Words of Insight from Ka Edong: On Philippine Urban Internet Users

An old high school classmate and friend of mine, Edwin Soriano, writes some insights from a Yahoo-Nielsen study on Philippine Urban Internet users.

Below is an excerpt of his blog entry. Full entry on http://technobiography.edongskey.com/stats-facts/study-on-urban-philippines-internet-users-by-yahoo-nielsen/.

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Ka Edong’s thoughts:

• It’s quite remarkable that internet users are “opinion leaders” in their circle. Once upon a time, it was the person in the barrio who owned a transistor radio who would be an “opinion leader”. That’s why taxi drivers are so “opinionated” — because they’re tuned in to the radio and they echo what they hear.
• “opinion leaders” — I would also say that internet users are very vocal online. One reason is the relative low-risk of giving a strong opinion online (compared to giving a strong opinion in a real-life setting). The relative anonymity of the internet gives them less risk.
• On the other hand, it has become important as well for the internet savvy users to build and protect their online “brand”. Gone are the days when the internet savvy user hides in anonymity. Now with twitter, plurk, facebook, friendster and blogging, people are extending their *real* identities online. Gone are the days of creating “false online identities”.
• Email, IM and search are still leading activities in Internet. No surprise.
• I’m surprised Social networks is down at rank 5 below online gaming (rank 4). I think one reason is that internet cafes are still dominated by the young males with preference for gaming; Contrast that to the young females who are more likely to do social networking.
• I wonder if there are internet cafes that are built to be “female friendly”.
• Internet cafes are truly important for internet access. But hey, we’re changing the game here  .
• Photos, read/write blogs — no surprise
• Internet radio — really? 28%? (not really remarkably high or anything).
• And, oh yes, there is an internet activitythat is obviously missing in the list — viewing porn! If that were included in the survey, I would expect it to be among the top 5.

ka edong
internet user since 1996