SOCIAL MEDIA IN SWEDEN

By Hugo Phan

Top Sweden Sites

1. Google.se 2. Facebook 3. Google.com 4.Youtube 5. Aftonbladet - News 6. Wikipedia 7. Windows Live 8. Blocket -Craigslist clone 9. Blogspot.se 10. Yahoo

Social Media Stats

Social media usage has gone up 15 percent since 2009 in the country among the 15-24 demographic.

The next demographic of 25-44 has grown 50% on the matter of only 3 years.

The state of Social Media at the beginning of the millennium.

Here in the USA, it was dominated by Xanga and MySpace

Specialty sites like PureVolume and Asian Avenue existed

Sweden was going through something similar as well

Europe was going through internet boom with the creation of various social media sites like Skype

Lunarstorm was created in 2000 by Richard Eriksson

He created Lunarstorm because He had grown up in a small and isolated community and that  “knew the same ten people for years and wanted to meet others of his age with similar interests”.

Lunarstorm Stats

In 2006, Lunarstorm was projected to reach $77.4 million dollars in revenue

60% of that coming from ads and 40% coming from paid services like a Pro version of the site.

It had 1.6 million members then and was also available in the UK where it had 60,000 members. By then, 10% of the population was on the site and that included 90% of high school students.

Lunarstorm Mobile

It was also one of the first few social media sites to try and utilize mobile in trying to connect people together. To do this they had partnered with Asprio, an internet service provider, to help and create this.

Site Features

Like many features on other social media sites you could create pages, share information about yourself, post pictures, and talk to one another. Eriksson called this ”ego-boosting products” and it contributed to the success of the site.

There was also a premium version of the site called Lunarstorm Pro which cost 25 kroner a month which is about $4.36 here in the states. It allowed users to add backgrounds and personal photographs to the site (something that we got for free with myspace here in the states.).

Signing up

When joining Lunarstorm, you get a page called “My Nook”. It serves as your own personal website in Lunarstorm. Much like social media websites here, you are given control of your digital identity which you create through a series of pictures, posts, and links

Your prompted to answer a survey when joining to gauge what your interests are as well as your hobbies.

Statuses

One thing that Lunarstorm had that other sites did not was something called “status”. It differs from our own definition of a status today (defined by facebook) because it was about gaining points. It is kind of like score of reputation. When you finish creating your page you get one point. If you post a picture of your actual self you get one point. Points get collected even further when interact with other users and logging in. It essentially a monitor of your own usage of the site, but EVERYONE can see how often you are on it. Imagine if all your friends knew how much time you spend on facebook?

Guestbook

The place to leave messages and comments was called “The Guest Book” and your blog was called a “Diary”. You also have the ability to create lists of your favorite things and share them with your friends. Much like my own High School, Lunarstorm was blocked in swedish schools in fear that it would interfere with the learning of the students.

User Experience

One user described Lunarstorm as a way to communicate with her own friends, not to meet new ones. For her, it was a better and cheaper form of communication then the telephone.

During the tsunami that hit Asia in 2005, People went to Lunarstorm to grieve and mourn for those who the have lost. The site even hired priests to help console the bereaved in online chat rooms.

The fall of Lunarstorm

Like most social networking sites, Lunarstorm was not without trouble. Complaints of privacy issues and safety was present throughout it’s whole lifespan and like may others, would not survive the rise of Facebook and Twitter.

An attempt at offering their premium service for free did not help retain members that were fleeing in droves by 2007. A new format change came too late to stop the bleeding.

It closed down in 2 other countries that it was available in at that point. The site had fallen from the millions of users to around 1,500 users by 2009

The Attempted Revival

An attempt to revive it is available on the site http://www.hamsterpaj.net/#ls8, but it looks nothing like what the site used to.

Sweden and Twitter

Sweden has been in the news in the past year for an initiative to boost tourism by giving their twitter account to a new citizen every week.

This has not gone without controversy…

In the end…

Which one would I use if I lived in Sweden?

Facebook. Duh.

Thanks!!