Who’s Online?

This chart tells only part of an exciting story. Did you know that mobile internet use in Africa grew by over 600%, compared with 210% here? Even standard internet usage there grew faster (though not by nearly as much).

Whether or not you do business on the internet, these trends matter to you. You may think, “Nice, but as a business, I need to focus my marketing efforts closer to home.”

What if the exciting growth isn’t so much in new markets as in new ideas? For the first time in history, a grandmother in a remote rural village can share unique insights about resourcefulness or persuading naysayers. Her teenage grandson may devise a type of business model that never occurred to us, or creative customer followup ideas inspired by remoteness and adversity that are surprisingly relevant.

Global marketers are already dreaming up ways to tell these newly plugged-in neighbors they need antiperspirant and cosmetics. If we want to be really smart, we’ll spend more time dreaming up ways to exchange ideas.

P.S. One of the sources for this post was Worldometers.info, a real-time world statistics site (Wikipedia helped, too). Not only can you watch internet usage numbers exploding before your very eyes, you’ll also see population growth, numbers of blog posts and tweets, and natural resource usage. Don’t blink!