Latin Americans are World’s Most-Engaged Social Networkers

Latin Americans are the world’s leaders in social networking, an online phenomenon that is changing the way people communicate. Spending an average of 375 minutes per user per month on social networking sites, Latin Americans are far more engaged in online social communities than North Americans, whose 249 minutes per user ranks second in the world(1). While big social networks like Facebook and Fotolog are still built and financed in San Francisco and New York, increasingly the consumers who make or break global digital networks are found in Latin America.

Latin America’s avid social networkers are leading a global trend: active memberships in social networking sites worldwide are expected to reach more than 230 million in 2007(2); visitors to social networking sites increased by 34 percent last year to 530 million (approx. 2 out of 3 Internet users); and almost half of the top 10 most-visited websites are social networks(3). Latin America’s high level of engagement has made the region’s users the key to global success for emerging websites:

– 42 million unique visitors per month to social networks(4).
– Visitors to social networks grew by 16% from November 2006-June 2007.
– With 75% of all unique visitors going to social networks, Brazilians lead Americans (64 percent) and have earned a reputation as early adopters of global online trends(5).
– Latin American users spend the world’s highest average number of minutes online(6).

One of the world’s ten most actively-used social networks, Fotolog has confirmed that the site’s 16 million-member global audience was initially driven largely by Latin American users. Founded in 2002, Fotolog today has 7,732,947 Latin American members (February 2008) and is growing by 7 percent per month in the region, welcoming over 500,000 new members and 2.8 billion page views in February 2008 alone(7). The websites’ explosive growth across Latin America has been viral, with no marketing or member incentives.

“Latin America has a well-deserved reputation for social networking, so it’s unsurprising that Latin Americans embraced Fotolog first and created the critical mass that made the site the world’s 13th most-trafficked website with 16 million members worldwide, 16.6 million unique visitors and 4.2 billion page views per month according to Comscore and Google Analytics,” said Cyril Zimmermann, CEO of Fotolog’s parent company, Hi-Media. “Our annual growth rate of almost 85% across the region is a reflection of how Latin Americans are influencing the global Internet and social networking in particular.”

Fotolog began its phenomenal viral growth in 2003 with rapidly-growing communities of members in Argentina, Brazil and Chile which spread quickly across Latin America. The site’s critical mass in Latin America sparked Fotolog’s current expansion across Europe by attracting early audiences in Spain and Portugal.

Fotolog was acquired in November 2007 by Hi-Media Group, one of Europe’s largest diversified, publicly traded pure play Internet companies. Hi-Media was impressed by Fotolog’s rapidly growing global membership, with a massive Latin American audience complemented by explosive growth in Europe. By bringing together Hi-Media’s global advertising and micro-payment services with Fotolog’s highly engaged audience, Hi-MediaGroup has created significant monetization opportunities and has become one of the top 100 largest Internet properties in the world (Comscore, December 2007). “*

*From: http://www.hispanicprwire.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

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