French lead the way on 'web 2.0' participation

I’ve written a review for the BT Broadband blog of the recent DoubleClick Touchpoint survey (PDF) into the online habits of UK, French, German and American residents, concentrating mainly on the commercial data. It’s hardly a surprise that the web is our main source of information before making major purchases, but it’s good to have some hard numbers to back up the gut instinct.

There are a couple of extra points worth mentioning, in the context of stuff I bang on about here, which haven’t made the BT piece… the French are really slow to pick up on text messaging, far behind the Brits and Germans, and on a par with the Americans. But they’re much more open to watching online video, reading blogs and consuming RSS feeds. Still, nearly 30% of Brits read blogs often or sometimes, with more than 10% writing one too, and nearly a quarter participating in ‘social networking’. 18% of us are hip to the RSS thing, and 16% listen to podcasts.