February 2011

In 2011, the emerging Asian enterprise customer will be actively enhancing its competitive position, according to IDC’s latest report on “IDC Asia/Pacific (Excluding Japan) IT Services Top 10 Predictions: ROI-Led Transformation in the Emerging Asia Enterprise to Drive IT Services Spend”.

The social web has changed the communication rules for the Internet as its users are now no longer mere recipients of messages, but can publish content as well. This has an enormous affect on online brand management and corporate communications as established marketing and PR tools simply seem to be less and less effective.

Even if a company doesn’t use social media tools for its external communications yet, many of its employees are definitely active in the Web 2.0 world.

Yahoo! Inc. has just announced the launch of four new advertising formats, which will bring rich media advertising to iPhones and sharing capabilities on social networking sites to advertisers in Asia.

According to Ovum’s new report 2011 Trends to Watch: Media and Broadcast Technology, publishers and broadcasters need to seize the opportunities presented by the growth of social media and video on mobile devices this year and should be aware of the long-term threat these channels pose to their share of audience and advertising budget.

According to a new survey from ANA (Association of National Advertisers) in partnership with MMA (Mobile Marketing Association), 88 percent of client-side marketers say they will utilize mobile marketing in 2011 and 75 percent plan to increase their spending on mobile marketing initiatives by an average of 59 percent more than their 2010 spend.

Despite fragile consumer confidence, most retail banks do not view social media as an important tool to engage with customers, putting them in a dangerous position, according to Ovum.

“We lived in farms, then we lived in cities, and now we’re gonna live on the Internet!” – Sean Parker, The Social Network

According to Deloitte, social networks will most probably surpass the breathtaking milestone of one billion unique members in 2011 and deliver over two trillion advertisements, implying advertising revenues of about $5 billion.