Singapore is set to stage one of the biggest gatherings of international celebrities in May. The occasion will be 24-hour long event – the Social Star Awards 2013, billed as the Oscars of social media – which aims to celebrate the most popular personalities and brands around the world, based on their engagement with the fans in major social networking platforms.

The Social Star Awards is organised by Digitales, which combines entertainment ratings, the emerging influence of social media and the power of analytics to offer new insights on popularity of celebrities and brands. Underpinning the Awards is Digitales’ starcount platform, which aggregates data from the top 11 global social networks to rank celebrities and brands based on their engagement with more than 1.5 billion fans around the world.

The platform, which is powered by a proprietary algorithm, was developed with the support of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) under its Digital Marketplace Programme, that aims to establish Singapore as the hub of choice in Asia for an emerging digital media economy.

Singapore is the global hub for Digitales, supporting activities such as the development of the starcount platform, content hosting, social community management and event promotion.

The company chose Singapore as its base due to its strong business links with global markets such as China, India and the US as well as the robust ICT infrastructure, offering excellent global connectivity and high-speed network.

Digitales also benefits from Singapore’s growing digital media ecosystem as it leverages on various partners including content services, localisation, platform services, hosting, and other digital media solutions. With these partnerships, the company has developed new services such as bespoke consumer analytics services for brands (for example, ICT products and services, consumer electronics, and food and beverage), offering insights on consumer behaviour for these clients to develop and refine their social media strategies.

To further maximise monetisation opportunities, Digitales has also launched a consumer service to allow fans of the celebrities to increase their interactions and compete for the title “biggest superfan”.