Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

TechCrunch has published a good post about the difficulties of taking a social network from one country to another without thinking about their cultural differences. I agree with their position. Too many companies assume that their software (in this case, social networks) will work in other countries in the same way it does back home. However, they fail to realise the cultural and religious differences that borders impose.

Social networks have become integrative elements of modern American youth culture over the last years, shaping social patterns and changing the ways that people communicate. When taken abroad, these services have to deal with a large number of cross-cultural peculiarities by their very nature.

Societal and cultural gaps are particularly evident in the case of Japan. Market entry in this country with a “What works in the US must also work over there”-attitude is going awry for both Facebook and MySpace. It’s not a stereotype that communication tends to be nonverbal in Japan. The society generally puts more emphasis on the community rather than on the individual. Also, security plays a major role in many aspects of Japanese life.

I’d like to emphasise that it’s not just about translation. It’s about internationalistaion and localisation (I’m now hooked on Wikipedia thanks to Orit). Luckily, this is something I learned early on at AOL during the launch of numerous territories in the mid 90’s. AOL, for all it’s silly mistakes in recent years, did after all, encourage mass adoption of the Web across many countries including the US, UK, Germany, France and Australia. It took a while, but the US did manage to see the light, thanks to the strong teams/personalisties in the UK and Germany in particular.

This topic isn’t restricted to social networks by the way, it applies to any product or service. My advice is to partner with companies already in a similar space. If that isn’t possible, the recruitment of local staff to manage and controle the launch is imperative.

Read TechCrunch’s post for more insight.

This is one of the reasons Wubud is being developed in Hong Kong.

Sign up to Wubud.

We setup an account for Wubud on Twitter a few months ago to raise some awareness for the company and promised to give away a Mac Air in a prize draw as soon as the account reached 5,000 followers. Numbers increased each time we talked about Wubud but they stagnated as soon as we stopped. So, in light of this and to ensure we give away the lovely kit on this side of the next millennium, we’ve decided to solicit your opinion.

Should we change the rules so that the Air is given away when my personal Twitter account reaches 5,000 followers, or, don’t change anything and continue the competition on the basis of Wubud followers?

By changing to my personal account you no longer subscribe to a product, which I personally don’t particularly like anyway. It will also mean the Air is likely to be given away more quickly as I have just over 1,300 followers. On the down side to changing, it might annoy those who signed up to Wubud and who couldn’t care less about my personal ramblings outside of that particular product.

[Update: if the majority go with the 'change', we'll add everyone who's following Wubud into the prize draw to guarantee that their name is in at least once for their effort]

What do you think? We promise to go with the majority and the final outcome will be announced on the 21st of July 2008.

Feel free to leave your general opinion about product vs person twitter accounts.

It took just two days for HSBC management to resolve this issue. They were extremely helpful and apologetic for the miscommunication and misunderstanding.

It’s not company policy to refuse bank account applications from social networking or mobile related companies. However, there’s a little more to it than that simple statement - look at my vblog if you wish to learn more.

Download the video to your iTunes (2:77MB; 01:42 minutes)

To be clear, I didn’t do this as a way of ranting about my situation with a particular bank. I brought attention to this subject to help ensure some change, however small, took place, so that others would benefit.

This is my first ever video post so please forgive the fact that it’s very rough around the edges. Please feel free to provide tips and feedback.

Download the video to your iTunes (4.2 MB; 02:43 minutes)

Links

• Official Web Mission Web site
• Coverage of the Web Mission on TechCrunch.com and TechCrunch.co.uk
• Some information about wubud on TechCrunch.

Since writing my last post about how to win a Mac Air, I’ve been asked by journalists if they could have an exclusive and asked why I decided to run this little game. Here’s my response:

1. The exclusive has yet to be given. Although a national newspapper has it in Ireland specifically.
2. I’m running this little game to get people talking about my newest venture, wubud
3. I’m also doing it to demonstrate how the power of conversation with communities of people is the way forward. If it’s the way forward for brands then it must be the way forward for traditional media folk to embrace tools/communities such as Twitter in order to find out what’s happening in the world. I’m likely to announce what wubud is and who my shit hot team is, on Twitter at the same time as whoever gets the exclusive. Some of my team is known to every reader of this blog.

Go to Twitter now and following wubud. A Mac Air will be given away in a prize draw as soon as it reaches 5,000 followers. If you’re an American, help the small Irish guy raise his voice loud enough to be a squeak amongst Scoble’s and Calacanis’ of the world. If you’re not an American, show them that we can be just as noisy, well, almost.

Presents will be given to those who help raise awareness around this silly game. No rules. I will simply do a little research to see who I can hear loudest. Blog posts are already being written.

Do your bit for the environment and head to twitter now and follow wubud

[Update] Since writing this post, I’ve been asked by journalists if they could have an exclusive and asked why I decided to run this little game. Here’s my response:

1. The exclusive has yet to be given. Although a national newspapper has it in Ireland specifically.
2. I’m running this little game to get people talking about my newest venture, wubud
3. I’m also doing it to demonstrate how the power of conversation with communities of people is the way forward. If it’s the way forward for brands then it must be the way forward for traditional media folk to embrace tools/communities such as Twitter in order to find out what’s happening in the world. I’m likely to announce what wubud is and who my shit hot team is, on Twitter at the same time as whoever gets the exclusive. Some of my team is known to every reader of this blog.