To be fair, I’ve only been “online” since the end of last year, when, through a convoluted and mostly-forgotten process, I found an obscure forum for South African affiliate marketers, and through that, a site called “Affiliate Lounge” (run by Philip van Coller, since retired to blogging at dreampunchboy.com).

It was in that site’s blogroll that I found imod.co.za. And from that, the rest of the local web. So Chris M, I lay all blame for this squarely on your shoulders :)

Essentially, we’re this incredibly closed, myopic community. Having been introduced to this whole shebang via Entrecard, and having seen the synergies between American (North and South), English, African and far-east (Australian and Pinoy) bloggers, I’ve come to realise just what a tiny speck the SA community actually is.

And it’s even smaller than the local Internet community. I’ve delved into local IRC servers, forums like mybroadband, and I’ve tried to put everything into perspective. I’ve also spent a lot of time on Blat and iBlog, getting my fair dose of the 12000-odd blogs (most of whom are duplicates, 3-post 6-month old personal diaries, affiliate marketing sites, or so poorly written/maintained that it makes no difference).

I’ve guessing that there are primarily three “layers” to our South African internet community.
1. Those that spend most of their time on forums/chatrooms (same type of people try starting free blogs, but with a 80% fail rate)
2. Those that have well-maintained Facebook (or other single social site) profiles (they rarely collide with (1))
3. Those that have blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and generally live on the social media forefront (that’d be us).

Now, obviously, numbers are never perfect, people can straddle fences, and so on and so forth. But to give you an idea - WorldWideWorx estimates internet penetration at the end of 2007 to be around 8%.

I’m also going to make an assumption that social media is social, and that by it’s very nature, you’ll eventually end up discovering macrospheres. For instance, one of us signs up a friend to Twitter, and all they need to do is follow the people you’re following, and they’re essentially connected to the rest of the local Twitterverse.

Geolocation scans for twitter users estimates there to be about ~600 users in SA, but I’ve checked those profiles manually, and most of them are very dead, with last updates being 3 months to 1 year ago. Given the stats at TwitterSA, there are an estimated 160 very active Twitter users.

Those 160 people, just based on what I’ve seen day-to-day, are mostly involved in new media and marketing, or are otherwise capable of spending enough time online to form part of (or consider themselves part of) the “social media crowd”.

So, then. By now, there should be around 4 million internet users in SA. A search on Facebook reveals there are ~715′500 users in the “South Africa” network. And there are ~160 with active New Social Media profiles.

Yet, for our obvious lack of reach/influence in the local Internet community, some of us can be so loudmouthed, arrogant, pompous and elitist, that we completely lose perspective of the notion of how tiny that bubble really is.

And I’m not the only one who realises this - not the only one getting sick of certain peoples holier-than-thou approach to the whole thing, as if they’re the priests presiding over this massively influential movement in the SA webspace.

Because quite frankly, Social Media is misunderstood in SA. And our polluted little corner of it is no different. If it suddenly vanished, I don’t think anyone’ll even feel the bump.

But oh, you might say, there are so many Companies jumping into this space to share in the whatever and so forth. Yes there are. You know why? Because our little 160-man camp plays host to a bunch of people that A. know what the Internet is, and B. know how to use it.

People. There’s your keyword. That’s the whole reason why this whole thing exists in the first place. Human connection, clear communication, bridging the divide, sharing the knowledge, educating those around you to reach above you, contributing selflessly into building a greater whole that thousands (if not millions) will benefit from.

Which is why this elitism has to go. It just has to bloody go. There are no excuses, just the plain and simple truth that we are poisoning our very own “open garden” before the rest of South Africa has even got their brochures.

I’m just posting this as a reminder to all of us - not to get caught up in our own importance. Social Media is bigger than that, and if we’re gonna have a hope in hell of reaching out to the rest of SA’s internet (to really make a difference), we’d better get our shit sorted, and fast.

Because at this point, and given the way things are going, we’re heading for nothing but a divide. Those that enjoy being worshipped vs those that are out to make a difference vs those that just want to have a good time. And with a camp of 160 people? A popping zit makes more noise.

So please, people. Take those cardboard robes off, roll up your sleeves, and really get in there. There’s still so much to accomplish - we haven’t scratched the tip of the iceberg yet.