Over at GigaOm, Robert Young has an interesting post about the growth of social networking as "a micro-phenomenon of a much larger macro-trend that the Internet has spawned since its birth… digital self-expression."
He points out how regular people now have many ways to express themselves, especially on the Web. We see this to be true in blogs, podcasts, MySpace pages, Flickr albums, and more.
This phenomenon can clearly be seen in China:
- The number of podcasts is booming (China Web2.0 review points to a study saying there are approximately 145,000 Chinese podcasts, showing nearly 300% growth in the last four months.)
- One report predicts that there will be more than 60 million bloggers in China by the end of 2006 (up from about 36M currently).
Add in the success in China of the American Idol-type show Super Girl, where citizens in China can watch amateur female singers perform and then vote for their favorite winners via SMS, and personal expression is obviously raging in China.
I think that what is happening in China is particularly interesting, given that until recently there weren't very many ways for the citizens to speak out, much less be heard. Clearly Chinese citizens (particularly the younger set) are rapidly embracing the new technologies that are giving them a voice. This bodes particularly well for China web businesses that can tap into this fervor, and then build a scalable business model around it.
The September issue of GUANXI: THE CHINA LETTER is going to be about just this topic, social networking, and I'd love to hear from anyone who would contribute an insightful article about some aspect of social networking in China, and/or the business implications. I need more than anecdotal information--which there's plenty of!--though we will have a few sidebars on particularly interesting manifestations. Expert Chinese contributors are most welcome.
Karen Christensen
karen@berkshirepublishing.com
www.guanxionline.com
Posted by: KarenChr | June 22, 2006 at 07:32 AM