Lao Social Media scene by Sounay Phothisane

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Sounay Phothisane participates ON|OFF event 2011 Jakarta

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Lao Social Media scene by Sounay Phothisane

Wednesday, 25 January 2012 22:04 Sounay Phothisane

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1. Please introduce yourself and your blog. When and why did you start it?

My name is Sounay Phothisane. I’m a temporarily lecturer at Mahasarakham Business School, Thailand. My core subjects that I specifically teach are Business Mathematic and Business Modeling. I started building websites when I was a bachelor student. In 2006, I took Business Computer and Information Technology class and knew how to build basic HTML, PHP with Mysql website. To build these kind of websites consume time and energy in order to completely get one. I then found Content Management System (CMS) called Joomla! It is a free professionally customized script that can be easily installed on a server in minutes. Since then, I continuously utilize the platform of this website till now.

During my master’s program in 2008, after Lao economy had been skyrocketed, IT investment in Laos was booming. People have increased awareness of the benefits in accessing the internet. I realized those Lao news websites are not modernized and the content wasn’t interesting enough for youngsters. Thus, in the end of 2009 I launched my personally built news online website which broadcasts in Lao language (www.vientianehour.com). Moreover, I established other few personally built sites namely: dictionary.econy.asia; blog.sounay.com; www.nahuk.net; www.vientianehighschool.com; www.laohelpinghearts.com; and more…

2. What do you think about social media in Laos? Has it been changing and how?

Social media in Laos has been increasingly changing in a constant rate due to its fast growing economy and IT infrastructure expansion. Social media is basically used for entertainment and communication with their friends, family and love ones. Nearly eighty percent of the population working in agricultural sector and education is hardly accessed and people are pretty not sophisticated in using the internet, in another words, they use social media (internet) in comfortable ways by socializing and entertaining but not for complicated or flexible stuff. For example, on a daily basis, Lao people use the internet for email, news, visiting social networking sites, viewing photos and videos. Gaming is not a significant preference in Laos. Browsing for merchandise/services is only a second level daily preference. Buying and trading online, job hunting, and banking rank as some of the least practiced activities on the internet. This shows that the internet in Laos is primarily a social rather than a business of transactional tool.

3. What do you think are the roles of social media (like Facebook, Twitter and blogging) in Laos? Do you see actual effect of these tools to the society? If yes, what kind of effects? If no, do you think in future it would have an effect?

Social media has become a platform for Lao people especially teenagers to express themselves and to be heard. Facebook, Twitter and Blogger are intermediaries for them to personally express on online society. These platforms have become essential tools for them to show their talents, personality, behaviors which are rarely shown on offline community. What I have seen is that social media has impact the flow of information; it has increase information efficiency, people are comfortable to share more ideas and have guts to criticize aggressively.

4. What is the role of social media for businesses in Laos? Are the tools being adopted? Do you think the usage of social media tools for business will rise in the future?

As far as I have observed, social media is being adopted as a marketing tool for large businesses and corporations. Since small businesses (SME) faces high internet access cost, lack of IT application and have inadequate of highly skilled employees, utilizing the social network platforms would probably be hard to exploit the benefits of the social media. The potential of internet usage has been dramatically increasing during the four quarter of 2011 and the trend will not stop. Government has been supporting IT development and has received many foreign aids to foster human capital and IT infrastructure. I’m certainly sure that social media will be widely used by individuals and corporations in terms of trade and commercials.

Surprisingly, Laos is the first ASEAN country to launch 4G with WiMax technology. Theoretically, Laos can be considered as one of the country’s high-speed internet in the world. Of course, the potential for social media will exponentially increase in future times.

5. What is ASEAN association role in promoting online media in Laos? In your opinion do they do enough for developing online infrastructure in Laos? If yes, can you give examples? If no, what do you think should be their policies about this issue in ASEAN countries?

Recently, ASEAN has strongly promoted social online activities. The great movement was the declaration of ASEAN Blogger community (AEC) established through the Jakarta Declaration of 10 May 2011 by representatives of bloggers from 10 countries (I was the chosen one to represent Laos in this conference). We made discussions and exchange ideas and finally came up with 7 mutual major agreements as follows:

1. We, the ASEAN bloggers, gathered in Bali, on 16th November 2011, aligned with the 19th ASEAN Summit, acknowledge the role and contributions of social media for the establishment of ASEAN Community 2015.

2. We, the ASEAN bloggers, aspire to seek the freedom of expressions among us as enshrined in Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

3. We, the ASEAN bloggers, in the spirit of partnership and solidarity among the family of people from ASEAN countries, independent of political influence, are determined to use social media in the development of ASEAN’s political, economic, and social-cultural potentials with the aim to promote understanding among ASEAN people.

4. We, the ASEAN bloggers, are determined to develop cooperation in all fields under ASEAN’s One Vision, One Identity, and One Community.

5. We, the ASEAN bloggers, are committed to ethical and positive demeanor, respectful of the rights of authors attached to articles, photos, and videos, and other creative products.

6. We, the ASEAN bloggers commit to:

a. Declare the 16th November as the ASEAN Bloggers’ Day.

b. Develop communication platforms, both at the national and the sub-regional levels, taking into account the interest of people participation in the rural areas of ASEAN countries.

c. Organize future activities to encourage closer contact among bloggers.

d. Mandate the Indonesian ASEAN Blogger Community President to coordinate and communicate to all their counterparts from ASEAN countries regarding development and progress achieved in accordance with the Declaration.

7. We, the ASEAN bloggers, encourage all bloggers to join our efforts in making this Declaration a reality. The goals are to exchange of views and experience among ASEAN bloggers, including best practices in their respective countries, in taking advantage of the positive side of rapid development of the social media, and to reach all ASEAN people at the grass-root level and to involve them in the process of ASEAN community establishment.

More info:
http://aseanblogger.com/?p=832

http://www.geekinwhite.com/post/13547907904/asean-blogger-conference-bali-2011-just-about

http://blueladyblog.com/article/asean-blogger-declaration-bali-2011.html

Another social media activity that ASEAN emphasized was ON|OFF event and again, I was selected by U.S embassy of Vientiane Laos to represent my country to give a brief presentation about social media scene in Laos. All 9 representatives from 10 countries participated in the presentation except Myanmar who was fully scheduled and could not attend the event.

More info about ON|OFF event: http://blog.sounay.com/stories/my-best-experience-ever-at-onoff-event-2011-jakarta.aodto

6. How do you think Laos is compared to other ASEAN countries in terms of social media?

According to statistics and infographics, Laos is ranked in 7th place in terms of internet users in the region. Laos stays remain low in social media usage level. Indonesia is known as the second largest market for Facebook and third largest for twitter. Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand have reached more-than-expected goals and still approaching faraway leaving Laos, Cambodia, Brunei and Myanmar behind. This could be because of prices of mobile phones and contracts are quietly expensive, low quality of IT infrastructure, lack of the know-how in IT knowledge, high population of working class in agricultural sector, and probably the foundation of the economy.

Internet usage in Laos