Conducted across eight Asia-Pacific markets (Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan), the second quarterly Digital Brand Index (DBI 2.0) continues to unveil insights about; the most discussed brands online, the most active channels and the subject areas that spark the most vibrant debate.

Researched during the last three months of 2009, DBI 2.0 found almost 1.5 million online technology brand mentions – double the level tracked in DBI 1.0, conducted July to September 2009. Other key findings from DBI 2.0 include:

• Mentions of large technology brands online doubled in the last quarter of 2009, reaching 1.5 million across Asia Pacific’s top 300 large technology brands, covering almost 3,800 channels and online sites.
• Twitter’s massive growth trajectory has seen it become the dominant channel for sharing news about technology brands across Asia, except in China where it is banned. For example, in India, Twitter represents over three-quarters of all online conversations tracked.
• Despite massive online buzz generated by Microsoft around Windows 7, Google continued to be the most discussed brand across the region, generating significant mentions in areas such as its Chrome and Android operating systems, and the Nexus One smart phone.

Developed by Edelman and derived from Brandtology data, the second quarterly Digital Brand Index (DBI 2.0) for Singapore found:

• Google (over 20,600) and SingTel (over 13,700) topped the rankings by way of volume of conversations, with increases of 245 per cent and 50 per cent in the last quarter respectively
• StarHub closed the gap on SingTel, enjoying a 137.3 per cent increase in online buzz
• Canon (4.3) once again topped the Average Engagement scoreboard, ahead of LG (3.3)
• The centre of gravity for online conversation regarding technology brands in Singapore was once again dominated Hardwarezone Forum, Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (37,043 mentions) and Twitter Singapore (20,643). The channels combined accounted for over one third (37.2 per cent) of all chatter
• StarHub knocked SingTel from the top spot in the Channel Index, which reveals the number of unique channels discussing a brand

Source: Twitter Leapfrogs Established Digital News Sources finds the Asia Pacific Quarterly Digital Brand Index

Inspired by DK’s blog post on Been using Twitter for 3 years and still loving it!, I am determined to get my first tweet. But there is a problem! The 3,200 tweet limit imposed by Twitter.

According to Twitter’s FAQ, it states:

Why can’t I see all my tweets? My tweet count is _,___. Are they lost?
The good news is they’re not lost or gone! We have all your tweets. The bad news is that we currently only allow you to see the 3200 most recent tweets (this could also be construed as good news, as that number could be lower than 3200). The other good news is that we are eventually going to build something that will allow you to see ALL your tweets. Among the gazillion things we want to do to make Twitter better, this hasn’t yet reached the top of our list, which is largely based on what we hear from people like you. At some point, you’ll be able to get on a twime machine, visit your twistory, and tweminisce. That will be a fun day!

That means if you got more than 3,200 tweets, you are pretty much screwed if you want to get your first tweet. There are services like My First Tweet and My Tweet 16 which allows you to get your first tweet.

My Tweet 16 did not have a gracious way of telling user, “hey you got more than 3,200 tweets and hence we can’t obtain your first tweet”. Instead it still displays the so called “your first tweet” which is totally fake if you got more than 3,200 tweets. It is basically listing your (YOUR_CURRENT_TWEET_COUNT – 3200)th tweet.

My First Tweet on the other hand is much better, if you got more than 3,200 tweets it will just prompt you “Sorry, something went wrong. This is what I have recorded as your error: Too Many Tweets.”.

I tried Googling, Binging and Yahooing but still could not get any answers. Suddenly Internet Archive came to my mind! Just enter your Twitter URL which is http://twitter.com/YOUR_USERNAME. For mine, it is http://twitter.com/gamerz.

It should be able to list the archives of your Twitter page, click on the earliest archive and it should bring your to a cache page of your Twitter page during that period. Here is an example http://web.archive.org/web/20080118191247/http://twitter.com/gamerz.

As you can see, it list down all the tweets that you have during that period. That page listed 4 tweets for me which matches the Updates count on that page. And hence the last tweet on that page should technically be your first tweet. There is no way to confirm that till Twitter have a twime machine or something in the future.

Here is my first tweet according to the Internet Archive:

After midterm exams, now comes exams

YOURLS: Your Own URL Shortener has been released by Ozh and I. I have been running YOURLS on lc.sg and Ozh is running it on ozh.in.

What is YOURLS?

YOURLS is a small set of PHP scripts that will allow you to run your own URL shortening service (a la TinyURL). You can make it private or public, you can pick custom keyword URLs, it comes with its own API. You will love it.

There’s a WordPress plugin available for YOURLS, making integration with your blog a snap: create short URLs and tweet them automagically as you publish blog posts.

Check out Ozh blog post on the announcement, Introducing YOURLS (Your Own URL Shortener) and its WordPress Plugin Companion.

YOURLS comes with a WordPress Plugin as well and this plugin is developed by Ozh.

YOURLS WordPress Plugin

This plugin, YOURLS: WordPress to Twitter, is the bridge between YOURLS, Twitter and your blog: when you publish a post or a page, it will use your own YOURLS install, either hosted on the same webserver, or another server, to create a short URL for your post and send it to your Twitter account. The plugin also works with public popular services such as TinyURL, tr.im, is.gd or bit.ly.

Check out Ozh blog post on the WordPress plugin, YOURLS: WordPress To Twitter (a Short URL Plugin).

You can follow us on Twitter as well, Ozh and gamerz.

Official Site: YOURLS: Your Own URL Shortener

The Fail Whale is designed by Lu Yiying and made popular by Twitter. As you all may know Twitter website will show the Fail Whale picture when the server is overloaded or failed.

Zazzle and Spread Shirt are the two official websites where you can get the official Fail Whale T-Shirt. I ordered mine from Zazzle.

I have a very bad experience buying from Zazzle. The first time I ordered was on the 10th April 2009, my order failed because I fail to verify my credit card number. That email asking me to verify my credit card number was in my Gmail spam and hence if I fail to reply within 1 week, my order will be cancel automatically. I was quite pissed off about it and wrote them an email. I am paying USING PayPal and there is no need to involve my credit card number at all as I have ENOUGH funds in my account. Up till today, they are still unable to explain to me why do they need my credit card number. I did not enter my credit card number when paying over at Zazzle and hence I have no idea how are they going to verify it.

I place the 2nd order on the 19th April 2009 and wrote them an email to “confirm” that I am a human placing the order and not some scam and this time, within 2 days on the 21st April 2009, my order got shipped and arrive on the 8th May 2009. Took about 17 days for me to get my items after it is being shipped.

I am very disappointed with the t-shirt quality by Zazzle. The quality of the t-shirt is bad and the quality of the ladies t-shirt print is bad as well. The WordPress t-shirt that I bought 2 months ago was way better in every aspect and it is even cheaper.

So summary, think twice before getting any t-shirts from Zazzle.

Price Breakdown

• Ladies T-Shirt: USD$$21.55
• Men T-Shirt: USD$20.50
• Shipping: USD$11.97
• Discount of USD$5
• Total: USD$49.02

2 T-Shirts Inside This Package

Ladies T-Shirt (USD$21.55)

Men T-Shirt (USD$20.50)

Closeup Of The Fail Whale

Links

• Lu Yiying
• Lu Yiying Illustration Portfolio
• Fail Whale Fan Club
• Twitter
• Fail Whale T-Shirt @ Zazzle
• Fail Whale T-Shirt @ Spread Shirt