Social media sees breakthrough year

Social networking as a concept is hardly new. But, for Asia at least, 2009 was a breakthrough year.

After all, this was the year of Twitter; 12 months ago the microblogging service was a tool known only to early adopters. In 2009 it has been hailed as a new marketing platform, helped foment revolt in Iran and been blocked in China as a potential threat to national harmony.

In Southeast Asia, it has been the year of Facebook. The world’s leading social network has overtaken former leader Friendster in markets including Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

It has also been the year in which some of the walls have come down. Facebook adopted Twitter-style feeds. Twitter results are set to appear in Google and Bing searches. Social networking is overlapping with gaming. And all of the above are transferring to mobile (indeed, Facebook’s mobile offering is cited as one of the key drivers of its Southeast Asian growth).

In fact, some of these trends are proceeding most rapidly in Asia. The overlap between social networking and gaming is clear in China, where the country’s growing local-market networks such as RenRen.com (formerly Xiaonei) and Kaixin001 have been battling to offer the next big casual gaming phenomenon (recently Happy Farm has hit the headlines).

Mega-players such as Tencent, Sina and Sohu have been merging all social aspects of video, gaming, communication, forums, blogging, search and networking into their sites.

Facebook looks to be next in line for such a shift. This year, the site adopted services for gaming, chat and discussion-mapping applications. Friendster, meanwhile, has forged its own path by incorporating a sizable entertainment and micropayment focus, which allows it to become a little bit of everything to everyone. The site, which shifted some of its corporate leadership to Asia this year, has recently changed ownership, which may take it in a new direction again.

Benjamin Grubbs, regional director for Turner Entertainment Interactive Media, agrees that formerly vertical players are seeking a more rounded offer.

“Social media platforms have a solid opportunity to offer more content and services to their user community, in addition to status updates and photo-sharing,” he says. “Most international platforms that operate in Asia are heading towards social gaming and payment or gifting systems that allow for direct-to-consumer fees.”

Grubbs argues that, with nearly 500 million internet users in Asia, there is room for multiple platforms. But founder and CEO of Pixel Media Kevin Huang believes consolidation is on the cards. “Social media sites either need to find a purpose or consolidate. There will be room for more specialised vertical networks, like LinkedIn, for example, but if it’s too broad, it’ll likely consolidate, and in the end there’ll be Facebook and Twitter.”

The growing penetration of 3G and smartphones has broadened social media’s reach, allowing millions in emerging markets to experience these sites for the first time. Facebook has again spotted this trend early, and in August unveiled its Lite version to target emerging markets - a simplified version of the site that provides small pictures and low-resolution videos to operate on slow bandwidth.

Napoleon Biggs, regional head of digital integration at Fleishman Hillard, says that 2009 has been the year of “What are you doing?”, as constant status updates gained popularity. But he expects 2010 to be about “What are you doing, and where are you?” as location-based software in mobile phones becomes more widespread. He points to Kaixin001’s deal with Ericsson to provide several mobile services, include location-based apps.

However, the proliferation of location-based programmes will prompt users to revisit the issue of privacy, Biggs says. Social networks will begin to educate users of their options in terms of privacy, and users will start paring down the number of people who have access to their personal information.

“It’ll start with groups of people cutting back on their circle of friends,” he says. “They’ll end up having two types of online personas: what’s visible on social networks and what’s anonymous on forums and bulletin boards.”

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This article was originally published in 17 December 2009 issue of Media.