I just started using the software very recently. I’m involved in business social networking in the form of LinkedIn, Forums, Twitter and Blogging.

Where does IGOpeople fit?

What does it offer that other products don’t? (That can be either socially or in feature offering.)

In their own words;

“IGOpeople is a network for the real world, one place online where you can stay connected with the people, groups and organisations who matter to you.

Once you’re connected, you can use the network to start and join in conversations. You can have conversations with friends, groups, organisations you deal with or the wider IGOpeople network.”

I’m very impressed with the way the product is laid out and how “conversations” work. I signed up a few days ago and I have already been involved in a good few discussions. Right now the Irish tech scene has taken to it the way they have Twitter. IGOpeoples big challenge is to bridge that gap between the earlier adopters and “the real world” as they put it.

I think from the outset its a very ambitious project to take on with so many established players on all sides of what they offer but I have to say what they have done so far is as good an attempt at it as could have been expected. The foundations are great, I just think they now need to move forward and understand where there nichè is and really focus on it.

This project has the potential to really put Ireland on the map in Social Networking.

Check it out for yourself.

http://www.igopeople.com

You can connect with me here:
http://www.igopeople.com/i/1026-Derek-Organ

I saw this post on Duct Tape Marketing and it got me thinking, maybe its time to try Mac.

I’m hearing way to many good things about the Mac to ignore it anymore. I’m at a stage were I’m thinking of buying a new Laptop for home that I can use for doing a bit of work (Web application Development). I’ve never used a Mac properly at all. When I was younger the reason I wouldn’t buy a Mac was because I couldn’t use some of the more popular software that was only available on windows.

I think I’d like a Mac once I got used to it, my question really is will windows Vista be good enough to keep me using it instead? What to do, what to do …

Very interesting statistics were published on the World Internet Usage Statistics and Population. From this table it shows that only 15%! of the world uses the internet which is surprisingly low. When you consider Asia alone has over 50% of world’s population it starts to make more sense given their low adoption rate. This combined with Africa which has an expected low adoption rate of less than 3% really lowers the world average.

Taken from Read/Write Web -Worldwide Internet Penetration is just 15%

From a business perspective I can see a lot of business plans referencing to the strong growth in Asia and companies expanding their services and language versions to accommodate these countries. There appears to be an opportunity to focus on this market with a long term view to grab the huge population yet to embrace the internet the way we have in the west. Surely the likes of China and India will eventually have internet adoption closer to 50% of the population. Japan for example has a very good internet adoption to match the US and some countries in Europe.

I didn’t spot any exact figures for Ireland but maybe someone can point me to another resource so we can compare and contrast with the rest of the world. From a personal point of view I wonder how closely those percentage adoption rates correlate with business internet adoption rates in those countries.