a fucking pie chart?

dude, you crack me up.

it would be even funnier, if it wasn’t so true.

Dont say I didn’t say ‘SNAP!’

;)

Great post @wogan. Looking at the stats though I know understand why some feel they are elite..

However I totally agreed elitist attitudes are nonproductive.

Why include Twitter as a criteria? Twitter is a great tool for a specific segment of the population, specifically the early adopters. But it shouldn’t be a requirement for proof of “social media” activity.

Facebook is good enough for that, I think, or at least a good beginning.

And remember, to be part of “social media” does not require you to be a conent CREATOR, but a content USER. So, reading (and commenting on) blogs is a definite sign of active social media usage, whether or not you update or even have a blog of your own.

YES
finally a blogger that AGREES with me!!
WEll done champ

@Wogan, how did you estimate how many “active” people there are?

I am fighting the good fight to get teachers to use social media. The only teachers who are getting their feet wet are the IT and CAT teachers (also kind of elitist).

People will only use social media if they can be convinced that there is somthing in it for them. I don’t think that it has anything to do with elitism. What i do know is that social media has the potential to make it easier for ordinary people to engage in ICT.

My teachers told me that they get totally overwelmed by the techies using their stuff. Maybe a space where they can blog, twitter…in a more friendly space will help?

Ha! See everyone? That’s what it looks like when someone who ‘gets’ it, speaks.
Great concise post, man :))

I’m rather new at this social media thing.
I definitely got the elitist vibe, rediculas.
only serves to stifle growth.

Sure, it is counter-productive, but why is there such a small user base in any case? SA has still got its eyes on 20th century issues. Would be great if we could focus on integrating modern tech into our society. Social media is related to modern smart economics. 0.005% is pretty elite though hey?

The early adopters always have a large percentage of elitists. When social media poenetration increases the ratio of elitists to non-elitists will decline. My first comment ending was a joke. I did not realize that the main emphasis of this post was on the issue of elitism in social media being counterproductive. I think all social media should be encouraged and the elitists should be endured because you got little(read “no”) chance with persuasion.

i’m sorry, i have to laugh - i know it was a typo, and it’s totally childish, but i dont care. judge me all you like.

Nafnosseb - you said ‘poenetration’.

lol. new word of the day all, POENETRATION.!

ok, silly moment over.

so. who here considers themselves elite?

Interesting stats,where did you say you pulled them from. Oh, and I’m not an Elitist… I just happen to be on top of what’s happening. *duck*

@WoganMay I do agree with Eve Dmochowska’s comment, there are a lot of people who just like to “absorb” the information rather than put it out there or share something they’ve found. You’ve also left out things like delicious accounts, stumbleupon, etc… cause that’s sharing and interacting. ;)

This goes along with the comment that someone many moons back made “If its not on Google, does it exist”, to this I say, “If they aren’t on Facebook, they probably aren’t worth knowing - I mean really. How do I judge them if I don’t know their friends” ;)

[...] main focus of this disdain has revolved around the concept of elitism. One blogger today wrote that there are less than 200 active social media users in SA. [...]

“if they’re not on facebook, they’re not worth knowing.”

ROFLMFAO.

So true. South African’s are still buying into the idea of online marketing, despite Google already having noticed how valuable this market could be with Google.co.za. In any event, lets hope that we catch up with the rest of the world… once Telkom have been relieved of their monopoly perhaps the hope of better service delivery as well as a better market penetration will enable more people to join in.

Hi Wogan,
I have to disagree with your criteria. I *understand* them as well as understanding why you use them, but I disagree with using them *as* criteria.
I think that by setting the criteria up the way you have you are guilty of exactly the elitisim that you seem to want to criticise. What I see happening is the segmentation of the “internet users” between those who are “online” (i.e. use an always-on connection) and those who are “intermittent” users (dial-up/ISDN/ad hoc usage at web cafes etc) starting slowly to shift it’s percentages from “intermittent” to “online” and as that happens, as a natural consequence, people are starting to become more “socially active” online.
You definitely need to look at the barrier that the expense of intermittent access places in the path of the growth of online social interaction.
That aside, I am finding that just getting people to “connect” on FaceBook is a huge enabler. What I see happening is that all the “social interaction” that happened on the ‘Net previously was via personal interaction via email and browsing of the web for “information”. As people start experiencing real benefit from online interaction, we are seeing them truly convincing their friends and colleagues to do the same. This means that there has been an explosion in the number of people that we have seen joining FB, Linkedin etc over the last 6-12 months, and a concomittment rise in alternative (to email) online interaction.
As an aside, I instituted a project at the University of Stellenbosch in around 2000 to investigate the viability of having an interactive virtual meeting place as part of the eCampus initiative. In that project we evaluated various different tools and approaches, looking at group based chat (ICQ, MSN, YahooIM etc), Email list-based discussions, Web Forums etc. My focus was on the collaborative envirionment, outside of the WEBCT/BLACKBOARD paridgms which I felt/feel were stifling as they were most often treated as a re-imposition of the “chalk-and-talk’ hierarchcal approach of lecturer->student instead of true collaboration. I set up a MUD/MOO with various additional elements to enable colaboration. What I found was bad on both sides of the equation: Lecturers resistant to change/extra work.. and especially disinterested in any student’s contribution i.e. “listen to what I have to say and pass the exams” and on the other side students who were apathetic and had the attitude “Give me what I need to know for the exams so I can study and pass”.
There has to be both a real and a perceived benefit for people to take up technology. It does NOT help “crying in the wilderness”. People will take up the technology when 1. It is affordable 2. They start seeing a significant number of their peers/colleagues doing so 3. There is both a real and perceived benefit to doing so.
Just my rambles for the day..
John

[...] Wogan may tells us we’re a tiny, insignificant community, people agree even more [...]

[...] A blogosphere, I might add, which is fairly insignificant in the greater scheme of things as Wogan’s pie chart will [...]

[...] after all the bitching and whining and ego poking, we’re using social media for something a whole lot more [...]