Social networking: a matter of geography

Two major shifts have occurred in the Facebook regional rankings that may point to the shape of things to come in social networking. Canada leaped ahead of the United Kingdom in the past two weeks, while Australia finally stormed past Norway.

South Africa, meanwhile, achieved the quarter-million mark on September 8, but is warily eyeing a dramatic surge from behind by Sweden.

The rankings that follow reflect regional networks on September 10 2007. They do not include users in these countries who choose networks other than their countries (that is, universities, employers) as primary networks:

1. United States: 10-million plus
2. Canada: 2 750 000 (five million plus in total)
3. United Kingdom: 2 442 000 (four million plus in total)
4. Australia: 393 000
5. Norway: 337 000
6. South Africa: 256 000
7. Sweden: 210 000
8. Egypt: 104 000
9. India: 101 000
10. France: 93 000

Facebook’s media fact sheet puts Mexico in 10th place, but the US’s neighbour ranks far lower in terms of purely regional networks.

In short, Facebook is shaping up to be a phenomenon of the English-speaking and the Scandinavian nations, but there are no clear rules beyond that. The emergence of Egypt as the eighth regional network to pass the 100 000 mark is as unexpected as it is indicative of the unpredictable nature of social networking. Many of the conversations are in Arabic, adding to the Scandinavian evidence that Facebook is not a language-led phenomenon. The same applies to France and the growing networks in Hong Kong (much of it in Chinese) and Lebanon (Arabic).

But there is another issue that is raised by the curious mixture of most active countries: the world’s most connected nations, outside the top three in the above list, simply do not feature. Japan, Germany and Italy have not embraced Facebook in as dramatic a fashion as even South Africa and Egypt have — neither of which features in the top 40 of most connected nations.

This does not mean they have not embraced social networking. It simply means that the dynamics of internet usage are different, and often that localised forms of social networking are already dominant.

Most of the following stats are courtesy of blogger Danah Boyd, better known as Apophenia, and have been supplied to her by members and observers of social networking sites around the world. They are not as readily measurable as Facebook. See the source at “list of non-English social network sites”.

For instance, Japan’s Mixi was launched in February 2004 and reached 10-million members by May 2007. It is even listed on the Nikkei stock exchange. But Mixi’s numbers are dwarfed by the South Korean network Cyworld — with more than 20-million members! Little wonder there are less than 20 000 members of the South Korean network on Facebook. And now they are taking on Facebook, err, head-on, by launching an American portal.

Bear in mind, too, that Facebook is still smaller than MySpace, even if it has greater traction outside the US. See this comparison between MySpace and Mixi on Muhammed Saleem’s blog.

MySpace claims more than five million users in Germany, while the Germans themselves have a student network called studiVZ that passed the million-member mark in January 2007.

Sweden’s top-10 spot on Facebook comes despite a homegrown network called LunarStorm, which is well past the million mark. The Netherlands, which is one of the 10 most internet-connected countries in the world, boasts a network called Hyves, which passed the three-million mark in March 2007.

Russia is something of a sleeping giant in social networking. While you can write in Cyrillic to the 12 000 people in its regional network on Facebook, you would do better to click across to V Kontakte, which claimed 500 000 members within eight months of its September 2006 launch. Social networking has taken off in other Eastern European countries, through localised alternatives to Facebook and MySpace.

All of these services, however, suffer a severe case of network envy in the face of social networking trends in China. If you wonder why there are only 44 000 people in the China regional network on Facebook, you could start with the latest entrant into that market, a student network called Xiaonei, meaning “on campus”. Launched in December 2005, it already has more than five million members, according to one of its founders.

Finally, here is a Web 2.0 news flash that no one in the Web 2.0 world seems to be reporting: the biggest social network in the world is, in fact, South African. Or at least, it is more or less owned by a South African company.

While some would argue that it is an instant messaging service rather than a social networking platform, QQ puts all other claims in the virtual shade with 647-million registered users, 273-million active accounts and 28,9-million peak simultaneous users. These numbers, from its August 2007 interim financial report, tell you why Google was willing to offer a billion dollars for Facebook (which Mark Zuckerberg turned down): they perceive severe competition emerging from the East.

For its social networking credentials, QQ offers the Q Zone, QGaming and QQPet. It describes these as “fee-based internet value-added-services registered subscriptions”. The total registered membership: 17,7-million users. This may be smaller than Cyworld, but there is one fairly significant difference: these are all paying monthly subscribers. And with another couple of hundred million active users of their other services, there is a deep vein to tap.

The South African connection? QQ’s owner is Tencent, listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Tencent is 36,1% owned by the MIH group, the international arm of Naspers, making it the largest single shareholder. Yes, the same Naspers that brings you MWeb, blogs24, Fair Lady and blunt.