Creating the Landmarks: of Heritage Restoration

One of the things that foreigners enjoy lamenting in China is the destruction of architectural heritage. It is understandable, modern China has a terrible record of heritage destruction, and today there are cities with 2,000 years of history where it is hard to find any trace of old construction. But the worst is that you can witness the destruction ongoing even today, before your very eyes.

It is true that in the last years there is a growing awareness of this cultural loss (and the loss of tourism revenues), and the authorities have started to take measures. Unfortunately, these measures come in the form of “restoration”, usually by the method of demolishing and re-building something vaguely similar, in brand new materials. Of the many infamous examples of this, perhaps the concrete-and-plastic Jing An Temple in Shanghai is the most obvious.

As all my readers probably now, XinTiandi is an old neighborhood in Shanghai that was “restored” some 10 years ago into an Old Shanghai themed commercial area. A favourite question of many visitors – and particularly Europeans – is how many walls are still standing from the original buildings. In fact, most of it is 100% new, and I often wonder how it is possible that such a creation actually does attract “cultural” tourists, who flock there to take pictures of each other.

Recently I saw an article on China News saying that “The Second Xintiandi” was being built on Jiangguo Road. The project’s real name is 建业里, and it is a residential complex that bears little relation with the present Xintiandi. But both have one thing in common: they promise to restore the Shanghai Shikumen [1] to their original beauty.

This weekend I rode my bike to the place and took some pictures to illustrate how the “Xintiandis” are created. See the gallery below:

View Full Album

I was very interested in the commercial copy of the project, I copy here with my obnoxious comments:

1. Classic buildings with 80 years of history. [used to stand here]
2. The Historic Shikumen will be restored to their original beauty. [Not]
3. Creating the landmarks, Defining the Sky. [That's more like it]

I could only enter one part of the construction, but climbing on a railing outside I could see most of the rest. To be fair, there is a part close to the entrance (where the workers are) that has kept the old walls. The rest of the Shikumen has been completely demolished and it is being built from scratch, using reinforced concrete structure. In the picture taken from the crossroads you can appreciate the formwork.

I don’t think this is in any way important, the value of that Shikumen is insignificant compared to the old city of Kashgar or the Beijing Drum Tower Hutongs that are going to be “restored” soon. But it is a good illustration of the Chinese approach, and I will use it as intro to this series on heritage conservation that I was planning to do. More to come. Soon?

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NOTES:

1. the Shikumen is a style of residential street typical of early 20th century Shanghai

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And Now, You Can Also Kill Osama [Internet Game]!

Games2win has announced the launch of its game ‘Kill Osama Bin Laden’ on games2win.com (and gangofgamers.com). The game is themed on the Osama assassination that took place in Pakistan and has one simple challenge – Kill Osama and his evil cronies.

The game has 7 levels. In the first level, the player assassinates an Osama confidante and finds out the address of Osama (in Pakistan). In the second level, the player is placed outside the compound hideout of Osama and is expected to win a gunfight to kill the dreaded criminal. In the subsequent levels, the player gets an opportunity to kill other members of the Al Qaeda gang.

Given the outrage that people have against Osama, this gives armchair soldiers a great way to express their outrage.

And I guess this is the first “Kill Osama’ game to hit the web?

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Available: $100,000 Worth of Funding For Indian Startups in Mobile and Cloud Computing Space

Microsoft has launched Bizspark business plan contest which offers $100,000 in total Grant to Startups with winning ideas in Cloud and Mobile Category.

Eligibility for the contest

1. Product/IP startup (with defensible technologies) which are leveraging Microsoft technologies to create impact in the marketplace,
2. Viability of the product/IP startup (Market opportunity, Competition, etc.),
3. The disruptive role the Product/IP startup plays in the IT landscape, the unique value proposition,
4. Product/IP startup must have the following focus areas: Cloud computing, Mobile Applications and Software products.

Grants Available?

Four lucky start-ups will win grants of total $100000 USD that can help them grow their business and develop their software applications and services. But most importantly, the challenge represents an opportunity for the BizSpark Community to build and deepen connections, share ideas and celebrate the individual successes of member start-ups and network partners.

There are grants available for winners in each category – Cloud and Mobile. The winner gets a grant of $40k and the 1st runners up gets a grant of $10k.

Selection Criteria?

• Innovation
• Market Potential
• Compelling story

The selection would be based on a combination of the business plan and the application.

Application Deadline

The last date to submit your business plan for the contest is May 30th, 2011.

Link to Registration Form: http://www.microsoft.com/india/bizsparkstartupchallenge/register.aspx

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[Editorial Notes: Microsoft Bizspark is a partner/sponsor of Pluggd.in. If you are submitting the business plan, do add 'Pluggd.in' in the section "Where did you hear about this contest'.]

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Insights on the Youth Consumer and Mobile Advertising in India

[This is a guest post contributed by Aniketh dsouza, who curated the conversation that happened at the recently concluded Mobile Marketing Association/MMAF2011 event in Singapore]

The post is a result of talk by Antti Ohrling (@Ohrling), Co-founder, BLYK who has a tie up with Aircel in India.

1.6 billion youth worldwide use a mobile phone and from next year 1 of 5 mobile phone users in the, will be in India. Half of India’s population is under 25, 2/3 are under 40 years and are more likely to spend their investments on jewelry, bars, education, discos and just over 50% of Indian youth have accessed net in past three months. Hence mobile was the first medium.

Ohrling pointed out to a video commercial they use, to tell consumers about offers from brands. He also mentioned that they have one million opt-in members and Blyk describes themselves as ‘a messaging media connecting youth’. He then shared with the audience that 5 years ago when they spoke of SMS to Americans, they hated it, today Coca Cola says SMS is number #1 (will come to this in my next curated article)

Insights by Blyk on Youth
The first thing we do wrong when we talk about youth is to define them. Its easy to go wrong trying to define youth. Thus we need to “undefine” the youth! Youth of same age around the world are more similar to each other, than to people of other age in same country. The most important thing for brands to understand youth is to find out what they are up to? Its not about finding out who they are or where they are, its ‘what they are up to’ today (Guess this is where social media research comes in). All info on the past of youth is obsolete. The definition of the youth does not matter as much as to what they are interested in.

Blyke conducted a survey among 25,000 of their youth, here are the results:

• When asking users about the coolest brands of India. Levis, Facebook, Jockey were top 3 and then came in Reebok, Adidas, Nike and so on…
• Cool brands for the youth meant value, make me feel cool, cool friends use them, their ads are cool.
• Blyk asked them if their parents started using a cool brand, would it still be cool? And guess what, 80% of them said YES!
• The one thing they could wish for were 17% career, 16% happiness & peace, 33% love & romance

Insights on how Blyk Operates

• Blyk runs a media, does not just serve ads. Blyk in India has 1M opt-in users and they get AVERAGE response rate of 25% (vs 0.2% on internet response rates)
• They say this is because, they engage youth without defining them. Not by who or where they are, but by learning from them what are they upto. They engage youth in dialogue and thus accurate profiles lead to relevant content
• Blyk is trying to evolve marketing into open marketing where consumer and brand both co-create experience
• for which Ohrling quoted Alan Moore @alansmlxl ‘we embrace what we create’. They focus on saying Blyk brand is not ‘our’ brand, it is our consumers’ brand
• Case Study: user generated content – MakeMyTrip Malaysia. “What is your dream holiday in Malaysia?” This got Blyk 25k in responses from Malaysians!

Marketing Advice for Brands: 1. Listen to the youth 2. Involve them. The rest will follow

• Start seeing youth less as end consumers but more as product developers and brand ambassadors. When you start seeing youth as brand ambassadors & product developers, they become your most effective marketing asset.
• Have the youth opinion count, so listen to them. Asking a question via SMS is a simply way of engaging young people on mobile
• Involve them cause product development *is* marketing
• Think of Blackberry and BBM – Ohrling cites Blackberry Boys ad in India — and Blackberry users are not just corporates but youth
• Let the youth decide what your brand can be
• Focus on multi-screen engagement. Need collaboration across ecosystem
• From TV to tablets, ‘Ad spend follows eyeballs, eyeballs are shifting to mobile’ Need to monetise data assets. ‘

Antti Ohrling cites -“I hate words like inventory. Who of you want to be part of an inventory?”

» More updates from the event will be shared very shortly.

[The article has been reproduced from Aniketh’s blog]

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Report on Mobile app Stores: Number of Paid Apps on Android is 1/3rd of iPhone App Store

The app store concept is amazing for rolling out apps to end users and Apple did a masterful job at it with its Appstore. Not surprisingly many other platforms decided to go the Appstore way and are doing pretty well themselves. With all major platforms deciding to go the app store way, if you’re a mobile app developer or even a user, a lot depends on the quality and quantity of apps available on these app stores. As we see now, a device is only as good as the apps that run on it, the importance of the app ecosystem.

For app developers, a clear overview of the app store scene is essential to choose the right platform to concentrate on ( even though i believe that its absolutely necessary for app developers to support multiple platforms, better business sense).
For users, we don’t want to be stuck on a platform that developers don’t like, I mean who doesn’t want awesome apps. And switching from one platform to another can be a pain, add to that the unavailability of your favorite apps on your new platform ( by this i mean if an user were to switch from an iOS based device to an Android or BlackBerry or WP7 etc.).
A recent report by Distimo reveals some interesting aspects about the current app stores scenario and makes some pretty daring predictions too. Here’s our take on the report and what you should take away from it.

Current scenario of the app stores:

Apple is still king of the hill when it comes to number of applications available. It boasts the most number of apps for both form factors, smartphones and tablets alike. The total number of iOS applications now equals 367,334. A year after the launch of the iPad, the iPad Appstore has almost 75,000 apps.

Google’s Android is second in the on going race to the top and building on its phenomenal, almost unbelievable rise. The force is strong with this one, and growing it seems. The Android market now has more free apps than the iPhone Appstore. A strange stat indeed, to add to that are the numbers, Android market has almost 10,000 more free apps than the iPhone Appstore. The number of paid apps however is less than one third the number of paid apps when compared to the iPhone. Android is the only platform that has more free apps compared to paid apps.

Windows Phone 7 (WP7), is the other notable player to see a strong growth patter. It grew at 38% in March 2011 and is expected to maintain a strong growth rate throughout the year. Expecting the WP marketplace to grow at this rate throughout the year is rather unrealistic, but consider a simlar trend for the next few months and astounding new stats arise.

App Report

The future of app stores:

The future of app stores depends on a number of factors including developer interest, user adoption and constant innovation on platforms that they are made for. That does not mean we can’t make predictions on its future right away. Although all predictions are purely based on growth rate numbers in the past 3 months and do not take other factors into consideration, a quick look at the growth trends reveals a picture that will surely make app developers sit up and take notice of all the platforms out there.

If the current rate of growth is maintained by all app stores,  Google’s Android market will be just 40,000 apps short of Apple’s Appstore by the end of June 2011.

The Blackberry App World is set to double in number in the next six months and be bigger than Nokia’s Ovi store.

Windows Phone 7 marketplace , launched in October 2011 will have more apps than Nokia’s Ovi store and Blackberry App World even before it completes one full year, a strong start.

What is your take? Do you think this game will pan out differently in the next six months? Drop in a line and let us know.

The report is available at : http://www.distimo.com/publications
Also see: Mobile App Stores: Asia Leads the Download Race

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