gmeltdown

Social media giant, Facebook estimates that there are 4 to 4.5 million Kenyans who are its monthly active users. Facebook usage patterns in Kenya are arguably strong indicators of the country’s internet connectivity patterns. Over 60% of Kenyans (2.5 - 3 million) accessing facebook at least once a month are based in Nairobi.  This is very telling especially as Kenya's second internet exchange point in Mombasa struggles to make business sense due to having too few users. I used the Facebook audience insights tool to rank Kenyan cities and towns according to their monthly active users on Facebook. Below are the top 20 cities and towns in Kenya as at 9th June 2015. Rank City / Town Facebook Monthly Active People % of Kenya Facebook Monthly Active People 1 Nairobi 2.5m - 3m 60.0% 2 Mombasa 300K - 350K 8.0% 3 Eldoret 50K - 200K 4.0% 4 Kisumu 100K - 150K 3.0% 5 Nakuru 100K - 150K 3.0% 6 Thika 50K - 60K 1.0% 7 M...

There is serious agriculture going on in Facebook. At least among Kenyan farmers, there is those that have found Facebook as the place to research and gather knowledge for application in their agricultural related ventures. Others are finding prices of inputs and produce on Facebook groups. Can one be practicing agriculture on Facebook? I think research and access to relevant knowledge for application in one’s agricultural venture is part and parcel of the venture’s activities; hence there can be agricultural practice on Facebook. I think this is one aspect of information technology driven innovation that Agriculture is facing in emerging economies. As I once wrote earlier last year, these innovations may just matter . Here is my list of the top 10 Facebook Groups covering agricultural interests that involve Kenyans by membership size. Rank Facebook Group Name Size of membership (March 13th,  2015) 1 Farming Kenya 34,360 2 Digital Farmers Kenya 20,7...

Global social media giant Facebook has over 1Billion monthly active users. The immense popularity of Facebook reflects easily in internet usage patterns among people in East Africa. Back in 2010, a research by Synovate indicated that 79% of internet users in Kenya had Facebook accounts. The Communications Authority of Kenya( CA) - formerly CCK places the number of internet users in Kenya at 21 million as at December 2013. I am skeptical about the CA's estimation formula for estimating number of internet users in Kenya. However if the trend highlighted by Synovate in 2010 remained, and CA's number was close to accurate, there would be about 16 million Facebook accounts belonging to Kenyans. That said many people having a Facebook account reflects how many people became aware of it and signed up, not necessarily those who use it actively (eg. at least once a month). The 16million estimate on Facebook users would therefore not be a reliable benchmark for market estimation am...