Mongolia- Social Networking

My next project is going to be based off of Mongolias social networking.  We were assigned to pick a country out of a hat and research this countrys technological advancements.  Mongolia definitely is not as advanced as the United States, but they are making some progress. 

Map of Mongolia

In 2009, German organizations met in Ulaanbaatar in order to propose the idea of social networking as a professional, occupational, and a private issue.  Germany is a huge private investor in the networking field of Mongolia.  The question was: "how to open up the virtual world and modern media for themselves", which also understanding it's usefulness...or if it was indeed useful at all.

Meeting on Social Networking

While presenting the magical "Social Network" words to the Mongolian government, a presenter quoted a social networking user saying that "in real life you may only have 15 friends, but online you may have 200."  Interestingly enough the majority of the crowd 'murmered and sounded skeptical.'  I believe that the Mongolians may function on a more personal level, while Americans have resorted to social networking as a means to communicate.

In the United States it is normal for a person to whip out their laptop in several places.  We also provide access to wireless internet in coffee shops, universities, libraries, and several other public places.  We even have "smart phones", and regular phones too that allow us to check out networks as well as look anything up at any second.  However, this is not available to Mongolia.

The Mongolian government plans to provide its towns and provinces with fibre optic cables to connect to the worldwide web within a few years.

source: http://www.alumniportal-deutschland.org/events/alumniportal-worldwide/asia/mongolia.html

One networking site popular in Mongolia is blogging.  It seems as though their main purpose is not at all for socializing with friends though.  They seem to be more interested with these networks on a business level, in order to make money.  There is a "general trend of more and more websites that offer web 2.0 social networking.  However, very few of them take to English.



source:  http://www.mongolia-web.com/opinion?start=5