Facebook- The Internet’s most happening joint
FEBRUARY 5, this year was the fifth birthday of facebook.com, the most successful social networking website the Internet has ever seen and on April 9, founder Mark Zukerberg announced with pleasure that they had signed their 200,000,000th member. <br>
By Ernest Bazanye
FEBRUARY 5, this year was the fifth birthday of facebook.com, the most successful social networking website the Internet has ever seen and on April 9, founder Mark Zukerberg announced with pleasure that they had signed their 200,000,000th member.
And for once, Uganda is involved in the party. Web sensations usually pass us by; newsgroups, geocities, discussion forums, even Myspace got scanty attention from this land back when people with the time and inclination to play on the Internet only logged on at web cafes, (which are rarely comfortable and, back then, were rarely cheap).
Nowadays, the web is much more accessible, especially to those Ugandans who fit the profile of the typical facebook user: young urban student or professional.
Peter Lubambula, an IT consultant in Kampala, agrees that easier Internet access has helped Uganda finally get on board, but is guarded.
“It’s not really faster connections that have contributed to this growth, it is mobile internet mostly. You can tell by the number of facebook mobile uploads, with GPRS data connections available on most networks.â€
“The Facebook site in itself is fast and quite intuitive,†he adds. â€This makes it easy to access even on the worst Internet connections.â€
In October, 2008, an internet-affairs blogger published a list of the number of Facebook users per country and 80,000 had registered as Ugandans.
If we are in step with the global growth trends, the population today could be close to twice that much.
When we spoke of playing on the Internet, we meant that literally. Facebook is largely the Internet equivalent of a happening joint, with its greatest advantage over other social networking websites like linkedin or hi5 being that almost everyone you can think of has membership there.
Lubambula believes therein lies the secret of Facebook’s rise in Uganda. “Its popularity in Uganda is a direct result of its popularity worldwide.
Essentially, old classmates and friends in the diaspora were on Facebook inviting a whole lot of friends online, it just had to trickle down.
Especially when one of the appeals of facebook was finding long lost primary school classmates,†he asserts.
With a large number of friends constantly updating their profiles comes what is known as Facebook dribble.
The fact that every few minutes somebody does something means that the site has something new every moment, which can lead to the habit of compulsively checking the site too frequently for your own good.
This problem has become so prevalent that it was even given a name: Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD), where users exhibit symptoms of addiction, such as diminishing pleasure, withdrawal symptoms, and an inability to stop.
There is no consensus among medical experts on whether it is a true disease or just a separate manifestation of depression or anxiety, however.
Whether FAD is a real disease or not, there has been uproar in corporate Uganda over staff wasting too much valuable working time on the site.
At a number of leading companies Facebook is completely banned.
Meanwhile, other companies are taking advantage of the great publicity potential Facebook offers in the new media age.
Solomon King Benge of Nodesix, a Ugandan Internet solutions company, recently attended the Facebook Developers Garage, an event last year where Facebook staff came to Uganda to talk to local netsters about how Ugandans can develop our own applications for Facebook.
Such “garages†have been held in cities around the world.
Benge is optimisitic about Facebook’s usefulness. “If we can make applications tailored at Ugandans, it has a lot of potential to generate revenue,†he says.
In the meantime, as a businessman, he enjoys Facebook’s capacity for networking and promotion.
“Artistes send out invites and updates for upcoming concerts. Why can’t businesses do that?†he asks.
“Design Kingdom, my webdesign company, has a Facebook group. It’s easier.â€
All over the world major corporate brands are doing this successfully — mainly by taking to Facebook to solicit “fanbasesâ€. Facebook allows you to declare yourself a fan of Beyonce or Bobi Wine.
You can also become a fan of Coca Cola or Nike. Coca Cola already has over 500 fan groups, the largest boasting 3,346,504 fans.
Media companies in Uganda are catching on to this trend. Vision Voice Radio is among the many radio stations with Facebook groups where listeners and staff interact.
Yvonne, co-presenter of the Early Edition on Vision Voice Radio, used to collect views from listeners on the topic of the day by asking Facebook friends to contribute opinions.
“People would give me enough material to span four hours,†she says. Facebook teems with gossip, is brimming with info and ripe with potential.
One of the greatest stories of its brief lifetime is its contribution to the election of Barack Obama as US president last year.
Hangout joint that transforms into a classroom and then into church and what next? The next five years will tell.
How you can become part of the Craze
At www.facebook.com you will be asked to fill in your email, chose a password and give your personal details: Date of birth, sex, interests, etc. Just like that and you are a member.
To populate your account with friends, you could just type the name of the person you want to find in the search area and see if they are already on facebook, or you could send them an invite through their email address.
The rest is as easy as clicking “yes†to the things you want and “no†to the things you do not want.
Putting up pictures, joining groups, sending messages, using applications, “pokingâ€, putting up music and videos? No problem. Though you can always click the help button.
FEBRUARY 5, this year was the fifth birthday of facebook.com, the most successful social networking website the Internet has ever seen and on April 9, founder Mark Zukerberg announced with pleasure that they had signed their 200,000,000th member.
And for once, Uganda is involved in the party. Web sensations usually pass us by; newsgroups, geocities, discussion forums, even Myspace got scanty attention from this land back when people with the time and inclination to play on the Internet only logged on at web cafes, (which are rarely comfortable and, back then, were rarely cheap).
Nowadays, the web is much more accessible, especially to those Ugandans who fit the profile of the typical facebook user: young urban student or professional.
Peter Lubambula, an IT consultant in Kampala, agrees that easier Internet access has helped Uganda finally get on board, but is guarded.
“It’s not really faster connections that have contributed to this growth, it is mobile internet mostly. You can tell by the number of facebook mobile uploads, with GPRS data connections available on most networks.â€
“The Facebook site in itself is fast and quite intuitive,†he adds. â€This makes it easy to access even on the worst Internet connections.â€
In October, 2008, an internet-affairs blogger published a list of the number of Facebook users per country and 80,000 had registered as Ugandans.
If we are in step with the global growth trends, the population today could be close to twice that much.
When we spoke of playing on the Internet, we meant that literally. Facebook is largely the Internet equivalent of a happening joint, with its greatest advantage over other social networking websites like linkedin or hi5 being that almost everyone you can think of has membership there.
Lubambula believes therein lies the secret of Facebook’s rise in Uganda. “Its popularity in Uganda is a direct result of its popularity worldwide.
Essentially, old classmates and friends in the diaspora were on Facebook inviting a whole lot of friends online, it just had to trickle down.
Especially when one of the appeals of facebook was finding long lost primary school classmates,†he asserts.
With a large number of friends constantly updating their profiles comes what is known as Facebook dribble.
The fact that every few minutes somebody does something means that the site has something new every moment, which can lead to the habit of compulsively checking the site too frequently for your own good.
This problem has become so prevalent that it was even given a name: Facebook Addiction Disorder (FAD), where users exhibit symptoms of addiction, such as diminishing pleasure, withdrawal symptoms, and an inability to stop.
There is no consensus among medical experts on whether it is a true disease or just a separate manifestation of depression or anxiety, however.
Whether FAD is a real disease or not, there has been uproar in corporate Uganda over staff wasting too much valuable working time on the site.
At a number of leading companies Facebook is completely banned.
Meanwhile, other companies are taking advantage of the great publicity potential Facebook offers in the new media age.
Solomon King Benge of Nodesix, a Ugandan Internet solutions company, recently attended the Facebook Developers Garage, an event last year where Facebook staff came to Uganda to talk to local netsters about how Ugandans can develop our own applications for Facebook.
Such “garages†have been held in cities around the world.
Benge is optimisitic about Facebook’s usefulness. “If we can make applications tailored at Ugandans, it has a lot of potential to generate revenue,†he says.
In the meantime, as a businessman, he enjoys Facebook’s capacity for networking and promotion.
“Artistes send out invites and updates for upcoming concerts. Why can’t businesses do that?†he asks.
“Design Kingdom, my webdesign company, has a Facebook group. It’s easier.â€
All over the world major corporate brands are doing this successfully — mainly by taking to Facebook to solicit “fanbasesâ€. Facebook allows you to declare yourself a fan of Beyonce or Bobi Wine.
You can also become a fan of Coca Cola or Nike. Coca Cola already has over 500 fan groups, the largest boasting 3,346,504 fans.
Media companies in Uganda are catching on to this trend. Vision Voice Radio is among the many radio stations with Facebook groups where listeners and staff interact.
Yvonne, co-presenter of the Early Edition on Vision Voice Radio, used to collect views from listeners on the topic of the day by asking Facebook friends to contribute opinions.
“People would give me enough material to span four hours,†she says. Facebook teems with gossip, is brimming with info and ripe with potential.
One of the greatest stories of its brief lifetime is its contribution to the election of Barack Obama as US president last year.
Hangout joint that transforms into a classroom and then into church and what next? The next five years will tell.
How you can become part of the Craze
At www.facebook.com you will be asked to fill in your email, chose a password and give your personal details: Date of birth, sex, interests, etc. Just like that and you are a member.
To populate your account with friends, you could just type the name of the person you want to find in the search area and see if they are already on facebook, or you could send them an invite through their email address.
The rest is as easy as clicking “yes†to the things you want and “no†to the things you do not want.
Putting up pictures, joining groups, sending messages, using applications, “pokingâ€, putting up music and videos? No problem. Though you can always click the help button.