Gartner Inc., an information technology intelligence company, recently said that their studies show that the Philippines is leading in the adoption of global social media sites like Facebook and Twitter in Asia. This confirms the study recently released by ComScore as well which ranked the Philippines as one of the top social media hubs in the region.
Before we all get excited we have to take a closer look at the study. The same report showed that most of the major countries in Asia Pacific didn’t really buy into Facebook and Twitter immediately mainly because they have their own customized social networking services that are localized to their respective dialects. Also we have to take into consideration the rise of niche networking sites in Japan, China, and South Korea that are centered on online gaming. India also has popular dating and match-making websites. However I wouldn’t be surprised if Twitter and Facebook gain more popularity in the next few months since most of the localized social networks aren’t 100% free.
This makes you wonder though if there is room for a localized Filipino social network here in our country. While the answer is probably “yes”, I don’t think there’s a dedicated IT and marketing group here that can push a non-commercialized local social network. SMART tried with Sandbox but it just failed miserably because it was just a mix of random features and it was too branded making it feel to invasive and profit oriented.
References:
RP has most avid users of Facebook, Yahoo, and Twitter in Asia -Gartner study
RP highest in social networking engagement across Asia-Pacific
Very well informative Carlo!
Some local companies also tried to create Social Network Sites during the Friendster era but all had failed.
The biggest failure though is probably Sandbox from Smart. They spent millions on that product and it never really flew.
Hi, Mr. Ople!
Thanks for linking to my articles
And yes, I do agree with your observations; there’s obviously lots of room for a local social media network but I sadly don’t see that happening anytime soon.
Hi TJ! Thanks for dropping by NMP. We need more Filipino college kids who confine themselves in the garage to come up with insanely good products. As it is the youth is trained to get high grades, graduate, work for a company, and save. We need more entrepreneurs.
Wow!!! Philippines is leading not just only as SMS Capital of the wolrd, now Social Media too; Filipinos has “ENGLISH” assets that even a 2 year old understand and can speak english… Thanks Carl
for this informative article.
well, imagine, who’s the third world country now?
proud filipina here.
i like your site btw ~
Kristel/self-confessed Social Media Princess
Maybe the reason why Facebook and Twitter are really big here is because they’re free, hehe
Some of the social networks that our neighboring countries like are paid services.
I feel that new local social network will be work if establish. Because most of the Philippians use social network purpose is to social and search for entertainment. If local social network with local language and follow the step of FB like partnership with those game provider. Then i think that it would be 1 step behind the Facebook.