Survival of the Most Flexible? National social media services in global competition: The Finnish Case

: Suominen Jaakko, Saarikoski Petri, Turtiainen Riikka, Östman Sari

: Goggin, Gerard & McLelland, Mark

: 2017

: The Routledge Companion to Global Internet Histories

: 343

: 356

: 14

: 978-1-13-881216-1

: 978-1-31-574896-2

In this chapter we argue that in the early 2000s, there was far more
room for national services or services that expanded operations country
by country. By “national services”, in this context, we mean commercial
Internet services created by Finns and that are totally, or primarily,
owned by Finns. Ever since the rise of large global social media
services, such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, the living space of
national services has narrowed; they have either vanished or attempted
to adapt in various ways to the changing Internet climate. In between,
there have been various phases when user cultures have been negotiated
in order to become new (for example, “wars” between Jaiku/Qaiku users
vs. Twitter users). Likewise, it appears that the infrastructure of
Finnish-originated, Internet-related inventions and innovations, which
are not strongly considered national, survive longer than individual
local, national, or transnational services.