Last night the Parisian Twitter community met up at LaCantine, a coworking space. If you attended, you can find those folks Twitter handles on the initial blog post and follow your neighbors. Fredric took pictures, and blogged his thoughts from the event in French (and now English) about the conversation, I used Google translate and get the gist of his post. I hope the community will self-organize tweetups, I find once or twice a quarter to be plenty to really help solidify an online community.
Although the community has come together for Barcamps, Blogger Dinners, and the very successful Twestival (I met the founder Sandrine Plasseraud last night) was created here, this was one of the first true Parisian tweetups. I asked the room how many of them knew others, and only a handful knew at least 50% of the room, which had about 40 folks there.
Questions about privacy
I kicked off a conversation about the Future of the Social Web, which triggered a discussion for folks. Later, as we enjoyed drinks, I recall more questions from the French attendees about privacy. “What privacy concerns should we worry about in the future of the social web?”. Some even suggested new business models will emerge that will offer to hide and remove your social footprint. In my past days as a web marketing manager, I recall bumping up against privacy concerns in some European countries where cookies were highly discouraged.
Web infrastructure growing –yet social adoption is low
Later, I learned that the city of Paris offers a form of Wifi hotspots in public for people to use, (although folks in Twitter are telling me the experience is spotty) so the infrastructure is already setup. Yet despite this, the adoption rates of social technologies are significantly lower here in France. Creators are 13%, Critics are 23%, Collectors are 7%, Joiners are a mere 9%, big jump with 54% are spectators but Inactives are 42%, meaning that 58% cannot be reached by social technologies. If you want a description for those terms, start with this handy guide.
Back to the topic on hand; How cultural norms impact social technology adoption. The fact is, that French have internet infrastructure, knowledge of how to use social tools, and a government that’s not resisting the social web. Yet the adoption rates, according to the numbers, are much lower.
Question: How are cultural beliefs, like privacy, going to impact social adoption
So despite the infrastructure being intact in Paris, the technographics numbers indicate the usage of social technologies is lower. I’d love to hear from any French and anyone else for that matter, about how culture impacts the adoption of social technologies, what are the factors that encourage people to use –or not use — social technologies.
Well, I think there are various reasons that explains have this lower rate of adoption, but I first think to these two ones :
1) Most of social media tools are developped in the United State (I don’t say ALL) and as consequence are for english speakers. And French people are generally not very happy with any other language than French… ‘-( In the same it reduces our capacity to exchange with people from other countries on social networks.
2) I think we’re less curious than “Anglo Saxon” people. French people are naturaly more reluctant to change and adopt new stuffs takes more time.
But obviously I know that not all the French think like that and there are plenty of French invested in social media and in the Internet more generaly. Those you meet in the Cantine are a part of them (this place is so cool by the way).
Hi, I’m french and appreciate your open question about adoption of social technologies in France.
– As generalities, many fench people don’t want to be in touch with technologies. Adults (40+) think that Internet looks difficult to use and also it’s a waste of time. So, it’s a big barrier to go on social networks. Email is enough.
– About privacy, French People don’t really be friend with the neighbour. Everyone have his own life and it’s fine like this. For example, many top bloggers who tweet prefer to make it private…
– just a few talks about twitter on traditional media. If a popular TV guy create a twitter account as Oprah did, just only the little twitter community will talk about it.
– Most of top blogs in France copy/paste infos from the web and there’s no added value. In fact, the word “blog” have a negative content >> for nerd and individualist. So, people prefer to sondier traditional media which switch online.
– We are french and we want to speak in French.
– Facebook became very popular in France. Most of people know it but they don’t need other applications.
I’m French, proud about my language and my nation //
Interesting question. I am surprised in general the Europeans are not engaging in social networking more. Language seems to be the main road block in my mind. Using Twitter, for example, I have noticed that there are a lot of people from the UK using it. One wonders if Twitter had a translation function if that tool, in particular, would be more widely used. Where did you get your updated numbers regarding Creators, Critics, etc., if I may ask?
While I think privacy does play a part I think it may be more the culture of acceptance. How much of a society is on the move and how much stays in the same area they were born? Even in the US I think you will see differences of adoption based on that statistic. I know when we moved to the Northeast my family was seen as outsiders for about 5 years. I also think some areas of the South may be that way. Here in the Western US I think people tend to move around more frequently and are more open to new contacts.
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