by Josh Bernoff
More data from around the world -- and from Chapter 2 of Groundswell.
As a companion to our data charts of social networks and blogs and user-generated video around the world, here's a look at forums, ratings, and reviews around the world.
Unlike our previous international data cuts, this one is far more likely to reflect cultural differences than the prevalence of specific sites in a country's home language. We again see the advanced participation of Japanese and Americans in discussion forum. Koreans participate a lot less -- any Koreans out there that can shed light on this?
As for ratings and reviews, more than one in five online consumers read them in the US, UK, Germany, and Japan. (Note that this includes only people who read them once a month or more -- there are doubtless a lot of less frequent readers of ratings.) Americans, Japanese, and Koreans are the most likely to write reviews -- Brits and the French have the lowest proportion of ratings readers who are writers as well.
These "Web 1.0" technologies are the mainstay of the groundswell. They're easy to use, easy to participate in, easy to benefit from. All they require is that you react to what's in front of you. That's why Critics are biggest of the active elements of the Social Technographics ladder -- and why I think they'll grow to include more and more online consumers every year, in every country in the world.
Link to original post