How Struggling Micro-Blogging Tool Follow 5 Turned Into a Micro-Blog Aggregator

Yu Kunpeng: I still believe in micro-blogging although it doesn’t make money for us.

After 10 years at Neusoft, “the largest IT solutions and services provider in China”, Yu Kunpeng left as director of its Telecommunications Division. He and his three colleagues registered a company, MyWay Technology, in 2007 in Dalian, a coastal city where Yu had lived through his Neusoft years.

 

Yu is father to a boy and a girl. He posted on a micro-blog run by his company last November, that read, “This is the first day my daughter went to kindergarten, I wonder if she had a good time there.”

We pictured micro-blogging would be huge in China, but they turned us down.

Back in 2006 Yu was designing an internet service in his diary that “records and shares” one’s life. That’s how Mymemo, “a recording tool” came into being in 2008. Follow 5, Yu’s micro-blogging service which was redesigned on top of the memo product, was launched in the August of 2009.

 

In the wake of Twitter’s birth, a bunch of micro-blogging services emerged in China in 2007. Before Sina Weibo‘s upsurge in 2010, none of them really made any noise.

In October 2008, Yu visited one of the first tier Chinese internet companies, trying to sell them the micro-blogging idea. Follow 5 offered technology team and hoped this company to take the operation role.

 

The reason the company turned down Follow 5, was that they feared micro-bloggers had distant connections with each other and this would not be able to boost usage. They wanted a product where users had close relationships – like Facebook.

It turned out every major internet company in China went on to build a micro-blogging service, so did the company mentioned above.

 

Three years into an unprofitable internet product, Yu still believes in micro-blogging.

Yu’s company is making money from IT outsourcing, not from the micro-blogging service. With his team’s experience gained from Neusoft years, it’s not too hard for them to have projects generating revenues. The company also raised about RMB 10 million yuan in the first two years.

 

Yu said all the money is for supporting Follow 5, the micro-blogging service.

Yu believes micro-blog is the next generation of media that produces new journalists and new distribution models. And he believes advertising is where micro-blogs can make money.

 

Will Follow 5 ended up being a micro-blog aggregator?

 

After tons of micro-blogging services showed up, Follow 5 started offering sync features that allows users to sync messages to other platforms, not only micro-blogging websites, but also SNS or IM tools.

 

• Since May, Follow 5′s registrations are 500k-600k, 13% of which are active accounts;
• 40% of new users register Follow 5 for the sync service;
• Most users sync their messages to Sina Weibo, a well-established micro-blogging service in China. The runner-up in this category is Tencent Weibo;
• Less than 1 million messages are synced every month.

 

Yu disclosed that Follow 5 will launch a new version with a major change next month or so. To this day, Yu modified his vision for Follow 5 that it “will become a chain on the social media industry.”

 

Related posts:

1. Mobile Blog – Blogging anywhere and anytime
2. Sina Releasing Tumblr-like, Light-blogging Service Qing
3. Introduction of Four Micro-video Services: Is an era of Micro-video coming?

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Seven China IPOs Raised $1.3 Billion in First Half

Built on last year’s strong activity with a record of 22 Chinese IPOs in 2010, the NYSE maintains its leading position in attracting Chinese listings this year. Statistics released by NYSE show that, by June 30, there are already 7 Chinese firms went public on NYSE in the first half of the year.

Out of the 7 IPOs, 5 come from the TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) sector, which are Renren Inc(NYSE: RENN), one of the biggest Chinese social networking website, Qihoo 360 Technology (NYSE:QIHU), a computer security products provider, Phoenix New Media(www.ifeng.com, 3g.ifeng.com, v.ifeng.com) (NYSE:FENG), a Chinese new media company, TaoMee Holdings (NYSE:TAOM), one of the largest kids SNS in China, and NetQin Mobile Inc (NYSE:NQ), a mobile internet service provider with mobile security solutions based on cloud-computing. The rest two are commercial wheel maker Zhengxing Wheel Group Co Ltd. and men’s fashion retailer Zuoan Fashion Ltd.

The seven Chinese companies raised a total of $1.333 billion, accounting for 80 percent of all money raised by Chinese listings in the U.S.  On Mar.29, shares of Qihoo360 soared 134% in its trading debut, which making it the third best first-day gain for a U.S. listed IPO in the last 10 years. And on May 4, Renren Inc became the first social networking service company to get listed on the U.S. market.

Related posts:

1. Phoenix Video To Introduce Discovery Channel, Along With Other BBC Programs
2. Sorry, RenRen Is Just a Social Network in China, Not a Chinese Facebook
3. 39 Companies from ZhongGuanCun Listed in 2010, Is It China's Silicon Valley?

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Singapore’s Chalkboard launches widget for HTC handsets in Malaysia

Chalkboard, a location-based mobile advertising platform, has inked a deal last week with mobile phone company HTC to offer its widget exclusively to HTC customers in Malaysia. The widget allows consumers to receive updates about daily deals, promotions, and product launches through their mobile phones.

“HTC is proud to provide a richer experience for our users by incorporating Chalkboard – a service that works with thousands of local businesses – on our innovative handhelds,” says SK Wong, country manager at HTC, Malaysia.

Chalkboard reaches out to over 4,000 business customers in Malaysia alone. Businesses can send updates to consumers for less than RM1 (S$0.40) per day. In addition to special deals, the app also displays the businesses’ address and contact information, all within a five -kilometer radius from the user. A map also enables potential customers to find their way to the shop.

Besides major mobile platforms iOS and Android, Chalkboard is also available on Internet browsers like Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer.

Chalkboard, which operates in Singapore, Malaysia, and the US, was founded in February 2010 by CEO Saumil Nanavati and CTO Bernard Leong with investment from Neoteny Labs. They have plans to enter the Indonesia market.

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A developer’s one-stop shop for Singapore govt data

Winners for the AppVenture Challenge, a competition organized by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore that recognized the best use of government data in a mobile app, were announced last week.

The Challenge, which aimed to get participants trained in mobile app development, also encouraged them to make use of some 5,000 datasets from 50 local government ministries and agencies, all available for developers on data.gov.sg.

Available datasets can range from information on the financial, physical, and social health from 4,591 senior citizens to the breakdown of new flats sold by flat type.

ShowNearby, a location-based services search app, won first place for the company category with their use of location data on services and amenities. Also, Parks “Live” @ SG, which allows users to explore Pasir Ris Park using augmented reality, secured top spot for the individual category.

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Alarm Everyone – Social Wake-up Alarm For iPhone

Alarm Everyone by f4samurai is a new iPhone alarm application which let you and your friends share the same morning alarm.

Enjoy getting up in the morning!

1. Wake up at the same time with your lover and exchange messages

2. You and your friends can wake each other up on the day of a trip

3. Communicate with your family living apart

Alarm Everyone website

You will see who woke up and who has not on the app. It has its own texting feature to greet.

The application is available for free. Although it is by a Japanese company, only English version is provided for now. Android version is being planned as well.

Here is a demo movie,

via Modern Syntax [J]

Alarm Everyone – Social Wake-up Alarm For iPhone

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Lady Gaga Shows Up On A Long-Running Japanese Talkshow

Tetsuko no Heya, a long-running TV talk show hosted by a popular actress Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, who is also known as an UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, is announced to take a session with Lady Gaga.

Tetsuko no Heya began in 1976 and has been running over 9,000 times. (Wikipedia Japanese) Gaga side seemed to research the host Kuroyanagi is popular with her "Onion" hairstyle, and wore an onion-shaped dress.

(photo credit: TV Asahi)

And net users reactions to it,

Totto is a nickname of Kuroyanagi. Her book Totto-chan was a 1981's best-seller, translated into several languages.

Lady Gaga Shows Up On A Long-Running Japanese Talkshow

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Why People Love Copying Kik+Talkbox

Back to January this  year, we predicted that Kik would be one of most copied apps in China. And we are right. There are more startups working on it such as WaliTalk; the social network Kaixin001 even has one called Feidou and the amazing Tencent also launched its own Kik named Weixin. We did not know about Talkbox (read our interview) at that time, but now almost every clone of Kik has integrated Talkbox’s voice chat function, which some people consider as sort of China style innovation. Well, at least, Kik+Talkbox, is smart.

The question is: Why we are so interested in copying the idea of mobile messaging; and since we know Tencent’s Weixin, Lei Jun’s Miliao etc these tough guys are out there, why people still see it as a chance?

Beat Tencent

Last week I was in Beijing to attend GreatWallClub’s Advisor board meeting and Lei Jun, the investor of Xiaomi (the owner company of Miliao) is the chairman. We were discussing about the trend of Chinese mobile internet. Lei Jun’s quite exciting about the recent achievement of Miliao which beat QQ app as the most downloaded app in the social category in China region for days. He said, Pony Ma is scared by Miliao’s super fast growth and has ordered Tencent’s team to seriously look into the Kik market. Lei Jun believes that there is more open opportunites in mobile internet and beating Tencent is not a mission impossible.

Mobile extension of Social Networks

I also talked to the product manager of mobile department in Kaixin001 asking for his opinion. He said product-wise, Feidou’s Kik+Talkbox, but the difference is that Kik’s user base starts from zero, but Feidou could pull millions of users from its social network’s user base and it would not be a standalone product. He does not worry about iMessenger as Feidou is just a perfect mobile extension of Kaixin001. He also admitted that they are still thinking of the best way to integrate Kaixin001′s services into Feidou. “We tried once to guide Kaixin001′s users to use Feidou, but the number of users log on Feidou was not that good. Users still need be educated because they have not got the idea of Kik yet.” He said.

Easy-built mobile social networking platforms

Everyone sees the chance in the mobile social networks market. Building an Kik+Talkbox is probably the easiest approach to accumulate users in a short time. “Kik+Talkbox is the key function for WaliTalk, but we might build more interesting features, such as games into it, once we have a good and active user base”, the founder of WaliTalk told me. So for the startups like WaliTalk, Kik+Talkbox model is more like an entry strategy into the mobile market.

Even iOS 5 will come with iMessenger which seems functioning like Kik, but it would not stop people using the ideas of mobile messaging, for different purpose.

Related posts:

1. Feidou, Kaixin001′s New Product for Mobile Group Chat
2. TalkBox, New Age Walkie-Talkie, Hits 1m Users in Four Months, Explosive Growth Continues
3. Tencent Joins Force With Zynga to Bring CityVille to China

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Xiaomi Tech to Release Mobile Phone

There have been rumors recently that Xiaomi Tech will officially release a customized Android UI called MIUI in late July and an MIUI mobile phone in September.

Founded in April 2010, Xiaomi official website claims  to “focus on the iPhone, Android and other next-generation smart phone software development and trends of mobile Internet business operations.” To many people’s surprise, only 8 months after its launch，Xiaomi Tech raised US$ 35 million at a valuation of US$ 200 million from Morningside Group and Qiming Venture Partners.

The products Xiaomi Tech has released so far include Xiaomi Chat , Xiaomi Reading, Xiaomi Share, Xiaomi Driver and Millet Notes. Rumors say Xiaomi will launch its own MIUI phone M1 in September. M1 will have Qualcomm’s Dual-Core 1.5Ghz CPU and a 480 x 854 LCD screen at a price of about RMB 1,600(US$250).

Xiaomi Tech’s high profile investor, famous angel Lei Jun seems “unwilling” to confirm this rumor, but media pointed out that he and others from Xiaomi have not denied it yet.  Some observers say Xiaomi was repeating its history——MIUI had been released through community and got traction before it was confirmed to be a product of Xiaomi, and this“ sneakiness”has caused some complains from Xiaomi’s rivals.

Is this a tactic has something to do with Lei Jun’s philosophy? He recently claimed that success is 85 percent of luck and entrepreneurs should believe in things like fate and horoscope. “The most important work I do is to watch stars at night.” He said half-jokingly. Or this is another attempt to make rivals to relax vigilance?

The list of Xiaomi Tech executives is impressive. CEO Lin Bin is former vice director of Google China Academy of Engineering; vice president Huang Jiangji used to serve as development director of Microsoft Asia Academy of Engineering; vice president Hong Feng is former Google China Product Manager; another vice president Li Wanqiang used to be the president of Kingsoft.

Related posts:

1. Why XiaoMi Raised $35millions, Because Lei Jun Also Wants a Real Phone
2. Rumour: Lei Jun’s MIUI, Android ROM Teams up with Guess Who?
3. Lee Kaifu's comments on Baidu's mobile phone OS

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Twitter To Charge Fee For Tweets: False Rumor Makes Japanese Users Panic

Last week, a false rumor telling that you will need to pay to tweet on Twitter from July 1 was widely circulated in Japanese twittersphere.

Many of those tweets pointed a single source, Uncyclopedia Japan's news, titled with "Twitter Japanese version will be switched to a paid service from July", which explained the background why Twitter decided this move, 1. Eastern Japan Great Disaster increased Japanese Twitter usage about doubled, and the traffic is making Twitter unstable, and 2. US Twitter gets anxious that many popular Japanese celebrities tend to be deceived and spread false rumors after the earthquake and people started calling Twitter as "Idiot Detector"(which is really seen on 2-channel and other places). The article came with plausible monthly fee table with how your number of followings/followers and tweets leads your amount of payment. With the highest plan with $15,000/month, you can tweet as much as you want.

Of course, there are some users who know what Uncyclopedia is, however, as the news itself said, storm of retweets washed away their tweets. "Twitter Yuuryouka(Twitter Charges)" was on Japanese trending topic. There are many tweets who bought the story recorded [J] on tweets curation service Togetter.

Twitter's Japanese assistant account @twj had to tell "There is no such a plan to charge on tweets." [J]

Then, many of the deceived people got mad and tweeted [J] that the false news originated from "malicious false rumor website"(Akushitsu na dema site). Some claimed that Twitter or government or someone should close those lying websites...

Following this, Uncyclopedia Japan created a new entry "malicious false rumor website" [J], Uncyclomedia foundation honorably accepted this new title.

Twitter To Charge Fee For Tweets: False Rumor Makes Japanese Users Panic

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Introducing UnPluggd Speaker, Deap Ubhi

Deap Ubhi

UnPluggd is about entrepreneurs who share their entrepreneurial journey in the most UnPluggd and candid form.

In the last two events, we have had some of the most aamzing entrepreneurs like Naveen (InMobi), Sachin (Flipkart), Phani (redBus), Manish (Printo), Mukund (Buzzgain) etc sharing their entrepreneurial journey in the most UnPluggd format.

This time too we have an awesome set of speakers lined up and the first UnPluggd speaker we would like to introduce to you is Deap Ubhi.

Deap was founder of Burrp, one of the finest Internet startup (acquired by Network18). At UnPluggd, Deap will talk about his Burrp experience and a few lessons he learnt in the entire journey.

Deap Ubhi: In his own words:

“30 something internet entrepreneur on two continents. Formerly founder & ceo of burrp.com (India’s ‘Yelp’); currently founder & ceo of hopscout, and advisor to young indian entrepreneurs. Most importantly, loving husband to my beautiful wife, and doting father to my soon-to-be-heartbreaker baby daughter”.

–

To be very candid, UnPluggd is not about gyaan or panel discussions – it’s about some serious talk that you never get to hear otherwise.

Be there or …

UnPluggd Date: July 9th, 2011.

UnPluggd Venue: MATS Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship. J.P. Nagar, 6th Phase, Bangalore – 560078 [Venue Map/more details here.]

Block your seat (we are running out of capacity):

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India's Largest Startup Event, UnPluggd Is Back (Mindblowing Content + Exiciting Startup Demos » July 9th, Bangalore)

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» Introducing UnPluggd Speaker, Deap Ubhi @Pluggd.in.

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StartUp Updates – Next Leap, InkFruit, Scan Corner, iWearMe

Here are some updates from some of the startups we covered earlier.

inkFruit – Inkfruit has unveiled a new brand identity. The startup has expanded beyond T-shirts and has now introduced Bags, Flipflops and Laptop Skins as well.

NextLeap – NextLeap has expanded into newer markets and their recommendation engine is up and running for 12th class students aspiring for B.E. / B.Tech. admissions in Maharashtra. Students can simply enter the expected CET / AIEEE exam score and know which colleges they have chances of getting admissions into.

ScanCorner - ScanCorner has recently crossed 1,00,000 image scans. They have moved into video digitization and document digitization as well. They are providing support for almost all video formats.

IWearMe -IWearMe is a recently launched online store for designer t-shirts. Their designs are mainly based on abstract graphic themes. Currently all products are at Rs.499. They are looking for an offline presence as well.

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India's Largest Startup Event, UnPluggd Is Back (Mindblowing Content + Exiciting Startup Demos » July 9th, Bangalore)

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» StartUp Updates – Next Leap, InkFruit, Scan Corner, iWearMe @Pluggd.in.

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Malaysia’s ICON2 programme to spur casual app developers

MDeC chief executive officer Datuk Badlisham Ghazali at the launch of the ICON2 programme. Photo from MSC Malaysia NewsCentre.

The Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) of Malaysia today announced that it would be allocating RM5 million (US$1.67 million) for the second MSC Malaysia Integrated Content Development Programme (ICON2) to jumpstart web and mobile application development, as well as increase the pool of developers in the country.

The funding would spread out across three programmes: ICONapps, ICONdap, and ICONeX. Speaking at the press conference, MDeC chief executive officer Datuk Badlisham Ghazali said that among the major differences between this and the previous ICON programme, which ran from 2009-2011, is that ICON2 would be focusing more on the creative and technical aspects, instead of just the business aspects.

He said that disbursements would be made based on the quantity and quality of submissions, and added that they are also talking to local telco providers to develop ways of encouraging the growth of domestic mobile content.

At the same time, the selection criteria in ICON2 would emphasise on revenue models, especially where sponsorship and advertising are concerned. Badlisham added that it’s not enough that applicants know how to bring an idea to market, but would have to know and learn marketing skills to make it popular.

“Success in revenue is driven by popularity,” Badlisham said, adding that many developers still lack the nuance of attracting advertisers and sponsors even after they’ve become well-known.

Among the three programmes under the ICON2 programme, ICONapps is the most promising for those new to the mobile apps game. Under this category, individuals are asked to enrol in training programmes to develop web and mobile apps for a fee of RM500, which also includes access to the SDK. If the app goes to market, participants can be reimbursed up to RM10,000.

“The mentorship here would be provided by other developers and entrepreneurs who have had success on developing apps on the Android or iOS platform,” Badlisham said, adding that developers would be compelled to push the app to market under this programme, as opposed to the previous programme, which saw several developers with grants failing to produce the goods.

“Ultimately, the larger goal here is to expand the pool of casual developers, especially among the everyday Malaysians,” he said.

ICONdap meanwhile is a bigger fund aimed at more serious developers. Under this category, online and mobile content app developers would be provided with funding of up to RM200,000. Unlike ICONapps, business plans submitted for ICONdap would be more scrutinised and assessed by its evaluators. “We will decide on the funding based on the viability of the business proposal, and disbursements would be given out on a milestone basis,” he said.

Finally, ICONeX is a digital content hosting and exchange facility in collaboration with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), under which cost-effective high bandwidth hosting capabilities would be provided to those who can’t afford high bandwidth costs.

The first ICON programme started in 2009 with a similar amount allocated. In the two years since, it has given out 60 grants, out of which 96 mobile applications were created. Among the more notable apps to come out of the first ICON programme were the 1Malaysia Hotlines iOS app, which is free for download, and the Kiddy Song iOS app, which according to MDeC generated revenue of RM25,000 since it was launched in April last year.

Other iOS apps that were highlighted during the press conference were children’s education tool Tap Colors and JoggerTracker, which helps joggers keep track of their running distances.

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How 5 Professional Social Networks in China Compare

We’ve now covered all the main professional social networks in China. This space in China is gaining a lot of attention due to Linkedin’s recent IPO and valuation of US$4.25bn.

Here are some of the challenges we’ve learnt about building professional SNSs:

Finding users

As Sherman just posted, China only opened up to economic reform in the 1980’s which means it has only had 30 years to create a market of top tier business professionals. Therefore the volume of business professionals is relatively low compared to its massive population. Even for the existing business professionals, they are already highly sought after so don’t need to use online methods to network or find jobs.

Another limiting factor to building a professional online network in China is that reportedly Government state owned enterprises account for over 80% of the economy. Most people know that once you’re in a party role, the perks and benefits are hard to leave, so why would you need to professionally network online if you have it so good already?

Finding loyal users

With at least 5 vying for the top position, it’s a tough battle. It just doesn’t make sense to maintain more than 1 profile on different professional networks – it’s time consuming. The challenge is how to make users stick to your SNS with killer value.

Maintaining quality of users

For SNS’s that open up membership to anyone too quickly, it can immensely dilute the quality of users. Some networks have fallen victim to allowing users to become confused if they are really are a professional network or a social network to play around; or feel like the quality of people on the network are somehow useless. That’s why newer networks like Ushi have adopted a closed invite and referral approach. This

Encouraging online interaction

Most careers related aspects in China are still done offline, like finding jobs through friends or past colleagues. Behaviourally, Chinese people are not as open about sharing personal professional information online for anyone to see, although this appears to be evolving. To address this challenge, Tianji is created discussion forum, groups and activities and Hengzhi created applications for the users to manage their daily agenda, such as contact management, Q&A, and Power Point document sharing.

Here is a summary of 5 SNSs we’ve covered:

Source: Interviews, Crunchbase, Insider knowledge, techode.com

 

 

Related posts:

1. Wealink, 4 Years Experience on Chinese Professional Social Networks, A Slow Business
2. Tianji CEO Says It Is the Best Professional Social Network in China – Interview Part II
3. How to Run the Professional Social Network in China, Interview with Co-founders of UShi.cn

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