USA is SA’s social NBF

The USA has been revealed as South Africa’s best friend in cyberspace, according to a new league table released by Western Union.

The USA has been revealed as South Africa’s best friend in cyberspace, according to a unique new league table released by Western Union, one of the world’s most globally connected brands.

The league table has been created using data from Western Union’s Your World Facebook Application, which visualises each user’s Facebook connections around the globe and gives them a score for how globally connected they are.

Your World has enjoyed more than 250,000 hits worldwide since its launch in July this year, as individual users compete in the Network 160 Challenge: a hunt for the world’s most globally networked person on Facebook. On the 18th of October Western Union will announce the winner – and reveal an opportunity for them to use their global network as a force for good.

With so much aggregate data being generated by Your World, Western Union has been able to build a bird’s eye view of how different countries connect to one another on Facebook. The data reveals South Africa’s top ten best friends in cyberspace: those countries where South African Facebook users have the most Facebook connections.

The results show how social media is shrinking the world we live in, with some of South Africa’s closest friends in cyberspace based thousands of miles away in the real world:

1. United States

2. United Kingdom

3. India

4. Australia

5. Canada

6. New Zealand

7. United Arab Emirates

8. Zimbabwe

9. Germany

10. Netherlands