliefs, and lifestyles. Through social
networking sites (SNS) this connection is made wider, easier, and
faster. And best of all, these sites come with free space for
photos, blogs, videos and music.
Remember classmates.com? Launched in 1995, this
was one of the first social networking sites. This website (http://www.classmates.com)
helped users locate and connect with classmates around the US.
Xanga, another popular SNS started in 1999. It
begun as a site for sharing book and music reviews. Now, it has an
estimated 40 million users called Xangans. I started my Xanga site
in 2004 when I was still in Vietnam, blogging mostly about life and
work in a foreign country. Xanga allowed me to connect to other
Filipinos living outside the country.
According to Universal McCann’s Wave2 Global
Research (March 2007), 194 million people around the globe manage a
profile in a social networking site. There are hundreds of social
networking sites that include Bebo, Facebook, Friendster, Hi5,
LinkedIn, MySpace, Tagged, TakingITGlobal, etc.
Bebo? That simply means, “Blog early, blog
often?”
Have you heard of sosyalan.com? This is Pinoy-centric
networking site launched in June 2007. After its first six months,
it recorded 50,000 users. “Now, it reaches 200,000 Filipinos
worldwide,” according to Tom Pestano, its founder. He added that
his site is focused on the 4Fs of social networking: flame, fun,
friendship, family.
Filipinos lead in Friendster
Launched in 2003, Friendster is the most popular
SNS among Filipinos! The site has 63 million registered users.
According to internetworldstats.com, there are 12.2 million
Filipinos on Friendster. Guess, that includes you? And I.
According to www.alexa.com, the top five
Internet sites in the Philippines are Friendster, Yahoo, YouTube,
Google and Multiply.
“If you look at the top 20 sites on the web
today, you’ll notice that about 30 to 40 percent of them are
social networking or social media sites, this wasn’t the case just
5 years ago, said Jeff Roberto, Friendster’s marketing director.
“The social networking space is still evolving and we’ll
continue to see growth here.”
This growth has led many social networking sites
to cater to specific countries and cultures.
Are we linked?
According to www.alexa.com, four of the top 10
websites in the world are sites that link people together! Yahoo
retains top spot, followed by YouTube, Windows Live, Google, MySpace,
Facebook, Microsoft Network, Hi5, Wikipedia and Orkut. Alexa is a
California-based company that provides information about web
traffic.
Florencia Pettigrew, international marketing
manager of LinkedIn said that her company has grown steadily since
it begun in 2003. “Currently, more than 20 million professionals
are on LinkedIn, including executives from all five hundred of the
Fortune 500 companies, as well as a wide range of household names in
technology, financial services, media, consumer packaged goods,
entertainment, and numerous other industries.”
LinkedIn has approximately 2 million plus users
in Asia, with most users from India. “The Philippines is
definitely in the top 10 countries in terms of users within Asia.
Most members in the Philippines are professionals in the IT,
Software and Financial Services industries,” Florencia added.
Users continue to increase in numbers. “There
are approximately 1.4 billion people online today globally, and
about 194 million of them aged 16-64 manage a profile on a social
network, that’s only 17 percent adoption! More than 800 million
Internet users have yet to adopt a social network, and the global
Internet population will continue to grow,” Roberto said.
Finally, thank you to the team of “Korina
Today.” I was able to link up with Korina Sanchez and her
production team, led by Marie Mamawal and Penny Quesada, last
Wednesday for the TV program, “Korina Today” at ANC. Together
with Cyberpress president and Manila Bulletin reporter Melvin
Calimag, and Resti Reyes, president Mediatrade Exchange Inc, New
Media Researcher, we talked about the blogging phenomena. Now, that
would need another 800 words!
Next month, we will look into how social
networking sites are changing the business landscape and touching
other’s lives!
|
