Influenced a tad by the Global Voices perspective, here are a few charts for the non-western regions following the GV categories.
As Justin pointed out in his email, some data were limited for some countries, especially the ones in Africa.
A few silly commentaries:
1) If we extrapolate the growth of Facebook users in Latin America this year compared to where it was a year ago, one could expect a similar growth for some African nations if the fiber optic backbone come to fruition as expected in 2009 ( Madagascar ought to be one of the beneficiary of this new backbone). At present time, the Madagascar network comprises more than 2679 users 9 (very crude estimation in June 08), most of us residing outside Madagascar. Given the rather mediocre translation of Facebook in French, it would be interesting to see whether language barrier would be a factor in the projected growth. It did not seem to be a problem in other French speaking countries.
2) I am aware that the Indian average netizen is more of a orkut-ist than a facebook-er. Still, I did not expect the number of users to be this low relative to population size.
3) Puerto Rico: wow. Funny that Renata's home country is fighting Janine's, Georgia's and Nicholas' base for third behind the two heavyweights, Mexico and Puerto Rico.
4) My sister is back in Tunisia, and just recently installed broadband internet at home. She can attest to the fact that Facebook is alive and well in Tunis. Cyberactivism and freedom of expression being currently "frowned upon" in Tunisia (there's an understatement for you), browsing social media networks might be an adequate replacement.
5) Finally, a question: Which one will get on the charts first ?
Elena's Macedonia or Mialy's Madagascar ? ( BTW, Happy birthday Mialy ! )
Where the hell is Morocco?! An unofficial network alone has over 1,000 users!
ReplyDeleteYep, that's puzzling. They probably did not get enough feedback from users to generate the data for Morocco. Still odd though.
ReplyDeleteHey Lova, Mialy here. Just watch when the fiber optic cable gets into Madagascar !
ReplyDeleteThanks for your well wishes !
How many followers do I need? I can't see from the chart. I’m starting a campaign right away! :)
ReplyDelete@Mialy, how was the b'day ? :)
ReplyDelete@Elena,
It looks like 10 to 20,000 are needed to figure on the charts. I don't know the current number of FB users Macedonia. if you have a banner for the campaign, I will be happy to spread the word :).
Lova
interesting figures...i bet you Madagascar will be there in no time. the youth there has a great capacity in catching up pretty fast =)
ReplyDeleteand btw, i'm still interested in working with foko/healthcare. haven't heard from you so was just checking in. what you guys are doing is really great!
kristina
Hi Kristina,
ReplyDeleteSorry for the very slow response and thank you for the words of encouragement. I will send you an email to pursue this conversation.
Geography basics: México is not in Central America, but in North America.
ReplyDelete