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Malaysia: Social Media

In this section: 1. Overview 2. Social Networking 3. Facebook and Friendster 4. Local social networking Other pages in this section are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Malaysia: Cultural Issues Malaysia: Government Issues Malaysia: Internet Filtering Malaysia: Business Issues Malaysia: Emerging Trends in Social Med Malaysia: Commercial and Social Mobile

1) Overview
Currently, there are about 16 million web users in Malaysia. Social media in Malaysia is booming, especially among the younger generations. These users of online social networking platforms are quick to adopt new avenues such as twitter (estimated 1.1 million users as of Jan 2010) and plurk. Modern information technology call for people to be engaged online in various ways and adopt multiple responsibilities and roles.People are no longer limited to a specific role, such as a blogger. Instead, those who are at the forefront of adopting social media have multiple accounts across blogsites, twitter and video sharing platforms. Today, there is high involvement with microblogging, video uploading, photo uploading, and many other interactions with digital media. An IDC research predicts that internet users in Malaysia will reach 20.4 million by 2012. There are different types of social media on the web and each category has a different focus (with some overlap in functionality) So 2) Social Networking Overview Our executive summary provides a overview of Malaysias Social Media atmosphere that has been covered in this section. We have covered the fundamental facts of

internet and mobile usage in Malaysia, and highlighted the findings and analysis in of our research over the last 13 weeks. Presenting valuable insights in the context of individuals/ corporations from other countries who are looking in Malaysia's social media and what they should understand is vital in order for them to formulate strategies that assist the creation of effective conversations in Malaysia's social media landscape. Social Networking Sites: Top 10 Social Networking Sites in Malaysia
No. Social Network Facebook Youtube Friendster Myspace Tagged Flickr Photobucket Twitter Metacafe Ning Alexa Traffic Rank in Malaysia
(July 28, 2009)

Google Ad Planner's Unique Visitors

(July 28, 2009)

1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

3 4 8 11 12 29 34 38 48 82

6,200,000 Unavailable 4,200,000 2,100,000 1,800,000 1,500,000 1,300,000 750,000 910,000 690,000

Sources: Alexa and Google Ad Planner, 2009-http://www.greyreview.com/2009/07/28/snapshot-of-social-networking-inmalaysia/ For a more indepth look into specific social networking sites, click here.

3) Facebook & Friendster Facebook has become the number one social networking site in Malaysia with over 5.1 million facebook users (as of March 1, 2010) in Malaysia and over 6.2 million unique visitors per month. While Friendster once dominated the social networking scene in Malaysia, Facebook has overtaken Friendster. Friendster, however, still has a wide following in the country and member base of over 2 million active users and 4.2 million unique visitors per month.

4) Local Social Networks Unlike countries such as Japan, Korea,China, Iran, and some European countries whose main Social Network is locally developed, Malaysians primarily use global social networks such as Myspace, Facebook, and Friendster. The following, however, are top Malaysian-developed social networking site:

No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Social Network Ruumz eKewan GoEatOut Circles99 Pacmee eMeiMei FriendX

Alexa Traffic Rank in Malaysia

(July 28, 2009)

Google Ad Planner's Unique Visitors from Malaysia

(July 28, 2009)

1,687 2,045 2,666 3,660 19,444 21,360 22,971

36,000 32,000 22,000 9,300* 7,700* 7,000* Not Available

* refers to total worldwide Unique Visitors Source: comScore World Metric, July 2009
Malaysian-developed social networking websites are trying to obtain a bigger share of the country's digital media market pie by offering value-added features and applications such as updates via SMS and online music subscriptions. While it is unlikely to overtake the giants such as Facebook and Friendster, perhaps differentiating themselves is the only way for malaysian social networking sites to survive in the market.