Technology's Winners & Losers In Thailand
Op-ed from Isriya Paireepairit, Analyst at the Siam Intelligence Unit in the Bangkok Post evaluating technology, the internet and social media in Thailand over 2009.
Few points to make following some of the analysis.
[Filed under technology winners]
Social Media Marketing Thanks to Twitter and @PM - Abhisit and his cabinet, @Thaksinlive, @Suthichai and The Nation focus on hyping up social media, everyone is now aware and social media marketing events are popping up all the time. 2009 was the year of the social media gold rush for the marketing and PR industry. The marketers have just realised the power of social media and believe it to be a magic wand that will reverse the decline in the advertising industry. Next year, reality will hit when they will realise it is not all it was hyped up to be.
I don't see this rush for gold though Twitter and social is beginning to catch on. As it stands, there are too few business making use of Facebook, Twitter et al in Thailand - the hype is likely to occur once business start flocking to the medium next year.
[Filed under technology losers]
A year ago, Hi5 was the social network of Thailand. Then the girls learned of Facebook's quizzes and games. They switched, and the boys followed.
Whilst Hi5 has seen Facebook close the gap it is still important to stress (see here and here) that Hi5 remains Thailand's most popular social network for now.
[Filed under technology losers]
Citizen journalism It was the big thing of 2008 but ultimately it failed to live up to the hype. After a year of blogs and citizen journalism, the Thai media scene is still the same, dominated by only few big papers. I cannot see any local parallels of the Huffington Post or Perez Hilton in this country.
