Well, China has 100+ Groupon clones and Malaysia is picking up as well on its own scale. Group buying sites are popping out lately in Malaysia. It's a bit of deja-vu like many were attempting to build a local social network site some years back...
It was the first time in history that a Malaysian company made headlines at TechCrunch last December. Friendster, the granddaddy of social networks has been acquired by MOL Global, a Malaysian e-commerce (payment) company...
Generally, Malaysians are skeptical or reluctant to shop online due to security concerns among many. We lack smart consumers, as suggested by Danny Foo. Air Asia did a great job in our e-commerce education. Desperately in need of bargain air tickets? Learn how to shop online and brace yourself by entering the credit card numbers...
Do you have the habit of shopping at foreign online store, especially those from the west? I do, like many others, looking for bargains, stuffs that are special or not easily available here. I do have an extra small habit though...
Well, this post is all about charts and figures. Read on to get a glimpse of e-commerce outlook in selected countries of Asia Pacific. Hopefully, you will get a rough idea on those markets that you are not particularly familiar with...
Blogshop seems to be an unique trend booming only in Singapore and Malaysia. Perhaps, many Singaporeans or Malaysians are accustomed to browse and navigate around blogshop but certainly not me (some might agree with me on this)...
Year 2008 is approaching the end and thus it would be inconclusive not to mention, in what I believe, the best web initiative in Malaysia for this year.
YouthSays
YouthSays, one of the YouthMalaysia project, is undoubtedly the hottest online youth community in Malaysia now. It is open to any Malaysian age 35 and below, and claims to have more than 60,000 members at the time of writing. Quite an impressive feat given that YouthSays is only about 7 months old.
Crowd pulling factor? YouthSays is well publicized, being helped by the fact that it rewards members in cold hard cash. Members can earn money by answering surveys or inviting friends. It might be just peanuts, but it is still attractive enough for non-blogger netizens who might not have the experience (and thrill) of earning cash online.
You might be thinking, what's so great about that? Here comes the CIA, ooops TYI I mean...
Yes, according to State of the Mobile Web, Oct 2008 report by Opera, Malaysia has the highest mobile internet user growth in Southeast Asia. Although the usage is measured solely on Opera Mini, it is still an useful benchmark on mobile internet adoption and trend in this region.
Opera Mini has only 0.06% market share compared to both desktop and mobile browsers, but nevertheless it has big market share in mobile browsers. This is because it is being shipped on major mobile manufacturers and available to various mobile operating system (excluding iPhone OS), making it the alternative browser of choice for mobile users.
Facebook has just released its official statistics, selected facts as below:
More than 140 million active users
The fastest growing demographic is 25 years old and older
Average user has 100 friends on the site
More than 70% of Facebook users are outside the US
How many out of the 140 million users are Malaysians, and what about the demographics? AllFacebook does provide an useful estimation tool for us to delve into the figures.
Google has released the most searched terms in 2008 (up to November). It is a great way to recap the year by looking at the search trend and curiosity around the world in this year.
There must be reasons why Google is cooler than Yahoo. Unlike Yahoo's Year In Review 2008, Google brands its year end compilation as Google Zeitgeist 2008 (Zeitgeist means "the spirit of the time"). Another cool factor, we have statistics reflecting major event or emerging trend in each selected countries.
Let's start with Malaysia, followed by other Asian countries. Before that, you need to understand this: "Fastest Rising" represents zeitgeist as its search volume increased sizably in 2008 compared to 2007, while "Most Popular" shows the largest search volume for 2008.
Friendster is still no.1 social network in Malaysia, in almost every aspects. MySpace used to be no.2 in Malaysia but has since been overtook by Facebook in 2008.
comScore (source)
Measurement: Unique visitors from Malaysia, in May 2008.
1. Friendster (3,024,000 unique visitors)
2. Facebook (758,000)
3. MySpace (735,000)
Observation: Friendster is at least 4 times bigger than Facebook or MySpace!
"Guanxi" (关系) is a Chinese word which means relationship. It is more commonly known as mutually beneficial relationship that is required to build your business in China.
If you are looking forward to Guanxi building tips in this book, you might be disappointed. Almost all its chapters are dedicated to chronological event of Microsoft research lab in China, before wrapping it up with a closing chapter of "How to make it in China".
