Groupon in India, Acquires SoSasta(?)

Groupon has been hunting a deals in India (read our exclusive coverage : Groupon Hunting Deal(s) in India–Launch Imminent ) and it seems, Kolkata based SoSasta.com is their first acquisition in India.

SoSasta was launched in October of 2010 and as I spoke to some of the other group buying companies, this deal was in the works for a while.

SoSasta doesn’t really have a traffic comparable to its counterparts, i.e. Snapdeal, Taggle etc and this deal probably gives Groupon a theoretical presence in a high-growth market, i.e. India.

Unlike US and other markets, the Groupon way of selling, i.e. telephonic sales do not work in India and expect Groupon to pivot its operational model, if they are really in the game.

What’s your take? Is this a pre-IPO strategy of Groupon to expand in emerging markets, maybe namesake to start off?

As of now, there is no confirmation from Groupon on this deal.

Recommended Read: Business Model of Group Buying sites in India

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What Exactly is a Business Model?

Editor’s note: Prof. Vivek Wadhwa is an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting  Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University. You can follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwa and find his research at www.wadhwa.com.

In this post, Prof. Wadhwa discusses what a Business Model is and its key ingredients to make your startup work for you.

Everyone in the tech world talks about business models. But I’ll bet that if you quizzed a random sample of people, you’d find that most really don’t know what a business model is. I did just that with my students at UC-Berkeley. Most raised their hands, and MBA student Blake Brundidge’s attempt to answer the question was a valiant one—but none of them really had a clue.  The only one who got the answer right was Lionel Vital, a Stanford student gatecrashing my iSchool class.

The reality is that a business model is like the old saying about teenage sex: everyone talks about it all the time; everyone boasts about how well he or she is doing it; everyone thinks everyone else is doing it; almost no one really is; and the few who are are fumbling their way through it incompetently. (Yes, I know you wouldn’t confess it.)

Let me share what a business model is; in case you are quizzed by your potential investors.

So what is a business model per se? (P.S.: Sorry, the teenagers reading this will need to get their sex education elsewhere). I teach only entrepreneurship and globalization.

Step one in building a successful business is to learn what products or technologies your customers really need and are willing to buy. Figuring that out is an iterative process. The vast majority of technology startups fail because too few customers buy or use their products. So don’t underestimate the importance of validation and testing of your ideas.

Developing the right product is hard. But what is harder is building a good business model. Fortunately, there’s nothing magical about a business model. It’s simply the nuts and bolts of how a business plans to generate revenue and profits. It details your long-term strategy and day-to-day operations.

Entrepreneurs put together elaborate business plans showing optimistic market-share projections. Even 1% of a billion-dollar market seems lucrative, right? Wishful thinking is great, but when it comes time to creating a business model, you need to be realistic. The challenges differ from industry to industry, but here are seven basic components of a business model:

1. Reaching customers. Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” The reality is that even if you did, no one would find you. Even when you know who your prospects are, it’s usually difficult and costly to reach them. You have to find them via the Internet and e-mail, or the old-fashioned way—through broadcast media, print ads, direct mail, telemarketing, or references or by cold-calling. And these potential customers are not likely to be waiting to hear from you and may not respond to you. So be sure you know how you are going to find and reach them.

2. Differentiating your product. You think you’ve got the very best solution, but so does the other gal (or guy). There’s always competition, whether you realize it or not. Smart marketing executives know how to develop unique product-positioning strategies that highlight a product’s true value. You need to thoroughly understand the competition and effectively communicate the unique advantages of your product.

3. Pricing. One of the most basic decisions you have to make is how much you’re going to charge for your product or service. Giving your stuff away is the way to go on the web, but remember that you still need to figure out how you are eventually going to make money—you can’t make it up on volume. Start by understanding how much customers value what they’re gaining from you. Then you need to estimate your total costs, analyze the competitive landscape, and map out your long-term strategy. For your company to survive, your product’s price must be greater than its overall cost.

4. Selling. Persuading customers to buy a product that they need is one of the most important skills an entrepreneur must learn (read It’s All About Selling for Survival). You’re going to be selling at every juncture. So you have to understand what it takes to close a deal and put together the necessary sales process. And this process has to be perfectly conceived. Be sure you test your selling strategy as you would your product.

5. Delivery/distribution. This is easy on the Internet. But for big-ticket items, you usually require a direct sales force; for mid-range products, distributors or value-added resellers; and, for low-priced items, retail outlets or the Internet. It’s different in every industry and for every type of product, but you have to get this right. Your products need to be designed and packaged for the channel through which they will be distributed to customers.

6. Supporting Customers. In addition to teaching customers how to use your product, you need to ensure that you can deal with defects and returns, answer product questions, and listen to and incorporate valuable suggestions for improvement. You may need to provide consulting services to help customers integrate and implement your products. If your product is a critical component of a business, you may also need to provide 24/7 onsite or web support.

7. Achieving customer satisfaction. The ultimate success or failure of a business depends on how much it helps customers achieve their objectives. Happy customers will become your best sales people and buy more from you. Unhappy customers will become your biggest liability.

All the pieces have to come together like a jigsaw puzzle in your business model. The good news is that you don’t have to start from scratch when formulating it. You can give yourself a head start by learning from competitors and other markets. It is not only the successes that provide valuable lessons; it is also the failures.

You can innovate as much in your business model as you do in your products. Be prepared to evolve your innovation strategy as you gain experience and as your market changes. Like your products, it will probably take several versions to get your business model right; you get better with practice.

The post originally appeared on TechCrunch, and edited for Pluggd.in

[IMG Credit]

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Best of the Week–Salesforce Acquires Dimdim

Top Articles for the week

Ajay Devgn to Launch TicketPlease, Entertainment Plus Ticketing Site

Bollywood has embraced digital media and Ajay Devgn is going a step further with the launch of TicketPlease, a ticketing site loaded with filmi gossips, expert film reviews, celebrity news and interviews.

“Should I Startup or Take up a Job”? The answer is..

Starting up is more than just leaving your job (and staying unemployed!). Starting up a business needs a different mindset and unless you are in a frame of mind to slog your a$$ (i.e. immensely passionate about the idea), do not take the leap.

What’s Common Between Rock Bands and Startups ?

Do you see any similarity between the life of a band and that of a start-up? Is there a correlation between bands & the bandits? Yes, there is apart from the rough rides that both undertake.

Salesforce.com Acquires Dimdim

Salesforce has acquired Dimdim for approximately $31 million in cash. Founded in 2007, Dimdim has created critical real-time communication technologies such as presence, messaging and screen sharing.

How Ethical An Ethical Hacker Should be? [Ankit Fadia]

But now attrition has described precisely over 30% plagiarism in his first book ‘Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking’ (ISBN 0333 93679 5) that he wrote at the age of fourteen. The quality of writing in that book has been questioned by many w.r.t the prodigy status enjoyed by the person.

Startups/Entrepreneurship

• What Exactly is a Business Model?
• Largest, Biggest and First – The Abusive Marketing Statements Startups Shouldn’t Use
• Here Comes an ELearning Device From India – iBerry EdBook
• Dhiti Launches Intext Pivoting, Topical Content Recommendation [That You Can Read Later]
• New Year Resolution for an Entrepreneur–Be Awesome
• CES 2011–Saankhya Labs Develops World’s First Universal TV demodulator

Technology

• Evolution of the Cloud – Part 1 [SaaS]
• Slideshare to Launch Webinar Service?
• Qn: Which is the Most Popular Browser Version in India? Ans: Firefox 3.6
• Now Get Pune Bus Service Information on Google Maps

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TechBeat 6: The Age of Apple

Led by host  John Lim, TechBeat returns with a brand new crew consisting of ZDNet blogger Edwin Yapp, security consultant Dinesh Nair and first timer Umapagan to talk about the latest news surrounding the tech and media space in and around Malaysia. Among the stories that were discussed include:

1) Announcements from CES 2011, including the slew of tablet computers, Google’s Honeycomb OS, and Windows 8 being on ARM chip architectures.

2) The Mac App store launching to much success, while the Chrome App Store sees trickling sales.

3) Apple’s market cap value hitting $300 billion, and there’s more room for growth.

4) Facebook is ranked first among Malaysian marketers in a survey carried out by Advertising + Marketing magazine, sending Google down to the number three spot.

Download this episode, subscribe using iTunes or the RSS feed, or stream below:

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MySpace China Has Laid Off 2/3 Of Its Staff

Be honest, I almost forgot about MySpace China. Last time I wrote about it is September 5, 2008 when I said Independence fails. MySpace is not doing well in global market which is what we already know, but unfortunately MySpace China seems the first oversea branch is suffering this: 2/3 of MySpace China staff has been laid off in December 2010 and its CEO also resigned, according to 163.com.

It said that MySpace China (with around 15 staff left) would be still operating in 2011 and more focus on mobile market. Well, I just hope my next post about MySpace China, it would not be something like its close-down.

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[Indonesia] BlackBerry DEVCON Asia 2011

The world’s most enthusiastic developers, BlackBerry® experts, and Research In Motion® (RIM®) partners will be there at DevCon Asia 2011, to be held in Bali, Indonesia.

BlackBerry DEVCON Asia is designed for BlackBerry developers or partners in Asia. Whether you’re a beginner or master mobile application developer, focused on the business side of app development or offering development services, there’s something for you.

What To Expect

At BlackBerry DEVCON Asia, great speakers and more than 40 breakout sessions will cover today’s hottest topics – many of which are hands-on sessions:

- Be amongst the first to develop apps for the NEW BlackBerry® PlayBook™ and learn about the BlackBerry ®Tablet OS SDK for Adobe® AIR® and using Adobe® Flash® Builder!

- See how new web-based tools and widgets lower the barriers to getting started and can be the power behind highly successful BlackBerry® apps!

- Find out about new payment models that generate revenue and profits in the application marketplace and make development efforts pay off!

- Get insider information on showcasing your apps on BlackBerry® App World

- Get technical, code-driven information on Java® apps, web-based apps and PlayBook apps that you can’t get anywhere else!

And more.

---

Event Details

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When: Thursday-Friday 13-14th January 2011
Where: Bali International Convention Center in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia

Registration details here.

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Lee Kuan Global Business Plan Competition–Win Upto $60K in Cash [Sponsored]

Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition helps support and achieves entrepreneurial dreams of students globally. Students can win up to US$60,000 in cash and funding for their business ideas.

Students all around the world can take part in the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition. All they have to do is first submit a 1000-word business plan summary for a start-up or early stage venture online athttp://www.smu.edu.sg/lky.

In short:

What is it about:

The Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition is an opportunity for budding entrepreneurs to pit their business ideas against other students all over the world.

What is it in for them:

Students compete for a total of US$60,000 worth of cash prizes. The winning team will take home US$36,000, the first runner-up, US$12,000 and the third runner-up, US$3,000. The other finalists will get US$500 per team.

How can they submit:

Visit http://www.smu.edu.sg/lky to register and submit your business plans.

News Release:

WILMAR GIVES S$5M TO THE LEE KUAN YEW GLOBAL BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION

The Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition at the Singapore Management University (SMU) is back to support the entrepreneurial dreams of students globally. And it is back with strong endorsement from
the business community. Agri-food giant Wilmar International is giving an endowed S$5 million to this competition, which will enable the global event to be run in perpetuity.

Launched in 2001 as the first global business plan competition for undergraduates around the world, the biennial competition encourages tertiary students to showcase their business ideas in an international arena, network with potential investors and attract seed funding for their projects. Since 2001, the competition has grown from strength to strength with more than 1000 business plan entries from over 75 institutions around the world.

“We are grateful to have an industry partner who shares in SMU’s vision and believes in the development of young talents. Wilmar International’s generous support will allow us to continue offering a platform for budding entrepreneurs. We want to encourage tertiary students around the world to seize this opportunity to develop their business plans, and possibly win for themselves funding not just from the competition, but also from angel investors and venture capitalists,” says Professor Arnoud De Meyer,SMU President. 

“As a company built on entrepreneurship, hard work and innovation, Wilmar International can clearly identify with the objectives of this competition and is pleased to support SMU in this event. The company wishes it further success in raising up new entrepreneurs and business ideas,” says a Wilmar International spokesperson. SMU’s Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship (IIE) is organising the 2010/2011
competition. “The Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan competition has been a marquee event for tertiary students from around the globe. With such strong support from the business community, we will be able to impact even more young entrepreneurs around the world and uncover winning business ideas,” says Professor Desai Narasimhalu, Director of the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at SMU.

The teams that have won in the past had winning business plans covering data management, energy, gaming, medical, marketing and manufacturing. Champion of the recent competition, Mark Jensen, won for himself US$36,000 with his business plan to revolutionise the communication tower and utility pole industry. The 23-year-old from the US trumped the rest of the finalists with a manufacturing process that will
produce a stronger, lighter and safer structure which also requires less maintenance. “This competition has opened my eyes to the Asian markets. It’s a very outstanding community here,” he says. “One of the things I’ve learnt here is to constantly improve and that will be very important when I go out to raise real money,” he adds. He aims to deliver his first pole next month.

Another alumnus of the competition is SMU Information Systems graduate Leonard Lin. His team TYLER Projects came in as second runner-up in the 2005/2006 competition with a mobile multiplayer game proposal. Today, TYLER generates more than S$1m in annual revenue as a social network game developer and consultant. One of its creations, Battle Stations, is Singapore’s first Facebook multiplayer game and has 3.5 million registered users. TYLER has launched two more games this year.

In this 6th competition, participants will stand to win up to US$60,000 in cash, prizes and business development opportunities. Apart from the top six teams, there will be an individual Most Promising Young Entrepreneur award. The best performing local team in the finals will also be eligible to tap into a S$100,000 HSBC Investment Grant to give life to their business idea. This year’s competition is also supported by SPRING and Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE).

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Indonesian Information Minister threatens to shut down Indonesian BlackBerry service by end of January

The first ever BlackBerry Developer Conference outside of North America will be held in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia this Thursday and Friday but the country’s Information and Communications Minister Tifatul Sembiring has suddenly threatened Research In Motion that it will ban its BlackBerry services before the end of January unless the Canadian company meets his demands.

On Friday the Minister declared that he will stop RIM from offering its services in Indonesia before the end of January unless it disables access to pornographic contents from its devices. The Minister himself is an avid BlackBerry user.

He demanded on Friday that no BlackBerry user in the country should be able to access porn. He claims that the local operators have implemented the required filters but since BlackBerry Internet Service is routed through RIM’s own private network, RIM is responsible to do the same.

Indonesia has a strict pornography law which effectively criminalizes anyone who possesses and/or distributes contents deemed to be pornographic. At the beginning of Ramadhan last year, the Minister boasted that his initiative had managed to block 90% of all the world’s porn from being accessed in Indonesia. A claim that is grossly inaccurate as online pornography is still even now easily accessible in the country without having to use any sort of workaround.

On Sunday, through his Twitter account, @tifsembiring, he outlined his seven demands for RIM. Daniel Tumiwa who runs 7 Langit immediately responded. 7 Langit is an Indonesian Blackberry software development company which happened to have won the rights to develop the official BlackBerry DEVCON Asia application.

The Minister’s demands are:

• For RIM to recognize and abide by the country’s laws regarding pornography,
• Open a local representative office as it already has more than two million subscribers
• Operate local service centers to provide after sales and repair services,
• Proportionally recruit and absorb Indonesian workforce
• To use Indonesian software and content as much as possible
• Implement filtering software to block pornographic access
• Build servers and repeaters to allow local law enforcement agencies to monitor and run criminal investigations on its network

Tumiwa then said RIM has already opened its Indonesian office and established PT Research In Motion Indonesia back in October last year in an event which was attended by Canada’s Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, while Tifatul Sembiring himself was apparently not present.

The company also already has had more than a dozen service centers by the end of 2010 and will expand to more than 30 in 2011. There are apparently only two non-Indonesians working at RIM’s Indonesian office according to Tumiwa, one of which is Canadian Andrew Cobham, President Director of the company.

He also took the time to explain to the Minister that RIM is not a content provider but a handset maker and service provider. RIM created the operating system, but third party developers are responsible for creating apps and in the case of RIM’s own BlackBerry App World, it already bans pornographic content.

As for criminal investigations, he continues, all the government and law enforcement agencies need to do is approach RIM with a memorandum stating the requirements. Regarding this last point, as it happens, a similar situation is happening with Twitter.

The US Department of Justice had just sent Twitter, Inc. a subpoena to release the details of each of the more than 600 thousand followers of the @wikileaks account.

When it comes to suspicion of criminal activities, perhaps the Minister could look into the practice of issuing a similar document through the country’s own Ministry of Law and Human Rights to RIM rather than requesting to openly roam the network which breaches the privacy of every Blackberry Internet Service subscriber.

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ChinaMode Awards Ceremony 2010 at 24th January, Meeting Chinese Startups

If you have some spare time to attend all sorts of Chinese internet conference, you might realize already how boring most of the events are. Sad to say that, but it’s the fact. Most speakers, even some high profile guys are just there to talk about how good their companies are, repeat again and again their so-called vision (most of which I guess can be predicted by us too). I used to say to my friends, the internet conference in west is for future but the Chinese ones is only interested in what’s happening now. Well, it’s also true that there is really not much to talk about here in terms of innovation, vision, trend etc as Chinese web is still the follower of western web. However, we simply need an event or a stage just for startups because they represent the trend of web and the future of China internet.

We did the ChinaMode Awards in 2009, but it’s online only. This year, we want to take a further step, the Ceremony is planned to be held at 24th January in Beijing. All the winners of ChinaMode Awards 2010 are invited (and most of them have confirmed the participation). The ceremony is going to be in two parts, there will be 5  panels discussion arranged in the afternoon, and in the evening it will be the ceremony and more like a party (e.g. a band in which members are all venture capitalists will be there giving live performance, and a young rap guy will be the host).

Thanks a lot for ChinaMode Awards sponsors, Orange France, Telekom, MediaBrands Venture, IDG, GSR Ventures, DaD-Asia and many other supporters and helpers. If you or your company wants be involved in some ways (sponsors, media partners etc), please feel free let us know.

The online registration is open at http://chinamode.kuukie.com. The event will be mainly in Chinese, but our English readers are more than welcome to be there meeting with local Chinese startups. See you guys there!!!

Date: 24th January 2010 (Monday)

Venue: Star Live, 3rd floor, Tangguo Building (google map)

Registration: http://chinamode.kuukie.com

Part I: Panel dicussion (1pm – 6pm)

Panel 1: the standardization of mobile device

• Nokia Research Institute Beijing, Director, Liu Zhen
• Google China, Program Manager & China Country Lead Developer Relations, Bill Luan
• Dianxin OS (Innovation Works), CEO, Zhang Lei
• Coolpad Research Institute Beijing, Director, Han Liguang
• Frost & Sullivian Research, Chief Consultant, Wang Yuquan

Panel 2: Chinese App Stores

• Orange Beijing Research Center, Director, Ren Zhen
• Aimi8 App Store, CEO, Zhao Jian
• GFan App Store, VP, Xu Weite
• HTC App Store, General Manager, Zhang Ning

Panel 3: Open Platform and Social Gaming

• Reco, CEO, Liu Yong
• Renren Open Platform, Senior Tech Director, Huang Jing
• UCWeb, VP of Product, Li Mingyuan
• IsMole, CEO, Chen Shuyi
• AppLeap, CEO, Ren Zili

Panel 4: Consumer-based web: Online to Offline business model and local innovation

• BlueRun Venture, Partner, Chen Weiguang
• IDG Venture, VP, Li Feng
• DSR Venture, Partner, Zhu Xiaohu
• Lashou, CEO, Wu Bo
• Gangji, CEO, Yang Haoyong
• Shanda Innovation Institute, Xu Jianhai

Panel 5: Social Media in China

• Tencent Tech Center, Director, Cheng Lingfeng
• 5G Consultant, Founder, Keso
• MediaBrands Venture, CEO, Jimmy Poon
• The Founder Magazine, Chief Editor, Shen Yin

Dinner and Social Networking (6:30pm – 7:00pm)

Part II: ChinaMode Awards Ceremony & Startups Show (7:30pm – 10:00pm)

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Skype Founder, Niklas Zennström – words for young entrepreneurs

A question that worry many young entrepreneurs is whether the large and more established internet companies, such as Facebook, Google, etc., will take their ideas and compete with them in the same businesses.

Skype co-founder,  Niklas Zennström, thought, young entrepreneurs need not afraid of competing with big established company.  ”Large size has its disadvantage.  These companies cannot focus on new ideas.   Because of revenue pressure, they have to focus on their core business,” said Niklas.

Although companies, such as Facebook and Google, have lots of users, usually, one brand can be associated with one idea only.  For example, Facebook is social network and Google is search engine.  ”The leveraging effect is limited,” said Niklas.

History showed Niklas is right.  Although Google has its social network services, such as Blogger, it is much less successful than Facebook.  If we look at what happened in the past two decade in the tech sector, we will see the same pattern: despite Microsoft was more established, it could stop Yahoo becoming the leading online portal.  And when Google emerged, Yahoo can stopped it becoming the leading search engine, although Yahoo had much more users at that time.  And the same for Facebook – Google could not compete with it in social network.  Each new idea has its champion and the others cannot compete with it, despite being more established.

Niklas’ other words for young entrepreneurs are:

1) Think Big.

2) Do it differently – never simply copy what the others are doing

3) Try to address the pain point of consumer: if your products or services can solve an existing problems of your customers, they will certainly like it.

4) Changing environment is important – when there are changes in the environment, when the established rules are breaking down, there are more opportunities for new comers.

5) Team – pick the right team to executive the idea.  You have to play with your strength.

6) Investor – pick the right investor, too.  Find one with the same risk appetite and ambition.  Find one who work well for you.  .

By the way, Niklas has become an investor himself.  His fund, Atomico, is interested in Chinese startups with a global ambition.  For startups who wants to be invested by the seasoned entrepreneur, you can us your information and we can forward it to Niklas and his team.  Here is our email: mobinodetv AT gmail.com

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Hanvon HPad runs Android, debuted at CES

About a week ago we heard that Hanvon was going to launched its first Android tablet. Now this has been confirmed. At CES, The company debuted the device which is called HPad as expected. HPad comes with a very slim design, and looks quite stylish. The thickness is just 10.8mm. It packs a 1Ghz ARM Cortex A8 processor, a 7 inches 1024*600 capacitive touchscreen, 512MB RAM, 2GB Flash storage, a 3.5mm headphone jack, 1.3 megapixels front camera and 5 megapixels main camera located at the back, and a 3300 mAh battery allegedly to support 6 hours video playing. It’s 3G connectivity will be provided as an optional feature. The prototype showed off right now runs Android 2.2. It’s said the product version that will arrived in March would run Android 2.3.

[Source:163.com]

• Hanvon debuted world’s first color E-ink reader
• Havon to sell ebooks on a 40-inch ‘Eletronic Bookshelf’ machine
• Hanvon E800 8-inch ebook reader
• Hanvon rebrands Spring Design Alex dual dispay e-reader and asks for more mony
• Apple paid Hanvon $3.65 million in the ‘i-phone’ trademark deal
• Hanvon N618 ebook reader hits the market
• Hanvon Touchpad Tablet and WISEreader e-readers at CES 2010

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Groupon Starts Recruiting Management Team for China

Just got an email from an insider, it says Groupon is

hiring for Groupon China, all major cities so if you know of any very smart people you think would be of value to us, please do let me know.

So finally Groupon is stepping into China. We used to report that Groupon’s in touch with the leading five group buying sites, but it’s been quite quiet since then. Not sure how Groupon is going to enter this market, but according to this email, they are definitely looking for the management team. So will Groupon set up the team by itself?!

Stay tuned!

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December 2010 Japan IT Links (Part 3)

The Asiajin’s December 2010 was a great month. We had 56 articles in one month, which was the record.

Continued from (Part 2). Last part of December news which we did not write as a dedicated article.

Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated.

• Digital Garage Assists HootSuite To Sell Paid Plan In Japan
• Recording Industry Association Of Japan Runs Copyright Enlightening Promotion, Asks Users’ Twitter Password
• LovePlus Live Event Report
• Mixi Android App
• Docomo’s LTE Service Xi Starting Celemony
• Japanese Traditional Craftsmen Association opens their store on eBay with support from Katsushika Ward Office and eBay Japan.
• Photo Reports: Japanese Virtual Christmas With Anime Characters, 2, 3 – Christmas was imported to Japan as a day for dating couples.
• In Japan, Even A Boat Race Gamble Site Becomes Like This
• College Girl Server Management Manga Blog To Be Published – The online manga we covered in August [En]
• Japanese mobile dating sim for women goes into Vietnam
• ex-Mixi CTO Batara Eto’s East Ventures Invests Indonesian Groupon Clone Disdus [En]
• Naver Introduces Blog Search Which Gives You Celebrity’s Official Blog The First – Celebrity names search tend to return fan’s sites first, Naver says.
• An Organization To Certify Marriage With 2D Characters
• How To Avoid A Facebook’s Bug Sometimes Cutting Your Japanese Comments
• Manga BusinessCard Maker
• All Coupon – Over 100 Japanese Groupon And Its Clone Aggregator

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

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They Represent China Web in 2010, Announcing The Winners of ChinaMode Awards

Started from 22nd November 2010, ended at 27th December 2010, ChinaMode Awards has got 11026 nominations during the nomination stage and 44245 votes in the final vote period. It’s an unique online event in China web.

We are very excited to announce the winners in 8 categories. You might be surprised as many of them you may never heard of before, but that’s the aim of ChinaMode: not only to review the China web in year 2010, but also to explore good Chinese startups and help building a healthy ecosystem for local industry.

Group buying, LBS, e-commerce, Microblogging, Mobile applications, App store, vertical social network etc, they were doing great in 2010 and they have our best wishes for 2011! Here are the winners:

1. Best Consumer-based services

Meituan http://www.meituan.com/ – Group Buying service launched in 2010

Lashou http://www.lashou.com/ – Group Buying service launched in 2010

Nuomi http://www.nuomi.com/ – Group Buying service operated by Renren.com

BooksFly http://www.booksfly.net/ －Social books sharing service

Taotaosou http://www.taotaosou.com/ – image-based search engine for e-commerce launched in March 2010, invested by Taobao (our coverage)

2. Best Social Media service

Sina Weibo http://t.sina.com.cn -  Sina’s mircoblogging service

MTime http://www.mtime.com/ – IMDB-like portal for movies

Tencent Weibo http://t.qq.com/ – Tencent’s microblogging service

Xianguo Lianbo http://bo.xianguo.com/ – a RSS subscription and sharing service run by Xianguo the leading blogline-like service

Guokr.com http://www.guokr.com/ -  a social network for science fans


3. Best Entertaining service

RenZheCun http://www.ismole.com/ – a popular Social game developed by isMole

Douban.fm http://douban.fm/ – online music streaming service developed by Douban.

Qiyi http://www.qiyi.com/ -  Hulu-like video site run by Baidu (our coverage)

Sanguosha http://www.sanguosha.com/ – the online version of the popular table game Sanguosha.

Kugou http://www.kugou.com/ – online music service

4. Best Service for Productivity

vdisk.me http://vdisk.me/ – cloud-based file synchronization and storage service

DBank http://www.dbank.com/-  Online File storage service

51Qiangzuo http://www.51qiangzuo.com/ – Online event registration service (our coverage)

Hozom http://www.hozom.com/ -  the social phone contacts management application

3GTB http://www.3gtb.com/ – a Symbian Enhancement Software

5. Best Mobile Applications

Wandoujia http://wandoujia.com/ – Android-based applications for phone content management

VivaMe http://www.vivame.cn/ － an e-reader application available for Android and iOS with hundreds of e-version of copyrighted magazine/books

UC Paradise http://www.uc.cn/product/product_ucparadise.shtml – a mobile social network run by UC (our coverage)

Jiepang http://jiepang.com/ – the leading mobile check-in LBS service (our coverage)

MojiChina http://mojichina.com/ – the most popular weather forecasting application available for iPhone, Android and S60

6. Online forum focus on mobile applications

GOAPK http://bbs.goapk.com/ -  a popular BBS with focus on Android applications

TgBus http://iphone.tgbus.com/ – a popular portal service focus on iPhone applications 

Aimi8 http://www.aimi8.com/ – an Android app store

GFan http://bbs.gfan.com/ – a popular BBS with focus on Android applications

WeiPhone http://www.weiphone.com/ – a very popular BBS with focus on iOS applications and Apple’s products

7. Most popular International services

Twitter  http://twitter.com/

Kik http://kik.com

Foursquare http://foursquare.com

PvZ by Popcap http://www.popcap.com/extras/pvz/

Groupon http://www.groupon.com


8. Best Startups

Xiaomi http://www.xiaomi.com/ – mobile applications development company invested by Lei Jun (our coverage)

Anguanjia http://www.anguanjia.com/ – security software for mobile phone

Shucang http://www.shucang.com/ – an e-reading and e-publishing service which allows users to produce e-books in all sorts of formas and also share them with others

42Qu http://42qu.com/ -  an ‘e-commerce’ platform where you can buy hours of the registered experts (consultants)

Wiyun  http://www.wiyun.com/ – an all-in-one cloud service solution, currently including WiAd (mobile ads service), WiGame (mobile games) service.

Dianxin http://www.dianxinos.com/ – a customized Android system incubated in Innovation Works.

Quickpai：http://www.lingdong.mobi/ -  a 2d code reader founded by ex-CEO and founder of TX.com.cn (now DeNA China)

Qiumi http://www.qiumi.cc/ -  a social network and portal service for football/basketball fans

Qieke http://www.qieke.com – a popular LBS check-in service incubated by Shanda, the first mobile application implement Augmented Reality concept.

Jiankongbao http://www.jiankongbao.com/ – a system widely used in web server for server performance monitoring and reporting

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