Yes, you read right, Twitter thinks were hot.
“It is no secret Twitter has spent the last year spinning its wheels and going nowhere. The re-hire of Jack Dorsey as CEO, the dud of Twitter Moments, and the fuss over its algorithm proposal have sent jitters through its investors and user base,” reports Kevin McSpadden in e27, an Asia-baed tech media platform.
But McSpadden said that one of bright spots is the Philippines, where Twitter has experienced a recent surge in popularity.
Twitter cited key events that made them take notice of the country’s users, such as when Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach was crowned Miss Universe, and on the Manny Pacquiao versus Floyd Mayweather boxing match.
The APEC summit, held in Nov 2015, saw 700,000 global tweets, while the visit of Pope Francis in Jan 2015, generated 3.3 million local tweets.
According to Twitter, “The Philippines was one of the fastest growing markets for the company in 2015 and 69% of users engage every day. (By comparison, the global average is about 33%).”
So one day this week, Twitter launched an experiential space called Twitter City in Metro Manila’s Mind Museum. McSpadden pointed out, “The space is the first of its kind in the APAC region.”
Twitter City was a pop-up space, part of Twitter’s Asia-Pacific roadshow.
Richard Alfonsi, Twitter Vice President for Global Online Sales, said in an official statement: “We appreciate all of the love from Filipinos and we are launching our first Asian #TwitterCity in the Philippines to show our commitment to our users, partners and advertisers here.”
For his part, Rishi Jaitly, Twitter’s Vice President of Media Asia Pacific and Middle East, said, “[We feel] 2016 will be an exciting year for Twitter in the Philippines and there’s never been a better time for Filipinos to be on Twitter today.”
