Facebook and Twitter have both become integral parts of many web users’ digital lives, whether they are accessed on the best ultrabook or the humble office PC, or even on smartphones and tablets. Consequently, both social media sites are also vital in a business context, offering companies the opportunity to reach millions of potential customers. Each however has particular strengths and weaknesses, and therefore needs to be used differently to help generate profits.
A straight numbers comparison between Facebook and Twitter has obvious flaws, the chief one being that, while …

With the best laptops now boasting HD screens and bundles of processing power, and smartphones boasting multimedia capabilities that were practically unthinkable a little over a decade ago, it’s no surprise that social media campaigns have moved well beyond the now obligatory Facebook and Twitter pages to encompass some of the most exciting and innovative advertising around. With this in mind, here, in no particular order, are some of the standouts of 2012, as well as some of the best campaigns to have emerged so far in 2013.
 

Dodge Dart …

Can Social Networking Prevent the Spread of Illness?
Social media has a plethora of uses. New laptops (especially those using Windows 8), tablets, and mobile phones can all be used to keep tabs on friends living abroad, share photos of big moments, and forecast sickness. Forecast sickness?! Yes, the next time your son or daughter catches a cold or displays the early symptoms of influenza, instead of keeping them quarantined in the house, simply get online and see where outbreaks of the viruses are occurring and plan accordingly.
Flickr User xlivexalivex
 
The …

What awesome two days.
Happy (and thankful to Rice Communications and FOMA) to be a part of an event like Festival of Media, Asia. Stylish, full of great speaking sessions and good speakers- not just on the quality of speaking but the quality of content they had to talk about.
Apart from that, great questioning by presenters.
Two days- locked in the southern corner of Singapore- hijacking the W Sentosa hotels (they loved it, by the way- judging by their tweets in response to mine ) .

Full of action too: We made …

Attending The Festival of Media Asia 2013 in Singapore.
The Festival of Media Asia 2013 takes place from 3-5 March 2013.
I personally am quite stoked about the two days: 4th and 5th March. There seems to be a solid line-up of speakers and sessions.
Check out the speaker line up for yourself.
And the Festival agenda here
 
Earlier, I usually attended these events from a Media Agency (when I used to work with Media agencies) or from a Brand perspective, later (When I was working with Nokia). And now I am attending this …

Start-up incubators and accelerators are a growing trend all over the world.
The scene seems to be hotting up in India too.
Friends from ‘Price Check India‘ shared this wonderful infographic and a rich post highlighting the top incubators/business accelerators from various parts in India.
A note from them:
…there’s a great thrust to support first time entrepreneurs across India. There are all kinds of efforts in this direction – Govt supported Institute based technology incubators, Private business incubators started by industry veterans and startup accelerators supported by companies and VC funds. Individually …

Not a novelty anymore to know that the Internet has powered many revolutionary changes in the physical world.
But this infographic below does a pretty job of it- highlighting some of the major events impacted by communications on the world and the sheer speed and scale of information exchange.
When we started The Whiz Times, the idea, apart from giving a child and family friendly intelligent platform was also to include young people, kids in getting the right information through the right channels.
We have seen many of these changes impacting families …

In all my recent discussions within the start-up ecosystem, it seems Edutainment and Education reforms might be the next big wave.
I have sensed that in the recent Techventures event held in Singapore, where prominent folks in the Venture Capital space gave a big thumbs up to edutainment and technology/content for the education sector.
Recent news stories about funding of such businesses and start-ups is also gaining ground- see the chart below. Since this chart is derived from a very specific terms (Edutainment), the volume seems low on that …

 
We recently engaged with the media (and blogging community) via an extremely innovative  manner. We probably did pique the interest of some awesome media folks with that approach. More on the approach in another post- though just wanted to let everyone know that The Whiz Times has been covered on various digital media platforms:
Prominent Industry leading Digital media/marketing publications:
http://marketing-interactive.com/news/36155
http://www.digitalmarket.asia/2012/10/kids-can-read-all-about-it-in-thewhiztimes-com/
http://www.campaignasia.com/Article/319886,global-online-news-and-edutainment-platform-for-kids-launches.aspx
And on a few blogs:
http://mhisham.org/2012/10/19/the-whiztimes-launches/
http://atomthought.com/2012/10/how-an-internet-start-up-is-marketing-itself-to-the-media/
These  are a few that we monitored, and hopefully, there will be a few more this week.
Next thing we will focus on – is building applications (we …

So Techventure 2012 started today.

I HAD to be there.

But I did not know anyone who could help me get in. Would have loved to buy tickets, but (A) those were too expensive for me at this stage of my start-up and (B) there was a better way.

Chasing The Storm.

Over the years, this canvas has taken the brunt of my opinions. Plus the influence built through years of  publishing works out. Helps me meet super cool people. And get invites to fab events like these.

My key agenda for attending …