Is Social Currency Really Relevant?

Not yet. But it may be in time. The initial inkling that “social currency” does have some value is in the domain of human resources. For example recruiters like to use LinkedIn to source candidates for job openings. In a less quantifiable way, as people we often check the profiles of people on Twitter, Facebook etc., to see how many “followers” or “friends” they may have. These are habits driven by our naturally competitive nature. This competitive nature has been a core driver in the development of a number of social media services like FourSquare (become Mayor of a place), Empire Avenue with your personal stock trading, earning “eaves” and as the first example of social currency having some form of value – there’s a great blog post here by Caleb Storkey talking with Jeremiah Owyang and Robert Scoble on the potential values of Empire Avenue for business.

But Who Really Cares?
It doesn’t really matter. Unless you’re on LinkedIn or Plaxo, have little or no engagement, no recommendations from former employers or employees and no references from clients; that may cost you a job interview. Beyond that, “social currency” is interesting to sociologists, anthropologists and perhaps marketing researchers and intelligence agencies or police.

Will Social Currency Become Relevant?
A lot of things need to happen first. A lot. Aside from the stars and moon aligning, for any form of “social currency” to have a real economic impact outside Cyburbia, it needs to become like money is – with some form of regulation that defines its value that is accepted by the international community. Which creates the issue of how to value social currency amongst nations and impacts of “trading” actual peoples values. As new social technologies developed, they would have to find some way of being accepted with a process of approval to be added to a “social currency system”. To have real-world impact it means acceptance by society as a whole, between citizens and governments and with anything that scales, will need regulation to some degree.

Is The Internet or “Cyburbia” Relevant Then?
Discussing “social currency” over the weekend lead to the broader, deeper question of the relevance of the Internet/Web as a whole in our lives. The pundits like Scoble, Shirky and  would resoundingly scream yes, while a more sober tone would come from Evgeny Morazov and that sublime mind of Malcolm Gladwell. The Web is completely relevant, it has helped organize democratic protests, birthday parties, weddings and created a new consumer avenue for shopping that is continuing to increase. It is becoming more pervasive and no longer is location or device dependent. Anyway, it is relevant, social currency however, not so much. Yet.

What do you think? Will social currency have an inherent value over time? perhaps it will play out in a different way than traditional currencies or stocks?

The Hidden Internet in Developing Nations

Internet access is ubiquitous in the developed nations of the West. Penetration is close to 100% and we access the Web not just from a PC but from our smart phones and tablets like the iPad or Playbook. We’ve learned over our years of research that when it comes to developing nations, we in the West or the Global North if you will, tend to think that access in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, India and across most of Africa is minimal and only for the Elites who can afford it. This is a dangerous assumption that may cost governments their power or at least a little troubles. Companies doing business in the Global South may also suffer from boycotts of products to organized protests, especially when it comes to the extractive resource sector.

Governments, larger NGO’s and NPO’s and corporations of the Global North often make their assumptions on Internet usage from generally available data on Internet usage stats. For example the World Bank database on Internet stats and the oft referred Internet World Stats published by for-profit marketing company Miniwatts. While their data is good it tends only to look at numbers published by ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) and Telco’s in those countries. Our research indicates that the gap between official and unofficial online populations in developing nations is as much as 60% in many cases. This is a significant disparity. Here is some data visualized in Google from World Bank data, perhaps the closest to reality, but still not entirely accurate.

The Hidden Internet

What we’ve come to find through our ongoing research projects, is that the number published by most organizations is often just the surface of real access and rarely accounts for mobile device connectivity to the Internet. We call it the Hidden Internet. It’s vibrant, it’s alive and it’s growing. It’s hidden, essentially, because there is no formal mechanism for recognizing or evaluating its presence or that of the people contributing. Here’s how it works;

Pirate Connections: Illegal access through wireless networks directly by hackers. This most often happens for criminal organizations that send out those mass emails about their cousin who died with millions in the bank and only you can help them get the money, with a generous reward for your time of course!

Unofficial ISP’s: We’ve found a number of times that a person may subscribe to service from the local, official Telco or ISP for a broadband connection to their home. They then install a wired or wireless router and resell connection to their neighbours to help cover the cost of access and sometimes turn a small profit. They are unofficial and may even rent out access to their PC in their own homes.

Education System: Then there’s the universities and high-schools with multiple students online. Often times parents and friends can gain access to these services as part of literacy training for the community. We’ve seen this in Kinshasa, Nairobi, Amman and many other cities. These numbers are not officially counted though. We estimate that for every student, two additional community members are regularly accessing the Web.

Internet Cafe’s: One of our favourite examples here is Haiti. The assumption by many aid agencies and some governments has been that Internet access by non-elites is minimal. The reality however, is far different. Shortly after the earthquake in 2010, Internet cafe’s popped up in tents in the tent communities; they remain active to this day. These Internet cafe’s are increasingly popular throughout the developing world and play a crucial role in connecting communities, improving literacy both in ICT and language.

Mobile Devices: With most developing nations building sophisticated wireless networks from 3G to 4G and up, mobile device use of data services is surging. In fact Africa is one of the fastest growing mobile regions in the world. The Congo went from 2% population penetration in 2000 to approaching 50% in 2010. Some research on low income urban youth using mobile devices shows it’s not just texting, but social media use that is growing on mobile devices. Some other research in southern Africa countries shows over 54% of the time mobile devices are used to access social media channels. We forecast that mobile device access for social media services will be the biggest growth sector in mobile data usage, not texting. The role of texting in online communications behaviour is limited at best. Accessing image sharing and the conversation streams possible in status updates and rich content sharing to Facebook, Zoopy or PlentyAfricans.com for example brings a deeper, richer layer of engagement that is a natural element of human communications through digital media.

Summary & Moving Forward
Organizations such as the World Bank and Internet World stats or Africa Analysis have been well done, but the methodologies and the questions have been the issue. We would argue that additional research can be carried out through technologies such as our mediasphere360 and digging a little deeper in on-the-ground research. Even with the capabilities of our technology it is hard to truly quantify the real numbers. But the volume of conversations we measure and analyse for clients and the anecdotal data we collect on the ground is indicative of a larger, more engaged online population in the Global South than we have a tendency to acknowledge. Empirical methods alone are proving inadequate to gain the deeper insights necessary to understand how digital citizens in developing nations are engaging. Different, complimentary approaches will be needed in the future. Traditional methodologies are still and will remain, necessary. But layered online analysis is now vital. The role of digital diaspora is also key to understanding connectivity and engagement.

Muslim Women and Social Media: An Overview

This was a complex research project for MediaBadger; understanding the roles and activities of Muslim women in social media channels. Muslim women are quite active in social media and in complex ways. We’ve done some comparative research of Christian women in social media from prior projects. But we wanted to gain a deeper understanding of a community of women that are often misunderstood and incorrectly portrayed in mainstream Western media.

Age Group Participation
We quickly found that when it comes to Muslim women, they tend to skew to a younger demographic for engagement in social media channels with the most active group between 20 and 35. There is a sharp decline after age 50 we found. The median age of the active demographic is 26.

Muslim Men and Women
We found that 63% of the profiles we analysed were women with 37% being male. When we looked at geographical presence however, we found that in Western nations or predominantly non-Muslim nations, men were more active at 46% compared to women.

Complexities of Muslim Society
There are significant differences dependent on sect and country. This also influences the level of activity and the channels used. For the most part, online Muslim women tend to stay within well defined, closed social networks. In Western nations where they will have friends and associations who are non-Muslim they will be active in more diverse social networks such as Facebook or Orkut. Although they will maintain up to two primary social networks in predominantly non-Muslim countries, with their primary social network being a Muslim-based one. We were able to hypothesize that the stricter the sect or country, the less active both Muslim men and women were, although they are active. In those countries or sects, the most active age group is 17-28, dropping significantly afterwards.

A Growing Voice
Muslim women are becoming increasingly active on the Web as a whole, with social media and through news media services. Over 35% of the news articles in popular online publications that we looked at addressed “misconceptions” of Muslim women. The second most popular topic of coverage was the Hijab.

Muslim Women Engage Non-Muslims
Part of our research looked at how Muslim women engage with non-Muslims in social media channels. We found that overwhelmingly Muslim women are very open to positive dialogue with non-Muslims. They respond to questions in blogs, news media and channels like Twitter quickly and with well articulated responses. Muslim women are 27% more likely to respond to inquiries than Muslim men and are 62% more likely to maintain a positive, open dialogue than males.

The Social Media Landscape for Muslim Women
There is a very strong, poisitive, landscape in Cyburbia for Muslim women. They form tight communities yet are very open to engagement with non-Mulsim men and women in other communities. There is an online marriage site for Muslim women and similar dating and social networking services, like Naseeb following Muslim lifestyles. In many Middle East countries such as Qatar, UAE and Bahrain, there are localized social networks (most often using Ning networks) for Muslim women. Muxlim.com is a popular spot for Muslim women and the juncture between Western and Islamic society. Alif is a social network built around religious Islamic music and is very popular with Muslim women. There are over 150 Muslim centred social media services online varying in their degrees of popularity with SistersZone being one of the most popular for Muslim women.

What Are Muslim Women Doing Online?
Muslim men and women are engaged for the same reasons all other socio-cultural, religious and general citizens are engaged; to connect, communicate and organize. Muslim women have always played a crucial role in the local communities, organizing events and helping other families. This extends very well into social media where they will share stories and support each other. Hyper-local use of social technologies are for organizing functions and get-togethers. Religious and cultural factors do tend to shape their activities, but that reflects the multi-dimensional facets of Muslim women around the world. Few broad statements can be made other than the fact they are active and in a positive way. Muslim women are also using social media channels to discuss religious issues and the roles of gender specific understandings of scripture.

In Summary
Muslim women are a multi-dimensional part of societies all over the world and this is no exception in social media. They enjoy a rich, complex and overall positive presence online. They are very engaged and have adopted social technologies as rapidly as any societal group. The roles of Muslim women in Islamic and Western societies are changing drastically, perhaps more than any other online demographic we have researched to date. With the changes in Egypt, Muslim women there are working to better define their role and emancipation. Similar issues are arising in other Muslim countries as they work for more rights. This is a complex issue far beyond our scope of research, but much of the discussion and debate is taking place online. For Westerners seeking to better understand Muslim society and the vital, perhaps critical, role Muslim women play, the social Web (Cyburbia) is a great place to not only look, but to engage through active and positive dialogue.

But their engagement online is not without its tribulations. Strong anti-Muslim sentiment in some Western nations means some very negative and vitriolic opposition. As well, some Muslim men and religious leaders do not approve of Muslim women being engaged online at all; but these voices are growing weaker.

That Muslim women actively discuss scripture and gender roles is yet another indicator of broader, more global changes of Islamic culture and religion are underway. The use of social technologies means diverse groups of women in different sects and with varying interpretations may play a leading role in changing modern perceptions of women’s roles in Islamic society. Men too are discussing these issues and as both men and women becoming increasingly active, we may see some significant shifts in many societies around the world.

Methodology
We used our proprietary search engine and artificial intelligence engine, mediasphere360 with 350 pre-defined keywords and phrases and defined a suitable sample size between 5,000 and 6,000 profiles around the world. We then ensured a viable sample size in both Muslim and non-Muslim (Western) countries. We did not include Asian countries and we only analysed text in English. Data was collected with a time period from January 1, 2008 to December 31st, 2o10.