125 millions why you should be interested in Indonesia

With an estimated 125 million internet users by 2015, its not surprising that the FT was reporting that Jakarta is ripe for a boom in tech start-ups. And that was before Softbank announced that together with Sequoia Capital they would be taking a $100m bet on  Indonesian online marketplace Tokopedia.

 

In the country that is home to the world’s heaviest users of Twitter, Smartphone ownership is booming, but it's not all rosy with Jakarta having infamously bad traffic, slow internet speeds, under-developed electronic payment systems amongst its myriad of problems.

Without doubt Indonesia is a land of opportunity for the telecom industry, so where do you fit in?

At this years Total Telecom Festival we bring together the two of the biggest names in Indonesia telecoms, with Alex J. Sinaga, Chief Executive Officer, Telkomsel speaking about redefining the telco-OTT relationship, transformation from telco to digital company, whilst later in the day Muhammad Awaluddin, Chief of Marketing for Enterprise Business at Telkom Indonesia will speak about building new business and recognising new role of the telco in developing society and community.

Why not come along, it's a great chance to meet the teams from Telekom Indonesia and Telkomsel and discover what the opportunity is for you.

6 Companies who probably don't remember their first Tweet? #WCA14

Do you remember your first Tweet? Most people probably don't and indeed most companies probably don't, so with a gratuitous link to this years World Communication Awards (entries opened this week) we decided to use Twitters Discover tool to see what the first Tweet was of 6 notable companies - the Best Global Operator finalists from 2013.

So starting at the top, with last year's winner, Orange Business Services, who even in 2009 were concerned by data protection.

Orange have since clearly worked hard at their Twitter account +orangebusiness and have 107,000 followers and according to @tweetstats produce an average 207 tweets per month, getting replies to over 27% of them - clearly the work of a leader!

The first tweets of the rest of the shortlist are in the slidedeck below:

So practising what we preach, what about @totaltelecom? We produced our first Tweet way back in January 2009, proving our cutting edge credentials, beating all of the above bar AT&T, but in classic Total Telecom style, the subject was a less serious "Merry Christmas & Happy New Year"...

GET MORE SERIOUS - ENTER THE 2014 WORLD COMMUNICATION AWARDS

www.worldcommsawards.com 

Everyone's on Twitter Right? Wrong... Asian telco's on Twitter #ACA14

Today we expect everyone to be on Twitter, at least every company, it's even on our Salesforce profiles, the field that says Twitter handle, so I did a quick check against the companies of the CEO of the Year candidates for this years Asia Communication Awards.

It was quite an interesting exercise. 19 companies from 16 Asian countries, searching via Google for their main corporate Twitter account. And the results; one with more than 300,000 followers (@smartcares), one with no apparent corporate Twitter account (Roshan - although a huge number of Facebook fans), six with more than 100,000 followers, and 4 with less than 1,000 followers.

Some you'd expect to have less presence, @pacnet for example won't have a following from the general public, but it's very interesting to see the contrast between those with huge followings and those that have only a relatively small presence - and it doesn't necessarily reflect the number of subscribers, for example Smart have over 54 million subscribers, compared to Etisalat's 6.3 million, but have only 25% more Twitter followers.

It will be interesting to see if there is any correlation between Twitter followers, and the number of votes their CEO's generate for the Asia Communication Awards....

VOTE NOW FOR THE CEO OF THE YEAR FOR THE 2014 ASIA COMMUNICATION AWARDS

Telecom Shoelace Test #Tweetails

I'm usually sceptical about tools for calculating your social media influence, and so I was about Tweetails.

I ran a couple of tests that were broadly in line with expectations, showing that largely automated feeds can't beat real humans.

Our own @totaltelecom  was branded "Not the sharpest tool in the shed", whilst  our friends at Telecoms.com, @telecoms, were branded as "Depressingly average, the human equivalent of a grey cardigan"

So then tried a few 'real people'

@Telecomeditor Level 1 was awarded the badge of Master Tweet Assassin and branded a Scholar, whilst @Mattyhatton was deemed Above average, a Level 2 Adept Tweet Paladin 

Still unsure, with trepidation I tried @telecolumnist to find him branded Level 3 Grandmaster Tweet Shaman. But then with a flash of understanding the more detailed explanation....

Our intelligence rating for Telecolumnist is:
Professor - Comes up with revolutionary ideas on a daily basis, but probably can't tie their shoelaces...

On the result of this highly scientific test, one can only assume Tweetails is a genius tool, and probably knows @Telecolumnist personally!

All the news from Mobile World Congress #MWC12

The Total Telecom editorial team are in Barcelona in force for Mobile World Congress, gathering content for our popular #MWC news service. Already the stories are coming thick and fast and you can view them all on our dedicated channel.

More than ever this year the role for expert editors is clear, providing a way for the readers to cut through the barrage of social media noise, most of which is exhibitor promotions (or self promotion!) - see for yourself in the widget below!

So for a clearer picture make sure you keep up to date on Total Telecom http://www.totaltele.com/topic.aspx?C=7

Operators On the Nose

Lunchtime leisure, how are different operators represented on Twitter? I started working down the 2011 Global 100 Operators report to see how different telco's were using Twitter and found some stark (if unscientific) differences.


The most notable thing I observed was that ranking high in the Global 100 in no way correlates with a strong presence on Twitter. Whilst AT&T (#1 G100) are right up there with almost 12,000 followers (@ATTCustomerCare), NTT (#2 G100) aren't. Indeed the only significnat NTT account I could find was @NTT_America which has 787 followers, and China Mobile (#6 G100) don't appear to have a Twitter account at all.


I then enlisted the help of Klout (@klout) to see who they deemed influential and came up with a top 5 that looked like this:

• AT&T Inc. (#1 G100)
• T-Mobile USA (#4 G100 - Deutsche Telekom)
• O2 UK (#5 G100 Telefonica)
• Sprint (#14 G100)
• BT (#15 G100)

Klout also give an idea of what the Twitters are influential about, so it was interesting to that whilst the top 4 are all deemed influential on Smartphones, only Sprint is deemed influential on Branding and O2 on Social Networks.

Finally, I looked at how Klout classifies the various Twitterers and found all the top 5 to be deemed Pundits- a phrase that to me conjures images of the esteemed John McCririck. With this image in mind I wait to see which major telco CEO is the first to be seen sporting tweeds and deerstalker hat? Anyone think they can get this one On the Nose?

  

And I'm the Twit!

Just came across my blog post from 6 March 2009 that reads: " Fad maybe, but over 90 people are now following Total Telecom on Twitter".


I'd added a note on 5 May that said now 377 followers. Unfortunately I didn't continue with the updates but now @totaltelecom is at 6,851 followers. Wonder if that's still a fad?


Doesn't quite rank amongst the greatest failed predictions of all time though - but here's a better list "Ten Failed Technology Predictions" from the blog Skeptoid - I especially like "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home"

Total Telecom on #LinkedIn

We're delighted that we now have another way for you to enjoy Total Telecom, via LinkedIn.

This continues our ambition to make it as easy as possible for you to get your daily fix of telecom news wherever you are and on whatever device.

Having Total Telecom on LinkedIn also gives a slightly different perspective to our content. Whilst our homepage www.totaltele.com reflects the stories that our editors feel are the most important, the page on LinkedIn is driven by users, reflecting the articles most shared via Twitter and LinkedIn.

To follow Total Telecom on LinkedIn visit www.linkedin.com/today/totaltele.com

Don't forget to mention @totaltelecom to reference our Twitter account!

Making a #Hash of it

After the discovery that #WCA was being used by both the World Communication Awards and the World Cheese Awards, it should have come as no surprise to discover the new raison d'etre for the WCA.

Following a tweat from prolific twitterer @davidgilson sporting the #WCA tag I am led to believe that the World Communication Awards were introduced to assess whether benefit claiments are capable of working (Evening Standard article 23 Nov). Either this is a whole new side of the awards that I was never aware of, or maybe it's simply that #WCA is also being used to reflect Work Capability Assessments...

On balance, although longer, #worldcommsawards is so much safer!

New from Total Telecom: Asia Communication Awards

Follow on Twitter #asiacomms