Month: December 2011

Data on Internet and social media usage

One of the interesting things about the Internet is actually how difficult it is to find out detailed and accurate information about its usage, especially with respect to social media. The International Telecommunications Union does, though, provide some useful high level data.  Given all of the emphasis on the apparent ‘ubiquity’ of Internet use, these provide some very salient reminders that in 2011

  • some 35% of the world’s population use the Internet – which means that 65% still do not!
  • although 45% of Internet users are under 25, 75% of the world’s under-25s still do not use the Internet.
  • there are twice as many mobile-broadband as there are fixed-broadband subscribers across the world

It is not just connectivity, though, that matters.  The available bandwidth and speed of connectivity are also crucial.  The following ITU graph (click on image for larger version) thus illustrates the enormous contrasts that still exist in this respect:

Whereas more than 95% of fixed broadband connections in South Korea have advertised speeds of ≥ 10 Mbit/s, some 98% of connections in Ghana, Venezuela and Mongolia have speeds of ≤ 2 Mbit/s.

Of equal concern is the observation that the least developed countries are being left further and further behind in the race for digital connectivity.  In a striking report on the role of ICTs in the “least developed countries”, the ITU  shows this particularly graphically in the chart below (click on image for larger version), which illustrates the percentages of people who are Internet users:

This shows, for example, that the difference between the percentage of Internet users in the “developed” and the “least developed” countries in 2000 was only about 25 people per 100, whereas by 2010 it had leaped to more than 68 people per 100.  Despite growth in the number of Internet users in the developing countries, they were likewise still 50 people per 100 behind the “developed” countries in 2010.  The differences between rich and poor are thus getting dramatically bigger rather than lessening.

As 2012 gets underway, let us all commit ourselves more strongly than ever before to ensuring that these trends are reversed, and that the world’s poorest and most marginalised are indeed able to benefit from the ICTs that so many people living in the richest countries of the world now take for granted.

One aspect of data on Internet usage that I find particularly frustrating is the difficulty of finding accurate information on social media usage.  This is especially important when there is so much rhetoric about the ways in which such media are transforming social, economic, political and cultural life.  It seems to me that, once again, this may well be true of the world’s richest 10% or so of people, but is scarcely true of the majority!

Facebook, for example, is renowned for how little information it shares, with its statistics page only giving very sparse information about five categories of data, including the ‘fact’ that there are 800 million active users.  But what does “Active Users” mean?  According to Facebook it is people who have returned to the site in the last 30 days, although we are told that half of these (c.400 million) use Facebook every day.  If the world’s population is taken as being ‘approximately’ 6.984 billion, that means that about 1 in 17.46 people are using Facebook every day.  Before we get too carried away with the enormity of this figure, we should recognise that this is only 5.7% of the world’s population, which means that a huge 94.3% of the world’s people do not use Facebook daily!

It is likewise not that easy to find out detailed data from Twitter, although officially some 177 million Tweets were sent on 11 March 2011.  In the above vein, though, it should be noted that this is equivalent to only 1 per every 2.5% of the world’s population (some useful sites providing more comprehensive visual summaries of data on Twitter include MarketingGum and digitalbuzz, although these are becoming rather dated; see also report on CMSWire). In September 2011, Twitter announced that it had 100 million active global users logging in once a month – but again this only represents 1.4% of the world’s population!

When we read about how Facebook and Twitter are going to change the world, we therefore need to think very carefully about whose world, and the kind of world they might create.  To be sure, digital technologies have enormous potential to serve the interests of the poorest and most marginalised, and the numbers of users of services such as Twitter and Facebook are indeed increasing impressively, but with such low levels of global reach they are not yet the dominant force that many would claim them to be – or indeed some users might like to think they are!  So, how many people have more than 1000 followers on Twitter?!

Thanks to the Masters of Wine…

Without doubt, one of the most interesting and enjoyable aspects of my life in recent years has been serving as Academic Advisor and External Examiner for the Institute of Masters of Wine since 2004.  It has been fascinating working with some of the leading figures in the wine industry during this period, and helping them evolve their examination system to ensure that it remains at the cutting edge of good practice in professional examinations (the picture here is from one of the MW training days in Olney). One of the things I have been most impressed with is the way in which the Institute has continued to explore novel and exciting ways to assess understanding of grape growing and wine making, as well as wine tasting skills.  To be a Master of Wine, you really do need to have very considerable depth of knowledge and expertise!

This is rightly a qualification in the old medieval sense of the word ‘Master’, whereby someone only achieves the status when they have served an appropriate apprenticeship, learned the skills and knowledge requisite to become a journeyman, and then produced a master-piece that members of a guild thinks sufficiently highly of to elevate them to the status of a Master.   In this light, the dissertation can be seen as the ‘master-piece’ that all candidates have to produce before they are welcomed into the Institute!

One of the things that most impressed me was the way in which the Institute recently developed a policy of reasonable accommodation and special consideration, that specifically addresses ways through which students with a range of disabilities and other special circumstances can indeed participate in the examination process.

It was therefore with a real sense of sadness – at least for me – that pressures of work in my new role as CEO of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation meant that in the autumn I decided that I could not continue in my role at the Institute.  I was overwhelmed by the generosity of so many members of the Institute who hosted me to a wonderful dinner at The Don in London (not the picture here, which is from a MW gathering in Napa).  Not only that, they each gave me a superb bottle of wine from their cellars, and I would just like to thank them all here for their amazing generosity.  What a wine list this makes (thanks to John for noting them down!):

The challenge will undoubtedly be to decide when to drink these very special wines – or perhaps more appropriately, with whom and alongside what food!

Thanks again so much to the Institute for all that I have learnt, and for the friendship of so many Masters of Wine.

Skiing in Kitzbühel

We took a risk and decided to take an early week’s holiday skiing in Kitzbühel.  Despite it being one of the warmest winters so far on record, and with forecasts suggesting that there would not be much snow around we have nevertheless managed to have a great time.  The 15th-17th December were cloudy and/or windy, with not much visibility – but runs from the top of the Hahnenkamm, and yesterday from the Hornbahn have been open.  Today, the sun came out, and more runs were open – so anyone here over Christmas can look forward to really excellent skiing!

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