mobile, gaming, smartphone, social gaming

Research from Buzz City follows nicely on from yesterday's post - women are more addicted to social networks - with a range of data on mobile gaming including statistics which show Thailand has one of the highest proportion of female mobile gamers anywhere in the world.

First, a little background....

Online gaming is huge in Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand were youngsters will spend days and nights camped out in high-street internet cafes playing online multiplayers games with friends and others online.

Online gaming is a big reason behind the growth of Facebook in Southeast Asia. The multiplayer options - which allows gamers to compete and collaborate with fellow Facebook users - was instrumental in spreading word of members across young gamers in the region, who signed up in order to game with their pals. Once most members of peer groups were on Facebook, they began exploring other features, such as photo sharing and communication, and Facebook usurped and overtook previously dominantant social networks, which was Hi5 in Thailand.

What is interesting about Facebook is that it opens gaming up to new audiences and beyond the stereotypical male teenager, now girls, women and even old ladies (as blogged here) can get social gaming fever on Facebook.

Mobile, however, is a platform that is growing in Asia (ties into another post from yesterday) with mobile gaming an equally nascent market, which huge potential to grow in terms of usage and revenue for operators, content providers and third parties.

From the Buzzcity announcement:

Growing number of female and mature mobile gamers

Although the typical gamer is male in his mid twenties, at least 29 per cent of mobile gamers are female. In many markets, female mobile gamers are on the increase – in the US and Thailand, 49 per cent of gamers are female and in South Africa women make up 47 per cent of the gaming population.

The reports also revealed an increasing number of mature mobile gamers. In the US 12 per cent of gamers are above 40. In South Africa and Malaysia, gamers above 40 make up 19 per cent 8 per cent respectively.  This clearly shows that popular association of cellphones and mobile gaming with younger age groups can be misleading.

While KF Lai, CEO of BuzzCity provides some thoughts:

"Mobile gaming has gone mainstream and there’s a clear need to address specific demographics."

So according to Buzz City, girls in Thailand are amongst the most hardened female mobile gamers on the planet while the older generation in Malaysia is leading the way on mobile game playing across the world.

To paraphrase KF Lai somewhat, the shift in non-stereotypical gamers on mobile is down to more diverse and widely appealing game content. Though shoot 'em ups and fighting games exist, the Zynga-isation of gaming, through the popularity of universally appealing Zynga titles like Restaurant City and Farmville, is the primary trigger for this change.

			Women, spend, more, time, social, networks, than, men

Research from ComScore concludes that women spend more time using social networks than men despite the fact that marginally more men visit social networks whilst online. The fundamental finding that women are more engaged on social networks is not new, but this research is one of the more credible projects - unlike, for example, Nectec who claimed 73% of Thais online are female back in January.

From the report:

Globally, women demonstrate higher levels of engagement with social networking sites than men. Although women account for 47.9 percent of total unique visitors to the social networking category, they consume 57 percent of pages and account for nearly 57 percent of total minutes spent on these sites. Women spend significantly more time on social networking sites than men, with women averaging 5.5 hours per month compared to men’s 4 hours, demonstrating the strong engagement that women across the globe share with social sites.

The data is broken out by region too:

Across each global region, social networking reached a higher percentage of women online than men. Social networking’s reach among women is highest in Latin America where it reached 94.1 percent of females online, and in North America where it reached 91.0 percent of females. Europe saw 85.6 percent of its female online population visit a social networking site in May 2010, while in Asia Pacific, where parts of the region still face low broadband penetration and site restrictions, reported a 54.9-percent reach.

The statistics suggest far fewer of those online in Asia Pacific use social network compared to other global regions. While is true, the statistics shown exacerbate the divide as the data does not include those browsing the web from public locations - such as internet cafes - or mobile phones, both of which are essential in APAC where infrastructure and cost prevents many from having the internet at home.

Effectively, ComScore's research method nullifies its findings for Asia as it does not include data from the majority of young people, arguably the biggest users of social networks, most of whom access the web publicly or through a mobile phone. In reality the percentage of online users (access from any method) is likely to be far higher and potentially higher than Europe or North America.

With internet access commoditised in Asia, those with access to the internet (note: the data refers to those online not total population) in Asia tend to be fairly tech savvy and advanced in their web habits with the less unsavvy or inexperienced internet users in the region less likely to enjoy access to the web in the first place.

In Western markets, however, near-ubiquitous access to the web means the less developed/savvy userbase users can get online and in doing so dilute the overall ratio of internet users to social network users. This explains how the developing market of Latin America has the highest social network traffic vs online rate, compared to the more 'developed' and tech-advanced regions of Europe and North America.

With the issues duly noted, the information is an interesting point of reference but by no means indicative of social networks and their popularity in Asia.

		1	mobile internet, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Southeast Asia

Analyst firm Frost & Sullivan yesterday released a new report predicting mobile data revenue in Southeast Asia will grow a staggering 75 percent over the next three years. Currently valued at US$7.1 billion, income from mobile data alone in the region is expected to hit US$12.4 billion by the close of 2013.

More good news for operators, for whom “plain old voice and text messaging services will no longer deliver larger revenue growth” (according to Frost’s Nicholas Khoo), mobile data revenues will grow to account for more than 40 of total mobile revenues. Today that figure is just 27.8 percent.

It’s clear that, for differing reasons, both the public and mobile operators need this growth.

With the cost of getting online the traditional way – with a PC and home internet connection – too high for many in Southeast Asian markets, mobile internet represents a convenient and often cost effective alternative.

In turn, with mobile penetration at a high rate across most of the region, operators must concentrate on developing new revenues streams as Frost’s Shi Min explains in the company press release:

Mobile broadband offers the clearest new connections growth and new revenue stream opportunity for operators. Countries like Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia - already with mobile penetration of 137 percent, 127 percent (although half are reportedly inactive) and 108 percent, respectively, in 2009 - present the best potential for mobile broadband given the broadband- and Internet-receptiveness of these nations.

As I’ve often lamented people/companies not doing, Southeast Asia is a diverse region so mobile internet and data mean different things to different markets. Here’s Frost’s take on different mobile internet scenarios across the region:

 'mobile internet' –  on existing and upgrading low- to mid-end devices delivering relevant 'thin' services and Internet service extensions

'mobilised internet' – on mid- to high-end smartphones offering new services and extensions around portability of the Internet experience and services

'mobile broadband' –  which adds mobility value to broadband through untethered access on a variety of portable devices

And in practice:

In developed markets, like Singapore, mobilised Internet and mobile broadband competition is likely to revolve around branding and value-capture based on lifestyle patterns, personalisation and convenience.

The Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand (each with mobile penetration of 80 percent and above; and low fixed-Internet and -broadband penetration), on the other hand, offer fertile environments for mobile and mobilised internet, giving users access to an almost transparent fixed internet experience on their devices.

Its clear Asia is a huge market for mobile internet, given the already discussed pricing, technology and infrastructure issues which prevent the rise of mass-market home internet which is visible in western markets.

As Southeast Asia has already witnessed, the rapid uptake in mobile internet and data usage has seen huge growth in social networking in the region, to the point that Southeast Asia dominates Facebook's fastest growing market list.

Just a quick note on Thailand, which remains without public 3G services in places and is in real danger of being left further behind if it does not keep up and implement 3G for much improved mobile data and internet experiences.

			Guardian, Google, taking, Facebook

Jemima Kiss at The Guardian has a succinct wrap of Google's efforts to rival Facebook, which passed the milestone of 500 million users last week.

Google has been talking to games firms about integrating their games as just one part of a new social networking service, reports the Wall Street Journal. Disney's newly acquired Playdom, Electronic Art's reasonably newly acquired Playfish and Zynga have all been approached; and if the latter looks ripe for acquisition, you won't be surprised that Google recently invested a significant chunk in the firm.

Chief executive Eric Schmidt would not comment on the service this week but said "the world doesn't need a copy" of Facebook. The world might not need that, but what Google needs is a copy of the most advertiser-friendly parts of that and, as the Zynga investment shows, Google is keen to move in on one of the web's hottest - and most profitable - growing markets of casual gaming. As WSJ says, a Google offering would also be good news for developers worrying over over-dependence on Facebook.

Games are an important traffic generator which substantially increase the amount of time users spend on sites - ultimately good for the host site because of associated advertising and the developer, who. with the right game can attract a large audience. But as Facebook's audience and its advertising network continues to grow, it presents an increasingly serious threat to Google.

With Friendster (see here), Hi5 (see here) and now Google just some of the companies competing to get into social gaming, there is going to be a massive amount of competition to even get a shot at taking on Facebook at the service it has perfected - social gaming has been key in developing its presence across Asia and the world to date.

While I predicted the two social networks will struggle to rival Facebook, Google has a better chance. Its web presence and brand give it a massive advantage while - depending on its plans - does not suffer from competing like-for-like with Google like social networks do. Given the moderate success (being generous) of recent incarnations like Buzz and Wave Google may not have got the formula just yet (with Orkut coming close) but it is certainly not going to throw the towel in any time soon.

			japan, indonesia, twitter, asia, southeast asia, sysomos, social network

Twitter Chief Executive Evan Williams was last week in Japan to celebrate the phenomenal growth of the microblogging service in the country with an official event.

AP has more details here and below:

Twitter has been a huge hit in Japan. As Williams noted in his presentation, Japanese tweeters set a world record when the whistle blew in the World Cup game in which Japan beat Denmark at 3,283 tweets per second, mostly believed to have been Japanese.

Williams — appearing in a T-shirt with the Twitter trademark bird set in a red circle, the symbol of the Japanese flag — said when Twitter held a similar event in 2008, only 40 people came.

Not only have Japanese like Takayama embraced Twitter, but they are also tweeting with a vehemence unparalleled in other parts of the world, including the United States. San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. estimates Japanese send nearly 8 million tweets a day, about 12 percent of the global total.

As covered recently Twitter's popularity in Japan has seen a huge increase compared in earlier in the year. Back in January when I adapted Sysomos' measurement of the Twittersphere for Asia, Indonesia came out top across the continent with an estimated share of voice of 2.34 percent, with Japan well behind with just 1.47 percent.

The Sysomos research was taken from October and November 2009 since when Twitter usage worldwide has grown hugely, with the US share of voice dropping below 50 percent for the first time. Since late 2009 Twitter usage in Asia has increased, and is a major source of new traffic responsible for the US's reduction in dominance - with more tweets coming from outside Twitter's home nation.

There is no doubt Indonesia usage of the service has grown, social networks in the country have a big role as the unofficial fifth estate, but has it grown fast enough to match Japan's near ten fold increase?

It is like to be a close run affair contest. While Indonesia has a huge population of more than 220 million (nearly double that of Japan), a vibrant and active social media community and a fast-growing rate of smartphone ownership, Japan's advanced technology, long history of mobile internet and mature consumer habits cause me to think, if pushed for a winner, Japan is now Asia's biggest tweeter.

Then, city-wise, there is Jakarta, the reigning champ, against Tokyo - another close call.

Now would be a great time for Sysomos, Twitter or someone else comes out with credible statistics...hint hint guys.

Regardless of the statistics though, both countries represent a new, significant Asian emergence on global social networks with Asian countries rivalling dominant western countries for share of voice and further pushing the case for media marketing in Asia.

			Apichatpong, YouTube, Thailand

After winning a Palm d'Or earlier this year for movie Uncle Boonmee (see Wise Kwai's Thai Film blog for more), Thai film director Apichatpong Weerasethakul has been further honoured with a position on the YouTube Play 'jury' according to Google's official blog.

Play is a Google, owner of YouTube, and Guggenheim Museum project "to make film history [and] help document a single day on earth".

Says Google of the project:

We’re looking for animation, motion graphics, narrative, non-narrative, or documentary work, music videos and entirely new art forms—creations that really challenge the world’s perceptions of what’s possible with video. We want to elevate the debate. This presentation, we hope, will garner some of the finest creative work from every corner of the globe—not only to showcase it on one of the biggest stages online, but also in one of the most iconic artistic venues in the world, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, and throughout the Guggenheim network of museums in Bilbao, Venice and Berlin.

Here's what is in store for Apichatpong and his fellow jurors who will judge the entrants, which number 6,000 videos already and have generated more than 2 million views of the dedicated Play channel on YouTube.

Over the course of the next few months, these jurors will watch countless hours of videos submitted by the international YouTube community and select the most creative and inspiring work to showcase at the Guggenheim museums in October.

Already, this campaign has drawn some remarkable talent, and we’re looking forward to seeing more of your submissions in our quest to find the most creative video art in the world and showcase it alongside van Gogh and Picasso. The deadline for getting your videos in is July 31. For more information about the jurors and to learn more about how to participate, check out youtube.com/play.

Though not an established industry event, Apichatpong is likely to be  proud to be recognised for this ground-breaking international event which could be the first of many innovative contemporary projects.