THE BRIC SOCIAL WEB

How will BRIC countries use the social web differently from US/ EU?

SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media or web 2.0 is the use of digital media, including internet and mobile, for creating communities. Typical elements of a social media service include the ability to: 1) create a personal profile 2) “friend” or follow other members to subscribe to their activity streams 3) create content in the form of text, photos, audio, or video and 4) share, tag, rate, comment on or vote on content created by other members. Blogs, forums, wikis, social networking sites, microblogging sites, social bookmarking sites, social voting sites, social review sites and virtual worlds are all example of web 2.0 sites. So are social sites built around photos, audio, videos, presentations, music, and games.

SECTION 2: BRIC INTERNET & MOBILE USAGE

Many experts believe that mobile devices will be the primary access point to the internet in BRIC countries. There are almost 1.2 billion mobile subscribers in BRIC countries, out of which 202m have access to the mobile web¹. This compares favorably with the number of internet users in these countries (385m)², especially in India, and the upside potential is huge. As a comparison, USA has 215 m internet users and 255 m mobile phone subscribers. As a percentage of the total population, mobile internet penetration in BRIC countries continues to lag US/ EU³, but in terms of overall numbers, the relative ranking of BRIC countries in terms of mobile penetration (Brazil #6, Russia #4, India #2, China #1) is much higher compared to internet penetration (Brazil #5, Russia #11, India #4, China #1)⁴. 

SECTION 3: BRIC SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE (WITH FOCUS ON INDIA & CHINA)

The total number of active internet users in BRIC countries (101m) is higher than the number of active internet users in US (100m). Not only that, significantly more users from BRIC countries than US engage with social media tools, both in terms of content consumption and content creation. Even as percentage of active internet users, social media usage in BRIC countries is much higher than US across content consumption and content creation. At the country level, China leads in blogging and podcasting while Brazil is the leader in social networking and online video⁵.

Given that most of the social web have been designed around the US cultural context, it’s probably useful to ask if a social web designed for highly individualistic cultures that organize around the principles of consultation and reciprocation based on more or less normative rules is really relevant to collectivist, paternalist and status-oriented BRIC cultures⁶. While American players like Orkut and Facebook dominate the Indian web 2 .0 space, Chinese language players like Xiaonei dominate the Chinese web 2.0 space. I believe that India’s lower internet penetration, as compared to China, can be partly attributed to the absence of deep local language content in India.

SECTION 4: THE IDEAL INDIAN SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE

To really build an identity and a broad Indian user base for themselves, Indian social networking sites need to differentiate themselves along the three dimensions of language, mode of access and social dynamics and offer (1) Unique value based on Indian social dynamics like family, marriage, cricket, Bollywood, or civic engagement (2) Deep content in a wide range of local languages and not only English (3) Multiple access points, including PC web, mobile web, SMS (and maybe voice), so much so that most users don’t even think of it as a “website”. I believe that the most powerful use of social media in India will be a mobile social networking platform to mobilize civic engagement and social change.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

- Secondary research on 1) BRIC internet, mobile and social media usage, 2) BRIC socio-cultural dynamics, 3) mobile social networking, 4) use of social media for social change 5) socio-cultural impact of social media in terms of community, identity, privacy and free speech .

- Interviews with mobile, social media and social entrepreneurship experts, with focus on India and China.

- Possibly, controlled user experience experiments with willing social networking sites owners.

- Possibly, development of a social networking site -- differentiated along the dimensions of language, access and social dynamics -- along with willing partners, to test the conclusions reached in the study.

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1 eMarketer, Mobile BRIC: Extreme Growth Ahead, June 2008