Kitcatt Nohr Digitas

You may have seen in the news recently that Paul Butler from Facebook has created a map of the world based on the links between Facebook members in different countries.

Unsurprisingly, there are large blank areas on the map, particularly in the south of the world. It would be easy to read these as evidence of lower levels of economic development leading to less engagement with social networking sites. But it might just mean that people in south america and southern Africa use different networks, like Mxit in Africa or Orkut in Brazil, Hi5 in Peru or Badoo in Venezuela.

But no matter what the reasons behind the map, two things are perfectly clear to see: one, we live in a truly connected world; two, if you did a map of my 13 Facebook friends it wouldn't look so good.  

You can read Paul Butler's blog about creating the map here