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developerWorks: This is a developerWorks podcast, I'm Scott Laningham, here with Todd Turbo Watson, developerWorks blogger and e-relationship manager for IBM Sofware Group. Hey, Todd.

Todd: Ohaiyo Gonzaimasu.

developerWorks: Just back from a seven-day mega sweep of Hong Kong, Korea and Japan; is that right?

Todd: That's right. In that order.

developerWorks: What was that all about?

Todd: Well, our team is responsible for helping share the interactive love around the world, helping people in our business units and in our country, in our individual countries on how to better leverage the Web for business purposes.

Obviously we like to identify new sales opportunities that way, as any good smart business would be in B2B space these days. So that was kind of the core mission.

But you know, when you're there, you get an opportunity to get a little bit of a feel for what's going on the ground. I obviously am always listening for the heartbeat of what's going on in the interactive media, and also culturally and socio-culturally and politically because all of these things ... and economically, all these things play a role in what's going on in the market.

developerWorks: What's the feel that you got after seven days in that quick swing that you did....

Todd: Other than jet lag?

developerWorks: Yes, other than jet lag. What's the atmosphere, I mean, there are a lot of things going on in markets, but there's also we hear all the talk about how much more progressive they are especially in Japan than we are here with cell technology and the Internet. What do you see? What's going on?

Todd: Well, first of all, Asia-Pacific as a region and let's just recognize that that term is kind of a vast generalization that we westerners use to kind of combobulate about, 40 or 50 something countries into like this homogeneous entity called Asia-Pacific.

So recognize, that's a western thought. That was made very clear to me during my time in the region. So, but that helps us, just like we say probably North America or South America or Latin America, whatever. So the point is there's a lot of different countries with a lot of different unique things going on.

For example, you asked specifically about the interactive and I'll elaborate more in a moment, but just to get it started. The first night we were in Japan, we were walking down the street, it was cold. Idiot that I am, I didn't bring a coat, because I didn't think it would be that cold. I figured it, it's ... what month is it? It's April. I thought ah, at that latitude it won't be so bad. Well, I was wrong. Anyway, we're walking down the street and some nice Japanese guy sees we're totally clueless, we're trying to get to a restaurant not four blocks from my hotel but the directions were a little fuzzy and we were a little fuzzy because we'd been traveling.

So he whips out his DoCoMo i-mode 3G color phone and, you know, has the equivalent of Japan's Google Maps and us located on it within about 10 seconds. He's like, oh, you go up there and turn right. I mean, so that's pretty impressive that, first of all, it was just nice to have somebody help us. I always used to do the same, by the way, when I lived in New York and I saw clueless Italians walking around. But it was nice to have that, but it was also nice to see, ah, there's a practical use of the technology.

So pulling back on a wide shot, first of all, recognize that in this region we call A-Pac, or Asia-Pacific, or AP, and in the larger globe we expect that one quarter of humanity is expected to be online by 2012 -- 43 percent of that is expected to be in Asia. So almost half, right, in terms of the world population of those quarter of humanity that's going to be online, nearly half of it will be in Asia by 2012.

Now, let's push that also up against the economic statistics. The BRIC economies -- Brazil, Russia, India, China -- are leading this growth. And you've got major Asian populations are specifically, I should say, China and India, reaching compound annual growth rates of up to 17 percent while the CAGRs in the west are now low single digits.

So when you think about the upside both from an Internet penetration perspective and ergo a market size perspective, there's so much more growth in Asia and specifically in China and India.

I mean, look at China, you've got about 10 to 12 percent, I think, is the penetration. That means there's already 300 million people online, but you have all those other people still potentially to come online. Whereas in the west, especially in the U.S., that number is more like probably close to 75 percent. So there's not a lot of growth and upside in terms of new users. So that, that has to be paid attention to.

I think you also have to look at what's going on in the economic environment? We had an analysis from Forrester Research, a guy by the name of [Steve Noble] who provided some of these stats and they're pretty staggering. If you look at the economic impact and how it's harming Asia-Pacific compared to the rest of the world, it's pretty substantial the divide.

I mean AP, according to the International Monetary Fund, AP was expected to grow 5.6 percent this year. We were expected to grow 0.1 and Europe, 0.6. Now, that was probably a pulse that was taken last year. I suspect if you look at those numbers now, you're clearly looking at negative growth in the U.S. and probably close to negative growth in Europe. In Asia-Pacific, business is most optimistic in India, which I thought was interesting.

So here's what the net was from our friend at Forrester. He said, look, global businesses have to excel in this region -- meaning not just India but Asia-Pacific -- and therefore, there also needs to be a requisite shift to interactive marketing, because that jives well both with the more, you know, sensitive economic conditions.

So even though they're growing, they still are going to need to watch their bottom lines like the rest of the world is. And that also jives with the emerging Web-savvy demography we're seeing -- the Internet savvy demography of Asia-Pacific. So that probably is where we should go next to talk about some of those specifics. But I'll pause and take a breath.

developerWorks: Well, I'm trying to think of how I transition as a statement into that. I mean, are we talking about just demographics; are we talking about use patterns?

Todd: Well, I think a little bit of both, actually. So, one of the points that was made by this Forrester analyst and certainly I've seen it in both the behavior and the discussions that I had while I was there, the drivers for how the Web is being used is going to vary by market.

And let's expand that to say the Internet, because in some places -- I think Japan was a good example -- you've got 10-plus years of third generation Internet access via mobile devices. I mean, the guy helping us on the street was a good example.

I remember at least five years ago and probably even some of my first trips before the turn of the century that I was seeing, Garmin-like GPS devices in the taxis, long before we saw them here in the west.

So that's another example of, there's a maturation and an expectation of what can be accessed and where. And it clearly, Japan is a much more mobile society, commuting society.

I mean, people take trains 90 minutes sometimes to go into Tokyo to go to work. So of course they're going to use that Net handset device to do some of the basic things that we all in the west, far more automobile dependent, would use a landline Internet access.

developerWorks: Right. Right.

Todd: You know, clearly we're changing. I mean, you see with devices like the iPhone and the [bulb] there's a whole new market in the west, including western Europe and the U.S., to use mobile applications. But I don't think we're anywhere near the level of sophistication we saw in Japan.

I was only a day in Korea, but certainly they seem to have a lot of the similar experiences. But we also know South Korea has a huge gaming population because they have such widespread pervasive high-bandwidth broadband. I mean, faster than virtually anywhere in the world except maybe Japan and that obviously changes the way people behave.

I think one of the sites I learned about was a music downloading site which gives ... it's second only to iTunes in the globe in terms of music downloads. And that, you know, it can't hurt that they have high-bandwidth access, higher than the rest of the world.

You're seeing early stages of what we call social media adoption as well as search marketing in India and also in Hong Kong. In Australia, on the other hand, Forrester said, by the end of the year you're going to see full on social media monitoring.

So what that means is companies going out and really using technology to listen to the marketplace. What are they saying about my company? What are they saying about my product or my service? Is it good, is it bad, should I respond?

So, that's a much more mature view into the social media as opposed to ah, we're just starting to experiment with blogs or podcasts or the stuff that you and I have taken for granted for some time.

In Hong Kong, it's very different from China. I met with some other friends from a public relations company called Text 100 that does some work with IBM, and one of the things that they shared with me was that in Hong Kong, for example, where there's much more of a commercial orientation and a mature commercial orientation....

You actually have blog sponsorships where you've got commercial sponsorships of blogs, not always necessarily transparent, by the way, but an accepted practice thus far because that's what passes for social media in that market, whereas you see in mainland China a completely different use. And that I think is driven not only by the commercial maturation, but also the socio cultural and political conditions.

So, for example, you have what's known as the so called 50-Cent Army, right, in mainland China, and these are people who are said to be paid 50 cents a blog post to go online and defend the reputation of the Chinese government. Whether they're policies or actions, these people are paid to go out and basically be government evangelists. You could call them propagandists. Whatever you want to call them, in a sense they're paid social media mercenaries to go out and defend the sometimes challenging policies of the government. So that's obviously a very different way of using it.

So it's fascinating how much the culture can drive the use of the technology and of the social media. And one of the things Forrester pointed out was there's much more active contributors in the social media in China than some of the other markets. You have some 40-something percent being active contributors where in the U.S., the active contribution is more like in the single digits.

And the reason, they explained, was that the Chinese are using social media as a vehicle for providing anonymous and often very personal forms of content contribution that they might not otherwise have been able participate in, in more traditional communications. So you can't just look at the socio cultural factors, you can't just look at economic conditions; you've kind of got to look at all of it and try to make some sense out of it.

developerWorks: Was that all floating in your mental RAM, or did you have notes?

Todd: That was mostly in my mental RAM.

developerWorks: You're scary.

Todd: I am scary. I scare myself.

developerWorks: Where are you going next?

Todd: I'm actually supposedly off to Buenos Aires, Argentina, next week where I'm going to be in a similar meeting. So I'm very much looking forward to that. We'll see what's going on there, but I've been hearing actually Buenos Aires is a place where we're starting to see some outsourcing work being done as well, especially in the Web business. So that could be interesting to learn you know what unique skills and capabilities that they have there.

I'm also just interested in catching up on what's going on in the Latin American market. And you know, I live, we live, you and me right here almost close to the border of Mexico, so it's never far from our literal selves and it's certainly never far from my mind.

And I'm interested specifically in what's happened since last I was there. I know even when I was there earlier in the decade there was clearly traction in that market, and especially in Brazil. So I'm interested to see how it's grown in other areas of Latin American.

But specifically I will be in Argentina. And I'm told that I must go to see the cemetery where Eva Peron and her husband are buried because it's apparently the most amazing cemetery ever, including more amazing than New Orleans, believe it or not. So if I get a chance, that will be the one thing I will go see, is where everybody gets laid to rest, which is kind of weird in a nerdy sort of way. But, what are you going to do?

developerWorks: Well, make sure you're rested before you get there so you don't lay down and stay, you know....

Todd: I'll tell you, after a 10-hour flight, no problem compared to 14 hours. I could do that in the cargo hold.

developerWorks: Well, that's it for this addition of Turbo Tech, Todd Turbo Watson's World Tech travel log. He's going to rest up before he takes off again. Thanks for the chatting, Todd.

Todd: Thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure.

developerWorks: This has been an IBM developerWorks podcast. Check us out at ibm.com/developerWorks, IBM's premier technical resource for software developers with tools, code and education on IBM products and open standards technology. I'm Scott Laningham with Todd Turbo Watson. Talk to you next time.

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Scott Laningham, host of developerWorks podcasts, was previously editor of developerWorks newsletters. Prior to IBM, he was an award-winning reporter and director for news programming featured on Public Radio International, a freelance writer for the American Communications Foundation and CBS Radio, and a songwriter/musician.

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