Spotify Will Expand to Asia

Aulia told me about news that is I am waiting for. Eventhough I have to wait for the next phase but it might be the opened door.

As written on TechCrunch, Spotify has hired former Google to lead the expansion to Asia. The article explains that former Google executive, Dan Brody, becomes General Manager Asia-Pacific.

Alexia Tsotsis on the article stated that Dan Brody is searching for the candidates for Spotify employees to be placed in Hongkong, Singapore, and Sydney.

Spotify is an on-demand-streaming music service. We can listen songs from their collection, which are around 15 million songs with support from 4 big recording company. Users pay the monthly service about $5 and $10 for mobile devices per month (data retrieved from Businessweek Indonesia magazine, 18-24 August 2011).

Spotify service is now available in the US and after previously available in some European countries like UK, France, Spain, Nederland, Swedish, Norway, and Finland.

Boldly speaking, I hope that this facility can be available in Indonesia, as I mentioned in my previous article that music service needs refreshment, and what has done by Spotify can be one of the inspiration. Although there are many similar services (in foreign country), but  I am stuck and interested more on what Spotify doing. May be it because of the influence of Daniek Ek, Spotify founder, moreover after the integration of this service with Facebook.

Actually, I hope that there will be local (Indonesia) services in music segment can bring new ways to enjoy music. There are some but I do not find them interesting or maybe they provide music collection that does not make me interested.

Surely, there are many questions come up. Besides there is no clear strategy in Asia yet, we still do not know whether the service will be available in Indonesia or not. Moreover, the problem of internet access speed and subscribing culture will be the serious problem that should be solve by Spotify.

I and my colleagues at DailySocial feel interested in music issue including the news about Spotify plan to penetrate in Asia market. We are going to dig up the information from the Indonesian market. So, see you in the next article.

“Google Bus” Goes Round Egypt to Find New Technology Startup Talents

As reported by New York Times, Google is doing campaign called Ebda2 in Egypt using a bus with Google logo and visiting some places including universities, with a purpose to find new netpreneur talents. Ebda2 in Arabic means “to start”, it is Google’s initiative to support the ecosystem of the internet on this country which has just changed the government after decades. The agreement of this Google program has been signed with the Egypt government since 2009.

According to Wael Fakharany, Google Egypt Manager, this program was prepared for 9 months to bring the startup enthusiast to join the intensive – 7 months – program with 112 mentors who 47 of them are Google employees. There are 200 candidates will be selected to join this program. After that, the number will be reduced into 20 finalists. In the end of the period, the winner will get $200.000 seed money to realize their dreams. Ebda2 is the first Google project in the world which the purpose is to help technology startup to grow and develop.

Egypt netpreneur ecosystem is not too different from Indonesia’s. VC and startups start to grow like mushroom in the rain season. They are inspired by the monumental Maktoob.com acquirement by Yahoo! for $175 million in 2009. If it is compared to apple-to-apple, the acquirement of Koprol by Yahoo! is also the first thing done by big company from Sillicon Valley in Indonesia. It gives big influence for new ecosystem here.

The USA has brought GEP to Indonesia after succeeding the pilot project in Egypt. Does it mean that Google will bring the same initiative to Indonesia and use a bus to travel from one university to other universities? We will wait until Google really opens its office here. If you are interested in joining this kind of training, you can consider the similar program in Indonesia held by Founder Institute.

DuniaVirtual Launched BlackBerry App

It has been a month that one of local e-commerce portal, DuniaVirtual.com released the application for BlackBerry platform. It is one of DuniaVirtual strategies to make the customers easier to access their service. Previously, one of the famous e-commerce, TokoBagus, also launched their application for BlackBerry platform.

DuniaVirtual application can be downloaded for free and is available on BlackBerry App World or can be downloaded directly from DuniaVirtual server. This application can run in any kind of BlackBerry devices with at least 5.0 version.

Generally, any web-based startups which released mobile app for any platforms always adopt the features of their web. It is also done by DuniaVirtual, almost all features in the web are adopted in the BlackBerry application. If you access DuniaVirtual whether as buyers or store owners, you will find the easiness on doing transaction as you do it on the web.

The UI and UX of DuniaVirtual appearance is quite good and all the features are made in simple and tidy appearance. Therefore, both buyer and store-owner who use BlackBerry handset will find it easy to use the e-commerce service on this site.

If you are BlackBerry users and want to access DuniaVirtual services, you may try to download it on BlackBerry App World or download it directly from the DuniaVirtual server.

This release makes mobile e-commerce getting more exciting!

September 2011 Japan IT Links (Part 2)

Continued from (Part 1). Middle part of September news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Continued to (Part 3)

Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated.

• Japnaese Facebook Pointed Out Full Of Fake Girls' Account - a blog listed many fake accounts and guys who have those girls on their friends list. There is a group to hunt them down and find whose photo (usually Asian model/actress) those fake accounts are using.
• iOS5 Beta7 Blocks Docomo SIM Even For Sim-unlocked iPhone - some say Apple/Softbank are trying anti-Docomo block, others say just a software bug in beta
• Some Games Shut Down On PC Version Of Mixi - PC-side Mixi is less popular than feature phone version, but not a good news for their public image
• Searchina's Reporting YouTube Blocks Korea By Manipulating K-Pop Popularity Turned Out To Be Make-Up. The Searchina replaced the post with idol news with the same URL, Yahoo! Japan removed its re-distributed news
• Real "Like" button on wall poster at Yurakucho Marion. via ITMedia blog
• Internal Affairs Minister Expresses Need For Research On Karelog Case
• Apple Japan, Inc. Dissolved And Merged Into Apple Japan, LLC - Mac Otakara's first report seems removed. The original official gazette was expired. Apple Japan Merged To Apple Japan Explained by Tetsuya Isozaki
• Facebook Japan Announces Japanese Active Users Passed 5 Million
• Shibukasa - Free Umbrella Sharing Service In Shibuya. It has an Android App. via LifeHacker.jp

***

• Ameba Mobile's Game "My Host-chan" To Be Dramatized On TV
• Pixiv's URL Shortening Service p.tl Blocked On Twitter. p.tl accept any URL than Pixiv pages and there are lots of abused cases.
• Taito Announces IdolMaster-like Talent Produce Social Game On Gree
• New service from SixApart
• Research: Japanese Using Facebook The Most, More Than Mixi And Twitter By MMD Labo. by MMD Labo.
• Gree Aoyagi To Be OpenFeint New CEO, Founder Leaves [En]. OpenFeint's release [En]
• Facebook Quiz Game Promotion For Citibank Japan
• Softbank Invests Singapore InMobi Pte 100 Million Dollars. VentureBeat covered it [En]
• Zynga localizes Words with Friends in Japanese
• Google Shopping Japanese Now Reflects Existing Stock From Major Retail Shops
• All Nippon Airways' All 6,000 Flight Attendants To Have iPad - first airline giving iPad to all crew
• Marketing Competition Japan - Univ. Students To Show English Marketing Skill
• Hand-powered Printing Machine Printogokko To End Its 34 Years History. over 10 million units sold, but PC printer has replaced its demand
• Google Japan Offering Mirror Page Of Nagoya City Official - Million People Recommended Evacuation By Typhoon Hard Rain
• Ameba Pigg Brothels Reported By Undercover 2-channelers
• Official Seven-Eleven Colored Gundam On Sale Sep 23
  

• Gree's Virtual Girlfriend Tickling Game For iPhone
• World's First Radio Controlled Wheeled Platform
• Research: Japanese Who Are Reluctant To Use Real Name On Social Media Drops Down From 89% To 62% In One Year
• Macromill released their second round of smartphone research
• Docomo Allies With Vodafone, Takes Over Softbank's Multinational Enterprise Clients
• Google Chrome: Lady Gaga Japanese version. original [En]
• Wilcom's New Frisk-size Cellphone - World Smallest & Lightest as the one having 10 digit-keys

If you want to know any specific news more, but unable to find them in other English blog/media, please let us know.

September 2011 Japan IT Links (Part 2)

Make Your Own iPhone!

China Daily reported today that Police in Shanghai have arrested 5 suspects for manufacturing counterfeit iPhone’s.

Craftily, the suspects scavenged through e-waste transported from South China’s Guangdong province and found genuine components from discarded real iPhone’s and combined them with fake components to create the counterfeit version. That’s why they look so real!

Over 200 fake iPhones and 5,000 accessories at a value of 5 million rmb ($781,630) were seized from a rented apartment in Shanghai.

The police raids come in response to a city wide campaign to stop counterfeit products and even ridiculous fake Apple stores popping up around the country.

Related posts:

1. Apple Is Recruiting In China, Preparing For iPhone Launch
2. Apple Tim Cook Visits China Mobile Maybe for iPhone cooperation
3. All About iPhone In China/Asia, Interview with iPhonAsia

Can Blackberry Go From Enterprise to Consumer ?

When I worked in the corporate world, everyone had a Blackberry phone. I also had one for a while. For me, I liked having my calendar synced the most. Getting email was cool for a while too, but became annoying when I got too much at bad times, like when I was trying to sleep. Blackberry was also infamous for making people addicted to checking their mail on their phone, creating the term ‘Crackberry’. Up until 2009 or so, Blackberry was in its glory days. It was the King of Enterprise.

However, a new kid on the block came along called Apple iPhone. The iPhone  has managed to change the way people communicate. It no longer segregated business and personal communication, but instead blurred the line and effectively made it into one in the same thing. I believe the key to Apple’s success is creating an eco-system of a solid product and an open platform for 3^rd party developers to create both useful and entertaining apps that people value. Apple essentially paved the way and everyone else was, and still is trailing behind. Android is quickly catching up but that is a whole other story.

Realizing the trend that even business people want to have some fun on their mobile phone, whilst having the option to do business related activities, Blackberry is shifting its strategy from enterprise to consumer. The two big questions that arise are:

1. Should they even try?

2. Can they achieve it?

Should they even try?

Research in Motion or RIM, the company that created the Blackberry, built its reputation on offering a truly secure way for business people to send and receive email over their mobile. It did this so well that Blackberry’s became the standard of office utilities. When you joined a corporate company, you were handed a laptop and a Blackberry (of course depending on your job).

No

RIM successfully established itself as the enterprise solution for mobile. Everyone knows that Blackberry is for business and has a clear competitive advantage doing it. So some argue that RIM should not confuse the market about what its brand stands for. People on this ‘no’ side of the argument say that it should focus on what it’s good at.

Yes

However I actually feel they need to target consumers, for the reason I mentioned above. The market and mobile eco-system is breaking down the wall between business use and lifestyle use. It is a trend I can only see getting stronger. Business specific use cases are no longer technology driven but application driven. Through the power of crowd-sourcing and open access, 3^rd party developers will always be able to build business apps quicker and often better than one company can. Why? Because today’s developers have a start-up mentality of meeting the needs of people like themselves and they can experiment at low costs.

RIM themselves are not stupid. For them to want to move from enterprise to consumer, they must have done a lot of strategic analysis, invested a lot of money and felt a lot of market pressure to make the transition. I feel they have to transition, otherwise they could be accelerating their decline.

Can they achieve it?

So let’s assume they should move to the consumer side. Can they pull it off?

At the recent Transmit China Conference, sponsored by RIM Blackberry, everyone was generously given a complimentary Blackberry Playbook. Of course everyone was initially excited about getting a brand new tech toy. But after playing with it for a few hours, the sentiment started to sour. Where is the email client? Why does the app store not have a good selection of apps? Why does it take so long to turn on? How do I go back to the menu? The day after we were given the Playbook’s, news broke that RIM’s shares dropped almost 22%, after reports of declining sales revenue.

RIM management know they have a tough battle ahead. But they seem to think they have what it takes. In what appears to be a David versus Goliath battle (RIM being David and Apple/Android being Goliath), RIM says that they indeed are a company focused on the consumer, even more than Apple. “Blackberry focuses on the ‘We’ and Apple focuses on ‘i’ (iPad, iPhone etcc), they say. They say this because at the core of Blackberry’s advantage is their BBM or Blackberry Messenger, a technology that allows anyone to instantly message anyone. An example of this is when users play a game; all players can send messages to one another in-game. However, I see this advantage being diluted by more cross-platform solutions like Openfeint, which connects users through chat and a leader board.

Another key ingredient RIM is trying to grow is their App World. For most developers, Apple iOS is the worthwhile platform to generate money based on the solid payment gateways and growing user base. Android is also starting to attract more developers, based on its open source system plus access to the long tail of consumers with cheaper phones. RIM needs to create an equally strong platform and incentives to attract more developers. This initiative is underway.

Get ready to rumble

The reality is RIM and their weapon, Blackberry, have a long way to go. Recently an InMobi study revealed that 52% of BlackBerry users plan on switching to iPhone 5. Furthermore, today Reuters reported that RIM is likely to have stopped production of the Blackberry Playbook and cancelled additional tablet projects.

In the long run, who knows what is going to happen? At least RIM is climbing into the ring and trying to fight for position.

Related posts:

1. 5 Years in China, BlackBerry Still Does Not Get It
2. China Unicom Is Promoting iPhone 3G
3. Tim Cook’s Secret Visits Signals iPhone May Have 2 Partners in China

Manga Authoring Software “ComiPo!” English Version Released

At the Tokyo Game Show, a variety of businesses and organizations other than game companies have displays. This comic book software “ComiPo!” [J, E] is one of them.

"ComiPo!" is released by the ComoPo! production committee, (Web Technology Com Corp., committee chairperson: Keiichi Tanaka), and it’s a program that’s like, "Even though I can’t draw a picture at all, I can make a 3D comic in a flash!"

So, you can easily create a comic by combining backgrounds with various 3D data and speach bubbles inside the pre-prepared panel layout.  Because it’s 3D, you can set the character objects at any angle within 360°, and also change the pose.  You can also make them hold things like handbags and umbrellas.  Furthermore by updating the software when the time comes, new 3D data will be added.  Secondary use is possible if for non-profit / non-commercial purposes, and a for-profit version is also possible for commercial use.

Actually, examples of business-related use have recently been taking place.  Here is a publication of all of the labor laws regarding “ComiPo!” works.  The writer basically purchases a for-profit version of “ComiPo!” and it seems that manuscripts have been created and published.

What’s more, from September 15th the ComiPo! production committee is releasing an English Version of “ComiPo!” as “ComiPo! (English Version).  This will have all contents and the user interface converted into English, so 20 different frequently used “BANG” and “SHHHHSHH” English sound effect letterings from American comics can be used.  Also 102 European characters (51×2 types) are included, such as [ç ä á à â], appearing on the screen as drawn lettering fonts, so fans from non-English speaking countries should be able to get into it.  When I checked it on Twitter, directly after release many foreigners seemed to be writing tweets about it, and among them were tweets in Spanish, Portuguese, and other languages other than English.
From here on, the ComiPo! production team is thinking of producing 3D data for mascots of local governments and such offering collaboration projects using Data from ComiPo!  People of governing bodies of all countries, why don’t we activate the landscape with ComiPo!?

ComiPo! “Even though I can’t draw a picture at all, I can make a 3d manga in a flash!” [J]

Translation authorized by VSMedia

See Also:

Official English site [En]

Comipo's official release [J]

Manga Authoring Software “ComiPo!” English Version Released

Sina Internally Testing Micro Account, to Compete with QQ?

After releasing a new beta version with layout similar to common social networking service and feature resembles web IM, Sina Weibo is still at it. According to people familiar with the matter, the most popular microblogging service is internally testing a new feature dubbed “micro account” (微号) with an aim to launch soon.

So what is going on with micro account? In a nutshell, we can refer Micro account to QQ account. Sina Weibo will assign everyone of its users a numeric account such as Weibo.com/123456. At present we sign into Weibo with email address, with the to-be-launched new feature, we can use a bunch of numbers to log in.

The feature should be accessible via http://hao.weibo.com upon launch.

Why Numbers?

For those who’re confused about the move, let’s talk about Tencent first.

It’s known to all that Tencent builds an empire on QQ IM client, as Alibaba & Taobao base their premise on buyers and seller, or Shanda counts on online gaming, the list can goes on and on.

As Tencent literally builds everything on QQ IM, QQ account has long been deemed as Chinese people’s online identity number. I guess that explains why Sina Weibo dare challenge the common practice of social media in which services like facebook, Twitter, Tumblr are making every effort to simplify their offerings for intuitive user experience to experiment with the micro account feature, Sina Weibo truly wants every users to have a numeric Weibo account that can also be considered as their online identity.

Any chance that gonna happen?

Don’t Even Think About It.

Sina has always been leaning (only) on its news platform, until the unveil of Weibo which gives rise to the online portal’s social media value. Traditionally Sina’s business is neither as diversified nor as profitable as other internet giants. Online news is all that it counts on for over a decade. Now with the sensational success of Sina Weibo, it’s no surprise that Sina Weibo has been trying so hard to build and build, incorporate and incorporate everything into the service.

With the launch with the three-column layout new Weibo, people are already speculating Sina is doing a Facebook on the premise of Weibo, now with the micro account, Sina is again doing a Tencent/QQ on Weibo?

It’s understandable that the long-established portal wants it so bad. But social media and IM (or web IM) are basically different species. Tencent is still staggering on its long march to compete with Weibo even with huge edge of user base and IM client support whereas Sina Weibo will also fail to catch up with QQ in terms of IM service.

From Technical Perspective

Twitter, Tumblr and numerous other social media services are born with profile page URL customization feature, Facebook added this later on. While in China, Renren also supports customization of profile page.

The point of URL customization is, we can make the web semantically by doing so. Tell me which URL is more acceptable to you and to search engine?

weibo.com/technode

weibo.com/123456

twitter.com/technodechina

twitter.com/123456

The first group is easier to understand, while the control group means nothing. That’s the beauty of semantic web, a direction that I believe most internet companies as well as social media giants are moving towards. Unexaggeratedly speaking, semantic to social media is like water to fish or contents to Sina. A clear, self-expressive product or service is at the core of a better internet and a better social media graph. And no matter how hard you want to compete with someone, never lose your current ground to your competitors.

Related posts:

1. Sina Weibo Took Back The Account Called MicroCoin, Might Launch Its Virtual Currency In May
2. How Struggling Micro-Blogging Tool Follow 5 Turned Into a Micro-Blog Aggregator
3. Sina, Tencent's Next Real Enemy

IM2 Modified Kongkoow to be Online Marketplace

We have already discussed about Kongkoow which was established in 2008 by IM2, one of the Indosat subsidiary. That time, Kongkoow focused on some friendship sites and wished to be the “Indonesian-MySpace”. After 3 years, we knew that MySpace is down and Kongkoow did not get expected traction. Now, IM2 is swerved. They try to facilitate Kongkoow to be online marketplace for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

As stated on Tempo Interactive, Kongkoow will be the media for SMEs to sell on the internet. This will improve the IM2 business, which, by far, focuses on the infrastructure area. Later, IM2 will bundle the broadband internet connection service and this online shop place. It does not mentioned whether the support from IM2 covering the training to build online shop in Kongkoow.

Unfortunately, when I visited to the address that supposed to be the online marketplace, the Kongkoow platform marketplace is not ready yet. I do not know what engine they are using now because there are some dummies made in 2008 or 2009. If it is a prepared engine, it is very unfortunate because the appearance is far from being interesting.

For me, besides giving a place for SMEs to broaden their business on the internet, it needs to train the SMEs about the internet users’ behavior. It is important because most of the SMEs is not really know about the internet and the users’ behavior. Are their commodities or services appropriate with the internet users’ demand? Not always. Therefore, before getting in the online area, IM2 needs to train SMEs with adequate knowledge. It is to avoid the possibility of culture shock or the difficulties to survive because of the unsuitable marketing strategy.

Make the web a better place with Mozilla Firefox 7

After successfully launching its Firefox 4 browser last March, tagged as the biggest Mozilla campaign in the world, Firefox 7 was release officially on September 27. As few of us might recall the browser was promoted at serial road shows in eight major cities across Indonesia organized by local volunteers. Mozilla engineers and developers were reported to have joined the four months event.

From the StatCounter report, Firefox is the second most widely used browser, after Internet Explorer, with approximately 30 percent of worldwide usage. The browser gained success in Germany and Poland with 55 percent and 47 percent market share respectively. In Asia, based on the same report, the graph shown is quite similar with what happened worldwide, except that Firefox’s share is declining to 26 percent while Chrome, ranked third, is reaching 25 percent usage.

The latest version of this free and open source web browser, descended from Mozilla Application Suite, has improved its memory handling by reducing memory usage up to 50 percent less than previous version (6, 5 and 4), often 20 percent to 30 percent, as a result of MemShrink project. And it will stay steady if we leave it running overnight. Performance speed will be faster, and the probability of crashing is reduced. Similar to Google Chrome, the “http://” URL prefix is hidden by default. With Firefox Sync, any bookmark or password changes will be synced immediately. The startup time will take approximately only five seconds, depending on what operating system the browser runs on. For web developers, a new rendering backend is added to speed up Canvas operations, as well as support for Web Timing specification, and text-overflow: ellipsis. The WebSocket protocol has been updated from version 7 to 8 and support for MathML is enhanced. Last but not least, several stability and security issues are fixed.

With its openness, innovation, participatory and full support of the Mozilla Foundation, the user communities can work together to ensure that internet is developed in a way that benefits everyone.  In Indonesia, Mozilla is enjoying tremendous growth and leads with 76 percent of browser share. Mozilla has six regional leaders in major cities (Jakarta, Bandung, Makassar, Surabaya, Jogjakarta, Bekasi) and three MozillaReps (ReMo), lead by a freelance web designer, Viking Karwur as the Community Manager.

Its future releases, Firefox 8, currently in “Aurora” stage, will be 20 percent faster than version 7, while distinguished user-interface called “Australis” will be introduced in Firefox 9, which is now in “Nightly Builds” phase.