MSN beats Google in Norwegian youth survey.

If you want to know what will be the next big thing in popular culture, ask the young.

And if you want to know what is “hot” in the world of information technology, the Internet and high tech communication, you should ask Scandinavian youth, as there are probably no-one in the world that feels so at home in Cyberspace as these youngsters do.

To give one examples: GSM text messaging may have invented by Norwegian engineers, but it was the Norwegian teenagers that started texting on a large scale.

The most popular brands

So what are the most influential brands among Norwegian teenagers right now? A survey made by MMI Synovate brings up the following list:

1. TV2 (Norwegian TV company)
2. MSN (mainly due to the MSN Messenger)
3. MSN Hotmail
4. Google
5. TV Norge (Norwegian TV company)
6. Freia (Norwegian chocolate)
7. Nike

For those of you who wonder: Coca Cola is number 14 on the list, one step ahead of IKEA. The sample is 810 Norwegians between 15 and 29 years old.

MSN is so much cooler than Google

What’s really interesting from a search engine industry point of view is that MSN is more popular than Google –not in the area of search, admittedly, but in the field of messaging and mail. Still, the fact that Norwegian youth prefers MSN in these arenas, means that the MSN brand as a whole is much stronger than Google’s.

My 18 year old goddaughter was very surprised when I told her that I have not installed the MSN Messanger on our Mac. Using mail is definitely a bit old-fashioned in her mind. So, MSN is much “cooler” than Google, and who would have believed that, given Microsoft’s reputation of being a conservative and non-innovative company?

It should be noted that GMail is not freely available in Norway (by invitation only). The Google Messenger is not popular anywhere, as far as we know, and AOL (with its AIM messenger) has never gained a foothold in Norway. The fact that Yahoo! and its messenger is not on the list is more notable, though.

So why does Microsoft replace the MSN brand with Windows Live?

The fact that MSN has become a fashion statement does not stop it from making silly mistakes, however. If you find the idea of changing a well known brand MSN Search into Windows Live Search a stupid move, the strategy of renaming MSN Messenger Windows Live Messenger is even more bewildering.

We guess it is only a matter of time before MSN Hotmail becomes Windows Live Mail.

Some more interesting facts from the survey

• 91 percent of the respondents have access to a PC with an Internet-connection at home.
• Eight out of ten have a mobile/cellular phone with camera.
• More than half have a cellular that is less than one year old
• 36 percent are reading blogs on a weekly basis
• 12 percent have their own blog
• 23 percent have uploaded videos