Twitter, Mig33, 51.com doing well in Asia, while Plurk, Mixi, and Chinese SNSes flounder

Social networking sites in Asia received some mixed news last week, when Internet research firm GlobalWebIndex released a study of how social networks have performed in the region from Q2 2012 to Q4 2012.

Twitter has experienced tremendous growth among several countries in Asia Pacific, contributing significantly to its status as the fastest-rising social network in the world. Strong performances in Hong Kong, China and South Korea has helped it offset declines in Vietnam and Taiwan. Read more

Jakarta is world’s top Twitter city; other Asia-Pacific nations make strong showing

Jakarta has been ranked the top Twitter city in the world by Semiocast, a Paris-based company that provides data intelligence and research on social media. The cities are ranked based on the number of posted tweets.

The company says that the results are based on a sample of 1.058 billion tweets in June this year. Tokyo, in second place, is not far behind, while Bandung (Indonesia), Singapore, Osaka and Seoul also made the list. Read more

SAP and Ashoka Changemakers to hold live Twitter discussion on #SocEntChat

SAP and Ashoka Changemakers recently launched a global online competition titled The Power of Small: Entrepreneurs Strengthening Local Economies on 20th June 2012 which we covered here.

To spice things up further, they will hold a Twitter-based #SocEntChat, a live Twitter discussion this July 18, from 10am to 12am CET (July 18, 4:00PM to July 19, 6:00AM SGT). This initiative aims to encourage discussion about innovative strategies that help small businesses and emerging social entrepreneurs thrive in underserved communities. Special guests Rob Henning, co-founder and partner at Entrepreneurial Solutions Partner, and Alex van der Ploeg, Corporate Social Responsibility at SAP, will join the conversation. Read more

Twitter Developer Teatimes in Southeast Asia – Singapore and Manila

Social media giant Twitter has been hosting sessions to meet the many developers building applications on its platform.

Developer Teatimes allows the Twitter team to share the latest developments with the Twitter platform, areas of demand within the ecosystem that they’re seeing, and technical dives into integration opportunities for developers. They will also be holding a Q&A session with members of the platform team, plus time to hang out with each other.

Members from the Twitter developer relations team will be calling in remotely over Skype for audience Q&A as well.

First held in London, then New York. Developer Teatimes have now been held across the continents in Toronto, Buenos Aires, Nairobi and now in this part of the world. In Southeast Asia, there are two upcoming sessions, one in Singapore and the other in Manila.

In Singapore:

When: Tuesday June 5th 2012
Time: 10am to 12pm SGT
Where: PlugIn@Blk71, 71 Ayer Rajah Crescent #02-18 Singapore 139951

Register for the Singapore session here.

In Manila, Philippines:

When: Thursday June 7th 2012
Time: 9am to 12pm PHT
Where: 5/F Orient Square Bldg, F. Ortigas Jr. Road, Ortigas Center, Pasig City, NCR

Register for the Manila session here.

TwitMusic reinvents Twitter for singers and musicians

Twitter has fast become the favorite tool for singers and musicians to spread the word about their music.

Lady Gaga, for instance, has over 22 million followers while Justin Bieber has almost 20 million. And as banal as it sounds, fans from both sides even engaged in a Twitter war recently.

But there’s so much more that can be done to enhance Twitter as a music discovery service, according to the founders of Philippines-based startup TwitMusic, which aims to increase the virality of music on the social network. Read more

Gushcloud pays you to tweet, but will people find it spammy?

You can be sure that whenever a social network becomes successful, people will try to make money off it. Twitter is a very good example.

Of late, all sorts of people have been gaming the social network. For instance, using Twitter bots to artificially boost the number of Twitter followers, as what US Presidential nominee Newt Gingrich allegedly did.

Which was why I approached Gushcloud with some skepticism.

Gushcloud is a Singapore-based startup that, in a nutshell, rewards its users to perform certain tasks promoted by marketers: Tweeting or sharing on Facebook about a product, writing a blog post, or completing a survey. In this way, it’s similar to ChurpChurp. Read more

What are the minimum social media assets businesses should have?

In the modern world, in whatever business you are running, social media presence has become part and parcel of life. Most start-ups and some major corporations that have experimented with social media and now reaping benefits in customers engagement, management of PR crisis and announcing new initiatives.

So if you want to enter the new world of social media, what are the social media assets you really need?

The good news is that most of these assets are free and setting up is relatively easy, the real challenge is the management of these assets.

In this post, I will provide a list of minimum viable social media assets you can’t do without. Read more

Japan Digest: Japan YouTube users can rent movies, Gumi raises US$25.7M, and more

Here are some startup news snippets from Japan, not only from its capital, Tokyo, but also other startup hubs like Fukuoka, Kyoto, Osaka, and many more. Read more

Japan Digest: Yahoo Phone, Twitter for Social Media Promotion, and more

Here are some interesting startup news from Japan, not only from its capital, Tokyo, but also other startup hubs like Fukuoka, Kyoto, Osaka, and many more. Read more

Malaysia Digest – 8 Aug

Here are some interesting startup news around Malaysia, not only in its capital, Kuala Lumpur, but also other startup hubs such as Penang, Malacca, and many more. Read more