63 Days Later, Google+ is Not (Yet) Close to Facebook

The launch of Google Plus on 29th June, 2011 brought a revolution in the blogosphere, even though not in the intended social networking world. Bloggers, techies, and social networks all across the world frantically started asking for invites, in the meantime going through the demo videos and blogging/discussing on FB. Those who could lay their hands on invites were impressed, or at least showed so on Facebook, Twitter, Yammer, Blogspot, WordPress, and what not. Google worshippers turned into Google Plus evangelists, providing free service.

What Is Google Plus

Everyone was curious and everybody tried to be a part of it all. HBO made the quick buck showing The Social Network at least once a week. All the popular blogs published a series of posts on Google’s latest product and the competitors and the competition. Hundreds of sites mushroomed up around Google Plus, enhancing the Plussing experience for those who don’t mind installing Chrome extensions or revealing credentials to unknown sites.

The G+ team has been really busy the past two months; there were 10 major feature additions in July, and 20 in August, averaging one every two days! A floating Google+ bar, integration with Google Translate, Google+ Games, and sharing to any circles from any sites via the +1 button are a few notable changes.
Sixty days later (okay, 63 to be precise, I rounded it off), I’ve 162 people in my 14 circles–only 11 of which are (techie) celebs. 130 people have circled me, out of which I have not reciprocated to 20 people. Oh yeah this is complex, I had to use a Venn-diagram to find out I have 118 FB-style friends. Anyway, the point is, only a few of these people have been sharing stuff and following my shares.

Most of the shares are reshares from Google+ celebs, or jokes about the diminution of FB, or tips and tricks or stats about Google+. Or a link shared at both Facebook and Twitter. Most of the content is reproduced from other networking sites. An average Plusser does not share photos here, and does not post that arbitrary status update.

Not yet.

When I have 500+ updates everyday from my 361 FB friends, the 162 people I am following on G+ update hardly 10 posts, out of which 8 are from Sergey Brinn/Bradley Horowitz/Kelly Ellis/Vic Gundotra. Facebook  feels like home. Google+ still feels alien; it does not look friendly.

So Google+ 60 days != Facebook. The inequation may never turn into an equation even if the addendum to the left variable becomes 2 years or 5 years. Even 10.

It is because there is an already existing following of Facebook which will never completely die. Even though this is much different that email, an analogy can be drawn between people still sticking on to Yahoo mail and Hotmail(~300 million users each), even though Gmail(170 million) is more talked about and discussed than its older sisters. The risk to FB comes from the new generation social-networkers, and Google takes care of that with the illusion of elitism it provides by allowing access only through invites. And this pseudo-elitist attitude works with newbies. But it dampens the spirits of a hardened FB user because they might have to move their friends along. Curiosity did help a few registrations, but how long do they stay is yet to be seen. Over a period of time, say a couple years or so, both of these may have a symbiotic existence.

Google + is an excellent product. A brilliantly planned, and well developed web-app, with a striking UX and great features, that has the potential to take social networking to the next level. But, Google has learnt that from other networks over the past few years. (The older ones are leaning from Google+ anyway; see, symbiosis) And that is what the weak point is–the timing.
Google was late by at least half a decade.

What’s your opinion?

[Guest article by Ashutosh Saxena.]

Data: Google Plus Usage Statistics–Indians Ruling The Chart (#2 Worldwide)

Also Read: Is Google Plus Overhyped?

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Faster Internet In India–MTS, Tata Tele Launch Advanced Broadband Services

The Internet speed in India is nothing to boast of, but both MTS and Tata Teleservices Ltd have launched products providing broadband speed of more than 10 Mbps.

Tata Photon on Rev.B

Tata Teleservices has announced the upgrade version of Tata Photon – Tata Photon on Rev.B on the CDMA platform to provide the broadband speed of up to 14.7 Mbps to its users. The Tata Photon on Rev.B Solution is in the final phase of testing, and the product will be commercially available in the market in the second fortnight of September [source]

MTS Blaze

Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd, which operates under the MTS Blaze brand has launched the advanced version of MBlaze. Offering a speed of 9.8 mbps, MBlaze Ultra has initially been rolled out in Jaipur, and will be extended to top metros and other cities gradually.

Average Internet Speed In India

India has only 4.5% internet connections above 2Mbps and ranks 129th globally when it comes to broadband adoption.

Average Broadband Connectivity

- India ranks 135 globally in terms of global average peak connection speed globally. The average peak connection speed measured in India was 5.1 Mbps in Q4 of ‘10. While the QoQ was -0.4%, the YoY change was calculated as 13%. China’s average peak connection speed was measured at 3.1Mbps.

- India ranks 80th globally for high broadband connectivity with 0.4% connections measured to have a speed in excess of 5Mbps. India’s comparison to itself in its previous quarter and previous year suggest a big decline in high broadband connectivity. The QoQ change is calculated at -18% and the YoY is -30%.

» Report: State of Internet Connectivity in India.

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Mobage Company DeNA Rumored To Buy A Pro Baseball Team, PR Denied

According to Sankei Sports [J], DeNA, known by running a big social gaming network Mobage, is one the list of companies who are talking with TBS, a Japanese TV network company who owns Yokohama Bay Stars [J] of Nippon Professional Baseball(Puro Yakyu) [J] Se-League, to purchase the team.

TBS Holdings tried to sell the Bay Stars last year to Lixil group, but the talk collapsed over the issue that TBS requested to keep the team in Yokohama.

Sankei reports backroom deals are in the works with multiple companies including DeNA and H.I.S., a travel agency.

In 12 top teams in 2 Japanese professional baseball leagues, where many owners post their brand over the team (like Hokkaido-Nippon-Ham-Fighters, this case region name + brand + team name), having a team means that the brand name will be called on TV news, reported on newspapers. From IT/software industry, Softbank and Rakuten have teams.

DeNA PR denied the story. Weekly Toyo Keizai points out [J] that DeNA's interest is now on oversea operations than domestic promotion, Bay Stars might be too small as a promotion for this cash-rich company.

Mobage Company DeNA Rumored To Buy A Pro Baseball Team, PR Denied

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Does Due App serves its due?

Having a lot of tasks on hand? Need a handy reminder app that makes it real easy to keep track of all your errands? Dueapp might just have the answer to your need. Developed by Junjie who has an avid interest in programming, Due is a one-man team based in Singapore. Born out of a blog post on Daring Fireball covering the Mac App Pester, Due aims to bring the idea behind Pester into a mobile version. Available for both iPhone and iPad, Due supports up to 16 languages and is rated 4+ in the app store.

Having tried my hands on Due, I have to say that it has provided me with what I thought iOS is currently missing: the reminder application. The clean interface provides various options such as the reusable timers for repetitive errands, a rescheduling tab, persistent reminders and auto snooze, and the best part, there is an option that allows you to undo any accidentally changes or deletes to your reminders. Personally, I feel that a lot of careful thoughts are put into the design interface that aims to simplify the whole process of setting a reminder. Prior to Due, all I could do with my iPhone was setting up reminders through the calendar app but with Due, doing those and keeping track of my todolists were easier, faster, and more efficient.

App Verdict: Not bad. I really like it. Highly recommended for those who needs a reminder app to keep track of all your errands without having to go through the hassle of setting up your reminder at the calendar app.

Then I thought, Apple is going to roll out a reminder app in their iOS5, what will happen to Due? Of course, many iPhone users in Asia are still quite price sensitive especially among the younger users (like me) and we will not be paying $4.99 for a reminder app. The new reminder app releasing in iOS5 centainly doesn’t help at all. Will Due be phased out and die off? Or will Due be provided for free? Apparently not.

“I have no plans to make any adjustment to the pricing in response to Apple’s built-in Reminders app in iOS5. I wrote about my thoughts in detail one day after Reminders was announced at WWDC at Due’s blog.

Basically, the gist is that Apple’s Reminders.app is not something new, and its name sounds a lot more threatening than the app actually is. At its core, Apple’s Reminders.app is a todo-list that happens to do some date/time-based and locations reminders. Many todo-list apps on the App Store are already doing this now (think Wunderlist, also free). Due serves the segment of market who wants to set up date and time-based reminders fast, and this is not the segment of market that Reminders.app serves.” – Junjie, Dueapp.

Junjie is currently working on an update for the next version of Due in iOS, and has plans to roll out Due for Mac.

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Social media is no silver bullet and more at August Founders Drinks

The last day of August marked the long waited relaunch of Founders Drinks, which saw a strong attendance of over 100 people. While some turned up for the beers, which Amazon Web Services (AWS) kindly sponsored, most came with the spirit of engaging with other founders and entrepreneurs which made the event a successful one.

The event kicked off at 7.30pm with a sharing by Simone Brunozzi from AWS who introduced the concept of crowd sourcing and also the upcoming AWS Startup Challenge. Moving on to the case study of the night, both Qlubbr and Gastro Couture, the startups chosen to share on their problem faced during startup, in particular, problems pertaining to social media for user acquisition. As the floor was opened for questions, the crowd that were present bombarded a lot of questions, which reflected the excitement towards the two promising startups. Of course, questions that were inevitable included the revenue model, competitions and core competitive advantages.

For Qlubbr, they mentioned that their core competitive advantage comes in providing real time photos and real time data and for Gastrocouture, they help restaurants to move empty tables.

During the panel discussion moderated by Willis Wee, the discussions were centered around the topic of building social media loyalty through quality contents. Vinnie Lauria, Patricia Law and Tania Chew, the panelists for the night were on the same page on one thing – real (quality) content is critical when building your social media loyalty. According to Patricia, “social media speaks its most truth when it comes from the heart”, and that these real content will win long lasting followers. She adviced that anyone should not be worried about sharing everything on social media platforms. The panelists also mentioned that content which is engaging, informative and promotional could do a lot in gaining users.

Other than that, the discussions were also centred around the topic of the Chinese social media scene. When questions and questions regarding the Chinese social media were directed to wards the panel, it became apparent that there was a keen interest towards the Chinese market among the many founders who were present at the event. Simply put, everyone wants a piece of the Chinese market. I would, if I have my own company. Of course, having covered the China tech scene at Penn Olson, Willis helped address a few questions. According to Willis, the Chinese social media is an ecosystem entirely on its own. Social media buttons/plugins are strictly regulated by the Chinese government to prevent viral contents that could be damaging to the community. Willis shared that if one wants to select a Chinese social media tool, he recommends Sina Weibo or Tencent Weibo, also known as the Chinese Twitter.

If there were a few key takeaways for me, it would be:

1. Social Media isn’t a silver bullet – as Patricia puts it. One has to consistently engage his followers with real content
2. When done right, social media can be a cost effective tool for marketing.

It was indeed an enriching night for those who were present. Now, we eagerly await the next Founders Drinks.

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What is Cosmetic Dentistry

What is Cosmetic dentistry? Cosmetic dentistry surgery is a part of dental surgical procedures that are performed to improve the facial appeal, smile and beauty of teeth in a person. A cosmetic dentistry dentist will focus on altering existing dental arrangement and features in the patient to improvise on them through cosmetic dentistry surgery. This may be accomplished through the use of few cosmetic dentistry implants. It may also require cosmetic dentistry sedation. Yet, the results are far more than just pleasing. That is why millions of people around the world regularly approach a cosmetic dentistry dentist for a cosmetic dentistry surgery. About Cosmetic Dentistry. Cosmetic and implant dentistry are relatively new extensions of dental care. The purpose of cosmetic dentistry surgery is to correct misalignment in teeth, improve appearance of teeth and their arrangement in the jaw bone.

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ByeBye Alipay, 360buy Got Married With UnionPay

We reported back in May that 360buy had removed Alipay, the no.1 online payment solution from its payment methods. No one really knows what’s going on there since then. But yesterday, in Chengdu, at the same place APEC SME Summit 2011 (I was there attending) was held, 360buy together with UnionPay, the national bankcard association in China, announced their strategic partnership on online payment as well as mobile payment solution. We broke the news on weibo and the tweet has been retweeted ~650 times and commented ~140 within several hours. It’s probably for the first time, a leading Chinese eCommerce site said NO to Alipay.

Apparently, Liu Qiangdong, CEO of 360buy is not happy with the high commission fee charged by Alipay. He used to complain that the commission fee charged by Alipay is almost 4 times than the other payment gateway provider, and thus 360buy has to pay rmb 5-6 million more. According to 360buy’s official, around 80% of its users are using Pay On Delivery as payment method and only 1-2% transactions are paid via Alipay, so taking Alipay off should not be a big problem for 360buy users.

However, the story behind it might be more complex than we thought.  A VP of Dianping (the leading Chinese Yelp) commented on the weibo saying, the true reason caused the split is that 360buy is not happy with Alipay’s keeping the record of all 360buy’s customer data, according to his insider friends.

Also today, on 360buy’s payment methods page, UnionPay has taken place of Alipay and becomes the top recommended payment method. Furthermore, 360buy will also widely adopt UnionPay’s MicroSD Card mobile payment solution for its mobile eCommerce strategy.

Apparently, Alipay is facing a serious threat from UnionPay, not only on web-based online payment, but also in mobile space. 360buy is the first one said No, and I guess it would not be the last one.

Related posts:

1. Weird, 360buy Abandons Alipay And Triggers the War?
2. More Trouble For Alipay? Chinese Banks To Compete Into Online Payment Space
3. China UnionPay Is Working On a Square-like Mobile Payment Solution

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Several Taiwan Startups Make a Splash at DEMO China

This post was contributed by Jeremy Brand Yuan, a writer for TechOrange in Taiwan.

Four Taiwan startups participated in China’s largest demo show, DEMO China, in Hangzhou last week and walked away with two awards out of a total field of 140 Chinese startups. The startups were chosen for their performances at Taiwan’s IDEAS Show back in July, and one team, Accuvally, had a particularly strong showing.  The team took third place overall with their event management solution Accupass, winning the Innovation Star Award, and the Qualcomm/Sequoia capital Wireless Business Award.

Taiwan’s Institute for Information Industry (III), who organized IDEAS Show in Taipei, co-hosted the second ‘Cross Strait Entrepreneur’s Evening’ with cyzone.cn, the host of the show. It provided a chance for the Taiwanese startups, including iSpark,FunP, Pubu, and Saja, to network with local Chinese entrepreneurs and businessmen. As a result of its result at the Hangzhou regional preliminary, the Accuvally team will go on to the DEMO China finals to compete against China’s top startups.

Since its inaugural event in 2008, IDEAS Show has been a springboard to larger spotlights for startups in Taiwan. It has acted as a feeder into the main stages of larger DEMO shows in China and the US. So far, 15 III teams have gone onto demo in either the US or China DEMO shows and 5 of those have won awards for their efforts. This year, two more as-of-yet unnamed teams will be headed to DEMO in the US later next month. We’ll keep you posted on those team’s progress when their names are released. Until then, congratulations to Accuvally and the other startups that represented Taiwan in Hangzhou.

 

Related posts:

1. Taiwan Startups Battle to Take July 27, 2011 IDEAS Show Crown
2. Shanghai Techyizu Announced its Startups Demo Day, June 18–19
3. 10 Start-ups Present at appWorks Demo Day, Taiwan

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Tonchidot’s Face Recognition App “Smile Fever” Supported In English And Korean

Tonchidot has released the iPhone application “Smile Fever” v1.0.2 which now supports the English and Korean languages.
“Smile Fever” is their first free iPhone application.  Thanks to facial recognition technology, it judges and ranks everyone’s charming “Smile Face” and gets the party going.
By using iPhone4’s front camera function it judges your smile and converts your “Smile Face Power” into points.  With such functions as a ranking which decides whose smile is the most fantastic among the players, an effect which allows users to automatically transform pictures they took into a group photo, making you enraptured by the smiling face of one of 18 beautiful girls who appear randomly, or ruining the mood, it brings abundant facial reactions.  Download is 170 yen.
Until now, this app has only had Japanese support, but new English and Korean support will be in place.  Expanding its public area into the world, the App Store will be enabling Smile Fever to be used in all supported countries.  In addition, minor bugs will be fixed.
Download Smile Fever here:

Translation licensed by VSMedia [J]

Tonchidot’s Face Recognition App “Smile Fever” Supported In English And Korean

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Latest: NTUC Link buys S’pore daily deals site BigDeal.sg

So you think the daily deals phenomena is way overhyped and unsustainable. Then be prepared to get mad at this: NTUC Link announced on Thursday that it has acquired BigDeal.sg for an undisclosed sum, which makes it the second Singapore daily deals site to be bought over.

Some background: NTUC Link runs the Plus! loyalty program, a rewards scheme for members of NTUC, a network of labor unions in Singapore. And besides being a trade union, NTUC also runs a chain of FairPrice supermarkets selling cheap groceries. They also offer cheap insurance through NTUC Income. The acquisition sorta makes sense, if you think about it — let’s just hope the valuation wasn’t bargain bin material.

So, following this mother of all deals, BigDeal.sg relaunched their site and rebranded themselves as Plus! DigDeal. Now, members of the Plus! program can earn ‘LinkPoints’ whenever they purchase coupons from the site. BigDeal.sg could also benefit from exposure to over 1.15 million Plus! members.

Another interesting thing to note was that for two weeks in August, BigDeal.sg’s Facebook Page rose 11 spots in our ranking of Singapore’s Top 30 Business Brand on Facebook, overtaking Groupon. They grew massively from 40,000 ‘likes’ to over 90,000, indicating some sort of concerted marketing push.

According to Jason Lee of AllDealsLeak, which tracks the performance of daily deals sites, BigDeal.sg experienced a 25 percent increase in revenue in that period, although that could be “attributed to many various factors”.

Beeconomic was the first Singapore daily deals site to be acquired when Groupon bought them over in December 2010. The only problem? The world’s number one daily deals site is burning through money like nobody’s business, probably because it is scaling too fast.

But the trend in Singapore looks set to grow: Local daily deals sites are showing some vitality. AllDealsLeak reported that 80 percent of group buying sites in Singapore have earned more revenue for the month of June, from a total of S$7.1 million in May to S$7.8 million (US$6.7 million). Among all such local sites, BigDeal.sg is the third biggest by revenue, trailing Groupon and Deal.com.sg.

These businesses are also finding ways to differentiate themselves from one another. StreetDeal.sg, for instance, is the first in Singapore to kickstart a Preferred Partners Program, which offers free business training to its merchants. Many deal aggregators have also popped up, and major players include AllDealsAsia, iLoveDeals.sg, and others.

Deal.com.sg has also recently upped the ante by launching their own smartphone app, although they lack location-based deals, as what Groupon, Chalkboard, and ShowNearby have done (the latter two are not Groupon clones, I must emphasize).

It’ll be interesting to watch how this space develops. More niche daily deals sites could spring up in Singapore, with a good example being Foodpon.sg, which as its name suggests, contains mainly food deals. In Malaysia, there is slosht, which is all about poppin’ bottles in the ice, like a blizzard. A rather bizarre example would be US-based Gaypon (sounds like… nevermind), which supports LGBT-friendly businesses.

In the meantime,  we’re trying to contact BigDeal.sg for comments about their big deal. More details as they’re available.

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The Netmagic Story – As It Happened [UnPluggd]

At the last UnPluggd event, we had Sharad Sanghi, founder & CEO of Netmagic sharing his entrepreneurial journey, talking about the role our tech-savvy government has played in the journey etc.

Watch the entire video – my fav line being ‘we need to grow at 2X of the rate at which our customers are growing’. This is specifically true for each and every startup in the country, owing to the global interest in Indian market.
That is, grow or go bust.

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HP Drops Out Of Top Three In China PC Market

According to the latest data by market research firm IDC, HP gripped a PC market share of only 8.5% in China and dropped out of the top three, down to fourth in rankings.

The IDC data shows that Lenovo topped the list with a market share of 31.7% while Acer and Dell comes in second and third with a market share of 10.9% ad 10.4% separately. Industry experts remarked that it would be not that easy for HP to compete with Lenovo, Acer and Dell if the company fails to boost its market share to above 10%.

Actually, HP ranked second in the first quarter of last year, but since then its sales decreased drastically and was overtaken by Acer and HP in the second quarter of 2010.

The worse thing is, the company’s recent announcement of PC business spinoff raised concerns over HP PC products’ quality and after-sale service amongst Chinese consumer, which will make the behemoth even harder to fight back to grab 10% of the market.

Last month, HP announced that it will discontinue its operations for webOS devices including the newly released TouchPad and any upcoming webOS phones. The company is also trying to spin off its PC division.

According to IDG, China has replaced U.S. as the largest PC market in the second quarter of this year with a sales volume of over 18.5 million, compared to 17.7 million in the U.S..

 

Related posts:

1. China Overtakes America to Become Largest PC Market in Q2
2. Lenovo Trying to Grip No.2 Position Worldwide
3. QQ Now Leads Group Buying Market with 10%, Lashou Drops to 10th Position

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