Shanda In Talks With Tencent About Social Games On Weibo

As is known to all, Sina Weibo is the de facto winner in Chinese mini-blog arena, towering over other services of the like including those by Tencent , Sohu and NetEase. Sohu founder and CEO Charles Zhang talked regretfully about misstep on min-bloggin strategy, claiming pouring more money – compared to Sina – into its own Weibo in hopes of a turn-around. Tencent, which “must win in the Weibo war” according to its founder Pony Ma, is also catching up.

It’s reported that Shanda has been in talks with Tencent about serving Shanda games on Tencent Weibo platform. Since Shanda and Tencent user demographics are similar – young and willing to pay – such move would be a big boost to both of them. Shanda will extend its reach with more gains, Tencent can attract more users with the games by Shanda.

It seems Shanda won’t stop there, the giant Chinese game vendor is also in talks with RenRen to launch games on the latter’s open platform, which has already been crowded with social games developed by 3^rd party vendors.

Shanda Games CEO Tang Qunzhao disclosed that the company has been looking into acquiring social game manufacturers for quite a while. Shanda Games is targeting 20% of sales coming from international business in 3 years. Mobile games will accounts for 10% of Shanda Game’s total turnover, according to Tang.

Related posts:

1. Tencent Released Q+ Open Platform, Finally
2. Rumour: Shanda is going to list another of its divisions next year
3. Weibo Wars – Tencent vs.Sina

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USD 32M Fund For Med Tech Startups

People who have innovative ideas in medical technology will rejoice when you hear this latest news: as part of the Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2015 plan (PDF), the Singapore government is launching a SGD 40M (USD 32M) fund for medical technology startups.

This funding will be managed by SPRING SEEDS Capital, under a new Biomedical Sciences Accelerator (BSA) programme. They will select up to two BSA operators. High-potential med-tech start-ups will be identified, evaluated, financed and managed as well as to better commercialised the intellectual property developed in the sector by the selected operators.

Within the biomedical science industry, medical technology is one of the key sectors of Singapore economy. According to TodayOnline, the med-tech industry employs more than 13,000 people and contributes 10% to Singapore’s total manufacturing output.

Image Credit: zhouxuan12345678

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By 2015, 54% of TV in China Will Be Smart TV

Although when I asked the audience if they had ever bought a Smart TV at home, only one of them raised the hand; even only a few of people were sure they would buy one in near future. Speakers from Lenovo, TCL, Technicolor, Orange France (Beijing) and BesTV at TechNode Collide were giving their positive opinion and advice on the Smart TV industry in China.

David Wei, VP and GM of Mobile Internet Lab & Digital Life Lab of Lenovo gave the keynote speech with the topic Smart TV, the Driving Force of Cloud Computing in Family Life. He defined the Smart TV:

the connected TV with OS, and the content includes broadcasting, packaged media, web content, and applications

David believes that eventually people is able to use Smart TV to watch TV or internet video, online shopping, play games, read news, social chat etc. He said that Smart TV, like Smart Phone, is not only driven by hardware manufacturers but the service providers, i.e. internet service providers, and content providers (traditional video content and internet video content). In China, a couple of companies including Skyworth, Hisense, TCL and Lenovo have released their first Smart TV products this year and the market will be boosted in 2012. “by 2015, 32.4 millions Smart TV will beat the traditional TV with 54% market share.” David Wei said.

TCL has just released its first Window 7 based Smart TV in early May, with partnership with Youku, PPS etc internet companies. Liu Yunfei, Director at TCL Research Supper Smart TV Center also believes that the Smart TV market has to open up and work closely with the popular internet service providers and thousands of applications development companies.

Smart TV sounds fancy but it is of course not an easy business. Kevin Rui, VP of Business Alliance at BesTV, the IPTV operator from Shanghai Media Group (SMG) gave his advice on Smart TV market. Although Smart TV is also (internet) connected TV, Kevin pointed out the TV audience are either kids or older people and both groups are actually not the heavy internet users. So how to educate them to use the internet service on TV is not an easy job; He said the applications on Smart TV are important but the app developers must note that TV is graphic-focus so we can not expect any smart phone apps is playable on TV. Kevin also believe the driving force of Smart TV market will be IT companies instead of TV manufacturers. “Like Apple and Google are now leading the Smart Phone market, not Nokia or other traditional phone makers.” He said in this speech. “Smart Phone is for individual, but Smart TV is for Family.”

To be honest, I am not really convinced to buy a Smart TV to replace my old one, yet. But once the price is acceptable and more TV-friendly apps and internet service are available, it will be definitely the choice.

Related posts:

1. HiQQ, Tencent's Smart Phone Manufactured by Huawei
2. Shanzai, One of the Driving Force of Cloud Computing in China
3. BesTV, The Leading Provider of IPTV Service in China

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Crowsnest – Twitter Newsreader Service In English And Japanese

Rmake launched Crowsnest as a Beta service.

When logging in by Twitter authentication, you will see latest news on tweets under several several tabs. Tabs are like your regular "timeline", popular links from tweets by people you are "following", Yours tweets, Your following marked, some auto-categorized news of IT, live videos, images and blogs.

You may filter/sort the news by how many people tweeted about. Those popular URLs are decided by using both all users and users of your network. You may customize how much you rely on your friends.

Visited links are remembered so you can find the latest hot URLs easily when you check this Crowsnest.

You may also add custom filters to see your own list of tweets/news URLs.

It has basic Twitter client features as well. Mobile version is designed for Android and iPhone.

Current Beta is limited to users who are invited by existing users. I can invite some, if you want, please leave your Twitter account name in comments.

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And Now, We Need You In Deciding The PowerPlug Contest Winner [Voting Begins]

We announced the PowerPlug May month finalists yesterday and this time, we have taken the voting route.

- Voting starts today and ends on June 3rd.

- Is voting the sole decision point? Actually, NO. But plays an important role in helping us decide the winner.

So here it is: who do you think deserves the ‘PowerPlug’ crown? And before you cast your vote, please please please vote for the one whom you believe to be the game changer (and not because you know the founder).

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

PS: If you are reading this post on RSS reader, do come over to the site or voting page to cast your vote.

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Tata DOCOMO Launches 3G Wi-Fi Hub, Works Across GSM and CDMA Network

Tata DOCOMO, the GSM brand of Tata Teleservices Limited has announced the launch of 3G Wi-Fi Hub—enabling multiple users and devices to share wireless Internet access and stay connected on the go. The device offers uninterrupted connectivity for specific Wi-Fi devices like Laptops, Tablets, Gaming Consoles and Wi-Fi-enabled Televisions.

The device enables users to maneuver between Tata DOCOMO’s Next-Gen 3G GSM network and Tata Photon Plus on the CDMA platform—one technology at a time—offering speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps. The device offers speed up to 7.2 Mbps in the 3G mode, and up to 3.1Mbps in the High-Speed Internet Access (HSIA) mode. Apart from a portable powered battery, seamless connectivity, simple browser-based configuration, the device is also password-protected for greater security.

3G Hub Pricing

The device is priced at Rs. 5,999 and works with post-pay plans, to begin with. The Wi-Fi Rs 750 Plan comes with a monthly rental of Rs 750, wherein customers can enjoy data usage of 2GB. Post the 2 GB being consumed, customers will have to pay a nominal cost of 50 paise per MB for additional data usage. Similarly, the Wi-Fi Unlimited Rs 1,000 Plan comes with a monthly rental of Rs 1,000, wherein customers will get 5GB of data usage. The device offers speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps in the 3G mode, while the Photon platform offers speeds of up to 3.1 Mbps. Post exhausting this 5GB, customers can enjoy unlimited data usage under the ‘throttle option’, wherein surfing speeds will be determined by user location, number of people accessing the network and device configuration.

Also see: Vodafone Launches MiFi Device, R201 in India | Micromax Launches 3G Wireless MiFi Router Priced at Rs. 4999 (a flavor is packed in Bling-2).

Disclaimer: Tata DoCoMo is a sponsor at Pluggd.in.

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TringMe Launches Agilte, A Company in LTE Space

VoIP startup, TringMe has launched Agilte, a new company that provides ready-to-use 3GPP-compliant LTE Protocol Stack for User Equipment (UE).

Agilte LTE UE Protocol stack is a 3GPP Release 8 compliant implementation consisting of Layer 2, Layer 3 and the NAS Layer. It is a high-performing, light-weight implementation optimized for mobile devices.

Agilte LTE UE stack covers all the mandatory and optional features stated in the Release 8 specification of the 3GPP LTE standard. It’s modular architecture makes it easy to integrate it with any underlying Operating System and Physical Layer. The entire stack is implemented in ANSI C and has been compiled using both C and C++ compilers without any system dependencies.  Porting, usually a time-consuming process to get most stacks up & running, has been one of the key focal points of Agilte LTE UE stack design. The porting layer is a very thin layer and has been kept at minimal to ensure rapid porting and verification.

Agilte LTE UE Stack has undergone rigorous testing using internal test suites and has successfully passed the independent conformance test suite of an industry leader in LTE test equipment. It has passed over 182 3GPP test specification results as of May 2011 and is the only LTE UE protocol stack to have achieved successful third party conformance tests compliance out-of-the-box.

As far as pricing is concerned, Agilte LTE UE Protocol stack will be licensed as either one-time license or royalty-based license. In either case, customers will get access to the complete protocol stack source-code. Device manufacturers and Infrastructure vendors can benefit from the time-to-market advantage by partnering with Agilte to integrate it’s ready-to-use LTE UE Protocol stack. Solution providers and integrators can utilize Agilte’s technology provide a complete LTE UE solution to their clients.

Recommended Read: Future of Wireless in India – UMTS or LTE?.

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What’s the Average Bounce Rate of Email Campaigns in India?

What’s the average bounce rate of email campaigns in India? How many emails should you send to get to the right conversion metrics?

Juvlon, an email marketing firm has shared its report that analyzes of email trends in India. The report is based on analysis of three major industries that use emails as a marketing tool for campaigns, namely the retail industry, finance industry and education industry. Take a look at the definitions to get a better understanding of consumer behavior when it comes to marketing emails.

• Bounce Rate = Total Bounced / Total List
• Sent Emails = Total List – Total Bounced
• Total Open Rate = Total Opens / Sent
• Unique Open Rate = Unique Opens / Sent
• Click to Open Rate = Total Clicks / Unique Opens

Retail Industry Statistics

• Looking at bounce rates we notice that they are pretty low for the retail industry and follow an overall downward trend.
• On an average in Q4, the Total Open Rate was 12.97%, just slightly higher than the figure for Q3 which stands at 12.93%.
• The total number of clicks in Q4 was 16.02% of the number of emails opened. In Q3 it was 15.12%.

The above observations were made based on about 22 million emails sent by large online retailers during the period of Oct 2010 to Mar 2011. The emails consisted of offers, promotions, regular and updates of products and loyalty points information of consumers.

Finance Industry Statistics

• Average bounce rates that were observed stand at 5.08%.
• On an average in Q4 the Total Open Rate was 13.64% which is higher than the Q3 average of 11.92%.
• The total number of clicks in Q4 was 7.90%, in Q3 it was 7.43%.

The statistics are based on about 11million emails sent by insurance and mutual fund retailers during Oct 2010 and Mar 2011. The emails consisted of offers, promotions, regular and updates about product information. Mutual funds and insurance were the products that were pushed by these 11 million emails.

Education Industry Statistics

• The Average Bounce Rate in Q4 declined to 4.44% from a high of 6.42% in Q3.
• he Total Open Rate was 12.51% in Q4, which is lower than it was in Q3( 14.15%). Juvlon speculates that this may be due to exam season for students.
• The total number of clicks was 12.65% of the emails opened. This too is lower than Q3(14.74%).

The observations made are derived from about 5 million emails sent by universities and colleges during the period between Oct 2010 and Mar 2011. The emails consisted of course admissions and updates for educational courses.

Average Bounce, Open & Click Rate

• The total number of emails sent grew by almost 8 million in Q4 compared to Q3.
• Average Bounce rates have fallen in all the three sectors.
• Average Open Rate and Average Click Rate for the Finance and retail sectors were higher in Q4 as compared to Q3.
• Most notably , the education sector emails showed a lower Average Open and Average Click Rate in Q4 as compared to Q3.
• Poor quality of email campaigns is the major reason for low click-to-open rate in India.
• If designed and executed properly, email campaigns can easily deliver average click-to-open rates of 15-20%.
• Retail sector shows higher open and click rates this quarter compared to last quarter.
• Education sector emails showed a much lower open and click rate this quarter.

Considering the rise in Internet connectivity in India, email is sure to become a great marketing tool, the challenge remains to get past spam filters and deliver relevant content to consumers in a more efficient manner with the use of better subscription practices.

What has been your experience with email marketing campaigns?

Recommended Read:

• 101 on Email Marketing [Part 1/Introduction]
• How To Ensure Email Delivery in Your Email Marketing Campaign

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Qomune To Begin Asian Tour To Meet J-Fashion Lovers And Tech Start-ups

Qomune[J], a Tokyo-based start-up providing a web-based platform that collects your shopping history from major online retailers and allows you to share your shopping experience with others at ease, is about to leave the company's hometown for a two-week tour to Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In addition to their first service for Japanese online shoppers, the company is engaged on a new service that will introduce a bunch of clothing and accessory collections to Japanese street fashion lovers in Asian countries, in partnership with major online fashion retailers. The service or Fashion Style Japan intends to make you easier to buy a favorite set of stylish clothes that you can never find in your town but is available at Japanese retailers.

Here's an abstract of their tour schedule.

• June 14th (Tue) thru 15th (Wed) - Jakarta, Indonesia
• June 16th (Thu) thru 18th (Sat) - Singapore, Singapore
  to appear at the Echelon 2011 venue on 16th and 17th.
• June 19th (Sun) thru 21st (Tue) - Hong Kong
  to appear and present at Startup Monday at BootHK on 20th
• June 22nd (Wed) thru 24th (Fri) - Taipei, Taiwan

If you are interested in what they are working on or finding future potential partnership/friendship with them, please contact the company's CEO/founder Yoshio Narita at info@qomune.com. Mr. Narita has been previously working with a Tokyo-based web solution vendor and a leading website production for major fashion magazines. He's been committed to developing social web services that may encourage online retailers to get more revenues since he launched Qomune in 2009.

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