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By TaiTran, March 7, 2009 9:54 am

My first fortnight in Sydney passed and the only social media entity I’m surrounded by is neither Google, Yahoo nor Twitter, but Facebook.

My experience with the University of New South Wales confirms my hypothesis on the Viralization of Facebook:

In UNSW we have over 100 clubs and societies. Student activities and career orientation programs here are organized make use of Facebook as a platform for announcements, discussions, networking and to some extent, information storage.

Newly arrived students are inevitably invited to create a Facebook account, connect to others and join many of the student groups.

Influencers are ubiquitous. And they’re not necessarily the tech-savvy; mainly, they have something to share.

Around 2,600,000 Australian are in Australian network, around 12% of the whole population of Australia.

A quick check on Alexa shows that Facebook is ranking 3rd in Australia, only after the two Google’s properties. Considering their popularity and potential to dominate the web further, I’m not surprised if Facebook wants to shift from relationship-centric to content-centric.

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By TaiTran, November 29, 2007 12:03 pm

CyVee cares about security of information by providing security options and regularly reminding its users of setting security issues. This is what I applaud.

However, this concern of security conflicts with its Account levels.

Currently CyVee offers 3 levels of account: Personal, PersonalPlus and Premium. Details can be viewed here

To upgrade to PersonalPlus for free, user needs to complete 100% profile. I have filled in most information about my portfolio and career, and I am very cautious about these fields:

1. Birthday in Personal Information
2. Email in Contact Information
3. Cellphone in Contact Information

I eventually decided to fill in Email field with a little tweak so as only human can get it correctly, and left the other 2 blank. Since I leave 2 fields out, my profile is 60% complete, which means I am not able to upgrade my account to PersonalPlus.

So in order to upgrade the account, one has to violate basic security practice by revealing his/her crucial information.

My suggestions

1. Provide built-in email image-generator like that of Facebook
2. Make these 3 fields non-required

Thanks,

Tai Tran

Comments (0)

By TaiTran, November 29, 2007 12:03 pm

CyVee cares about security of information by providing security options and regularly reminding its users of setting security issues. This is what I applaud.

However, this concern of security conflicts with its Account levels.

Currently CyVee offers 3 levels of account: Personal, PersonalPlus and Premium. Details can be viewed here

To upgrade to PersonalPlus for free, user needs to complete 100% profile. I have filled in most information about my portfolio and career, and I am very cautious about these fields:

1. Birthday in Personal Information
2. Email in Contact Information
3. Cellphone in Contact Information

I eventually decided to fill in Email field with a little tweak so as only human can get it correctly, and left the other 2 blank. Since I leave 2 fields out, my profile is 60% complete, which means I am not able to upgrade my account to PersonalPlus.

So in order to upgrade the account, one has to violate basic security practice by revealing his/her crucial information.

My suggestions

1. Provide built-in email image-generator like that of Facebook
2. Make these 3 fields non-required

Thanks,

Tai Tran

Comments (6)

By TaiTran, November 22, 2007 8:13 pm

Overall

Why would I want to use a Vietnamese web service

1. Connection speed, especially for video streaming
2. Local opportunities

What would drive me away

1. Security, including revelation of my account information and spam
2. Careless design
3. Immature communities

Networking

Professional Networking

I’m favoring CyVee because opportunities are real and more closely intact.

LinkedIn is terrific, but opportunities might come at a lower pace.

Social Networking

I’m currently very happy with Facebook.

If faceViet or yobanbe want to get me, they have to provide

1. Professional theme
2. English interface
3. Strong personalization options.

Social News

It’s a pity I prefer utilizing my RSS Reader over social news sites such as Digg. Therefore, no remark just yet.

However, the news sharing platform of CyVee looks nice and could be very useful in promoting company brand like the way Tim of TRG is doing.

Additionally, if Vietnamese service provider can create something like StumbleUpon, it would make a hit and I’ll definitely consider.

Photos Networking

Picasa has everything I need: 1Gb free account, folders, tagging and an uploader.

Is there a local site focusing on photos networking?

Music Networking

I’m enjoying sharing music on imeem. I am more into English songs. I like new age, hard rock and symphony and I’m not sure whether nhacso, Zing mp3 are rich of such genres.

Video Networking

Youtube is absolutely wonderful. I am amazed by its fast connection speed and stability.

Therefore, I don’t have the plan to move to Clip.vn just yet.

Mobile Networking

Has any Vietnamese vendor invest in this area?

Blogging

I am maintaining my different blogs on self-hosted WordPress, Yahoo! 360 and Windows Live Spaces.

If local blogging providers such as ngoisaoblog, blog.com.vn want to attract me, they would have to ensure:

1. High SEO compatibility
2. High security, including spam protection and splog tracking
3. Backup options and standard-compliant import/export functionalities
4. Permalinks

Instant Messaging

My clients in the US are using MSN Messenger. Most of my friends are using Yahoo! Messenger. For conference, Skype is just wonderful.

I don’t feel the urge of switching to Zing chat.

Email

Apart from professional emails on my domain, I use a Gmail account to access Google services and a Yahoo! email to make it easier for my friends.

Any company is investing in providing free email service in Vietnam?

Portal

I use my portal for work purpose and netvibes is still number one.

Zing looks very nice, but I’d rather having something customizable.

e-Commerce

I’m not having a real need of C2C e-Commerce, so no comment on this.

Map

A vote for diadiem, simply because I need to find ways in my local areas.

Entertainment

I’d rather go out playing sports than wandering online, so good luck socvui, hihihehe and so on

Conclusion

In conclusion, the 2 local web services that I utilize are CyVee and diadiem

CyVee give me real local opportunities and diadiem is definitely more useful than its Google counterpart.

For others, if they can bring me real values I’m seeking…