Alibaba buys US$586 million stake in Sina Weibo
As part of its push into social media, Alibaba (China’s top e-commerce company) has purchased an 18% stake in Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-esque service with a userbase in excess of 500 million. The deal gives Alibaba the option to increase its stake in Sina Weibo to 30% and is expected to rake in revenue of about US$380 million within the next 3 years. Sina Weibo users can expect more e-commerce offerings in the coming months

Line to launch toy smartphone for kids
Japanese chat app, Line, clearly believes in starting young. Shortly after launching its own cartoon series, Line is expected to launch a toy smartphone priced at US$70 on August 8. Using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, children will be able to send stamps and messages when two toy Line phones are in contact.

Top brands on social media in ASEAN
Thailand-based social analytics firm, Zocialinc, has released an infographic ranking best-performing brands on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram in Southeast Asia. The coverage is largely focused on Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines and seems to penalize brands that may not have an active presence on all four networks even though they may be doing very well on their network of choice. The full infographic includes interesting insights into user behaviour on the different social networks.

(click through for the full infographic)

Swedish food supplier uses Instagram as Asian food education tool
Want to learn about Asian food? Upload a picture of the dish to Instagram and hashtag #askctfood or tag @AskCTFood and receive details on how to prepare them. The catch? This service is only available in Swedish, as this app was built by Swedish food supplier CT Food.

UK photo sharing users to lose rights to uploaded photos
Changes to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act has resulted in an overnight loss of rights by amateur and professional illustrators and photographers to work that they’ve uploaded to platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Flickr. The Act contains changes UK copyright law which allow commercial use of images deemed “orphan works”, ie. where information identifying the owner is missing. The far-reaching consequences is that millions of photos are at risk since metadata is often stripped from the photos when they’re uploaded. As if that isn’t bad enough, the Act allows for sub-licensing, which allows wholesale of work by someone who has it, without paying the originator a single penny. Penny for your thoughts!

New layout for pages on Facebook mobile
Facebook has updated the way pages appear on mobile, citing a number of benefits for users and page owners. For the former, they note a ‘cleaner, simpler look’, with relevant information such as photos and location positioned alongside interaction buttons at the top of the page. These seem to constitute benefits for page owners too, who will look to benefit from higher engagement as a result of the changes. They’re also set to be provided with the ability to pin important posts and a streamlined management tool. To see how the changes will appear for different users, see the image below:

Twitter testing two-factor authentication
Twitter has begun testing two-factor authentication, in a move that looks to prevent a continuation of the high-profile hackings that have happened recently. From the Associated Press to FIFA president Sepp Blatter, a number of large, verified accounts have been taken over, posting strange and often embarrassing content. Whilst two-factor authentication would be unlikely to be rolled out universally for the sake of avoiding hassle on smaller, personal accounts, it would likely be a welcome move for brands and public figures. Both Google and Facebook already offer a similar system.

LinkedIn launch ‘Contacts’
LinkedIn have introduced a new service called ‘Contacts’. Essentially, it takes details of contacts from various areas of your phone or computer, including email accounts, calendars and address books and compiles them in one place, allowing you to interact with people more easily and maintain important relationships. The service will be launched both on the LinkedIn platform and as a standalone mobile app. The full details are contained in the following slides:

Tumblr introduce in-stream mobile ads
For the first time, Tumblr will include ads on mobile that look like normal posts. Previously, adverts only appeared in “Radar”, where now mobile users will see up to 4 ads per day in the home stream. With collaborators including GE, Warner Bros and ABC, Tumblr are really set to bulk up their advertising revenue, but claim to be devoted to maintaining the current Tumblr experience. Head of sales Lee Brown has stated that:

This mobile advertising opportunity is native to how our consumers experience content on our apps; as a continuous stream.

Advertised posts will be differentiated from others with a $ symbol. Tumblr have stated that, the move will ultimately expand to desktop, but there is no timeframe given as yet.

Budweiser’s ‘buddy cup’ app
Budweiser’s new campaign looks to play on the emotional connection created by touching cups during a shared beer. Their new ‘buddy cups’ link to Facebook, so that you can become friends with someone on the network by tapping cups with one another. Now when you drunkenly agree to add someone on Facebook, you won’t have until the morning to change your mind.

Nike PHOTOiD and Instagram
For the past few years, Nike iD has allowed create their own, customised clothing from a range of colours. Now, the sportswear brand is taking it one step further, linking with Instagram to launch ‘PHOTOiD’, a tool that designs clothing based on the colours of your favourite Instagram photos. It’s certainly a novel idea and it will be interesting to see the extent to which people are willing to use a system like this. Here are some examples that have already been made:

Photograph an advert for free Weetabix biscuits
Weetabix are looking to take advantage of ‘dual screening’ behaviours with their new #takethebiscuit campaign, which asks for fans to take a photograph of their latest TV advert. Fans can then show their picture at a branch of Boots to pick up a free breakfast biscuit. Whilst the idea is an interesting one, it did have a couple of problems. The barrier to entry is quite high and, according to reports, some Boots stores were unaware the campaign was happening. You can see the advert below in all its glory, complete with #takethebiscuit hashtag to encourage Twitter conversation.

We Are Social’s design campaign for Kleenex
We Are Social have launched a competition to design the new Kleenex Box, partnering with internationally-renowned designer Kelly Hoppen to create a brief asking young creative talent to decorate the box in their own style. Using Talenthouse to collect entries, the final decision will then be made by Kleenex’s Facebook community, who will vote on which design gets made into the next tissue box.

Urban Outfitters and Converse’s joint Vine competition
Fashion retailer UO and trainer brand Converse have partnered to produce a competition on Vine, which asks fans to post a video of ‘A day in the life of your Converse’ for the opportunity to win $1500 in UO gift cards, 10 pairs of trainers and 2 different music related trips, in San Francisco and Brooklyn respectively. Whilst a number of brands have started using Vine to produce content, this is one of the first examples of a more in-depth campaign usage.

Ours go to play Chuck Chuck Goose. Where do #YourChucks go? @converse vine.co/v/bUzhzq5mFUK

— Urban Outfitters (@UrbanOutfitters) April 17, 2013

— Urban Outfitters (@UrbanOutfitters) April 17, 2013

Guided Twitter tour by the Tate Modern
To highlight a new Roy Lichtenstein exhibition, the Tate Modern produced a guided tour on Twitter. A museum curator spent half an hour tweeting images and information about the artist’s work, allowing those who would be otherwise unable to attend the museum to interact with the content in a meaningful way.

Evans support ‘golden bikes’ activity on Twitter
UK bike shop Evans Cycles have partnered with record-holding British Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy for a campaign called ‘Hoy’s Golden Bikes’, for which the Olympian has hidden 3 gold coloured bicycles around the country. Whoever finds them can trade one in for a brand new bike of their own, worth £1000. They’re supporting the activity on Twitter, with clues coming both from the official @chrishoy account and via the hashtag #hoyshiddenbikes.

Twitter opens office in Korea
South Korea’s burgeoning tech-savvy Internet userbase has caught the attention of Twitter. Ranked 15th on Semiocast’s list of Top 20 “Twitter nations’, the company has identified the country as one of its most important markets. Twitter’s putting its money where its mouth is by opening a new office in Korea after having already set up an office in Japan, its third largest market. Twitter plans to build partnerships with local mobile operators, handset manufacturers, brands, celebrities, media companies and even talent agencies. Twitter’s already tied up with Daum (South Korea’s second most popular web portal) and LG Uplus (South Korea’s third largest mobile operator). We reckon Psy’s Gangnam Style has done wonders for putting South Korea on the social media map of the world.

China’s Tencent QQ Browser touches 16 million overseas users
Tencent, China’s largest web company, recently reported having 16 million users outside of China for its cross-platform QQ Browser on mobile. Tencent’s top 10 nations (excluding China) for QQ Browser usage are India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Brazil, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and the US. Noting that 90% of its users are based in Asia, Tencent’s marketing focus will be largely in Asia. Identifying Indonesia, which is incidentally Twitter’s 5th largest nation, as one of its most important markets, Tencent has been working to woo Indonesia’s young and mobile-loving userbase with its WeChat messaging app. QQ Browser faces tough competition from the likes of China-born UC Browser (which has 40 million global users), prompting Tencent to work with partners like Getjar and Mobango, in addition to main app stores, to help push the app into the region.

Sina Weibo bug bars international users from registering?
Following up on a tip from a reader about a bug in Sina Weibo that’s preventing overseas users from registering a new account, Tech In Asia recently did a little sleuthing of their own. It seems that the experience – and related error messages – varied across countries, ISPs and browsers. Some users registered a new overseas account without any hitch, while others simply couldn’t do so even after attempting to do so using a different accounts and browsers. The error messages varied and puzzled users, with one user being told that his email account had too much activity, while another was told that he had tried to register too many times even though it was his first registration attempt on his current ISP.

China’s PaPa could be the new social app to watch
The founder of Diandian, China’s version of Tumblr, has invested in a Path clone, called PaPa. The app is an amalgamation of the best social elements of Path, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter, with an added voice messaging feature that’s similar to WeChat. Chinese social network users may be keen to note that the app integrates with platforms like Weibo. PaPa was launched in October as an iPhone app with both English and Chinese language support.

Does ‘dark social’ account for most shares online?
We think of the social web as the creature that spawned Web 2.0 and all of the sites that we hold dear: Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and the like. But social sharing has been around much longer than that, through chatrooms, ICQ messages and email. It’s easy to see how a link is shared in the public forums of the social web, but what about the more unknown side of private messages? Even with Google Analytics and fancy web trackers, we aren’t always sure how links are shared and where traffic comes from. Enter the dark horse in this equation, now called ‘dark social’, which represents links that are shared through e-mail chains and Skype conversations that are difficult to track and measure. The Atlantic found that nearly 60% of their referrals were ‘dark,’ more than twice the number of referrals the magazine got from Facebook.

A research firm looked into these figures across more media sites and found that ‘dark social’ accounted for an even bigger portion of social shares, closer to 70%. Facebook came in at 20% while Twitter was down at 6%. Only search drove more visitors to these sites than ‘dark social,’ which took up 18% of total referrals.

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about Twitter users
Beevolve has just published an exhaustive survey of Twitter users around the world. So what does the average Twitter user look like? The user is slightly more likely to be female and probably lives in the US. She probably has fewer than 50 followers and follows fewer than 50 people too. She’s probably under age 25, though just 0.45% of Twitter users disclose their age on their profile. Young women occupy more Twitter accounts, but that distinction equals out and then reverses in older age groups.

Unsurprisingly, tweeting more often is more likely to bring you followers. The 27 million active users from this study sent more than 28 billion tweets, and a quarter didn’t tweet even once. Read the full report for more insight into these graphs and stats.

Smartphone owners jump on social media while watching TV
Nearly 90% of smartphone owners say they use a second screen (such as a phone or tablet) while watching TV, and almost half of 16-24 year olds are using social media to talk about what they are watching. Most users like to chat about reality shows and sports events, but independent dramas drive the most commerce-related talk. A different study looked specifically at tablet users, who said that the multitasking activity they did most while watching TV was posting to social media sites. A full 63% of tablet owners said they multitasked while watching TV, with their activity breaking down as follows:

Facebook halves the reach of brands’ posts
As you might have seen reported in Adweek or the Financial Times, We Are Social and our partners at Socialbakers have confirmed that Facebook has changed in its EdgeRank algorithm to reduce the number of brand posts appearing in fans’ newsfeeds. It looks like since the end of August, the reach of the average post has dropped by about 50%:

Average post organic reach 10^th Aug- 9^th Oct, based on 15,380 posts made by the 157 of the most active commercial pages in the period.

However, engagement has remained relatively stable, which could only mean that posts that are getting seen by fans are getting more engagement. So what’s happening? Friends and brands are fighting for attention in our newsfeeds, and in addition to Facebook hitting 1 billion monthly active users, brands are posting three times more often now than they were six months ago. The solution? As our global MD Robin Grant wrote:

Facebook’s changes mean brands need to shift to creating social content that is ‘as engaging as the posts you see from friends and family’ and supplement this with a sophisticated paid promotion strategy.

More Facebook users are going mobile and staying quiet
A new study has shown that the numbers of users on Facebook mobile has increased rapidly over the last year. But it also revealed that Facebook users are becoming more passive and less engaged, saying they would rather browse friends’ updates than post their own. Is Facebook losing its appeal, or has it just not adapted quickly enough on mobile?

Birthdays and gifts top new Facebook mobile newsfeed
Facebook birthdays have long been buried on mobile, but now some users in Facebook’s test group will see a big update to the mobile app, which now pushes birthdays and gift ideas to the top of the newsfeed. One click lets you buy people gifts, and Facebook will take a slice of your purchase. This update isn’t yet available for everyone, but Facebook promises that it’s coming soon, most likely also with the option to buy gifts straight from your newsfeed.

Facebook changes rules for Open Graph to prevent overposting
Facebook has created a set group Open Graph verbs that it allows to automatically share content, and users must opt-in to auto-sharing all other custom verbs. Content that you like, watch, read, listen or follow can still be shared automatically, but other verbs will now require permission. Facebook also announced that it would make Open Graph stories more prominent in the newsfeed and on Timeline, which feature a bigger image.

Twitter buys Vine, a video-sharing startup
Twitter has gotten its hands on Vine, a three-man video startup in New York that has yet to publicly launch. Vine describes itself as “the best way to capture and share video on your iPhone.” Vine isn’t your standard video app, though, because it allows you to piece together a continuous shot from short, snappy recordings. What will Twitter do with Vine? No word yet, but we’re eagerly waiting to hear.

Google+ mobile app now supports Pages
Google+ just got a big updates for its Android and iOS apps, and page owners can now view, post and comment from their phones. Google says this has been one of the most requested features for mobile, and that’s no surprise, as Pages have been available for nearly a year. The iOS app also got a few new updates that Android already had, such as letting you edit posts after they’ve been published and saving photos to your camera roll.

PinPointing make Pinterest shoppable
Shopping on Pinterest isn’t easy, as lots of the images come from broken links and don’t have good descriptions or even the product name to make them easier to track down. Enter PinPointing, which tries to match products from online shopping service Zappos to a user’s pins and boards. The service isn’t spot on yet, and of course it can’t always find the exact product, but it’s a good start on demystifying where you can find that pair of shoes you spotted, which also won’t be bad for Zappos’ revenue.

Poor Haitians read #FirstWorldProblems in ad
In a new ad for the WaterIsLife charity, poor Haitians read out real tweets that used the #FirstWorldProblems hashtag, complaining about things such as big houses and heated leather seats. The ad is both moving and cringe-worthy, as you remember how many trivial complaints you’ve posted in the last week, which has now sparked a debate about what exactly the hashtag means.

Arrested Development recruits walk-on actors with hashtag
Want to be on the next season of Arrested Development? It could be a simple as posting a photo on Instagram or tweeting something witty with the #BluthWalkOn hashtag. Netflix and Arrested Development have teamed up for their competition called ‘You’re gonna get some walk-ons’ to do exactly that. The website where all of the images and videos are hosted might be the strangest compilation of TV fandom and nerdery the internet has seen in a while.

Vogue is looking like a million followers
Vogue is celebrating reaching 1 million Twitter followers with a scrolling timeline and a dedicated hashtag, #storyof1million. On the beautiful microsite, users can scroll through more than four years of tweets, photos and even the notable followers to relive the journey from Vogue’s Twitter beginnings in 2008 to the present day.

UGG Australia brings together the Creative Council
UGG Australia is fueling its own social and creative side through a collaboration with eight influencers in the worlds of fashion, music, photography and pop culture, called the ‘Creative Council.’ UGG has just released a great case study and dishes out some worthwhile tips about the power of bringing outside voices into your brand while promoting your shared qualities.

Ralph Lauren trades dollars for likes on Tumblr
To support National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Ralph Lauren pledged $1 to charity for every like and reblog it gets on its Tumblr posts up to $25,000. The post was published late last week, but it’s already well above the 25,000 mark.

#ASOSonXFactor
ASOS have launched a new campaign in the UK that encourages users to watch ‘The X Factor’ and keep their eyes peeled for certain ASOS clothing. The viewers with the keenest eyes can tweet using hashtag #ASOSonXFactor, and if they are first — and correct — ASOS will give them the item for free.

Pretty Polly rewarding a poor sense of fashion
Here’s one for all the horrific pairs of Christmas socks: The Pretty Polly Sock-Horrometer. Maybe not a great name, but a useful app nonetheless. Users can upload photos of their worst pairs of socks and have them analysed by the app before they receive a partial, or even full, discount on a seductive replacement.

Barbour knits Twitter with Facebook
The new ‘Tweet Your Knit’ campaign from Barbour encourages users to tweet a story and photo of either their favourite or least favourite ‘knits’ using #TweetYourKnit. User photos will be contributing to a Facebook-based #TweetYourKnit gallery, and fans are then entered for a chance to win a piece of knitwear from Barbour’s new collection. This campaign shows just how tight-knit Twitter and Facebook can be.

Crisis shows Littlewoods the value of social media
Littlewoods has outlined how using social media allowed the company to better respond to a crisis after a poorly-judged Christmas ad. Littlewoods responded to the customers earlier than they could have done previously, and they also proactively “interrupted” conversations about the brand. The parent company plans to double its social team, as it’s learned that community management cannot be done by a “call centre team that do it as a part time job”.

O2 goes ‘ghetto’ in controversial customer service twist
Network operator O2 has been in the news once again for another piece of renegade customer service by rejecting all conventions and responding using a customer’s slang on Twitter. Ballsy. And the customer has now tweeted to say that’s not actually the way he talks, so O2 can go back to its normal conversations.

Chinese marketers to increase digital spend, but request accountability
A joint study by R3 and independent ad tracking company Admaster reveal that Chinese marketers intend to increase their digital spend in 2012 by 26.9%, compared to 18% in 2011. 25% of those surveyed have budgets between RMB 5 to 10 million or S$990,150 to S$1.98 million, while 6% have budgets above RMB 50 million or S$9.9 million  The focus will be on online video with a share of digital spend of more than 23%, followed by microblogs with 20% and social networks with 16%. Only 16% of the 150 companies surveyed believe that they are actually getting competitive digital media buying rates, with fewer than 40% satisfied with the reliability and quality of measurement of their campaigns. This certainly bodes well for digital agencies.

Sina Weibo launches Weibo Places
Sina Weibo has launched a new location service that will collect and arrange posts that a user has made on Sina Weibo that contains a geo-tag into a timeline that includes maps of each location. It also allows users to check-in at specific locations, or search for new places to visit which they can then mark as ‘want to visit’. The latter functionality sounds similar to what Chinese location-based app Jiepang already offers, even though Weibo Places appears to be more an aggregator tracking the history of a user’s location-based posts. In addition to the web application, Sina Weibo has also partnered with several third-party mobile applications such as photo-sharing app Tuding001.

China’s e-commerce site Tmall launches an iPhone app
China’s leading e-commerce website Tmall has launched an iPhone app, which allows users to browse and purchase items from all of its B2C brand partners and independent stores, with the addition of social functionalities such as ‘likes’ and comments. The mobile app also supports full order management, such that purchases can be tracked whilst they’re on the road. This signals the growing trend of m-commerce whereby consumers are making purchases from their phones while on-the-go, and Tmall seems to be capitalising on this with their dedicated mobile app. It’s interesting also that Tmall has decided to launch an iPhone app first while the iPad and Android versions are currently in the works, which signals the increasing popularity of the iPhone in China.

Boris Johnson joins Sina Weibo
Boris Johnson’s campaign for re-election as Mayor of London has even seen him join Chinese microblogging platform Sina Weibo in a bid to win over London’s Chinese community. However, Mayor Johnson certainly hasn’t quite gotten the hang of it yet.

Mobile an increasingly important media channel in Thailand
Statistics from mobile ad network InMobi reveal that mobile is an increasingly important media channel in Thailand, with 44% of mobile web users claiming that their preferred method of going online is through a mobile device. Most importantly, 75% of mobile web users are as comfortable with mobile advertising as they are with TV or online advertising. Mobile is fast becoming an important driver of consumer purchasing decisions with 38% of Thai respondents saying they have been introduced to something new via mobile advertising, while 13% have reconsidered a product because of mobile advertising. M-commerce will also be a driver of this mobile movement, with 68% of mobile web users planning to purchase a product through their mobile device over the next 12 months. Marketers clearly have an area of opportunity to better target Thai consumers through mobile advertising given their receptiveness to it.

Trust in social grows
According to Nielsen’s latest Global Trust in Advertising report, social networks and consumer-generated media continue to have a significant impact on advertising as consumers’ reliance on word-of-mouth in the decision-making process has increased significantly. The report showed that 92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends above all other forms of advertising – up 18% since 2007, with trust in consumer opinions posted online up to 70%, a 15% increase in four years.

Sponsored ads on social networks, a new format included in the 2011 Nielsen survey, were found to be trusted by just 36% of consumers, underlining that a paid strategy for social networks alone is not enough.

Consumers respond to social media symbols on TV
A new survey has reinforced the idea that social media and television are a perfect match. The survey, carried out by Accenture, found that one-third of US television viewers interacted with a social network ‘after seeing a social media symbol on the TV screen’, with the Facebook ‘Like’ being the most recognised symbol. Interestingly, US television viewers are more likely to recognise QR codes than Twitter hashtags.

Facebook tests and launches a range of new features
It’s not exactly news that Facebook is focusing on mobile – witness the purchase of Instagram – but it is interesting that they’re focusing on all mobile users. Recently, they’ve launched a new ‘Facebook for every phone’ app which creates a much better mobile experience for non-smartphone users, and in good news for brands, includes the ability to vist Facebook Pages within the app. It’s a move which shows Facebook is keen on mobile domination across the market.

Facebook has implemented a ‘listen’ button on artists’ fan Pages that lets users instantly stream songs from an artist’s catalogue. The feature could help make Facebook a go-to option for people looking for new music, similar to the Myspace in its glory days, but more likely will just integrate music more strongly into the existing Facebook product.

Facebook is also testing a new “trending articles” feature to highlight social reader articles within users’ News Feeds in an attempt to drive more users to Open Graph news apps. Particularly for smaller news sites, this could have a big impact on the number of people reading their site.

In addition, Facebook has delivered “real-time” analytics to Page admins for the first time. This overdue improvement provides new abilities to help marketers measure how well a post is performing on their Pages now, rather than 48 hours later, and modify their content (and advertising spend) accordingly.

It’s an interesting move now, as over the next few weeks, Facebook will introduce more granular metrics, measuring actions other than ‘Likes’, within its ads management platform. Facebook’s product manager for Pages Insights David Baser said the measurable actions “could be anything [such as] commenting or sharing a page post, claiming an offer, or, instead of just installing an app, actually using an app or doing things within an app.” The new feature titled “Action Measurement” will appear as a column and pie chart in Facebook’s Ads Manager and will help marketers tailor ads for relevant consumers.

It seems clear that Facebook are trying as hard as they can to get existing advertisers to spend more money with them – both through letting marketers optimise the performance of their posts, and by making advertising more measurable.

Google products get the social treatment
YouTube aims to become more social and increase revenue by possibly introducing Google+ comments to the site. It could be a mutually beneficial move for Google – encouraging better quality comments on YouTube and also increased use of Google+.

In a smaller piece of news, Gmail users can expect to see recent photo and video thumbnails from Google+ when they hover over the “people” widget within their inbox.

Foursquare announces advertising platform launch
Plans for a mid-June launch for a paid-media platform have surfaced which will give Foursquare merchants the ability to promote a deal to check-in at a given place. According to the reports, Foursquare is pitching brands to become launch partners, and it’s a move which we can definitely see being of particular interest to restaurant chains.

Tumblr to overtake blogs, will introduce advertising
Tumblr looks set to overtake ‘blog’ by the end of the year in Google searches. Between the two terms, ‘blog’ is currently ahead but XKCD blogger Randall Munroe believes that ‘Tumblr’ will see more Google searches by October 12 this year.

Pinterest losing its interest
After its explosive growth in recent months, it seems Pinterest’s bubble may have burst and might now actually be losing users. Monthly active users of their Facebook app are down from 11.3 million on March 1 to just 8.3 million currently. It’s likely that the hype around the photo-sharing and curating site motivated many people to join, but have now decided that Pinterest is not their thing.

Quora and Path both raise funds and plan expansion
According to TechCrunch, Quora is set to raise between $30 – $50 million in its Series B fundraising, giving it a $400 million valuation. Co-founder Adam D’Angelo will also be investing up to $20 million of his own money along with other investors according to one source.

Location-based app Path closed its Series B funding of ”more than $30 million” with investors including Sir Richard Branson, which values it at $250 million. In his email statement, Path CEO Dave Mortin noted the investors’ commitment to building Path “for the long term” with the funding being used for “international growth and expansion as well as user adoption”. It’s unclear whether he meant they would be spending money on advertising, or just on improving the product to boost user adoption.

Klout launches Brand Pages – ‘a new twist on influence’
Klout, the influence measurement company, is now topping 12 billion API calls a month– and has launched Brand Pages to try and work more with brands. According to Klout, the newly launched Brand Pages give ‘influencers a place to be recognised and have a direct impact on the brands they care about most’.

Red Bull have teamed up with Klout for the Beta launch and are offering their top advocates the chance to win a trip to the X Games or, more likely, some merchandise. It’s good to see Klout trying something new, but what they really need to work on is their influence measurement which could do with some work.

Brands tweeting and the Olympics
If you’re working for a brand which isn’t an official Olympic sponsor, even mentioning the Olympics on social media channels could get you in hot water. While Rax Lakhani makes a fair point that it will be impossible for the IOC to keep an eye on every tweet and the rules are clearly overbearing, it’s still an unnecessary risk to break them.

It was notable in the pre-Christmas period how little variety there was on brand social media accounts, with everyone talking about Christmas and little else, so it will be interesting to see how skilled community managers perform in posting content which deflects attention away from their competitors’ Olympic sponsorship, without breaking the rules.

In other Olympic news, the IOC has launched the nicely designed ‘Athlete’s Hub’ which will bring together social media updates from different athletes. While you could just follow them all on Twitter, this is an easier way to follow the Olympic stars, with less effort for the ordinary fan. Nice.

Honda ask people to give up Pinterest – sort of
The new Honda campaign for the CR-V strikes of one where somebody has come up with a decent pun – Pintermission – and built a campaign around it. The campaign revolves around offering active pinners $500 to give up Pinterest for a day, and instead go outside and do the things they’ve been pinning about. It even features personalised invitations and persuaded a few super-users to give Pinterest up for a day.

But as Adweek neatly put it:

The campaign is nicely designed and executed, but somewhat frustrating. If the only way your brand can relate to Pinterest is by dissing it, isn’t it disingenuous to build a whole campaign around it?

Quite.

Dr Pepper’s new Facebook Connect campaign
Dr Pepper have launched a new campaign called ‘The Best Day Of High School’ which creates a bespoke video for each user by connecting it up with their Facebook profile. Considering how long Facebook Connect has been around, it’s a little underwhelming.

Air New Zealand give consumers cashback for recommendations
UK-based Air New Zealand customers can earn £50 for every Twitter, Facebook, email or blog recommendation that turns into a premium economy booking. Consumers that register for the trial can earn cashback on bookings for the premium economy seats. Although the campaign will probably show impressive numbers, it will be hard to prove it has convinced people to book who wouldn’t have otherwise.

Fulham FC attempt Foursquare Super Swarm
Before their home game against Wigan on Saturday, Fulham attempted to unlock the Super Swarm badge for all those checking-in on Foursquare. While this isn’t particularly innovative or interesting on its own when you consider there was a crowd of 20,000+ at the Cottage, Fulham also plan to introduce special offers on tickets and retail items throughout the season that you can only redeem with Foursquare.

Italian ‘blog killer’ law returns
In a quite incredible story, the Italian government is trying to pass a law so brilliantly ridiculous one could be mistaken for thinking Silvio Berlusconi was still Prime Minister.

The proposed law – which is designed to protect those libelled online – works like this:

In order to protect people from online defamation, this law states that each webmaster of whatever website must rectify within 48 hours (even if you’re a private blogger who just left for the weekend!) any page on the website itself, if somebody just tells him or her (how?) that they consider themselves wronged by that page. No discussion or reply allowed, no judge needed, and the fine for not “rectifying” within 2 days is 12,000 Euros [about S$19,693].

Nuts. In other words, if one writes a fact and anyone disputes it, the person will have to change what they’ve written. Looks like the trolls have finally won.

PayPal experiments with QR code mobile shopping in Singapore
PayPal will be introducing mobile shopping in Singapore, whereby smartphone owners can buy goods while on the go using a QR code reader application. This initiative will take place at 15 subway (MRT) stations, where gifts from eight retailers at prices reduced specially for Valentine’s Day will be displayed. Smartphone owners must first download the PayPal QR code reader which allows them to scan the QR codes of the displayed products, and subsequently purchase these products by logging into PayPal or by providing their credit cards details.

Singapore is poised for such an experiment as it has a large smartphone userbase, having achieved the largest recorded feature phone to smartphone migration rate globally at 54%, and having the largest smartphone user base per capita in the world with a 90% penetration rate. It also has the infrastructure in place, with mobile 3G network and free public Wi-Fi that every citizen can register for with their mobile phone number.

Smartphones serve as entertainment guides in Taiwan
An Internet survey by Google found that most smartphone users from Taiwan use their mobile devices as a restaurant finder and travel guide. 38% of Taiwanese who responded said they use their smartphones to search for restaurants and food recommendations, while another 35% use their smartphones to seek travel information. Similarly in other parts of Asia Pacific, 66% of smartphone owners aged 18 to 29 in Singapore said they used their smartphones mostly as a food directory, followed by 55% in Hong Kong, and 40% in both Australia and China respectively.

Tencent’s mobile gaming platform
China’s Internet giant Tencent revealed that its mobile gaming platform Mobile QQ Game Hall has surpassed 200 million registered users and sees 13 million users everyday, with peak usage hitting more than 1 million concurrent gamers. It has no doubt tapped on Tencent’s weibo service, which has more than 250 million members. The current selection is still rather limited, but Tencent has claimed it will be adding more titles to its collection of casual games.

‘The Sims Social’ comes to China
Social gamers in China can soon look forward to playing The Sims Social, which was launched on Facebook last year but was unavailable to Chinese netizens as Facebook is blocked in the country. The 537 million active users on Tencent’s social gaming network QZone will be able to access The Sims Social, or Mo Ni Shi Guang in Mandarin, through an open beta on its platform soon.

China’s 254 million active microblogging users
China had 254 million active microblog user accounts by the end of 2011, up by 150.7% from the previous year. The active user activity proves just how big a part microblogging plays in China’s Internet culture. Microblogging user activity was mainly reflected by the number of user-generated content, the number of ‘retweets’ and comments, content shared among social platforms, and content sharing outside social platforms.

LinkedIn reaches 150 million users
LinkedIn has reached 150 million users, after adding more than 50 million users in the last 10 months; in doing so, it has secured its place as the professional’s social network. Asia Pacific accounts for 25 million users, with India accounting for the majority of Asian users with 13 million LinkedIn accounts, while 4 million originate from Southeast Asia. Singapore alone accounts for 700,000 users, which signals a 14% penetration.

Liking a brand has a positive purchase intent
Interesting news from eMarketer: 54% of those who like a brand on Facebook are then more likely to purchase the product.

From social media to word of mouth
Promoting a brand on Facebook means more than just buying up thousands of fans and, right on cue, Unilever have announced that it is shifting away from using social media for getting fans and instead wants to move towards engagement to drive advocacy and word of mouth.

The dinosaur in the room
Is it brands that are having a hard time evolving, or is it agencies? Just 9% of senior marketers believe traditional ad agencies have successfully joined the digital age, according to a new study.

Hey, have you seen this new video?
Just like a study released a couple of weeks ago, new research has found that viewers who watched a video were more likely to recall the featured brand when it was recommended by a friend compared to viewers who found the video through browsing. Also, people who watched a friend-recommended clip were more likely to enjoy the video and purchase the product.

Brits are top on Twitter
Nearly 40% of people in the UK use Twitter, the highest per capita usage in the world. The U.S., the Netherlands, Chile and Venezuela round out the top 5.

Should Facebook make a ‘junior’ edition?
Although Facebook requires its users to be 13, almost half of British 8 to 12 year olds lie about their age and have accounts on the site. Most of the children replied that they simply wanted a place to play games online and would join a ‘junior’ Facebook if it were created.

Adding Facebook Places to your map
Some Facebook users can now see an “Add to Map” button for business pages with brick-and-mortar addresses. This is meant to encourage more people to fill in their Timelines, but should also yield valuable information in recommending places to friends and letting businesses create more targeted ads.

Could the tap-in be the next check-in?
In its latest update for Android, Foursquare has included support for near-field communication, which would allow check-ins via a wave or a tap when you reach a location. The service has changed dramatically as it gets ready to enter its fourth year, and it’s taking notes from Twitter about getting past its ‘growing pains’.

Google launch Google+ developers page
Last Monday saw Google launch a Google+ developers page within Google+ to allow users to stay close to the latest Google+ platform news and events. The idea is for the page to act as a feedback portal for users, as well as encouraging users to join hackathons. It’s been successful thus far, as it’s already in almost 19,000 circles.

MySpace to announce one million new users
Since December, when MySpace introduced a new music player, it has added one million new users, the first increase in users in almost a year.

Pinterest reaches ten million unique visitors a month
According to comScore, Pinterest is the quickest ever site to reach ten million uniques a month. Certainly a site we’re watching closely.

Path: one to watch
Since its redesign two months back Path has added one million new users and is growing exponentially. Whilst it’s only available on smartphones – and hence it’s userbase will always be limited – the ease of use of the nascent app-cum-social network, means it’s another we’re watching closely.

Domino’s return to crowdsourcing
Domino’s has launched Think Oven, its new attempt to crowdsource feedback from its Facebook fans:

The Think Oven Facebook tab has two sections: Projects and Idea Box. Projects is where Domino’s solicits feedback on specific projects, with the kick-off project asking fans to brainstorm uniform ideas. Two visual submissions and two written submissions will each receive $500 rewards.

Idea Box is more open-ended and accepts any ideas people want to submit (although it’s safe to assume the brand’s Facebook admins can delete any offensive/rude suggestions). After all, the pizza chain’s latest product, Parmesan Bread Bites, was created by Brian Edler, a Domino’s Store Owner in Ohio. Other ideas so far including introducing rooftop gardens, better French dressing and a pizza delivery locator light.

Domino’s to trial F-commerce
Meanwhile, Domino’s in the UK are embarking on a new product launch exclusive to its Facebook fans. The Pizza chain is launching ‘boneless ribs’, a new addition to its menu of side orders. Facebook fans will be able to preview and order the dish at a promotional price for a week before the national launch. Perhaps there’ll be a domino effect from this, and it will drive long-term sales?

Control cats from your computer
A new campaign from Friskies allows users to control a series of kittens’ toys through Facebook (while real live kittens play with them). With cats, consumers and the internet combined, expect the web to go into meltdown.

New Cillit Bang Product Launched exclusively on Facebook
Reckitt Benckiser has announced plans to exclusively sell the new Cillit Bang ‘All in 1 Dish & Surface Cleaner’ household-cleaning product through its Facebook page. They also plan to invest an extra £100m in brand building across Europe.

Cadbury’s use Facebook to launch new Wispa product
After running a competition to find the Ultimate Wispa fan, Cadbury’s then let the very same fan launch the new Wispa product – Bitsa Wispa – on their Facebook Page, before running a competition all week to give the first batch of the product away.

Foster’s with Facebook Timeline app
Fosters is the first alcohol brand in the UK to develop a Timeline app, using it to showcase its exclusive comedy content. Rumours of the comedy being sweet, but mostly flat, are yet to be confirmed.

O2 surprises and dazzles with a Valentine campaign
The mobile operator O2 is rolling out plans to ‘surprise and delight’ customers with another personalised social media campaign for Valentines Day. The have created a virtual digital love nest in the clouds to deliver Twitter users messages via Youtube videos, personally recorded by non-identical twin “O2 Cupids”.

Dove creates Valentine’s Day tweet screen
Dove has erected a Valentine’s Day tweet screen in London’s Victoria station, which displays tweeters responses to questions about women and beauty. Aside from the time of year, it’s hard to see how much this has to do with Valentine’s.

Threadless link-up with Pinterest
T-shirt makers Threadless are one of the first brands to run a campaign on Pinterest: they’ve asked users to create a Valentine’s Pinboard including five Threadless products, for the chance to win an $100 voucher as well an $100 Amazon gift card.

Skoda’s impressive use of social media
A really nice story from Car Dealer Magazine, about how a tweet from a journalist about not having a car, ended up with him being a given a car for the day, as well as free lunch. It all goes to show the power of listening on social media, and then generating positive word of mouth. It’s hard to get brands to believe it can be this simple, but sometimes it really can be.

Sky News bans retweeting others, BBC bans breaking stories on Twitter
Sky News has introduced a new policy that bans its journalists from retweeting non Sky sources. It seems to miss the point of social media – about reporters being part of the wider community – and it will be interesting to see if there is a backlash from their journalists.

Simon Collister from We Are Social London highlighted just why it’s a bad move for Sky:

Sky, as an early adopter of Twitter, has taken a big step backwards. It’s easy to see where it’s coming from in terms of attempting to protect the brand from association with inappropriate personal tweets or unconfirmed news, but Sky is missing the point. The biggest damage to the brand will be that its reporters go from being ‘real people’ to official broadcast channels for Sky. This risks diminishing the range, breadth and quality of the content being produced and shared.

What will these policies mean for the individual journalists concerned? Many of Sky’s reporters understand that getting the most out of Twitter means reciprocal engagement through sharing and retweeting other users and are already flouting the new policies. If Sky journalists find themselves losing followers, authority or relevance in the increasingly networked news environment, it will be interesting to see if this leads to higher staff turnover – or a management re-evaluation of the proposed practices.

The domino effect has already been felt at the BBC, where journalists have been told not to break new stories on Twitter. The new rule, which applies to all correspondents within the corporation, reporters and producers, was announced on Wednesday, just a day after Twitter’s new ruling.

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.