International

GLOBAL

KOREA

Asia Web 2.0 Blog Written by Chang-Won Kim who runs Korea's leading blog software company, TNC

New "game-changing" music service Q Box

On 9/24/07 Asia Web 2.0 covered the expansion of QBox. It launched in the USA in January. It's a search service that uses a browser enhancement (available only for PC's right now Firefox & Explorer) . In the video it explains that a bunch of little Q's show up when you're on Wikepedia or do a Google search next to song names. You can play the songs from wherever they are and add them to a playlist. Since I have a Mac I can only do an embeddable player right now. A very small player that shows videos in the upper 2/3 and has random pictures at the bottom appears next to a search engine. You can search for a song or artist and then if you want add them to your playlist. The videos are kind of random and I looked up Amy Winehouse Rehab and got one with a lengthy introduction by Bruce Wills (SNL maybe?) but it's really fast and comes up with a lot of stuff. So now I could take this player and embed it on my myspace (in example) page.

"I think the success of Naver search has been largely helped by the fact that Korea is a very homogeneous society where people often have very common and shared interests. I mean, every society has its memes and zeitgeist, but I think Korea is a little more special. 48+ million people packed in a small country that's equipped with dead efficient broadband and mobile networks. That's an interesting (and even a bit dangerous) combination." RWR 8.2006

Me2Day Korean Twitter

There was a company called **StoryBlender

SCREENSHOT** who had the founder of CyWorld as it's CEO. They presented as one of the TechCrunch 50 last September but I don't see anything about them anywhere. This is a description of it: Story Blender is an online collaborative video production platform where people can work together to “blend” their media for rich, interactive storytelling. Story Blender CEO Hyoung Yong Joon is the original founder of Cyworld, which is South Korea’s first and most popular social networking community. StoryBlend’s online editing tool lets users create videos by “blending” images, sound, text, and video clips. When users have created new video blends they can then share it with their friends and the StoryBlend community.

The parent company of StoryBlender, Enfra Networks has another product which is still active called nPlugs. It's a mobile- and desktop-based “Personal Resource Planner.”

INDIA

ContentSutra Local Social Media Content Source

BharatStudent was launched March 10th, 2007 by a UK subsidiary of Northgate
according to ContentSutra it had some controversy: Now Bharatstudent is a rather controversial site: it’s alleged that they’re hosting pornographic content, and luring users from Orkut by posting links to that content on scraps…not something that the exchanges and investors would like to know. The site BharatStudent is in English and it's for Indians all over the world.

This is how BS describes itself.

Bharatstudent is primarily for young indians living across the globe.
It is ranked among the top 50 sites in india by Alexa.
Youngsters choose to spend much of their time @ BS these days. It has become a favorite hangout place for students and working professionals.
Bharatstudent caters to its users with a huge collection of videos in various regional languages like Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam & Punjabi.
Members can upload their pictures and videos to share with their friends.
Apart from interacting with other members, having fun, watching videos etc., users can plan their career ahead using the information available on BS.
An exclusive section for girls concentrates on motivating & educating them in areas like Beauty, Fashion, Health and Career.

A recent study on Internet habits in India has shown that teenagers spend more time online than anyone else, and over 26% of it is on entertainment while education commands a meagre 2%.The study commissioned by international funding agencies also reveals that online gaming will occupy top slot in the next two years, displacing chatting and emailing, especially amongst boys. "Three years ago, it was youths in the age group of 20-27 who hogged maximum Internet time," says Chirag Unadkat, faculty member at NMIMS and chairman of Internet firm Wesra, which has conducted the study. Times of India 12/05

12/06 India has 1.1 Billion people and the average age of the nation is just 24.9 years. The Indian GDP is growing at 8%+. Internet usage. The number of Internet users in India is estimated at between 45 Million and 50 Million. However due to India's huge population, its Internet Penetration is among the lowest in the world at only 4.5%. What's more, it is estimated that only 10 million of those users are real power users who spend money online "there's a long way to go before a critical mass is reached…" Another challenge is that there are 23 mainstream languages that are spoken in India.

In this article from RWW the top applications aren't social. There is an eBay Clone, several matrimonial sites, Online Travel sites, A Digg clone and news sharing service. India appears to have the largest number of popular web sites. There are several movie rental sites.

Zoho Is an Indian company with an office in Pleasanton. It provides collaborative tools and ways of sharing. One of its functionality is chat.

There are several photo sharing sites — Players in this field are 123Shots, itasveer, Picsquare and Merasnap.

MeraVideo.com and ApnaTube.com are video sharing sites.

RadioVerve Is a music network for Indian artists. It's got a cute little radio interface and arranges the music and blogs in a cohesive manner. It appears to be radio playlists that you can pull into iTunes, etc.

Music India Online Looks like it might play music on demand but you have to play through Real Audio. There are many radio stations and a lot of news, pictures, etc.

2005 Nasscom-McKinsey report states that India could build a $17-billion web-enabled industry by 2008.
Source: I Media Connection / India Opps

Asia (World Internet Stats)
India Stats

CHINA

Overview of China Regulation is a big risk.

China Business Network, PR & Marketing in China

BRAZIL

Internet World Stats / Brazil

Latin American Stats

TOP WEB APPS / BRAZIL

ReadWriteWeb 9.11.06

Video Log - You Tube Clone popular with teenagers

Gazzag - Friends community network. It was launched with all the hype that Orkut created in Brazil. Around 70% of Orkut users are brazilians. Fabio says Gazzag did a great job creating a brazilian version of Orkut, but it didn't attract as many users as Orkut. Why Brazil Loves Orkut. Note: in 2006 Orkut had an alarming number of Al Quaeda Fan Clubs which was covered in USA Today.

Flogão is a photo community based site, just like fotolog.net. Another big player is Vibeflog a photo community site for teenagers.