Networking, entertainment biggest gainers online: Juxt report

We all know it, but it’s social networking – and not email – that’s gaining currency among a young Internet population. According to JuxtConsult’s India Online 2007 survey communication, networking and entertainment activities stand out as the more popular online activities.

In the list of the 10 most popular online activities among regular Internet users, five fall in the domain of communication and networking activities (emailing, instant messaging, chatting, e-greetings and dating/friendship). And four of the remaining 5 fall in the domain of entertainment (news, sports, music, and games).

A closer look at the survey indicates that people are now moving to the next level of surfing and online activities like dating/friendship, IM, online gaming, job search and extracting information on sports show a higher rise (more than 20%) as compared to traditional use of web for e-mail and news.

According to JuxtConsult, when social or professional networking is combined together, 56 per cent of all Internet users undertake either or both of networking activities. However, social networking forms the larger part of this pie with 29 per cent of net users undertaking only social networking exclusively. That said, the survey indicates that blogging is still ‘hype’ as it is more or less a ‘tertiary’ internet phenomenon, with only about 31 per cent of all internet users involved in blogging. While 27 per cent of those surveyed online read or check blogs, 15 per cent of them comment on them, and only 7 per cent of them have a blog of their own.

Either way, that’s a lot of potential for growth.