Grounded In Reality

From being a site virtually nobody had heard about six months ago, Facebook has exploded into everyday life in Norway.

Popularity

For a country with a mere 4.5 million citizens, 300,000 members in the “Norway” network is nothing less than impressive.  As a comparison, the “Denmark” network has 13,000 members and the “Sweden” network has 79,000 members, countries with a population of 5.4 million and 9 million respectively.

In fact, the “Norway” network ranks fourth overall on Facebook, after the Toronto, London, and Vancouver networks, according to a story on Gridskipper July 10th.  Since this data was released, the network has grown with another 20,000 members.

Facebook has grown by some 2,700 percent in Norway over the last few months and keeps growing.  Granted, it has been the rainiest summer ever, but the main reason for Facebook’s popularity is probably the hype and media attention.  A news search on the Norwegian search engine Sesam (http://www.sesam.no/) shows that 1,779 stories have mentioned the phenomena, and although the first story was back in 2005, all but two are from the last year, and a majority of these are from the last four or five months.

In addition, Norwegians are both tech savvy and blessed with good infrastructure. The country had 3.14 million internet users in 2006, according to the CIA World Factbook, a number that is still increasing.  Most of these internet users are on a broadband connection and 98.3 percent of Norwegian households have access to broadband services.

Waterwar outlawed

The Facebook group “Vannkrig 2007″ (translation: Waterwar) was started in March, and urged people to show up in the Vigeland Park in Oslo bringing water guns on July 28. After 12,000 people joined the group, and several thousand stated their intent to show up, the group applied for a permit from the county, which was denied.  Apparently, a wedding the same day does not go well with super-soakers. Still, the group plans to show up, considering it is a public park, which again has prompted reactions from the county.  Security guards and an increased police presence is likely to be in place at the end of the month, in addition to one nervous bride.

So is Facebook here to stay? For now it is…perhaps until the next big thing comes along.

Fredrik Johnsen
GCI Oslo