The UK social media scene

Posted Tuesday, July 3, 2007 at 9:35pm in Blogging  | 

If you want to have an idea of how the UK social media scene compares to the US, you’ll do worse than reading a recent blog post by Hugh MacLeod. Here are a few of the nuggets:

Q: How is social media emerging in the UK and EU v the US?

“The UK blogging scene always struck me as relatively smaller and geekier than the US scene. Brits have always struck me as more cautious at embracing the internet compared to the Americans, and I imagine this will continue. That being said, the London Facebook network is the second largest in the world, bigger than New York’s. I’m guessing this means they don’t mind using social media for the FRIENDS THEY ALREADY HAVE, and are less willing to use Social Media to make new ‘online friends’.”

Q: Let’s narrow the conversation down to business. Are European businesses embracing social media? What about just in the UK?

“E-mail is a part of office life. Nobody questions its function [even when one has 800 unread e-mails waiting in one's inbox]. We’re not quite at that stage yet with Social Media. The vibe I get from corporates who ask me questions at conferences is not one of certainly and enthusiasm, but more of a head-scratching, “Well, everybody else seems to be doing it, this is kinda the future, so I suppose I should be paying more attention, but…” I hear the word “But” a lot. It’s still early days. In five years time I expect to be hearing “But” a lot less.”

Nailed it. Which means there’s a lot more work to be done.

As Hugh would say, rock on.

Kasabian - Lost Souls Forever (LSF)

technorati tags: social+media, uk, hugh+macleod

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