EFTA01070787.pdf

Osborne &partners Social Media — A Strategy for Governments This report is solely for the use of client personnel. Plo part of it may be circulated, quoted, or reproduced for distribution outside the client organisation without prior written approval tram Osborne & Partners. This material was used by Osborne & Partners during an oral presentation; it is not a complete record of the discussion. EFTA01070787  Social Media Introduce Substantial and Pervasive Changes to Communication "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge." - Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia "You can't isolate some things you like about the Internet and control other things that you don't like" — Mark Zuckerberg, WIKIPEDIA The Free Encyclopedia Founder, Facebook "Technology will move faster than governments, so don't legislate before you understand the consequences" — Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google 2 EFTA01070788  Facts Because: • 5/6 of the global Internet population (app. 1.7 billion people) visit social Internet networks • Facebook: 700 billion minutes per month spent on the website, 30 billion pieces of content shared each month and 15 million people become friends everyday • 200 million Twitter users, generating 1 billion tweets a week • 48 hours of video uploaded to YouTube per minute and 3 billion views per day • 19 million articles available on Wikipedia in 282 languages • 6 billion photos archived on Flickr 3 EFTA01070789  The Power of Information Key Politicians using Twitter to engage voters II About perlyedevRusstal Barack Obama About @ElatackCloarre Dmitry Medvedev ©Barack0bama wathri: cc 1.376 696.760 8.697.062 cMedvedevRussiaE '.ms:,:. RLSSL 353 18 105.095 2612 Th' • by Oba - Tom" , C.C.n) f**MI Toms Pao wrg Norden Tweetsfrom the President are awned -80. Hip Atom bwackobenv corn You and 6BataricObama Similar to @MedredevRusstaE egos 0 Rem PIM 11 uncultured 0 O 8.7m followers - Will personally tweet during 2012 presidential ► 105k followers. 2-3 tweets per week campaign 2% of US internet population used Twitter for politics in 2010 4 EFTA01070790  Benefits for Governments • Increase government's access to audiences • Increase government's access to youth population, many of whom are otherwise disconnected from the political debate • Improve the reach of government communication first hand information in real time • Reduce government's dependence on traditional media channels and bypass the media filter • Rapid response to counter press coverage • Quickly and accurately gauge public opinion • Increase the speed of public feedback and input • Develop a social media monitoring station to understand what and where people are talking EFTA01070791  Facebook Figures in the Arab World • The total number of Facebook users in the Arab world stands at 27,711,503 (as of April 5, 2011), having almost doubled since the same time last year (14,791,972 in April 2010) • Eight Arab countries, with UAE at the top, had acquired more Facebook users (as a percentage of population) than the US, one of the highest ranking countries in the world in terms of Facebook penetration.1 Table 1: Facebook Users and Official Population Figures for the GCC Countries Population Facebook Users Facebook penetration (%) Oman 3,103,580 277,840 8.95 Saudi Arabia 27,136,979 4,092,600 15.08 Kuwait 3,484,881 795,100 22.82 Bahrain 1,234,596 302,940 24.54 Qatar 1,699,435 481,280 28.32 UAE 8,260,000 2,406,120 29.13 htt p://la borsta.ilo.org/ 6 EFTA01070792  Twitter in the Arab World • Worldwide the number of tweets had risen to 155 million a day, up from 55 million a day around the same time last year, with a 41% increase daily in the number of tweets (according to official Twitter statistics, at the end of the first quarter of 2011). • The estimated number of active Twitter users in the Arab region at the end of March 2011 was 1,150,292. • The estimated number of tweets generated in the Arab region in the first quarter of 2011 (Jan. 1— March 30) by these "active users" was 22,750,000 tweets. The estimated number of daily tweets is 252,000 tweets per day, or 175 tweets a minute, or roughly three tweets a second. 7 EFTA01070793  China's Communication Platforms • Sina Weibo, the microblogging site which is "the Twitter of China", has 200 million registered users, up from 140 million in the first quarter of 2011. It adds 660,000 users a day. • The top 100 users now have over 485 million followers combined. • Sina will launch an English language version before the year end. Already more than 10% of Weibo users are from outside China. • 26 million tweets posted in the first five days after the Chinese railway crash in Wenzhou, in July. • More than 4,500 government officials maintain profiles, and use the platform to disseminate information and respond to news coverage. • "In the last year, microbloggers, especially Sina and Tencent, have played more andmore a major role in coverage, especially breaking news." • Footnote: Professor, Zhan Jiang Beijing Foreign Studies University, New York Times, 28 July 2011 EFTA01070794  The Way Forward • Meet the founders and CEO's of the leading Internet companies, in Silicon Valley: — Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook — Jack Dorsey, Twitter — Chad Hurley, YouTube • Commission research into the effects of social media in the "Arab spring" uprisings, and in particular, how different reactions from government impacted fast moving events. • Establish Abu Dhabi as the centre for Internet companies in the Middle East and host regional headquarters for the likes of Facebook and Twitter • Educate a generation of Emiratis in the ways of the leading Silicon Valley innovations; consider the value of an incubator that spins off tens or hundreds Internet businesses based in the region • For Abu Dhabi to be at the forefront of e-government initiatives; to deliver "open data" to developers; for members of the Royal Family to embrace technology to connect with the youth population • Conceive, design and build a leading edge technology platform to intelligently monitor and access social media in the region, detect any possible threats to stability at the earliest stages, and fashion a 21st century response 9 EFTA01070795