Analysis of the results from Ipsos Insight’s "The Face of the Web 2006" shows a high negative correlation between frequency of visit to Social Networking site of a number of countries and Hofstede's Individualism Index of these countries. However, outliers suggest that Internet access is another factor that influence Social Networking site access. For Vietnam, this means the country is a good prospect for Social Networking services, but will only realize its potential if Internet access situation is improved.
The Face of the Web, Ipsos Insight’s annual study of Internet and Technology trends, was based on a survey conducted in November and December 2006 in urban Brazil, Canada, urban China, France, Germany, urban India, Japan, urban Mexico, urban Russia, South Korea, the UK and the US. Among the results is the frequency of visitation to Social Networking Websites like show above.
Popular analyzes focused mainly on the "South Korean" and Cyworld phenomena. However, from my observation and a conversation with a friend, Minh Do, the most notable result was a high visitation by South Koreans, urban Brazilians, urban Chinese and urban Mexicans than by the Brits, Americans and Canadian. Intuitively, I immediately thought of culture as an underlying factor.
The only way to quantify cultures so far is Hofstede's cultural dimensions. The most relevant dimension is Individualism. A chart the percentage of people saying they have accessed Social Networking sites in the countries versus Individualism index, the opposite of Collectivism, shows a negative correlation between the two factors. The result makes sense since collectivism would mean people tend to integrate more in groups in real life, for which social networking sites simulate and help to promote.
More detail analysis shows a correlation coefficient of -0.548. The statistics suggests that 55% of the difference in the percentage of people accessing social networking site can be explained by the difference in Individualism index. However, US, UK and Canada still stand out of the trend. If left out of the analysis, the negative correlation is very obvious (see chart below) and correlation coefficient is now -0.853, suggesting that 85.3% of the difference in the percentage of people accessing social networking site can be explained by the difference in Individualism index. Although the samples in countries might not be comparable and sample size is small, Individualism index is clearly an important factor to predict use of Social Networking sites in the countries.
Individualism index of course cannot explain all the difference in Social Networking site visitation. Outliers, including South Korea, UK, US and Canada, helps to confirm that Internet access penetration and bandwidth are also key in popularity of Social Networking sites. South Korea, specifically, has the world's highest penetration of broadband Internet, also has half of all adults there having visited at least one of these sites in the past, and over half having done so in the previous 30 days.
Though there is no official information for Vietnam's Individualism index, the index is supposed to be close to China. With the world's 13th largest population, this means the country is very potential for Social Networking services. Nonetheless, very low Internet penetration and especially low Internet bandwidth is a great challenge. The tipping point is by no means easy to reach in the short time, but there's always room for creative solutions to grab the early adopters.
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