Vietnam Thinks Local & Excels In Online Video Use

A recent survey from comScore revealed some interesting data about the popularity and growth of online video in the East Asia region.

In June of this year 83.1 percent of the world’s online population watched online video from a home or work computer. That represents 1.2 billion people worldwide age 15 and older undertaking this activity.

In the same month 197.5 billion videos were viewed online globally.  The average viewer watched 159.4 videos in June of 2012 and it is a particularly popular past time in Asia.

A significant factor in this development has been increased broadband access and content availability which has resulted in higher online video viewing activity.

It should be noted though that these results only present part of the picture, as they relate to video watching using a PC and do not include other platforms or situations such as viewing a video in an Internet cafe, on a mobile phone or tablet.  Given the impact of mobile not having this data included is a flaw.  Where too are South Korean and Thailand both of which are heavy users of broadband & mobile technologies?

The key findings from the survey were:

• Vietnam has the strongest reach of online video viewers in the Asia-Pacific region
• Vietnam has the highest video viewing penetration (89.8 percent ) and  Indonesia  had the lowest (66.9 percent ).
• Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and New Zealand all exceeded  the global average for online video penetration
• China was the leader when it came to the largest online video market by audience size.  It hads 266.2 million unique viewers (79.4 percent reach).  Next was Japan with 61.5 million viewers (83.7 percent reach) followed by India with 44.6 million viewers (73.1 percent reach).
• When it came to online video engagement, the average Japanese viewer watched 242.5 videos per month, Hong Kong viewers watched 180.7 videos, Singapore 158.1 videos and Australia 151.4.
• Google sites are the top video destination in Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam thanks to its ownership of YouTube
• Facebook.com ranked as the second largest video viewing destination in the Philippines and the third ranked destination in Indonesia and Taiwan
• VEVO and Viacom Digital were in the top five  video viewing destinations in both Indonesia and the Philippines
• Yahoo! Sites are big in Taiwan, ranking second. Tudou Sites come in 4th ranked and Youku Inc.5th.
• Local providers always excel in Vietnam so it is no surprise that VnExpress, Vega Corporation (Clip.vn) and Tuoi Tre Online securing places were all in the top five in the rankings.

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• Three Reasons Why Online Video Is The New Direction For Businesses
• Scott Steinberg: Inbound Marketing: 5 Ways to Create an Awesome Online Video Strategy

Australia and New Zealand Online Facts

Rugby And Oil

This past week has seen two significant events in New Zealand. The first being the quarterfinals of the Rugby World Cup in a nation that is mad about the sport.

The second is grounding of a large container ship offshore from a pristine area of foreshore and the resulting environmental disaster caused by leaking oil.

Given the environmental concerns one would have thought that oil would be thicker than water, or in this case, sport.

A snapshot of social media, in this case Twitter shows how one concern has outstripped the other. The chart below demonstrates the topic interest in New Zealand, midday on October 11th. Rena is the name of the ship that ran aground. Rugby topics are highlighted in yellow.

Not surprisingly it is the environmental agencies such as Greenpeace and Bird Rescue who are the most vocal and being a month out from a general election the Green Party is also using the opportunity to push its message.

Topic Cloud

Even more interesting is the cross connection between conversational topics as can be seen in this visual chart from Social Collider which mapped 2,317 conversations

Click on the image to see the larger chart

The SocialCollider reveals cross-connections between conversations on Twitter. Particles are mapped two dimensionally based on their position in time (vertical axis) and search query ID (horizontally).

Search results of each query are automatically connected vertically via smooth, curvy B-splines in the same color. If results from different queries are somehow related a spiral is first drawn around the older particle but will eventually connect the other related particles horizontally.

The size of the spiral corresponds to the number of cross-connections the related message/tweet has accumulated.

Posts that didn’t resonate with anyone just connect to the next item in the stream. The ones that did, however, spin off and horizontally link to users or topics who relate to them, either directly or in terms of their content.

Related articles

• New Zealand's passion for rugby (bbc.co.uk)
• Oil spill threatens reef and wildlife in New Zealand (newscientist.com)

On The Ball - How Social Media Is Building The Rugby World Cup Buzz

Open publication

It hasn't been the easiest of tasks promoting a world class event such as the 2011 Rugby World Cup.  Shortly after New Zealand won the rights to stage it the world plunged into a deep financial recession which must have put a dent on ticket sale projections.

Then followed two significant earthquakes that affected Christchurch, one of the main venues for the Cup. The second one on February 22nd caused massive damage and loss of life.

Key Phrases over 6 months - Note February 22nd impact
Click on the chart to view larger version

Undaunted by this malevolent force of nature, the RWC organisers have soldiered on rearranging schedules and shifting venues to other cities.

Hand in hand with the extraordinary circumstances of this global sporting event has been the use of digital media and in particular social media, to build positive buzz about the tournament and entertainments.

As the research in the above presentation reveals online sentiment has largely remained unerringly positive over the past month.

Growth on social media networks is now starting to gain momentum with :

• 3,000 new twitter followers in the past four weeks
• 65,000 more Likes on Facebook over the same period

Network associated online with Rugby World Cup -  Note 'Bob Parker' is the Mayor of Christchurch.
Click on chart for the larger version

The main web site receives 159,443 unique users per month and 14, 625 page views per day.  As might be expected most interest in the website comes from rugby playing nations:

New Zealand 31.0%

South Africa 9.9%

United Kingdom 8.4%

Australia 6.6%

A key reason for the success of the event's digital strategy is the integration of various channels; for example the social media icons are clearly visible in the top third of the web page.

Web landing page

With the Rugby World Cup kicking off this September it will also be interesting to see how users of twitter and Facebook record their experience.

Related articles

• England will open Rugby World Cup in Dunedin (independent.co.uk)