WeChat & Taobao testing in-app e-commerce search feature
Tencent’s WeChat is working with China’s largest e-commerce site, Taobao, to test an in-app e-commerce search engine. WeChat users will be able to message Taobao from within the chat app by typing the keywords for the products that they are seeking, and the app will respond with a link to the items. This extension of WeChat’s existing brands platform, which is used for social marketing, makes it easier for users to search Taobao without having to launch the web browser or native app. The search reach will include products listed on Taobao’s sister site, Tmall, also run by Alibaba Group. WeChat’s pending new feature heralds the start of social e-commerce search wave that is expected to boost mobile commerce.

Sina Weibo tests WeChat-like brand platform
WeChat’s rising popularity has reduced the amount of time spent by Sina Weibo’s users on the microblog. Sina is attempting to put up a fight with a new ‘Public Platform’ feature designed to rival WeChat’s brands platform. The feature is still under testing but when launched, it will offer brands, media and advertisers a dedicated channel to reach Sina Weibo’s 500 million registered accounts. This largely mirrors WeChat’s offering with two key differences: (1) WeChat has a smaller userbase of 300 million and (2) Sina’s current system doesn’t support outbound links to drive traffic to brand sites. Nonetheless, the feature is still in beta thus much remains to be seen whether the final launch product will support outbound links that allow advertisers to drive traffic to their own sites. Sina Weibo’s new feature will offer brands a more targeted approach (as users can opt in to receive updates), in addition to the existing promoted messages service which disseminates information to the entire userbase.

WeChat plans to monetize official accounts platform
Monetization has always been tricky even for hot apps like WeChat. Tencent WeChat is looking to monetize the official accounts platform as its users are willing to pay for services. An attractive medium for brands, some of WeChat’s official accounts have started to display ads within articles sent to readers daily. Merchants have also reported seeing traffic from WeChat converting into transactions. In spite of the early commercial success of these services, WeChat maintains that their future monetization efforts will not conflict with user experience. WeChat is always looking to enhance the user experience and its latest version includes a “shake-to-search-for-a-song” feature that makes Shazam-esque song recognition available simply by shaking the phone. Previously, WeChat’s “Shake” feature was used to enable users to meet other users or to transfer web pages. The enhanced feature will soon enable users to launch the official WeChat account for a TV program by shaking the phone while watching the program.

WeChat’s at the top of the Indonesian app chart
China’s WeChat topped Indonesia’s iOS and Android app charts following a TV advertising campaign that started a few weeks ago. The chat app also reached second  position on the app chart for Blackberry, Indonesia’s top smartphone platform. WeChat’s dominance on the Android app chart has displaced Japanese app, Line, putting it in second place. It is estimated that there are currently at least a million WeChat users in Indonesia. This development seems to be testimony to WeChat’s partnership with MNC Media, which seems to be paying off in Indonesia, especially for the TV ads. The newly incorporated joint-venture company, MNC Tencent, looks set to overwhelm Line in terms of TV ads and public visibility in the longer term.

Skype powers court proceedings in Indonesia
The Indonesian legal system is harnessing the power of the internet to facilitate court proceedings in a cost-effective manner. For the first time, Skype was used for teleconferencing, allowing a rape victim to deliver her sworn testimony without having to be physically present in court. Though there were hiccups such as the conference call getting disconnected twice, the court process was not disrupted significantly. A far more cost effective substitute to expensive landline-based  teleconference calls, the overall success of this hearing could herald the future for legal proceedings.

1/3 of your Facebook friends see your posts
Research by Stanford University’s Michael S. Bernstein has shown that each Facebook update is seen by on average 1/3 of the poster’s friends. The study, which took into account the profiles of 220,000 Facebook users last June, also found that posts across the course of the month reached on average 61% of their friends. This high reach is something most users are unaware of, with most found to “consistently underestimate” the size of their audience.

Facebook’s News feed changes
As we reported last Friday, Facebook have announced a host of changes to their News feed. In the below video, we hear the Facebook team discussing the various differences users will see.

In essence, they have made two major changes. The first of these looks to provide a more visually immersive experience, with large images replacing what the network refer to as ‘clutter’ for everything from photo uploads to article previews and checkins. In fact, the inflated pictures and sleeker left side bar have led many to draw comparisons between the new format and the layout of Google+, a set of similarities highlighted in the following comparison:

It is in the second change that Facebook moves one step beyond its network rival. Rather than just one News feed, users will now have access to a number of different versions, allowing greater control over the stories they see. For example, you can switch from looking at a feed containing purely photos to the activity of all your friends, or the feed containing posts from the celebrities and news sources you ‘follow’.

The changes will post interesting challenges for marketers. First of all, the number and type of feeds will affect the way in which users receive branded content. Whilst the regular News feed will see brands compete with the same stories as they have do currently, the ‘Following’ feed will mean marketers are pitted directly against publishers, as well as celebrities with whom Facebook users have high affinity, increasing ever further the necessity of high-quality content. Moreover, there was no mention in the initial announcement of how adverts will appear in the new feeds. Whilst it is the norm for Facebook’s launches to focus on user experience over advertising and there is no initial change expected, brands will be looking to monitor any expected long term changes and how these may affect social strategy.

Tumblr to introduce mobile advertising
In an attempt at monetisation, Tumblr is set to introduce advertising on its mobile app, much like it already has on desktop. In the first half of this year, companies will be able to promote posts via mobile as well as web. This comes at the same time as research from Gartner on the increasing power of mobile advertising. This year expects to see $11.4 billion in worldwide mobile advertising revenue, up from $9.8 billion in 2012. By 2016, this could increase to $24.6 billion.

Red Bull introduce ‘Flow’
Red Bull are expanding both their social portfolio and association with the world of extreme sports by introducing Flow, a trick-sharing app designed for skateboarders and BMXers. Available for iPhone and Android, Flow allows users to either record in-app or upload pre-recorded content, which it then converts from individual clips to a seamless ‘flow’ of content.

Mothercare producing film for Mother’s Day
We hope any mums reading had a great Mother’s Day yesterday! To celebrate the event, Mothercare are producing a user-generated film about a day in the life of a mother, due to be posted on their Facebook page today. The video, directed by Susie Donaldson of ‘Child of our Time’, is a collation of various photo and video content sent to the brand’s social platforms with the hashtag #MothersDayMoments.

Hospitals’ Facebook likes increase with quality
There is a link between a hospital’s quality and the number of Facebook likes it has, according to research by the American Journal of Medical Quality. Whilst social networks are not prevalent in the US healthcare sector – note that below 50% of the 82 New York-based locations tested even had a Facebook page – those that existed in the social sphere gained on average 93 likes with every percentage-point drop in the mortality rate. Furthermore, there is a positive correlation between a hospital’s fan numbers and the positive reviews it receives, depicting the ever-growing nature of social recommendations in non-commercial spheres.

WeChat app to be available on Blackberry 10 soon
China’s WeChat has made a pledge on its Malaysian Facebook page to launch a Blackberry 10 version soon.

This move to support Blackberry’s latest model, a few months after WeChat launched its Blackberry app, will help WeChat’s expansion plans in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. WeChat’s 300 million strong userbase is largely from China but the company is setting its sights on the international arena. The heatmap below shows WeChat’s global penetration as of January 2013.

Tencent WeChat to open office in America
China’s Tencent has confirmed that it will be opening an office in America in 2013 as part of its move to take its successful chat app, WeChat, global.

Originally launched as Weixin in China, the chat app has seen exponential growth following the creation of its English brand, WeChat in April 2012. Though a precise date or location for WeChat’s US office hasn’t been revealed, the company says that the office serve as a customer relations department. WeChat will face fierce competition from other Asian rivals such as Line while working to convert entrenched WhatsApp users. Tencent already has offices in San Francisco for its online gaming operations and has seen a growing ratio of overseas WeChat users though the company declined to reveal numbers.

Google+ woos Indian users with government linked initiatives
With more than 60 million Facebook users, India is the third largest country market after US and Brazil for the social network. This makes it a natural target for Google which is seeking to get a foot in the door through the use of Google+ Hangouts to get the nation talking about the 2013 Budget. On February 28, Google streamed a live feed of Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s presentation on YouTube’s IN conversation channel. To make the conversation more interactive, a Google+ hangout was held yesterday. A panel of economists joined the Finance Minister in fielding questions from Indian citizens who were selected after submitting questions using the #askthefm hashtag on Google+. Users were also encouraged to upload video questions using the same hashtag via the IN Conversation YouTube channel or via the google.com/+GoogleIndia page. Hangouts enable ordinary citizens to get closer to key events thus demonstrating the power of social media in helping the man in the street get involved in events that matter. What’s the upside for Google? Any new users who sign up or  existing users who rediscover Google+ through these initiatives may help to contribute to the network’s daily active userbase.

Automobile companies engage Indian social media influencers
Social media influencers are being pursued by automobile companies to test drive their vehicles for a day or two and to talk about it via social media channels. India is no exception with automobile companies such as Ford, Mercedes and Tata engaging with influential social media users, running contests and offering free cars at their disposal for a few days. The intent is to allow the influencers the opportunity to enjoy the comfort and luxury of the cars and to share their experience on their social media channels.  The payoff? The influencers posted pictures and wrote about their experience on their blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds creating buzz and reach as their fans jumped into the conversation.

Twitter partners with Japan’s DoCoMo to launch a Yellow Pages-like index 
DoCoMo and Twitter’s partnership has seen the launch of the Twitter Yellow Pages Japan site. Created for mobile users though accessible via PCs, the site contains lists of recommended Twitter accounts based on categories such as food, shopping, sightseeing, local news, celebrities and sport teams.

In addition to Twitter’s list of recommended accounts, users can filter each category by location to discover other accounts that may be relevant to them. This tie-up is a win-win solution for both companies as Twitter garners more users making it more attractive to advertisers and DoCoMo chalks up increased mobile data usage with the potential to sell more smartphones.

Viber has 3.5 million users in Vietnam
The mobile messaging app battle in Vietnam seems to have a clear winner with Viber registering a userbase of 3.5 million. Competitors, Line and KakaoTalk, have a million users each while WhatsApp has not confirmed any user numbers. This growth is impressive considering Viber has not been actively promoting the app in Vietnam or anywhere else in the world. With a userbase of 175 million worldwide, of which a third are from Asia, Viber is a source of concern for rival apps such as Line, KakaoTalk and Zalo.

Marketers set to more than double social media spend
Over the next five years, CMOs will more than double the percentage of their marketing budget that is spent on social media, according to 500 surveyed. Currently, social media makes up 8.4% of that total; this is set to increase to 11.5% in 2013 and reach 21.6% in the next five years. Consumer goods companies are set to lead the way, seeing an increase from 9.6% to 24.6% in the same period.

How Twitter affects UK mobile and tech shoppers
A study of 6,000 UK Twitter users has looked to establish the network’s effect on mobile and tech shoppers. From the  graph below, it can be seen that exposure to a brand’s tweet increases the percentage of users visiting a brand’s website, up to 62.7% in comparison with 45.6% of Internet users or 50.5% of those on Twitter not exposed to the tweet.

A key point to be taken from the research is that the likelihood of a user visiting a brand’s website increases with higher frequency of exposure to branded tweets.

How to gain Twitter followers?
The Georgia Institute of Technology have had their two cents on how to gain Twitter followers, analysing a selection of 500,000 tweets based on a number of factors including sentiment, engagement and readability. They concluded that those who posted shorter, happier tweets & engaged with their followers using RTs and mentions exhibited a higher rate of follower growth. Also effective was retweeting interesting pieces of news; those who did so gained more followers than those posting about themselves.

Facebook’s Insights fix will definitely affect reach
After the fixes to Facebook bugs affecting reach that we reported last week, tests by Edgerank Checker on 1,000 pages have shown an increase of over 30% across different types of Facebook reach:

It is worth reading the full post for its detailed analysis, including a breakdown of the effects by page size.

Facebook acquires Microsoft’s Atlas
The result of a long-mooted deal, Facebook has announced its acquisition of Microsoft’s ad-serving platform Atlas at a price thought to be under $100m, based on former bids in the $30-50m region. Facebook have claimed that their intention is not the construction of an external advertising network based on their social data, but instead that their interest lies in improving measurement tools, citing Atlas’s new tool for richer measurement of ad impressions. In light of the deal, Adweek conducted an interview with Facebook’s director of product marketing, Brian Boland and Dave O’Hara, CFO of Microsoft’s online services division, in which they discussed their plans to build a stronger relationship between the two companies. Boland said:

When we look at Atlas, it is a full acquisition where we are acquiring the technology, the people, the expertise and the client relationships. So this is a great accelerator for our aspirations around measurement.

Facebook working on redesigning Newsfeed
Last week, the Verge, amongst others, announced that Facebook had invited press to ‘come see a new look for News Feed’. The event will be held at its Menlo Park, CA headquarters this Thursday, 7th March at 10am PST. As for the expected changes,Business Insider claim to have a source close to Chris Cox, Facebook’s VP of products, with whom Mark Zuckerberg has entrusted the product. From this source, they have ascertained two important differences: firstly, News feed will know more information about you and use this to tailor what content you receive based on your likes, what you’ve viewed and even items you’ve bought. Secondly, News feed will look to pull content from a wider range of sources, as Facebook hopes to integrate sharing tools directly into company websites, allowing them to work more like pages. Rumour also has it that a radical redesign is coming to the mobile News feed, with a more vivid text-overlay and full width images taking over from the current format. A (sort of) artist’s impression below gives the gist of how the layout will work.

Facebook testing new actions in Open Graph apps
Facebook are testing a new set of actions in Open Graph apps, including ‘rate’ and ‘quote’ for books, as well as ‘want to read’ or ‘want to watch’. The below example displays how the ‘Goodreads’ app is already using the ‘rate’ system, though it is worth noting that no announcement has been forthcoming from Facebook.

Had good news? Facebook will suggest your friends send you gifts
For a while now, Facebook have been suggesting gifts for occasions like birthdays or engagements. However, they have now decided to add the ‘Give A Gift’ button to posts containing good news. Interestingly, it seems the feature is now using natural language processing, rather than just specific events, in order to make suggestions.

Instagram now has 100m active monthly users
The image-sharing platform Instagram has announced that it now has 100m active monthly users, up from 90m just a month ago. This displays incredibly fast growth; it took Facebook four-and-a-half years to reach such a level. According to AppData, Instagram is now the third-highest rank Android app and the 17th top free iOS app.

Google+ launches ‘Sign In’ and ventures into e-commerce
Google have launched an attempt to rival Facebook ‘Connect’, with their own ‘Sign In’ feature, along with an impressive list of partners that includes Banjo, Fancy, Fitbit, OpenTable, and Shazam. The below video explains the feature, along with some of its key elements, including the importance of privacy, control over sharing and easy mobile integration. In many ways, it mirrors and attempts to improve on Facebook’s concept of frictionless sharing from open graph actions.

It is then left up to the various partners to decide how they use the feature. From the Shazam example, you can see full extent of interactive sharing available:

The Fancy have chosen to integrate a buy button into shared content, providing another example of how brands can use ‘Sign In’. The following example displays how such posts will look.

Foursquare partners with Mastercard and Visa
In a bid at further monetisation, Foursquare have partnered with card giants Mastercard and Visa for providing discounts. Having enjoyed success from a similar deal with American Express, the social network has launched a new deal for all three cards, offering a saving of $1 for every ten spent with a check in at Burger King.

Vimeo ‘Looks’ to add Instagram-style filters to video
Video-sharing network Vimeo has further expanded its appeal to filmmakers by offering filters, known as ‘looks’, through a partnership with GenArts and use of their ‘Vivoom’ app. Each filter, or ‘look’, applies a different effect to video content, offering a straightforward method to alter a film’s appearance.

The feature, which marks Vimeo’s first external partnership, is set to be free for users for the first 90 days, after which a charge will be applied. Pricing structure is as yet undecided.

Pheed becomes number one social app for iOS
Last week, Pheed overtook the likes of Facebook and Twitter as the top social app for iOS. The network, which allows sharing of all sorts of content from text, photos, video and audio to voice or live broadcast, is believed to owe its expansion to positive reviews by high-profile teens on Twitter and Instagram. It also includes a number of interesting features, including the ability to watermark images, or put certain content behind a paywall. With such impressive growth, Pheed is definitely one to watch in the coming months.

WeChat launches in Indonesia
China-built cross platform messaging application, WeChat (known as Weixin in China) has launched in Indonesia. The potential is immense as Indonesia’s the world’s 4th most populous country with a population of 237 million people, slightly larger than WeChat’s worldwide user base of 200 million. The latest development is expected to put pressure on competitors such as WhatsApp and Line to make similar moves in addition to threatening Blackberry’s BBM’s dominance in Indonesia. WeChat’s popular integrated social networking features such as hold-to-talk voice messaging, ‘Moments’ status update and photo sharing features are expected to give the hybrid chat app a leg up with Indonesian users. Likewise, the features can prove attractive to advertisers seeking to leverage on the reach offered by the product.

Twitter vs Weibo
Last week we mentioned that Chinese Twitter users are the most active despite being blocked in China. Whilst Twitter is the dominant microblog service in the US, China has 2 homegrown microblog platforms, Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, that are very popular within the mainland and increasingly beyond its shores. Given China’s massive population size and an increasingly affluent society that is wired and crazy about social networking, the twin threats that Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo pose to Twitter’s microblog-dom’s dominance should not be ignored even if they currently do not have a stronghold on English-speakers. Check out the infographic comparing the 3 platforms here.

Indonesian Instagram users can now print photos with Instalogi
Prinstagram-clone Instalogi allows Indonesian Instagram users to print photos in addition to photobooks and stickers. Launched on September 1st, users can sign into their Instagram accounts on the Instalogi site, pick the photos they want printed, check them out, pay, send a confirmation and wait for the prints to be delivered. The startup’s founder Kemas Dimas revealed that plans are underway to develop a mobile web version of the product and that they’ll be holding an event with iPhonesia, the largest iPhone-based photography community in Indonesia.

WhatsApp offers unlimited messaging service for Indian college students
Making a play for the world’s 2nd most populous country, WhatsApp  has partnered with Reliance to offer unlimited usage of its messaging service to college students. Reliance’s College Package is a prepaid plan offering students unlimited access to WhatsApp and Facebook for INR 16 (S$ 0.37) a month. The plan excludes calls and SMSes.

The deal will provide WhatsApp with an advantage as it competes with Indian-developed Nimbuzz which hit the 100 million users milestone recently with most of its users residing on the Indian subcontinent. WhatsApp has also struck deals with operators in Thailand, Hong Kong and Indonesia. Notably, Indonesian top operator, Telkomsel has added WhatsApp along with Line and KakaoTalk to its US$3 (S$3.69) unlimited monthly plan. India is on the radar too for Blackberry which doubled its sales presence and launched budget devices. It faces stiff competition though from Samsung which is the leading brand for Android devices in the country.

LinkedIn opens regional office in Dubai
US-based LinkedIn has opened a new regional office in Dubai, its first in the Middle Eastern region with more than a million members signing up within the United Arab Emirates alone. In February 2012, LinkedIn reported more than 44 million members in Europe, Middle East and Africia out of 175 million members worldwide. The company’s influence is reportedly growing at a strong pace with 2 new members signing up every second. Having recently hit 10 million members in the UK and 62% of its users residing outside of its homebase in the US, LinkedIn could be the next social networking behemoth to watch.

Facebook cracks down on fake accounts
Some page admins are reporting that they are losing tens of thousands of fans as Facebook deletes fake and spam accounts. Facebook estimates that on average, pages shouldn’t lose more than 1% of its fan base, though we hope marketers aren’t too worried by these fans who didn’t contribute to engagement anyway.

Facebook adds gift giving for big occasions
You really have no excuse for forgetting to buy a birthday present — now when Facebook reminds you of a friend’s birthday, you’ll also get the option to give a gift in the real world (at least if you live in the US). Browse the selection of $5 Starbucks gift cards, $35 cupcakes and more, enter your bank card details and voila, no birthday will be left behind. Facebook will be celebrating with presents for itself as well, as it takes a slice of each of the transactions and gets valuable data about its users, like their street addresses and bank account information.

Dropbox links up with Facebook Groups
Facebook Groups just got more useful with the announcement of Dropbox support, and users can now share files after linking their Facebook account with Dropbox. Other group members can like and comment  on the update, just like a regular post, and the group will automatically be notified if the file has been updated.

Instagram shoots past Twitter in daily mobile users
Maybe pictures are worth more than words now: For the first time ever, American smartphone owners spent more time browsing Instagram than Twitter and visited the Instagram app more frequently. Even though Twitter had more unique US smartphone visitors (29 million for Twitter and 22 million for Instagram), Instagram’s users are more engaged. In August, Instagram had an average of 7.3 million daily active users, compared to Twitter’s 6.9 million. And Instagrammers spent 257 minutes on the app on average, as opposed to 170 minutes on Twitter. How soon until Facebook figures out how to monetize these numbers?

Twitter beefs up ‘Discover’
Twitter continues to improve its Discover tab, a personalized finger-in-the-wind where the site tries to pick up what it thinks you’ll like reading about. Twitter has changed up the design, which now features a continuous stream of tweets that automatically expand to show photos.

LinkedIn adds ‘kudos’ for skills
In one click, your LinkedIn connections will now be able to give you endorsements for your skills and expertise, as well as make recommendations for ones you should add, in something much akin to a Facebook ‘Like’ or a +1. Skills are now vertically ranked based on the number of endorsements received from your colleagues, and you’ll be notified via e-mail and on the site when you’ve been given some LinkedIn love.  This is available in the US, India, New Zealand and Australia, but LinkedIn promises it will be coming to more countries soon.

Myspace is bringing sexy back
We were sure that Myspace had been forever banished to the Internet graveyard, but then Justin Timberlake jumped on board and brought it back from the dead. Justin, along with Chris and Tim Vanderhook who bought the site in June 2011, have completely revamped it and hope to make it a social destination for artists looking to connect to their fans. If nothing else, the tech press is going gaga, and for good reason: The site is just downright pretty. The design looks like it has been heavily influenced by Tumblr and Pinterest, and keeping with the Pinterest vibe, the new Myspace invite-only for the moment. Myspace looks like it wants to play nice with Twitter and Facebook to populate your profile with photos and data so that new users aren’t starting from scratch. Get the grand tour of the new Myspace (as much as we can see now anyway) here.

Foursquare introduces personalized maps
Fed up with Apple’s maps on iOS 6? Foursquare has released its new update just in time. The Explore is getting better and better, and the latest update has a much more efficient search system, which gives a higher ranking to what’s popular in the area and what your friends like. And just like the website, the mobile app can now show a personalized map highlighting places you have or haven’t been before and where your friends have been.

StumbleUpon unveils redesign
Not to be outdone by Pinterest and other social networks, StumbleUpon has gotten a makeover that makes the random-internet-discovery-engine more personal and social. Users can now see what’s trending, find out what’s highly recommended by StumbleUpon “experts” and curate lists of their favorite content. Sounds pretty Pinterest-y. But StumbleUpon does seem to be going its own direction by incorporating personal profile analytics, such as your Stumble DNA, which shows the types of content you like best.

What can you buy for a tweet?
Kellogg’s has opened a pop-up shop in London where the cost of a bag of crisps is just one tweet. The experiment ended on Friday, but seems to have gone well, with hundreds of tweets and even spambots picking up the #tweetshop hashtag.

Paddy Power takes Twitter to the skies
To cheer on Europe during the Ryder Cup, Paddy Power bought the hashtag #GoEurope, but then took its tweets even further by putting them up in the clouds with a team of skywriters, which made the tweets visible up to 20 miles away. And all of Paddy Power’s support seems to have paid off, with Europe taking home the top slot and tweets using the hashtag from big names in golf.

KFC targets women in its first UK social media campaign
KFC has made a viral video featuring comedian Jenny Bede asking women to share their “it doesn’t count if…” stories about unhealthy eating on social media. While we’ve all been there (daily … it’s Monday, okay?!), it’s hard to imagine many women changing their perceptions of KFC from this video (especially nutrition-wise), one of the supposed goals of the campaign.

55DSL paints the town with ideas
What would you do if you had 55 seconds to live? Inspired by the brand’s recent launch in India, Diesel’s 55DSL has asked this question, and followers can see their best ideas “graffitied” on buildings on the brand’s site. The more tweets that are sent in with the #55secondstolive hashtag, the quicker the next level will be unlocked, which promises prizes to the top tweeters at each interval.

David Cameron says he’ll join Twitter
The UK’s Prime Minister himself has promised to join Twitter in hopes to communicate more directly with people, despite his past reservations about the social network. His office already uses the @Number10Gov handle, but having his own account will allow him to talk politics more personally. No word on what that handle will be, though@PrimeMinister looks suspiciously suitable.

Buy your own Weibo clone
Tech In Asia recently reported chancing upon a Weibo clone, named JiShiGou, intended for sale to corporations seeking to incorporate microblogging technology into their operational workflow. Hosted on the corporation’s servers, the product offers integration with Tencent and Sina Weibo, in addition to other Chinese social networks. What’s the price tag? The basic web package starts at 10,000 RMB (S$1,932) with optional add-ons such as text messaging support as well as iPhone/iPad and Android phone and tablet apps available at an additional fee. It costs US$2,380 (S$2,910) for iOS apps and US$ 1,587 (S$1,940) for Android apps with text message packages at US$126 (S$154) per 10,000 texts. JiShiGou makes it easy for a corporation to own a whole microblogging system complete with apps, text messaging support, auto-backup, updates and training for less than US$10,000 (S$12,225).

Tencent to localise WeChat in Indonesia
WeChat (aka “Weixin” in China) recently zipped past the 200 million users mark. Encouraged by the growth, Tencent, the company behind this messaging app, is setting its sights further afield for worldwide growth. Viewing Indonesia as a huge potential userbase because it comprises half of the Southeast Asian population, Tencent plans to set up an office in the country soon and has been in talks with local celebrities, media and merchants on co-marketing partnerships. In addition to considering making its app available on Blackberry, Tencent is exploring working with some telcos for BBM packages for WeChat.

Google Maps loses lead in mobile mapping in China
According to Beijing-based research firm Analysys International, the Google Maps app now accounts for 25.3% of mobile client usage in China, a decline from 46.3% around the same time last year, and now second to Autonavi by a mere 0.2% in terms of the apps Chinese consumers turn to for their online mapping needs. Considering the rise of location-based social networks in China, such as location-based check-in app Jiepang and other photo-sharing apps that use geo-tagging, losing out on market share could be very disadvantageous for Google, considering its already diminished presence in China with Google search capturing a small percentage of the online search market dominated by Baidu.

Blackberry photo app PicMix on par with Instagram’s initial growth
Blackberry’s 60,000 apps in its App World may seem paltry compared to Apple’s App Store and Android marketplace Google Play, but Blackberry developers have been catching on to the photo-sharing craze as well. PicMix, an app that includes photo filters and photo-sharing functionalities, has reached 1 million users within the last two months, which its founder claims is progressing at a pace faster than Instagram in its initial stage. The app has had over 7.5 million photos uploaded by more than 1 million members thus far, with 32,000 new members signing up every day. Its user base is spread out all across the globe, with 40% of members hailing from Indonesia, 10% from Venezuela, and South Africa in third with 9%. Let’s see whether PicMix can indeed become the Instagram for Blackberry devices.

360Buy has over 40 million users
E-commerce is booming in China, with a total transaction value of 240.1 billion yuan or S$47.71 billion for the year 2011, and China’s second-largest B2C e-commerce site 360Buy.com is reaping the benefits. It has over 40 million registered users to date, and have been processing around 400,000 orders per month for the past two months. Its sales income is also increasing at a rate of about 200% per year, which may have received a boost due to its new hotel bookings and travel services additions. Judging by the current rate of growth for China’s B2C market, we don’t expect 360Buy’s growth to be slowing down anytime soon either.

Tumblr’s new ad revenue model
Having recently passed the 50 million blog mark, Tumblr announced its first foray into paid advertising at Ad Age’s Digital Conference on Wednesday. Tumblr will start offering ad units  from 2 May 2012 via the “Radar” post that appears on a Tumblr user’s dashboard, which currently features an officially curated selection of images that highlights notable or popular posts. Prior to the repacking of Radar as an ad unit, Tumblr had 15 partnerships wherein Radar was used to promote content from brands. Radar placement currently receives 120 million impressions per day from users logging into their dashboard across devices. At present, Tumblr makes money by receiving a cut from sales of custom blog themes that are sold on its platform, as well as charge users to highlight posts for their followers within their dashboards for US$1.

US online video market
Data from comScore revealed that 181 million or 83.5% of the US Internet audience watched nearly 37 billion online videos in March 2012, with the average viewer having watched 21.7 hours of online video content. Considering that the duration of the average online content video was 6.4 minutes long, each viewer could have watched up to 203 videos in a month. Google Sites, driven primarily by YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property with 146.1 million unique viewers in March, followed by Yahoo! sites with 60.6 million, VEVO with 51.3 million, Facebook.com with 45.1 million and Viacom Digital with 44.3 million. The opportunities for brands to engage with its audience through video content seem pretty great, as is targeting their audiences via video ads.

New Foursquare city badge for Tokyo
Foursquare has launched the Sakura badge for Tokyo users, which can be won by ‘checking-in’ at 5 of the 64 locations listed for this badge, including popular locations in the city such as Shibuya, Harajuku, and Shinjuku. Outside of Asia, Berlin also has a new Foursquare city badge.

The only country where Twitter is more popular than Facebook
According to ComScore and Business Insider, there is only one country in the entire world where Twitter triumphs over Facebook in terms of number of users, and it’s Japan. Japan sees roughly 25 million monthly unique visitors to Twitter, which far surpasses Facebook’s 15 million monthly unique visitors. However, this gap appears to be slowly converging, and the number of minutes spent on Facebook is nearly twice that of time spent on Twitter, so we may see the tables turn this year.

Asia’s chattiest Twitter nations
Eric Fischer’s data visualisation shows who is talking on Twitter, and also with whom they are speaking. To decipher the Twitter activity from the visualisation, “Green is physical movement from place to place; purple is @replies from someone in one location to someone in another; combining to white where there is both.” Within Asia, it appears that Indonesia is demonstrating the most intense activity with the concentration of purple and white, which is unsurprising, considering that Indonesia is the 3^rd largest Twitter nation as of September last year. Japan also displays intense activity, even though we’re not quite sure what to make of the physical movement along the Eastern coast. Regardless, there is no doubt of active Twitter activity coming from Japan as evidenced by its 25 million monthly unique visitors.

Japan lags in world social media adoption, or does it?
According to ComScore, only 58% of Japanese Internet users use social media, a figure that pales in comparison to the other 41 out of 43 markets studied that have a social media penetration of 85% or higher. The only other outlier was China, which has a social media penetration rate of 53%. However, keeping in mind that mobile is not taken into account by ComScore data, we expect Japan’s social penetration rate to be higher given that a higher percentage of Japanese internet usage originates from mobile devices. Japan’s social networks and social gaming platforms such as Mobage, GREE and Mixi are also largely mobile, which are most likely unaccounted for in ComScore’s data. As pointed out by AdAge, an important factor to note also is the level of engagement that occurs on Japan’s social networks, instead of scrutinising social media penetration alone.

Can man live on Social Media alone?
The London Social Media Week team have teamed up with friends here in Singapore in an attempt to uncover whether man can live on social media alone. One lucky social media enthusiast will be flown to Singapore for 5 days equipped with nothing but a smart phone and the clothes they are wearing. They will then use the power of social media for food, accommodation, clothes and transport in the hope that the public’s goodwill will provide all. If you think this is a challenge you can handle, there is still time to apply, simply submit a 60 second video demonstrating what social media means to you and why before the 13th Jan…

RIM thanks Blackberry’s Asian fans with a video
Research in Motion (RIM) may be faltering against competition from iOS and Android, but in some parts of Asia, they are still number one. RIM holds 42% of Indonesia’s smartphone market, and allegedly have greatest market share in the smartphone industry of Thailand and Philippines as well. To thank its fans in Asia, RIM has posted a video to wish its users a Happy 2012.

Predictions for social media in India in 2012
Asia tech blog Penn Olson has featured 10 predictions for social media in India this 2012. They anticipate the socialisation of mobile, in which Indian users will spend more time on social networks via their mobile phones, which may prompt a focus on mobile apps instead of web apps that are accessed through a browser. Other predictions include a possible resurgence in forums, increased video consumption, greater focus on online reputation management by brands, and social media adoption by more small medium enterprises (SMEs).

The importance of brand response via social media
According to research from Conversocial, customer service from brands via social media is key. Over 80% of respondents said they would be at least a little put off from buying from a brand that they saw ignoring other customers.

Social campaigns improve long term brand advocacy and purchase intent
BzzAgent have found that advocates’ likelihood to recommend a product is dramatically increased from 39% before to 61% directly after exposure to a social media marketing campaign. Even one year later, 55% of brand advocates are more likely to recommend a product.

As for brand advocates’ own purchase intent, before a campaign 38% said they would purchase, however immediately after the campaign this dramatically increased to 69%, and remained this high for 3 months. Still yet more impressive, after one year, purchase intent was as high as 61%. This demonstrates that social media campaigns are effective at improving metrics which directly affect the bottom line.

Marketers’ relationship with Wikipedia to change
It all began with an open letter to Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia, stating how PR professionals and Wikipedia have to work together to ensure Wikipedia is an accurate and available resource to the public, and another blog post from Stuart Bruce drawing the same conclusion – Wikipedia’s current guidelines need changing.

Fast forward two days and Wikipedia had agreed to work with the UK’s Chartered Institute of Public Relations to that end. Roger Bamkin, Chair of Wikipmedia UK, commented:

Recent incidents [...] show that in some parts of the PR profession, a lack of understanding on how to engage with the Wikipedia community persists. We will work with the CIPR to ensure that their members, and through them the wider PR Profession, have access to the clearest possible guidance on the best way to work with Wikipedia.

It will be interesting to see how the CIPR and Wikipedia work this one out…

Google applies penalty against themselves
Google recently violated its own guidelines against paid links, when unbeknown to them, Unruly Media conducted a sponsored post campaign on their behalf to promote their Chrome browser, and one of the campaign’s participants failed to use the ‘no-follow’ attribute when linking to the Chrome homepage. After an investigation, Google then applied a penalty against themselves so that searches for “browser” now no longer bring up the Google Chrome homepage, with Chrome’s PageRank lowered for at least 60 days. Our very own Robin Grant commented:

I have a lot respect for Google for taking this action against themselves – although you could argue a two month ban is rather lenient compared to action they’ve taken against transgressors in the past. This incident goes to show the importance of the recently released joint IAB and ISBA guidelines on paid promotion in social media – had Google and Unruly followed these, they wouldn’t have come a cropper, and it does highlight the very real dangers of non-compliance.

Facebook’s flagged photos … offensive or just unattractive?
Facebook have determined, that last year, the majority of photos its users reported as offensive were not actually offensive, in fact they were just unattractive or unwanted. The difficulty lay in the fact that often these were photos that friends had posted, meaning the user couldn’t delete themselves, so they resorted to clicking flag instead. After Facebook noticed that the flagging tool was being used for these reasons, the company changed its photo reporting process, allowing users to message the person who posted the photo and complain with the following options:

What vain creatures we are…

Moo creates social business cards with Facebook Timeline
UK startup Moo, is the only company to have integrated its social business cards with the Facebook platform. In an incredible promotion, they are giving away 10 million free business cards to the first 200,000 users who apply. The cards can feature different pictures on the front with a favourite quote or saying on the reverse which acts not only as promo for Moo but also for Facebook’s Timeline experience. The first batch of cards were taken-up in only 2 hours, and the cards are continuing to sell out like hot cakes, so if you want a free social business card, you better be quick.

Instagram allows you to share larger photos… and welcomes the President
Now when you choose to share your photos to Facebook through Instagram, the images will be instantly uploaded to an Instagram Photos Facebook album. These will appear in their full size in user’s newsfeeds and on the Timeline. Instagram also has a new VIP member, the one and only Barack Obama. Not only is he sharing photos through @barackobama, but he also urges supporters to share their photos from the campaign with the tag #obama2012. A clever way to give the public an insight into the daily life of the US President and to observe behind the scenes footage of the upcoming US Presidential Election.

Path is the new place to be
Path is where all the tech A-listers hang out these days, at least according to Seesmic’s Loic Le Meur. This new mobile-only social network, with a limit of 150 friends, has created a small, private, place where you can hang out online at any time of day with your close friends, and get notified about them constantly. Path has also recently added the option of sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare all at the same time. When people are tired of everything being public, Path just may be their point of call…

Anti-Drugs Timeline
Israel’s Anti-Drug Authority have cleverly used Facebook’s Timeline. The fictional character Adam Barak’s life is split in two, the Adam who pursued the path of drugs, and the Adam who stays clean. A neat way showing the possibilities of powerful messaging via the Timeline format, although brands will need to wait until Facebook rolls out the Timeline for Pages before executing similar campaigns.

Levi’s use Instagram to find their latest model
Levi Strauss have opened up the casting to their 2012 Brand Campaign via the world of Instagram. Anyone around the world can upload a photo of themselves with the tag #iamlevis in the hope they will be the next star of the fashion brand.

Puma recruits bloggers to document sailing race
Puma recently recruited 10 Instagram and Tumblr users to document the Volvo Ocean Race, where the brand has a sponsored boat competing in one of the world’s most gruelling sailing events. The bloggers will be also sharing their updates via Facebook and Twitter and have ‘free reign’ to cover what they wish. Puma clearly recognise the importance of bloggers as cultural influencers…

Olympics Games volunteers’ social media restrictions
The Olympics organisers have released social media rules for the 70,000 Games Maker volunteers during the 2012 Olympics. Volunteers are not allowed to mention their role, location, celebrities and athletes, including a ban on photos or posts featuring backstage VIPs. Progressive!

Man City’s Vincent Kompany takes to Twitter
Ahead of yesterday’s FA cup clash, Manchester City took to Twitter with their captain Vincent Kompany, urging fans to send him inspirational messages ahead of the game, with the hashtag #followthecaptain. The fan who tweets the most inspirational message won Kompany’s match day shirt, his armband and a signed poster of the tweet. After a number of footballers somewhat interesting relationships with Twitter, not mentioning any names…er…Joey Barton, let’s hope Vincent’s tweets keep him on the path of success.

Mothercare’s successful contextual app campaign
Mothercare has grown both the number of followers and the levels of engagement on its Facebook page, and on that of its sister brand Early Learning Centre, following a contextualised Advent Calendar competition. The prizes were determined by Mothercare using their Facebook page to listen for which would be in the greatest demand by parents. The app added an additional 32,473 fans across both brands without the support of Facebook advertising and the competition received 128,850 entries, proving the power of listening really does work…

Autoglass crowdsources star of ad
Autoglass, the car windscreen repair specialist, cast a Facebook competition winner as the star of their new advert. This is the first time a brand has crowdsourced the lead of their advert via Facebook. The winner Ian Graham had to compete against more than 137 other fans, and to enter all fans had to do was post a video or picture of themselves with their friends and family with their cars.

Shoe brand lets influential tweeters choose discounts
Miista, a relatively new shoe brand, launched ‘Cheaper with a Tweet’, where they reduce the price of their shoes for everyone whenever someone tweets about them. A greater discount is awarded if the person who tweets has a higher ranking on Klout. So if a kindly celeb were to tweet, the cost of a pair of shoes could be £0…

Grazia hosts Fashion Blogger Masterclass in Apple Store
UK Women’s magazine Grazia are hosting a series of video podcasts, workshops and masterclasses on fashion blogging with a collection of the A-listers in the fashion blogosphere at the Apple store in Covent Garden. The masterclasses are free and are being held every Thursday in January, so for all the fashionistas out there, you know where to go.

Send your Christmas cards over Facebook
Advertising firm Dentsu and the Japanese Postal Service have partnered to create Postman, a Facebook app from which users from around the world can arrange to send physical Christmas cards right from the social network itself. The cards will cost from 100 Japanese Yen or US$1.29 onwards, while handling and postage fees will cost around 80 Japanese Yen or US$1.03 onwards. Users will first have to register an account and authorise payment details, following which they can choose an existing card design or even customise their own, select the recipient, and finally confirm the order.

The great thing about Postman is in not having to deal with the usual hassle of collecting addresses. Users can find their friends on Facebook or Twitter who have signed up for its service, in which case they can send those friends a card without having to ask for their addresses. Time to start sending those Christmas cards out.

Facebook ads get you emotional
Facebook have been selling different types of advertising for a while now and suggests those that resemble status updates are more engaging than elsewhere online. This claim has now been confirmed by two studies conducted by Neurofocus and Nielson.

The studies used brainwave pattern analysis to determine how effective marketing messages are in different formats. It was found on all measurements (brand recollection, recall and resonance), that Facebook scored better on both attention-to and emotional engagement with the test ads. It’s strong emotional bonds which have kept traditionalists spending their budgets on TV advertising; perhaps these new insights will sway a few budgets in the direction of Facebook.

Facebook continues to lead social media in Europe
Continuing with Facebook’s success is a comScore report showing that Facebook continues to dominate the social networking site across Europe.

Facebook is ranked as the top social networking site across all of the EU5 markets with 68.4% usage. Spain leads the pack in terms of social media use, however the UK shows highest penetration for Facebook use with around 8 in 10 internet users logging in each month.

Chinese netizens use both Sina and Tencent Weibo
Among the thousands of Chinese weibo users surveyed by Admaster and SSI, the top social networking site that emerged from these users’ preferences was Sina Weibo, which was used by 90% of these netizens. Tencent Weibo is the second most popular at 85%, while Tencent Qzone follows very closely behind at 84%. The most interesting finding was that 77% of these netizens use both Tencent and Sina Weibo, and not one of either exclusively. For brands, being on Sina Weibo, the more popular of the two, might suffice in reaching their Chinese audience without having to exert a disproportionate amount of resources to reach more users on Tencent Weibo.

Are Chinese BBS forums a thing of the past?
Before microblogging, Bulletin Board System (BBS) forums were the original social networks in China. Tianya is a Chinese news portal and BBS forum that still boasts of a ‘fiercely loyal community’, but can it really effectively compete with its popular Chinese microblogging counterparts? It apparently thinks so, as it is ready for an IPO and merely waiting for just the right opportunity, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens if and when it does IPO.

When Twitter impacts TV ratings the most
Last year a report by Nielsen revealed that Internet buzz can increase TV ratings, recently Nielsen have released a taster of their research project measuring exactly how much Twitter impacts TV ratings.

Importance of different forms of Social Media varies through the lifecycle of a premiere:

Findings show that although social buzz can impact ratings weeks in advance, Twitter specifically has the most effect near to and during airtime.

The different types of Twitter storm
Research into the content of millions of tweets has found that sometimes mainstream newspapers can “reveal” Twitter storms that don’t quite deserve the definition.

The report has identified 3 types of Twitter storm:

The perfect Twitter storm: a story that starts on Twitter and through a feedback loop with traditional press generates a significant amount of attention across a broad audience.

Best examples: the Blackberry email outage, the Topman T-shirt slogan controversy and the John Lewis Christmas TV ad campaign

The storm in a teacup: a story that generates a comparatively small amount of interest on Twitter but is picked up by a large number of mainstream media outlets.

Best example: the row over the allegedly depressing Aviva promotions during the ad breaks of ITV’s Downton Abbey.

The Twitter-only storm: in its purest form, this is a story that sparks a very significant volume of messages on Twitter but is largely of interest only to a specific group and receives little or no interest from mainstream media.

Best example: the vast teenage Twitter search for the lost sunglasses of One Direction boy band member Harry Styles.

Whether full storms or just light breezes, the speed and unpredictability of social media can create quite the challenge for traditional media.

Facebook roll out timeline and private messages
The new Facebook timeline has begun rolling out in New Zealand, and will be available globally in the near future. The redesigned interface shows users activity chronologically right back to birth. Once live, users will have a small amount of time to curate their older activities before it’s all readily visible.

On top of the new timelines, Facebook are also trialling Private Messages between Pages and fans, which we further explored in a post last week. The new Private Messages feature will allow brands a chance to interact with fans in a more direct and individual manner.

Twitter gets a redesign and sets its sights high
This week Twitter launched their new updated user interface. The interface provides users a faster, simpler way to find out what’s happening around them and the news they care about. The launch added numerous features most notable the ‘Discover’ tab, a tab containing useful and entertaining information customised for the user.

After the launch of the exciting new interface, we have noticed a few similarities with Sina Weibo. The similarities (and differences) help illustrate how social networking is fuelling great innovations and sharing best practises between them.

The update has also seen the addition of enhanced brand pages:

As part of this release, we are introducing enhanced profile pages that help marketers create an even more compelling destination on Twitter for their brands.

Now, your profile page does more to help you make an impression with a large header image for displaying your logo, tagline, and any other visuals.

You can also control the message visitors see when they first come to your profile page by promoting a Tweet to the top of your page’s timeline. This Tweet helps you highlight your most engaging and important content and better connect with your target audience. The Promoted Tweet on your profile page will appear auto-expanded so that visitors to your page can instantly see the photo or video content that you link to from your Tweet.

This page and the Promoted Tweet are both free of charge and publicly accessible for the whole world to see. Your profile page is your own – your colors, your logo, and your messaging.

These enhanced brand pages will offer a much more customisable experience for their fans, allowing them to present their best content on Twitter, and Ad Age have a great overview of how the launch brands are using their pages. However, as We Are Social’s Jim Coleman said to Econsultancy:

Users will only see these pages when they’re first deciding to follow a brand – so we can expect follow conversion rates to go up slightly, but the new brand pages will make no difference to brands everyday interactions with their followers and customers as this still all happens in the stream.

The intent is obviously to make Twitter more ‘sticky’. Twitter has long been envious of Facebook’s amazing average time on site figures, and this is their attempt to bridge that gap. These changes will definitely move the needle in the right direction, but the question is how much.

Not happy with just releasing a simple, easier interface across all platforms, Twitter have also announced their new total user goal; 7bn people. The changes to the interface should help fresh users get to terms quicker, and perhaps the sky really is the limit for this bird.

In other Twitter-related news, an email from Twitter sales suggests the cost of a Twitter fan is between $2.50 and $4. The email discusses the benefits for brands as well as flaunting some enticing numbers such as the 15x increase in impression volume from Promoted tweets.

Embed tweets on your blog or website
You can now embed tweets on your blog or website, and continue conversations on your own branded platform instead of Twitter. This feature, available through the new version of Twitter as mentioned above, allows your readers to reply, retweet or favourite your embedded tweet right from within your website. Clicking on the name of the person tweeting brings you straight to his or her Twitter profile, but you can follow the person right from the embedded tweet as well.

This presents valuable opportunities in keeping visitors on your website for a longer period of time, as you can now refer to a previous tweet you made without having your visitors leave your website by clicking on an external link.

How do people in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos use the internet? We explore Indochina in our latest #SDMA report: bit.ly/tf6Znv

— We Are Social SG (@wearesocialsg) December 12, 2011

Google+ integrated into Gmail
An update to Gmail and Google+ introduces new functionality making Google+ a bigger part of the experience. Now you can grow circles from your contact book and even filter incoming emails by circle.

The update has also made sharing to Google+ seamless, meaning photos can be shared to friends in one swift click. In addition to the simple photo sharing, Google are also rolling out their new Find My Face feature. The system aims to help you find and tag yourself or friends in photos. Once the option is turned on, Google+ will prompt you when your face appears in pictures.

American Express supports small businesses
Once again American Express have teamed with Foursquare to encourage users to shop at small businesses throughout the holiday season, with a new ‘Spend $10, Get $10′ deal. Once the users’ card is synced with their Foursquare, local deals are shown on a map and all users have to do is spend away with their card to receive the payback.

Isaiah Mustafa is ‘MANta Claus’
The well chiselled face of Old Spice is at it again with a promise to gift all 7 billion people on earth this Christmas. The video below is the first of many and gifts a ‘pair of high heeled lady shoes made out of necklaces’ to @beautyjunkies.

Other recipients include the city of Balitimore, 25 of his closest Internet friends and the whole country of Australia.  Stay tuned to the Old Spice YouTube channel to see what he gifts the rest of the planet.

Share videos from your smartphone
Created by the former CTO of Chinese video-streaming service Tudou, iSheHui is a video-recording and sharing mobile app which allows users to share videos to Chinese social networks such as Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo, and Renren. The app features filters similar to those on photo-sharing apps such as Instagram, which can be applied to the uploaded videos. Users can also follow their friends, comment on videos, and browse videos in their timeline. Most importantly, video files are apparently shrunk down to one-tenth of their actual size when they are uploaded, although the quality will remain relatively clear. This will allow seamless sharing even for areas with slower Internet speeds and for people with limited data plans. iSheHui is available on both the iPhone and Android.

Heinz 12 Days of Christmas
After an exciting year of groundbreaking campaigns across Heinz’s brands – from the launch of Heinz Tomato Ketchup with Balsamic to Get Well Soup for Heinz Soup – We Are Social has rounded off the year with a 12 Days of Christmas advent calendar across the Heinz Tomato Ketchup, Heinz Beanz, and Heinz Soup Facebook pages.

From the 1^st – 12^th December, fans have been visiting the Facebook app to open a different door on the advent calendar, which then entered them into a draw for that day’s prize.

Since going live there has been a phenomenal 114,214 entries into the competition across each of the pages, with 62,741 people sharing the competition with their friends.

Blackberry users can now send virtual gifts over BBM
Research in Motion (RIM) has made a few changes to its Blackberry World portal that will allow Blackberry owners to send, receive and request gifts via Blackberry Messenger (BBM), just in time for gift-giving this Christmas. Blackberry World now has extended local language support as well, namely in Chinese, Korean, Thai, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Dutch.

O2 give Santa a helping hand
O2 have launched a campaign aiming to cheer up consumers this Christmas with personalised videos from Santa himself. All you have to do is tweet  02 using the hashtag #o2Santa to receive your own personalised video from the jolly man himself.

PayPal in social media hell
After talking about Twitter storms, it seems PayPal managed to find themselves right in the epicentre of one last week after purportedly squashing a toys-for-tots Christmas initiative. Although PayPal has now released funds to the website and apologised, the hundreds of angry comments on both Facebook and Twitter show being a scrooge at Christmas is never a good idea.

Wikipedia investigate PR firm for edits.
Wikipedia have suspended at least 10 accounts linked to PR firm Bell Pottinger for content manipulation. It has been said that the accounts were linked to positive statements being added and negative being removed from clients’ pages. The main issue being that the firm was not disclosing their link to the brands, helpfully the founder of Wikipedia has offered to go into the company and give them advice on ethical editing of Wikipedia.

$2.5 million for being defamed by blogger
A lawsuit involving a blogger and a large investment firm has ended with the blogger being ordered to pay the firm $2.5 million in damages. The courts ruled that the blogger was not a journalist as defined by media shield laws designed to ensure that journalists aren’t compelled to reveal the identify of their sources, and therefore must pay the damages. A stark reminder that what we write on the internet can have very real repercussions.

Russians fight Facebook and Twitter battles over election
Both Facebook and Twitter have been flooded with users trying to organise protests agains Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. In response, thousands of fake pro-Putin Twitter accounts seem to have appeared with an aim to drown out true messages by bombarding hashtags with unrelated tweets.

Facebook played small role in London Riots
A Guardian and LSE study suggests that rioters paid little attention to Facebook despite the harshest judicial sentences being awarded for those who used the platform to incite rioting. It would seem that although some of the rioters involved in the riots were also using the service, they saw BBM as the way to contact each other, avoiding Facebook and Twitter as they’re seen as public forums.