Archive notice: This article was originally published on April 16, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Users of social networks are exceptionally loyal souls. 70 percent want to remain members of their preferred community forever, according to a current study by auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. General acceptance of the platforms is very high as long as membership costs nothing. Users favour the introduction of personalised advertising over a fee model. According to the study, revenue generation will therefore have to be oriented more towards advertising-based business models in future. In general, however, users willing to pay are also significantly more active in social networks than those unwilling to invest money in membership.
“Users’ strong attachment to their social network probably arises because they manage and maintain their contacts through it,” says Arno Wilfert, technology expert and partner at PwC, in an interview with pressetext.de. A network’s attractiveness depends on how intensively users participate in the communtiy through their own contributions. In the study, no fewer than 82 percent of respondents described themselves as “active”, and 32 percent even spoke of a “high level of activity”. Contributions with personal content are created most frequently – including uploading photos, posting comments and writing articles in forums or blogs.
According to Wilfert, the social networks that are generally successful are those that take up a thought or idea first. “They usually capture the broad mass of users; those that follow have a harder time generating a large audience and often have to find niches.” Many networks originally come from the USA but have already been caught up with or even surpassed by local platforms in the German-speaking market. For example, the video portal is close on the heels of market leader YouTube, and StudiVZ has already clearly overtaken its American model Facebook in this country. Among business portals, too, Xing is significantly more successful in the domestic market than the international LinkedIn.
Looking ahead, Wilfert expects all platforms based on relationships – professional as well as private – to be more likely to endure. “Portals with a gaming focus, for example, are more subject to fashion trends, and their success is therefore more limited in time,” the expert predicts to pressetext. Mobile operators’ hopes that social networks would also increase demand for mobile services have not yet been entirely fulfilled. Overall, users’ interest is rather low, particularly when the monthly price threshold of five euros for a service is exceeded.
