Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Recent research by Amarach shows that three in ten adults in Ireland have heard of Bebo, a figure which I think is a little on the low side. What some people might find surprising though is that 20% of those aware of Ireland’s most popular social networking website heard about it through traditional media.

Who wants to bet that all those that have heard about Bebo through traditional media aren’t Bebo users though?

That moves me onto my next point. Antony Mayfield highlights some interesting research on the relative popularity of Digg vs New York Times website, and the difference in the demographics of their readers.

Heather Hopkins of Hitwise took a look at US data on the relative popularity of the sites (based on page impressions) and found that in fact the New York Times was 19 times more popular than Digg. She also dug (sorry) deeper to find that the demographics of the two sites are very different indeed:

Firstly, Digg attracts a different demographic audience than the NY Times. For the four weeks ending 7/1/06, 26% of Digg’s users were in the 18-24 age bracket, while only 9.5% of NY Times users were in that age group. NY Times skews much older, with 34% of its users in the 55+ age group. Only 10% of Digg’s users were over 55 in that time period.

Heather’s final judgement is that Digg “it is still an early-adopter site and will take some time to gain traction with mainstream internet users.”

But will sites like Digg or Bebo gain traction with mainstream internet users. Not anytime soon, if Nicholas Carr’s recent observation is anything to go by.

Netscape turned its traditional portal home page into a knockoff of the popular geek news site Digg. Like Digg, Netscape is now a “news aggregator” that allows users to vote on which stories they think are interesting or important. The votes determine the stories’ placement on the home page. Netscape’s hope, it seems, is to bring Digg’s hip Web 2.0 model of social media into the mainstream.

There’s just one problem. Normal people seem to think the entire concept is ludicrous.

Nicholas goes on to conclude, “The best way to prove that a niche product is a niche product is to toss it into the mainstream and let it sink.”

The Amarach research concludes that Bebo is part of the wider Web 2.0 revolution which “promises to radically transform how marketers and their agencies connect with consumers in the months and years ahead.” That’s simply not true. It could transform how we connect with a specific sector of consumers.

Basically sites like Bebo and Digg’s short term success is dependent on converting mainstream users. Will that happen? Maybe not in the short term, but evangelists would hope that as the current users grow older, the next generation follow the same trend of use. But will they? Technology is constantly evolving and the youth audience keeps jumping from one trend to the next - MTV to PS2s to Bebo to God knows what next?

Looking at Bebo specifically. It’s very important to recognise the transition from MTV to Bebo in such a short space of time. Teenagers like the fact that they’re always one step ahead. Websites like Bebo or MySpace are so popular because they offer teens their own private space. As soon as marketers saturate that space, they will quickly move onto the next fad.

Just because your company suddenly has their own Bebo or MySpace page, it doesn’t mean that you’ve suddenly become the Fonz (for those unfamiliar with the Fonz, think Xzibit minus the braids.) Successful youth brands have always managed to connect with this elusive audience because they’ve listened to teens.

Knowing where kids hang out achieves nothing. Don’t believe me? Just visit any school. Once the principal finds out where pupils sneak off for a smoke, he’ll pounce on them. You can guarantee that they won’t be there for him to catch them a second time around.

Basically Bebo could be another tool in the arsenal of those in the communications industry,but the same lessons remain. It could really add value to companies who are joining the increasing number of organisations that engage in micro-targeting, reaching a specific group of people instead of communicating with as many people as possible.

As Nicholas Carr goes onto to state in another column though:

Only a small, select slice of the population is likely to dig Digg. Most people have better things to do. And I have a sneaky suspicion that the same goes for most other examples of participative media, from blogs to tags to wikis to whatever. They’re niche-y. Now, there’s no shame in that. You can build great businesses with niche products - as long as you don’t start overreaching.

For those that read this website regularly, you’ll have noted my repeated reference to iReach and Amarach research. If you’re in the communications industry in Ireland you should be reading iReach regularly and subscribing to the Amarach newsletter.

Technorati Tags: Amarach, Bebo, Digg, iReach, Piaras Kelly, Nicholas Carr