Last week brought a report from Forrester suggesting that Foursquare, a leader in location-based social networks, is disproportionately male, with a male-female ratio of nearly four-to-one. As one might expect, this excited some comment in online forums. In addition to potentially discouraging single men from joining, much of the buzz around these findings seemed to imply, in a vague buzz-y way, that the lack of ladies -- or glut of guys, I guess -- somehow bodes ill for Foursquare's future as a marketing platform.
In this Social Graf column on MediaPost.com, journalist Erik Sass commentary on Forrester's recent report about location-based social networks such as Foursquare focused on two points:
- Why should a site's gender proportions matter to marketers?
- The proportions will probably adjust to be more reflective of the general population over the next couple years (also the position held by Foursquare's head of business development, Tristan Walker, as noted in a recent article in Fast Company.)
Besides the fact that once again I find it interesting what different journalists and pubilcations decide to focus on regarding this report (The Next Web, for example, simply states the disparity without making a big issue about it: "Foursquare’s male-female ratio approaching 60/40"), I also think that Sass misses some key points about women and tech adoption.
Ever since 1995 when the reports came out that women made up only 10% of the online population and everyone was ran the gamut from pulling that statistic apart to claim some kind of gloom and doom or dismissed it entirely as unimportant, many of us "women in tech" have observed the same thing:
Women are often (not always) less quick to adopt shiny new technologies because:
a. They are more interested in practical utilities than the "ooh, aah" effect - they need some concrete reasons to adopt a shiny new thing;
b. They are more thoughtful about their adoption of shiny new things for whatever reason (overwhelmed by new technology, too much on their plate already, etc. etc.)
Watching the adoption rate of Internet usage, for example, go from less than 10% of women using it in 1995 to near parity less than 5 years later demonstrated that women catch up when something matters to them - when they have a reason to do something. Over the course of those years, more people - including women - and then more companies began producing content online that was more relevant to women. That was the whole point of my first company Cybergrrl, Inc. and my first Internet book Cybergrrl: A Woman's Guide to the World Wide Web. Over time, we also saw the launch of more organizations geared toward helping women embrace the Internet and technology starting with ones like the one I founded in early 1995, Webgrrls International.
Women finally had reasons to get online and they saw their peers doing the same so the Internet now became a genuinely useful tool in women's lives.
Fast forward to Foursquare and apply these same observations:
1. Women are more interested in the "utility" of location-based social networks and not everyone gets that - and that means not all men or women or even companies get Foursquare, GoWalla, Whrrl, and the like yet. (I'd actually be curious about the gender breakdown of Whrrl because it feels so much more "female" heavy, at least to me, but didn't it start out without the geo-location mapping thing? I wonder...)
2. Women are being more thoughtful about the implications of location-based social networks like Foursaure, too.
Thinking about #2, the one point that Sass didn't make about women not adopting Foursquare at a more rapid rate is this:
Location-based social networks can pose a DANGER to women. Let's face it: they could be a stalker's new tool of choice.
As a woman who does tend to adopt some technologies more quickly, I have gone through my own truncated version of the above:
1. I've considered the usefulness of Foursquare and the like and have concluded that they are incredibly useful for me because they provide me with convenience, community, and improved communications, three things that are definite benefits that resonate with many women. My main example of how I use Foursquare supports this:
I use Foursquare to check in to Anchorage to let my Anchorage friends and colleagues with whom I'm connected on Foursquare know I'm in town - so much easier than having to call or email them all. In one check in, I'm able to trigger contact, be more likely to run into colleagues, and feel more connected to the people I want to see.
2. I've considered the potential dangers of Foursquare in terms of my safety so to deal with this, I've decided to:
- Be careful whom I accept as my Foursquare friends;
- Be very careful if and when I choose to broadcast my Check-ins beyond Foursquare to Twitter or to Facebook;
- Choose to check into a place sometimes as I'm LEAVING instead of as I arrive, especially at night.
I feel very strongly that location-based social networks are an incredibly powerful mashup of tools that will prove to be fantastic marketing tools once everyone - consumers, companies and organizations - figure out exactly how to use them well. And I believe that women's adoption of Foursquare and the like will even out over time.
And you can quote me on that.
How do YOU feel about location-based social networks like Foursquare, GoWalla, Whrrl and the like? Why do you use them...or not?
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