I used to think that people in Southeast Asia are somewhat similar due to common characteristics in geology, ethnic background and economy. But I was totally wrong. Working and a little traveling have given me a chance to take a closer look into what SEA people are doing online which reveal a lot of differences.

Blogging

I once thought that most SEA people were introvert, but it seems to be that this statement can only be applied to the Vietnamese. I was surprised to find out how active people in other SEA countries are on the Internet.

In Vietnam, there are only a small number of “professional” bloggers. Most “hot” bloggers emerged from Yahoo! 360 and became famous because of sensational rag news, sex, short stories, etc. (things that tradional media can’t mention). It’s true that bloggers in Vietnam aren’t paid much attention. Earlier this year I attended PestaBlogger in Indonesia and I was amazed. It attracted about 1000 bloggers of all social groups: young, old (I even met some 50-something bloggers there); male, female (though male bloggers seem to be more prevalent); poor, rich. They blogged about anything: politics and other sensitive topics. Every blogs in Indonesia [Blogger.com ranks 5 and WordPress.com ranks 7 in Alexa Indonesia]!!

Blogging is also very popular in Malaysia [Blogger.com ranks 6 and WordPress.com ranks 15 in Alexa Malaysia].

In Philippines, there is even a bloggers association and the Philippines Blog Awards. [They call themselves a blogging nation].

It’s also true with Youthsays.com. Even though there are only 13 330 members in YouthSays Indonesia, new questions are submitted at the rate of 1 question/min. YouthSays Philippines is also much more active than YouthSays Vietnam.

Web Services

Generally, youths in Southeast Asia favor internationl products against local products. In almost every country in SEA except Vietnam [Thank to Zing.vn and VnExpress.net], 5 first places on Alexa belong to internationl products [the common denominator are Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Windows Live/YouTube]. Although Facebook is now dominant, there are still some other popular SNS and they vary in each country. Thai people show highly favor for Hi5 while the Flippino go Friendster.

Friendster

Unlike in Vietnam, Friendster is a little bit popular in other countries in SEA. As we all know, it just had a brand makeover to target Asian youths, makes it look like just a MySapce-wannabe (according to a friend of mine). The color, logo and tagline are new but the features almost remain the same except they launched “Friendster Virtual Gift Shop” and “Friendster Games” that make it look just like an Asian-born product.

Friendster claimed that it “pioneered social networking, and today is a leading web site throughout Southeast Asia, with over 75 million registered users and over 90 percent of daily traffic coming from the region.”. But from what I observed, Facebook is winning it over.

According to Reuters, there is a rumor that Friendster will be sold off by the end of this year to an Asian Internet company with the value of at least $100M. Our Vinagame might be interested [I'm just joking, but who knows, Vinagame is valued at $500M, they are rich].

In August 2008, it got funded $20M by IDG Ventures. Around that time, they did some pretty noisy marketing campaign in Vietnam but didn’t get any success.

******

Some quick facts:

1. Only in Vietnam that people love reading news that much. Of Top 10 websites on Alexa Vietnam, there are 3 newspapers, 1 portal and 1 porn site lol

2. Singapore has the highest Internet penetration rate, 72.4 % population, Brunei ranks 2nd with 55.9% while Burma has the lowest, only 0.2%. Burnese government imposes very very strict censorship upon Internet usage. In Laos, there are only 130,000 (1.9% population) and in Cambodia there are only 74000 (0.5% population).

3. In Singapore, there are only 3,370,000 Internet users but 1,789,840 Facebook users which means more than 50% Internet users there on Facebook. The rate is also super high in Indonesia where there are 30,000,000 Internet but more than 14,000,000 Facebook users. The Indonesian do not only love blogging, they also love facebooking

Tags: facebook, Friendster, malaysia, Southeast Asia, Vietnam, YouthSays

I haven’t blogged for a while, and apparently, the less you write, the less topic you can think of. Since my birthday, I’ve wanted to start blogging again yet can’t think of anything interesting enough.

It’s not because there is nothing good happening to me. In fact, I’ve never seen my life as exciting as it is now. I’m studying hard and working hard. I’ve just taken TOELF and SAT 2 while my SAT is coming within 3 weeks. My Spanish is getting better, now I can read BBC perfectly in Spanish. FHV [Free Hugs Vietnam] has an amazing team, coolest members and so many upcoming events. They are worth-checking out, trust me. Sometimes I can’t believe I’m that lucky to have you guys with me. SEAChange - the movement for youth in Southeast Asia that I’m involved in as its Vietnam Community Leader is taking its peak!!! Can’t wait to meet Biz Stone and Nando Parrado my hero at YES2009. I will also start a small 2-week project next Monday - my very first one of this kind. To make things even cooler, BarCamp Saigon will be held on Nov 29 with supports from some [BIG] names [FHV will also be taking care of BarCamp Saigon's volunteers]. My schedule for November is totally booked already with full of events and travel. Yes, the most exciting part is that, I’m moving, again. I have a very interesting plan that I’d love to share with you next month.

And well, it’s not that nothing bad happens to me. Shit happens as it does all the time!! Exams, work pressure, family’s loss, misunderstandings, the broken laptop, SERIOUS trouble with … [I really don't want to talk about it, it makes me feel deeply depressed], nightmares, and esp. the death of my new-born cousin, all of these together have worn me down. My hair keeps falling out and I have about 1 kilogram of medicine to take. I know I’m at the turning point of my life; and it’s never been easy. The only thing I can do now is to try harder & harder with the hope that life will turn into the better, not the worse.

I don’t update my blog or tweet much these days, but I will be back after everything is settled, maybe in November. Thinking of being left out makes me feel so dead

And now, enjoy a cute story from FHV ^_^ I’m so in love with it.

The first part was found somewhere on the Internet, the last one was designed by Simpleman

Tags: barcampsaigon, Chip, FHV, SAT, SEAChange

Original link is here.

Hello everyone!

As you already know, we’re giving 500 lucky youths from across Southeast Asia a chance to win a free trip to the Youth Engagement Summit 2009 right here in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – which includes a round trip to and from Kuala Lumpur, accommodation, sightseeing privileges and of course, passes to the YES2009! Sounds awesome right?

From today onwards, we’re giving you more chances to win the free trip to the summit!

And how is that you ask?

For the first wave of competition, we’re going to do a Twitter meme! A meme (pronounced as meem, despite the spelling!) where Twitter users tweet about things related to a certain subject. In this case – SEAchange. Read on to see how you can participate!

HOW TO ENTER
1. The contest is open to all Southeast Asian youths!

2. You have to register a Twitter account.

3. And after you do, make sure you follow us on @followseachange.

4. Tweet between three (3) to five (5) words on what change means to you, and remember to include #followseachange so that we can track your tweets and include the link to SEACHANGE’s main website (http://youthsays.com/seachange). If you need to shrink your URL, head over to TweetShrink (but usually Twitter does it for you).

Make sure your tweets are NOT on private, or else we won’t be able to track you!

5. There’s no limit to tweets — you can tweet as many times as you want.

6. Most active users and best tweets (make sure you’ve signed up for SEACHANGE!) stand to win the free trip to Kuala Lumpur & free pass to YES2009.

Closing date for this contest is 20th October 2009. Winners will be announced every week till then. If you have any questions, drop us a comment and we’ll get back to you ASAP! So get tweeting people!

*** Co-Founder of Twitter - Biz Stone will also be joining this summit as a speaker, excited??

Tags: contest, SEAChange, twitter, YES2009

Another year has gone and I’m 1 year older. Thank you so much for all your wishes. I haven’t blogged lately so now it’s a good time for me to update about what I’ve been up to lately (if you ever give it a damn).

I spend most of my time preparing for some tests and volunteer activities. Check out my newest baby (we have a lot of upcoming activities that need your help).

I’m thinking of a small gathering tomorrow. Buzz me if you are interested.

Err, what else??

Tags: birthday, Chip