Participation on Facebook, MySpace and Twittter

An explorative research is conducted on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter as they are the most popular international social networking sites of the past years. This study focuses on the different user motivations for content creation between Australian and Dutch participants. These two western countries are not yet compared in this way. Two datasets have been collected. The first dataset concerns the comparison of the three social networking sites. It was collected through a content analysis. The second dataset concerned the users and was collected through an online survey (N = 467). The uses and gratifications approach was the guiding theory in this project. It was employed to find different motivations between users of the three social networking sites and users in the two countries. Previous research defined different user motives for the use of social networking sites. The results of this research suggest that Australian users are more motivated than Dutch users in using social networking sites and creating content on these sites. The main motivation for the Australians is the fulfilment of their social needs. The other two motivations were; the need for identity construction and the need for entertainment and diversion. These motives proved not to be significant. Though they can be seen as motivators in both countries for using these sites.