Digital Media - Social Networks & UGC

Synopsis

Archived report. This report was archived in 2009 and is no longer updated. People naturally want to communicate, and the Internet has always provided a forum for User Generated Content, from the early bulletin boards to today’s video blogs that allow for new levels of interaction. In recent times social networking has been dominated by industry leaders MySpace and Facebook. Other competitors are also scrambling to capture market share and social network services also evolving and looking at further innovations to maintain users’ attention. Mobile social networking services are also in development. In 2009 the economic downturn is expected to impact upon advertising spend on this sector. This report provides an overview and statistics on the growing phenomenon of blogging and social networking services, including a discussion of its impact on traditional media. Further information on online video media is available from a separate report.

Table of Contents

• 1. Synopsis
  
• 2. User Generated Content (UGC)
  
  • 2.1 UGC and the economy – OECD study
    
• 3. The “thinking society”
  
• 4. Social networking
  
  • 4.1 Social networking leaders
    
    • 4.1.1 Facebook
      
    • 4.1.2 MySpace
      
    • 4.1.3 Twitter
      
    • 4.1.4 Around the world
      
• 5. Blogging and web publishing
  
  • 5.1 Wikipedia
    
  • 5.2 Mediacracy – analysis
    
  • 5.3 Affecting traditional news media
    
    • 5.3.1 User generated news
      
  • 5.4 Vlogging/video media
    
• 6. Initial craze stabilising?
  
  • 6.1 Every site needs its own YouTube
    
  • 6.2 Consumer-led era
    
  • 6.3 Types of consumers
    
  • 6.4 Business opportunities
    
• 7. Other developments
  
  • 7.1 Could greed take hold of the Web 2.0 industry?
    
  • 7.2 Vodafone buys ZYB
    
  • 7.3 Mobile social networking
    
  • 7.4 AOL buys Bebo in 2008
    
  • 7.5 Open Social Foundation
    
  • 7.6 Crowdsourcing
    
  • 7.7 Photosynth and Seadragon
    
  • 7.8 Creating social networks
    
• 8. Social networking advertising statistics
  
• 9. Related reports
  

• Table 1 – Unique monthly users – Facebook vs MySpace – March 2008; March 2009
• Table 2 – Worldwide market share of mobile social network users – 2008; 2013
• Table 3 – Worldwide social networking advertising spend – 2008; 2011
• Table 4 – USA social networking advertising spend – 2008 - 2009

• Exhibit 1 – Definition: social network and community
• Exhibit 2 – User generated content – key success factors
• Exhibit 3 – Social networking websites – examples
• Exhibit 4 – Top 15 social networks worldwide – 2008
• Exhibit 5 – Major regional user base of popular social networks – mid-2007
• Exhibit 6 – Wikipedia