Social Media and PR across Asia - Recently Updated Pages

China: Useful Links

communicateasia — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:55:03 CDT

Under this section, you can find more information on:

Important Bloggers and Experts
Top Chinese Language Blogs
China Blog Awards 2007
Social Networking Sites
Microblogging Sites
Major Blogging Platforms

Important Bloggers and Experts

To better understand the state of social media in China, the following bloggers and websites should definitely be visited:

Sam Flemming
CEO of CIC, a leading word of mouth research and consultancy firm

William Moss
PR professional and writer working in China

Fons Tuinstra
Internet entrepreneur, new media advisor and consultant who blogs at China Herald.

China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC)
CNNIC is the state network information center and tracks internet development in China. It operates under China’s Ministry of Information Industry.

Danwei
A website containing detailed information about Chinese media, advertising and urban life.

EastSouthWestNorth
Has a compilation of recommended photos/videos/readings, a brief commentary section and blog posts.

The China Blog
Reporters and writers at Time Magazine, blogging about issues regarding China.

Edelman APAC
Provides information on trust data and stakeholders in China.

Sam Flemming of seeisee was kind enough to write in and share a few corporate blogs that may be of interest. These blogs are:

Dell blog, China

Chinese real estate mogul Pan ShiYi

L'Oreal China VP Lan Zhenzhen

Hong Huang, CEO of China Media Group

Yue Sai, founder of cosmetics brand Yue Sai

Additionally we would like to thank Debbie Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book, for sharing these sites with us. Debbie has a Chinese edition of her book coming out.

Microsoft Research Asia
http://research.microsoft.com/asia/default.aspx

Niu Gen Sheng (dairy factory)
http://blog.sina.com.cn/niugensheng

Wang Shi
http://blog.sina.com.cn/wangshi

Charles Zhang (CEO of portal Sohu.com)
http://charles.blog.sohu.com/

CCTV news anchor Rui Chenggang's blog (of Starbucks-The Forbidden City fame)
http://blog.cctv.com/ruichenggang

Furniture company (sofa contest?)
http://blog.sina.com.cn/caiming

Mini Cooper Online Community
http://q.blog.sina.com.cn/bmwmini

Blog & news portal Sina.com
http://www.sina.com.cn/

The following are the most popular examples of social media in China:

Baidu
This is the leading search engine in China known for its vast array of results for websites and multimedia. It also displays search results in the local language, something which several other search engines have been unable to succeed in.

Tencent QQ
Most popular free instant messaging program due to its localized content.

China Daily
Largest English portal in China with one of the most popular bulletin board systems.

Top Chinese Language Blogs

Xu Jinglei’s blog
The most famous blogger in China where each of her entries attract over a 100,000 views. She has over 1.45 billion hits to date. She is among the world's top 50 most influential bloggers, as reported in the Guardian. In 2006 statisticians at Technorati, having previously not factored China into their calculations, realised she was the world's most popular blogger. A translated version can be found here.

Han Han - He's a former race car driver, now turned author and singer. His site boasts over 1.2 billion hits.

Lao Sha Blog - The founder of four financial newspapers who blogs about the Chinese stock market. He has had 200 million page views in the past year alone.

Acosta - He is hailed as the first "grassroots" blogger who'sclaim to fame is that he's a 'good looking guy with a sweet smile'. Nobody knows his real name. His blog has had 1 billion hits to date.

Wu2198 - His blog has had over 1 billion hits as well. Blogs on stocks and financial market data.

China Blog Awards 2007

Chinalyst recently ran an online poll to identify the top English language blogs in China across several categories. The winners are presented below with relevant links:

Technology - Mobinode

Business & Law - China Law Blog

General - Sinocidal

News - The Opposite End of China

Personal - Beijing Boyce

Social Networking Sites

Xiaonei.com was started in Decmber of 2005, copying the design and interface of Facebook. It is one of China’s earliest social networking sites. Today, Xiaonei has connected over 1000 overseas universities, 3000 local universities, 8000 High Schools and over 85000 Companies on its networks. Perhaps the biggest difference between facebook and xiaonei is the instant messaging feature that xiaonei provides its users.

Other top social networking sites include:
Zhanzuo - Has over 7 million registered users. Received a bid from facebook in 2007 worth $85 million, as reported in this article on Techcrunch.

51.com - is China's largest social networking site according to Alexa, and has a traffic rank of 110.

Myspace China

Microblogging Sites

Some of the popular microblogging sites in China are:

http://mblog.blogcn.com

wapblog.163.com

fanfou.com - China's largest microblogging website and is a clone of twitter.com

Jiwai.de - Another popular local variant.

Twifan.com, a Chinese mash-up that searches posts and users on these Chinese microblogs. There is a long way to go for microblogging in China though, as wanhuai is the most popular user on fanfou with 1493 followers. Davetroy, the most popular user on Twitter reports over 12,000 followers. (Source: Would that it were so: twifan’s microblogging comparison)

Major Blogging Platforms

Bokee - No of registered users：7.4 Million (Includes Blogdriver users)
Bokee was formerly known as BlogChina. It was formed in August 2002 and is the earliest bog site provider in China.

Blogcn - No of registered users ：4 Ｍillion
Blogcn is one of the more popular blog sites in China. It was started in November 2002. It has a unique blog interface which allows interaction amongst members . They have communities of bloggers who have special interest in the entertainment scene or cultural activities.

Sina blog - No of registered users ：1 million
Sina Blog is an extension of Sina.com, a news and web portal. Leveraging on its high traffic, it is slowly becoming one of the most influential blog sites in China. Some of China’s Top Bloggers can be found on Sina Blogs.

Hexun - No of registered Users： 6 Million
Hexun blogs is a free service offered by Hexun Communications. Its strength includes a strong technical support system, integrated Web 2.0 features such as RSS and faster connections. Its aim is to integrate the blog community.

Important Bloggers and Experts

To better understand the state of social media in China, the following bloggers and websites should definitely be visited:

Sam Flemming
CEO of CIC, a leading word of mouth research and consultancy firm

William Moss
PR professional and writer working in China

Fons Tuinstra
Internet entrepreneur, new media advisor and consultant who blogs at China Herald.

China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC)
CNNIC is the state network information center and tracks internet development in China. It operates under China’s Ministry of Information Industry.

Danwei
A website containing detailed information about Chinese media, advertising and urban life.

EastSouthWestNorth
Has a compilation of recommended photos/videos/readings, a brief commentary section and blog posts.

The China Blog
Reporters and writers at Time Magazine, blogging about issues regarding China.

Edelman APAC
Provides information on trust data and stakeholders in China.

Sam Flemming of seeisee was kind enough to write in and share a few corporate blogs that may be of interest. These blogs are:

Dell blog, China

Chinese real estate mogul Pan ShiYi

L'Oreal China VP Lan Zhenzhen

Hong Huang, CEO of China Media Group

Yue Sai, founder of cosmetics brand Yue Sai

Additionally we would like to thank Debbie Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book, for sharing these sites with us. Debbie has a Chinese edition of her book coming out.

Microsoft Research Asia
http://research.microsoft.com/asia/default.aspx

Niu Gen Sheng (dairy factory)
http://blog.sina.com.cn/niugensheng

Wang Shi
http://blog.sina.com.cn/wangshi

Charles Zhang (CEO of portal Sohu.com)
http://charles.blog.sohu.com/

CCTV news anchor Rui Chenggang's blog (of Starbucks-The Forbidden City fame)
http://blog.cctv.com/ruichenggang

Furniture company (sofa contest?)
http://blog.sina.com.cn/caiming

Mini Cooper Online Community
http://q.blog.sina.com.cn/bmwmini

Blog & news portal Sina.com
http://www.sina.com.cn/

Politics

tanxueminshermeen — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 01:52:19 CDT

SOCIAL MEDIA
Politics

There are a considerable number of blogs that focus on the politics of New Zealand.

Tumeke!nz rankings show a wide range of ideological positions are popular and that female bloggers are scarce.

Many blogs are written by current and former party apparatchiks, such as David Farrar's Kiwiblog and Jordan Carter's Just Left, and many bloggers are journalists and print media commentators such as the bloggers on Russell Brown's Public Address..

Image Credits: Dr. John Parkinson _____________________________________________________________________

Top Ten Blogs (Political Content)

#1 Kiwiblog : www.kiwiblog.co.nz
"David P. Farrar's kiwiblog"
nz132 * 72,195 : c.7000 (2,200 ttlb) + 273 + 290 (max.273) + 100 = 7646 [7604, 2737]

#2 Public Address : www.publicaddress.net
"Community of New Zealand-centric weblogs"
nz904 * 208,243 : c.1500 (RB says c.5000) + 208 + 202 + 10 = 1920 [1896, 1903]

#3 Whale Oil Beef Hooked : www.whaleoil.co.nz
“Political Pornography for the discerning reader"
nz222 * 146,590 : c.1000 (sitemeter) + 79 + 73 + 90 = 1242 [1120, 880]

#4 Frogblog : www.blog.greens.org.nz
"Political blog Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand"
nz859 * 245,951 : c.1000 + 97 + 91 + 25 = 1213 [1172, 1329]

#5 No Right Turn : www.norightturn.blogspot.com
"Irredeemably Liberal"
nz3,745 * 999,929 : c.770 (sitemeter) + 130 + 250 (max.130)+ 25 = 1055 [933, 1022]

#6 Not PC : www.pc.blogspot.com
"Promoting capitalist acts between consenting adults"
nz971 * 319,942 : c.855 + 84 + 113 (max.84) + 30 = 1053 [1011, 972]

#7 The Standard : www.thestandard.org.nz
"The New Zealand labour movement newspaper digitally reborn"
nz653 * 379,721 : c.700 + 71 + 56 + 27 = 854 [837, 370]

#8 KiwiBlogBlog : www.kiwiblogblog.wordpress.com
"A blog about Kiwiblog"
nz1,652 * 513,652 : c.460 + 55 + 33 + 20 = 568 [550, 314]

#9 The Hive : www.wellingtonhive.blogspot.com
"At the heart of the Wellington political process for close to 30 years"
nz757 * 671,632 : c.340 (stats) + 46 + ? (max.46) + 80 = 512 [310, 30]

#10 Tumeke! : www.tumeke.blogspot.com
"Current affairs and culture"
nz3,980 * 954,274 : c. 340 (extremetracking) + 62 + 47 + 30 = 479 [425, 403]

(Source: Tumeke!nz)
______________________________________________________________________

Popular Blogs (Political Content)

1. Political Activists

Trevor Loudon, former Vice-President of ACT New Zealand also has a blog, New Zeal, although his blog mainly pertains to anti-communism rather than ACT party policy.
Joe Carolan from Socialist Worker updates AntiCapitaliste, and the blog of the new Solidarity Union.
Peter Cresswell, former leader of the small Libertarianz Party maintains the popular Not PC blog on libertarian issues.
Lawyer Stephen Marshall has a blog on legal matters, and particularly copyright.

2. Political Parties

The ACT party leader Rodney Hide has a blog. He often hide comments from those within the House of Representatives.
Craig Foss, National MP for Tukituki, also has his own personal blog.
The Green party has an official blog, Frogblog, which often links to, and expands on, Green party press releases. The blog is partly written by Greens co-leader Russel Norman.
Nicky Wagner, the new female National MP in Christchurch maintains a blog as part of her website. Majority of the posts are short and on the events she attends, accompained by pictures.

Unlike overseas counterparts, both Rodney Hide and Frogblog allow comments from public bloggers.
Numerous politicians began blogs during the 2005 election, but these have since died.

3. Political Pressure Groups

Climaction - Coalition against Climate Change
Coalition for Open Government - COAG.
The Socialist Worker (Aotearoa) blog gives a view from the revolutionary left.

_____________________________________________________________________

Intersection with Mainstream Media

Majority of New Zealand bloggers still rely on mainstream media for them to find worthy news content upon which they comment their views. However, interestingly they do not simply regurgitate the news. Instead, they put forth their varying opinions on the current news.

Initially New Zealand's mainstream media was highly critical of bloggers. This is evident through an editorial published in January 2007 by New Zealand Herald which stated "Most bloggers - and we're talking 95 per cent - are fly-by-night, gutless wonders who prefer to spit inarticulate venom under inarticulate pseudonyms."

However, in October in the same year, New Zealand Herald published an article by Bill Ralston which described political bloggers as being potentially the most powerful "opinion makers" in New Zealand politics.
Since then the newspaper has picked up several newsbreaking stories first broken on blogs. For example, in February 2008 a blog post by Russell Brown about the Wikipedia article on Bill English being edited from a computer at parliament received wide coverage in the New Zealand Herald. The story had first been broken on The Standard, a blog with links to the Labour Party. In April 2008, blogger David Farrar revealed the Green Party's preliminary party list. The story was subsequently picked up by NZPA and published on Stuff.

Some current and former bloggers have worked in or for the media industry, such as:

Currently it is stated by National Business Review; "Any realistic "power list" produced in this country would include either David Farrar or his fellow blogger and opinion leader Russell Brown." Earlier in 2008, The Press had stated that this year's election "could be the time when New Zealand's burgeoning political bloggers finally make their presence felt". The said article described the increasing influence of Internet on people's lives given that unlike newspapers, blogs can link directly to facts and sources. Hence, there is an increase in the number of professional journalists maintaining blogs in the same direction blogospheres have increased significance.

New Zealand's political blogosphere has also made significant impact on New Zealand parliament. Quoted by Russell Brown, "Every now and then you see a line from the blog turn up in a parliamentary speech."
_____________________________________________________________________

Political Facebook Groups

Although Facebook is mainly a social networking medium in New Zealand, political parties do embrace the use of Facebook to network amongst like minded people. A bustling example will be New Zealand Labour Party's Facebook group, home to over 200 members who supports the party and Helen Clark. The group has active discussions going on about general politics.

____________________________________________________________________________

Click Here to Know More About NZ Social Media
Click Here to Know More About NZ Government

Prof's Intro

communicateasia — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:35:51 CDT

Why are We Discussing Social Media and PR Across Asia?

by Michael Netzley, PhD

When I first created this wiki with Akanksha Goel in summer of 2007, here is how I described our wiki project.

Rapidly evolving. New challenges. Learning opportunity. These terms certainly could describe almost any company's first experience with social media. These words also describe our course experience (COMM 215 at Singapore Management University). There were no social media textbooks. Harvard style case studies designed to evoke conversation, debate, and analysis were rare, and most had to be written by our students. There was very little in the way of precedent to build this course on....and that is what makes this class so exciting.

I had little idea where this class or experience was going. If the truth be told, I was operating on a belief--developed by listening to Inside PR, FIR, Six Pixels, and reading blogs--that social media was changing the communication professions. Little evidence was immediately available in Asia, but still this opportunity seemed to require action. So a new course at SMU, Social Media and PR across Asia, was born. There were no social media textbooks, so we adopted Naked Conversations since it had a bit of a business emphasis. Only a couple Harvard-style cases studies were appropriate for this type of course, and everything else we have had to discover or create on our own (including original case studies about Edelman-WalMart, Agency.com, and Starbucks in The Forbidden City). Six Pixels of Separation became required listening which eventually led to Mitch Joel joining us for Podcamp Singapore 2007. People such as Jon Hoel with PR Junction proved reliable friends as students experimented with user generated content.

Perhaps most difficult of all has been a course title which includes "in Asia" when nearly all materials in existence have a strong western bias and do not discuss what is unique about social media in Asia.

The literature's ethnocentric bias (print or otherwise) is most unfortunate. Over the past year one point has become abundantly clear: social media develops differently in each nation and culture. Asia, with the current exception of Japan, does not have massive advertising markets like the United States. Thus, business models must reflect this fact and companies such as (which has QQ in China) and Cyworld have been world leaders with micro-transactions of digital goods. Measurement will be different as well, since we are much less concerned in Asia about making money through on-line ads. The preferred media properties vary as well, with BBS sites in China proving dominant. Mobile in Japan or Hong Kong, and in Jakarta, are additional examples of different technology preferences. Finally, culture impacts the ethos of a blogosphere in many ways. Not only do we have unique linguistic communities around languages such as Korean, Thai, or Tamil, but the blogosphere within national boundaries reveals unique tastes as well. In Singapore for example, blog about food, electronic gadgets, shopping, or star personalities and you are sure to get many hits. Professional or business blogs, however, mostly get ignored.

Thus, Akansha's article (found in the menu at your upper left) discussing culture and social media is particularly important. While I have my reservations about quickly and generally attributing (blaming?) everything on culture, the topic does raise complex questions and we hope that this wiki represents a first attempt at some answers.

I am proud of the students' hard work--which they continue to put in through the summer of 2008-- and I have learned much from our conversations. I am also very pleased to report that people like Sam Flemming in China, Debbie Weil from the USA, and John Kerr from the Edelman-Singapore office are supporting the class and this wiki by volunteering important information. Kind guests such as Mitch Joel and Jon Hoel have taken things a step further by sharing their experiences via podcasts. And this, my friends, is what the spirit of education and social media is all about. Today, my students follow people like Kaiser Kuo and Ben Joffe in China, as well as our homegrown talent like Daryl Tay. In 2008 the folks at Ogilvy--including John Bell, Tania Chew, Brian Koh, and Andrew Thomas--have been amazingly supportive and help lead the way forward with The Open Room. We are all better off as a result of building this community and sharing.

If you would like to track all of my feeds that I have come to love over the past year, you can find them here on Google Reader or, perhaps easiest now, is here on Friendfeed.

So what does the future hold for this wiki? Next we will look at Vietnam while also updating the year-old information for Singapore and Hong Kong. We need to add a few more Middle Eastern countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Israel to name a few. I also see us branching out to the BRIC economies and including Brazil and Russia. Thus, Argentina and Chile also seem inevitable. I suspect my personal legacy on this project will be my love of emerging economies. I would also like to see more projects that work across countries. We need to complete the research on mobile markets in Asia, ad spend (MSM and online), and also government Internet policy and investment. Finally, I would like to see our students, under my guidance, engage in original research about word-of-mouth, credibility, and on-line behaviors through Asia. Perhaps we will even see teams of students engage in content production through regional podcasts and video streams.

Plenty of work remains, and Asia continues to capture my imagination as a place to live, work, and research. The students and external clients make the experience extremely rewarding, and also ease the pain on days when we must suffer the mind-numbing meritocracy and bureaucracy. But yes, we must take the good with the bad, and it is the sum of my experiences that makes Asia so amazing.

And this experience will continue to intersect with the West. Free trade, the war for talent, instantaneous global communication, on-line communities, and the basic human desire to explore and communicate will ensure that we all have the opportunity to experience these changes together.

I am honored to share this wiki with you. Enjoy...and please, join the conversation!

- Singapore, 3 June 2008

Welcome to Asia's Most Comprehensive Social Media Wiki

communicateasia — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:33:48 CDT

Asia's social media diversity can be just as exciting, varied, and exasperating as its cultural diversity. From unique linguistic demands in South Korea and Thailand, for example, to amazing technology penetration in South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore...Asia measures up as a dynamic and, in many ways, world-leading region for technology and communication professionals. But where do you go to learn about social media in Asia and these world standards? As part of SMU's COMM 215 course, Social Media and Corporate Communication Across Asia, students under the direction of Professor Michael Netzley (Michael's blog) have created this wiki to hopefully answer some of your questions. As we like to say in class, "if you are a Swede working in China and looking at South Korea, then what should you know about social media in that country?" We hope you find the wiki useful.

Ultimately, our goal is to create the first social media map of Asia.

Content links are at the bottom of this page (scroll down).

Anyone interested in social media as both a social phenomenon and corporate communication channel can explore this site. We collect technology penetration data, mobile markets, case studies, leading bloggers, key web sites, and governmental policy in a single location. Complementing the core data will be original materials from the creators regarding Podcamp Singapore, original podcast productions, and essays.

I encourage you to please support the students and their research.

And why is this information so important? Moving beyond the common knowledge that we are living in what many be called the Asian Century, and also recognizing that China is the world's largest Internet market with more the 220 million netizens, eMarketer has released a report showing that we have 500 million Internet users in Asia-Pacific and this number is only growing (see graphic, below and left). The implications for PR, corporate communication, marketing, and advertising are profound.

We want to help the world learn more more about this region and about communicating with its netizens.

This wiki has been collectively created across many class sections exploring social media in Asia. Each sections studies media emergence patterns and how to effectively use social media across the different cultural, political, and regulatory environments. Our methods include interviews with key practitioners or country experts, case studies, data collection from government or industry sources, and first hand experience by engaging the blogosphere in each country. These student teams, dedicated to a single country, have compiled their findings here. There are some informative links and interesting statistics – so please explore the content links below.

Content Links









Mobile Markets Asia

Style Guide Link

Other Links

PodCamp Singapore 2007
PodCamp Singapore 2008

UAE, Dubai and Abu Dhabi

premanjali — Fri, 30 May 2008 21:43:43 CDT