Update 1: It’s not Standard, it’s a new Tool

One week ago, I recieved an email (or spam, as you can say) from SocialMedian told me about its new feature Replize. It meant that from this time on SocialMedian users can simply use “@username” short code to interact with each other. This replize will be highlighted in the receiver’s homepage. Isn’t it just like Twitter?

I didn’t pay much attention for it, ‘ços I can’t understand SocialMedian’s concept, but suddenly I realize that more and more sites are imitating Twitter this way. It’s not simply about Twitter’s awesome concept or success, it looks like a new communication standard is comingggggg, and Twitter has to be very instrumental in it. Sooner or later, I guess, “@username” short code will appear in every social sites. Is there anything here make you think of mini-feed first introduced by Facebook several years ago? (plz correct me if I’m wrong).

Back to Vietnam market, I remember Jason’s blog post: “Why No Twitter Clone in Vietnam?“. It’s a great question in business aspect b/c agree with you, I see no reason for a Twitter clone in Vn. Twitter’s business model is so unrealll, and I’m sure Thomas can explain about that. The way Vietnameses communicate is different, and mobile services haven’t thrived in VN yet. Unfortunately, in fact, the question should be: “How many Twitter Clones in VN do we have?” and the answer is: “More than one”. I know at least 2 sites: http://qblog.vn with poor design, Twitter’s equivalent features (nothing new) and  http://hola.vn with nice clean interface and group feature (thanks Rick for introducing this site to me). I like group feature. There are lots of small communities in Twitter but I don’t think the way Hola is making it now will work. We just need a simple homepage for group, and whenever you want to post something to this group, you simply type “g groupname” code and everyone in this group will automatically recieve this message instead of having to log the main page. Hola belongs to Nguyễn Việt Tiến from Galaxy Media, but Qblog looks like some personal pilot project (some guys named Diệp, Bảo, but I’m not sure). So far, both of them have nothing to atract me.

Very clean

One thing @TienNV (Nguyễn Việt Tiến) if you ever happen to read this post: Hola’s domain ends with .vn and it targets VN market, then why the hell it is in English? I know it’s easy to change the language, but I’m talking about the approaching way. Why you are in Vietnam, think as Vietnameses [I know I know my blog is in English too =.= ]

I think that’s enough. Yesterday Tharum shared me such a interesting song that I can’t wait to share it with you guys. It’s the Twitter song from Ben Walker: “You’re no one if you’re not on Twitter”. The title says it all, huh?

Tags: communication, hola, qblog, socialmedia, twitter