Asia will shape new social dialogue

Asia will lead the making of the new social dialogue that’s shaping the global digital world, says Michael Tchong, trendspotter and featured speaker at Wired In Travel (www.wiredintravel.com), taking place in Singapore on November 29-30, 2007.

The California-based trend guru of Ubercool says: “Clearly, the impact of China on the rest of the world, particularly when it comes to the environment, is the region’s biggest trend. China is also going to materially impact tourism, when it wrests away the No. 1 travel destination title from France.

“In a number of other travel trends, Asia is also shaping up as a trendsetter. Hotels, like the Ramada Phuket’s “Star Wars’-themed rooms are pushing the envelope in the Design Hotel category.

“And, of course, we can’t forget that Asia as the gadget and gaming trendsetter, is leading in such trends as “thumbing”(texting) and “virtual worlds”– like Rexon”s (Korea) MapleStory, which reportedly has more than 50 million players worldwide.

“In the same vein, it’s remarkable that China has become the first country in the world to attempt to regulate virtual money, with the rapid ascendancy of Tencent Coin as hugely popular virtual currency.”

In Tchong’s view, the new social dialogue is evolving due to the enthusiastic adoption by consumers of the digital lifestyle. “It’s global in nature and in fact it’s leading to the global adoption of English as the lingua franca,” he tells WIT ahead of his visit to Asia, in which he will visit Shanghai after Singapore.

“There are regional differences between this social dialog, of course. If you’re in China and don’t know about Tencent and its currency, you’re not a true player. Language and customs also clearly have an influence, but the bottom line is that all countries are being affected in a material way.”

As he sees it, social media is perhaps the biggest revolution propelling this new social dialogue.

“The “add a friend” metaphor is rewriting how people socialise and fast they can build networks. Social networking sites, like Facebook and MySpace, have caught on so quickly that it’s clear that this trend is here to stay.

“These sites encourage the adoption of new social communication techniques – like MySpace’s music widget that greets visitors with a tune, or Facebook’s “poke,” a technique for gaining attention – that are already mainstreaming.

“Certainly, signing up for many social networks, most consumers will belong to at least half a dozen in the future, will create an avalanche of “bacn” – a term that emerged just recently (pronounced “bacon) that refers to the avalanche of e-mail we get, like alerts and sales promotions, that now clog our inbox – that will be difficult to deal with.

“But therein lies much opportunity. I envision that in our future, we’ll see “social etiquette managers” appear, real jobs for real people who manage the online reputations of social networkers.

“While some of these new phenomena, like Second Life, are mainly niche sites that appeal to only a certain segment of the audience, it’s clear that the mainstream social networks are now part of the consumer landscape.

“In fact, Forrester Research recently issued a report that shows that among teenagers nearly 60% of 12- to 17-year-olds use social networks, while 80% of young adults (18- to 21-year-olds) use them. Those figures suggest that social networking will be pervasive in the future, since Generation X and Baby Boomers are only now discovering these sites.”