We Are Social Asia Tuesday Tuneup #146
Tencent invested US $20M into Blink, a service similar to Snapchat
In addition to the investment into US based Snapchat last year, Tencent has made US $20 million investment into Chinese native service Blink this year. The service is similar to Snapchat. Tencent has been actively looking for a new kind of service that appeals to China’s “post-90s” youths as a breakthrough in the stagnant growth of WeChat. According to Techweb, the new photo sharing app claims 200,000 active users, despite a baby step toward the next big thing that Tencent is longing for. We will wait to see if Blink will become the next big thing that keeps the internet giant ahead of competition in China.
Social media behaviours of travellers in APAC
Accor Hotels has revealed its second Social Media Monitor looking at social media behaviors of travellers from the Asia Pacific region. Here are some interesting findings:
- Asia-born chat apps such as WeChat and Line are catching up with Facebook in terms of usage
- In Thailand, Line has higher daily usage than Facebook and is one of top three most popular networks in Indonesia and Japan
- In Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and India, WhatsApp wins Facebook in terms of daily usage
- In India, Singapore and Malaysia, travellers use Facebook to research and share their trips and WhatsApp during the drip to stay in touch
A month since Instagram got blocked in China
It has been a month since Instagram got blocked in China due to the pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong, which seems to be the first biggest obstacle for the company to carry on its’ success in China. Instagram has been an exception to the Chinese social media landscape where local players are dominant in the market under the circumstance that many of western born services such as Facebook are not allowed to operate. The world’s largest photo sharing app was previously thriving in China, recording 100,000 downloads per week, and becoming an avenue for Chinese audience to connect with the rest of the world. But it’s still not clear if Instagram will ever be unblocked. Will local alternatives such as TuDing and Papa thrive now that Instagram is blocked?
Facebook brings back the nineties with Rooms
Remember the nineties? Queen Victoria, William Gladstone, the two Franco-Dahomean Wars. Oh, the NINETEEN nineties? They were good, too. Facebook’s harking back to the era of quasi-anonymous internet chatrooms with its new iPhone app, Rooms. Users can chat about different subjects depending on the Room, and won’t need an email address to sign up; anonymity in social has been big news recently, and it seems Facebook is taking it seriously.
Facebook page admins can save and backdate posts
Facebook is letting its page admins create drafts of posts, which they can either save for later or backdate. Remember, admins: with great power comes great responsibility. If that’s good enough advice for Spiderman, it’s good enough for us all.
Twitter creates Fabric
Twitter has created its own mobile-app platform called Fabric, which it hopes will lure developers and their dollars. Twitter CEO, Dick Costolo, has called it “the future of mobile software development”. Of course, he would say that.
Twitter’s Buy button set for general release
Twitter is planning to roll out its mobile Buy button to everybody who wants it some time during Q1 2015. So far, it’s only available to a select number of partners, one of which you can see below.
New iOS Vine app
The Vine app for iPhone/iPad has been updated. Now you can follow channels and post straight from the app. If you’re lucky enough to have iOS8, it will look all new and shiny for you, too.
Foursquare downloads are up or down or maybe around the same
Foursquare is doing brilliantly/terribly, depending on who you believe. The network itself is saying that, in the ‘post-Swarm era’ (as historians will call it) they’ve increased their user base to 55 million, a 54% lift in users compared to the same month in 2013. Very good. However, other research suggests that, after initial uplift, the numbers are actually in decline. The below graph looks particularly bad, with all its downward lines; note that Swarm downloads peaked in August, and have been dropping since.
Build your own Mercedes on Instagram
Mercedes has gone all clever on Instagram, using thousands of different images across hundreds of linked accounts to let people customise their own car through the network.
HP makes TV ad from Vine videos
To promote its Pavilion x360 laptop, HP created a set of around 30 different clips from different Vine influencers, producing 950,000 engagements and 50m organic views. It’s now turning the campaign into a 30 second TV commercial – the first of its kind. We’re sure you’ll want to watch it over and over again. Hahaha, a joke about the looping Vine format! Whatever next?!