WOM Expert Groups - Asia

The Word of Mouth People

WOM Expert Group:Asia

21st of September 2009

Contents

1. Overview2. Attendees3. Insights on social media in Asia

– Languages– Venues– Speakers/voices– Events

4. General insights– Twestival– Other

WOM Expert Groups - Asia

Overview

• In March 2009 1000heads prepared and moderated a panel discussion on the state of social media in the Middle East, and its role in global community

• This discussion was part of a wider range of panels taking place on a monthly basis,

each engaging in conversations about different regions of the world

• People were invited from different regions to talk about social media in Asia, the forum was also open to anyone who wished to take part

• The discussion took place over two days (17th and 18th September) to maximise participation

• The original text of discussion is still available here:

– http://www.tangler.com/forum/wom-expert-groups (topic: Asia)


Attendees

Those attending the WOM Expert Group on Asia came from a variety of backgrounds:


Source: https://farge.wikispaces.com/file/view/continents_map.jpeg

@SocializedWeb, Bilal, Sana Saleem, mirza9, @Drawab, Faisal Kapadia (Pakistan)

@ahmednaguib (Egypt)

@preetamrai (Singapore, India)

@FranciscoVera

(Spain, Bolivia)@insearchofsanuk (Thailand)

Eddie Yu (China)

@paulusveltman (Netherlands)

@dawidpacha (Poland)

AttendeesWOM Expert Groups - Asia

• @preetamrai – Educator, technologist & traveler, from India, based in Singapore

• @insearchofsanuk – Social entrepreneur from Thailand. Twestival organizer

• Eddie Yu – Social media fan, working in social media in China• @dawidpacha – Social media enthusiast working for @spolem in

Poland• @paulusveltman – Twitter specialist from Netherlands• @FranciscoVera – Social media fan from Bolivia, working for

1000heads, UK • @ahmednaguib – Based in Cairo, involved in social media in Middle

East• Bilal – Social media enthusiast from Pakistan, working for GenexBS,• @SocializedWeb – Social media marketing consultant at GenexBS,

Pakistan• Sana Saleem – Global Voices author and citizen journalist from

Pakistan

Insights

• The following slides detail some key insights drawn directly from the conversation that took place during the WOM Expert Group on Asia

• Quotes have been taken verbatim from the conversation

• You can read a full transcript of the discussion here:– http://www.tangler.com/forum/wom-expert-groups


Insights

Are native languages or English more prominent in Asian social media?

• ‘yes.. [social media in the region is] pretty fragmented in terms of language. middle east has that advantage.. mostly Arabic.. we have so many languages in East Asia’; ‘the barcamps are in English.. though we have some sessions in local languages too..[…] the Indonesian one are in bahasa’; ‘Malaysia and Singapore has good English.. but rest of the region does not .. India is big on English blogs though’ @preetamrai

• ‘Thais love Thai language. That's clear living here. unless they directly benefit from an English audience, most prefer the mother tongue’ ‘btw should mention the same is true of micro-blogging. a lot more of Thai lang tweets than eng ones lately’; ‘barcamp here is in Thai/English with a very big Thai following’ @insearchofsanuk


Insights

Is social media fragmenting in Asia?

• ‘That is very true, we have too much in front of us and what do ppl do. that is particularly true in China…’ Eddie Yu

• ‘yes.. I would say a lot.. Like about 4 years back, you could make a list of top 10 bloggers in Singapore or Malaysia.. Now it is getting harder.. Also a lot of people are moving to systems like mixi.. where their posts are not public..’ @preetamrai

• [People moving away from public posting due to legal actions] ‘there was a girl who was fired in Thailand for making fun of her English teaching school on her blog.. and her boss discovering her blog.. many incidents like that.. so people tend to be wary…’ @preetamrai

• ‘There are smaller niche communities, but I think that’s also a response to the way social media is being used to send highly preferential content and just more of a multitude of voices in general…’ @insearchofsanuk


Insights

What are the most popular venues in the region?

• ‘I would bet that Forums have way more traffic than blogs and other places.’ @preetamrai

• ‘as far as social media use in TH Thais have been slow to move away from sites like hi5. so in comparison to say Indonesia, growth of facebook/twitter has been slower. and yes, forum loyalty is still strong here’ @insearchofsanuk

• ‘but the problem of Chinese forums is that there are way too many ppl here, the forum posts easily reach over 10 pages in a day. and most annoyingly, majority of the posts are meaningless, just purely bumping the thread’Eddie Yu

• Mixi – Japanese, ‘Mixi is just another social networking site as i remember . just like myspace and facebook’ Eddie Yu


Insights

How is social networking developing in the region?

• ‘these days most my students don't follow a blog.. they discover a blog post via some friend's post on facebook.’ @preetamrai

• ‘twitter has really taken of in the region.. we just had the launch of the INQ phone last week in Singapore.. I think it will explode more’ ‘Also a lot of MSN conversation is moving to twitter.. Twitter saves people from the obligation of answering immediately.’ @preetamrai

• ‘In China, QQ has been the big boss for years. Especially a lots of sites been blocked, even Youtube’ Eddie Yu

• [In Pakistan] ‘twitter is not popular as yet, but it will be people loving doing SMS all the time...Bilal


Insights

Where else are conversations happening?

• ‘Twitter definitely does, in fact we recently did have a tweet up as well, where we discussed how we use it as a tool and various other privacy issues’ Sana Saleem

• ‘I have seen quite many Pakistani users are Flickr ..’ Bilal

• ‘audio boo works well.. though I don't see that much as I think people are concerned about the data plans on iPhone.. once they go down.. you will se a lot more. ‘ @preetamrai


Insights

Who are the key speakers in Asia?

• ‘One of our bloggers has recently been shortlisted for TED India, I have juts invited him over too.’ ‘we do have people who do a lot of travelling in fact the bloggers awards I mentioned are meant to be in another city. Usually most prominent bloggers are from khi. The event is in lahore, so that would allow us to travel and meet new people.’ ‘@Drawab is the blogger quite popular and recently selected for TED India’ Sana Saleem

• ‘The political blogs are quite famous though but there are in fact a lot of technology bloggers even more than the political ones. Feel free to check out http://teabreak.pk the biggest blog aggregator in Pakistan’ Sana Saleem


Insights

What events are you attending?

• Barcamps (more open to different audiences) and blog camps (events directed at social media users) in Asia. Low budget events are more about sharing, whereas sponsored events have invited speakers, blogger celebrities. Barcamps usually take place at university campuses. The attendance is easy due to cheap flights in the region.

• Hong Kong Barcamp few weeks ago, Kuala Lumpur Barcamp, Tokyo Barcamp (70 people, hard to get a large venue), Barcamp Bangkok, (http://www.barcampbangkok.org/, 700 attendees – new one on Nov 14th in Chiang Mai), upcoming Phnom Penh Barcamp (http://barcampphnompenh.org/).

• ‘I prefer less budget events as they tend to be less about celebrity bloggers and more about sharing’ @preetamrai


Insights

What events are you attending?

• In Cairo there was a Wordpess Camp, but also blogger meet ups, mainly offline meet ups.

• ‘We are having bloggers meetups and twitter meetups in major cities of Pakistan, youth is very optimistic about writing blogs for sharing as well as some money making’ Bilal

• ‘we do have many sessions on social change in the Thai, Cambodian and Indonesian barcamps’ @insearchofsanuk

• 'The marketers tend to hijack the events, we loose the grass-rootness. They develop lists of influential bloggers etc. start ranking bloggers. I think that destroys the community‘ @preetamrai


Insights

What are the current trends in social media in Asia?

• [Twitter in Pakistan] ‘Its also quite interesting that during the 20/20 world cup tweeps from Pakistan were actually live tweeting the match. Making #pakistan the trending topic, it was also used in august on the independence day to post facts about Pakistan that are usually over looked due to recent crisis. This involved over 6000-8000 people all over twitter participating’ Sana Saleem

• [Trends in Pakistan] ‘The trends now are fairly diverse we have a lot of people talking about social issues. But juts recently with all the meet ups we have been introduced to a lot of people that are doing tech blogging. Google has been arranging meet ups in various educational institutes to teach pupil how they can earn from blogging. Most of them then start reviewing tech gadgets and all. We have people who are earning over $ 9000 per month from their blog’ Sana Saleem


Insights

What the current trends in social media in other regions?

• [Dutch blogosphere] ‘The Dutch blogosphere is different from UK/USA in that no one blogs for money, really. It's a hobby, or supports you personal branding.’ ‘We have leading blogs in Holland, not bloggers. Most popular blogs are new media and marketing oriented. However, the biggest blogs are anti-establishment news blogs, fairly right-wing oriented.’ @paulusveltman

• [Start-ups globally] ‘Internet startups change global trends and their beginnings are on meetups. No other place for young entrepreneurs to show what they got, gain attention of venture capital’ @dawidpacha


Insights

Thoughts on the future…

• ‘I expect that the traditional blog will evolve into a kind of lifestream container, mixing the elements @sylwia mentioned’ @paulusveltman

• ‘streaming will evolve.’ @dawidpacha

• ‘Blogging platforms need to evolve from the hierarchical content-management systems of today to more fluid and real-time lifestreaming systems’ @paulusveltman

• ‘we want to be happy about what we do and how we do it - the satisfaction comes from sharing, and probably - as the next step - from collaborating...’ @presleysylwia


Insights

Update on Twestival in all regions

• Twestival in Cairo was planned, but due to the lack of sponsors and understanding of what the event is about, it did not happen. @ahmednaguib

• Twestival Thailand raised $1572, ‘we also had close to 400 party people show up. digital democracy came through and did some live footage and interviews. was good, but i would like to see the thai twitter community pick up the next one’. @insearchofsanuk

• Twestival Amsterdam offered discussion on social media. @paulusveltman

• Twestival Oxford raised £1570, and wtook the form of a networking event built around art and charity. @presleysylwia


Thank you!

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WOM Expert Groups - Asia