As we focused on social networking this spring break, I decided to dive a little deeper into social networking in Africa and see how different it was from America (per Dr. Yaros’ advice). I did a little googling and the numbers show that the craze is just as bad, if not worse, in Africa. One thing that has also stood out is the fact that most Africans access the facebook site and chat through their cell phones, not the internet. There are so many places that have not had internet land lines reach their villages but their cell phones work. This is how they stay alive in the facebook world.
A report on
Appfrica.net mentions countries like South Africa with 1.1 million users, Egypt with 900.000 users and Nigeria with 220,000 users. Ismail Dhorat on his
StartupAfrica site gives better figures on the penetration of facebook compared to the penetration of the internet.
Only 3.4% of the 220,000 facebook users in Nigeria actually use a computer. This is the big difference I believe. This is the very reason why Facebook is looking to make
collaborations with mobile phone companies in Africa, reports Businessweek. They are using this strategy to increase the numbers even more. It also reports that facebook mobile users access the site more than traditional internet users.
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