In this system, the collective consciousness, rather than being a single entity, represents the collective hopes, desires, dreams  and aspirations of the masses. This Hive mind also evolves as new frameworks are established, giving the individuals more tools to engage their reality.

this evolution is based, not surprisingly, on Language.

We depend on language to express ourselves and to  learn, discover and process infomation from the collective.

Imagine then, given the speed of transformation now, with the 140 character limit on twitter. Imagine  if each Tweet-er  had 140 words to express what they wanted to say, and that those 140 characters are read as easily as a short sentence. How would that change the speed of evolution?

Well, Welcome to the Chinese Social Media Landscape.

In a previous post, we discussed how weibo has a character limit of 140 characters. It seems arbitrary, and follows the twitter character count. however, 140 characters is equivalent to a paragraph in English due to the pictographic nature of the Chinese language and how meaning is derived.

So we have increasingly connected society, with the largest population in the world, speaking a common language, one that is able to communicate so much more efficiently than with our romanized alphabet.

What bearing does that have on the future of humanity?

Stay tuned.

Due to the Great Firewall and the regulations about control, Twitter, Facebook,youtube and Google have been severely curtailed. However, nature abhors a vacuum, in China, that usually means someone will come in and copy. Which leads to interesting dynamics, as we shall see.

The twitter equivalent in China is, of course ,Weibo.

There are an estimated 300 million microbloggers on Weibo commenting on every aspect of life in China, taking part in political discussion and actually making a difference, as can be seen in the Train crash in Zhejiang, CHina in July 2011. Of course, These 300 million microbloggers blog in mandarin.

Now, Twitter is essentially a short message service, perhaps taking their length from the traditional length of an SMS, 140 characters.   In English, that means a short, one sentence update with a link.  Now,  in , Social Media and the Language of Culture, we discussed how  the Chinese language is pictographic rather than phonetic and meaning is derived from the characters themselves rather than the sounds. When the Chinese built their own version of twitter, they also set the limit at an arbitrary number of , 140 characters.

I decided to do an experiment.

In Honour of our National Day  next week, I have decided to use our Pledge as example text.

In English,  140 characters affords us sightly more than half of a single pledge, in Mandarin though,  there is room for 2.4  full pledges.

!40 characters in English is a short sentence, In Mandarin, it is a paragraph.

In English, it is a comment, in Mandarin, It is commentary.

Perhaps this is why microblogging is such a powerful tool in China,  meaning, inherent in that characters themselves communicate are able to articulate more depth and scope.

This has tremendous ramifications in Social Media and the ability of the tribe to communicate.

In our western tribes, we only have Guttural utterances when compared with the verbosity allowed by The Chinese language itself.

After Apple announced the launch of the new OS, there was a flurry of reactions around the fact that Apple  integrated Twitter into the OS rather than Facebook.

Apple is, first and foremost a hardware company.  They control the entire supply chain and make huge profits on their exceptional hardware offerings.

However, the business model by which Apple sells its products, has got very little to do with the products themselves.

As we have discussed before, within the closed context of iMessage,  iCloud and the App store, Apple has created an Ecosystem for Enabling, Energising and Empowering Engagement.

Microsoft did it with software, locking  users into  software and getting plenty  of opposition for it. Each upgrade is  brings about a new wave of discontent but they were the only game in town.

Apple however, invests in  the platform, and offers it to consumers,  for FREE,  iMessage across devices, iCloud, iTunes, and even some apps in the App store are all offered at no cost to the tribe.

They have also democratized music and media, charging 99cts for a song, an episode of a TV series or an app. 99 cents is affordable for everybody.

The way to gain access to this closed ecosystem of course, is to purchase an Apple product.

Apple is a purveyor of the best media consumption devices on the planet.  They also own the platform within  which these devices are seamlessly integrated into every aspect of the lives of the customer. Each purchase allows a level of engagement with the brand as wella swith the tribe in a deeper and more releavant way.

This is why Twitter rather than Facebook.

Facebook is a platform in and of itself, while twitter is a means of communication within  tribe.

Social is designed and built into the very heart of the Apple experience.

We’re not there yet folks, lets se what the next act brings us on 7th March.