In the atmospheric space of some repurposed railway workshops in Eveleigh, the Facebook team certainly executed an impressive looking event – custom made posters decorated the walls and very delicious treats greeted us on arrival at the impressive Carriageworks buildings (check out some photos of the event on the Facebook Studio photo album). As the second day of Facebook Studio Live Sydney (check out my colleague Tanya’s blog post on the first day which she and Annabel attended), Thursday’s event focused around ongoing research from two research companies that Facebook has been working closely with. Nielsen Research Australia and Greenberg Brand Strategy were there to provide more insight into just exactly what Australian’s get up to on an everyday basis on Facebook. And it appears that it’s a lot. From an active online population of 16.4 million people, 10.8 million of them are on Facebook. On average those people are spending 7 hours and 6 minutes a month browsing Facebook – beating the US and UK to be the most active country on Facebook!

There were A LOT of stats that were shown and discussed during that very fast few hours – I was scribbling down numbers so fast that I didn’t even have time to put the context around them. Instead of sharing more of these statistics (potentially misinterpreted by me due to a lack of context), I wanted to use this post to share some of the key learnings I took away after the whirlwind presentations:

1) Just HOW different each region is – we were shown some interesting stats about what recommendations people trust the most. Friends obviously feature highly in this (part of the power of Facebook), but what was fascinating was that a blogger’s recommendation of a product or brand went a lot further in Hong Kong than it did in Australia – by a massive margin actually. What’s the learning here? Make sure your strategy is regionally specific, and set regionally specific KPIs. One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to social media.

2) Just HOW much Facebook forms a part of everyday life – as someone who has been on Facebook now since my university days, and now working in the social space for the last few years, this isn’t a revelation – but it was just reinforced by the information presented last Thursday. People are checking Facebook as a ritual, morning, lunchtime, then as they’re sitting at home watching TV at night they’re simultaneously catching up on what they missed during the afternoon on Facebook, chatting with friends through Facebook chat and sharing thoughts on the TV programs they’re watching. Which leads well into my next point…

3) Just HOW much dual consumption of media there is – again, not so much a revelation but a timely reminder. Even in the last couple of years there have been some very impressive integrated campaigns, and personal experience within our company is showing us that brands are getting better at integrating their agencies and ideas. But it’s still not quite there – there is a lot of opportunity lost. Across almost all demographics the highest activity times for Facebook was from 5-8pm – and people said that they were often watching TV at the same time. This dual consumption offers so much opportunity to brands – a longer lasting relationship that starts with an ad on TV, a sponsored story on Facebook, a friend liking a page, then YOU liking the page – and suddenly you’ve got an interested, interactive potential customer who’ll see updates from you in a space that they visit daily. Wow.

4) And FINALLY – the responsibility of Facebook – this was a comment from the audience during the Q&A session at the end, but it really resonated for me. A lot of Facebook’s power is that it is personal. Very, very personal. The number one activity on Facebook by users was “Posting messages”.  Number two was “Commenting on Photos, Videos and Links”, no. 3 was “Keep In Touch”, no. 4 was “Announce/Share some personal news” and no. 5 was “Post photos”. Those are all very personal activities, activities that brands need to step into very carefully. Integrating a brand into that space is a delicate job, but that’s not to say experimentation isn’t good either – in fact, Facebook very much encouraged it.

The above are just a few thoughts pulled from a very inspiring few hours – there was a lot more interesting information and realisations which came out of the day and will be making their way into future presentations and blog posts. For now, what is keeping my mind ticking over is the potential. If I was excited two years ago when I left university at the potential of social media, I’m even more excited now. As the online and offline worlds come together more and more, what new opportunities will open up? Well… that’s something we’ll discover together.

KakaoTalk vs Line

Koreans say ‘KakaoTalk me’ instead ‘Text me’. This phenomenon shows how KakaoTalk is actively used by Koreans. KakaoTalk has over reached a billion daily messages! The number of messages delivered on KakaoTalk is exponentially increased over the past year. The number of message amount sent over KakaoTalk per minute is equivalent to the number of Google search created and the number of stories created on Newsfeed of Facebook each minute. Read More 

While KakaoTalk is dominating Korea, Line is rapidly conquering foreign countries. Line currently retains a large number of users in Europe which became its driving force of the growth. Moreover, Line reported on January 27^th that the number of users is increased by 5 million within a month after it reached 10 million downloads. Read More

카카오톡, 하루 메시지 전송 10억건 돌파 vs. 네이버 `라인` 카카오톡 아성 깰 수 있을까

요즘은 ‘문자해’라는 말 대신 ‘카톡해’라는 말을 한다고 하죠. 카카오톡의 위력이 정말 대단한데요. 최근 하루 메시지 전송 건수가 무려 10억건을 돌파했다고 합니다.

카카오톡이 국내에서 입지를 굳건히 하고 있을 때, NHN의 모바일 메신저 ‘라인’은 해외 사용자 증가로 급성장하면서 국내 1위 업체 카카오톡의 아성을 넘보고 있습니다.

NHN은 라인이 유럽 등 해외 사용자수의 급증으로 지난해 12월25일 1000만 다운로드를 돌파한지 한 달 만에 사용자 수가 500만명이나 늘었다고 27일 밝혔습니다.

Social Trend – Social TV, Social Game, LB Social Shopping

What’s hot trend in social media? Let’s look into latest news in social TV, social game, and LB social shopping.

1.     ‘Watch, Talk, and Share’ through Social TV

The idea of ‘TV+SNS = Social TV’ is catching users’ eyes and rising as a hot trend in social media. KTH launched ‘TV Talkers’ which allows sharing audiences’ opinions on the same program they are watching through smartphones. Also it allows app users to recommend TV programs each other to make their opinions are reflected on the program ratings. Read More

 2.     Naver, intensifying its business on social game by providing ‘App player’

Naver has launched an ‘App player’ which integrates the management system for social games. This benefits users to play with their friends more easily because it does not require the boding on Naver blog or Me2day between the players. Read More

 3.     NHN, launching a LB social shopping

NHN has announced that they are planning to launch a social shopping business with location based system in the first year of 2012. Currently many social commerce sites provide LB coupons to users. It is expected that NHN’s new business would go into a battle against social commerce sites. Read More

소셜 트렌드 – 소셜 티비, 소셜 게임, 그리고 위치기반 소셜 쇼핑

요즘 각광받고 있는 소셜 트렌드인 소셜 티비, 소셜 게임 그리고 위치기반 소셜 쇼핑에 대해 알아봅시다. .

1.    ″보고 말하고 평한다″…2012년 소셜TV 앱이 뜬다

종편 출범으로 지상파와 케이블TV 등의 시청률 경쟁이 더욱 거세진 가운데, TV와 SNS가 접목된 앱들이 주목을 받고 있습니다. 그 중 KTH가 최초로 선보인 ‘TV 토커스’는 같은 채널을 보고 있는 시청자들이 스마트폰을 통해 의견을 제시하고 추천글을 올리며 소통하는 앱인데요. 이전의 TV 앱이 방송을 볼 수 있게 하는데 그쳤다면 TV 토커스는 SNS를 통해 시청자들이 직접 시청률 집계에 자신들의 의사를 반영할 수 있다고 합니다.

2.    네이버 `소셜 게임` 강화…소셜 앱 통합관리 서비스

네이버가 소셜 게임을 통합 관리할 수 있는 앱 플레이어 서비스를 소셜 앱스에 추가하였는데요. 블로그나 미투데이를 통해 친구를 맺지 않더라도 친구 초대를 통해 쉽게 게임을 즐길 수 있다는 장점이 있다고 합니다.

3.    NHN, `위치기반 소셜쇼핑` 사업 나선다

NHN이 이르면 상반기 위치기반 서비스를 이용한 소셜쇼핑 사업을 전개할 전망이라고 합니다. 현재 소셜커머스 업체들이 위치기반 쿠폰 서비스를 이미 제공하고 있어 NHN의 새로운 사업은 소셜커머스 업체들과 경쟁하게 될 것으로 보입니다.

Daum provides a real time Twitter people rankings

Daum Communications provided a real time Twitter people rankings. This ranking is based on the frequency of mentions people talked on Twitter. Now, about 5.4 million Korean Twitter users are allowed to check who is the man of the moment. Read More

 다음, ‘실시간 트위터 인물 검색‘ 서비스 시작

다음커뮤니케이션이 트위터에서 많이 회자되는 인물의 순위를 실시간으로 확인할 수 있도록 ‘실시간 트위터 인물 검색’ 서비스를 시작합니다. 트위터 이용자들은 544만명의 회원들 중 누가 화제가 되고 있는지 실시간으로 확인이 가능해졌네요.

Trust SNS? Yes (43%) vs No (40%)

It is reported that 43% of the participants answered they would trust information on SNS whereas other 40% says ‘No’ to the question. Nonetheless, it is interesting the portion of young answerers have tendency to trust more SNS than baby boomers. In the age of 19 to 29, the portion of positive answers on the question was 47.7% which was 10% higher than the negative answers. This phenomenon was similarly showed in the age of 30s. In contrast, the negative answers on the question in the age of 50s and 60s were 10% higher than the positive answers. Read More

“SNS 신뢰한다” 43% vs. “안한다” 40%

TV와 소셜미디어의 결합을 통해 소비자의 시청 행태도 변화하고 있습니다. 최근 한 조사에 따르면, 한국 소비자의 55%는 외출시 모바일 기기를 통해 TV를 시청하며, 그 중 71%는 스마트폰으로 TV를 시청한다고 합니다. 이는 16개의 조사 대상국 가운데 가장 높은 비율입니다. 또한 응답자 중 76%가 ‘소셜TV’를 시청하면서 소셜 플랫폼을 통해 비슷한 관심사를 가진 다른 시청자들과 의견을 교환하는 것으로 나타났습니다.

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- Barney Loehnis, Asia Pacific Digital Lead of OgilvyOne Worldwide, speaking about key moments where brands can add value and win share of wallet through mobile.
- Gareth Ellen, Digital Planning Director, Ogilvy Action APAC, on shopper adoption of mobile and other technologies, plus lessons learned and best practices from brands and retailers
- Daniel Comar, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy Action APAC, speaking about the role of creative digital in winning over shoppers.

View slides and the video below.  Also below, this week’s copy of In The News, available for you to download and share.

Sundew, dynamic social Q&A service that is based on your trusted friend network Now, you can ask questions through your mobile app and get answers right away. SK Planet, a new platform subsidiary of Korea’s top mobile carrier, launched a mobile Q&A application ‘Sundew’. It provides honest, reliable answers, fast from your friends who really know you. It helps you get the answers in real time from trusted sources. Users can ask, forward, or answer questions anywhere in the world with their mobile. ’Sundew’ is similar to ‘Intelligence’ of Naver and ‘Wikipedia’ that it constructs database on questions and answers. However, it is optimized for mobile environment.

Now you might wonder why the app is named as ‘sundew’. Sundew is an insect eating plant which is the same as a venus flytrap. Likewise once a question is posted on Sundew, it cannot be removed from Sundew friends network until gets answered. Read more

SK플래닛, 내달 ‘모바일 소셜 Q&A’ 앱 출시 이제 모바일을 통해 자신이 궁금한 것을 묻고 답하는 ‘모바일 소셜 Q&A’을 즐길 수 있습니다. 모바일을 통해 전 세계인을 대상으로 질문과 답변을 할 수 있다는 데서 기존의 ‘지식인’과는 차별화를 할 것으로 보입니다.

Mobile territory war begins with social games The Korean graphic technology is going in advance. Now it is possible to embody high resolution graphic games on social platforms. Thus existing games are moving their platforms to social. One of the successful case was ‘ Rule the Sky’ which has more than 200,000 daily users. ’Rule the sky’ contains high resolution graphic features which attract users. In addition, subject matters to the social games are changing. For instance, first-person shooter(FPS) games or role playing games (RPG) are now implemented on social platforms. ‘Uberstrike’ from CrazyFish was implemented in 3D as the first domestic social game on Cyworld app store.  Read more

SK컴즈 등 소셜게임 강화…모바일 영토 전쟁 시작됐다 웹에서 고품질의 그래픽을 처리하는 기술이 발전하면서 RPG, FPS등의 고용량 그래픽 게임들이 소셜 플랫폼에서도 가능해졌습니다. 따라서 게임 소재도 대작들로 다변화되고 있습니다. 이에 국내에서 웹 기반 소셜게임 플랫폼 싸이월드 앱스토어를 가장 먼저 구축한 SK커뮤니케이 션즈도 모바일 게임 강화에 나섰다고 합니다.

LG U+ launched fashion SNS ‘Cosmostyle’ LG U+ launched a fashion SNS ‘Cosmostyle’ collaborating with the first fashion magazine, Cosmopolitan. Users of Cosmostyle can share their fashion style as well as they can see the realtime fashion trend. It is also linked to facebook and twitter so that users can share the pictures they like on other SNS. It is now free to download at App store, Android market and T-store. Read more

LG유플러스, 패션전문 SNS ‘코스모스타일’ 출시 LG유플러스가 패션 잡지 ‘코스모폴리탄’과 함께 패션 전문 소셜네트워킹서비스(SNS)인 ‘코스모스타일’을 출시한다고 하네요. 앞으로 자신만의 패션 스타일에 대해 친구들과 더욱더 빠르게 공유할수 있겠네요~!

Intensive investment on mobile, cloud, and social is expected next year It is predicted that Korean corporations would intensively invest their budget into IT field. The investment amount is estimated as 50 billion dollars and the most of the budget would be spent on Cloud computing, mobile and SNS. According to Gartner, information technology research and advisory company, services and items related to IT would increase its sales by 8% in Asia Pacific countries in 2012.  Read more

“내년 국내기업 IT지출 50조원 전망”…모바일·클라우드·소셜 투자 집중 내년에 국내 기업이 정보기술(IT)에 투자할 금액은 약 50조원에 이를 것으로 전망됩니다. 또한 투자 대부분은 클라우드 컴퓨팅과 모바일, 소셜네트워크서비스(SNS) 등에 집중될 것으로 예상됩니다. 시장조사기관인 가트너는 아태지역 2012년 엔터프라이즈 IT 관련 제품 및 서비스 지출이 전년 대비 8% 증가할 것이라고 전망했습니다.

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The new product announcements all fall within the umbrella of a new social marketing cloud that Salesforce and Radian6 have been working to develop. According to Chris, it is “based on marketing in this new world of the social customer. They’re using Twitter, they live in Facebook, and companies really need to go meet them versus asking them to come and line up for your brand.”

The Social Marketing Cloud will include social media monitoring, engagement and insights. Key to this new feature are the two products that were announced at Cloudforce New York – the first of which is the Salesforce Social Hub, the first rules based social engine that will help scale and automate social data across every department of an enterprise. It takes what people are saying online, (complaints about a product or advocating for a product) and automatically tags them, applies some pre-set rules to them and then automatically routes them to the appropriate departments throughout the enterprise.

The second product which was announced was the integration of Radian6’s monitoring platform and the Salesforce Service Cloud. This new product allows complaints around product or service to be automatically logged in the Service Cloud, so that a case can be created and assigned to the right person inside the call centre or service centre. The integration would then allow the service representative to manage and interact with that person on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks directly from the Service Cloud.

For enterprise sized organizations, Radian6’s announcement will be well received – the benefits of having the powerful CRM capabilities of Salesforce, joined with the deep listening benefits of Radian6, are immediately obvious. Having your customer service team be able to identify, track and respond within the one platform will remove a lot of double handling and has obvious cost and time savings for businesses. From the consumer’s point of view, they’ll experience a streamlined customer service experience where complaints are resolved efficiently and through the medium in which they were originally expressed.

Chris was very emphatic on how businesses really need to be starting to adapt to a customer who is online and active 24/7 and in non-traditional mediums – and from the sound of it, these new products are just one step in a bright future for Radian6 and Salesforce. They’ve hinted that a there’s a lot more coming!

Many thanks to Chris for taking the time to film a quick interview with me – unfortunately the Flip cam picked up a little too much of the background noise as such wasn’t usable, but it was a fascinating chat and we’re all looking forward to seeing what’s next!

Highlights:

1. “Important Metrics”

a) Total Likes: self-explanatory – the total number of likes on the page
b) Friends of Fans: Facebook now shows you the total reach of your page when someone “Likes” it i.e. the cumulative number of friends of all your fans put togetger
c) People Talking About This: the number of unique people who have created content about your page on Facebook in the past week
d) Weekly Total Reach: the number of people who have seen all content about your page (from you + others) shared on Facebook, calculated by aggregating all the “friends” each shared post has reached.

What this means: We now have the “total reach” of your content – down to how far your initial content was seen, then got shared; the more content is viewed, the more awareness is spread, and thus the higher the chance of them clicking through to your page.

2. Overview of Activity

Facebook has upgraded their graph to show you how “individual posts influence the number of people talking about you, as well as the impact it has on the overall reach”. The size of each circle (at the bottom) shows you how much you published on that day, and also shows you the corresponding data of “people talking about this” and your “Weekly total reach”.

Why we should care:  This data will inform our conversation calendars and content strategy. HubSpot’s graph above shows you that the number of times they’ve posted does not correlate with total shares or reach. Other brand pages may reveal other nuggets of insight – great for monthly reporting.

3. Understanding Your Posts

Facebook now reveals the:

a) Total reach for each individual post
b) The number of users engaged on that same post
c) The number of people talking about that post
d) The virality of that post

And we care because: It’s important to note that with the specific data at post-level, it’s easier than ever to note the kinds of content your fans actually want (whether in terms of content or media type). This can then inform other tactics like competitions, givewaways, content-curation and fan engagement.

4. Your Audience

Previously, Facebook allowed you to see the demographic information of the people who have liked your page. You can know also see the same information for ALL the people your content has reached (via fan sharing), and also the people who are talking about it. The data is still represented in the same easy-to-read way.

We want to know this so: we can tailor content, offers and information to the people who are most engaged with the page, as well as those who are earlier along in the “Like” funnel. Why? Because it allows us to see what our real and potential fans want, so you can target new customers/fans for better conversion rates.

And that’s the quick and easy breakdown. Hope it helps – what has your experience been with the updated Facebook insights?

[Image from carrotblog]

Following my session, was an international keynote from Lee Aase, a fellow Midwesterner and the head of social media at Mayo Clinic, in Minnesota. Lee delivered a great overview of the Mayo Clinic’s experience using social media, which started with experimentation with podcasts many years ago. Some of the key take-aways from his presentation:

1. Proceed Until Apprehended: if you are an in-house social media practitioner or champion, it’s sometimes best to have a “proceed until apprehended” mentality. Take a pilot approach to social media and be willing to try new platforms and ideas to see what sticks.
2. 5,000 views from the right people can equal success: Lee shared a great example of video created by Dr. Ruben Mesa of the Mayo Clinic, explaining a relatively rare disease called Essential Thrombocythemia or ET. Whilst the video had approximately 10,000 views and the content was technical, many of the views were from patients who had the disorder and, anecdotally more than 50 other doctors reported seeing patients who had viewed the video.
3. If they are doing this so can we. One of the best arguments an in-house social media practitioner can make is to share examples of competitors or industry leaders who are doing something similar in social media. In other words, our competitors are active in social so we need to be, too!
4. iPhone: a reason not to ban social media in the workplace. Nearly half of the conference attendees raised their hands when asked whether their employers banned social media in the workplace. How do you make the case internally to raise the iron IT curtain? Lee brought up a picture of the iPhone, meaning that anyone today can access the social Web from their iPhone or mobile device – they’ll access it while at work anyway – so why not give employees smart guidelines that educate and empower them on best practices of using social media while at work.

Finally, a collection of links to some of the great work and resources from Mayo Clinic:

• In-Depth Explanation of Essential Thrombocythemia (ET)
• Know Your Numbers 8675309 Spoof
• Mayo Clinic Podcasts
• Mayo Clinic Connect Patient Community
• Lee Aase on Twitter
• SMUG

Author: Winston Koh, Tan Kwan Hong, Fatimah Bte Yasin, Wang Enqin & Lim Eun Kyung

Category: Korea, Social, Business, Social Media, Singapore Management University, Korea University

Date: 28^th Oct 2011 

A communications course, Digital Media Across Asia, conducted in Singapore Management University (SMU), has brought together a group of 5 students (4 from SMU and 1 from Korea University) to share about the digital media landscape in South Korea. What makes this course unique is that our project requires us to share our research and findings the digital way.

싱가포르 경영 대학(SMU)의 커뮤니케이션 수업, ‘아시아 전역의 디지털 미디어’를 통해서 한국의 디지털 미디어 환경에 대한 의견을 나누기 위해 네 명의 SMU 학생, 한 명의 고려대 학생, 총 다섯 명의 학생이 모였습니다. 이 과목이 특별한 것은, 우리가 찾아낸 것들을 디지털 방식으로 공유해야 한다는 것입니다.

Over the past 10 weeks, we have collated the latest statistics and interviewed several experts on digital media in Korea. Instead of writing reports and submitting it to our professor, Michael Netzley, we have been tasked to organize a one-week social media campaign to share with the rest of the world the conclusion of our findings. Our strategy is to actively engage our audience in three ways: read, listen and watch.

지난 10 주 동안, 우리는 최신 통계를 모으고 한국 디지털 미디어에 여러 전문가를 인터뷰했습니다. 보고서를 작성하고 마이클 넷즐리 교수님께 제출하는 대신에, 우리는 우리의 연구 결과를 전세계의 네티즌들과 함께 공유하는 한 주간의 온라인 캠페인을 구성해야 합니다. 저희의 온라인 캠페인 전략은 적극적으로 이들 세 가지 방법으로 우리의 청중을 참여시키는 것입니다: 읽고, 듣고, 보고.

READ – Wiki

Interested to know more about the top 5 strategies on how to apply social media in your life or for your business? Visit our wiki to find out more!

당신 인생에 있어, 혹은 귀하의 비즈니스에 소셜 미디어를 적용하는 방법에 대한 상위 5개 전략에 대해 알고 싶으신가요? 보다 자세한 정보를 찾기 위해 위키를 방문하세요!

Information is presented in an interesting way by using info graphics to summarize our research on digital media in Korea.

한국에서 디지털 미디어에 대한 정보를 요약한 인포그래픽을 사용하여 우리가 조사한 결과가 흥미롭게 나와 있습니다.

LISTEN – Podcast
We have put together several podcasts via our interviews with experts. Our latest interview is with Howard Han, a 360 Digital Influence Lead in Seoul. His sharing have yielded us much valuable insights into how social media can be best used for marketing campaigns and crisis communication.

전문가와의 인터뷰를 통해 함께 몇 개의 팟캐스트를 업로드했습니다. 360 Digital Influence Lead 이신 하워드 한 님과의 최신 인터뷰는 소셜 미디어가 어떻게 마케팅 캠페인과 위기관리 커뮤니케이션에 이용될 수 있을지 귀중한 통찰력을 선사합니다.

The 2 part podcasts with Howard Han can be found in the following links:
http://connectinkorea.posterous.com/77702453
http://connectinkorea.posterous.com/social-media-in-south-korea-interview-with-og

하워드 한 님과의 팟캐스트 인터뷰는 저희 위키 사이트에서 들으실 수 있습니다.

WATCH – YouTube
How will Michael, a Swedish professional, find his dream Korean girlfriend? Find out by watching the following YouTube video:

스웨덴인 마이클이 꿈과 같은 한국인 여자 친구를 찾을 수 있을까요? 저희의 유튜브 비디오에서 확인하세요!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM99fLTeNPk

Through this YouTube video, viewers can understand more about how Koreans use social media in their daily lives.

이 YouTube 동영상을 통해 시청자들은 한국인들이 일상 생활에서 소셜 미디어를 사용하는 방법에 대한 자세한 내용을 이해할 수 있습니다.

We hope that you have enjoyed reading, listening and watching to our findings. If you would like to find out more, connect with us through our:

읽고, 듣고, 보면서 즐기시길 바랍니다. 더 알고 싶으시다면 아래 링크를 통해 저희에게 말씀해주세요!

ConnectInKorea Website: http://connectinkorea.weebly.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ConnectinKorea?sk=wall
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/connectinkorea
Wiki: https://wiki.smu.edu.sg/digitalmediaasia/Digital_Media_in_South_Korea

Naturally, the Aakash has limited specs because it is so cheap, but they aren’t that bad. It runs on Android 2.2, features a 7-inch resistive touch screen with 800-x-480-pixel resolution and has a 366-MHz processor, 256MB of RAM, 2GB of internal storage and a microSD slot to add more storage. It also has two USB ports for connecting accessories and a 3.5mm headphone jack for listening to music.

The Aakash also includes a 2100 mAh battery that can last for up to 3 hours. It will have some pre-loaded applications, but unfortunately it won’t have access to the Android Market for downloading more apps.

Aakash and what it means to India

While the device will not impress Indians with high-end laptops and iPads, the Aakash tablet could help less affluent Indians connect to the Internet for the first time. At present, just 8 percent of India’s 1.2 billion people have internet access and one factor preventing it is the availability of low-cost devices. Comparably, 40 percent of Chinese citizens have Internet access.

However, it’s predominately targeted at the youth. At the launch, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal handed out 500 Aakash tablets to students who will test them. He said the government planned to buy 100,000 tablets. It hopes to distribute 10 million of the devices to students over the next few years.

This is similar to the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project set up to oversee the creation of an affordable educational device for use in the developing world.

Regardless of the small number of tablets being promised to be distributed in the coming years, Aakash has the potential to explode like the “mobile revolution” in India.

The tipping point for mobile penetration in India was when both call rates and mobile phone prices started to dip. Ownership of a phone was no longer a function of who you know, but rather conforms to the conventional forces of demand and supply. Waiting lists were down and voice calls in India have become amongst the cheapest in the world. Within a few years mobile density overtook tele-density.

Similarly, making a tablet affordable to the Aam Admi (average Indian) in small town India, Aakash has the potential to provide a superior web experience as compared to the mobile phone (currently, a walled garden). There could be a situation where the first web/internet experience for many Indians could come through a tablet and not the mobile.

This will have huge implications on the current/future plans being put in place by major brands to leverage mobile as the key medium to advertise to the masses. Majority of mobile advertising monies could well be diverted to creating branded applications pre-loaded on the Aakash? Making – games, utility apps, podcasts a standard feature in every marketing/digital plan.

But, one thing is certain – A device like the Aakash is set to empower many in India and will be the best bet to get the masses connected.

1. The name of the page
2. The agency managing the fan page
3. The number of fans on the page
4. The page’s “People Talking About” Statistic – showing page engagement
5. Percentage of fans engaged

They purpose of their report is to set engagement level benchmarks for each of the 6 industry verticals that they covered in their study:  Fashion, Tourism, Media, Sport, Politics and FMCG.

A statistic of note is their “Australian [Facebook Page] Engagement Average” – 1.96%
To provide some context:

• the population of Australia: 21,874,900 (Source)
• the number of internet users as a percentage of population in Australia:  72% (Source) or 15,749,928 internet users

You’ll find a snapshot of their original report below, but if you’re after the full report, you can download it here. There’s already been some criticism of the study for various reasons – and any attempt at ranking brand pages is sure to result in some controversy. Some thoughts and criticisms from the community management community include:

• There is no indication of whether a brand is in the middle of a huge campaign or not (which is sure to skew the study)
• The “People Talking About” statistic, while useful, is a dynamic figure that changes daily – and the study doesn’t state its methodology – so it’s not possible to tell is the numbers are an average over time or just a snapshot
• Lack of sentiment analysis

That said, it’s still a great point of reference and a valuable look into the world of Australian community management.