The day Twitter hits mainstream Malaysia

I wouldn’t be so bold to claim that I am personally responsible for my headline above (and what it suggest in terms of the impact my article has on the Malaysian social network sphere).

I am, however, deeply humbled by Tweets from David Lian (@davidlian) and David Wang (@blogjunkie) using those kind words.

Today, I wrote my first article for the cover of StarMag introducing Twitter. I chose not to write an overly technical article but instead highlighted different ways Tweeple have used the social networking tool, and what kind of impact it is having in cyberspace.

I won’t go into the article too much since you can read the article (I also included a simple guide on how to start Twittering, with some tips attached as well a professional plug for The Star’s many Twitter accounts).

What I want to talk about in this post is an example of the impact of Twitter, which happened just yesterday (and as such, did not make my article).

The location this time is closer to home, as compared to the examples I cited in my article: Singapore.

Just a quick background. Earlier this year, women’s right group AWARe in Singapore saw an increase of numbers of membership, only to discover at the March 23 AGM that it was about to be “hijacked” by a group of women who take on a more religious view on women’s issues.

The “old guard” who were voted out rallied members to force an EGM where they would propose a vote-of-no confidence on the “new exco”. An estimate of 3,000 people showed up for the EGM, which was held yesterday and many other people from around the world, one can only assume Singaporeans mostly, was following the updates online.

Except that the “new exco” tried to keep the mainstream media out (and succeeded for a couple of hours, though crafty journalists managed to sneak in) and as such, Twitter (and Facebook) became the source of information.

Twitterers in the hall were constantly keeping cyberspace updated with what was happening, with pictures, quotes and observations, using the Twitter hashtag #awaresg.

I myself did not know anything about it, until the hashtag appeared several times in my Twitter stream, and totally got caught up with it. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. #awaresg was the top trend on Twitter for several hours and many people (assuming Americans who were just waking up) started questioning what the hashtag meant.

This is the power of Twitter. It not only rallied people together, it also allowed those who could only be there in spirit to show their solidarity as well as allowed those in there to communicate in a massive room of people (there were Tweets asking people to calm down, and be dignified in their responses).

Many people called it a day of awakening in Singapore, but I think it has also showed Singaporeans the power of social networking. While following the streams, I found many new accounts opened at that time itself – assuming to be able to follow and engage in the discourse surrounding the AWARe EGM.

Perhaps this would be an indication to Singaporeans, as they head to a General Elections soon (based on speculation, of course), of the power of social media. When the “political tsunami” happened in Malaysia last year, with the opposition parties wresting control of five states for the first time ever, a lot of credit was given to blogs and social media.

These are exciting times, folks.

3.18pm Malaysian time (+8 GMT)

Tags: #awaresg, aware, blogjunkie, david lian, david wang, Malaysia, Singapore, social media, StarMag, Twitter