Developers Flock to Social Networks, Survey Says

According to a recent Evans Data survey, developers are flocking to social networks.

The Evans Data survey of more than 400 developers showed that 75 percent of the developers belong to at least one social network and two-thirds belong to multiple networks. Evans Data released its Developer Relations Program Annual Survey on April 3.

The Evans survey results indicate that developers are much more likely to belong to social networks than the general population, when compared with a recent Pew Research Center study that showed that 35 percent of adult Internet users have a profile on a social network.

“This latest research shows that developers are like most active Internet users in terms of having a very healthy interest in social networks,” said John Andrews, president and CEO of Evans Data. “Consistent with this the primary motivation for joining a social network is the desire to locate old friends and the need for general communications.”

The top three things developers look for in a social network are profiles, an active community and high-quality content, the survey results showed. Tagging and access from mobile phones were the least important attributes of a social networking site.

Other highlights from the Evans Data survey include that more than 90 percent of responding developers look at blogs at least sometimes, and 70 percent feel that blogs are credible sources of information.

In addition, the survey showed that Microsoft has the best developers’ Website according to 27.4 percent of responding developers, followed by Sun Microsystems with 12 percent. IBM and Google tied for third place with less than 10 percent of developers mentioning either as having the best developer Website.

Developers said they prefer community-moderated forums to vendor-moderated ones, and 88 percent said they think that community-moderated forums are important in a community Website.