If one takes a look at the Vincos map, one could argue that Africa is lagging behind in the world, in terms of membership on social networking websites. Only 14 out of 50 African countries seem to have members on social networks. But the reality is quite different. Egypt alone has about 800.000 members on Facebook and according to the Opera mobile report, it has a high growth in accessing social networks through mobile phones. South Africa has shown for years that African social networks will be run over mobile phones in the future. Mxit in South Africa, a mobile social network application with more than 5 million members, lets one engage in a community independently from location and time.
According to Appfrica, South Africa has 1.1 million Facebook members, Morocco 369,000, Tunisia 279,000, Nigeria 220,000, Kenya 150,000,and Mauritius 60,000. It is also Appfrica who presents an interesting little project, where Ugandans can interact Facebook through their mobile phones: Status.ug is a completely mobile gateway for Ugandans to also interact on Facebook. Appfrica estimates around 60,000 Facebook registered members in the Kampala area. Erik Hersman wrote on his blog about Sembuse, East Africa’s first mobile social network “Sembuse is a mobile social network. It’s a way for East Africans to connect with each other via short messaging, cheaper than normal SMS messages (much like it’s counterpart Mxit in South Africa).”