Twitter may already possess a large portion of the pie serving up bite-sized pieces of information, but a bunch of developers based in Singapore is taking square aim at the micro-blogging service with a location-based twist.

Like Twitter, the app lets users feature – or feecha – an event or an object that’s close to him/her, which friends of that user can discover. Unlike Twitter, however, these feechas are all visualised on a map, and are colour-coded based on popularity.

It is currently possible to add your location to a tweet, but Twitter treats that as a secondary and optional feature. Feecha seeks to highlight that very feature and make it central to the app’s experience.

To create a feecha, users take a photo or video of the activity – such as a plate of mouth-watering char kway teow at an less-known hawker centre – and upload it to the map. A one-eyed monster will then pop up over the location for others to see.

For the feecha to grow, it must receive attention from other users, such as views and comments. A feecha which just isn’t interesting will slowly discolour and disappear from the map. This ensures that only the most updated and interesting happenings stay on the map.

The potential uses of Feecha are undeniable. Ever wondered what’s happening within those quaint shop houses as you amble down Ann Siang Hill? Ideally, you should be able to fire up the app and explore what other people are feecha-ing in your vicinity. You can then decide spontaneously to hop into a coffee shop for a book signing, for instance.

Of course, the app depends on complete spontaneity, and there’s the possibility that you’ll find zero feechas around you, especially now in the app’s early days.

Feecha also requires the user to enjoy and actively seek out serendipitous encounters. However, most Singaporeans will probably have a destination in mind, and won’t take the time to scan their surroundings for feechas. Businesses will also be unlikely to depend too much on such an inconsistent audience for their custom.

The biggest challenge, then, is to establish a large base of users as quickly as possible. To help push the numbers along, Feecha has announced that the user with the biggest feecha by 18 December will win S$8,888 in cash.

Feecha is available on the iPhone only, and an Android version will come by June 2012 (No S$8,888 for Android users, we suppose). The developers are also exploring the viability of a Windows Phone 7 version, and have no plans for a BlackBerry version.

This story first appeared on Techtalk, our technology content partners at Yahoo! News Singapore

Salesforce.com is deepening the social connections that underpin its suite of cloud computing products.

Starting this October, its customer relationship management (CRM) customers will be able to see social profiles of customers with data mined from social networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn.

Chatter, Salesforce’s enterprise social networking tool available for almost two years now, will also support instant messaging for the first time.

This means Chatter users will soon be able to chat with fellow workers, share screens, collaborate with partners and approve requests directly from their Chatter feeds.

Salesforce also announced Chatter Service, a question-and-answer portal that allows businesses to answer customer enquiries from social feeds.

The service can also connect to public social networks, effectively extending a company’s Chatter network beyond the boundaries of a traditional self-service portal.

A new Chatter API and Chatter for Microsoft SharePoint will also let a company extend its Chatter feeds to third-party applications such as content management systems.

The social enterprise

The on-demand CRM vendor last updated Chatter in December 2010, when it introduced a free Chatter version that lets all employees in an organisation participate in corporate social networking.

The latest slew of enhancements were conceived just nine months ago, right after the company concluded its annual Dreamforce confab last December.

“We took a backseat and realized we have to change,” Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com, said during his opening keynote at Dreamforce this year.

Michael Peachey, director of product marketing at Salesforce, concurred, adding that the rise of social networking has made a deep impact on organisations since last year.

To tap on this social media wave, he said, businesses will first need to understand who their customers are.

“So, rather than having a CRM contact record with a phone and e-mail address, you need to know what they like on Facebook and who they connect with,” he added.

Peachey said the next step is to create customer social networks so businesses can listen, engage and serve customers.

“The final piece is to create employee social networks where your employees can collaborate internally in the same way that is familiar to them,” he said.

These pieces will form the cornerstone of Salesforce’s “social enterprise” vision, which the company says will transform the way businesses collaborate, share and manage information.

Benioff said: “By creating social customer profiles, employee social networks, customer social networks and product social networks, companies can delight their customers in entirely new ways”.

Salesforce also seems to have softened its stance on keeping customer data on the cloud when it announced a data residency option for Database.com, the company’s cloud database service.

This is targeted at companies that want to take full advantage of the cloud, but are hesitant to do so because of data security concerns.

With this new option, companies will now have the option of keeping readable versions of sensitive data in their own data centers, while making full use of Salesforce’s trusted cloud computing model.

The latest slew of enhancements represent a laudable attempt by Salesforce to capture a major slice of the enterprise social networking market.

The ability to extend enterprise social networks to external stakeholders, coupled with CRM records enriched with social data, will further create stickiness among users of the Salesforce platform.

However, it remains to be seen if businesses will bite.

While industry observers have called for companies to integrate social media into their CRM strategies, a mindset shift, from managing customers to managing relationships, is needed.

Most call centres agents are trained to manage complaints and troubleshoot product problems, rather than build relationships with customers through social media.

More importantly, call centre agents have to be trained to handle conversations on the social Web, which can be daunting for those unfamiliar with social networking.

Social media has the power to change the world. It allows people with the same shared beliefs to come together and marshal grassroot support for causes.

It could be used to organize protests, campaign for beliefs, or even used to promote giving back to community.

One such great example of the latter is Twestival, a global phenomenon that started two years earlier in 2009. Twestival is an event in which people organize organic grassroot fundraisers using twitter to give to charities all over the world in a single day.

For 2011, that day was last week on March 24th. In Singapore, volunteers here picked CARE, a charitable agency which aims to help youths at risk, as the beneficiary.

The volunteers took just four weeks to organize and setup the entire event, and mobilized mainly through just twitter. They met for weekly face-to-face meetings on weekends, but much of the coordination was done online.

Said Supriya Addanki, one of the core volunteers behind the event: “We simply told people that we’re organizing Twestival this year on twitter, and asked people to contribute whatever skills or resources they could bring.”

And people did in droves for the second year that Twestival was run here in Singapore.

From local food and music dive TAB hosting the place, to events agency Waddup! supplying a magician and doing events management, to PR agency Text100 doing media relations, people contributed.

All for free. There were many, many other folks and unsung heroes — for example, the musicians and bands, the photographers, the emcee — all who contributed their time without a dime.

On top of this was a ton of free gifts from companies — an eclectic mix from cameras to shopping vouchers to hotel stays — to attract folks to donate in a lucky draw drive. 100 percent of the donations that evening went to CARE.

Folks enjoying themselves at Twestival Singapore 2011

Twestival: Tweet, meet, give

What’s most important that set Twestival apart from other fundraisers, though, was Twestival’s soul.

According to Supriya, people didn’t volunteer to get recognized or lauded — they simply wanted to help.

“No one said ‘I did this so what’s in it for me?’,” quipped Supriya. “It’s not about people saying ‘Yay! Now I can put grassroots organizing in my resume’.”

In fact CARE was so surprised at being picked as a beneficiary that CARE co-founder and director Adelyn Poh purportedly asked: “Why are you doing this? I don’t understand!”

And the response from the Twestival volunteers was simply: “Because we want to.”

Supriya said that although social media has sometimes been perceived in a negative way in the media — think fake, shallow banal conversations that amount to nothing — it can be very much a driving force for good, like Twestival.

“It’s a bit of a cliche, but social media is not about creating a ‘persona’,” said Supriya. As a seasoned PR veteran, she’s very mindful of this fact. “It’s about being transparent and candid, and sometimes it really works that way.”

For CARE itself, it was an eye opening and enriching experience that was more than just about fundraising monies.

Said Dr John Tan, the executive director at CARE who was at the event itself helping out: “It’s a fantastic platform to raise awareness.”

Typically, a fundraiser will be a formal sit down dinner with corporate clients, said John.

Twestival felt different. The whole tone was full of enthusiasm, especially with the youthful crowd — a segment that is typically more difficult to reach via traditional channels.

“CARE is not really tech or media savvy,” he said. “We’re really glad for this outreach opportunity.”

A series of massive earthquakes hit Japan at 5.45 GMT today, causing widespread devastation in the form of landslides, floods and even a 4-metre high tsunami. If you have family and friends in Japan, and want to keep track of everything that is happening, here are a few ways to do so:

Google’s Person Finder
The search giant launched “Person Finder: 2011 Japan Earthquake” shortly after the earthquake hit. The Web-based app allows you to look for a person by searching his name, and, should there not be a result, let you create a new record for a missing person. The service is available in both Japanese and English, and should be very handy for those trying to locate a loved one.

Live blogs
Many news outlets are live-blogging the catastrophe on the fly, including BBC News, Reuters, and The Guardian. Accompanying the live blogs are interactive maps, videos, and pictures. You can also contribute by submitting information on the unfolding disaster.

YouTube
Arabic news network Al-Jazeera is providing live coverage over on their channel.

Twitter
Twitter is an excellent place to hear what people on the ground are saying. Virtually all trending topics right now are about the disaster, including #prayforjapan and #tsunami. Searching for “Japan earthquake” on Twitter also yielded numerous results.

If you have any other ways of tracking the earthquake, do share them in the comments below. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people affected by the disaster.

It is such a powerful force for collecting and aggregating data. Rather than taking the news from one source, you get to hear from a sea of sources.

For example, I was just monitoring the twitter social media reaction to the recent 369 gang violence in Singapore, where seven people were slashed in Bukit Panjang and sent to the hospital two days ago. Just barely a week and half before that another teen was murdered by the same gang at Pasir Ris.

If I were to describe the tonality of the 300-odd posts on twitter since yesterday, I would say they were mostly angry, tinged with a little fear.

There are three general themes that emerged:

Are we safe in Singapore?

The first reaction is about safety. There is a significant amount of posts lamenting about Singapore’s safety and checking up on friends and family, esp. in the Bukit Panjang area. On Twitter alone there are more than 70 of such posts.

Examples:
Wth why now so many slashings in sg . Read abt the bukit panjang one. 7 ppl slashed by 369. Siao Liao la everyone please be careful .
– TerenceThen

Slashing case at bukit panjang now. Wtff, singapore is getting unsafee! Really unsafeeeeee.
– SriAtiqaah

Who are these stupid hooligans?

Then there are the Singaporeans who are angry at these idiots and wondering why the hell this is happening in Singapore. Over 40 such posts.

Examples:
What is wrong w the youths in Singapore today? Downtown East 23 youths arrested, Bukit Panjang 6 youths, all between 15-23yrs old? Why???
– thamwaihoong

What is happening to SINGAPORE man??!!! Gang armed with parangs…going on slashing spree??? Downtown east murder not enough ar??
– ItsBIGBANGyg

The Sing police must whack them jialat jialat

One last main theme is for our police to catch these folks and whack these idiots. Practically no one was sympathetic to the gangsters. There were also quite a few praises for our police, who nabbed several culprits yesterday afternoon.

Examples:
wow wow wow! 6 suspects caught for the bukit panjang one! And one more murderer caught! Not bad ah quite efficient.
– ccliAlexis

Bukit panjang slashers arrested. HAHAHA not feelimg so cool now eh losers
– NickytheKING

Other tidbits from the social media

Some other interesting facts I found out by reading the posts. You can learn lots simply by reading things that people say!

– “369″ is now trending on twitter, and there’s hashtag #369 if you want to follow the conversations.

– There’s an up-to-date Wiki page on 369 “Salakau”

– The youngest kid involved in carrying out the gang attack is just 15. Sigh.

– A few super funny posts. Ironic humour at its best. Examples:

Ah beng: OI , YOU FROM 369? Me: No , I from 257. AH BENG: GOT THIS GANG MEH? Me: I tot you asking for my block number….* RUN*
– StevenLiew

<3 RT @leecomet: @thesyueffect SYU YOU LIVE IN BUKIT PANJANG IF ANYONE ATTACK YOU CALL ME AH I WILL SNORLAX BODY SLAM THEM MOARRRRRRRRRRR!!
– thesyueffect

These twitter posts were tracked using a combination of the keywords “Singapore”, “Bukit Panjang”, “369″, “gang” and “slashing” using JamiQ’s software.

Disclaimer: I work for JamiQ, a social media monitoring company doing business development. but I track these projects primarily for my own interest.

We have Social Media Breakfast (SMB), Mobile Mondays and Web Wednesdays.

We have groups like The Digital Movement (TDM) and e27 running all kinds of events from Barcamps to Blogouts to Unconferences, with much of the content revolving around social media and start-ups.

Do we really need another social media get-together platform in Singapore?

The folks behind 24seven — bloggers Claudia Lim and Kelvin Lim — think so. And thus Tweet Tuesdays was born.

The first session was run a week ago at The Sail last Tuesday. I got a facebook invite from Claudia, wondered what the heck Tweet Tuesday was, and so turned up for a look-see.

“It’s not supposed to be another stand-around-and-network-whilst-eating-free-food session,” said Kelvin in his opening introduction to the gathered crowd of about 50 to 60 social media bloggers, many who attended (like me) due to word-of-mouth facebook invites.

So what is it supposed to be? According to the organisers, it is supposed to be a platform on micro-blogging (i.e. Twitter and Plurk) — at least initially — and an opportunity for folks to share tips, tricks, and tools for this platform. It’s also a community potluck, and future sessions are likely to be run in an unconference-styled format.

According to an informal online poll done by the 24seven folks prior to the meetup, the attendees for the first Tweet Tuesday event in Singapore seem to be quite social media savvy:

I asked Claudia what made this different from SMB, and her response was that SMB is better for networking (i.e. stand around and network whilst eating free food). Both she and Kelvin want Tweet Tuesdays to be a little more structured, which would serve the community in a different way. Mobile Mondays and Web Wednesdays are run from a corporate perspective, which is different when it is organised from a bottoms-up grassroots community.

My take? I couldn’t see much difference between the first Tweet Tuesday meetup and the SMB sessions. Yet. But it’s the first get-together, it’s community run, there was pizza and beer, so it was pretty fun. It’s work to organise something, even if it’s a grassroots event (that’s something the Techgoondus know firsthand), so kudos. Still, hopefully any future sessions will have more structure, which will give Tweet Tuesdays its own niche.

A student from the Queen’s University Belfast in the UK has come up with a radio that “tunes in” to Twitter feeds and broadcasts them in audio in real time. A microcontroller and custom software (presumably text-to-speech) was used in what could possibly be one of the most creative hacks of the good old radio!

Check out the video of the TwitterRadio here.

The idea: you spot a pair of pink hello kitty slippers in a boutique mall in Japan’s trendy Shinjuku shopping district to die for, and you want to let all your friends know. You whip out your phone, snap it, and upload it where all your friends can goggle over your latest purchase.

Except that with Shoplette (beta), the whole world can find out what and where you like to shop.

“Shopping is a very social thing,” said Shoplette founder Shannon Low Shen-Li, 32, in an interview with Techgoondu. “If you spot a good buy, you are often excited to tell others about what you have bought!”

Shoplette’s social media platform allows anybody to “follow” your purchases, and they can even vote on whether they think the buy is a bargain or not. The more highly rated your purchase, the more visible it is on the main page.

Shannon likens Shoplette, whose beta officially started in May 2008, as a “sort of twitter for shopping”, where your friends can find out where you’re shopping in real-time. Photos and content can be submitted via MMS, making the input pretty easy.

Besides user submitted content, business owners can also set-up a virtual shop on Shoplette. A basic account is free (for now), but featured sites – which appear in a column on the right – are charged at the low cost of US$10 a month.

With such low rates and no other appreciable web advertising, it’s a wonder that the founders are making money at all. It turns out that Shannon (together with co-founder Kok Keong, also 32) is not looking at Shoplette as a money spinner, but as a test product to sell such Web 2.0 social platforms to companies who might want to use it as a marketing tool. His corporate site, Mobrick, lists their objective as building “crowdsourcing websites, content-driven social networks, user-generated content platforms” for organizations.

Thus far, their test product has generated fairly decent results.

Shoplette seems to have struck a chord with predominantly female shoppers in the teenage to early twenties range. According to Shannon, from a low user base of 20 testers in May, they have grown to around 1,000 shoplette members via word of mouth now — not bad for a young project.

“It takes time to grow a community,” said Shannon. “People sort of forget that even popular sites like Facebook were around for a few years before it really took off in the last two or so.”

Shoplette is self-funded, but they are on the lookout for VCs who can help them with contacts and experience beyond just the monetary aspect. As for starting a tech business during a downturn, Shannon was sanguine about it.

“If you want to start a company, you do it anyway despite whatever the economy is like,” he said.

(Note: This story is part of a series of stories on the web and tech innovation scene in Singapore. Check out the interview with Yebber if you haven’t seen it.)

Where people used to just passively absorb TV images beamed at them at home, today’s Net-savvy crowds share their thoughts instantly online through Twitter, that microblogging site that lets people post instant, quick comments on what’s going on in their lives.

According to iReport, Twitter traffic surged through the roof during the opening of the Olympics opening ceremony.

Comments ranged from the way George Bush and wife looked to how Yao Ming hoisted a kid high in the ceremonies aimed at finally showcasing China’s modern power after decades of turmoil.

Call it citizen journalism, interactive media or anything you like. If there’s still any doubt on this, it’s the latest indication yet that audiences prefer to be active – not passive – with what they see and read from the mainstream media.