Two weeks ago my eye fell on an article about a new website called me and EU (www.me-eu.eu). The website was launched by European Commissioner for the digital agenda Neelie Kroes. Me and EU has the following purpose, and I quote: “me & EU is a new independent network and lets you easily discover what’s up in your area and even in other countries. Through me & EU you can meet new friends, share your ideas, dreams and projects. Or post about your favourite local snack. ;-) It’s all up to you”. The intention of the website is to reduce the distance between younger and older European generations. There have been many initiatives to bridge this gap, and many failed. Although this website is in the air for only a few weeks, I already can say it will fail. I will explain why.


Many times governments or companies choose to create a website to connect people or to be transparent about their policy. These institutions think that such initiatives will work and people will visit these websites. This isn’t true. People need a reason to go to these sites and get an advantage out of it. A possibility to get the public connected is by making them part of the content. When visitors are part of the editorial staff, the involvement is much stronger. Also the subjects will appeal more to the public. The me & EU-website is a new social network website where young people and adults from companies and governments have to find each other. The first problem is that young people are already part of other social networks like Facebook or Hyves. The potential of Facebook and Hyves are larger than Me & EU. Therefore young people have little need for another place to get connected with others. Another problem is that young people don’t feel connected with Europe and don’t see the advantages of contacts with government or companies. It is also difficult to get connected with people from other countries, because of the small number of nationalities that is member of the site. At this moment (July 16) almost all members are citizens from The Netherlands and Belgium.


Another missing aspect is an overview of the participating institutions. It is unclear for visitors with which appealing companies they are able to connect. When a visitor is able to look for matching interests, people will sooner seek contact with each other. The actual members don’t have a connection with a company. They also have few connections with other members. Although it takes time to get enough members for interaction, the editors could have make more preparations to make the site more interesting for visitors. When people visit a website for the first time it’s important that one wants to get part of it, especially if it’s a community. At this moment it’s totally unclear why someone wants to join this community.


The initiative to connect young people and companies or governments all over in Europe is a good one. The organization behind this initiative has to take a few rules in mind to make it successfull:
1. Make sure what target group you want to reach and what information they need. People only read the content if they are interested. The information has to match the interests of the target group
2. Make a target group part of the content. Don’t only make clear what interests the target group, but let them write the content as well. Especially when you try to create a community, you must give freedom to the visitors in determining the issues. The organization however needs to moderate the content to prevent abuse.
3. To connect young people with companies all over Europe, one has to make it interesting for visitors to meet each other. This is possible when people are matched by each others profiles and there are enough opportunities to exchange information.
4. Make sure you have enough means to promote the website. The best way to promote a social networksite is by joining the established sites like Facebook or Hyves. When a community is started at those spots, the interest for joining me & EU will grow.
5. Evaluate the needs of the target group regularly. Adjust the content to these needs. When the content is up to date the visitors stay interested and keep returning to the website.


It’s seems to me that the me & EU-website was inadequately prepared to go online. Little information, little interaction between members and little possibilities to make this interaction possible, leads to little interest to join the community. It’s a shame when you realize what amount of money has been spent in creating the website. I sincerely hope me & EU will grow to a success, because the initiative is worthy.

tagged with: europe, social network, young people

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