I think FB disliked his map because it showed how poor the connections between areas where. FB's map pretends that all areas are equal and focuses on the global nature of their network.
If you're interested: Russia is missing because we've got one very similar social network[1][2] that's got arguably more features and arrived to the market a year or so earlier than facebook got its russian localization.
I’m pretty sure that this is a development that happened all over the World. Germany had its own Facebook clone [1] early on and it absolutely dominated before Facebook entered the German market [2]. That’s now no more the case.
To quote StudiVZ CEO Riedl: “There is now no more direct battle against the global player Facebook.” [3]
It’s interesting to see that the Facebook clone worked in Russia but didn’t in other places.
Others have mentioned the media uploads before, that's definitely the killer feature.
The other great thing is the lack of censorship. Vkontakte doesn't censor posts and doesn't have Facebook's policy of selectively banning links to outside websites.
You can't post a picture of a titty on your FB wall without the Facebook Nazis coming down with threats on you. Vkontakte doesn't ban adult content or adult-related groups.
The two things they do actively fight against are spammers and pedophiles.
About respecting copyright law, Facebook does nothing about people posting stolen photographs. It's just more socially acceptable to pirate those.
The other thing about Vkontakte is it's very popular with CIS diaspora and exchange student communities abroad. Lots of people keep accounts in both Facebook and Vkontakte, but the latter gets used more for things like organizing social outings and events.
> we've got one very similar social network that's got arguably more features and arrived to the market a year or so earlier than facebook got its russian localization.
Except that it's an incomplete relatively ugly clone of Facebook, which is why quite a few people are jumping ship to Facebook. It does have its niceties in the form of music uploads, but that's more of a quirk of the general state of regard for copyright laws in the country.
The US / Canadian border in the West is interesting. It seems between west of the great lakes and east of Seattle there isn't much connection across the border.
I really wanted to look at the map in the context of where actual countries were so I threw together a Google Maps overlay. I couldn't believe how accurately the connections followed country lines, it was amazing!
It's really interesting that you can clearly see the differences between West Germany from East Germany, even 20 years after the reunification. Also the borders of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 80 years after the end of the World War I.
> It's really interesting that you can clearly see the differences between West Germany from East Germany, even 20 years after the reunification.
That might also be an artefact of young people leaving East Germany for West Germany and Berlin. The facebook population density in East Germany seems to be quite low by that picture.
I might be mistaken, but I believe he took the destinations from the current city profile field. I'm sure there aren't that many Facebook users in North Korea.
What I want to know is, were the 10MM pairs all people who make their friendship data public? For people in urban areas, this is sufficiently anonymous. But for those faint dots in the middle of nowhere, is it?
I think very carefully before I reveal any information publicly about my users. Sometimes seemingly aggregate information isn't.
the lack of china is pretty interesting. russia is practically non-existent too, but it's much larger (especially with this map projection) with a much smaller population.
also, brazil is still holding out for the most part. i wonder what the penetration rate of a social network needs to be in order for users to not jump ship to facebook?
All that dark may be attributed to numerous things as alluded to already: lack of development, lack of human settlement, poverty, simply not on fb
The border region between the Canadian prairie provinces and the American plains may be because the cities aren't smack against the border as in BC/WASH. or Ontario/NY etc.
The few dots in NK could be those few expats or SK/foreign tourists, or NK operatives logging in. NK does have a twitter account.
Anyway, the map is stunning and i think its a great visual of the inequalities, especially between Africa and the global North. It might also highlight the irrelevance of fb in regions where community (not the same as digitized "communication") is more necessary, strong and relevant to the life and survival mechanisms therein than costly technologies elsewhere.
Interesting. In Germany you can still distinct clearly the former eastern part, which has less facebook activity. You see the 'island' of Berlin, though. For your informaion: The union of Germany was 20 years ago...
Anyway, I'm not a fan of facebook, google and the like, as it's not obvious that the consumer pays the big bill in the end. People think of great, free services but all the billions those company make come secretly from our pockets. (Via created consumer trends, higher prices that other companies can take due to the consumer information they buy from facebook)
Weird: Sardinia is much brighter than Corsica (density for Corsica (34 hab. per km2) is about half the density of Sardinia (70 hab. per km2), so I guess that explains it?)
Weirder: Portugal (11M people, 114 hab. per km2) is much brighter than Spain (44M people, 93 hab. per km2): the difference in density does not seem to explain the difference on the map. Are Spaniards less social than the Portuguese?
this might not represent "real human relationships".. people playing games like mafia wars (45 million users) keep adding hundreds of other players as friends..
Its interesting to see many connections within India. Also India and countries in Western Asia seem more connected than India and US (which is what I was expecting assuming the FB population in India)
It's interesting how sub-Saharan Africa is still a mostly dark continent.
Also interesting are the connections between the Kurds from Turkey and those from present-day Iraq, and how people from Baghdad are still more or less connected to those from the northern parts of Iraq (there's still a major Sunni presence in there as far as I know).
[+] [-] Loic|15 years ago|reply
http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/02/how-to-s...
[+] [-] Retric|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xentronium|15 years ago|reply
[1] http://vk.com
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vkontakte
[+] [-] ugh|15 years ago|reply
To quote StudiVZ CEO Riedl: “There is now no more direct battle against the global player Facebook.” [3]
It’s interesting to see that the Facebook clone worked in Russia but didn’t in other places.
[1] StudiVZ: http://www.studivz.net/
[2] StudiVZ was founded in November 2005 (a whole year earlier than Vkontakte), Facebook was localized in early 2008
[3] A week ago, in an interview (German): http://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/it-medien/studivz-ch...
[+] [-] sedachv|15 years ago|reply
The other great thing is the lack of censorship. Vkontakte doesn't censor posts and doesn't have Facebook's policy of selectively banning links to outside websites.
You can't post a picture of a titty on your FB wall without the Facebook Nazis coming down with threats on you. Vkontakte doesn't ban adult content or adult-related groups.
The two things they do actively fight against are spammers and pedophiles.
About respecting copyright law, Facebook does nothing about people posting stolen photographs. It's just more socially acceptable to pirate those.
The other thing about Vkontakte is it's very popular with CIS diaspora and exchange student communities abroad. Lots of people keep accounts in both Facebook and Vkontakte, but the latter gets used more for things like organizing social outings and events.
[+] [-] mitjak|15 years ago|reply
Except that it's an incomplete relatively ugly clone of Facebook, which is why quite a few people are jumping ship to Facebook. It does have its niceties in the form of music uploads, but that's more of a quirk of the general state of regard for copyright laws in the country.
[+] [-] revorad|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joakin|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nostromo|15 years ago|reply
The US / Canadian border in the West is interesting. It seems between west of the great lakes and east of Seattle there isn't much connection across the border.
[+] [-] shelfu|15 years ago|reply
Alberta bumps up to ~3.7 million, and the connections start to increase.
[+] [-] jonchui|15 years ago|reply
I really wanted to look at the map in the context of where actual countries were so I threw together a Google Maps overlay. I couldn't believe how accurately the connections followed country lines, it was amazing!
[+] [-] patrickaljord|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] aonic|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pmichaud|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dezwald|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DrJokepu|15 years ago|reply
I also wonder who those users in North Korea are.
[+] [-] trafficlight|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eru|15 years ago|reply
That might also be an artefact of young people leaving East Germany for West Germany and Berlin. The facebook population density in East Germany seems to be quite low by that picture.
[+] [-] doyoulikeworms|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brlewis|15 years ago|reply
I think very carefully before I reveal any information publicly about my users. Sometimes seemingly aggregate information isn't.
[+] [-] DanielN|15 years ago|reply
Notice the conspicuous absence of China, Russia and Brazil.
[+] [-] hyperbovine|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acgourley|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pragetruif|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nonfamous|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] moe|15 years ago|reply
This looks pretty, but it'd be more interesting to me if I could explore it some.
[+] [-] galapagos|15 years ago|reply
The border region between the Canadian prairie provinces and the American plains may be because the cities aren't smack against the border as in BC/WASH. or Ontario/NY etc.
The few dots in NK could be those few expats or SK/foreign tourists, or NK operatives logging in. NK does have a twitter account.
Anyway, the map is stunning and i think its a great visual of the inequalities, especially between Africa and the global North. It might also highlight the irrelevance of fb in regions where community (not the same as digitized "communication") is more necessary, strong and relevant to the life and survival mechanisms therein than costly technologies elsewhere.
[+] [-] jonknee|15 years ago|reply
It's not based on IP, but based on self-stated resident city.
[+] [-] Knack|15 years ago|reply
Anyway, I'm not a fan of facebook, google and the like, as it's not obvious that the consumer pays the big bill in the end. People think of great, free services but all the billions those company make come secretly from our pockets. (Via created consumer trends, higher prices that other companies can take due to the consumer information they buy from facebook)
[+] [-] bambax|15 years ago|reply
Weirder: Portugal (11M people, 114 hab. per km2) is much brighter than Spain (44M people, 93 hab. per km2): the difference in density does not seem to explain the difference on the map. Are Spaniards less social than the Portuguese?
[+] [-] jkent|15 years ago|reply
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