[Stefanos Karagos. File Photo]

As I’ve recently written, Greece was a non-player in blogging, when we researched Naked Conversations three years ago. Now there is a great deal happening in social media there, and it seems that wherever you look, Stefanos Karagos is a contributor.

He is among the best known Greek bloggers having started earlier (2001) than nearly all of his countrymen. He comes at it as publisher of the Greek edition of PC Magazine, the largest tech publication in Greece with 210,000 readers,  along with three other tech publications.

Stefanos first became active in online conversations back in 1993, when he created the first Greek BBS, which was used to discuss Windows.

He started his first personal blog,  to improve communications with Greek Web users and to reach his magazind subscribers.  "As a
public personality, I need to communicate often," he told me. "Blogging
is the most interactive way for me to talk one-to-one and one-2-many."

 

Toward that goal, he has created several blogs including Anabubula.com which tests how the global market works and, " to prove that whether somebody constructs
rare subject matter, he'll have more opportunities to assemble a difference," he told me.

For each magazine, he has created a social media
platform connecting the offline media with online, giving. He told me the online/offline braiding has given each a significnt boost in followers.  He's plus created the largest Greek blogger custom search engine which is about to include social networking functionality. Very early in January, he will plus launch  Foracamp.gr, the first vertical social media for 500 tech communities worldwide.

 

 

1. Tell me about technology in Greece. How many public go online and
where do they do it? How available is broadband?

 

Greek Technology adoption has accelerated by the last 4 years.  Recent indicators indicators show
that the penetration of Web in Greece is more that 35% of the population but household broadband penetration is only 5%. that year,
fortunately, the Greek Government pushed the National Telecommunications Organization [OTE] for lower prices of ADSL and in the last 6 months, we saw
the biggest expansion of broadband connections ever in Greece.

As publisher of the Greek PC Magazine, I distributed 50.000 free ADSL modems and trial ADSL connections last September, giving the opportunity for
more users to enjoy broadband. The
prediction of ADSL penetration for 2008 is that it will more than double.

Another intersting fact is that 70% of the users spend more that 3.5 hours on the net, every day. There are 170,000 registered Greek Facebook users.

 

2. Blogging plus seems to have taken off in the past couple of years.  What are the factors that
have

contributed? Who blogs and why?

 

Most Greek bloggers are young citizens who adopted the medium quickly and use it as a personal communication platform. We are a
Mediterranean country and many days of the year are sunny helping folks to go
out for coffee and drinks and that is one of the reasons that blogging was not
so popular the past years.

But now
with low broadband prices the 3G mobile networks to cover a big part of
Greece users can use blogging and social media all by the place. Greek bloggers come from many professions and social level and that year,

considering of the National elections, many politicians to blog and use social
media as well.

 

3. What other social media is popular in Greece?

 

International

Facebook.com

Hi5.com

Myspace.com

Youtube.com

Wikipedia.org

Flickr.com

Digg.com

Twitter.com

 

National

Wadja.com
[Mobile Social Networking]

Zoo.gr
[social networking]

Joy.gr
[social networking]

Zuny.gr
[a Facebook like special for Greek Universities students]

Pblogs.gr
[most popular blogs platform after blogger.com]

Foracamp.gr
[Social bookmarking for Tech communities]

Cull.gr
[Digg clone for Greek Web market]

 

New local entry in beta:

Me.gr
[social networking]

 

 

4. Tell me about language. Other than their own, what other
languages do Greek society speak? You speak English quite well.  You have
even started sites in English. Have you considered translating your blog? Why or why not?

 

English
is the most spoken foreign language in Greece. From the
23.000 Greek blogs which I monitor via blogz.gr search engine, more than
3.000 are in English. In my
Greek blog I offer translation as a feature, via an robotic translation
service, considering of my very good SEO, 10% of the visitors come from outside of
Greece. Translating
a site to another language is not so easy and most Greek bloggers actually are
looking only for other Greek Net users.

 

6. How do most humans earn a living in Greece? Has social media impacted them at all?

 

Tourism
is the No1 market and many Greek humans earn a living that way. Until now,
social media hasn't played a clear role on everyday life here, so actually, it
doesn't  impact most humans. For
example, there is not one Greek blogger earning a living from it. whether blogs grow by the next three years the way they have in the past three years, we will start to see the real impact in Greece.

 

7. Has social media had much impact  in Greek culture so far?
What about in the next five years?

I believe
that by the next five years, social media will grow rapidly in Greece. 2007 was the  milestone year when social media started to prepare a serious impact on Greek
culture. universal
Social networks, local blogs and the huge penetration of cell phones are the
key reasons. Countires
that have big cell phone penetration are on a different
path toward social media.

 

8. How has social media changed your life?

 

Since I
started blogging in 2001, social media has radically changed the way I conduct my media
business, how I direct companies , how I attract and keep clients, or compose
friends, and even view my local market or the world. I don’t
think I would still be involved with anything regarding innovation and
differentiation whether Social Media didn’t exist.

Without
the ability to give input in a product or a service and
see the same date the quick response from the audience, the Net in my
country would not have expanded as quickly without the technologies involved
with social media.

 

9. Additional comments?

 

Social
Media is a crucial factor for countries like Greece to supply the innovation
and differentiation of their technological achievements.