Chinese Groupon, Lashou and Meituan both Confirm They Raised Venture Capital

Groupon is pretty funny. I am not going to criticize it here because its business model is very fascinating indeed, but the global group purchase market it triggered has gone far too crazy. Groupon is reported to acquire uBuyiBuy, Beeconomic and Atlaspost to enter Asia, on the other hand, the rumor also says Google is willing to spend $6 billions to acquire Groupon.

We used to report that Groupon is in talk with its five Chinese clones, but till now there is no sign of any deal. Is valuation for these companies too high? or Groupon itself is still not clear about Chinese industry? We don’t have any clue yet. But today, two top Groupon clones, Lashou and Meituan, both officially said they have raised several millions dollar venture capital.

Lashou just closed its second round of funding, $10millions which is led by Tenaya Venture and Norwest Venture, together with GSR Venture and Rebate Network. Report says that the valuation for Lashou is now several hundreds millions dollars.

Wang Xin, founder of Meituan also told the public, probably for the first time, he has raised some funding from the famous Sequaia Capital. He did not tell the figure, but I heard that it’s $5millions.

Don’t tell me it’s kinda of coincidence. What message these Groupon want to deliver to the Chinese public or even to the global market? You may tell me.

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Put Backpack In Your iPhone With Backpocket

If you are a fan of 37signals‘ Backpack collaborative software, having it on the go on your mobile might make things even easier. Mobrick (the team behind Common Totes and Shoplette) has just released Backpocket (iTunes), an iPhone app that “helps Backpack users access their Backpack accounts on the go with a consistent and intuitive interface that focuses on the features they use the most while on the go”.

Backpocket also lets you manage multiple Backpack accounts and supports offline editing so you can work offline and sync your changes later. You can also check out all the other extras for Backpack users.

If you’re unfamiliar with what Backpack is, in 37signals’ words: “Backpack is an easy intranet for your business. Store, share, discuss, and archive everything that’s essential for your team. Safe and secure.”

Backpocket is Mobrick’s first iPhone app and costs USD 1.99. The company is not related to 37signals but the Mobrick team are “huge fans and use 37signals’ products everyday”.

Screenshots of Backpocket:

Check out an interview SGE did with Shannon Low from Mobrick back in March 2009, mostly focusing on another of Mobrick’s product, Zinerepublic, a product that facilitates the creation of crowdsourced magazines.

There’s already another 3rd-party Backpack iPhone client: Satchel (listed on 37signals’ Backpack Extras page). Another one, FrontPocket seems to have been discontinued. (Funnily, FrontPocket used to be known as Backpocket.)

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Japanese “Giga Pudding” becomes massive meme on 4chan overnight

Overnight – a Japanese DIY pudding called Giga Pudding has become a massive meme on message-board 4chan. This enormously sized pudding, launched in 2008, contains over 20 servings and requires 1.6 liters of water to make. A promotional web video in which a pudding character endlessly sings “Puddi Puddi” had made the rounds for the past two years on blogs and other social media sites but had never broken through as a full-forced meme.

Inspired this video, moot, the founder of 4chan decided to screw with his users by embedding the video on autoplay in the message board /b/, and instigated a text-filter where all user-submitted text posts were replaced by an endless string of “PUDDI PUDDI”. This forced users to communicate via images and other creative means, temporarily besieging 4chan from Nov 30th to Dec 1st. While it is a forced meme, Giga Pudding is inspiring new image macros and uses similar to the Desu meme including Pikapuddi, Puddibear, and Joseph Ducreux Puddi.

Surprisingly, Japan has a history of oversized pudding that predates Giga Pudding. At a Nagoya restaurant named Samma-tei, you can enjoy a 12 liter pudding [J] for 42,800 yen. Further, making oversized puddings has long been popular with Japanese bloggers as well.  A few example posts where bloggers document their attempt at making bucket-sized puddings can be found here, [J] here, and here [J]. One blogger even made a questionable mannequin made of pudding [J]. Our theory is that these novelty restaurants and bloggers inspired Takara Tomy to create the oversized dessert.

You can purchase Giga Pudding from Rakuten, and learn how to make it here. [J]

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EverBox, Shanda’s Dropbox In Test

I am big fan of service like Dropbox, Evernote which help me a lot in my digital life. But I never expected there would be some copycats from China. Here, most users still only care about something entertaining, and seriously, what could be the revenue model in an environment where Free is sort of culture. We need some cool internet-based tools, but don’t expect this can be done by startups. The ‘Free’ culture is killing not just the innovation but also userful ideas, it’s not right and needs change.

Luckily we see Shanda, the leading online gaming company has started taking the responsibility. It’s EverBox, a project incubated by Shanda’s Innovation Institute is now in test. It’s just like Dropbox providing cloud storage service which can also facilitate your synchronizing your files in different devices (pc, mobile phone etc). EverBox is still in beta, in terms of the platform it supports, it’s a bit disappointing (for me) as it now only provides Windows client. But the team says the Mac, iPhone and Android version will be out soon. EverBox web-based service includes some nice features such as integrated image viewers, music players etc which allow you to view the content without download.

EverBox currently offers every user up to 10GB storage for free, which sounds quite promising. As its name sounds like EverNote+DropxBox, I am hoping it can bring us something they have in one package.

Just another side note, we’ve been in touch with many friends working for Shanda. I thought Shanda is quite a ‘traditional’ gaming company, but in fact, there are loading of interesting stuff there, e.g. Shanda’s Innovation Institute, basically its Shanda’s Innovation Works for incubating startups. We will tell you more about it later, so stay tuned!

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Join Asiajin at Tokyo Biggest Tech Party Ever

For the second year in a row, Asiajin is one of the participating group of the largest tech bōnenkai in Japan, Tokyo Biggest Tech Party Ever.

We had more than 400 people last year, celebrating together during an epic evening. To stir things up a bit this year, we found a better venue and reached out to even more friends at tech/web/entrepreneur communities. Here there are, from venture funding to Mac lovers, from mobile enthusiasts to startup launchers: AppleCert, Digital Eve Japan,GreenITers, ICA Japan, Mobile in Japan,Mobile Monday Tokyo, Ninjava, Open Network Lab, Poken Japan, Ringo MUG,Startup Dating, StartupWeekend Tokyo,TLUG, Tokyo 2.0, Tokyo Beer & Blog, Tokyo HackerSpace, Tokyo PC Users Group,WASForum.

We would love you all to join us.

The event will be held next Monday, Dec 6 in Aoyama, at the モーダポリティカ MODAPOLITICA event space (Google Map / Gmap)

Don’t forget to register and quick as we’re about to close registration due to so many people willing to come.

And while we’ll all be partying, the revenue of the evening will be donated to Beers for Bytes, a charity who helps build tech infrastructure for impoverished people. The more you drink, the more tools we’ll be able to fund. Isn’t that a great way to finish 2010?

Here’s the official announcement, both in English and Japanese:

It’s time once again to bring all of the tribes together for our annual TechXmas event, aka: Tokyo’s Biggest Tech Party Ever. We have nailed an Awesome Venue for the 2010 gig with a larger collection of participating groups and are expecting an even bigger crowd than the 400+ very cool folks who attended our epic mixer last year!

So mark your holiday calendar for December 6th – make sure you register – and use Twitter, Facebookand Plancast to help share the good word

Charity Benefit:
All net proceeds go to Beers for Bytes, an offshoot of the acclaimed Beers For Books event. The funds will be donated to tech infrastructure for Room to Read, whose focus is on childhood literacy and gender equality in education in developing countries.

Sponsorship Opportunities:
We will also be offering the opportunity for sponsors to donate door prizes or small cash envelopes, so please do drop us a note asap to make arrangements.
sponsor @ tokyobiggesttechpartyever.com

Date: Monday December 6th, from 7-10pm
Venue: Modapolitica – Map
Fee: ¥2,000 with Advance Registration – Or – ¥3,000 At The Door **Note Below
Menu: Advance registration comes with a super tasty buffet – while all drinks, including beer, standard mixed or non-alcohol and wine selection, will be cash bar 500jpy each.

**Note: ‘At The Door’ attendees will receive two-drink tickets instead of a food coupon as we need to confirm an accurate buffet estimate in advance.

Participating groups:
AppleCert, Asiajin, Digital Eve Japan, GreenITers, ICA Japan, Mobile in Japan, Mobile Monday Tokyo, Ninjava, Open Network Lab, Poken Japan, RingoMUG, Startup Dating, StartupWeekend Tokyo, Tokyo 2.0, Tokyo Beer & Blog, Tokyo HackerSpace, TLUG, Tokyo PC Users Group, WAS Forum.

Thanks for another fantastic year — We look forward to see you all again soon!

東京最大の技術者仲間のかってないパーティー！

忘年会　2010　－　12月6日　–　モ-ダポリティカ

技術者仲間が一同に会して年末恒例のTechXmas event、別名Tokyo’s Biggest Tech Party Everを楽しむ時期がまたやって来ました。主催する多くの関係団体の合議で2010年の集会場として息を呑むような会場が最終決定されました。今年の人数は去年の壮大な交流会に集まった400人超のステキな仲間をさらに上回ると予想しています。

そこで、皆さんはカレンダーの12月6日に上記行事を予定して下さい。その事前登録の確認をお忘れなく。適切な発言の共有に役立つ Twitter, Facebook, Plancast を使いましょう。詳細は下記を参照して下さい。

チャリティ収益：
チャリティ利益の全額は、賞賛を受けている Beers For Books より分派したBeers for Bytesに寄付されます。寄付された資金は、開発途上国の教育において子供の文盲解消および両性平等に注力するRoom to Readの技術インフラに使われます。

スポンサー募集:
私共主催者は福引の賞品または大入袋を寄付するスポンサーを募集します。希望者は準備が必要なので出来る限り早くその旨を連絡して下さい。
sponsor @ tokyobiggesttechpartyever.com

日時：12月6日（月曜日）午後7時　-　10時
会場： モ-ダポリティカ（Modapolitica） – Map
入場料：前売券＝2000円　当日券＝3000円**
メニュー：前売券には一流のうまいビュッフェ食事が含まれています。一方、飲み物として、ビール、標準的な選別した洋酒、ワインとソフトドリンクが用意され、バーで一杯500円にて販売します。
**注意：主催者は事前に食事する人数を正確に把握する必要があるので、参加者は受付で食事ク－ポン券の代わりに2枚のドリンク券を受け取ることになります。

参加団体:
AppleCert, Asiajin, Digital Eve Japan, GreenITers, ICA Japan, Mobile in Japan, Mobile Monday Tokyo, Ninjava, Open Network Lab, Poken Japan, RingoMUG, Startup Dating, StartupWeekend Tokyo, Tokyo 2.0, Tokyo Beer & Blog, Tokyo HackerSpace, TLUG, Tokyo PC Users Group, WAS Forum.

すばらしいこの1年に感謝しましょう－- まもなく、皆さんに再会できることを楽しみにしています

On a personal note, I sadly won’t be able to attend, as I’ll be speaking in Paris for LeWeb. Most of the Asiajin team has already confirmed participation, though.

You can follow the official party Twitter account @TBTPE and the Twitter hashtag #tbtpe or follow -and like- the Facebook Page.
You can also announce your participation via Plancast or Facebook.

And, if you’re a photo lover, please share your pictures of the party on Flickr after the event, we would love to have these memories.

Have fun, everyone!

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Why Indian Languages Failed to make a mark Online!

Why Indian Languages have failed so far to create much desired impact on Internet?

With due respect to companies & entrepreneurs working in Indian /Indic languages – let me put practical thoughts on Indian Languages proliferation in Indian Online industry. Technology is nice, great infact – we love it when we type in English and the text gets converted to an Indic language. Technology does makes us say – WOW!, but it is not enough to assume that millions of Indians will adopt it and it would bring about an revolution in Indian Internet Industry.

Revolution in Indian Internet Industry will be when about 100Mn Internet users in India grows to 500Mn (not in next 20 years, but in next 3 years) & about 1XX Mn Mobile Internet users grow to 500 Mn (not in next 10 years, but in next 2 years). Hope the revolution of this sort does happen – but will acceptance of Indic languages lead to it – answer is definitely NO! The ecology for this change is simply non-existent in India today; and is far from created.

Having worked in the Internet domain – we have repeatedly heard that Indian languages to be the next thing. These predictions actually looked more like “me-too” product offerings – thats worked-in-US will work-here-too. Because China has Baidu does not mean we need one!

Coming back to Indic languages, in my opinion – the languages space has been highly misunderstood. We saw several efforts in this direction over years:

• Rediffmail introduced feature to send and receive emails in multiple Indian languages many years back. However the usage of this service is not more than 1% of overall service. Ajit Balakrishnan, CEO, Rediff.com said earlier – “Lets not assume that (Indian) users want Indian Languages!”
• Microsoft started offering its Windows Operating System and MS Office Suite products with Indian language versions since last few years. The adoption rate of same is questionable – to my best positive guess it will be still <0.5% of overall installations.
• Keyboards / Input devices with multi-lingual keyboards were at one time were hailed as innovations to drive computing to rural India.
• Indian fonts also saw its own best days when they were introduced to the market.
• Bi-lingual (English+Hindi) mobile phone keypads were once a rage. Nokia introduced a series of phones and around same time we saw a huge interest in mobile applications working on Indian languages

Most of these services/launches were well received, were thought and perceived to be game changers. Maybe at times even I did think in same way – but while I have studied this space and have interacted with few wise people in Indian & International scene – Can strongly put forward the conclusion that Indian Languages will NOT make a mark in Computing, Mobile or Internet domain. It will not happen very soon – the ecology for such change to happen in India does not exist.

Here are few considerations that makes me form such strong opinion and conclude on absence of ecology favoring Indic languages adoption:

Diversity of India:

While this is what makes us proud of India – this is one of the strongest reasons why Indic languages have failed to make a mark.

Consider emerging markets like-

• Brazil: Over 99% of population speaks in Portuguese
• Other Central & South American countries like Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, and many other countries have Spanish as the official language with over 90% population in these countries speaking in Spanish.
• Similar with French – it is widely accepted in many European countries as official language.
• Consider China – it is as diverse as India, but all most popular versions of Chinese languages are based on standardized version of Mandarin (based on Beijing dialect)

Consider India – while Hindi is national language, but no single language has adoption across the country. State governments have endorsed respective regional languages as official, Hindi failed to find the common ground – but English did!

How Innovation starts in Local Language:

Take market like China – The innovators, the early adopters, the influencers, the decision makers, the entrepreneurs – all of them DON’T KNOW English!  So innovators developed softwares, websites, products in Chinese; early adopters used Chinese products and so did the influencers, decision makers, and everyone else in China.

Take India – we know our Mother Tongue (our Mother Tongues are different) + we know English!

English is Aspirational language!

English is an aspirational language. Nothing official about it!

It can be confidently said that the percentage of users who will read/write/speak English language will keep growing for next 50 to 100 years. The same cannot be said about Indic languages.

How new users are learning computers:

For applying to government jobs that involve computer related work, few state governments in India have provided guidelines / benchmarks or minimum criteria based on examinations/programs acknowledged by them. Once such program with examination is MS-CIT for Maharashtra Government.

Had a chance to visit once such center – the communication with students may be in local language – however many users prefer to give examination in English language and during their classes learn computers that have English versions of Windows / Office and other software applications.

Indian languages are complex; Do not follow standard / global script:

One of the most favoring factor for languages like French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc was the fact that they followed alphabets from English language (ABCD…XYZ). No additional fonts, hardware or input devices were required to be created when uses adopted computers usage in these languages – both reading and writing.

In contrast, all languages in India do not follow standard script and are very complex to input and still be grammatically correct. To a small extent, another disadvantage is – like English we cannot drop vowels (AEIOU alphabets) to make shorted and communicable form of any Indic language, an convenient SMS lingo of Indic languages could not be developed.

Even Devanagari script is very complex to be standardized for its multiple languages on a input device like keyboard; even if it were – all languages in India are not based on Devanagari; while in China most Chinese languages have standard Mandarin script.

Internet was built on Content; Indic languages lacked adoption by early movers:

Internet was built over years – the most popular activity till date on Internet has been creation & consumption of content – through content sites, social content, or services & products that communicate through a content (language). While content was created in other global languages based on English alphabets from early days of Internet – it took a long time before content in Indian languages started appearing on Internet. By the time ability to create content in Indian languages was available – English had taken a mighty lead in its adoption as Internet’s mother-tongue for India.

In early days of Internet in India, most early adopters had English as first/second language. It made more sense for these users to adopt English language than create content in Indian languages as content was readily available elsewhere to. Most early and popular Indian websites too focused on creating content in English.

Even if they were to adopt Indic languages – the question will always be – which one to start with?

Indian Languages are great for Consumption; Not for creation!

As users we consume all regional languages through other Media – Television, Radio, Newspapers. Its very easy to consume on traditional media and the ecosystem exists for – content (TV programs, news content, audio content for radio), publishers (multiple TV channels, news papers & radio stations) and advertisers (promoting products in Indian languages). There is huge amount of content produced, audience availability & consumption, and advertiser interest.

Indic languages are great for consumption; not for creation! Ask yourself -

• How many times have you sent an official email in Hindi? No business may deny communication in lndian language if it gets you more business – but did you send?
• How many times have you sent an email to an friend in any Indian language?
• How many times have you composed and sent (not forwarded) an SMS in Indian language?
• You may talk with your friends in any language – like Hindi, Telegu or Bengali – but did you write email to them in that language?

No Rewards for creating Content for Publishers

Even if large publishers now take efforts to create content in local language – the cost & economics associated with this may not justify the efforts. The questions to ask would be -

• Is there audience that would accept content in Indian language. If there is – are they online today?
• Are advertisers willing to include these in media buying plans, develop creatives in multiples of Indian languages – would the right advertisements be displayed to correct audience?
• How will they get traffic? How will they optimize for SEO? If they post an message on their Facebook fan page – will the users reply back in local language or in English?
• The monetization – how will they?

Monetization for local language content publishers:

Should we charge consumers to access our content in local Indian languages – that will not work. The debate if content should be free or paid has been ongoing since we have known – its best concluded that content should be free as it has been.

Coming to online advertising opportunities, agencies and publishers need to take extra efforts if they have to cater most of the Indian languages – the time and effort required in doing so may not justify the returns on many metrics.

Even current large publishers like Yahoo, BBC, etc having local Indian versions of its service – feature display advertisements in English itself and have comparatively less advt spots than their English versions. Many small and medium publishers will rely on Google Adsense for revenues – but Google does not do any wonders here. No robust technology available to content sense Indian languages – and even if it were available – there are no advertisements available in languages to match up and show them in relevance. Fill rates for advt-spots would been lower and with fewer revenue generation options – small publishers will think twice before putting efforts on creating Indic language content.

Take a look at large portals in Brazil, France, Spain or China – the ecology exists with an huge array of content providers, publishers and advertisers communication through respective local language.

Literacy Rates of India:

While most predictions about Indian languages are made that it will increase penetration of Internet users in India – we forget to acknowledge the fact that there still exist an huge population that is illiterate. Unfortunately, 35% of world’s illiterate population is in India.

As of 2007, India’s youth had literacy rate of 82%, while that of Chinese youth was 98%. Literacy rates are based on an individual’s ability to read and write, not on his ability to understand or use computers! Hence the addressable Internet market in India for any language will be far lower than the entire population.

Our Generation is learning to give up Indian Languages:

Few factors around us might be making us give up our inclination towards Indian Languages. One of the strongest is influence on Cinema / Bollywood – Indian audience is bombarded with promotions of movies close to its release date, most promotions today feature names of Indian Movies in English characters!

Did you notice that – Ghajini, Dabangg, Golmaal, Rajneeti, or many latest blockbusters from Bollywood came out with posters/promotions focusing with name of movie only in English (or Hinglish). And so are television programs and contests .

While sending SMS’s even to our friends – its easier to type a local Indian language in English (Hindi + English = Hinglish), not just for Hindi but for all languages.

We are slowly learning to give up Indian Languages when it comes to usage on Mobile or Internet.

The Litmus Test for Indian Language Usage !

Amitabh Bachchan on KBC (Kaun Banega Crorepati) asks viewers a question for winning 1 Lac, users are expected to send SMS KBCQ followed by options A, B, C or D.

One fine day if he declares that only SMS in local languages will be accepted. How many users you think will send the answer as  (?????? ???? ?, ?, ?, ?)  or any other local Indian languages? Will there be a SMS responses go up or fall drastically?

For a simple message like this – there will be multiple variants in multiple languages.  Try composing this on your phone in Hindi or in your own mother-tongue. Now – Did you get my point about Indian Languages?

Concluding Notes:

There is definitely a pain area that has to be addressed here knowing the potential that can be unleashed will be tremendous. The challenge that needs to be addressed is not about creating a tool to translate content to Indian Languages or simplifying the creation in Indian Languages – but it is about creating an ecology that enables creation, consumption and monetization of Indian Languages!

Notes from above article:

• Indian languages are based on complex scripts – it may be easier to read content, but not to create it.
• There is no common ground for one Indian language – hence English takes a lead and will continue to.
• Although there are technology innovations that lets one type in English and then auto-translate in a local language – but the minimum criteria to use the same is knowledge of English!
• For Indian languages – it would definitely be the Mobile Story! Mobile Penetration in India is already about 50% of entire population – is the rest 50% a addressable market is questionable – even the new mobile operators in India have to prove themselves.

But with Indian youths – 82% literacy rate and high mobile penetration already are key factors. A solution for proliferation of Indian languages usage needs to be out before English becomes the De facto communication medium and an lost opportunity for Indian languages!

[Guest article by PJ/Reproduced from his blog.]

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Gartner Prediction–10% of Your Online Friends will be NonHuman [2015]

Friends. Virtual friends. Online. And well, NonHuman Friends.

That’s what Gartner predicts, i.e. by 2015, social media strategy will evolve to an extent that bots, i.e. automated software agents will carry interactions enabling brands to increase engagement.

Other predictions by Gartner are:

»Security : G20 nation’s critical infrastructure will be disrupted and damaged by online sabotage.

Online attacks can be multimodal, in the sense of targeting multiple systems for maximum impact, such as the financial system (the stock exchange), physical plant (the control systems of a chemical, nuclear or electric plant), or mobile communications (mobile-phone message routers).

»Cloud: By 2015, 20 percent of non-IT Global 500 companies will be cloud service providers.
The move by non-IT organizations to provide non-IT capabilities via cloud computing will further expand the role of IT decision making outside the IT organization. This represents yet another opportunity for IT organizations to redefine their value proposition as service enablers — with either consumption or provision of cloud-based services.

»Automation/Delivery: By 2015, tools and automation will eliminate 25 percent of labor hours associated with IT services.
As the IT services industry matures, it will increasingly mirror other industries, such as manufacturing, in transforming from a craftsmanship to a more industrialized model. Cloud computing will hasten the use of tools and automation in IT services as the new paradigm brings with it self-service, automated provisioning and metering, etc., to deliver industrialized services with the potential to transform the industry from a high-touch custom environment to one characterized by automated delivery of IT services.

»Devices : By 2014, 90 percent of organizations will support corporate applications on personal devices.

The trend toward supporting corporate applications on employee-owned notebooks and smartphones is already under way in many organizations and will become commonplace within four years. The main driver for adoption of mobile devices will be employees — i.e., individuals who prefer to use private consumer smartphones or notebooks for business, rather than using old-style limited enterprise devices.

» Tablets: By 2013, 80 percent of businesses will support a workforce using tablets.
The Apple iPad is the first of what promises to be a huge wave of media tablets focused largely on content consumption, and to some extent communications, rather than content creation, with fewer features and less processing power than traditional PCs and notebooks or pen-centric tablet PCs.[more here]

–

While one may not revisit these predictions (or even care to go back in time and see what Gartner predicted for 2010), such predictions are contextually relevant to understand the changing landscape. The keyword that comes out is damn clear – cloud, devices and security are the key spend areas.

What’s your view?

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Vancl Raised Its 5th Round of Funding at $100millions

Vancl, the leading online B2C e-commerce site selling men’s shirts, women’s and children’s clothing, shoes and other accessories just closed its 5th round fund-raising, $100millions. The Chinese report says now the company’s valuation is over $1billions. This round is led by CEYUAN Venture together with its earlier investor IDGVC, SAIF Partners and Tiger Funds. The funding will be mainly used for marketing, logistics etc.

Led by Chen Nian, a founding member of Joyo, Vancl is now the market leader of Chinese B2C service which took around 31.3% of B2C market in 2009 according to Zero2IPO report. Chen Nian told the public earlier this year, Vancl’s revenue is expected rmb 2billions (~$300million) in 2010.

Chen Nian understands the e-commerce market and is also very good at marketing strategy. Vancl’s advertisement is already a bit overwhelming and almost everywhere (on portal sites, on display at bus stop etc).

As we reported yesterday, Chinese Online Retailers are Ready to Take off. This could be the last round before Vancl goes IPO.

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Chinese Gov’t says Shanzhai is also Innovation – What ?!

In a press conference yesterday, a government official from MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) said “Shanzhai” is also a kind of innovation. (The person is Yang Xue-shan, a Vice Minister of MIIT. And here is the the article about in it. http://tech.163.com/10/1201/03/6MPP67GH000915BD.html)

He thought as long as there is no infringement of copyright, the production of “Shanzhai” products should be encouraged. For readers who don’t know what “Shanzhai” means, maybe you cannot see the irony. But, “Shanzhai”, in fact, means copycat.

So, how could a copycat product not infringe copyright?? A professor in Foreign Trade University explained, it is because many of such copycats do not do a perfect job. They are not exactly like the real ones in close examination. For example, currently, “Shanzhai” iPad is a hot item in the market. But, in fact, the “Shanzhai” version of iPads use Google’s Android as operating system. So, strictly speaking, there is no copyright infringement. It even has a bit of innovation, as the manufacturer changes the OS to Android.

WOW!! So, that it is. Just like negative times negative equal positive, it seems to suggest: if you do the wrong thing, but not doing it perfectly, you are in fact doing a right thing. And you should be encouraged to do more.

(hmm … really interesting … something worth a deep thought …)

But, how about the person who really innovate and make the first iPad?? Should we encourage what he did?? Our government official seems offer no answer… And as the person lives far far away, in a country called the United State, he is not even in our government official’s jurisdiction!! So, why should our government official care?

That is how I see it … anyone has any ideas ??

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Startups 2010: CyberAgent Ventures Announces To Invest In Five Tech Start-ups

CyberAgent Ventures[J], an invest arm of Tokyo’s web business conglomerate CyberAgent and previously known as CyberAgent Investment, announced today the result of Startups 2010[J] or their program digging up hidden tech start-ups from Japanese market.  Five teams were chosen to be financially and physically supported by CyberVentures in the program.

Totally 108 teams have submitted their ideas for the program during the application period starting last summer.   The chosen teams will be invested and allowed to set their offices in a incubation facility provided by CyberAgent Ventures.

The teams chosen in the program are:

• TechMonkey: develops “Loca-Tomo”, a location-based avatar training game app.

• 
  Food Foto: provides a service that allows you to share updates with your friends about what you’ve eaten at restaurants and what you’ve cooked.

• 
  Mind Palette[J]: develops Snapeee, a picture-based social network having the feature of decorating your snapshots.

• Tori ningen[J] (meaning ‘bird man’): develops smartphone/tablet education apps for children.

• Jipanglish[J]: operates a language learning platform for allowing users to master English in a short time.

CyberAgent Ventures’ “Startup” program has been an annual opportunity for tech start-ups to apply, but there will be two periods a year since the next edition which is scheduled to due next March.

See Also:

• CyberAgent Ventures Press Release: Announcing Five Teams supported in the Startup 2010 Program[J, PDF]
• Cyber Agent Investments Organizes Business Plan Competition

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Groupon Sets Foot in Asia!

Groupon has announced the launch of Groupon Singapore, Philippines, Hong Kong and Taiwan through the acquisition of daily deal sites: Beeconomic (Singapore and Philippines), uBuyiBuy (Hong Kong) and Atlaspost (Taiwan).

The terms of the deals have not yet been disclosed.

The acquisitions extend Groupon’s reach across East and Southeast Asia, joining Groupon Japan, launched in August 2010. Both uBuyiBuy and Beeconomic are recognised as dominant players in their local collective buying scene.

Founded sometime April – May 2010, Beeconomic Singapore is one of the earlier entrants in Singapore and is widely regarded by industry players as the second most popular group-buying site in Singapore, coming after DEAL.com.sg. Whereas Beeconomic Philippines was launched some time at the end of November and they are among the fourth or fifth player to enter the Philippines’ local group-buying market, coming after Buyanihan, Cash Cash Pinoy, Ensogo, Awesome, which were launched in the period of August and September.

Atlaspost, a popular location-based social networking site with more than 1.2 million users in Taiwan, joined the US group-buying craze to launched its own daily deal services in August 2010.

All three sites will take on the Groupon brand name and site design in the coming months.

Rob Solomon, President and Chief Operating Officer of Groupon:

“We see enormous potential in the Asian marketplace, and the expansion of Groupon to Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines and Taiwan is an important next step. We’re excited to leverage an incredibly Internet-savvy customer base to generate increased sales for local merchants.”

Groupon Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines and Taiwan will join Groupon’s global network, offering deals to a tune of 33 million subscribers in 35 countries and saving hundreds of millions of dollars for consumers since the site’s launch in November 2008. Groupon employs more than 3,000 people worldwide.

Patrick Linden, CEO of DEAL.com.sg says, “We knew since quite some time ago that Groupon is coming to Singapore’s shores. Being aware of the terms, we decided to continue expanding our market leadership position with DEAL.com.sg independently, currently owning roughly 65% of the local daily deal pie (measured in sales).”

DEAL.com.sg recently revealed that it has raised an additional US$1 million to further expand its leadership position in Singapore and Malaysia’s daily deal market.

Adding on a positive note, Patrick commented, “However, we look forward to having a few more professional players in the market, which will benefit the whole industry.”

This article was contributed by Clara from AllDealsAsia and was originally published on their DealPulse blog. It has been republished with permission.

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Preview: 14 Startup Demos From The Infinity Ventures Summit In Kyoto Next Week

One of Japan’s biggest web industry events is the so-called Infinity Ventures Summit (IVS), a two-day, invitation-only event that takes place twice a year (Asiajin is a media partner). The fall event will happen in Kyoto next week, namely on December 7 and 8.

Organized by VC firm Infinity Venture Partners, the IVS this time has over 500 people on the guest list: for example, i-mode creator Takeshi Natsuno, Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, or GREE CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka, to name just a few (yours truly will be there as well).

There will also be a launchpad giving a total of 14 new and existing startups the chance to set out pitches (a panel of 10 judges will then select a winner and four runners up).

Here’s a (very) quick preview of all 14 demos we’ll see at the IVS next week- as tweeted out by Infinity Venture Partner Masashi Kobayashi yesterday:

Demo 1: VoiSticky (voice memo system that visualizes recordings as “stickies in a virtual space”)

Demo 2: Energy Literacy Platform (system to keep track of how much energy people use at home)

Demo 3: Gazopa (similar image search engine developed by Hitachi America)

Demo 4: Lingo Project (text correction tool to check the grammar and vocabulary in English sentences typed in a browser in real time)

Demo 5: Questetra BPM Suite SaaS Edition (business process management suite)

Demo 6: New service by Togetter creator Toshiaki Yoshida

Demo 7: MCS Elements 2010 by Ubiquitous Entertainment (iPad app (iTunes) containing data from “the first large-scale investigation of internet and contents consumption in Japan” by major publishing company ASCII Media Works)

Demo 8: FlashInFlash (server solution for Flash developers by i-Broadcast)

Demo 9: Odette Solution by Orso (CMS for mobile Flash applications)

Demo 10: Hatena Koko (Hatena’s LBS offering)

Demo 11: AndFriends (social app search service for Android users by milog)

Demo 12: Cheerz (service that adds social elements to web sites by Klab)

Demo 13: Botspace (a “communication tool”)

Demo 14: New service by web marketing company hottolink

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TIMEdotcom rolls out fibre-optic Internet service in KL

TIMEdotcom (Tdc) today launched its new Internet service, built on an end-to-end fibre optic network, to high-rise buildings in limited areas in Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya.

Tdc has long been under the shadow of national telco company, Telekom Malaysia, where fixed-line services are concerned, but the impressive demonstrations showed today – where upload/download speeds of 50Mbps were displayed – could very well change that scenario.

Subscription packages feature speeds ranging from 2Mbps to 24Mbps, with prices starting at RM99 per month. They’re also introducing a new “Boost” concept, where for 15 or 30 hours per month, users can get speeds up to 50Mbps.

The only caveat to all this? Its limited coverage. With city regulations and administration red-tape, it’s not been a speedy process for Tdc in rolling out its end-to-end fibre optic network. Currently, only high-rise buildings that have more than five floors in Kuala Lumpur’s city centre and Mont’Kiara (KL’s Beverly Hills, to put some perspective) enjoy this service. It has no plans to bring this service to landed home properties at the moment due to its high cost and labour in laying fibre to the last inch.

At launch, Tdc said that 30,000 premises are wired-up for its service, and plans to roll out the network to suburban areas within the Klang Valley and Penang over the coming year.

Tdc, however, won’t be making a play into the IPTV space despite carrying out a six-month trial during which high-definition content from subscription TV service provider Astro was delivered to selected homes.

“It was only an experiment to see what people would do with such a high connectivity speed, but we have no plans to go into content. We merely provide the high-quality pipes to deliver content,” said its CEO Afzal Abdul Rahim.

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Manish Sharma, Printo Founder on Raising Fund, Entrepreneurship [UnPluGGd2 Video]

UnPluGGd 2nd Edition was a phenomenal success and we witnessed some of the most inspiring entrepreneurs at the event. Manish Sharma, Printo founder has an interesting entrepreneurial journey.

He is a software engineer by profession – was 12th employee of Rediff, started one of the earliest Internet services firm in India (in 1995) called DBSIS.
Post DBSIS acquisition, Manish moved to US, worked on AI based learning and extraction engine startup (Late Prof. Rajeev Motwani was his advisor) which didn’t do so well. Later on, he went to Oxford University for MBA, worked for a company and moved to India to start a retail business, about which he had no idea of.
Serial entrepreneur or Serial undertaker?

Well, Manish shared very candid perspective and his was one of the most inspiring talk (101 on entrepreneurship) at the event. Highly recommended for early stage entrepreneurs, especially those who are running after VCs/Angels.
Watch his energetic talk.

Manish’s Presentation

Printo story- Manish Sharma

See more presentations by Pluggdin | Upload your own PowerPoint presentations

Aside, Printo was recently in news for Lifeblob acquisition.

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Campfire: Digital books are becoming as popular as print ones

Campfire : We had a chance to have an interesting discussion with a relatively new Indian company in the space of graphic novels & infotainment targeted towards kids and teenagers. We liked their idea, the content & most importantly their presentation style definitely seems to be unique. Here is an excerpt of the chat which we had with Campfire’s talented and creative team who are trying to do something new and different in Indian Publishing Industry.

Q. When was Campfire founded? Tell us more details about the founder & team behind Campfire.

We, at Campfire, publish graphic novels which are aimed at inspiring and educating children. An in-house team of over fifty people – including editors, illustrators, and colourists – work together to bring out unique illustrated books.

Campfire is owned by Mr Keshav Thirani who understood the market value of deep, meaningful, exciting, and well-told stories in comic or graphic version. In 2008, we launched our first five titles: The Time Machine, Robinson Crusoe, The Land that Time Forgot, A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and The Master of the World. Now we have around fifty books to our credit including four workbooks and translations in many other languages.

Q. Who is your target audience? What kind of graphic books has Campfire produced since its inception?

Children between the age group of eight to fifteen years constitute our primary target audience. However, our books are created in such a fashion that they can be enjoyed by older readers too. Our books from the Classics, Biography, and Mythology categories make easy and enjoyable reads for those who are interested in literature but shy away from reading the bulky originals. They are also an easy way for parents to become familiar with texts that are included in school syllabi.

Q. What is the average price point of your book & which are your top selling category?

Our graphic novels are sold at Rs 195 in India. They are differently priced in the international market.

Our titles from the Classics and Mythology categories have had the maximum sales.

Who are your competitors in the Indian market and how is your book priced vis-a-vis your competitors?

The quality of content set us apart from others. Two pages are exclusively dedicated to providing our readers with interesting, entertaining, and educating information on any theme related to the story. To quote an example, in our adaptation of Don Quixote, our informative content pages talk about chivalry, the life of knights in the medieval ages, and a fun activity that teaches the child to create his own customized coat of arms.

Our prices are much lower than other graphic novels, which are usually priced between Rs 300-400.

Q. How has been the response towards your books in the market?

Our graphic novels have been loved by both kids and adults. We have participated in various school workshops and children’s book fairs, and the response has been very positive.

We have also had a fantastic reception in the international market. Some of our titles have been translated into Hindi, which has helped us reach many readers who fall in the non-English speaking category. Our titles have also been translated into Turkish, Portuguese, Hungarian, Mongolian, etc., thus enabling us to reach a larger international audience.

Q. Do you think printed books esp. non-syllabus ones still hold the interest of today’s generation kids esp. with the fad of digital & electronic form of infotainment?

Kids today are spoilt for choice when it comes to infotainment. There is no doubt that kids are more interested in the digital media than any other today. We like to stay up-to-date with the tastes of today’s generation, and thus our titles are available online for sharing and reading purposes. They can also be downloaded for PC/Mac, Blackberry, Android, iPod/iPads, etc.

Q. You also have digital version your books available, how has been the demand of print vs. digital content for your publication?

The response has been a mixed one. It all depends on availability, convenience, and comfort level. One can’t really say one form is better than the other. But yes, the digital is becoming as popular as the print version.

Q. What is your opinion on e-book acceptance in India and how prepared is Campfire to accept the invasion of digital over print?

The concept of e-books is taking over at a very rapid pace in India. Campfire titles are available in digital format as well and we have had good response so far. We try to provide whatever suits the tastes and convenience of our readers.

Q. What is your sales & distribution model? Where all are your books available globally?

We work with distribution partners across the world. Currently, our English language books are available in North America, Africa, Europe, Middle East and South Asia. We have also sold the rights to many of our titles, which has made it possible for readers from across the globe to read our titles in the language they are most comfortable with. Our titles have been translated into Mongolian, Hindi, Turkish, Czech, Hungarian, and Portuguese

Q. You also have an online channel for sales, how is your mix between online vs. offline sales model?

We constantly endeavour to make our titles available at bookstores across India. We have tie-ups with organisations that allow people to order books via SMS, phone calls, and websites. Readers can order books from our website too. We provide free shipping of our books to customers all over the world. Our books are also available on Amazon, Flipkart, and other e-tail stores. Apart from this, we constantly better our reach in the retail stores in every region.

Anything else which you would like to tell us about your company and its offering

Many of our exciting titles are gearing up for release. Sita: Daughter of the Earth, Ravana: Roar of the Demon King, and Draupadi: The Fire Princess from the Mythology category, and Nelson Mandela and Da Vinci: The Renaissance Man, from the Biography category are set to hit leading bookstores very soon.

Conducting fun workshops and drawing competitions in schools across Delhi is something we do on a regular basis. We have been participating in and supporting the Bookaroo children’s book festival for the past two years. The Delhi Book Fair 2010 will also have us as a major participant. Campfire will soon be coming out with a more interactive website too.

In case you’re interested to know more about their books or the company you can check it out at www.campfire.co.in

(With inputs from: Mr. Rajat Malhotra – Content, Ms. Eman Chowdhary – Editorial, Ms. Reema Singhal – International Marketing & Mr. Munendra Patanker – Domestic Marketing)

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