Online, who's the Daddy?

Girls are the primary content creators online, they're more involved in the blogosphere and social networks, while boys exchange funny videos, recent research suggests. Online behaviour may reflect offline tendencies, with males seeking to impress quickly and females more likely to gradually build relationships, creating a deeper impression of their 'true' selves over a longer period.

Girls are designing free widgets, such as horoscopes to embed in your blog, layouts, icons, graffiti image generators and 'glitters' (shimmering animations) to help others customise their social network profiles and blogs. Ashley Qualls, creator of Whateverlife.com, which became the authority on customising MySpace, was a teen millionaire in the space of a few years.

Girls are podcasting their own music and entertainment shows from their homes. Emogirltalk.com by 17-year-old Martina Butler is attracting serious audiences - and corporate sponsors.

Research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, released in December 2007, indicates that US teenage girls are significantly more likely to be content creators than boys. 35% of online girls aged 12 to 17 (vs. 22% of boys) create Web content. Girls are more active in the blogosphere, 35% maintaining a blog, vs. 20% of boys.

Females display different online networking behaviour. Among 15 to 17 year olds, both sexes engage in social networking, but girls are more active, 70% creating their own profiles, vs. 57% of boys. However, Facebook executives have said that males have more Facebook Friends - 150 on average - while girls tend to be more selective.

Not just teenage girls, but women, are actively fostering online communities. Women's community sites, such as Glam Media and iVillage.com, along with politics sites, were the fastest growing websites in the US in pre-election year 2007, each experiencing 35% growth, in terms of total unique visitors (ComScore). Women's community sites in total had 69,854,000 unique visitors, as of December 2007 out of the total US online audience of 183,619,000, up 5% vs. 2006.

While females are investing more time in creation and in developing relationships online, when it comes to posting and viewing videos on YouTube, males are the dominant players, according to the Pew study.

Recent research by MSN and MTV's Circuits of Cool also indicated that YouTube is used more by males. Globally, the use of online video is widespread, with 87% of males and 74% of females using video sites. But 40% of males aged 18 to 21 visit these sites regularly, compared to 24% of females of the same age.


What's really going on?

The reasons behind the differences in male and female usage of online content may lie in their motivations to impress others, versus engage others emotionally in an ongoing dialogue, with boys inclining towards the former and girls to the latter.

It's by no means a clear-cut distinction. Girls also want to impress their peers, but seem to be going about it in a different way, through creating something unique that expresses their personality. Boys also want to chat, but seem to value more instant exchanges and fast gags. Forget painstakingly building their credentials, boys may be more prone to 'bragging' with new sites like Bragster dedicated to just that - challenges and trash talk. It evokes fond memories of Jackass.


The MSN/MTV research points to the importance of humour and peers in sharing video content. Passing on funny content and, in particular, humourous content that they think will appeal to their friends, was identified as a primary motivation.

Data from eMarketer shows the popularity of humourous content, indicating that the second most viewed online video content after news is comedy - jokes/bloopers/funny clips - watched by 57% of Internet viewers at least monthly in 2007. Most of what's viewed is short - an average of 2.8 minutes, with US viewers consuming 72 online videos a month, according to ComScore - making brief, funny clips ideal.

Professor Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, believes that males may be more likely to post videos as a way to impress others. Skateboarders or snowboarders can demonstrate their athleticism, through posting videos of their masterful skills, for example.

Girls, on the other hand, he suggests, are more interested in creating content on websites to show their individuality. And they're fiercely protective of the identities they create for themselves. Palfrey points to girls' strident criticism of online imitators. Speaking to the NY Times, he likens an online copycat, who outright steals another girl's Web page layouts and graphics to someone who turns up at a party knowingly wearing the same dress as another girl.

Girls' desire to cultivate a dialogue is evidenced by the popularity of problem-solution sites by girls for girls, such as Agirlsworld.com. Girls are drawn to emotional sites and 'confessionals', like Postsecret, which ranks among the top 10 favourite websites of female US college students (eMarketer). The new teen version of Postsecret, Alykatzz's I've got a secret, attracted over 425 postings of secrets in less than 48 hours, according to their press release.

So, online, who's the Daddy? It depends on your perspective. My favourite fictitious guru House says, "Work smart not hard," which would tend to favour the impress quickly approach. But he's also creatively brilliant and easily bored, so whatever you post, make it not boring.