95% of online Indians spend time on social networking sites

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The trend of social networking has been growing worldwide and India is no exception with 95% of the online population spending time on social networking sites. This data was revealed today as part of Comscore’s 2011 Social report unveiled today.

For China the figures stand at 53%, US and UK lead with 98% followed by Brazil at 97%. India holds a total online audience (15+ age group) of 45.9mn with those frequenting social networking sites pegged at 43.5mn. The average time spent by Indians on these networks is 3.4 hours. Regardless of how open or closed a society may be, more than half of local online populations are engaging in online social networking, making the practice comparatively ubiquitous around the world.’ This is part of data for October 2011.

It’s no surprise that Facebook has emerged as dominant player among social networking sites behind Google sites and Microsoft sites. Facebook overtook Orkut in July 2010 as the number one player by the virtue of total unique visitors. Facebook has 81.9% reach to India audience with 37,600 total unique visitors followed by Orkut, LinkedIn, BharatStudent and Twitter. Facebook is way ahead of the competition in the Indian market with an avergae user spending 221.8 minutes, for Orkut its 21.4 minutes and others even less.

Facebook has managed to reach 55% of world’s global audience and accounted for approximately ‘3 in every 4 minutes spent on social networking sites and 1 in every 7 minutes spent online around the world.’ Facebook is showing no signs of slowing down after it overtook orkut in India and is expected to soon become the dominant social network in Brazil as well. However, it still trails behind regional social networks in Poland and South Korea. Facebook is blocked in China losing access to a large online audience.

According to the report, social networking sites now reach 82% of the world’s online population, representing 1.2 billion users around the world. This is in sycn with the global internet adoption curve and increase in connectivity with nearly 1 in 5 minutes online is spent on social networking sites.

Where age groups is concerned, social networking sites are no longer frequented by young ‘kids’ only. In India,  55+ age group is fast emerging the leading segment with a penetration of 83.3% (males) and 87.6% (females).  The highest reach is for the 15-24 age group with 99% of the population.

Compared to rest of the world the East Asian countries spend least amount of time on social networks with the exception of Phillippines, where 43% of the online time is spent on social networks.

The full ComScore report can be accessed here

This article of mine was originally published in Daily Post. You can also access it here

The Silk Route of Social Commerce

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Social networks are strong unifier. They have the potential to integrate business processes unlike anything we have seen  since the famous silk route got abandoned few hundred years back. Social + business are meant to go together. There is a school of thought that for long believed that anything social needs to be miles away from the business world. However, business or monetisation of the social is in fact the next step in the process of socialisation.

Social means people with similar interests club together as in Google+ circles. They socialise, share, comment, like or dislike and often move on to another circle. This social process has been going on for millions of years. We recommend products to others; crave to buy a better car than the neighbour; ask for reviews before planning next vacation. That’s the influence we all have on our relationships that eventually help us determine whether our decision makes business sense or not.

If its social then it can be monetised, be it through the like buttons or encircling people in Google+. The rise of social commerce through social networking is perhaps the single most revolutionary moment in human history. And this time no one is left behind, sooner or later everyone is going to be part of it. Well, isn’t everyone already is whether off or online.

Google+ and a sequel to ‘The Social Network’

Who thought a week back that something called Google+ would have people falling head over heels for access to the latest social network to hit the planet. While few got in, and many wait at the doorsteps envying the guys inside, its not a surprise the amazing response Google+ got. One of the guy who got in and is the most followed member so far in there is founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg.

Google and Facebook have been pitted against each other for years. Google’s missed opportunities to enter the social domain has only helped Facebook to cruise ahead with a 750million members on board.

The Palo Alto based company with a crazy speculative valuation of $50billion has always led from the front dwarfing the competition. The early comparisons were with Myspace, which recently got sold for $35mn (Myspace was once valued at $1bn).  Though this is not the first attempt by Google to enter the social domain. Google has previously experimented with Google Buzz, which became notorious for its privacy mischief during its early days. But this time Google is playing its card just right or so it seems. Integrating social with search and bringing together rest of its apps around Google+ will pay dividends for it. This could possibly be the tectonic shift in the social media space if Google+ can continue the momentum.

Facebook may be big but its not invincible. One thing is sure its going to be a lot of time before this space stabilizes and show any kind of saturation.

PS: It would be awesome to watch the sequel of The Social Network with characters of Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin all in one.

Related articles

• What’s the Deal with Google+? (directcontact.ca)
• Facebook, Skype announce hook-up (troyrecord.com)
• The Competitive prospects of Google (gigaom.com)
• Google hangouts give the “Alive Web a new boost (gigaom.com)
• ‘Mark Zuckerberg’ is number 1 of Google+ popularity ranking (theinformativereport.com)