The Various Types of Social Networkers

A new Myspace-commissioned study has been released. The study reports there are six types of social networking users across mainstream social networking sites. Those types are:

1. Netrepreneurs – “people who accessed the sites for the sole purpose of making money”
2. Connectors – people who “revel in passing on information and links whenever they come across something they find interesting”
3. Transumers – “people who follow the lead of others and join groups connected to their hobbies”
4. Collaborators – “believe in people power and use social networking sites to create events”
5. Scene Breakers – “the early adopters who log on to discover and be part of new and emerging scenes”
6. Essentialists – “most common users who use social networking sites to stay in touch with friends and family”

After reading this finding, I’m at a loss for figuring out which category I fall into. The group polled was made up of 18 to 24 year olds so to suggest that this is representative of the broader population would be inaccurate. One of the most interesting findings of the study is that “Almost half,” of those polled, “said that they would rather spend 15 minutes visiting sites such as Facebook than watching television, reading, playing video games or talking on mobile phones.”

That finding should be of great concern to traditional media executives. This is not really new news and it further supports my argument that social networks will become the new television. Social networking still has more growth to come. As reported, 40 percent of Britons use social networking on a regular basis versus 22 percent in Italy and 17 percent in France. This year we will continue to see massive growth in the social networking space.

So what type of social networker are you? Do you think these categories are accurate?