Why Internet in Italy is Far Behind the Rest of Europe
Italy is way behind the rest of Europe in terms of Internet usage and Internet businesses. The main culprits are ageism, lack of meritocracy, and education.
Il Sole 24 ORE’s weekly technology supplement Nova ( link to online version) is often packed full of interesting nuggets of information.
Ageism and Zero Meritocracy
Last week Nova carried an article which, when reading between the lines, explains just why the Internet in Italy is so undervalued and underused. What Nova mentioned in the article by economics professor Pier Luigi Sacco, was that only 0.1% of senior managers in Italy are under 35. When compared to Germany with 14% of under 35s holding top management positions, the situation in Italy does sound a little disturbing.
The fact that many graduates leave university in Italy at around 27 or 28 years of age does not help matters.
All the above means that in the ‘young’ internet industry in Italy, which is run by mere youngsters in the US and elsewhere, the thinking is often geriatric.
I’ve heard of examples, such as senior and old journalists, with zero technology knowledge, being asked to run the on-line equivalents of daily newspapers. These people who are simply not tech savvy, just don’t know what to do, aside from attempting to replicate the published versions of daily newspapers. Hence Italian internet sites which are not all that appetizing to the internet generation. Those who do know what to do just don’t get a look in.
As the Nova article points out, and as I know very well from working with youngsters in one of Italy’s top business schools, the talent is there, however meritocracy isn’t. Only the lucky few, coming from well heeled backgrounds actually manage to set themselves up in business in the Internet field in Italy.
Other youngsters have the talent but, as mentioned before, not the opportunities, and the lack of fresh blood is quite possibly one of the main reasons why on-line ventures in Italy are 10 years behind countries such as the UK and the US.
Education
Something else which worries me a little, is that I often find that I’m much more internet savvy than the vast majority of my 23 to 30 year old students. I’m 43, and I would expect most youngsters to be streets ahead of me in terms of tech knowledge. This indicates to me that the education system in Italy just does not devote enough time to new technology, which is not good, seeing as the world just about revolves around IT. Countries, such as India, are way ahead of Italy in terms of preparing young people for the modern world.
There isn’t even a decent tech program on Italian public TV, unless I’ve missed one of those after midnight shows which nobody stays up to watch. Italy could do with dumping Rete 4, and setting up a TV channel devoted to technology.
Some Hope
Fortunately, there are a few Italian organisations such as Codice Internet which are working towards raising awareness of Internet in Italy and which I recently joined after receiving an invitation from Sean Carlos of SEO firm AnteZeta.
Let’s hope that Codice Internet manages to generate waves that are strong enough to push Italy into flooding the market with all the talent which exists here. Otherwise, Italy is going to find itself in the middle of a virtual ocean, stuck on a virtual island.
Still, at least the lucky few here manage to find work with Google, E-bay, Yahoo and Microsoft. But these are non-Italian companies who are creaming off all of Italy’s tech talent, and they can afford to be as choosey as they like, seeing as very few Italian companies think that anyone can make a valid contribution to a business unless he is over 60.
It’s no wonder that I regularly hear young Italians stating that the only way they can get anywhere is to get out of Italy.
The SEO Pro - Sean Carlos and Antezeta
SEO and Web Analytics for professional website management
For those of you who do not know what SEO stands for, it’s Search Engine Optimisation. What this means is that through the use of various techniques which are backed up by healthy doses of technology, people using the internet via search engines (Google, Yahoo, Ask, MSN etc) will find your website more easily. If you run a business, this means that leads, and thus sales, will increase.
In order to achieve the increase in internet search generated leads and sales, an SEO expert, such as Milan based Sean Carlos, Antezeta’s president, can help you.
Sean, who has worked in various big name organisations, including Pirelli and Hewlett Packard, knows plenty about SEO. This is something to which I can attest seeing as, as one expat to another, he has been helping me out with the SEO aspects of this blog. Sean is also up to date with the latest technology and, through his knowledge of Italian, German and English, can help sites raise their profiles in a variety of European markets.
In addition to its SEO related work, Antezeta can help unravel the complexities of Web Analytics. For the uninitiated, Web Analytics is the interpretation of the heaps of data that the average website collects on site usage – pages, visitors and the like. Through the analysis of such data, an SEO expert, such as Sean, can understand what works and what does not with regard to a website. Indeed, Sean has worked with the Web Analytics Association and the University of British Columbia to produce what is probably the first known Web Analytics course. This indicates that Antezeta really can help you to interpret and benefit from all those statistics your site creates.
Personality, or your website’s theme
However, SEO is not as simple as just sorting out the statistics, oh no. Many sites have a particular personality, and attract visitors with particular characteristics, and Sean can help webmasters understand how to keep a site’s character closely matched to its visitors, both existing and future. Antezeta also offers site usability advice to help you keep those visitors once they’ve reached you.
As Sean well knows, SEO can be an ongoing process, and results often do not happen over night, unless paid advertising like Google’s AdWords is employed to draw visitors into a site. Sean does advocate a merit-based SEO traffic model for the best medium to long-term results. Perhaps a better term may be ‘authority related traffic‘, for the secret to this technique revolves around a combination of good content and efficient SEO optimisation. The relationship between these two elements raises a site’s authority in the ‘eyes’ of many search engines, with the net result being increased well targeted traffic. Read higher sales, ad income, etcetera.
SEO in Italy vs. the UK
Now, although many in the UK have yet to cotton on to the benefits of good SEO, Italy is even further behind. According to Sean, in Italy’s case, this is partially down to the reduced level of internet usage here, and partially due to a basic lack of understanding of just how essential search engines are to the performance of a website or web based business. In Sean’s estimation it’s going to be around five to ten years before Italy catches up with the rest of the world in terms of internet usage. However, I beg to differ. Why? Because things like Wi-Fi, WiMAX and better more portable internet surfing devices will mean that more Italians get on-line. And once mobile phones provide good fast internet access at a low cost, I believe that Italians will be all over the world wide web.
Ready to profit from Milan’s 2015 World Expo?
Even if you agree with Sean, or tend towards my view, adopting an SEO strategy now is going to give your on-line businesses a head start over slow off the mark rivals. And, for Italian webmasters who wish to attract visitors from outside of Italy, SEO will, literally, pay dividends. It may also be worth remembering that in 2015, the World Expo is coming to Milan, and this event will raise the profile of the city both in real terms and virtually. Thus, a site that has worked at SEO will be in a much stronger position with regard to attracting business generated on the back of the Expo event. The same obviously goes for non-Italian web based businesses who wish to create Expo generated leads.
Next steps for SEO success
If you would like to face the future confidently, and you run a business with a sizeable web presence, then contacting Sean would be a very wise thing to do. For the moment, Antezeta is concentrating on the more far sighted medium to big business market, but that is not to say that Sean’s company will never be offering its services to smaller companies.
As a matter of interest, Sean has already carried out a brief SEO audit of Blog from Italy, and, I’m pleased to report that my mainly inadvertent SEO tactics just about passed his initial examination. He also kindly told me what I need to improve to achieve the results I’d like to see. Thanks Sean!
For more information about Antezeta SEO services and Sean, visit the Antezeta site, with free SEO resources, also in Italian and German. And don’t forget to check out Sean’s SEO related blog.
The Web 2.0 profession
Just what do you think the Web 2.0 profession is? Webmaster? Software engineer? Coder? Programmer?
Well, in my not so humble opinion, it’s none of the above, but I think that this profession is going to see a massive amount of growth in many diverse sectors over the next few decades, not just with regard to the world wide web, and it is a profession that some may find surprising.
I was going to waffle on about this for ages, but I won’t, unless someone is mad enough to encourage me, that is.
So, what is this profession? I’m sure sure are itching, well curious, to know.
Crystal Ball Gazing - Techno Travel
Recently I’ve been contacted by two emerging new travel sites - Volette.com and So Much World. Both are very interesting, but quite different in their takes on travel.
Volette is perhaps more aimed at the business traveller, but not only, whereas So Much World is more like an on-line version of my favourite Lonely Planet guides. I know that both sites are still in a development phase, especially Volette.com. Indeed, the brain behind Volette.com, one Joe Tangredi, has several ideas as to the direction he wants to take his internet venture, although I don’t know what they are just yet. Read more
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