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"

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... 

What is RETWEET in Twitter? Best use of RT explained

Thought of writing this after seeing the pathetic situations in Twitter-sphere where newbies disgrace themselves by doing whats not right.

Here is the explanation...

There are two groups of people for you on Twitter

1. Following
People who you follow

2. Followers
People who follow you

What you see in your timeline are from "following" - The people you follow on Twitter. In Retweeting what you are going to do is to post a tweet from your 1. Following to 2. Followers.

In Facebook language (You cannot compare- But since you are more familiar with Facebook)
It is same like copying one of your friends Facebook status (Some call it stealing) and putting it as your status.

What to Retweet?
You should retweet what you want to tell your friends. Its usually interesting tweets, quotes and announcements.

What not to Retweet?
You shouldnt retweet what you find interesting but will not be suitable for your followers.
For e.g. Your friend says she is sick (Its like LIKING a facebook status of a friend getting sick) - You dont RT that. But if Lady Gaga says she is sick - its ok to RT and tell your followers that Gaga is sick. (its like telling people that you know about your celebrities.)

Common mistakes in RTing
When RTing sometimes space becomes a constraint since RT @originalTweep takes extra space. When trying to clear out space sometimes you remove the space between RT & @Twitterhandle. For e.g.

Wrong - RT@ciminfo: How do you identify who your high performers are in sales and marketing? http://goo.gl/7U33r [PDF] #CIMtoolkit 

Correct - RT @ciminfo: How do you identify who your high performers are in sales and marketing? http://goo.gl/7U33r [PDF] #CIMtoolkit

How to make your content RTed more, and the magic RT number is coming up - Follow the blog to find out!

Please feel free to comment with what you feel about how your followers use RT good and in bad ways....

෴ට්විටරය හැඳින්නෙමි෴ Twitter explained in Sinhala [Guest Post]

-නදීර අයියාගේ ඉල්ලීම පරිදි උපන් සිංහලෙන් දන්නා පරිදි ට්විටරය ගැන කොටමි-

ට්විටරය, සමාජ ජාලයකි. නෑ, මෙය සිරාම සමාජ ජාලයකි, කොල්ලො, කෙල්ලො, බල්ලො එකට ලැගුම් ගන්නා, කරන කියන හැම මඟුලම ලියා ආදරයෙන් වෙසෙන තැනකි. කොටින්ම, බොරු සෝබන නැත, ඇඩ් නැත, ගේම් නැත, උඩ බලාගෙන බොරු කෙටීමට චැට් නැත... හැමෝම තමන්ගෙ අදහස්, හැඟීම් අකුරු 140කට කැටි කොට අපූරුවට ලියයි.

කියන්නේ දැනගෙනය, ටක්කෙටම සහතිකය. බුකියේද කරක් ගසා නට්ටන් වී සිටි මට ට්විටරය හිතට වැදුනේය. ඉන්නේ ඇත්ත මිනිස්සුය, ඇත්ත අදහස්ය. කැමැති අකැමැති දේ පොදුවේ සාකච්ඡා වේ. හෑශ් ටැගියක්(#) ආධාරයෙන් මාතෘකාව සඳහන් කොට කියන්නට ඇවැසි දෑ බොක්කෙන්ම කියයි. @ සබැඳියක් මගින් ඔබේ යහලුවෙක් ට්වීටයක හඳහන් කල හැකිය.

බ්ලොගියක් ලියන්නෙක්නම් ට්විටරය සිරාම පොට් එකකි. බුකියේ අපි දමන ලින්ක් බලන්නේ අවාරෙට වගේය. නැත්තන් උන් ලින්කුවට ලැයුකුවක් කොටා ශේප් වී යයි. ට්විටරයේ එසේ නැත. බ්ලොගකරුවන් පිරී ඇති මෙහි ඔබේ බ්ලොගයටත් හොඳ තැනක් ලැබේ යැයි මට සහතිකේටම මෙව්වා විය හැක. එමෙන්ම ඔබේ බ්ලොගයට සමාන මාතෘකාවලින් බ්ලොග ලියන්නන් සොයා ගැනීමටත්, එම ක්ශේත්‍රවල පළපුරුදුකම් ඇති වෘතීය මට්ටමේ පුද්ගලයන් සමගද හොඳින් කථා කොට උපදෙස් ලබා ගත හැක.

මේ අතරම මෙහි ඉන්නා උන් සමඟ සෙට්වී ෆුල් මැටි ආතල් ගත හැක. ලියනා ට්වීට කියවීමට ආසය. සිරා යහලුවන් ඇතිකර ගත හැකිය. ඔපේට තැන දෙන බුකියට වඩා ඇත්ත මනුස්පයාට තැනදුන් ට්විටරය බොක්කෙන්ම සිරාය. ඔබේ ජීවිතයට ඇනයකට වඩා නියම විනෝදාස්වාදයක් හා දැනුම රැගෙන එන තැනක්ය.

මෙය කියවන ඔබට ට්විටර ගිණුමක් නැත්තන් අදම සාදා ගන්න. අපිත් එක්ක කදේ දාන්න එකතු වෙන්න.

ලියූ මගේ ට්විටර ගිණුම - @nHiRanZ නිමිල හිරණ්‍ය සමරසිංහ
Follow @nHiRanZ

මගේ බ්ලොගිය - www.sidhdiya.blogspot.com

එහෙනම් මම ගියා. නදීර අයියේ, ඔබට ජය!

Google vs Twitter : What really happened

Writing this after seeing lots of confusion over what all the debate is about and my good friend @chamindraH asking me to explain what's really going on. Making things super simple

What is Google?
Lame - but i personally know people who do not have an idea of whats going on. Google is the world's mostly used search engine (Where people go to find a web site based on a key word). Simply its like a library index catalogue if books in the library were web sites.

What is Twitter?
Is the 2nd largest social network after Facebook - But clearly different from Facebook since Twitter allows only text less than 140 characters per post. I have a full post introducing twitter. Click here

Recently Google announced they will integrate social (Google +) in to search results. And Twitter openly criticized Google for doing this. Here how it all started.

1. Google adds "Real Time" search -  2009 December
This was another Google results option like Images, Videos, News & Discussions. Real Time showed the Tweets talking about what you searched "real time" - then and there.

This was done after signing for a contract with twitter somewhere in 2009 October.

2. Twitter don't update the contract - July 2011 
I think for their ego - Twitter doesn't update the contract. I think the reason was that Twitter wanted users to come to Twitter and search instead of searching in Google.

3. Google takes down real time search results - July 2011 
Obvious - You can't keep something without a contract. So they take it down.

4. Google announces social results (Similar to real time) - Jan 2012
Social results are results shown from shares by your friends (in Google plus). For e.g. If you searched for "learning network analysis" you are shown results which your Google + friends have shared as given below.

5. Twitter slams google - Jan 2012
This week Twitter slammed Google saying they are going to spam search results with shared links.

My Opinion
What Twitter saying may be true. But they are just crying over spilled milk. If Google results are bad it will be an opportunity for Bing and Yahoo. What Twitter should try to do is to reactivate the Real time with Bing or Yahoo.

Whats your opinion? Feel free to comment below...

Benefits of joining Twitter in Sri Lanka

This is an article for those not in Twitter & Twitter newbies in the run up to the #TweetInSinhalaDay - A day dedicated to using Twitter mostly(if not only) in Sinhala on 6th Jan 2012.

Twitter is the second largest social network in the world only second to Facebook. You cannot compare the two because the purpose is different. While Facebook is like your public diary which can be seen only by friends and family, Twitter is like a public noticeboard.

Twitter is becoming a totally happening place recently (Last month) - jumping from 100+ to 13th most visited site in Sri lanka

Benefits of Being in Twitter in Sri Lanka

• Networking -You can get to know lots of people from diverse backgrounds in Twitter and their opinion. There's no better place to communicate with your favourite brand, politician also. Sometimes the networks built comes really handy.

• Information - you can get to know lots of stuff abt brands and trends thru twitter. Right now im doing a study on banks in Sri Lanka on twitter and super experiences ppl share.

• News - Get to know things first, By news accounts and Twitter trends - indicate a world wide trend - For e.g. Kim Jong Il was trending one monday mng - and we got to know he has died

• Friends - I have lots of friends all parts of Sri Lanka because of Twitter - we even hang out sometimes.

• Communicate & win promos from brands - Many brands use Twitter as a customer service tool, so you can directly ask your mobile service or the favourite eating place all your inquiries & get replies. Wait - Didn't i tell you about Tin Tin tickets from Elephant House, Rs.1000 voucher & T shirt from Perera&Sons? Even the Anythinglk xmas wish laptop I made after getting to know the promo in Twitter. There are so many promos to happen - Don't feel left out...

• Entertainment - Once I blogged about how @Lishanw comes to Twitter only during Cricket matches because of really entertaining Cricket tweets. Also check out the SInhala tweets which has lots of modern literature in it, you can enjoy like reading a book. 

What is Twitter?
Its like public SMS. Say what's happening (Some ppl say everything what they are doing - it kills privacy and sounds junk) But tweet abt brands, tweet abt business, tweet quotes

Watch this Youtube video -


How to start an account?
On web get on www.twitter.com and open an account

How to use twitter?
Twitter is like SMS - 90% time you tweet while on the move, you can use SMS or the Mobile Twitter apps (Android, iPhone or even Blackberry - Many ppl use it) - Go to your app store and install it.

How to get used to it?
Follow abt 100 ppl and (brands you know). For about one month - it will be really boring. But keep reading others tweets, reply ,get in to conversations.

In about 1 month you will be pretty comfortable with people - Then its easy.

How to become a pro?
Keep tweeting regularly, share links, influence others by engaging in conversations.

Good luck - Tell me when you have opened an account. And Tweeps - Please comment below with other benefits and tips.

Twitter in Sri Lanka : Sudden increase in traffic

Twitter is becoming a totally happening place recently (Last month) - jumping (from 50+ something? - If you have any historical stats let me know) to 13th most visited sites in Sri Lanka according to Alexa.  See below

Read the full list here http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries;0/LK

Most important is what this surge in traffic might mean. Following are my thoughts on this,

Possible causes for the increase (Other than broadband internet penetration - which is natural) One i think the increase in smartphone sales has a high correlation with the increase of twitter use in Sri Lanka. There's a very high penetration of smartphones specially in the Sri Lankan youth segment. All this low cost smartphones comes with Twitter apps and buttons so the users automatically happens use them though they naturally didn't have much interest. 

Now lets look at the Possible implications. First of them will be more brands getting on to twitter. Following is a recap of the current situation of brands on Twitter.

• Last year it was only few like Dialog, Cocovarenda (Coffee shop in Ward place) and Perera and Sons active in Twitter
• Now most media  are here (News papers like Daily Mirror,TV like News first, ITN, Radios like Kiss, LiteFm, Efm) 
• Most food businesses like Cafe Pascussi, Keells Super are actively in twitter
• Many fashion chains like Odel, Nolimit and Fashion bug are in Twitter
• All mobile operators are here - Mobitel, Hutch, Etisalat and Airtel.
• Other brands like Elephant house, Perera and Sons, keells Super jumped on Twitter last month
• Dialog - Became the first ever Sri lankan brand to get verified (official twitter of a brand or a celebrity)

To follow all brands check out the list by @amisampath 

Second will be more politicians in Twitter. During the Colombo MC elections we saw @milindamoragoda doing well in Twitter. Right now we have @karuonline, General Fonseka and @sajithpremadasa active on Twitter. This numbers will drastically increase when they get to know that power is with people on social media.

Third is still anticipated - Celebrities getting on to Twitter. I haven't still heard of popular celebrities other than Ranidu and business personalities like Otara but looking at the global scene it is highly likely Sri Lankan celebrities like artists using Twitter well. 

Feel free to comment with your ideas about the causes and effects of Twitter traffic rise for Twitter in Sri Lanka. Few months down the line we can see how it all went.