Lately I've met a lot of people where they have taken "a stance" that Apple is a bad product? Perhaps its because lately their release hasn't been seen as "a jump out of the normal curve".

I am assuming a lot of people are just passing comments on the recent mobile and tablet development, below are what I have gathered from reading news.

Let's put another perspective, ask this question to ourselves "do we know what we want" - before these we have always only complained on imperfect products, yet we do not create any change (for example I use to own Sony's MD disk that was suppose to reinvent the music industry and the next evolution of Walkman, but today Sony's MD is dead why - expensive, limited distribution and bad software, plus they always release slightly better version within less than 6 months which makes it annoying).

This brings up to a second aspect - "do we only complaint or do we do something about it?" Did we do anything to influence the creation of the products and make it better, did we create anything? The answer is - we do not know what we want, we only see what we want.

If you've read the news lately:

• RIM or BlackBerry 'used' to be the leading edge on mobile email for Enterprise solution since it claims to be the best and the most secure. If you break the phone down there was not much just a small screen, plastic and tiny keyboard. The phone itself was not good to look at all and back then there was no apps. Today it is sinking fast, very fast and if it doesn't catch up to what market wants it might never recover.
• Nokia, was once the king of mobile phones. This is an example of company that would release over a dozens products or more within months of each other. It was insane that you do not know what you want and each products carries it own weaknesses. Worse of all, no software update back in those days. Today it is also probably sinking and have to join hand with Windows to tap on the software platform, a change of strategy from the original direction that they will develop their own mobile OS.
• Sony Ericsson another one that has to change strategy, actually I have always like Sony Ericsson I had 2 of their phones and each last about 1-2 years. But it was lagging behind in terms of apps, software update and its a bit clunky in terms of usage, too many buttons and just complex. It does have a great camera though, thanks to Sony's tech. Today, Sony is buying the mobile rights from Ericsson and is preparing to go its separate way. Be interesting to see what they will come up with.
• Google's Android was meant to attack the remaining open market that is not buying Apple, but the nightmare for developers they have to create over 1,000 at least to accommodate different mobile platforms and hardware (plus no guarantee it will work), the risk of open source and hacking and finally the complaint they have to handle directly from the users can be really bad.
• Apple has came up with innovations for the last 30+ years with 3 major innovations, so it takes about 1 breakthrough innovation every 10 years - personal computer, iPod and iPhone. In between of course they work on improving the products slightly, but adding that little things that make product differentiation. But I do like how they keep the pricing the same, although that means the stuff you bought last year is available at a cheaper price now. (But hey what business doens't do that? Cars? Hotels? FMCG)
• Windows - the big brothers was the leading edge, the Google of the computing, but started "from somewhere". They were the first to comment iPhone 1 will not fly and that it's too expensive. Commented MacBook Air to be not so interesting because it doesn't have a DVD drive. They themselves have tried creating a mobile platform and tablet product for years, yet never made a breakthrough. Today they have to re-look at the competition and a photocopy machine.

You can stop a product from creating slightly better version, whether it is version 1.0 to 1.1 or 1.2 and so on. Companies will always create slightly better version or better than the original to continue on experimenting and then innovate a completely new range of product. Afterall we are living in a life cycle of economy unfortunately, we do not work yet on principle of "work to better ourselves". Monetary is still main drive, sadly. Hence it does hinder us from being better, for us and humanity. It is a cycle that needs to be broken one day, sooner or later if we ever want to get better. And that change will be painful for all of us, but for the short taste of bitter comes sweet after it.

I also like to bring these three examples I've got from Guy Kawasaki recent keynotes:

• "This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us" Western Union internal memo - 1876.
• "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM - 1943.
• "There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home" Ken Olsen Founder of DEC (Digital Equipment Corp - one of the early computer makers) - 1977.

Now, imagine if we all have listened to the comments above, what would our home, our work and our life would become? Imagine if all the great inventors listen to the above, what would the outcome be?

DISCLAIMER yes I am a big Apple fans and have been using their product since 2002 and have not ever since.

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Apple has released their iPhoto app from the iLife collection for both “new” iPad and iPhone (although I believe this version works better for iPhone 4 and 4S only).

Overall on the iPhone it is a good tool for light editing, but if you drill down into the edit tools you get a bit confused as there is no label or anything and most of the tools buttons are pretty small as it lacks the space it has like on the iPad. But this iPhoto works brilliantly on the iPad, you have that amount of space to look at your photos in details and the tools are super blown size. 

I do believe this app is a response to Windows Phone campaign launched couple weeks ago, where it shows that uploading photo on the new Windows-Nokia phone is much faster than the iPhone (although it wasn’t a fair competition between a person that knows how to operate the phone and giving the iPhone to someone that doesn’t know how to use it). This iPhoto will put a shame to Windows phone campaign, as this app can upload all of your photos or new album to Facebook, Twitter and Flickr in an instant.

iPhoto for iPad and iPhone is available at the iTunes store at USD4.99 - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iphoto/id497786065?mt=8 

Check-out several of the reviews:

http://mashable.com/2012/03/07/iphoto-for-iphone-and-ipad/

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What I like:

• Nice cover photo, its definitely eye catching and its up to you to play it to capture fans attention. UPDATE: This is definitely a down side, there is a strict policy on what you can display on the cover photo and definitely "no call to actions, no invitation to like page, no arrow, no thumb, no specials, no promotions and I think no contact details" I think I pretty much got all of it down.
• The direct PM for fans to message brand/company, in the past you have to communicate as the admin. But this can only be initiated from fans, not from company.
• The flexibility of bringing up important contents or pin it to the top and expanding the profile to fit the wall so its eye catching.
• Milestone post that you can use to highlight important events or points for your company, which can include dates, photo and story.
• You can use bigger photo or thumbnail to highlight your app.
• Larger stories and photos when you post on wall/timeline.
• Content from your fans will be screened and it will not be automatically posted, which is good to keep away those spammers.(UPDATE: you need to change the settings on your page edit to ensure you have ticked the box, otherwise content will still appear by default).
• Better multimedia options and better size too, definitely a lot bigger in everything.
• Highlighting more on how many of your friends like that particular page as well.
• A view on the top right section of timeline on what your friends have said about that particular brand/company page.
• Sort post contents by time, fans, you or friend's activity.
• No changes in insights, as Facebook has just updated this last year.
• UPDATE: you can see the new like or who is your new fans, which is great.

What I don't like:

• You cannot set tabs or apps as the default landing page anymore, so this will affect your fans growth. You just have to be creative on using the cover image.
• The apps are now re-organized to the top, just below cover photo. This means fans will not see them once they scroll down although they can still access it.
• You can only highlight 3 apps that you want to promote, you can't move the photo app it will remain there.
• Maximum of 12 apps, although anyone that has more than 5 can get confusing I guess.
• Some people are still getting used to timeline in general, the content that is posted on left and right with timeline can get distracting sometimes.
• The notifications on your page activity has now moved to admin panel, but I haven't used it long enough to discover whether it is annoying or like. (UPDATE: I don't like it, as now instead of just getting a quick glimpse and the capability of dismissing it is not there anymore. You will have to click into that particular activity to get rid of the notification).

In between:

• App size has changed from 520 pixel to 810 pixel, so you may need to set some funds and time to update your apps to take advantage of the new size.
• It looks like that you will be able to request to change your company page name, however not sure how fast the process will be. In the past normally you can change your page name when it's below 100 fans.
• Protect your page, you can now submit documents, contacts, etc for verification that you really represents your company for Facebook page.
• The ads are also modified now based on the new Page features and concentrating on sponsored stories. You will now see more of the sponsored ads everywhere.
• UPDATE: the admin panel gives you a quick glimpse of insight, although the graph is a bit small. But gives you a quick look and also link to the full Facebook insights.
• UPDATE: Facebook will be providing a premium ad service for companies or account that spends at minimum USD25k a month, this will include a premium ad placement or a better ad placement, including sponsored stories appearance "naturally" on your main wall, as well as the mobile and you will just see it as a regular Facebook post with tiny word as "sponsored". (No doubts this is to build up the revenue in preparation of Facebook going IPO)

Here are several articles that should help you to navigate the Facebook pages transition:

• http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2012/02/29/facebook-introduces-premium-a-marke...
• https://freshbuzzmedia.com/2012/02/timeline-for-facebook-pages-arrives-here-a...
• http://www.shortstack.com/2012/02/the-times-they-are-a-changin-timeline-and-t...
• https://www.facebook.com/about/pages
• http://www.learnfacebookpages.com
• http://www.dreamgrow.com/how-to-prepare-for-facebook-timeline-for-brand-pages...
• http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/424-what-do-the-new-facebook-changes-mean-fo...
• http://mashable.com/2012/03/01/facebook-timeline-brands-guide/?_inv_out=1256&...
• http://smartblogs.com/social-media/social-networks/2012/03/01/how-to-cope-wit...
• http://app.en25.com/e/es.aspx?s=1801&e=47744&elq=29049589b4d34131a49f...
• http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/new-facebook-pages-this-week-in-social-media/
• http://socialmediatoday.com/pammoore/476234/15-must-know-tips-rock-your-new-f...
• http://www.techjournal.org/2012/03/facebook-timeline-fan-page-tutorial-infogr...
• http://socialmediatoday.com/george-guildford/460521/facebook-timeline-brands-...
• http://www.envano.com/blog/2012/03/top-ten-changes-for-brands-on-facebook-tim...
• http://www.v3im.com/2012/03/facebook-commerce-success-stories-and-the-impact-...
• http://www.ressacmedia.com/en/news/2012-03-01/facebook-timeline-5-strategies-...

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There's been a constant debate about how email marketing should go, it was the next evolution from direct mailer. The fact that email takes about 30-40% of online activity, means it will not go away soon. But with today's social media being another channel of communications, means it could evolve the way we interact.

I believe email marketer should combine both email marketing with social media power, they could proof to be even more effective. If you combine the impression of your email database with social media - such as Twitter and Facebook, you'll gain more impression which is more powerful. Such as below:

But before you jump into combining your email marketing with social media, I believe you need to cover the basic:

• Are you still using one single image as the base of your email marketing? This approach is still being used until today, however it increase the chance of being spammed or sending the email into junk. The best way is to keep between 30% image and combination of text to reduce the spam rate probability, a lot of the email marketing system these days will carry a test tool to show what it takes to deliver your email marketing.
• Time, re-look into your industry and when would be the best time for your readers to open your email.
  
  
• Tracking link, if you are selling something, better track it.
• Data integration, best to have your email marketing data sync to your sales or other CRM system to ensure it is two-way flow. This will avoid any duplicates and ensuring all info is updated.
• Segmentation, don't generalize your customers, each will be interested in one thing only and you should focus on that.
• Less is more, never try to deliver more than 3 things or best to be simple.
• Ensure you have something to deliver, plan your email marketing delivery in advance and how you can superceed or follow-up from that.
• Clean list, try to gather a double opt-in data at all times. It is a way to ensure that your customer are interested in you and have given you permission for you to send information.
• Optimize, optimize and optimize - there are always items to improve, your subject line, layout, conduct A/B testing to try and obtain which is the best way of delivery.
• Growth, ensure your database grows constantly. The more "qualified" audience the better and ensure they are interacting with you.
• Select your provider, there are many good ones out there:
  • MailChimp has to be on top of my list and I've used them for over a year. It's affordable and has rich third party integration which is useful.
  • Campaign Monitor also has good features on social media, although not much on third party integration.
  • Constant Contact, is also a good one in the market.

Here's some reference material to jump start your email marketing:

an_introduction_to_email_marketing_final.pdf Download this file

Field_Guide_CrossChannelMrktg_WEB.pdf Download this file

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I've been waiting for this moment for some time, let me start by saying "Marketing creativity has to be met by Technology Platform". You need the mean to deliver your ideas and how you gauge whether it is working or not.

Marketing is about creating demand that most probably there or not there, or shift market share. By any means necessary, there are lots of way to get there, traditional or modern. The means for this 21st Century has certainly became a bit more fruitful, whereas in the past has been dominated majority by print advertising, public relations and perhaps direct mail/newsletter. Today you have a lot more options (which is helpful and also drives the price to be more competitive or less monopolized), it helps us marketers to re-evaluate our core business objective and what perceived value we want to deliver.

Recently, I had a tiny success in setting up the company's Facebook page (seeing that a year ago they were not confident on this area). I took a different approach and try to avoid generalization of audience, instead I segment it. Instead of one general company Facebook page, we setup four Facebook page (one had already existed, but we revamped and relaunched it). As you can imagine this means the content will need to be drawn up on four approach instead of one and that can take a lot of time, as well as resources to prepare it.

Campaign Asia covers a bit on my work:

There are many approach on building a fan base, I set an objective of integrity and that means no inside employees are encourage to join the page. As we really want to build an organic community and our future customers. And so the conversation begins, we try to  ride on as much as we can through our fan base friends and that was painstaking at the beginning as the number growth can be really slow, our first page took about 3-6 months to grow to where it is today. But once it does, the rest comes through and the growth skyrocketed. But... fan base/numbers are of course nice, but we focus on the engagement quality.

We combine multiple tools such as HootSuite, Facebook Insights and Facebook EdgeRank to determine how we were doing. I think any Facebook marketers would agree that driving Fans engagement can be challenging, there are many factors to consider:

• Time decay - the post could decay over long period of time, hence sometimes its a good idea to recycle your message.
• Volume - your fans are naturally on Facebook everyday and they can't just be fixated on you, so you need to consider where and when the page post should appear.
• Engagement - most people typically just watch and they don't really engage, hence why you need to encourage them like "click like" or "don't forget to share this", etc as a call-to-action as that is what Facebook Insights and Edge Rank measures.
• Is your post interesting - don't be lazy and take off a flier and just post it on Facebook (unless it is really interesting), but try to create something more customized for your fans. Consider picture as number one, video only when you got something really interesting.

Below you can see the average stats of Facebook post that attracts your fans:

Below as a sample, a content that rides on an event would tend to receive a lot of LIKES and SHARES as well, which is really nice.

But even then, the global average of engagement is pretty low, so don't get disappointed, just keep working on it and it'll come:

It's a community, let them speak up. Having said that, I do police my Facebook pages and set a very strong profanity block list as there are many spammers these days that tries to ride on your traffic. You don't want that to happen as it can annoy your fans. Below is a sample:

End, let me close by saying what I believe for social media consists of two things - engagement as king and conversion as queen, if you can't convert in short or long run then it's effort wasted.

One more thing... don't forget to have fun, work wouldn't be interesting without fun.

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Anyone can start a Facebook page, the question remains on how do you grow them. The most common steps any company would take is to send out their company fan page to the internal team, asking their immediate friends and family to like them. This often followed by a boasting press release of reaching an X amount of fans on the page, but...

Does this help the company at all, getting your friends to like your page or even your content maybe great on the surface, but defeats the purpose of truly reaching out and creating a set of direct conversation with your audience.

After a long time experimenting on Facebook (and still am until today), I've discovered some of the following that might help your fan page:

• Leverage the power of Facebook advertising, but don't take on an approach of traditional advertising.
• Running contest and giving away free items maybe great, but how to convert them into your customers.
• Take your online effort, to an offline effort (e.g. a flashmob to introduce your new Facebook page, a door stopper campaign, etc).
• I found ShortStack to be the best and affordable tool to create and manage the content via the easily editable CMS. It is also one of the platform that has rich integration with third party systems. They have ready made template, but I recommend setting aside a budget to get it designed properly.

More notes on how to use Facebook advertising (first I think its a different approach on what you call advertising on Facebook):

• I found conversion for acquiring fans are traditionally low or slow sometimes, but the figures is between 5-10% or could be more depending on what you are offering.
• Leverage on the power of your existing fans (when I say this, this only works when you have organic fans).
• It doesn't work like Google Ads, there are no keywords. Instead its interest, gender, age, language, etc (having said this always take into account that no one will ever complete their full interest or what they like on Facebook, the most basic or common targeting you can use are - age, gender and location).
• Start with a small budget, I normally start with USD50-100 a day.
• Always conduct A/B testing on your ads, find out which one works best and then roll out with that one on a bigger budget/scale.
• If you are intending to lead the ad outside of Facebook, make sure you have a well designed landing page with capture form or conversion point (but take note normally it will be a one time visit only and the conversion is even lower once they've left Facebook environment).
• The best Facebook ads that works are to direct them to your own Facebook page, it can be a post story, promoting an event to capture RSVP, sponsored stories, etc.
• Before you start the ad however, make sure you have designed a proper landing page. It should be no less than fan gating, introducing who or what you are, what's your product or service and why they should like you. Try to provide fans reward and best not be a cheapskeat, as they are your fans after all.
• There is a good reason why you need a landing page, imagine your new fans landing on your wall, where the conversation has happened. You can see why they can get confused.
• The chance of your fans unliking your page after they became a fan is less than 1%, so no worries there.
• Focus on engaging ads, something that will draw their attention from the wall for a split second. Maximize and design a great image that demands attention.
• Got a special announcement or story to tell, use Facebook ad to spread the words to the people or audience that matters to you.
• Rotate your ads as much as possible and localize.
• "Great artists steal" go to Facebook Ad Board for some inspiration - https://www.facebook.com/ads/adboard/
• The minimum threshold for your targeting should not drop below 20,000 otherwise it will not go anywhere.
• Always go for CPC model, even when there is no click your ads will keep on appearing until the end of your campaign.

Final note, keep on experimenting :)

I will try to keep on updating the ads and share how it works out.

Update - 30 January 2012: updated an ad sample of sponsored ad by Ritz-Carlton.

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I still remember it was around 98, when Nokia was the cool phone, the one you need to have. It was (if I'm not mistaken) the first to go without antenna and came out with sleek plastic color designs that can be customized. It used to be a great product, a great phone that everyone loves. I think these days it may need to focus on low to middle market as "how the mighty have fallen". After years of success, in fact I think they are retracing the Apple path right before 1997.

Their product line has become very confusing, they keep on rolling different models and sub-series for each line. And they only have minor details upgrade or some extra features. Their UI is also not as good or has become more confusing, it used to be really simple. Then there is pre-Windows phone version where they try to come up with "their own" UI but really just copy Apple. The result was not impressive at all, the scroll was just way to weird and no smoothness in transition at all. It just became middle of the road product.

Then came in the desperate partnership between Nokia and Microsoft to launch their latest smartphone. The UI is better, but its not Nokia's and have stray even further from where they use to be. Whether Nokia-Windows phone will take off, not sure. They still have a lot of groundwork to do and far from Apple or Android.

Anyway, I was picking up a phone for my mum and I noticed several things when I was doing research on which product to get her. Nokia website has just undergo renovation and... it copied Apple layout? It became a lot simpler, with all the navigation bar on the top, search bar on the right, big photos and 3 main sub-promo... it all just look too familiar and did a comparison and yup it is the same.

Next (and I'm still an iPhone user by the way, is just that my mum operates simple phone) I decided to pick-up a Nokia Asha 300 at their official retail stores which is couple days ago. Service and experience was just not great, there was no salesmanship, no excitement about technology and enquiring what type of phone am I looking. Instead I was just left alone until I picked a phone and still no part of it convinced me, I had to go around to several other phone store and decided to came back and convince myself. Worse, its holiday season, no gift wrap, no holiday specials. No wonder the company is in trouble, its not inventing anything anymore, its just contempt going in circles.

And that's why Nokia's stock market has slumped from their highest of 39.71 (Nov 2007) to today's 4.95, that's a whooping fall down. Pity, for a company that used to be leading the phone industry.

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Well after months of waiting iPhone 4S has finally arrived in Kuala Lumpur today, so I went to check it out today at the first outlet available. Currently you can only pick it up at Maxis KLCC, I think (and I only am guessing) they have reserved iPhone 4S for people that has pre-registered at their website weeks ago.

I have to say, I was expecting a bit more excitement (something like a long queue line), but there was only a handful of people and I don't think they even displayed the 4S as a demo, only iPhone 4 was displayed. So I didn't get the chance to chat with Siri.

Anyway the package is quite pricey if you add up the whole thing and it is kinda of complicated...

First the contract you need to get is here.

Second, if you walk out of the contract minimum of 12 months you'll have to pay for the rest... ouch.

Last, the plan will evaluate if you are current Maxis customer and instead of just say adding a bit more months on top of your current contract, they increase on top of it... so double ouch (say you have committed a year previously and you have used for 8 months, the new iValue plan will add another 12 months on top of it, instead of just releasing it to you with just additional 4 more months.

Anyway I did a bit of calculations and I think you'll agree with me... if you are non Malay resident.

Say we'll take the iValue 1 at RM100, 12 months. Choosing iPhone 4S 16GB.

So it will be RM500 (RM100 x 5 months) + RM1,750 = RM2,250. But you'll need to stick with the whole 12 months, you can upgrade. So say 12 months plus the iPhone 4S you will be paying RM2,950. And if you walk away from the contract you have to pay the remaining of the months... so ouch if you plan to leave Kuala Lumpur/Malaysia in the next 12 months.

Best bet is to get the unlocked version straight from Apple, check it out here. If you do the math you will end up with RM2,076 (based on exchange rate USD1=RM3.2) no contract and as iPhone is a global phone you can take it anywhere and get a local micro-sim card. Which you can also just pay RM25 to get your sim card switched here or you can take the risk of cutting it. As I am using 2 Maxis plan and I have to say that I am paying varying between 50-150 top per month and its rarely I hit 150. So better to save up that cash and use it somewhere else.

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You can read the details of their IPO offering here.

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My apology for not updating the blog for some time, my current project takes up my time than I liked.

For the past 3 months, I've observed the rise of Group Buying deal in Malaysia and it is quite amazing, I believe by now there are at least more than 100-200 companies with similar concepts. Here are several I've encountered and know of so far:

• Everyday, that was recently acquired by Korean based Ticket Monster is probably one of the early adopters of Groupon model and has been really successful in the market with strong database.
• Groupon, originally called GroupsMore was acquired by Groupon and ranks number 2 probably.
• Others like JigoCity, CouponHouz.com (collects zero commission from merchant, instead collects from members), WeBuy.com.my, Deal4Real.Asia, MyDeal.com.my, etc.

I have also noticed a lot of other sites that would always display "wait until new deals are announced", this translate into they have not secured a strong merchant database or merchant are just simply refusing to cooperate with them. You'll notice a lot of sites in Malaysia will have this.

I do have concerns on the competitive edge and also the limited amount of merchant in the market that are constantly being lured to do deals with these companies. Their profit margin must take a deep whenever they do this, especially for the smaller business owners. I've observed that the average group buying deals that can be reached per deal is between 500-3000 which is relatively small for a country this size and pretty decent Internet penetration. Then comes the customer quality with it, are they just looking for cheap price and huge discount or are they quality is something that can be argued from both side of the fence. Malaysia is also a very price sensitive market, if you look at Hong Kong the average group buying deal price there is anything but cheap, which what I believe is good for both sides - group buying deal company collects more money, merchant pricing is not compromised and also doesn't have to dance around the cost, at the same time the customers get a great value-for-money deal.

If you also noticed at the business sustainability, you should run between 3-5 deals per day. But the sites in Malaysia runs between 3-10 deals a day and the original concept was supposed to be 1 special deal per day, so you can see their business also needs a certain amount of deals to be bought for them to break-even I imagine from the ads they are spending, staffing and other operations.

Then we look at the commission percentages these company will take from the merchant, it varies between 20-50% based on the discounted price (thank god its not based on the original price). But this still means a lot of money for both side, by the way this commission is a lot more than what I have encountered in China which is a lot lower (of course China has the buying power and also the numbers).

My advise before you "make a deal with them" is to look at your business model first, the size and your financial capability. As Group Buying Deals is not about profit at all, it is "trying" new customers (when I say trying as in really trying your hardest to at least attain 5-10% of the clientele, as remembering as it is a price that is sliced in half it of course impact the client quality at the same time, not that all is on the discount hunter side, but you get some of them). Smaller business do need to 三思而行 before deciding anything as your Profit & Loss is very sensitive, especially in Malaysia market.

Remembering these are the rule when you go into group buying deal:

• It has to be 50% otherwise there will be no buy, its not about profit but you can't loose money either. Look at your cost and slightly increase it just to be on the safe side.
• Check what is the commission percentage the group buying company wants, this is where you loose a bit more money. Negotiate!
• Predict what the sale will be and if you are in food/restaurant (which most of deal are), allocate your voucher consumption per day. As you need to balance out between current/old customer with Groupon customer.
• Think of a program and a campaign under-layering it to try and capture and convert them into your business ends in the long run.
• Capture database, mobile, email or even get them to like your Facebook is just some I would run side-by-side the group buying deal.
  

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"Tempus Fugit", without realizing I've opened another chapter in my life. I've been told, heard and read that in life not everything goes according to the plan - one door shuts, another window opens. I grabbed that window of opportunity and took a bold move from the Jing (Beijing), down to L (KL - Kuala Lumpur).

The weather is expected hot with high humidity and I arrived in the middle of rainy season, but it's fun for a change (FYI Beijing is rather dry and I knew I will get that time of year of breeze winter wind on my face).

Let's jump on the Digital wagon stats shall we :)

• 27 million people in the country (Beijing over 19 million).
• 65.7% internet penetration rate.
• 16.9 million people online.
• 25-26% household broadband Internet penetration and I'm also shocked they don't have uncapped data plan, it is also quite expensive.
• 55% on mobile, also over 30 million mobiles on the market.
• 16.1 average online hours spend on Internet per user.
• 91% on social media.
• According to TNS, highest average friends at 233 people.
• 58% on blog, blog is kicking and very much active here.
• 36% network via mobile on social media.
• Largest online banking user in Asia at 2.7 million people.
• 10,437,600 people on Facebook.
• 1 million Twitter users.
• 136,000 Foursquare users.
• 100 (around) group buying deals company, but only 25-30 active on the market. You'll even see website that will display "Deals coming soon". But each company is doing a big marketing campaign push, as it seems to be challenging on convincing merchant that this is a great marketing opportunity. (China over 2,000 group buying companies)

I will have more updates later on, but enjoying the ride so far (PS. I arrived during the craziness of F1).

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If you are in China recently, you'll see a lot more of Groupon ads from different websites. Its just blanketing the whole city, on every channel you can imagine - banner ads, bus, TV, posters and so on. According to Gang Lu, China tech Internet expert the Groupon industry in China is spending millions and millions or RMB to promote their service superiority.

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• Design wise its really clean and not straight clones from Twitter or Sina weibo own's iPhone apps.
• Got lots of different themes, my favorite is the Fish Eye, cool sleek soothing blue.
• If you are already following someone on weibo, you can easily use the "@" sign to mention that person, instead of manually typing it (which sometimes result in typo).
• The pound or hashtag is not there yet as the function above, hopefully it will be soon and it should include the latest trending topics.
• The built-in lomo camera effects, pretty much like Instagram, but different (so again not straight clone).
• If you've been categorizing the people you follow into lists or groups, then this is the right app as you can filter out streams now by groups.
• Built in check-in location, you can either use your geotag or sync via JiePang.
• Best of all it's free, you can download it here :)

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Groupon after somewhat rough entry into China market (contradicting Tibet advertisement, hiring first time laowai as their China boss and launching the site without the partners consent), finally launched their Chinese website in conjunction with Tencent. It's funny, in marketing there is one part where it is said (and proven) that once you have found a unique niche business, be careful of the followers. In order to "keep your head above the water" (or competition), you have to stay ahead and fast, as well as have the next phase of development. I guess this applies true in today's Internet business. Groupon although was the first to start in 2008, it was the last to enter China market which represents the biggest bulk portion of Internet citizens of the world.

• Taobao groupon is leading in terms of how many people visited their site - total 75 million people total for January.
• Meituan groupon is leading in terms of how long people spent on their site - average a month at 8:48 in January.
• Also interesting to note that QQ has its own Groupon, which is largely and clearly under Tencent (wonder if this is conflict of interest).
• Groupon.cn is not affiliated with the official Groupon, but the name's site (Groupon.cn and Groupon.com.cn) has been registered in China. Although it seems they affiliate themselves with the official Groupon.

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