TweetReach

I just discovered TweetReach, a simple and awesome service to see how far your Tweets and Re-tweets go, surely most Twitter users know this service already.

Let me start by saying that i only use Twitter to alert some of my dearest readers as well as directing some extra traffic to Oman Collective Intelligence. So yesterday i tweeted about my last post about Facebook statistics for Oman users and i am happy to see that thanks to MariaOcean (her blog) and my good friend Bader (his blog) my tweet has reached nearly 500 people, and one third of them checked out the post and blog. Isn't that amazing?

TweetReach gives you a full report on your search terms, overall exposure, how users engaged, who contributed, and much more. Not sure yet about its accuracy, but definitely worth a try!

Let me know what you think,...;)  And thanks again to Maria and Bader!!!

Facebook stats for Oman

I just came across some interesting Facebook statistics related to Oman. As of today in the Sultanate there are 156,200 Facebook active users; 103,480 users (68%) are male and 49,120 (32%) are female.

The more interesting statistics for me is that the penetration of Facebook in Oman to the overall population is 5.61 % while the penetration to online population: 33.59 %. So basically 1 out of 3 people who uses internet in Oman has an active Facebook account.

From the beginning of 2010 the number of users rose by about 30%, making Oman the 105th country in the world in terms of users, however from May 15th to-date the increase was minimal, 2,5% only. Maybe everyone is on leave? Or FB is not attracting many people anymore?

Let's see how these users are distributed in terms of age:

13-15          6%
16-17          6%
18-24        30%
25-34        37%
35-44        14%
45-54         5%
55-64         2%
65+            1%

If you have a business and your target segment is 18 to 34, or within that range, then FB is definitely one of the channels to use.

Let’s see now our neighboring countries:

1. Saudi Arabia; 2,385,740 users (35th in the world)
2. UAE; 1,667,560 (44th)
3. Kuwait; 518,540 (78th)
4. Qatar; 405,100 (82nd)
5. Bahrain; 232,960 (92nd)
6. Yemen; 107,520 (112th)

On a global level here are the top five countries in terms of users:

1. United States    125,043,460
2. Indonesia           26,157,520
3. UK                    25,756,640
4. Turkey               21,524,920
5. France               18,506,860

And here the bottom five:

1. Sierra Leone; 7,800 users 
2. Republic of Congo; 7,340
3. San Marino; 6860
4. Mayotte; 6780 
5. Anguilla; 6420

Let me know what you think and if you have any question; these stats are available for nearly every country.

Source: Facebakers.com

Young Arab women using Facebook

A new study has shown that the use of social media like Facebook among young Arab women is creative and innovative.

According to the research, conducted by Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q), young Arab ladies have a deep respect for the community and the family and are discerning when it comes to deciding what information should be made available to the public, a fact that leads to a high level of creativity in their use of social media. 

The study team interviewed 42 students, aged between 18 and 22, to explore the ways in which social media offer new and unfamiliar avenues to express identity. Titled ‘Degrees of Caution: Arab Girls Unveil on Facebook’, the study has been included as a chapter in the book Girl Wide Web 2.0: Revisiting Girls, the Internet, and the Negotiation of Identity.

Ivana Chalmers, NU-Q’s risk assessment specialist, and former faculty member Rodda Leage teamed up to conduct the research, which focused on social media use amongst women undergraduates at Education City, Doha.

Chalmers said that the fact that girls have a high level of creativity in their use of social media, while at same time respecting cultural norms, reveals a tendency to engage with social media trends like Facebook in socially intelligent ways. “What is really admirable is they did not want to compromise their culture and their background. Instead, they found unique and interesting ways to express themselves,” she said.

Chalmers said that the study was an important topic to consider in Qatar and the region. “We need to look at how we fit in, how we communicate into our lives, priorities and beliefs. We see that technology does not have to compromise culture or belief systems. Instead, young Arab women are proving that social media can be used in a different way from the West,” she said. 

I'd be happy to hear views of Omani women and see if they fit in this study.

Logo contest - the WINNER

I could not really post in the past days as Omantel was re-cabling the area, got faster internet now but i felt disconnected from the whole world, it's good to be back!

The time has come to announce the winner of the logo contest. As the voting  was up on Facebook there's no surprise really, but it has been a close contest and i thank everyone for participating and voting.  

The top three logos are all from Oman and belong to:

Third position)

This was submitted by Filip Keunen, a muscat resident.

It was voted by 8 people.

Second position)

Thanks to Rashad Nsouli, a fellow blogger from Oman, for submitting this cool option. It is one of my favourite but unfortunately came second. Number of votes received: 16. Well done again Rashad!

Winner!!

This is from Amjad Al Hinai and 26 people voted for this logo. It has been my favourite since i saw it first and I'm glad the majority of you agreed. Overall this logo gathered 52% of all votes. 

I will ask Amjad to make a couple of small amendments and soon Oman Collective Intelligence will have a new look. 

So well done to Amjad who will also cash the prize, $450.

Thanks again everyone and watch out for the new Oman Collective Intelligence coming soon.

Another funny viral video - John West (II)

The monthly appointment with the most successful viral videos has come again; this video is again from John West the fisherman and the bear.

This new episode was made in 2007 and within a couple of weeks it was viewed by more than 2,000,000 people, not bad.

The previous one i showed (have a look at it if you have not as it is awesome, here) was probably better executed it and original. Also, check the Quicksilver one too, one of the best ever!

Hope you enjoyed it and see you with another video next month.

Stay tuned.

The Coca Cola wave

It's the day of the final, so why not having a football related topic, this is a good one! Another genius idea, this time from Coca Cola. This dynamic billboard was set up a month before the beginning of the World Cup and as of today it has been clearly noticed by more than a million passerby, who not only noticed it but seemed to enjoyed it too.

Very simple but still very creative.

Coca Cola was actually behind the first ever real human wave (called "ola" in Spanish) which took place in 1986 during the World Cup in Mexico, have a look at the ad.

Hats off to Coca Cola for creating something fun which people still do these days in every stadium in the world!

Blogger Stats - awesome new service

If you are using Blogger for your blog here is something very cool and user-friendly that was recently released; Blogger Stats. This new service, a new tab on your dashboard, lets you see real-time data such as the most popular posts, the number of page views for each post, the total number of page views, a breakdown of page views by country and much more. Blogger Stats is only available if you use Blogger in Draft, a playground where Blogger tests many new features.

Here are a couple of examples:

Real time -page views by countries, browsers and OS

From yesterday, N. of visitors, visitors per post, traffic sources, visitors' origin

I think it is much less complex than Google Analytics and it show real time data instead of being updated every hour. It also shows that Google listens to us as many users have been asking for this sort of feature for quite a while now.

Check it out.

Logo contest - and the three shortlisted logos are...

Here we are. The moment has come for all you to play a part in the contest and help me deciding the best visual identity for Oman Collective Intelligence. Before we go into details let me say that overall i was very pleased with the quality and diversity of all entries and a big thank you goes to all the designers who took time to prepare something outstanding. It has been an international contest as three countries took part; Oman, Scotland and Bulgaria...the beautie of internet!

I shortlisted three logos and they all have possibilities of winning. They are very different from each other showing good creativity and all designer followed the brief given.

I have contacted all three designers to ask whether they thought it would be a good idea for me to decide the winner or for all of YOU to help me deciding; we came to the conclusion that my decision could be influenced by all of you....after all that's why it is called Oman Collective Intelligence.

Below are the logos which you can vote for, I will show the logos as well as the description given by each designer. What I will not say is which designer created which logo. Here they are:

Finalist 1 - No description given by designer but all Omanis will recognise the Muscat landmark.

Finalist 2 – The idea behind Oman Collective Intelligence’s symbol is to characterize a network, where the bright diamonds symbolize peers and the darker diamonds symbolize exchanged and intersecting knowledge, information and media. The overall shape shows a symmetrical grid that reflects consistency, professionalism while maintaining elegance, hence an impressive lasting first impression.

The symbol features flexibility as exhibited in this demo where the symbol can fit any size, blend into any background color and adapt to any color pattern, rendering this symbol’s usability to the maximum for any occasion.

Finalist 3 – It is a digital eye. Being a web-based open source of information and knowledge, OCI is 'eying' all news, events, and developments in different fields. The upper curve is shaping the letter "i" which stands for "intelligence". We can also consider the whole illustration as an "O" for "Oman".

Great stuff! Love them all. I want to spend a word on the guys who were not shortlisted, they also did very well and they were not lucky enough to see their logos through. Thank you to Princess, the only lady participating, Hussain, Ali, Nikolas, James and Mohammed. 

How to vote? Simple, go to our Facebook page and click on your favourite one. The voting process will last about week. Comments and suggestions are more than welcome. 

Thank you all and may the best win!

Facebook Pages, a must for B2C brands but maybe not so for B2B?

80% of the top 50 (in terms of fans) Facebook branded Pages sell lingerie, biscuits, ice-creams, burgers, shoes, electronic products, candies, energy drinks, chicken wings, and they all have very attractive Facebook pages.

All these brands are doing things right from an online point of view as some of them only have a FB page, while others combine it with either Twitter, a blog, a YouTube channel, a Flickr slideshow, etc. This shows that they know where their customers are....do you? 

Brands are also using FB well when it comes to customizing the page by having a different landing pages (a welcome page) and customised tabs in order to offer more to the numerous fans they have as well as attracting more.

As we all know a key element is to constantly engage fans by giving them news and asking questions but more importantly is the use of videos and photos as well as giving discounts, coupons, loyalty points, exclusive fan offers, polls, competitions, freebies, and much more. 

Here is the top 10 and check some of them out as it is worth it.

Rank   Brand               Fans as of June 2010   

1. Facebook:           11,423,287
2. Starbucks:            9,064,689
3. Coca Cola:           6,586,411
4. YouTube:             6,436,893
5. Skittles:               5,874,596
6. Oreo:                  5,634,214
7. Red Bull:              5,365,112 
8. Victoria's Secret:    4,405,763 
9. Live Messenger:    4,396,332
10. iTunes:                 4,123,723

So if you want to make it to the top 10 you'll need to have more than 4 million fans, how far are you?

The great non sticking pan

A spectacular event using a giant wok and in-line skaters dressed as prawns, eggs, carrots and fish, was set up outside shopping malls in Shanghai China. That's the latest very creative campaign by Leo Burnett for Supor.

The food skaters flew up and down a ramp constructed inside the wok to demonstrate the non-stick surface.

A rise in sales of 20% in the selected Shanghai malls has led to plans being made to take the event into 2nd and 3rd tier cities across China.

Creativity pays off, simply great!