Bandar
Seri Begawan – Brunei Darussalam may not
be the most wired nation in the region but in terms of Facebook usage, it ranks
No 1 in Asia.
Social
networking in the Sultanate continues to grow at a rapid pace, according to
statistics compiled by Socialbakers, one of the biggest social media statistics
portals in the world.
In
relation to its population, Brunei ranks No.1 among all countries in Asia in
terms of penetration for the social networking site Facebook, standing at 59.25
per cent.
Singapore,
the most networked country in the Southeast Asian region, is three places
behind Brunei, with an Internet penetration for Facebook of 55.37 per cent.
Hong Kong and Malaysia, meanwhile, are ranked fifth (52.92 per cent) and
seventh place (47.27 per cent) respectively.
Calvin
Yeo, Senior Consultant from Ericsson Telecommunications Pte Ltd, speaking at a
roundtable media briefing yesterday, said it was interesting to note that with
a small population, the number of social networking users here is very high.
“Bruneians
are very well connected through social networking platforms such as Facebook
and Twitter,” he said, adding that this is “very healthy”.
According
to Socialbakers, there are currently 234,060 Facebook users in Brunei, more
than half of its population. Demographically, the majority of them are between
the ages of 18 and 24 (74,800 or 33 per cent of the population), followed by
those between the ages of 25 and 35. In the last six months, the number of new
Facebook users from Brunei increased by 12,340.
Facebook
usage has taken the country by storm since early 2004 when the social
networking service website was first launched. More Bruneians, especially the
younger generation, use Facebook to connect with friends, families, classmates
and co-workers to leverage on the many user-friendly tools to post shout outs
(status updates) and sharing photos.
If the
mushrooming number of online shops is any indication, it is clear that Facebook
has revolutionised the way people conduct business here. Some of the major
players in the business world also use Facebook to ‘connect’ with their
customers.
Facebook
has also been a very crucial source of information for the general public to
receive updates on the latest and breaking news in real time. For instance,
updates of the recent tragic bus crash incident in Sabah, which claimed the
lives of seven Bruneians, were splashed across the walls of Facebook users in
Brunei, as news began to spread by relatives and friends of the victims.
There
are, however, growing concerns that as the use of Facebook becomes more
widespread, the number of instances of people abusing it would increase too. A
number of such cases have surfaced in the country in recent years.
A
representative from IT Protective Security Services Sdn Bhd (ITPSS) late last
year told the Weekend Bulletin that apart from the rise in online scams or
e-fraud, which is rampant on the Internet and sourced mostly from outside the
country, cases of cyber crimes reported here also derive from web
infrastructures such as e-mails and social networking tools like Facebook.
Just
last week, a man was sentenced to jail for 10 months after he admitted to
uploading obscene pictures and video clips of his ex-girlfriend on Facebook.
Borneo
Bulletin
Business & Investment Opportunities
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Healthcare and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN. We also propose Higher Education, as a bridge between educational structures and industries, by supporting international programmes. Many thanks for visiting www.yourvietnamexpert.com and/or contacting us at contact@yourvietnamexpert.com
No comments:
Post a Comment