A General Overview of Online Social Networks - Why social networks fail and succeed in Asia (Cyworld case study), the technologies and practices of online social networks, the business of social networks and finally, the future of social networks. A talk for Barcamp KL April 2009.

1. The Importance of Being Social
Bernard Leong
Partner, Thymos Capital LLP and COO, SENATUS.
http://bleongcw.typepad.com
Twitter/Gmail: bleongcw

2. Outline
Context - Thinking Social.
Converse - Technology Social.
Convert - Business Social.
The Future of Online Social Networks.

3. Context - Thinking Social
Why Social Networks matter and why some
succeed and fail in Asia.

4. Context: Thinking Social
Online Social Networks are Cultural, Generational and Geographical.
Sociology suggests that different communities appeal to diversity of
platforms rather than one common platform.
Errata: Facebook dominates in US now. Source: www.oxyweb.co.uk - (Nov 2008)

5. Who succeeds and fails?
Major western social networks find it difficult
to penetrate into East Asian countries.
Forget the “Clone Wars”
The Cultural Advantage (for e.g. language
and social practices) - Xiaonei (China),
Cyworld (Korea) and Mixi (Japan).
Major western social networks succeed in
Southeast Asia (some are former European
colonies):
Orkut (India), Hi5 (Thailand), Facebook
(Singapore) and Friendster (ASEAN minus
SG & Thailand).
The Context on why a social network
succeed and fail is important.

6. Case Study 1: CyWorld (South Korea)
Founded by Young Joon Huang
in July 1999. (South Korea).
Subidiary of SK Telecom done
via trade sale.
20M Visits a month (Korea).
US Version launched in 2006.
Languages: English, Korean,
Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese

7. A Minihompy - Personal Profile in Cyworld
Source: P. Ng, A. Kang, A. Quah & M. Netzley (SMU)

8. Successes and Failures
Business Model: Microtransactions
based on virtual currency “Dotori” or
“Acorn” - 35% (Music sales) and 40%
(Digital Wallpaper sale). Online
advertising is minimal.
Cyworld Korea expanded over their
services to virtual world, games and
photosharing and their markets to US,
Vietnamese, Japanese Chinese markets.
Cyworld expanded into Germany with T-
Online Local players like StudiVz &
Skyrock drove the cost of entry high and
Cyworld closed down its European
branch.

9. Ubiquitous or Niche?
Setting up a social network is challenging and it will be
important to ask the following questions:
What’s the aim of the social network?
What are the services provided by the social network to
the users?
How do you grow the user database?
Can you manage growth with sustainable monetization?

10. Converse - Technology Social
Technology & Sociological Practices in Social
Networks

11. Features in Social Networks
The ability to connect to people within 6 degrees of
seperation.
The shift from a static to dynamic profile - Activity
The Interaction Factor - Share, Like, Comment, Send a Gift
& Poke.
The ability to galvanize - Causes, Forums & Groups
The Niche Functions catered for a specific network.
The ability to connect via APIs - FB Connect, Open Social -
Inter-Operability and Integration with Content Providers
(Text, Audio, Video)

12. Connection within 6 Degrees of Seperation
Six Degrees of Self-Organizing
• •
Seperation: Everyone is Nature of Networks:
connected to each other scale free and the ability
within six degrees of of identify generic hubs
experiment. and connectors in a
network.

13. Connection within 6 Degrees of Seperation
Six Degrees of Self-Organizing
• •
Seperation: Everyone is Nature of Networks:
connected to each other scale free and the ability
within six degrees of of identify generic hubs
experiment. and connectors in a
network.

14. Connection within 6 Degrees of Seperation
Six Degrees of Self-Organizing
• •
Seperation: Everyone is Nature of Networks:
connected to each other scale free and the ability
within six degrees of of identify generic hubs
experiment. and connectors in a
network.

15. The shift from a static to dynamic profile - Activity

16. The Interaction Factor - Share, Like, Comment, Send a Gift
& Poke.

17. The ability to galvanize - Causes, Forums & Groups

18. The ability to connect via APIs - FB Connect, Open
Social - Inter-Operability and Integration with Content
Providers (Text, Audio, Video)

19. Convert - Business Social
Rethink Business Strategies for Social Networks

20. The Three Phases of Social Network
The Platform Creation Phase - when the platform is
initially launched and generate interest.
The Growth Phase - when you grow the members of
the platform and sustain interest.
The Monetization Phase - when you have the database
and directs interests and generate brand and
monetization.

21. Online Advertising
The promise of social advertising: to
target ads on people interested in only
the products and services that
appeals to them.
Online Advertising requires rich media
delivery.
Online Advertising is dependent on
the audience and the traffic on the
site.

22. Subscription Model

23. Micro-Transactions & Referrals
Cyworld, Xiaonei &
Facebook uses micro-
transactions via “send a
gift”.
Xiaonei provides services
within the network to push
users to other microsites in
China.

24. Brand Advertising/Placement
Most brands have avoided
major social networks in
the fear of dilution and
afraid to let fans to run the
groups or pages on
Facebook.
Brand Advertising and
brand placement remains a
holy grail and very few
successful cases have
happened.

25. Future Social
Where do we go from here? Any crazy idea - let
me try one.

26. Linkedin connects people professionally but does not
distinguish the influencers and connectors

27. In the online world, each connection is characterized
by a 1(Connected) or 0 (Not Connected)

28. Social Network Thought Experiment

29. The Current Social
Network is unable to
measure Degrees of
Association, i.e.
how well you know
that person.

30. Try This Idea
9
Rule 1: Each user 9
assigns a degree of
association value (1-10) 7 5
on how well you know 7
the other person. Do it 8
for multiple users. Score
this based on the
average of each pair
scores.

31. 10
5
10
9 10
Rule 2: Fit a statistical 2
distribution on all your
associations.
Rule 3: Calibrate the
weights between each pair 7.5
of users based on the social
9.5
6

32. A Weighted Social Network?
http://www.slideshare.net/bleongcw/undercover-technologist

33. With a weighted social network, you can search for best path to connect
to someone within a network and also find the influencers and hubs.

34. Thank You for your Attention
http://www.slideshare.net/bleongcw/the-importance-of-being-social