Singapore ranks first in social media use but last in terms of corporate performance

According to a report by social media firm RockPublicity.com, Singaporeans are the heaviest social media users with 68.1% of the total population using social media regularly. Yet, despite the high social media penetration, firms in Singapore rank low in corporate social performance and miss out on potential sales loss of 67.5 million Singapore dollars each month.

This is compared to other Asian countries such as Indonesia, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, India and Japan.

According to Leon Hill, CEO of RockPublicity, this phenomenon comes from the fact that “Singaporean companies are either very slow to take up using social media as a tool for advertising and promotion, as well as customer relations and brand building.”

This can mostly be attributed to the lack of proper training and knowledge in social media by local corporations, as well as Asia’s generally late adoption of the medium as compared to their Western counterparts.

Some interesting yet shocking statistics revealed that the average Twitter response time was 17 hours 44 minutes 16 seconds and the average Facebook response time was 15 hours 12 minutes 03 seconds. 44.6% of firms did not respond to their customers on Twitter while 57.1% did not respond through Facebook.

Not only was there a lack of customer engagement, the report also revealed low customer satisfaction. In the Telco industry alone, SingTel, Starhub and M1, Pacnet and iCell averaged more than 1,700 negative mentions on social media each day.

Because direct sales via social media are rapidly increasing, Singaporean companies are actually missing out on more sales by not capitalizing on social media. Therefore, it is essential to think and plan carefully on social media strategies. Finding the right social media platform for your firm is definitely step one. But if you are already using social media for your business, then could it be time to rethink the social media strategies for your business?

The report was generated by surveying a total of 51,750 Singaporean locals and studying the social media presences of 217 Singapore-based companies over a period of around three months.  The companies studied were spread over several industries and included major names such as SingTel, Singapore Airways and the Singapore Flyer. To find out more detailed information about the report, head on to RockPublicity.

 

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Singapore ranks first in social media use but last in terms of corporate performance

According to a report by social media firm RockPublicity.com, Singaporeans are the heaviest social media users with 68.1% of the total population using social media regularly. Yet, despite the high social media penetration, firms in Singapore rank low in corporate social performance and miss out on potential sales loss of 67.5 million Singapore dollars each month.

This is compared to other Asian countries such as Indonesia, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, India and Japan.

According to Leon Hill, CEO of RockPublicity, this phenomenon comes from the fact that “Singaporean companies are either very slow to take up using social media as a tool for advertising and promotion, as well as customer relations and brand building.”

This can mostly be attributed to the lack of proper training and knowledge in social media by local corporations, as well as Asia’s generally late adoption of the medium as compared to their Western counterparts.

Some interesting yet shocking statistics revealed that the average Twitter response time was 17 hours 44 minutes 16 seconds and the average Facebook response time was 15 hours 12 minutes 03 seconds. 44.6% of firms did not respond to their customers on Twitter while 57.1% did not respond through Facebook.

Not only was there a lack of customer engagement, the report also revealed low customer satisfaction. In the Telco industry alone, SingTel, Starhub and M1, Pacnet and iCell averaged more than 1,700 negative mentions on social media each day.

Because direct sales via social media are rapidly increasing, Singaporean companies are actually missing out on more sales by not capitalizing on social media. Therefore, it is essential to think and plan carefully on social media strategies. Finding the right social media platform for your firm is definitely step one. But if you are already using social media for your business, then could it be time to rethink the social media strategies for your business?

The report was generated by surveying a total of 51,750 Singaporean locals and studying the social media presences of 217 Singapore-based companies over a period of around three months.  The companies studied were spread over several industries and included major names such as SingTel, Singapore Airways and the Singapore Flyer. To find out more detailed information about the report, head on to RockPublicity.

 

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China Set to Reach 420 Million Mobile Internet Users by End of 2012 [CHART]

Looking at data from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), it’s clear to see that China is set to pass 400 million mobile internet users next month. Indeed, with 390 million in June of this year, and factoring in an average growth rate of just under eight percent, we project there will be 420 million mobile web users in China by the end of this year.

In terms of the total number of Chinese netizens, that will rise to an anticipated 570 million by the end of this year, assuming average growth per half-year of five percent:

Here’s the historical growth going all the way back to the summer of 2008 when there were a mere 70 million mobile internet users in China:

As we noted recently, Asia is pushing forward this new era in web accessibility, seeing 192.5 percent growth in mobile internet traffic since 2012. At the heart of that are affordable smartphones – especially Android-powered ones. This year, Canalys notes, China accounted for 27 percent of the 158 million global smartphone shipments.

[Source: CNNIC data; via ChinaInternetWatch]

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Why Aren’t Indonesian Devs Building More Games on Blackberry?

Blackberry’s dominance in Indonesia is starting to falter, with Indonesians now more open to Android devices. RIM needs to start to worry about the Android threat, because given the amount of gaming and entertainment apps available on Google’s platform, it’s likely to lure many younger Blackberry users to switch. Android apps crossed the 700,000 mark last month, but Blackberry won’t even cross the 100,000 mark until next year.

Recently RIM has stepped up its efforts to convince developers worldwide to start building apps for Blackberry. You might have noticed campaigns like the Blackberry JamHack event, Blackberry’s generous ‘$10,000 developer commitment’ program, the Blackberry Got Game Port-a-Thon, and not forgetting its #BB10Believe campaign. But why aren’t many developers building their apps or games on the Blackberry platform in the first place?

We talked to three Indonesian game developers Mintsphere, TouchTen, and Nightspade, as well as Malaysian game developer E1 Studio, who have all been approached by RIM and some of them were given Blackberry devices on which to test games. While Nightspade didn’t have much problem from a technical perspective, the other three argued the opposite. They agreed that building games for the Blackberry platform is a bit complicated. E1 Studio added that it is a challenge for them to build for Blackberry’s various form factors such as full touch and QWERTY handsets.

TouchTen had similar concerns. Most of the studio’s games use the Unity engine, which is easily deployed onto iOS and Android – but not Blackberry. This would mean that TouchTen would have to rewrite its code from scratch if they want to port games to Blackberry, which they deem not worth the effort.

In the end, it seems that another big reason for the lack of apps in the Blackberry OS is simply developers’ lack of trust in Blackberry’s market. All the game developers, including Nightspade this time, agreed that the Android or iOS app stores are more promising markets.

Why Build for Blackberry?

Unfortunately, Angry Birds isn’t available on Blackberry 7 OS. (This is just a joke image, btw).

Out of the four game developers we talked to, Mintsphere is the only one to have made a game for Blackberry OS. Its award winning game Trigger Knight is available on four platforms: Android, iOS, Symbian, and Blackbery 10. Wilson Tjandra, the co-founder of Mintsphere, explained three reasons for this.

First of all, they were supported by RIM. They were given a Blackberry device and were enticed with the $10,000 developer commitment program. Second, Trigger Knight is a relatively simple game, so it is easy to be made for both touch or non-touch devices. Third, the lack of gaming apps for Blackberry provided a better chance for the studio’s game to stand out. But in the end, Wilson said that building for the Blackberry OS is still not their main priority.

Nightspade argued that they might consider building for Blackberry OS if they can get further support from RIM – not only in terms of devices, but also in terms of licensing and promotional support. The game studio gives the example of how the Windows 8 team did just that for them. Nightspade also mentioned that RIM could benefit by emulating Nokia’s efforts to support young game developer startups in the country by holding more local developer-related events.

The four game developers we talked to above may or may not be a representative sample, but they may share similar views with other game devs out there who aren’t prioritizing Blackberry OS either. These opinions definitely do not bode well for RIM’s upcoming Blackberry 10 phones, which are set to be launched on January 30th next year.

[Picture source: Buzzfeed]

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Stanford and NUS public forum: startup incubators and accelerating social impact

Stanford University and National University of Singapore are holding a public forum on the role of startup incubators in accelerating social impact.

Startups in Asia are one of the driving forces in delivering innovative solutions to social problems. It sounds like a great idea to curb these problems, but there are also problems that come with every idea. For one, startups face risks and difficulties in accessing seed capital. The question is this: can more be done by government, universities and private investors to incubate startups?

A public form organized by Stanford University and NUS will gather together a distinguished panel of academic scholars, lead-practitioners and pioneering investors from across Asia to share their insights on how the process of high-tech and social venturing can be accelerated through innovative incubation models.

The forum will include two panels. ”Incubating Asia’s High Tech Future” will be participated in by Prof. Bernard Yeung (NUS Business School), Dr. Johnsee Lee (Taiwan) and Dr. Dongmin Chen (China, USA). Panellists on “Incubating for Social Impact” are Prof. Jesper B. Sørensen (Stanford), Mr. Vineet Rai (India) and Dr. Frank Levinson.

Details of the event are as follows:

• Date: Friday, December 7, 2012
• Time: 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
• Venue: Hon Sui Sen Auditorium, 1 Hon Sui Sen Drive, NUS Kent Ridge Campus
• Dress code: Office attire

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Featured image credits : Dateline

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Stanford and NUS public forum: startup incubators and accelerating social impact

Stanford University and National University of Singapore are holding a public forum on the role of startup incubators in accelerating social impact.

Startups in Asia are one of the driving forces in delivering innovative solutions to social problems. It sounds like a great idea to curb these problems, but there are also problems that come with every idea. For one, startups face risks and difficulties in accessing seed capital. The question is this: can more be done by government, universities and private investors to incubate startups?

A public form organized by Stanford University and NUS will gather together a distinguished panel of academic scholars, lead-practitioners and pioneering investors from across Asia to share their insights on how the process of high-tech and social venturing can be accelerated through innovative incubation models.

The forum will include two panels. ”Incubating Asia’s High Tech Future” will be participated in by Prof. Bernard Yeung (NUS Business School), Dr. Johnsee Lee (Taiwan) and Dr. Dongmin Chen (China, USA). Panellists on “Incubating for Social Impact” are Prof. Jesper B. Sørensen (Stanford), Mr. Vineet Rai (India) and Dr. Frank Levinson.

Details of the event are as follows:

• Date: Friday, December 7, 2012
• Time: 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
• Venue: Hon Sui Sen Auditorium, 1 Hon Sui Sen Drive, NUS Kent Ridge Campus
• Dress code: Office attire

.

Featured image credits : Dateline

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DailyDose: Intel CEO Paul Otellini to retire next year & Facebook denies reports of search partnership

Intel CEO to retire as chipmaker struggles with mobile: Paul Otellini will retire next year.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini (Image: Wikipedia)

Tiger Global Hedge Fund Takes 9.9% Stake in Groupon: The $8 bilion fund is betting on tech companies attempting turnarounds.

Social media analytics startup Socialbakers raises $6million: The Prague based startup raised money from Index Ventures and Earlybird Venture Capital.

Andreessen Horowitz Hires Chris Dixon Away From EBay The serial entrepreneur will move to Silicon Valley to work for the VC firm as a full time partner.

Facebook Says It Isn’t in Talks to Enter New Search Partnership with Yahoo.

Internal Videos Show Microsoft Released Its Kin Phones Knowing They Sucked

Apple Shares Close Up 7.21% After Recent Fall-Off: Apple is back after a hitting a six month low earlier.

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Wanna Integrate social login in your app? LoginRadius launches its API

No matter what webapp you are developing, enabling social login has become crucial to remove the signup friction.

LoginRadius allow users to log in to your website with their existing accounts on Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Twitter, and over 20 more providers. And now, the company has launched its API enabling developers to build social infrastructure for their webapp (details here).

The API supports all web technologies including .Net, Java, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python, and Classic ASP and you can also integrate LoginRadius with your own traditional login system. Using API, you also get rich user profile data when your users log in for the first time and stores the data in your database.

LoginRadius has over 30,000 user base and is an official partner with Mozilla Corp, Microsoft Corp, DynDNS and X-Cart.

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Project 311: Analyzing Media Coverage of Japan’s 311 Earthquake

media.mapping.jp

There’s an interesting piece over on the Emergency Journalism website about Project 311, which was a sort of ‘Big Data Workshop’ organized by Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Twitter Japan back in September and October. The initiative brought together data sets about both traditional and new media from around the time of the March 11, 2011 earthquake, and made it available for people to experiment with and analyze.

One person who got involved in the workshop was Hidenori Watanabe, who we have mentioned before on this site for his impressive visualization work on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki archives projects, as well as his East Japan Earthquake archive which presented photos and victims testimonials in a Google Earth view. What he created this time, using data from companies like NHK and The Asahi Shimbun, as well as data from Twitter, is an East Japan Earthquake Media coverage map, which you can now find at media.mapping.jp.

The map provides controls to display certain data, and it’s really interesting to compare how broadcast television compares to, say, the geo-coded Tweets marked in green around the country. There’s a time element as well which spans from March 11 to the 19, which scrubs through the eight days and animates the reports as they occurred on the map. Hidonori notes that in some places there was no news coverage, but there were some important tweets found (see below).

According to the report, NHK is said to be making use of the data as well to try to understand how to improve their disaster coverage. That’s definitely encouraging, but I think that this project could be taken even further if the companies involved continued to make their data available beyond the workshop (if I understand correctly, it is no longer public), so that others could build upon the work that has already been done.

There was no news broadcasted about Kamisu, but there were some tweets that shared important information, like this one about the state of a local factory.

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Aftershock Serves Singapore with Custom Gaming Laptops

Although we talk a lot about software startups here at Tech in Asia, I find my favorite companies are often the hardware startups we find. Singapore startup Aftershock operates in an area that, as a PC gamer, is near and dear to my heart: custom gaming laptops. The company offers four laptop bases from which customers can switch parts in and out to create their perfect gaming PC. Then, the folks at Aftershock build it for them.

The laptops are sold through the company’s website, which is slick and simple. At present, only Singapore-based users can actually buy a PC from them, but I still had fun fooling around with the customization options to build my dream gaming laptop. And while I couldn’t afford that laptop — my dreams are pretty upscale — Aftershock’s prices seem to be pretty reasonable and in line with international standards for custom laptops. The vast majority of any laptop’s price is, of course, the parts you pick (and I pick all the most expensive ones).

I spoke with Aftershock marketing manager Joe Wee to learn more about the company. He told me:

The core of this business was dreamt up by my twin brother Marcus, who has always been obsessed with notebooks. He has been involved in the laptop modding community for over 10 years, and one day sitting at his desk in his previous job he decided why not do this?

Mr. Wee also told me that the company is deeper than what you see on the site; it also offers custom laptops and gadgets for corporate use, although those aren’t listed on the company’s website so as not to dilute the “gaming” brand. And he added that while the laptops online are aimed at gamers, they’re also popular with photographers and designers because of the high color gamut screens Aftershock uses, which provide better color reproduction.

I wasn’t able to pry any sales figures out of Wee, but it’s clear the company feels the sky’s the limit. “We’ve only touched the surface, there is so much potential in Singapore for custom notebooks,” Wee told me. And the company’s long term plans? “Take over the gaming world.” Aftershock is still a long way from conquering the gaming world, but it sure sounds like they’re on the right track.

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