During the period between June 01 2010 and August 10 2010, the total Facebook users in Asia increased by 33%, from 64,638,960 to 86,059,780. Indonesia continues to lead in Asia with 26 million users (or 30% of total Facebook users in Asia), followed by Philippines (15 million), India (11 million), Malaysia (7.6 million) and Taiwan (6.9 million).

About 66% of the Facebook population in Asia (or a total of 57,115,340) reside in the southeast Asian countries – Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Laos, Cambodia.

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The Twitter account of CIMB Bank apparently compromised. A few hours ago, @CIMB_Assists tweeted a rather ‘distasteful’ tweet:

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.. Twitter for the germination of real-time stream and Facebook for the mutation of online privacy.

The New Follower email notification from Twitter gets a fresh new look. It comes with full extract of your new follower’s profile details, including ‘bio’ and ‘location.’ It also comes with better organized “what’s next” guide – link to your new follower’s profile page, send an @ reply / direct message and report spam.

Old version

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Facebook Credits virtual currency platform set to expand its payment options in Asia. Facebook and MOL Global just announced a strategic partnership to enable the purchase of Facebook Credits using MOLPoints, an online micropayment system developed and managed by Malaysia-based MOL, one of the largest internet companies in South East Asia.

Credits, the official virtual currency on Facebook, enables the purchase of gifts and virtual goods for games and applications on Facebook platform. Popular games like Farmville, Millionaire City, Hotel City, Petville, Bejeweled Blitz, Hotel City, Barn Buddy, Likeness and hundreds other games and applications are already accepting Facebook Credits (up-to-date list of games here). There are over 200 million unique Facebook users playing games each month. Soon, these social gamers can buy Credits using MOLPoints. And they can reload the MOLPoints through MOL’s network of over 500,000 physical (e.g. 7-Eleven, cybercafes, bookstores), online banking and mobile payment channels, in over 80 countries.

“The relationship with Facebook demonstrates MOL’s growing role as a leading payment provider for social networking sites in Asia, especially in our core countries of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and India,” said Ganesh Kumar Bangah, group chief executive officer for MOL Global.

He added, “Over the last few quarters, we have seen a double-digit increase in payment transactions and payment volume. This partnership continues MOL’s momentum to build the largest end-to-end content, distribution and commerce network in Asia.”

According to Vaughan Smith, director of business and corporate development at Facebook, “working with MOL means we can offer the benefits of Facebook Credits to millions of people in Asia using a payment system that is already widely used and trusted. We’re investing in the long-term future of Facebook Credits and we view this agreement as a major opportunity to broaden the availability of a simple, unified currency that can be used in games and applications across Facebook.”

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Today is Social Media Day 2010, an event curated by Mashable. Worldwide, over 600 planned Meetups and close to 10,000 people are celebrating the SM Day.

Here are the top Asian cities*, in term of registered people:

1. Bengaluru, India
2. Chennai, India
3. Jakarta, Indonesia
4. New Delhi, India
5. Tokyo, Japan
6. Makati City, Philippines
7. Mumbai, India
8. Silom, Thailand
9. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
10. Singapore
11. Hyderabad, India
12. Chandigarh, India
13. Roppongi, Japan
14. Thiruvananthapuram, India
15. Nagpur, India
16. Udaipur, India
17. Taipei City, Taiwan
18. Lahore, Pakistan

* only cities with confirmed venues are listed.

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The enhanced version of Twitter application on Facebook enables you to see “which of your Facebook friends are on Twitter and lets you follow them instantly and save them to a list.” Mashable called this latest feature HUGE.

I’ve tried to connect my Twitter and Facebook accounts but got this error message “… Facebook has blocked your ability to allow this application to look up your friends. Twitter has requested that Facebook remove the block” (see below). Is this yet another sign of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg paying too much attention on Twitter?

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With the introduction of Twitter Places, each tweet is packed with more information. Now, each status update (what is happening right now?) will be tagged with time (when) and Place (where) together with how the tweet is generated – people or things (how). Analytic is Twitter’s 5th dimension (why). And these five dimensions will make Twitter, the Amazon River of real-time web a.k.a. the pulse of the planet.

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Back in April 20 2010 during an interview on CBS, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said:

…We do have a plan for creating commercial accounts.. especially for organizations and companies really want to know how my tweets doing? Am I effectively using the product to reach my constituents, if I’m a politician. Or sell more shoes if I’m an online retailer? Or just am I getting the words out?

We want to do is to create this commercial account that essentially provide a few different things. This is in testing right now, with a few hundred different organizations and companies. Some of the features that would be an analytic dashboard, something that really tells you a lot about… how many people are clicking on a link that I sent out in my last tweet, how many people are re-tweeting it, starring it. The dashboard basically gives you visibility into your success of using Twitter.

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The global CitID project invites creatives worldwide to “make a logo or a visual interpretation of the city closest to their heart.” This user-generated contents project aims “to gain global consciousness by giving a (type)face to every city worldwide.” Blogger Joanne Costello called the project “a global visual anthology of city identities.”

Asian countries already represented in CitID are Brunei, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Cities are Bandar Seri Begawan, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Duri, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Osaka, Takasaki, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Yangon, Malolos City, Manila, Singapore, and Bangkok. Globally, the project has garnered at least one contribution from every continent. Next targets are all countries, all capitals and all cities represented.

To find out more how to submit your artistic interpretation of your city, click here. Selected works will be published in the upcoming CitID book. Below are the artworks/logos of Honoured Asian Cities in CitID, to date:

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