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Category - Social Media

#AskMR Twitter Q&A with the President

September 27, 2013
TechWire
Social Media
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1 min read

The second Q&A via the Presidents twitter account @PresRajapaksa was held yesterday evening (25th September) from New York. The first such twitter Q&A was held in June, where questions were answered by Pres. Sec. Mr. Lalith Weerthunga. On this occasion the President answered the questions while Mr. Weeratunga moderated the session.

Questions were requested to be UN related, although they came from a various range of topics. During the Q&A session(which got delayed due to another meeting of the President)  around 20 questions were answered. However in contrast to the previous twitter session, the questions weren’t retweeted, which meant it was a bit difficult to find which question was actually answered. At the end of the session, the social media team acknowledged this mistake, and promised to improve future sessions.

If you by any chance missed the session you can take a look at the twitter stream below.

#AskMR Twitter Q&A with President Rajapaksa

Kandy Esela Perahara 2013 – Live on Youtube

August 14, 2013
TechWire
Social Media, Web
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1 min read

Marking a major step for Youtube in Sri Lanka, the Kandy Esela Perahara would be broadcast LIVE on Youtube. The Music.lk team (Gallezone) who brought the first public hangouts (Ripples of Music) is behind this initiative as well. The Perehera would be viewable live each day from the 11th to 20th August, 5.30pm onwards. You can view it at www.music.lk/perahara . It is fitting that this prestigious event is the first to be covered in this manner. The full schedule is as below.

Sri Dalada procession – Live Streaming Schedule
2013-08-11 | 5.30 PM – 1st Kumbal Perahara
2013-08-12 | 5.30 PM – 2nd Kumbal Perahara
2013-08-13 | 5.30 PM – 3rd Kumbal Perahara
2013-08-14 | 5.30 PM – 4th Kumbal Perahara
2013-08-15 | 5.30 PM – 5th Kumbal Perahara
2013-08-16 | 5.30 PM – 1st Randoli Perahara
2013-08-17 | 5.30 PM – 2nd Randoli Perahara
2013-08-18 | 5.30 PM – 3rd Randoli Perahara
2013-08-19 | 5.30 PM – 4th Randoli Perahara
2013-08-20 | 5.30 PM – 5th Randoli Perahara

Perehara on YoutubePerahara on Youtube

The Evolution of Social Media

July 3, 2013
TechWire
Infographic, Social Media
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1 min read

As social media day was celebrated last week, we thought of showcasing a Social Media infographic. Unlike any other technology, social media saw an exponential growth in adoption and has become a key part of most of our daily lives. “Likes”, “Shares”, “Hashtags”, “tweets” have all become familiar jargon to us. The below infographic displays the rise of social media and key events related to it. Where will social media lead us to, in the future?…. only time will tell. (infographic credits : http://www.randallreilly.com)

Social Media Infographic

Twitter in Sri Lanka through the years

June 30, 2013
Thameera Senanayaka
Social Media
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2 min read

Twitter has always played a giant role in Sri Lanka’s social media scene. With only a handful of Sri Lankans a few years back, Twitter has now grown to tens of thousands of tweeps from all over the country tweeting their thoughts away.

At first were the geeks. Those who always try to keep up with the technology and test out new things. Along came the bloggers from both English and Sinhala blogospheres. It was a place for them to promote their content, meet fellow tweeps with common interests and discuss everything happening around.

Organizing committee of the first ever TweetupSL (Image source)

One of the earliest milestones of the Sri Lankan Twitter community was the first ever TweetupSL. A tweetup is in fact a gathering of tweeps. Friends you make in your twitter stream meeting in real life, face to face. The event took place in 2010 in Coco Veranda, one of the first Sri Lankan businesses to have a commendable presence on Twitter.

Some of the attendees at TweetupSL 2 (Image source)

Since then, two more TweetupSL happened in 2011 and 2012 respectively, each with far more success than the previous ones. The community has grown in leaps and bounds. More businesses joined Twitter and several big events were organized in the twittersphere. Mini tweetups, hashtag nights became a common occurrence. Not to forget all the lovers who first met on Twitter. 🙂

Today is Social Media Day – June 30th

June 30, 2013
LEE
Social Media
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2 min read

What is World Social Media Day?

Of course, this is not a day that was founded by an international organization such as UN. In 2010, Mashable has announced that they are going to celebrate June 30th as the “Mashable Social Media Day”. World seems to be accepting the leading blog’s well timed initiative; In United States, eight cities and two states have officially declared June 30 as Social Media Day.

SMDAY

Here is what the originators say:

“We’re thrilled to celebrate Mashable’s fourth annual Social Media Day! We launched the event in 2010 as a way to recognize the digital revolution happening right before our eyes. We invite you to join fellow social media enthusiasts by hosting or attending a Social Media Day Meetup in your area.”

Whats Going to Happen Here in SL?

Around the Globe, about 1800 mashable communities are gathering locally to celebrate the significance of the social media to our lives. In Sri Lanka, there is an event scheduled at 4pm at the Park Street Mews

(50/1, Park Street, Colombo) by the Kolamba Mashable community. Etisalat is sponsoring the event this year as well.

mashable_community

Here is an extract from the Sri Lankan community’s plans on the 30th:

SMdaycolombo

“This year, we are going to make it even better with a range of new activities and sessions added. The whole team of organizers is currently putting their brains together, to come up with an amazing line-up of activities. So, book your calendar for June 30th, from 4.00pm to 8.00pm and stay tuned to #SMDAYCMB and our meetup.com event.

GeeksofSteel

Meanwhile Dialog Axiata has set up the #GeeksofSteel event to celebrate social media day. #GeeksofSteel is a meetup of all Sri Lankan tweeps to watch a screening of Superman at Savoy. Dialog opened registrations for a time span of a minute, on several occasions last week, making eager participants awaiting the countdown for the registration window. This would be an ideal event for tweeps to catch up and also enjoy a good movie.

So what are your plans for Social Media day?

Twitter Q&A with the Secretary to the President

June 22, 2013
TechWire
News, Social Media
2 Comments
1 min read

For those of you who missed it, the first Q&A via the Presidents twitter account was held on Wednesday. Even though the questions were answered through the official @PresRajapaksa account, it was actually the Secretary to the President, Mr Lalith Weeratunga who took up the questions.

The questions were submitted through the #AskLW hashtag in all three languages, and Mr. Weeratunga started right on schedule. Each question was retweeted and then answered, so that both questions and answers are visible in an orderly manner. Around 20 questions were answered in topics from political, to personal to paypal.

Even though there were questions unanswered (Understandably due to the busy schedule of Mr. Lalith Weeratunga), this is a good start to social media engagement from the government. And hopefully will be the first of many more such Q&As.  Also in a subsequent release, Mr Weeratunga has stated that more answers would be provided in the coming days via twitter.

You can check out the Q&A on twitter below. And to check on all the questions, just search for #Asklw.

Twitter feed Asklw

Gangnam Style: 1 Billion YouTube views!!

December 23, 2012
TechWire
Social Media
1 Comment
1 min read

South Korean sensation PSY, created social media history on the 21st December when his hit single Gangnam Style became the first video to knock up 1 billion views on YouTube. Its truly astounding in the time he took to reach this milestone compared to other videos. The below graph shows the rise of Gangnam Style views against ‘Baby’ by Justin Beiber. At this rate, he will surely reach 1.5 billion views in 2013. It is really unlikely that anyone will be able to achieve this feat, atleast anytime soon.

Image courtesy of YouTube

Rewind YouTube 2012

December 21, 2012
TechWire
Social Media
1 Comment
1 min read

YouTube has released a new video, Rewind YouTube 2012 which is a mashup of all the popular videos of 2012. The video runs to the music of the ever so popular ‘Gangnam Style’ and the catchy ‘Call me, maybe’. The most fascinating part of the video for us is that jehanr makes an appearance wearing the Sri Lankan cricket T-shirt.  However most of the other characters would be unknown to the general Sri Lankan. The video is quite entertaining, and do check it out below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCkYw3cRwLo

Gangnam Style on course to be the most viewed YouTube video

November 23, 2012
TechWire
Social Media
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1 min read

Unless you have been living under a rock, you would be very much aware of the viral hit Gangnam Style by PSY. The Youtube phenomenon which was released in July 2012 have to date been viewed over 787 million times. At the rate is going it is only a matter of time till it dethrones the current most viewed video “Baby” by Justin Beiber which currently boasts 802 million views.(JB haters will love it!) Its quite amazing when you take into consideration that Gangnam style took only 4 months to achieve this number, compared to JB’s 2 years. Check out below the youtube stats related to his hit single.

Gangnam stats

Gangnam style has also become the most liked youtube video with over 5 million likes. PSY was a happy guy receiving the Guinness World record certificate stating that…

I’m honoured,this is the first certificate I’ve ever had… I didn’t get one at school

Well certificates aside, Gangnam style will rule youtube views by the end of the year and will in all likelihood be the 1st video to hit 1 billion youtube views. Take a look at it one more time below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0