New website tells how globally connected we are

By: Maricar B. Brizuela

2:18 am | Saturday, July 23rd, 2011

 

Photo from www.westernunionworld.com

Ever wonder what you can do with your hundreds of Facebook friends other than connect with them? How about winning an award and placing the Philippines on the map of globally connected nations.

People from different countries are given the opportunity to be known as globally connected individuals under Western Union’s Network Challenge. On Thursday, during its 160th anniversary celebration, the company launched the hunt for the most networked person in the world. People are encouraged to step forward and take the challenge by logging on to www.westernunionworld.com.

Patricia Riingen, Western Union senior vice president for the Pacific and Indochina, said this is an opportunity for Filipinos to make a name in the global community.

“Filipinos have come a long way, venturing out into strange lands, building their personal networks and immersing themselves in new cultures while maintaining strong ties with their family and friends back home,” Riigen said.

‘One world’

The new site introduced by Western Union features three useful layers: our history, our world and your world. Major milestones of Western Union are organized artistically in the “our history” layer while key data points and economic metrics are presented on the “our world” tab. One can simply drag through the icons on each layer and get access to a useful amount of information.

The “your world” layer, on the other hand, gives a personal and interesting touch to the site. This is where one can link Facebook contacts into the page. The website automatically computes a person’s “world index” by multiplying the number of countries where you have Facbook friends by your number of international connections. The world index helps you discover how globally connected you are.

Facebook users are presented with a totally different interactive interface which has the ability to locate friends around the globe with a visual presentation which will leave individuals hooked to its pages.

Celebrities such as retail entrepreneur and style icon Divine Lee, tour guide and activist Carlos Celdran and IT expert Abe Olandres have  joined Your World and started beating hundreds of individuals in rankings.

Informative

“The site is totally informative. It is a good way to spend time and learn about the world more than just connecting,” Celdran said.

These three celebrities have friends in more than 50 countries around the globe even reaching as far as Tanzania. Abe Olandres, author of YugaTech.com, said that he adds friends from every country he visits when conducting seminars on blogging.

About 500 individuals have already signed into Your World using their Facebook accounts and half of them are from the Philippines.

Western Union said that, as a leader in global payment services, it wanted to find a way to give consumers their own bird’s eyeview of their personal network. Riingen said that Your World is a fun way to celebrate the power of human connectivity by creating fascinating insights and encouraging more people to reach out to fellow global citizens.