Does anyone believe these stats about web use that are about?
About 5.9 million Canadians spent an average of 83 minutes each on MySpace in March, said Bryan Segal of comScore Canada Inc., which measures Internet traffic. Remarkably, three other properties in the social networking category attracted even more Canadians. Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Live Spaces drew in 39 per cent of online Canadians, followed by Google’s Blogger (29 per cent) and independently owned Facebook (28 per cent).
I don’t have a strong reaction to percentages of on-line Canadians but I have a hard time believing 5.9 million Canadians are on MySpace. Is it in a meaningful way? I mean aren’t we now in a Canada with 1.3 blogs for every person? Wasn’t that where the future was? But maybe it is so as we are told in 2005 an “estimated 16.8 million adult Canadians, or 68%, used the Internet for personal non-business reasons during the 12 months prior to the survey.”
Maybe it is true. Maybe I am just Oldie Oldson, blogging away when the fun is happening elsewhere. The kid with the walkie-talkie when everyone is locked up the a Commodore 64. Maybe things are really upside down:
Chris (Zeke) Hand, the owner of Zeke’s Gallery in Montreal, used to partake in after-work drinks several times a week when he worked in the music industry. He says the booze is better in the art world, but he’s now choosing to do more of his networking and socializing online on sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. “They are an alternate means to connect with people without the possibility of being thrown in jail,” he says.
On-line with now fear of being thrown in jail? Has even Pr0n lost its illicit attraction? Oh dear – not quite.