The three months from April to June 2007 are likely to be remembered as the beginning of the tipping point for social media and social networking in South Africa. Most of the country’s key platforms and innovations for what is collectively known as Web 2.0 emerged during that period.
While it was obvious that growth was exponential, at no time during those three months was it obvious just how big it was going to be.
There were five key moments for Web 2.0 during that period:
The result was that, after a slow build-up, an explosion of activity occurred in July and August 2007, representing a true tipping point for the phenomenon. A tipping point, according to Malcolm Gladwell‘s book on the topic, occurs when change happens quickly and unexpectedly after an apparently slow build-up.
But while Facebook is instantly measurable, the same cannot be said of blogging. Educated guesses have been the order of the day. Some of these have proved to be fairly accurate, despite the methodology being a few steps removed from consulting animal entrails.
That is all changing. The people behind all the major blogging platforms in South Africa have agreed to supply their numbers to World Wide Worx, to be reported in this blog and elsewhere from time to time.
First, a disclaimer:
And the first numbers are in. For the month of August 2007, the following activity was reported on South African blogs:
Number of blogs at end of August: 25 037
Number of active blogs (updated in last two weeks): 2 953
Percent of active blogs: 11%
Number of posts in August: 39 938
Page views in August: 5 198 693
Unique visitors in August: 621 204
Source: World Wide Worx
Incidentally, a quick nod to Vincent Maher for the best guesstimate around on the size of the South African blogosphere. He recently put it at about 20 000 blogs.
Those figures are astonishing for a phenomenon that has only reached maturity in the past three months. However, they also need to be seen in the context of online media in general. There are at least four media sites that have more visitors than all the blogs combined, and nine sites that have more page views than all the blogs combined.
But if August did indeed represent a tipping point, we can expect exponential growth in the coming year. By the end of August 2008, blogs will not only be a mainstream component of most online media in South Africa, they will also be a dominant component.
Fascinating collection of data – and its implications are very exciting. Thanks for sharing it with us, Arthur. I hope your figures will add weight to activities that most mainstream media (including online media) still think amount to navel-gazing. Let’s hope the next few months prove as definitive.
Wow, thats huge. I wonder how the numbers would increase if one was able to find out the number of South African Authored blogs on the blogger and wordpress networks?!
Hi Arthur,
Thanks for the update. I must say that I am disappointed that 24.com Blogs was not mentioned in your list of notable events.
Does one have to launch a stand alone brand or overhype an offering to get a mention?
Given the numbers you have published we represent about 33% of the ACTIVE SA blogs.
Elan.
While I agree that we are close, I am not convinced that we have reached critical mass just yet. The online community of SA is still such a small percentage of the country.
We need further broadband infiltration before that tipping point can be reached … in my opinion.
When I refer to critical mass in the online context, it is usually with reference to those who are already online. Half a million people in a population of 4-million, engaging with an almost new phenomenon, sure smells like tipping point to me. On the other hand, the matter of the unconnected and the have-nots is a far bigger and broader issue than the focus of this blog. You can be sure I am addressing it elsewhere.
Elan, my point is not that those were the only important developments, but that “most” of the important developments took place in a three month space. The perils of being first off the starting blocks, huh…?
A great observation, Arthur. Anyone who has been watching the stats climing on Amatomu has to agree: the floodgates are about to open.
Good post and good talk the other night.
I picked up some US stats last week that may be of interest:
80% of Americans know what a blog is
50% regularly visit blogs
8% publish their own blog
41 million people visited Wikipedia July 2007
Wikipedia is now the 12th most visited website overall
http://derek.abdinor.co.za/2007/08/31/blogosphere-tipping-point-and-beyond/
Thanks for the mention Arthur.
Blueworld.co.za
As Arthur points out, these statistics exclude international platforms, and there is no way of knowing how many SA blogs are internationally hosted on the likes of Typepad and WordPress. You will only see them as South African if they happen to be registered on aggregators like Afrigator, and it is possible that many SA blogs do not want to be labelled as such. I had to think twice about it, but that doesn’t make mine any less of a South African blog.
Great bit of research, Arthur. Nice to finally see what the state of play is. Can’t wait for the research into video offerings online, both user generated and editorial.
Chris, 24.com
Hey Arthur,
Would be good to co-opt Muti.co.za in this. As far as I know it is the leading news-filtering site in SA and has quite a substantial usership… i.e. registered participants in a social media application.
Dave
The problem with many African products is that they are localized, how do they carter to an international market whilst retain their africanism, that is the question