The Habits of Philippine Netizens
This is a document entitled Yahoo Nielsen Internet Habits Study for the Philippines. I got it from Scribd.com and contained in the study are the results of a survey made from October to November 2008 with 1,200 people participating from different parts of the country. The Yahoo Nielsen Net Index study is the first in-depth media survey of urban Philippines Internet users.
The study showed that 28% among Filipinos leaving in urban areas are accessing the Internet with 5% of us doing it everyday. Majority of the Filipinos accessing the Internet are aged 10 to 29 years with 50% of them younger than 20. This group of netizens are mostly students and 71% of them are doing their access to the Internet in cafés. Fifty-three (53%) of the time they spent online are used to play games.
Higher percentages of usage by those going online regularly are 63% spent emailing and instant messaging and 58% during researches. Other non-gaming activities in the Internet like visiting a social networking site, reading blogs, downloading and uploading digital photos, working on personal blogs, listening to Internet radio, downloading and uploading music files, reading news and sending/receiving text messages (SMS) online also have significant percentage usage ranging from 51 to 23%.
What do these figures present to i-café owners? While many of us will say that gaming is still the way to go and survive, the survey results indicate a different scenario. I-café owners engrossed on upgrading their personal computer units in order to catch up with the latest games may be missing a lot of opportunities to earn if they would only cater to the other users of the Internet. Such market, aside from being matured and professional, are less demanding on computer resources.
The survey results described this other half of the market for i-cafés as more likely to be opinion leaders, early adopters, individualistic, trend-conscious, tech-enthusiasts and willing to pay for quality products and services. Now that you know there is this kind of market, what do you plan to do?
Other User Habits
1. I do my work in my virtual office at http://tigercom.socialgo.com which is also a business social network for Filipinos. The site is strictly a niche social network for business. It has more tools than I have in my physical office, including web conferencing, among many others. Through the net, I can hold office even if I were surfing in Siargao or swimming in Boracay.
2. I also do Online Tutoring at Online Learning School in http://onlinelearningschool.webs.com which is a site for Filipino teachers to tutor kids in the US, Canada, UK and Australia. Our virtual classrooms have full webcam, chat, whiteboard (real time writing) and shared view (audience sees in real time what I see).
If a teacher does not have the facilities at home, they can probably rent an internet cafe during off-peak hours to participate in online tutoring. They can join us.
3. I design houses and other projects online with the client at the other end fully participating in the process. This is possible in Shared View and it feels like you are sitting side by side.
Our main use of the net (always on unlimited broadband) is for business and we have most, if not all, the web 2.0 tools necessary to be more productive online than in the physical world. Come to think of it, no traffic, no driving, no lost time, more done…