October 19 2009: Mystery Song on Radio
The song ‘Through My Window’ being played over the airwaves (HITZfm, HOTfm, Xfm) – hear Rudy of HITZfm announced it. No mention of the singer. The website ‘www.EveryoneConnects.net’ with the song (for download) and lyric. Also, with this phrase “Everyone Connects is about getting people to communicate & collaborate because when everyone’s connected, anything is possible.” Twitter, Facebook and Friendster profile pages also went live.

October 20 2009: The Star newspaper
Appeared on the front-page of The Star, “Unknown song rocks the nation.”

October 21 2009: Pixelated Images
Blurred images of the band who sang ‘Through My Window’ appeared on Everyone Connects’ website.

October 23 2009: The Revelation
It’s TM campaign. TV commercial started to appear in the evening on major TV networks.

Full version of www.EveryoneConnects.com launched.

Banner concert appeared on the website too; the first time it is being used in Malaysia. Also, there’s an online mixer for people to create and mashup the song ‘Through My Window.”

October 25 2009: Super Dance Online Extreme Connecting Dancers Tournament 2009 Kick-off
The tournament is designed to reach out and engage the online games community, specifically the 150,000-strong Super Dance Online Extreme players around Malaysia. This is the first time a campaign song is inserted into the game’s playlist.

October 25 2009: Sing Along Booths
Sing Along Booths appeared at shopping malls, universities/colleges, office buildings and cinemas. Videos of people singing were recorded and posted on www.EveryoneConnects.net.

November 21 2009: The Grand Finale
Today is the grand finale event for the month-long Everyone Connects campaign; currently happening at Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. Some before-event photos:

The Anatomy of #EveryoneConnects originally appeared on GreyReview.com on November 21, 2009.

A recent New York Times article outlined the upside of global online games and described how Chinese game makers are expanding beyond China and outmaneuver industry’s heavyweights like Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard in the online space. The global online games set to explode, with revenue expected to reach $13 billion in 2010; China to capture more than 40% of the global online games market by 2011 (Samsung Securities). Typically, these online games are free to play; revenue mainly from micro transactions i.e. players buy weapons and accessories to advance faster to new levels. This is in contrast to the subscription model of the online games from Europe and United States. Chinese games makers are poised to benefit from the proliferation of broadband usage and slowly-but-surely shift toward online gaming.

Global Outlook, Local Flavors

Here’s a look at how a Chinese games being ‘exported’ to another country. Super Dance Online Extreme (SDO-X) is a Made-in-China online games. Its one of the most popular multiplayer casual online games in Malaysia, with over 150,000 unique active users. In Malaysia, the average number of users for a popular massively multiplayer online game is between 10,000 and 15,000; casual games with over 100,000 users are considered top-tier.

The game is published and localized by a Malaysian company, CiB Net Station Sdn Bhd. Besides Malaysia, CiB also publishes the game in Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. A publisher typically host online games locally and manage the infrastructure required for the operation of the games. Game creator granted them rights to publish the games in one or more countries by the game creator. Revenue-sharing is made between with the game creator and the publisher. Besides SDO-X, CiB Net Station also publish other online games like Crazy Shooter Online, Risk Your Life and TLBB and all are accessible from its integrated online games platform, CiB Mall Portal.

In Malaysia, its competitors are STEP, High Street 5 and Audition. To remain ‘fresh’ and interesting, new edition of the game is released every 3 to 4 months, with changes to its theme and accessories, among others. As a publisher of the games, CiB Net Station requests the game creator in China to localize and customize elements within SDO-X to fit the local markets.

The Gameplay

SDO-X is Guitar Hero for dancing. Players use keyboards to play (or USB dancing pad). Hitting the right notes, players earn points. Having hit a series of right notes (combo), the player earn bonus points. Skilled players can get clean full combination – meaning the player able to hit all the right notes. Below is a video of SDO-X players in action.

Similar to IRC environment, users can create public or private rooms. Anyone can access a public room, either to chat with others in the room or dance with others. Private rooms require password. Users range from 10 years old to 30 years old; the majority in the 16 to 23 years age bracket. Users can access the game from cybercafe or home with average time-of-play per user is 2 hours. In Malaysia, the game has recorded a concurrent users of more than 10,000.

Virtual Economy

Players can earn game points (CiB Points, or CP) by playing the games or purchase points from both virtual and physical distribution channels. On the Internet, users can buy the points via cibmall.net and also virtual points merchants like OffGamers, I1Game, ESA, Whoyo and Gogobase. Offline channels include 7-Eleven, Internet cafes, convenience stores and bookstores. There are over 2,000 selling points in Malaysia and over 100 in Singapore. Points can be used to buy accessories to beautify avatars (like suit and diamond ring) or buy tools like loud speaker (ability to broadcast messages across rooms).

Other than micro-transactions, it also undertake co-branding project with companies. SDO-X is one of the important components of the expansive, multi-dimensional branding campaign of Malaysian largest telcos, Telekom Malaysia, TM. The campaign, Everyone Connects, weaves itself into the SDO-X gaming experience. “This is the first time a song from a marketing campaign is included in the playlist of Super Dance Online,” said Danny Chang, Sales and Marketing Manager of CiB Net Station. “The TM campaign is a good example of a creative way to engage the online games community, specifically the SDO community.”

During the campaign period, the song is the default first song in the playlist. As part of its strategy to reach out to the teenagers and the early 20s, TM currently holding SDO-X Connecting Dancers Tournament 2009 in Klang Valley, Penang and Johor Baru. Finalists from each city will compete at the Everyone Connects Big Event, to held on November 21 2009 at Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur.

Conclusion

With the proliferation of broadband usage, online gaming will continue to grow across the globe. It is becoming the social lubricant among the Generation Digital. The popularity of social gaming on Facebook, for example, epitomizes the upside of online games. For companies, the online games environment offers an exciting and vibrant new marketing interface and in coming months, we will see more innovative marketers creatively engaging the online games community.

Game On: A Peek Into Online Games in China originally appeared on GreyReview.com on November 19, 2009.

Its Twitter account @every1connects with 184 followers; averaging 61 new followers per day over the past 3 days. The two key hashtags used are #ThroughMyWindow and #EveryoneConnects with the following stats:

• #ThroughMyWindow: a total 236 tweets from 154 contributors carrying the hashtag; averaging 33.7 tweets per day. And 10.6% are retweets.
• #EveryoneConnects: a total of 243 tweets from 165 contributors; averaging 34.7 tweets per day. And 5.8% are retweets. (Source: What’s The Hashtag?!)

On Facebook, there are already 947 fans on its Facebook Page (as of early this morning).. and before the week is over, I believe it can breach the 1,000-mark. To date, only 13 updates on its Wall. From these 13 updates, it generated a total of 94 comments. That’s average 7.2 comments per update!

What we can learn:

1. It is relatively easier to expand your community on Facebook compared to Twitter. Then, maybe it’s easier to go ‘viral’ on Facebook.
2. Facebook Wall with more richer contents (photo, video), which act as effective social objects for people to make spontaneous responses and also, engaging people and elicit their comments.
3. Higher re-tweet rate is useful for a hashtag can go viral. Or is it? Looking at the example of the SharePoint Conference 2009 in Las Vegas with hashtag #spc09, which was in the Top 10 Trending early this morning (2am, Malaysian time), the retweet is 17.1% out of 12,020 tweets. In terms of retweet, both #ThroughMyWindow and #EveryoneConnects are not far off, 10.6% and 5.8% respectively. Both didn’t make it to the Top 10 trending but #throughmywindow was Trending in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Monday 19 2009; #throughmywindow was number two after ‘beyonce’ (Source: Trendsmap). Retweet help but it’s not really a critical factor. In the case of #spc09, total tweet per day is more than 1,700 tweets; each contributor averaging 7.2 tweets. Yes, to make it to Trending, you just need sheer number of people tweeting, at any one time.

Verdict: From reach and richness perspectives: Reach refers to total number of followers/fans and richness refers to the dynamics of engagements and conversations. In the case of EveryoneConnects, on both reach and richness dimensions, Facebook wins!

Twitter vs Facebook Face/Off For #EveryoneConnects originally appeared on GreyReview.com on October 22, 2009.

Song as teaser, Twitter stream on website and profile pages on social networks – ingredients for brewing a groundswell? At the time of this posting, Twitter, Facebook and Friendster pages are still relatively empty. Search the Whois database and the record shows the domain ‘www.EveryoneConnects.net’ was created on September 29, 2009 and is registered to Monster Interactive Sdn Bhd (the interactive agency for this campaign?).

‘Through My Window’, part of Microsoft Windows 7 campaign? Or is it for a music-centric social networking site? Or is it by a communication/colloration software solution provider? Or is it… Anyway, let your imagination run amok and enter your wild guess in the 1Question Survey form below.

Through My Window, I Can See A Silhouette of A Social Media Campaign originally appeared on GreyReview.com on October 19, 2009.