We Are Social Asia Tuesday TuneUp #125
News
News
Thailand YouTube launch attracts major brands
Thailand is making its move into an exploding video market, with what is believed to be a timely decision. The Thai YouTube launch sets forth to attract major brands such as Ford, Samsung, Air Asia X, True and Unilever for the official introduction of YouTube.co.th, a dedicated site for Thai video content. This serves to fulfill the appetite of Thai internet users as they spend twice as much time online as they do watching television.
India’s opposition leader Narendra Modi breaks India’s tweet record
There’s just something about celebrities taking centre stage and breaking records when it comes to tweeting. First was when Ellen DeGeneres momentarily crashed the platform in March when she tweeted a selfie of herself and her band of glittery Hollywood stars. Now, Narendra Modi, India’s soon-to-be Prime Minister makes headlines by accumulating the highest number of retweets in India – 40,000 retweets and 24,500 favourites – when he took to Twitter after the general election victory.
Your pet can be social media savvy too
In China, 33 million households have either a dog or a cat caused by the growing number of middle class citizens looking to splurge and pamper more pets. It is no surprise that SmellMe came into existence, a social media platform dedicated to these furry creatures. SmellMe aims to connect pets within cities and offer Q&A forums, location-based directory of pet-related stores and businesses and great content which are pet-relevant. A great hub for pet owners to know about other pets within the vicinity and to have access to useful information related to their pets.
Messaging apps are getting more popular
All of the messenger apps tracked by GlobalWebIndex in Q2 2014 have risen in popularity. Snapchat has seen the biggest increase (67%), followed by Kik (32%) and WhatsApp (30%). For more detailed analysis of the report, along with a discussion of what it means for other social networks, take a look at GWI’s guest post on our blog.
Facebook developing rival to Snapchat
Facebook is reportedly working on an ‘ephemeral messaging’ app, referred to internally as ‘Slingshot’, in an attempt to rival Snapchat. This comes at the same time as news that it has removed ill-fated video sharing app, Poke, from the iOS app store. As Poke was originally touted as a response to Snapchat, the timing may be considered slightly odd. Facebook’s standalone Camera app has also been removed.
Twitter introduces ‘mute’ function
You can now ‘mute’ Twitter users you don’t like, meaning you won’t see their tweets in your timeline or receive notifications from them. Unlike ‘unfollowing’ someone, they won’t know that you’ve done it, and you can switch the feature on and off as you please.
Giphy allows you to link with a GIF on Twitter
Giphy has created embeddable, linkable GIFs for Twitter for the first time. There is only one link, which brings users straight back to a the linked URL page; previously, this would have required two separate links.
Pinterest adds new features and funding
It’s been a big week at Pinterest HQ. First of all, it’s lined up a set of more than a dozen brands, each ready to run ad campaigns on the platform with a commitment of three to six months. It isn’t resting on its laurels, though; it’s looking to add a new Q&A feature. A spokesperson said of the move:
We’re always gathering feedback from Pinners to make Pins more useful. We’re currently testing the ability to ask and answer questions in a more structured way on Pins, with a small group of Pinners. We don’t have any additional details to share at this time, but we’ll keep you posted.
Finally, the network has raised a further $200m in its latest funding round. Not only that, it’s at a valuation of $5bn, a healthy increase from $3.8bn at the last round.
Foursquare launches Swarm
A couple of weeks ago, the mashup’s little brother announced that Foursquare was planning to release a new app for all its ‘social’ elements. Well, now it’s here. Foursquare launched the app in the App Store and Google Play last week. It’ll be heading to Windows phone later in the summer, too.
TaylorMade looking to ‘socialise’ product demonstrations
Golf brand, TaylorMade, is looking to make its latest product demonstration more social, by taking questions live on air via a microsite. A video that displays how new clubs work is commonplace in golf marketing, but this social element is pretty new. The brand will field questions via a set of experts and are hoping for an appearance from one of their PGA assets.