by Ibba Bernardo
It’s 2:37 AM and I’m freaking tired. This article has been hanging over my head for the last week and every time I sit down to write this damn thing my pebble time vibrates. It’s a Slack message from our dev team about some new function with our VR app, a Telegram from my Dad asking my baby Bro to set up the Apple TV, some sticker of a Koala on a toilet on Viber, some random life changing Ted Talk on FB Messenger, or one of the million things on my FB stream. One by one, I check them off, except for FB because that can wait. And that’s the point I’m trying to make. In my daily social diet Facebook is second to last, my last bite goes to Twitter.
In the last couple of months, I’ve been flying around on a tech pilgrimage. Korea for the MITx Entrep Bootcamp and Beijing for the VR Summit. In both of these technologically gated countries I was blown away at how social media has evolved. Korea where Kakao is King, the Kakao Talk Messenger can order you a cab, buy flowers for your partner, and of course, send stickers. In China, Tencent is the Emperor whose two chat platforms Wechat and QQ have a lot in common with Kakao’s platform. On top of that they’re integrating into the Internet of Things (IOT) which is mind blowingly awesome, imagine being able to turn your air conditioner on with CHAT!
it’s interesting how local startups have grown and evolved into massive behemoths, most of whom you’ve never heard of because they have a China first, the world later strategy like Alibaba. It’s also cool how social media has evolved there without Google and Facebook meddling.
Social media, like Optimus Prime, is going to transform fast. At Facebook’s recent F8 they announced Chatbots, for most of the Western world this blew people’s minds, but in China and Korea, they’ve been doing this for years. Ok in China, initially, it was probably not a bot, but some startup sweatshop, but now it’s a bot.
We all feel the change, our time, more and more is occupied by different types of chat apps. Facebook still is my go-to website but on the go more and more I’m drawn into all my messenger apps; FB Messenger, Viber, Whatsapp, Telegram, Slack, and Snapchat. Sharing on FB, IG, and Twitter now is curated and edited because of those damn trolls and my Mom is on FB. I’ve moved from Broadcasting to Narrowcasting to my biker buds the Hombres on Viber, my illicit activities on Telegram, work on Slack and everything else on FB Messenger. Now imagine if you could chat order a burger. Mmmm burger.
Ibrahim ‘Ibba’ Bernardo has been working with marginalized and underprivileged groups by giving them access to relevant technology. An IT entrepreneur since he was 22, he’s the founder and CEO of Sari Software Solutions. His involvement in base of the pyramid (BOP) projects include: Solar Energy Foundation’s Ride for Light which brought solar energy to far-flung off-grid areas, E-Dalaw which enabled virtual visit of inmates by their indigent families, and Buhayko.org for teaching blogging to underprivileged students living in slum areas. Ibba also wears other hats as a technology and motorcycle journalist, entrepreneur and IT lecturer and is currently the founder of IAM360, a Virtual Reality startup based out of Hong Kong.”
Illustration by Edward Joson
