CityBeat - Te Waha Nui Online

by Matt Samra

Aucklanders seem to love Myspace and Facebook. But your choice of social networker says a lot about your social status according to new research.

Danah Boyd, a researcher at the University of California compared Facebook users to Myspace users and found their populations are divided when it comes to class. The result? Apparently Myspace is for freaks, while Facebook is for geeks.

This could mean even more problems for News Corporation. Facebook has what advertisers want: educated, young, wealthy, popular teens and young adults. And Facebook is growing fast- over four million new people join each month.

The country’s number one social networker, Bebo, is not analysed by Boyd. The Pacific Island community features heavily in Bebo, as well as ‘tweens’ and high school students. It would therfore be fair to say that Bebo is also part of the class divide.

Facebook is rapidly growing in New Zealand, but its numbers are far below Bebo. However, membership has been limited to US university students and individuals with an email address from an academic institution. So New Zealand could only access it in late 2006. This, said Boyd, has given the site higher value among aspirational teens.

In another interesting find, Boyd noted that the US military was also guilty of a social divide after banning several internet sites. “A month ago, the military banned MySpace but not Facebook. This was a very interesting move because there’s a division, even in the military. Soldiers are on MySpace; officers are on Facebook,” he says.

For those of us with multiple social networking sites, this makes sense. I personally use Bebo for contacting my friends in South Auckland. Myspace is full of all kinds of people, including uni students. But it is clear that the site is full of alternative, emo and arty people too. Finally Facebook is my most ‘clean’ profile. My boss is on Facebook, as well as my older friends, who are in university or working full time. The class divide has reached social networking.

My advice? Join Facebook. With members increasing rapidly, and a quality over quantity approach, it seems the future place to be for any trendy successful person.