Social Networking usage: South Africa

Feb 8, 2010 by Dan Taylor    4 Comments    Posted under: Social Media

When it comes to social media usage stats, African countries usually fly below the radar. However, Africa’s southern most nation, South Africa currently ranks number 29th on Facebook’s global user list, and demonstrates a number of similarities with much larger using countries.

The recent South African Friendship 2.0 survey found that the average South African Facebook user is in their 30’s, employed full time, and describe themselves as sociable and outgoing. The survey sampled South Africans aged 16 years or older.

With a massive 82 percent, Facebook is the dominant social networking platform in South Africa. Again, South Africa ranks number 29 on Facebook’s global usage statistics (by country), and has an estimated 2.6 million users per month that generate over 1.1 billion page views. Over half of Facebooking South Africans access the site via their mobile devices, 1.58 million. To put this in perspective, of those surveyed, only 18 percent responded that they have a MySpace profile.

From here, popularity numbers make a steep decline. While not specifically a social networking site, YouTube take the number 2 spot for South Africans, garnering a 32 percent response rate, South African mobile IM service MXit taking 29 percent, with Twitter landing a close 28 percent.

South African broadband services provider, and sponsor of the survey MWeb Connect’s general manager Carolyn Holgate comments, “Social networks have become the garden fence of the 21st century and are used for the same purposes as community meeting places. We’re at the end of the early adoption phase, which was dominated by young people, and social networking is now a mainstream activity enjoyed and used by all age groups, particularly those in their 30s.”

Additional findings from the Friendship 2.0 survey:

• 74% go online specifically to visit social networking sites
• 74% access Facebook at least once a day
• 25% of participants have met more friends online than they have in real life
• 24% have gone on a face-to-face date with someone they met online
• 36% have used a pseudonym on-line
• 36% have used the Internet to find out what a past partner is doing
• 21% have experienced a breach of their privacy on the Internet
• 16% use social platforms to promote their business
• 37% believe they spend too much time online

The Friendship 2.0 survey, sponsored by South Africa’s MWeb Connect can be found here.  Download the Friendship 2.0 survey results here (pdf).

[note: data sourced from MWeb Connect and Times Live.  MWeb places South Africa in position number 29, however, Nick Burcher's Facebook stats place South Africa in the number 23 slot.]

Baby Boomers flock to Social Networking in 2009

Feb 1, 2010 by Dan Taylor    3 Comments    Posted under: Social Media

There’s no arguing that 2009 was a banner year for online social networking platforms. Obviously, the big players in the field, Facebook and Twitter, saw a healthy increase in user activity. A new report from eMarketer might just point to the reason why: Baby Boomers went from online consumers of digital media to social busy-bees.

The report analyzes 4 unique market segments, Millenials (14-26), Gen X (27-43), Baby Boomers (44-63) and Mature (63-75). Not surprisingly, both Millenials and Gen X ‘ers (myself included) have maintained consistently high levels of social media profiles over the past three years. Conversely, Baby Boomers and Matures saw a massive growth rate in 2009.

Looking at the numbers, 31 percent of Baby Boomers and 14 percent of Matures actively attended to (i.e. status updates, photo uploads, etc.) their profiles in 2008, while one year later, these numbers have seen a significant jump: 46 percent and 36 percent, respectively, in 2009.

With data drawn from both comScore and Anderson Analytics, Facebook came out on top as the primary social network used by Baby Boomers. MySpace took second place, but appears to be more popular with younger users (ed: still?). Third and fourth place went to Twitter and LinkedIn.

“Creating and renewing personal connections online is the biggest draw for these boomers,” said Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Boomers and Social Media. “Boomers expect that technology will help them live longer and better lives and keep them connected to family, friends, co-workers and, eventually, healthcare providers.”

What is, and should be, of interest to marketers is how this growth has scaled, and what or how do we target this influx of a completely different demographic? Targeted advertising immediately comes to mind, but my guess is that there are a number of opportunities waiting to be mined with this new information. Social/Casual gaming has been a major driver of social network use in the ‘younger’ set – is there a way to replicate this same success for an ‘older’ demographic? A recent study by Q Interactive points to the fact that female gamers make up a sizable portion of all social games played, AND that they’re brand engaged, loyal consumers. My guess is that over the course of 2010 we’ll see a new breed of applications, games, tools, etc. appearing on social networks that will try to appeal to this new-comer demographic.

Friendster nets another social networking patent

Dec 10, 2008 by Dan Taylor    9 Comments    Posted under: News, Social Media, Technology

Some might argue that Friendster is the one that started it all, and if you look at the historical data, they might just be right.  Friendster was the first social networking platform, as we know them today, to really gain any traction and start connecting users.

Due to a series of mistakes and misplays, Friendster quickly found itself in a very distant backseat to then up and comers MySpace and Facebook.  However, don’t write Friendster off quite yet, as they’ve somehow managed a popularity campaign in Asia of all places.  However, Asia isn’t the only place seeing a lot of Friendster these days; so is the U.S. Patent Office.  Friendster has recently received their fourth patent, with another twelve plus applications currently in the works.

Their most recent patent concerns the “compatibility scoring of users in a social network”.  To put that in digestible English: a method for analyzing and determining just how similar social network users are to each other.

Let’s look at that again.

Friendster has been granted a patent on a ‘method’ used to judge the similarity of different users across a social network.  In other words, one of the main mechanisms that’s fundamental to finding and suggesting friends on a social network – Friendster now has a patent on it.  Whoa.

San Francisco based Friendster was granted these patents based on the fact that it was the first social networking site to gain traction in what is a now crowded marketplace.  A bit like the great land grab of the late 19th century (think Tom Cruise and Nichol Kidman – Far and Away), Friendster was first on the spot, and offered a number of features that are now standard operating equipment on social networking sites.  Friendster also currently holds patents on: how people are connected on a social network, the process of friends encouraging each other to upload content, and ways for users to manage social-network friendships.

So what does it all mean?  Sure they’ve technically got the patents, and technically all other social networking sites are in direct violation of these patents be using these technology without forking over a dime for it.  Theoretically, Friendster could step into a court of law and demand that MySpace and Facebook cough up a buck or two every time a user adds a friend.

So far, Friendster hasn’t bothered to flex the patent muscle, but they’re very well within their rights to do so.  Obviously, Friendster isn’t commenting about their future legal strategy.

Rebuilding – Slowly

Jun 15, 2008 by Dan Taylor    12 Comments    Posted under: Uncategorized

Hmmm…ok. Bear with me here folks. As you can see, TTS is back, but in a Humpty Dumpty kinda way.

If you’ve made it thus far, you’ll notice that you’ve been redirected from turnthescrew.com to blog.turnthescrew.com. Yay…I managed that much.

Pretty much everything works just the way it should…except we’re missing over a year’s worth of content. This should, technically, be no problem, as I exported the database that was sitting on the former host’s server. This is where things start to go crazy. Upon uploading the backed up database, the front page appears, along with the associated content, BUT any linked articles, pages, sections of the site show up as 404 errors.

Hmmmm…well…the data is there, I’m just somehow not making the connection. As I said…this should be a learning process for us all.

CSI, Facebook, and Method Man

Apr 30, 2008 by Dan Taylor    No Comments    Posted under: News, Technology

Sounds like the intro to a joke eh? Bear with me, and I’ll tie these three together, and (try) to make a decent point.

I watched the latest episode of CSI last night (Las Vegas of course, New York doesn’t even register for me, and while Miami is ok, nothing beats the original). During the opening credits, I happened to catch ‘Guest Appearance – Method Man‘. Hmmm…ok, i thought. Given Mariah’s stellar screen debut, and Britney Spears’ oscar winning performance, I wasn’t expecting much from a Musician come actor (although, I did think that Eminem did a decent job in 8 Mile).

Well, shut my mouth, because Method Man (aka Clifford Smith) did an outstanding job. His role centered around a Vegas club owner who was serving a short 8 month sentence for a ‘weak ass weapons charge’. While he’s doing time, all hell breaks loose on the outside with a double homicide centering around the woman who raised him, a high priced prozy, a boatload of cash, and his baby mama. Method Man delivers an outstanding performance, completely believable, and never for a second did I think that he was pushing the boundaries of his acting ability. He’s even portrayed as the like-able criminal who stages a breakout, only to save the life of his future child, while never putting up a protest to return to jail after the scene plays out.

The Facebook tie in.

Ok, perhaps just because these are areas of interest to me, but this line jumped out at me like a red flag. During an initial interview with Captain Brass (Paul Guilfoyle) regarding the relationship between two of the female characters, Method Man is quoted as saying:

“…one minute, they’re sending each other cupcakes on facebook, the next, they’re trying to kill each other over a broken curling iron…”

After my initial chuckles died down, I got to thinking about this digital culture comment. Two years ago, this line might have been written a bit more like so:

“…one minute, they’re sending each other glitter tweety birds on myspace, the next they’re trying to kill each other over a broken curling iron…”

And while many others have already written about this topic, let me just put it here in writing; In 2007

“MySpace showed a yearly growth of 19 % Facebook grew at a rate of 125%.” – mybroadband.co.za

Clearly this facebook reference by Method Man (and respectively the CSI team of writers), is yet other subtle mention of what I’ve been preaching for a while now: Myspace is a dying horse.

Sure while myspace still enjoys a much higher share of eyballs, March 08 compete.com data puts Myspace at 68,339,999 visitors, with Facebook receiving 31,233,452 vistors (both figures based on US traffic only), the growth rate is the important factor to watch. In March 08, yet again, Facebook is the clear winner with a 9.3% growth rate, Myspace, 3.9%.

While I’m not sure that Facebook is ever going to overtake the eyball count that News Corp.’s Myspace has, in my opinion Facebook has already won the battle of cultural superiority. While Method Man/CSI’s cupcakes on Facebook reference was the first integration of Facebook that I’ve heard in a television series, I’d bet the farm that it won’t be the last.