Communication rather than information – this is the common denominator that best describes the Internet use of young Web users in Germany. Some 78% of 14- to 19-year-olds use online communities at least once a week and 76% of this age group visit forums, newsgroups or chatrooms every week. Social interaction with other Web users is the most important reason for young people to access the Internet. The proportion of online gamers is also steadily growing in this age group. Whereas only 17% of all Internet users play against and with one another in virtual worlds, among 14- to 19-year-olds the figure is 30%. The Internet is increasingly becoming a participatory medium. In late September 2009 an Internet Manifesto caused a stir. Journalists and bloggers, including Sascha Lobo und Stefan Niggemeier, formulated 17 “declarations” on how “journalism works today”. According to this Manifesto, the Internet – with all its services such as social networking or YouTube – has long since become part of everyday life for people in the western world. If media companies want to continue to exist, they will have to understand the lifeworld of today’s users and embrace their forms of communication.
This proposal has already become a reality, since at least the prominent bloggers on the German Web are often newspaper or magazine journalists. Yet the German blog scene is regarded as relatively apolitical. US blogger Felix Salmon once claimed that traditional German virtues like thoroughness and meticulousness were rather a hindrance in the fast-moving world of the Web. On the other hand, such qualities are far from misplaced when it comes to journalism. Nevertheless, everyone agrees with the assessment of the role that social networks – probably the most important Web 2.0 media – will play for the advertising industry in the future. Marketing managers put them at the top of the list when they were polled about raising spending on advertising.
The market leader in Germany is the VZ Group with a total of 15 million users. It operates three platforms for different target groups: StudiVZ for university students, SchülerVZ for school students and MeinVZ for a more general audience. SchülerVZ alone managed 6.4 billion page impressions in October 2009, making it Germany’s most clicked-on website. However, when it comes to the number of user profiles, the market leader in Germany is Facebook, with almost seven million members and a monthly growth rate of around 10%. People who are more interested in career networking tend to use Xing, which has 3.4 million members in German-speaking countries. Interestingly, the VZ networks belong to the Holtzbrinck publishing group, while their biggest competitor, wer-kennt-wen (who-knows-who), belongs to broadcasting company RTL. So the social media have long-since become part of German media companies’ portfolio.
The latest stroke of genius in the Web 2.0 landscape, the micro-blogging tool Twitter, is currently still regarded with a certain amount of scepticism. Some of the comical excesses have included many fake accounts with satirical entries in the name of prominent politicians. Some journalists are using Twitter successfully as a research tool, although it is often emphasized that there can be no real journalism on Twitter. The Internet-versus-journalism debate goes into the next round.
