Alibaba invests $294M in China’s top online mapping company AutoNavi
Two weeks after taking an 18 percent stake in Sina Weibo, China’s biggest e-commerce company has announced another investment of $294 million in AutoNavi. This investment will take up 28 percent shares of the company. AutoNavi is China’s top online mapping company, beating search giant Baidu and even Google Maps in terms of mobile maps market share in China. As an industry leader, AutoNavi seems to be a perfect partner for Alibaba in seeking opportunities to explore and develop new location-based e-commerce services. It is also clear that this deal will give Alibaba access to a huge pool of consumer behavior data based on location. With Alibaba’s acquisition of the social music service Xiami last year and their more recent stake in Sina Weibo and AutoNavi, Alibaba has quickly become equipped with big social data and strategic alliances to explore a new kind of e-commerce service—one that will integrate three big things: social, mobile and location. It will be interesting to see what kind of revolutionized services Alibaba will bring out to the market in the future.

In Japan, politicians leverage Line to deepen ties with supporters
The importance of mobile messaging apps is growing. Many brands already know it and try to leverage the increasing impact of mobile messaging app to engage with their consumers. Politicians in Japan are no exception to this recent trend. According to Japan-based mobile messaging app Line, ten political parties in Japan have opened official accounts on the app. This was after the ban on the use of internet-based mediums for election campaigns (including social networks and blogs) was lifted. Line provides politicians an opportunity to engage with their supporters more directly and actively, by allowing users to opt-in to receive message from political parties, as well as leave feedback and comments on their accounts. Will this impact on the way politicians in Japan communicate with public?

IGAWorks joins KakaoTalk to increase game releases and app traffic
Korea-based mobile messaging app Kakaotalk has announced a partnership with IGAWorks, the local in-Game advertisement provider. The partnership will involve integrating IGAWorks’ adPOPcorn into Kakaotalk that will provide “in-game and in-app incentivized offers, as well as pop-up adverts that link through to social and mobile media channels.” This collaboration is intended to strengthen Kakaotalk’s video game offerings—features that have contributed to distinguishing Kakaotalk from other mobile chat apps. By allowing all game developers on Kakaotalk to access adPOPcorn, Kakaotalk is looking to create a new channel of income for video game developers and publishers. The goal is to encourage more game releases which will drive more user traffic to the app. This also reflects KakaoTalk’s desire to attract more brands as well, to tap into Kakaotalk as a mobile advertising platform.

Japan’s Quan-inc partner with AIS to roll out sticker maker app “AIS myStickerShop”
Japan based mobile application maker Quan-inc has partnered with AIS, Thailand’s top mobile network operator. Quan-inc is well known for developing Lounge - a mobile messaging app with unique features of collaborative drawing and message decoration. The partnership is intended to release an app called “AIS myStickerShop”. The app allows users to create their own stickers for their mobile messaging apps. Currently, only Android users can enjoy the service. iOS users will have to wait a while for an iOS version to come out later this month. Quan Inc’s partnership with AIS could be indicative of a desire to expand their presence in Southeast Asia, as the deal with AIS may open up an opportunity to launch future apps for Singtel, Singapore’s top mobile network operator and a stakeholder in AIS.

Indonesian airlines’ presence on social media
Brand24.co.id, a social media monitoring company in Indonesia, has released an infographic as reported by TechinAsia, depicting the country’s airlines and its presence on social media. AirAsia Indonesia leads the follower count on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Local airlines’ social media presence on the other hand are not as strong, especially for LinkedIn. Garuda Airline, Indonesia’s flagship carrier, has less than half of Air Asia’s number of Facebook fans and about one-eighth of Air Asia’s total Linkedin fans. Despite the differences in follower count, online conversations and social sentiment are still far greater for the local airlines Garuda Airline and Lion Air, as compared to AirAsia Indonesia.

Sina Weibo introduces a Snapchat-inspired tool called SnapWeibo
Similar to the popular mobile app Snapchat, Sina Weibo has recently introduced SnapWeibo where users can use hashtags to make their posts vanish within a certain time period. The procedure is as simple as signing into SnapWeibo using one’s existing Weibo account details and including time-related hashtags in either English or Chinese. The hashtags can be set to minutes, hours or days such as #2m# or #5h# or #1d#. Even if the tweet gets retweeted before it’s due to disappear, the missive will later appear to be blank.

Baidu overtakes Youku-Tudou as the biggest video platform
As reported by TechinAsia, Baidu is set to be China’s biggest video platform with its acquisition of PPS.tv. The acquisition bolsters Baidu’s existing video offerings, with PPS.tv becoming a sub-brand of iQiyi. This purchase puts them in a good position to compete with market leader Youku-Tudou for a bigger slice of China’s web video marketplace, which Baidu has already overthrown them in as the largest video platform in terms of user counts. Moreover, the shift to mobile gives Baidu an edge over Youku-Tudou, with their mobile user base being much larger at 200 million mobile users compared to Youku-Tudou’s 150 million. Despite their dominance being challenged, Youku-Tudou welcomes the competition and expects the acquisition to help further streamline the industry and reduce the issue of piracy.

Kakao Talk updates its Plus Friend platform to Plus Friend Home
Korean chat app, Kakao Talk is rolling out a new feature update to its existing Plus Friend feature. The initial feature was launched in October 2011 for the purpose of allowing users to interact with their favourite brands and celebrities, and currently has over 400 partners availing the feature and more than 26 million active users following 100 million Plus Friend accounts. The upgraded version, Plus Friend Home, allows brands and celebrities to have dedicated homepages and custom design tools but is currently only available in Korea. As reported by TheNextWeb, the feature upgrades will allow brands to have their mobile homepage accessible within the chat room itself, and divided into three sections – ‘mini profile’, ‘chatting room’ and ‘brand home’ – as well as the ability to add links from websites and blogs to enable free interaction within and outside the page.

Facebook report Q1 earnings & increase in monthly
Facebook has reported its earnings for Q1 2013, announcing revenue of $1.45bn, up 38% from Q1 2012. 85% of total revenue came from advertising, amounting to $1.25bn, up 43% from Q1 2012.

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.

China’s Ya’an earthquake: How social media helped
The 7.0-magnitude earthquake that jolted southwest China’s Sichuan Province Saturday morning shook the nation, reminding many of the Wenchuan disaster that happened in the same province in 2008. While social media was not widely used during the 2008 earthquake, this time, Chinese social media platforms such as Sina Weibo, Tencent Weibo, Baidu, SoSo and 360 have responded with a homepage search function for people who are looking for their lost family and friends. 

For example, Sina Weibo created a hashtag “#ya’an person finder#” for the earthquake. Anyone affected by the earthquake can post their information in the format “#ya’an person finder# + victim’s information + family’s contact details”. The post below shows a Tencent Weibo post by an earthquake victim to let his concerned family know that he is safe:

Last year, we observed Sina Weibo playing its role as a crucial lifeline in the Beijing floods. Increasingly, social media becomes the go-to channel for people to communicate with family and friends in times of disaster. Celebrities, media, and telecom companies are also helping with rescue efforts by pushing out information on social media channels. To pay tribute, Sina Weibo mourned along with the sufferers by changing the whole page black and white.

Sina Weibo launches new layout for traditional media
As Wechat continues its rise in the social media scene, competitor platforms such as Sina Weibo are quick to respond with new functions. It has launched a special layout for traditional media pages, such as the one for People’s Daily as shown below:

In the media edition, posts will now feature a news thumbnail, headline and a summary. Moreover, it is reported that the posts can be targeted based on different audience segments. Similar to Wechat, news updates on Sina Weibo will be based on users’ stated preferences then delivered to them via private messages (私信). Will this be enough to compete with Wechat?

Indonesian President joins Twitter with over 700,000 followers

As reported by Tech in Asia, yet another world leader has joined social media. Last week, Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (also known as SBY) opened a Twitter account. Since his first presidential tweet, his handle, @SBYudhoyono, has gained over 700,000 followers.

Indonesia has one of the largest Twitter user populations in the world, so it is great to see that it is being used as a platform for the president to better interact with the Indonesian people in real-time. Among his 27 tweets so far, the Indonesian president also responded to a few Indonesian citizens asking about plans to develop Indonesia’s poorest region, Papua. With several global leaders also engaging their citizens on Twitter, will Yudhoyono eventually be one of the most active world leaders on social media?

In US and Europe, more tweets come from mobile than PC
The increasing adoption of mobile web has continued to have a significant impact on the online behaviour of internet users. Using a study conducted by Strategy Analytics, TheNextWeb proves that this has clearly remained a trend amongst Twitter users as well. The survey compared how 6,500 Twitter users in the US and Europe used the platform between March and October of 2012. The findings showed that mobile users increased from 56% to 71% during the period. Of these users, mobile phone users increased from 53% to 64%, while tablet users doubled from 9% to 18% of the respondents. Meanwhile, users who tweeted through desktop or laptop computers declined considerably, from 77% down to 64%. TheNextWeb notes that this trend may continue to unfold given the sharp drop in PC sales in the last year.

Urban netizens in China have a vast appetite for digital content
A recent report by eMarketer suggests that a vast majority of netizens in metro China are keen on digital content consumption. Based on a survey by KPMG, the findings indicate that social networking and streamed music constitute the highest share of digital activities, each claiming a response rate of  72%. These activities are followed by downloaded music (68%), streamed online films (67%) and accessed news (61%).

In fact, internet users in metro China surpassed those in other metropolitan areas across the globe when it came to music and international news. The highest number of respondents indicated they had accessed music content in urban China (77%), followed close behind by metro Brazil (75%). While 69% of internet users in urban China accessed international news through digital media, Singapore came second–this time at a considerable margin of 58%.

Spotify launches in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong
According to TechInAsia, Spotify has launched in three markets across Asia: Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. As these are the first steps into the region for the music streaming giant, many questions were abound regarding the decision to come into these Asian markets.  After all, the platform already claims 24 million active users across 23 different markets, with a whopping total of one billion playlists created. Spotify’s Sriram Krishnan indicated that Asia had actually been in sight all along–it only took a while to launch in the region because they had to tune it correctly “for this part of the world.” Although Spotify will face a local competitor called KKBOX, TechInAsia notes that Chinese-language music constitute the majority amongst the songs offered by the Taiwanese platform.

Smartphones help drive users to Facebook in US
A recent study conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC) has illustrated how smartphones are encouraging Facebook users to visit the platform more often than before. As noted by eMarketer, the findings suggest that 74% of the respondents in the 18-24 age bracket used their smartphones immediately upon waking up in the morning. A whopping 89% of the participants claimed to use their smartphones within the first 15 minutes of their day. The overall results amongst all of the respondents show that the numbers did decrease but only slightly.  Even amongst the 18-44 age bracket, 62% of the participants reported using their smartphones immediately, with 79% of smartphone users taking to their devices within 15 minutes of waking.

IDC also found that amongst these smartphone users, Facebook usage through mobile constitutes an average daily engagement time of 32.5 minutes overall. Over half of these minutes are spent checking their newsfeeds (16.4), while 9.5 minutes are spent messaging and 6.6 minutes are spent on photos or photo statuses every day. The total number of sessions averaged 13.8, with Newsfeed claiming the top spot again with an average of 7 sessions. Messaging similarly came in second with 4.1 sessions, while photo/photo status averaged 2.7 sessions per day.

Sina Weibo enters Thailand, aims to reach 1.6M users by year end
TechInAsia recently reported that Chinese microblogging platform Sina Weibo has made strides toward entering the Thai market. To this end, Sina Weibo has partnered up with Jiaranai Entertainment, a local company, and set some lofty goals for their expansion into Thailand. In particular, Sina Weibo aims to earn $1 million in revenue, and acquire 1.6 million active users by the end of their first year in the market. On one hand, Thailand is a popular destination amongst Chinese tourists; as TechInAsia notes, however, this hardly supports the venture on its own, not to mention the ambitious goals set forth within the short span of a year. Given Twitter’s presence in Thailand, as well as the increasing reach of (and possible displacement by) chat apps, Sina Weibo may be facing an uphill battle–one that is much steeper than they had anticipated.

VNG launches microblogging platform in Vietnam
The creators of Vietnamese chat app, Zalo, have recently launched microblogging platform Zing.vn. This news comes shortly after the company announced reaching 1 million users on their chat app last month. VNG also created the local social network Zing Me, which is reported to have about 12 million users. Zing.vn puts a heavy emphasis on hashtags, mirroring the traits of other well-known microblogging platforms such as Twitter and Sina Weibo. With a chat app, a social network and the launch of Zing.vn, VNG seems to complete a social trifecta of sorts in the Vietnamese market.

Finland-based chat app Jongla expands in Asia
Asian chat apps have continued to dominate in mobile apps this year, particularly in the APAC region. Foreign chat apps have also come into the chat app scene in Asia, and are seeing significant levels of success in the local markets. TechInAsia reports that Finland-based chat app, Jongla, has recently moved into Asian markets with an eye to increase their reach across the region. Although Jongla’s users are marginal compared to reigning giants such as WeChat, it is noted that they have seen increasing user bases in countries such as Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Australia.

China’s QQ launches as a Facebook app
QQ messenger is the top social network in China. With almost 800 million users, it seems likely to reach a billion-user milestone–an achievement that Facebook reached only late last year. TechInAsia reports that, to this end,  QQ has launched as a Facebook app with an eye to increase their user base further across the globe.

Smartphone users check Facebook 14 times a day
Are you a Facebook addict? Unless you check it more than 14 times a day on your smartphone, you actually fall below the daily average – no wonder Facebook is the third most popular app on smartphones! Channels of communication are now a constant in our lives which explains the fact that 79 per cent of smartphone users check their devices within 15 minutes of waking up – 62 per cent don’t even wait 15 minutes in the morning, and grab their phones immediately. The world’s addiction to Facebook is growing with almost half of Facebook users checking on updates while out and about – we’re even checking in at the gym, whilst cooking and at the cinema…

Facebook is still the dominant social media network in the UK
The latest Ipsos Mori quarterly tech tracker report showed that “50% of British adults access social networks”, with over half of them using smartphones to do so. Nearly 50% have used Facebook in the last three months, compared to 16% using Twitter, and perhaps surprisingly, 17% using Google+.

Online video accounts for 5% of all UK Internet usage
The UK population “made over a billion visits to video sites last month”, accounting for 5% of the UK’s internet usage. In February 2013 the UK spent 323 million hours watching online video content, that’s 100 million more hours than in February 2012. This makes it one of the few sectors that people are increasingly spending time on per visit. The average visit time online has decreased by 20% year-on-year, yet online video average visit time has increased by just over 3 minutes.

Hashtags have changed the way people communicate
“Hashtags have become one of the most ubiquitous symbols used in social sharing” by brands and consumers. Research conducted by RadiumOne into mobile hashtag usage revealed a large number of consumers now utilise hashtags via mobile devices. In fact “58% of respondents from the survey utilize hashtags on a regular basis, and 71 percent of regular hashtag users do so from their mobile devices.”

Twitter’s ad revenue to near $1 billion in 2014
It has been forecast by eMarketer that Twitter will earn $582.8 million in global ad revenue in 2013, with roughly 53% of that projected to come from mobile advertising. Over the next 24 months Twitter should expect to see advertising on mobile devices grow a great deal more, increasing Twitter’s ad revenue to $1 billion in 2014. This “comes as advertisers have shown more interest in spending money on mobile advertisements on Twitter.”

Details about Facebook Home for Android leaked
Facebook are due to make announcements this Thursday about their new offering for Android, however aspects of this have been leaked ahead of time. It is believed that Facebook will release a modified version of the Android operating system, a new product called ‘Facebook Home’, “software that any Android device can run to give users a more socially integrated homescreen experience.” The updated version is thought to include features from News Feed and Messenger and will be running on “a new device by Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC”.

Advertisers can now create ‘unpublished posts’ on Facebook 
Facebook has now given advertisers the option to create unpublished posts which can then be supported with specifically targeted ads and will not appear in fans News Feeds organically. Due to the nature of the News Feed this has not been possible until now as previously a page was required to create posts that would be visible to fans. “Unpublished posts that run as page post ads in News Feed will now enable advertisers to show users more relevant content[...] taking a message that matters to the people it’s relevant to in the most engaging place on Facebook.” In tests, AdParlor found that unpublished post ads had initial success, with 0.87% clickthrough rate compared to “organic post ads with a CTR of 0.30 percent.”

Facebook Exchange ads in desktop News Feed
Facebook have made changes to the way their Facebook Exchange partners can advertise on the site, “by letting advertisers serve ads directly in users’ main News Feed.” The ads will look like normal sponsored newsfeed stories rather than display ads, allowing “users to Like, Share or Comment on an ad, whereas previously users could only click on the ad and be taken to a third-party site.” The placement of Facebook Exchange ads in the News Feed will allow advertisers to behaviourally target huge numbers of users using a ‘native’ format.

Embed your Vine posts on the web
It is now possible to embed Vine posts on the web through a post’s page on vine.co, or using the mobile app. You’ll not only be able to share your own posts but others as well, as long as its already been shared outside of Vine.co.

Tumblr hits the 100 million blogs mark 
Tumblr, last week crossed over the 100 million blogs threshold, with 44.6 billion individual posts! The online platform has grown significantly in the last year, with roughly 50 million blogs being created since last April, and 6 million of those being created in the last month.

LinkedIn search is getting smarter
Gone are the days of searching for people, groups, companies and jobs separately, now “all you need to do is type what you’re looking for into the search box and you’ll see a comprehensive page of results that pulls content from all across LinkedIn.” All searches will be customised to your personal profile, so no two searches will produce the same results. The smarter search will be available to members today and to global members in the coming weeks.

Google+ gets a refresh for Android and iPhone
Google+ functionalities that have been available on desktop have now been rolled out for mobile. The Google+ app has been updated to include basic image editing tools using Snapseed’s technology, e.g. crop, rotate, change contrast, saturation, brightness and filters. The view of posts has been updated to include more text as well as single tap links to photos and videos, enabling users to read more content in a shorted period of time. A really nice addition is the ability to swipe through an entire photo album inline, without having to head over to a separate album page. Additionally, the +1, share and comment buttons are more prominent.

Amazon has acquired Goodreads in a bid to further socialise itself
Between the two platforms, Amazon and Goodreads have changed the way authors reach their audiences and readers choose books. It is thought that through last week’s acquisition of Goodreads, the world’s largest community for book recommendations, Amazon will develop its ability” to share users lists, e.g. “want to read”, improving book recommendation sharing and other such areas.

AT&T owned March Madness Twitter activity
It could be said that AT&T are this year owning March Madness, the US college basketball frenzy, as part of a sponsorship deal with the NCAA and Turner Broadcasting. AT&T have “continuously bought ads for tweets going out from @MarchMadness, NCAA’s handle.” The social media team worked towards providing “behind-the-scenes content so people from their living rooms on their couches can be a part of the on-site game experience.” A Twitter based programme was implemented incorporating key moment tweets from the @MarchMadness handle which were then pushed out at Promoted Tweets by AT&T and AT&T’s Promoted Trend ads which linked to television viewing. The Promoted Trend rather than just Promoted Tweets really helped AT&T rise above the other noise.

Buick uses Pinterest to design its 2013 Encore luxury car
Buick have designed its 2013 Encore luxury car based on a Pinterest board chosen from its ‘Pinterest to Dashboard’ campaign entries. The winner, Michael Wurm Jr., was picked as the inspiration for new color palates, textures and design features for the car. Using the boards, three designers “pulled key elements from his boards that they thought were interesting[...] and came up with their own interpretations of the boards, and expanded on it based on mood, a theme and an environment. Buick wanted to “connect with a younger audience and show a different, more playful side of the brand.”

We Are Social launches adidas: Join Team Messi
The We Are Social London office worked alongside adidas and Media Monks to launch a new personalised social experience, Join Team Messi last week, giving Messi fans the chance to join his team.

The online experience use Facebook data to place fans in a personalised short film alongside the Argentine icon, with the user controlling how play evolves, and at the end are given a trailer of their experience, personalised to the user to share with friends.

BrewDog to launch its first Twitter beer
In a bid to slake the thirst of tweeters, BrewDog will be designing the ‘first democratically designed beer‘ and all major decisions will be handed over to social media users. Votes determining all elements of #Mashtag brew will be cast via Twitter, Facebook and the BrewDog blog, with BrewDog “giving up the important brewing decisions to fans, customers and any who wants to learn more about the craft beer process.”

Red Bull Editions launched by We Are Social
Last week We Are Social launched a campaign around Red Bull’s three new flavours, creating a collaborative art project to bring to life the colours of the three Editions through the lens of Instagram. Red Bull fans are encouraged to share photos on Instagram with the hashtags #rededitionplease, #silvereditionplease and #blueeditionplease, and include @redbulluk to enter. If the users Instagram makes it into the Red Bull gallery they could, qualify for a can of Red Bull Editions, or even have their Instagram showcased in cities across the UK. The campaign is going swimmingly so far, but don’t miss out on the chance to be part of it.

Doritos use Vine to get creative
Doritos used vine to share clips of the Mariachi band from their current campaign asking their community to guess the name of the song to win Easter prizes. It was a really innovative way of using the platform. Bravo Doritos!

For Easter prizes can YOU name that tune? #DoritosNameThatTune vine.co/v/bDYuOgFgthq

— Doritos (@doritosuk) March 26, 2013

The first film to be previewed on Vine
Six days before the official trailer was released, a ‘tweaser’ of the new Wolverine movie was shared on Vine by the film’s director, James Mangold. This is a huge win for the app in terms of placing itself as a player in the social media ring.

The tweaser. vine.co/v/bDExaiMjJ1F

— James Mangold (@mang0ld) March 25, 2013

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article about the true number of users on Sina Weibo. The author discusses a study conducted by researchers at Hong Kong University that was based on a sample of roughly 30,000 users.

The results were quite surprising: 57% of the user studied had no posts at all in their timeline, while almost 87% made no posts during the seven-day study.

These results led the author to conclude that a significant number of Sina Weibo users are “just ‘lurking’”.

Based on my personal experience with Sina Weibo, I agree that many users are not actively creating content on their Weibo accounts; however, this does not mean that they are not doing anything useful on Sina Weibo, nor that they are of no value to brands.

In fact, Sina Weibo’s quieter users may be quite different from the ‘lurkers’ or zombie accounts on other platforms like Twitter, in part because of the technicalities of the Chinese language.

Sina Weibo has the same 140-character limit as Twitter, but 140 characters in Chinese can contain far more information than the same number of characters in English.

Collectively, these short Chinese language posts can consist of three or four sentences, and provide enough content to tell a story or a piece of news on a single weibo post. In contrast, there is usually only enough space for one sentence plus a link in a tweet in English.

As a result, Weibo users can gain a sufficient amount of information simply from reading the posts in their Weibo feed, without even having to click through to any external linked content.

For this reason, many people use Weibo as a customised news portal that allows them convenient access to real-time updates across a variety of topics, and from a variety of sources, all in a single feed.

They may not contribute to this feed themselves, but nonetheless, they take a considerable amount of value away from their experiences.

Another interesting fact is that many ‘lurkers’ on Sina Weibo are not perennial ‘lurkers’. Indeed, our research indicates that it’s relatively common to find users who are quite active during a given period of time, but become ‘lurkers’ at times when they have less time to participate in more creative Weibo activities.

It may be discouraging for brands to find that active engagement is comparatively low on their Weibo accounts, but a lack of ‘creative’ activity is not necessarily a sign that things aren’t working.

People may well go on to read links included in posts without reposting, or may choose to share them in other ways in different contexts (e.g. via more intimate conversations in platforms like WeChat).

This highlights the need for marketers and observers to understand the benefits that their audiences take out of social interactions, rather than analysing social platforms with the same metrics that they’d use to evaluate a traditional advertising medium.

Our advice for brands that find themselves in a situation of lower engagement is to explore a more ‘irresistible’ content strategy that encourages ‘lurkers’ to become more active users.

Part of this will involve experimenting with different approaches to understand what those audiences want and expect, and working with the more active members of the community to build dynamic conversations that draw other users into the action.

Most importantly, though, it’s about moving away from product-centric updates, and understanding how brands can add real value to their audience.