Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting Seoul, Korea for the 3^rd SIGGRAPH Asiaconference on computer graphics. The rest of the xiik geeks celebrated once they heard news I would actually be gone for a full month on an extended trip through Asia. (Because they were happy for me. Yes, that’s why.) After the conference in South Korea, a few friends and I planned a journey to tackle the east side of China, traveling from Beijing to Shanghai to Hong Kong and lastly Macau.

Needless to say, it was an experience of a lifetime. I consistently ran into one difficulty, however, while in China: staying connected with everyone back home. My friends, family and co-workers depended on social networking sites or an email here and there to know that I hadn’t fallen off the Great Wall or gotten lost in the Forbidden City. Aside from Hong Kong and Macau, which have an entirely open Internet, while in mainland China (Beijing and Shanghai), we soon realized that contacting home through our normal websites – Facebook and Twitter mostly – was not going to be an option. Not convenient!

So, what’s behind China’s policies to block such popular social networking websites? Though China has always exerted more control over its media than Western-style democracies, the real straw that broke the camel’s back was when violent riotserupted in the western region of Xinjiang in July 2009, where authorities blamed the use of the web, specifically Facebook and Twitter, for its planning. The entire Xinjiang region lost access to the entire Internet for several months as a result.

As I began to make friends with locals in these cities with restricted access, I asked them what their opinion on the matter was. Most felt the violence wasn’t the major player. Instead, they felt the blame was on China’s domestic services like Weibo and Kaixin, the Twitter and Facebook of China, respectively. If China has the opportunity to completely cut off the majority of the population to these US-based sites, locals have no other option than to use what is second best. Can anyone say scarcity power? Here is a list of all currently blocked sites in China. (Unfortunately and ironically, for the mainland China readers out there, this link directs to Wikipedia – one of the very sites China blocks.)

For me, a dude who uses Facebook and Twitter multiple times per day, the inconvenience really required some adjusting that I didn’t have the time or inclination for on my travels. Each moment spent searching for a proxy server or way to navigate the text-based websites that magically let me in (such as getus.in) I knew I was wasting time I could easily be using to see more of that vast country! One wonders what kind of cumulative adverse effect on tourism this might have in the long run.

Of course, I am just one guy. I can theoretically survive without my Facebook fix for a couple of weeks. But what happened to all of those China-based companies that relied on Twitter and Facebook as free, essential marketing tools? Are they stuck using the more censored, domestic platforms for now until China eases up or will they try to use proxy servers to gain access? Does this force more of a national, rather than international, approach to their brand-building and business development? There are many questions and implications for a society that does not embrace the connectivity of an open, transparent online global community.

What would you do in their shoes? Could you adjust to life in China as it currently is? Do these policies affect your desire to travel to or do business with China?

All I know is that we were thrilled to reach Hong Kong at the end of our trip, where we could access the real Facebook layout and catch up with our friends back home. If you cannot live without some of these sites every day, visiting mainland China will be even more of a culture shock than you had imagined. Don’t let that stop you, though! For me, a status update can wait. Traveling the world is much more rewarding than getting a few likes or @ messages online.

If you’ve traveled to or conducted business with China in the last few years, we’d love to hear about your experiences with their media landscape.

It is a quick and easy read that has great take-away points, but I think the examples they chose to include could have been better. Their post features Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Ashton Kutcher, Barack Obama, Ellen DeGeneres, Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey, Taylor Swift, and Katy Perry. Notice any similarities? Duh! They all have $40 billion and a private island. I would go so far as to say that it would be unlikely if you haven’t heard even one of those names. And this is where the flaw in the Techipedia article lies.

I don’t mean to bash the article because it is, overall, a helpful read for a newcomer to Twitter. (Did I mention it was written by a 16 year old? Yeah. I know. Go him!) I just feel that it is unrealistic to use a group like that as models for the rest of us.  That would be like reading an article on building a house that only uses examples of mansions in Beverly Hills.

For the record, I am no Twitter expert, nor do I have as many followers as Justin Bieber. But, I do believe that I have been using the site long enough to take a stance on topics such as this. Since we are talking about Justin Bieber, I’ll use him as an example. Bieber has over 5 million followers and follows…wait for it…over 83,000! Don’t even try to convince yourself (or me) that 17 year-old Bieber sat there and clicked follow on all those tweople. And he’s not the only one following so many. Personally, I don’t have time for that, so I can safely assume little Justin doesn’t either. Barack Obama, on the other hand, probably has plenty of time to follow 715,000+ users, right?

We could continue to examine these stats, in detail, like number of tweets, following to follower ratio, join date, status popularity, and so on, but using examples like Oprah Winfrey and Kim Kardashian won’t guarantee a pathway for Twitter success. Instead of looking at these stats, practice yourself by making a Twitter account and learning how to use it for your own success. Everyone’s different after all, so we all use it for different reasons.

I will leave you with my quickly revised list of Twitter tips (based on the Techipedia article):

Status updates matter only if you are being true and real. It is so easy to spot a Twitter-bot. Don’t fall for the old “Want 2 million followers overnight? Click here!” trick. It won’t work. Oh, and your number of tweets won’t make you more popular automatically. Just because you posted 8,500 tweets last month doesn’t mean they were all quality tweets.

A follow for a follow would be nice in a perfect world, but it won’t always happen. My advice: follow who you want, who you think is interesting and helpful. The followers will come after, just as long as you are being real in your status updates. And remember, this takes time.

Add personality that fits you (or your brand). This is the only way to separate you from the other 75 million users on Twitter. You can only fit so much in 140 characters, so it’s easy to sound like Joe-shmo.

Promote yourself, but be careful not to overdo it. Would you still follow Katy Perry if all she was tweeting about was to buy her new album? Me neither. I say this: Promote at your own risk.

As much as I’d like to play it off like all of these wall posts are not that big of a deal, they really are! Who doesn’t love a little extra attention on their special day? The fact that the wall post is public serves two purposes, if you think about it, the sender and receiver both win. The birthday boy/girl is seen as a person who is cared about and gets birthday wishes. The friend who writes on their wall is seen as a caring person who sends happy birthdays. That’s a win-win in my book!

There are even discussions I found talking about the expectation of responding to your friends who wish you a happy birthday. Take this thread on Yahoo Answers as an example. Personally, I responded to every person who wrote me. That’s just my two cents, but I think that I can devote 10 seconds of my time to respond with a “Thanks dude!” since they took time out of their day to think of me.

So, let’s crunch some numbers here. These are the birthday wish figures for this fiscal year for me. Looks like Facebook is the obvious choice for my friends.

I find it interesting that people go that far to seek advice on a matter such as this, which can tell us one thing: Facebook happy birthdays are that important. My prediction is that this trend will only grow in popularity, just as quickly as Facebook has been growing. It’s convenient, quick and still personal. So, before your birthday comes around this year, be sure to prepare yourself (and your Facebook wall) for some birthday love. You know you like it!

Obviously Anderson was rooting for the Colts. And we all know how that story ends. (If you don’t, the Colts lost.) The significance of this whole bet, however, is rooted in the publicity that each museum garnered. In addition to Twitter, this smack talk was also discussed on the Modern Art Notes blog, meaning that anyone who follows their tweets or that art blog most likely followed the course of the bet.

In publicly announcing the bet and egging one another on, the two museums were actually generating interest through social media, whether they realized it or not. They rallied their art history communities around something entirely unexpected — home team pride — and in the process caught the attention of folks outside their average orbit.  xiik did something similar when we realized that we had more Facebook followers than our friends over at another Indy firm, Mediasauce. See the humorous post here. In this case, we inspired several comments and feedback about our little popularity contest. You know what they say: any publicity is good publicity.

Unfortunately, it looks like Max Anderson and the IMA were just a tad over confident with their art wager. The Saints’ 31-17 victory over the Colts proved quite a few people wrong, including most of us xiik geeks. In a final tweet to end the Super Bowl bet, IMA declared, “Congrats to the Saints & @NOMA1910 on winning the Super Bowl bet. #Indy-be sure to see the JMW Turner before it heads to New Orleans!” Now that’s good sportsmanship! As Twitter continues to broaden its utility to interactions such as money transfers or one-on-one interviewing, we will likely see “tweeple” using the service in more creative ways, like smack talking, to entertain and thus promote their brand.