Are you a Netrepreneur, Transumer, or Essentialist? Researchers have identified personality types of social network users, ranging from the business minded to uber creative.
The study by UK firm The Future Laboratory on behalf of MySpace found six key types of social user. The Netrepreneurs – people who use social networking sites for the sole purpose of generating income; Connectors – those that revel in passing on links; Transumers – the grazers of content and networks rather than creators. They follow the lead of others and join groups connected to things they like doing; Collaborators – those that believe in people power and use social networking to create events, ideas and activities with others; Scene breakers – early adopters who use social networking sites to discover and be part of new and emerging scenes, and finally the Essentialists – the vast majority of users who use social networking to stay in touch with friends and family.
The UK research also found that nearly half of 18 to 24 year-old social networkers said that if they had 15 minutes of spare time, they would spend it on social networking sites rather than watch TV, reading or talking on their mobile, with a quarter of respondents saying social networks had reduced the amount of time they spent watching TV.
In addition, nearly a quarter of the 2500 questioned said brands had to worker harder for their respect, with more than one in ten saying social sites had made them expect more from brands and content online.
Meanwhile Hitwise figures from Australia show that in January the average session time for a user of MySpace was 27 minutes, while rival Facebook came in at 21 minutes.
