Mr Drew Thomson: In time we want to deliver against our stated ambition of positioning Singapore as the global capital of social entertainment.

The world’s first global digital platform for compiling social entertainment charts was launched in Singapore on 31 May 2012 to provide the definitive measure of social media popularity for fans, talent, media and brands alike. starcount, by All The Worlds Entertainment (ATWE) and its subsidiary Digitales, aggregates public information from the top 11 global social networks to showcase and celebrate the most unique and popular personalities on social media across all genres. Examples of these include networks Facebook, Twitter, Sina Weibo, YouTube, Google+ and Orkut.

Supported by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and the Interactive Digital Media Programme Office, starcount serves as the ultimate digital platform for discovering trends and rising stars in social entertainment. Using a proprietary data system, it provides a benchmark for the popularity of various personalities across geographies and cultures. It also incorporates a discovery engine that introduces users to popular worldwide social stars and the latest content.

“A starcount score will allow fans to uniquely compare stars global popularity. It also dynamically aggregates the social media activity of every person in the charts to give fans one place to keep up to date with the social buzz from around the world,” said Mr Drew Thomson, Co-Chief Executive Officer of All The Worlds Entertainment.

Singapore serves as the global hub for starcount. “After undertaking research, we identified Singapore as a unique hub for starcount due to three key benefits. (These are) superb infrastructure; talent across the key areas required to build and launch the business; and a destination that had strong business links with all key global markets - China, India, the United States, South America and Europe,” said Mr Thomson.

Operations that are based in Singapore include the technical build of the platform, hosting, public relations, event promotion, sponsorship sales, and social community management.

Mr Andrew Khaw, Senior Director (Industry Development) of IDA welcomed Digitales’ choice of Singapore as the global hub for the starcount service. IDA is supporting Digitales through its Digital Marketplace Programme (DMP), which is aimed at establishing Singapore as a trusted digital media hub for Asia.

Besides providing Digitales with advice during the set-up phase and a grant to support the build and ongoing development of its social media aggregation platform, IDA also helped introduce Digitales to potential business partners in Singapore. One of these, Favourite Medium, is now a core strategic partner for Digitales, said Mr Thomson.

Using a proprietary data system, starcount provides a benchmark for the popularity of various personalities across geographies and cultures.

Over the next few months, Digitales plans to build and launch the second phase of its digital platform that will allow personalisation, and the ability for people to add themselves to the chart and fan charts.

The starcount platform will also form the basis from which ATWE collates data to rank celebrities and brands for The Social Star Awards, which will make its debut in Singapore next year. A globally telecast event, the people’s choice awards show will be a glamorous red carpet affair that honours the biggest global superstars in social media from the worlds of music, movies, fashion, computer gaming, TV and sports.

ATWE is currently looking to finalise the talent line-up for the show, which will take place on 31 May 2013 at Marina Bay Sands (MBS). MBS is one of the founding partners of the project along with Economic Development Board, IDA and BBC Worldwide. The Awards will be followed by The Singapore Social, a two-day music extravaganza hosted at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore on 1-2 June 2013.

“Given the Awards show will be hosted in Singapore and our head office is in Singapore, we see Singapore as core to the future of our business,” Mr Thomson said. “In time we want to deliver against our stated ambition of positioning Singapore as the global capital of social entertainment.”