Dutch social networking site claims half the population has registered accounts.

The Dutch social networking site Hyves (hyves.nl) is getting remarkable attention in the international press. Business Week published about it,  and recently there was a post on Jeremiah Owyang’s Web Strategy blog on this Dutch phenomenon.  

Named after the idea of a buzzing beehive, Hyves boasts nearly 8 million accounts, meaning half of the Netherlands’ population of 16 million are using the tool.  Facebook is only a minor player on the Dutch social networking market, and MySpace was such a weak competitor that it closed its Amsterdam office a few months ago. Only LinkedIn seems to be a serious competitor and has grown in the Netherlands to more than a million users in the past year.

The Dutch seem to have a particular fondness for social networking on the web and have adopted the technologies at more than twice the rate of other Europeans.  Jeremiah Owyang’s blog post made some interesting points about this phenomenon that were fairly accurate:

1. The Netherlands has a strong web based infrastructure and easy availability of high speed networks and access to wireless.  This is true.  We rank highest in the world on these stats.
2. The Dutch have a mobile based culture where most citizens have smart phone devices with web surfing ability.  Not true.  This is not a factor in these statistics. Maybe in Asia or Silicon Valley, but not here yet. Over 90% of the people use their phones only for calling and texting.
3. The culture and government of the Netherlands encourages independent thought and freedom of expression. True.
4. There is a general social acceptance of sharing, learning, and collaboration. True.  To put it bluntly, the Dutch can be kind of nosey as a culture, and we like to show off our social talents (hence lots of Friends, Pals, Connections, etc).

Another big factor is our state of welfare in the Netherlands, which not only gives us high speed connections and many computers available at home, work, school, university or library, but also the free time to invest in these kinds of social activities.

Three out of four of Jeremiah’s observations about social networking in the Netherlands are true.  Not bad for a Silicon Valley resident.  Although this still does not fully explain the startling success of Hyves, which lacks the design qualities and features of similar sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Compared to the competition, Hyves looks like it was designed by a 12 year-old as a school project. (And not a “Harvard here I come” 12 year-old, but an average pre-teen who sees the project as an obstacle to more free time.) So why the huge success?

4 main reasons:

1. Many users have multiple accounts.  On Facebook and LinkedIn, most people have one account. Hyves is loaded with multiple accounts. People generate a new account every time they forget their password, and they open additional accounts for their child, pet, favorite bar, TV-series, sports team, car brand, or any other professional, social, or hobby related topic. And people have weird hobbies, believe me!
2. Being keen on free possibilities for partnerships, celeb endorsements and commercial activities. When Hyves started to get a lot of hype, popular DJ’s, singers, actors, and commercial brands were supported in getting their Hyves accounts to link with their fans. In certain age groups, this created some social pressure to get an account, or alternatively be without “real” friends.
3. The local competition was too technical. When Hyves started in 2004, Holland was ready for a good social networking site, but all the competitors seemed too technical for the masses.  This resulted in average users not being easily engaged.      
4. The global competition was too slow and not able to fight for market share. Once Hyves became locally accepted, competitors like MySpace and Facebook had to provide incentives for people to move and become a member.

The battle for Facebook in the Netherlands isn’t over yet, but it will take some strategic maneuvering to make it a viable competitor in the Dutch market.  LinkedIn has added value to Dutch professionals that make it stand apart from the others.  For now, the buzz about Hyves is extremely prevalent in the Netherlands, and the Dutch will likely continue swarming around it for the foreseeable future.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.