BayBrazil Social Media in Emerging Markets
Location: Pillsbury Silicon Valley office, 2475 Hanover St. Palo Alto, CA 94304
Co-Sponsored by Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
An exciting panel discussion on the global phenomenon that is changing consumer habits worldwide!
As technology hatches new channels for communication, we became simultaneously consumers and creators of information. The social media phenomenon has changed the way we interact in the U.S. and around the world with increasing impact on emerging economies. A recent study of online behavior by market research firm TNS found that consumers are now spending more time on social networking sites than using e-mail. In China, 88% of online users have written a blog compared with 51% in Brazil and 32% in the U.S. On average, people in emerging countries spend 5.2 hours weekly on social media sites. In Malaysia, the number jumps to 9 hours and in Russia, 8 hours a week. Linkedin is expanding worldwide. Facebook users have surpassed Google’s Orkut in India. Orkut is a leader in Brazil but Facebook and Twitter are rapidly gaining traction. In this ever dynamic landscape how can businesses effectively reach out to customers? Emerging markets are talking. Are you listening?
Moderator: Mike Cassidy, San Jose Mercury News
Mike Cassidy is a business columnist at the San Jose Mercury News who writes about the distinctive culture of Silicon Valley. His Silicon Valley Dispatches column has for years looked at the entrepreneurship, diversity and risk-taking tradition that make the valley a place like few others in the world.
Cassidy has covered a number of beats and written about a wide range of topic since arriving at the Mercury News in 1986. He’s the winner of a number of journalism awards, including a share of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and column-writing honors presented by the Associated Press, the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors and the Gerald Loeb Awards for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism.
Speakers included:
Amit Garg, Senior Associate, Norwest Venture Partners
Amit Garg focuses on early to late stage venture investments across a wide range of sectors at NVP, with an emphasis on consumer Internet.
Prior to joining NVP, Amit spent four years at Google, where he was an associate product manager and a business analyst. As a product manager, he contributed to the development of Google Images, helped launch Google’s Brazil offices and internationalized several products. In his role as a business analyst, Amit supplied the business and sales teams with critical analytics to make informed business and sales decisions. Amit was born and raised in Brazil and has lived throughout India and the U.S.
“Internet companies should think about internationalization from day one – there is so much opportunity and growth in emerging markets.”
Jai Rawat, CEO, ShopSocially
Jai Rawatt is the Founder and CEO of ShopSocially – a social commerce startup where Friends Help Friends Shop. Jai is a successful serial entrepreneur, advisor, and angel investor in several startups. His previous companies include Obongo (acquired by AOL), AirTight Networks (7 year old, profitable), iStrategyAdvisors (executive consulting for internet startups) among others. Jai has received several awards and recognitions including leadership award for top 10 southasians along with Vinod Khosla, Narayana Murthy and others. In addition to being a frequent speaker himself, Jai also helps organize several conferences including TiEcon which is the world’s largest conference for entrepreneurs.
“This was the first time I spoke at or attended a Bay Brazil event. What struck me the most was the amount of energy in the room. There were never ending questions from the audience, great networking both before and after the event, phenomenal fellow speakers and of course great food! Thank you for inviting me over.”
Meenal Balar, International Growth Team, Facebook
Meenal Balar leads Facebook’s strategy for growth in India and Brazil, among other countries. Prior to her current role, she was the first consumer marketing specialist brought on to the Facebook team in 2007, launching global brand research projects from the ground up, leading the development of brand and trademark policies across the organization, and working closely with Facebook’s localization team to drive effective product and growth strategies that focus on creating the best possible user experience in various countries around the world. Previous to her roles at Facebook, Meenal contributed to Schering-Plough’s consumer healthcare team and L’Oreal USA’s account marketing team.
“Congratulations on a great event!”
Vicente Silveira, Principal Product Manager, Linkedin
Vicente Silveira is a Principal Product Manager working for LinkedIn.com. He has a special interest in the balance between privacy, security, and functionality on social networks. Prior to joining LinkedIn, Vicente worked for VeriSign (now Symantec) for 8 years in Product and International account management teams. He started his career in Brazil as a founding employee of CertiSign, one of the first successful Brazilian internet startups.
“The success of BayBrazil’s Social Media event reflects the growing importance of emerging markets and the key role that social sites will play in helping develop those economies. I was impressed by the caliber of the panelists and moderator and had a great time discussing and answering the questions from the audience.”
Social media start-ups demo:
Coffee Bean Technology, Marcio Saito, President www.coffeebeantech.com
Whojini, Marilson Campos, CTO www.whojini.com
