Photo/Video sharing kills Facebook & grows Twitter

In one of my posts in last October titled  "Facebook "Share" button is going to be the next big thing" I explained how Facebook strategically gave more prominence to Photo&video shares through the timeline view. In a recent post titled "Is engagement higher for Facebook photos?" i proved with stats how this has made sharing of a photo or a video get higher engagement than a text update.

Outcome of this strategy was heavy sharing of images which resulted in the emergence of photo sharing Facebook pages such as "Trust me,Im an Engineer", "Ads of the world", "Kajuwaththa eksath"(Local) , "Loweth ne" (Local) and the culture of edited photo sharing in the form of memes.

This has also made the data consumption higher for Facebook usage and the requirement of certain minimum speeds to access Facebook (Some android phones will need long Facebook app load times). But the most important and a vital result of highlighting photos is the negligence to text based updates.  As given in the post "Is engagement higher for Facebook photos?", Facebook users are three times less likely to respond to a text only update now.

We have passed the era of text status updates of good and bad moments of life and getting dozens of comments from Friends and Family. Now a text status update in Facebook receives very low attention. This outcome is killing Facebook by driving users to microblogging platforms like Twitter where even a text based update can make a lot of impact. Do you think this can kill Facebook? Will Facebook understand the consequences and try to rectify it? Please feel free to comment your opinion below...

Why Yoshitha Rajapakshe on FB SLmemes page is so significant?

Whole Sri Lankan online community was talking about one thing yesterday. President's son and his girl friend commenting on a meme in Sri Lankan Memes Facebook page about them.

The meme was about an astrologist predicting the president that his about to become a grandfather, MR saying his kids dont even have girlfriends & then showing pics of Yoshitha,his girlfriend, some baby. Its a superb meme anyways. (If anyone wants to see the meme,pls comment below i will send the link)

Within few minutes President's sons girlfriend has commented phrasing the meme (in the meme language), followed by Presidnets son himself commenting saying "HILARIOUS". This was a first time that we noticed a highlevel VIP personally commenting on a public forum. Both of them commented in a very light way, showing the PR qualities of the President.

This isn't something that we have seen in Sri Lanka so far. But is a common phenomenon in other matured internet markets like India or even US where celebrities & VIPs comment, tweet like normal people in the communities. I assume one of the reasons why India has a huge followership in Twitter than Sri Lanka is because their celebrities are actively on Twitter. I know certain Sri Lankan girls who have joined twitter,just to follow their bollywood celebrities in India and some of them have even got replies from the likes of Shah Rukh Khan on Twitter (Do you see the pas coming out? #IfYouKnowWhatIMeanMeme)

This kind of celebrity/VIP participation on social networks can lead to increase in community members for Sri Lanka - my point is that after hearing the news

• More people will want to join Facebook and 
• More people will want to be active on this pages to interact with their celebrities
• Will encourage more celebrities/VIPs to come on board social media and interact with their fans

for e.g.Increase in Facebook and specially an increase in Twitter users since celebrities in Twitter are easily reached than in Facebook.  Such an increase would mean better internet atmosphere with much more local content around the web. Will Yoshitha commenting on Facebook meme be the turning point of Sri Lankan celebrities/VIPs in social communities?

Next up : "Cold war between popular Sri Lankan Facebook 'share' pages"

Meme's used in Sri Lankan protests against UNHRC

It's amazing to see how online world influences the physical world since it is expected the other way around. Recently Sri Lankan protestors against UN human rights commission has used  meme's as slogan boards. See below

It says USA - Y U NO TABLE RESOLUTION ON YOURSELF?

I predict pretty soon we see them in Lipton square, In Cricket matches and in every other demonstration in Sri Lanka held for different reasons. 

CB Series : Lessons for Business & Life

Kohli screamed "Im the future of India", Chandimal whispered the same about Sri Lanka (via Cricinfo), Dilshan,Mahela & Australia prevailed - After a long time Sri Lankan cricket fans have something to be happy about even though we screwed the 3rd final. Well - even losing is ok if you learn lessons from it. below are some of the things i take back from Cricket -

Mahela : Leadership is key
See what a drastic change captaincy did to the side. In business it's the same - You need to take out bad leaders and find the best person who can drive results. Good teams can perform under bad leaders is a misconception.


Dilshan : Right man doing the right job
ESPN Cricinfo ‏ @ESPNcricinfo 

Dilshan last ODI series before becoming captain: 500 runs. First series after stepping down: 503 runs. In between: 440 runs in 21 matches

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5:35 PM - 8 Mar 12 via TweetDeck · Details

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Numbers above says it all - If you give wrong responsibilities in business to the wrong, he not only screw new work, But also what he was doing best. Dilshan used to be one of the most lethal openers & see what wrong responsibilities did to him. Glad he's back.


Kohli & Team India : Performing under pressure 

Amitabh Bachchan ‏ @SrBachchan 

T 668 - Virat Kohli, you have played the innings of your life .. back against the wall, pressure of loss and elimination, and you win !!

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7:02 PM - 28 Feb 12 via web · Details

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Some might argue it's productive but i think if India played in the same aggression through out the series they would have even won the cup. In business also - there are guys who perform really well with deadlines but are very unproductive otherwise. I think someone has to be consistent in performance whether there is pressure or not.

Sri Lankan team losing easy matches : Perfectionism
As @amisampath pointed out in a conversation - We lost the first final because we were bowling very lethargically when Australia was batting in the first innings. Same with the 3rd final in which we could have "all out" Australia for 180-190 & scored even 230 easily. The team wasn't just perfecting performance. Same way you need to be perfect when closing jobs assigned in business very importantly sales.

Feel free to share your thoughts... 

Tweet In Sinhala Day - Best days of Twitter in Sri Lanka

It was one of the most memorable days of Twitter in Sri Lanka - where a bunch of people agreed to tweet mostly in Sinhala - Bringing lots of fun & entertainment to the community.

One day morning @kattasambal tweeted the idea and i replied. We told few people but couldn't get it off the ground. One December Pravin&his better half was making love in Twitter in Sinhala - Umesh replied to them in anger which resulted in declaration of Today - 6th Jan 2011 as the #TweetInSinhalaDay hopefully #TweetInSinhalaDay 1.0. Below is the chief organizing whip - Umesh answering @InduNan s question about how it all started -

It's good to see how a bunch of young guys want to carry our unique culture & language forward. Thanks to everyone, specially Umesh,Pravin&his better half and Katta for the good work.

Below are some of the memorable tweets to enjoy & to archive, Otherwise they will be erased automatically. (I'm afraid to mention your names&handles - If you are ok with it, comment below and i will update the post - Also if you want your handle/tweets taken off i will instantly - Just tell me).

#ThatAwkwardMoment =  #එමචාටර්මොහොත 

We finally came up with the Sinhala equivalent for hash tag #ThatAwkwardMoment = #එමචාටර්මොහොත 

E.g.

සෝස් බෝතල් දෙකම කල් ඉකුත් වී ඇති බව දැනගන්නා #එමචාටර්මොහොත 

Here's how we arrived at the hash tag.

Hide conversation

Fulton89: #awkwardmoment එකට මොකක්ද කියන්නේ බන් @Binku @nnulk10:11am, Jan 06 from Web

Binku: @Fulton89 # කැරිසීන්එක#චාටර්මොහොත @nnulk10:12am, Jan 06 from Web

Fulton89

10:17am via Web

@Binku hhahahha #චාටෙර්මොහොත hodaie ne @nnulk

#AluthRuwanWeki
This hashtag is for the modern Sinhala proverbs. Following is something i came up with, after seeing Fulton failing downloading wrong Torrent for like 4 times

• බාන්න පෙර රිවීව් බලනු 
• එක ඇන්ග්රි බර්ඩ්ගෙන් ඌරෝ දෙන්නය්
• ඇන්ග්රි බර්ඩ්ට මල පැන්නා වගේ..

#OddSinhalaTranslation

These is a historical trend we had longtime back - To translate English terms (Literally) to Sinhala. One of the most funniest hash tags in Sri Lanka ever. Check out some of the tweets we got today (Most from @Praveenie)

• ජෛව සටහන = Bio on your twitter profile
• සීමිත සංස්කරණය = Limited Edition,
• තොපෙ අම්මව හදි ගැහිච්චි හැටි = How I met your mother
• රීරි පිසාචයාගේ දිනපොත් = Vampire Diaries

Few other good ones

• Girls වනාහී 70 දශකයේ මෙරටට ගෙනා කලුසුදු TV වැනිය.. කොයි වෙලෙත් සෝ සෝ ගායි..
• මල් ඔතනෝ.. අපි මල් ඔතනෝ.. වට පිට බල බල මල් ඔතනෝ..
• දොඩම් ගෙඩියක් රුපියල් දහයය් නම් දොඩම් ගෙඩි පහක් ගත්තම කීයද..?
• රා.සේ.පි. = රා බොන සේරම පිරිමි

Tweep below is begging Justin Beiber to give a Retweet (Amplify) his tweet so #TweetinSinhalaDay will trend worldwide - Hilarious!

Poorna1989 ♛ Poorna Chathura☜☆☞

RT Plz @justinbieber බීබරයෝ රීටීට්ටුවක් දියන් මයෙ අම්මා...,චූටි කුක්කු පැටියා,උබ සුදු කොල්ලනෙ. #TweetInSinhalaDay

Please feel free to comment below with some other good #TweetInSinhalaDay tweets .

Best places to buy Christmas deco in Colombo - Sri Lanka

I know im sounding crazy - But this is really helpful for someone looking for this kind of stupid things online. You may argue that you can buy stuff from Keells or Cargills - But believe me, you can't even compare the cheap prices of this kinda places.

Below is the map to the street full of deco during the Christmas season in Sri Lanka

Following are a list of things you can buy here

From China Street

• Christmas Tree (The one that comes small but can be erected - Stop you dirty mind!)
• Christmas swags - That you put in staircases
• Bells, Balls and other small things you hang ( එල්ලෙන සියල්ල පොලවට ලම්බක වේ :-P )
• Santa hats
• LED bulbs to put on the tree - Multi-colour and single colour ones

From Bankshall street

• Flowers - They call it some weird name (Will find out and update)

Below is an interactive google map to the place so you can even get directions from known land marks - 

View Larger Map

A big thank you to those who went before me and directed me to this awesome shops. (Not sure whether they like to be mentioned - If you like pls grant your permission xD)