Sociale media in Europa: Nederlanders meest fervente bloggers

Amsterdam, June 27, 2007 . . . 60 percent of European online consumers are taking part in Social Computing activities such as reading or writing blogs, listening to podcasts, setting up RSS feeds, reading and writing online customer reviews, or taking part in social networking sites, according to a new report by Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR).

However, the survey of more than 7,000 online consumers across the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, and Sweden found that consumers in those countries are adopting Social Computing at differing rates. The result is a unique Social Computing profile for each nation.

“To profit from a diverse social media scene, interactive marketers should use country profiles as guidelines to fix social media priorities,” said Forrester Research senior analyst Mary Beth Kemp. “Interactive marketers devising their European Social Computing strategies can capitalize on these differences by concentrating specific Social Computing activities in those countries where consumers practice them the most.”

Highlights from the report include:

• Reading peer reviews is the No. 1 Social Computing activity, with nearly one-third of European online consumers taking part in that activity.
• Consumers in the UK and Sweden are embracing social networking sites, while users in Germany and France are far less impressed.
• More than one-third of UK consumers take part in social networking sites, double the European average.
• Nine percent of all Europeans maintain blogs or publish Web pages.
• The Dutch are the most prolific, with 15 percent of users in the Netherlands taking part in this activity.
• The Spanish actively comment on Web sites, while Germans are, by and large, reluctant to offer their opinions online.

“There are many reasons for the differing behavior in Social Computing,” said Kemp. “Countries are at different stages of Internet adoption: only 40 percent of Spanish consumers and 44 percent of Italians are online regularly. Furthermore, access remains a challenge for some, with broadband not yet universal: one-fourth of Germans still only have dial-up or ISDN networks.”
The report ““Europeans Have Adopted Social Computing Differently” is currently available to Forrester RoleView™ clients and can also be purchased directly at

http://www.forrester.com/Research/Document/0,7211,42156,00.html.