File this one under humor, for now.
It seems Australia’s role as leading indicator has expanded from real estate to social networking. I couldn’t help but make the mental connection while reading in short succession Greenspan’s housing comments in his book, The Age of Turbulence, and Duncan Riley’s Techcrunch commentary on Australian social networking market share shifts. Greenspan writes:
…the experience of other economies was suggestive because their booms began - and ended - a year or two ahead of ours. In Australia and Britain, demand began to cool in 2004 for the same reasons it later cooled in the United States: first-time buyers got priced out of the market, and speculative investors drew back.
And Duncan Riley reports on shifting social network usage in Australia:
New figures released by HitWise show that in Australia at least, MySpace is now losing market share as the Facebook juggernaut continues. Traffic to MySpace in Australia has dropped 5% as Facebook has tripled its traffic in the 10 weeks to October 13, according to
the Sydney Morning Herald…The switch stats are so far only applicable to Australia, but it wouldn’t be surprising if this is the start of a trend, particularly in English speaking countries.
There’s no systemic reason I’m aware of that would lend Australia an oracular position in either of these categories. Perhaps the population is comparatively risk tolerant, thereby inducing turbulence. As point of fact, I’ve read that the country is exposed to greater housing price volatility than the US as a result of predominantly variable rate lending policies (compared to US mortgages which are predominantly fixed rate). Rapid technology service shifts would also fit the bill.
If you’re a risk taker, too, (and new to punctuative) sign up for my updates.
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Graphic credit: ’stralia, originally uploaded by chromatist
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