Tech Stream

Tech Stream 024

31 July 2009

Listen and download: MP3

An excellent explanation of what social networking is online, made by commoncraft.com.

In the Tech Stream this week we take a little look at social networking websites and trends in South-East Asia. From one of the longest running, Friendster, to the newest kid on the block, a Cambodian service called AngkorOne.  Plus we get the lowdown on social networks in Vietnam and Indonesia.  Listen with the MP3 link above or read on for more…In this program we speak about regional social networking trends with Simon Goodrich from Portable Content and AIMIA the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association.

Friendster.com‘s CEO Richard Kimber joins us from Sydney to speak about their push into Asia and why the region is so important to them.  There’s more this in a previous Tech Stream post.

We catch up with Tito Ambyo from our Indonesian language service and Huy Nguyen from Bayvut.com.au – our Vietnamese web portal.  Tito talks about his story on the “Indonesia Unite” movement which you can read about on ABC News Online and hear more about on Connect Asia.   We also hear from Dr Jason Wilson, lecturer in Digital Communications at the University of Wollongong.

Lili Tu meets Minh Ngoc a young Vietnamese entrepreneur based in Melbourne who uses Ning to create niche social networking websites for Vietnamese students studying abroad.

And finally we turn our attention to Cambodia. Alex Khun from our Khmer language service gives an overview of social networking websites in his country and introduces us to Steven Path, founder and CEO of AngkorOne.com.  There’s also more in this in a previous Tech Stream post.

I could have produced about a dozen programs looking at social networking and social media websites and trends in not just our region but the world. We barely even mentioned Twitter – which I’ve been using quite a lot. Or sites like QQ in China and Mixi in Japan. We also left out our friends in the Pacific Island countries due to time constraints.

And we didn’t get to cover the privacy issues or debates around the use of our personal information online. I’d love to hear your thoughts on these and anything you’ve heard in today’s program. How do you connect with your friends or family, how has that changed over time? What’s great, or not so great, about the social networking sites you’ve chosen to use?