Indonesia Digest: Bandung Digital Valley launch, Tiket.com mobile site, and more

(1) Telkom Bandung Indonesia has officially launched the Bandung Digital Valley (BDV), which is located in the R & D Centre of PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom).

(2) Tiket.com has launched its mobile site for smartphones and tablet users, although it still lacks a more inclusive range of payment methods. Instead of providing mobile apps tailored for different kinds of mobile devices, Tiket has smartly chosen a mobile website catering to those looking to purchase movie tickets.

(3) Android market share has grown fivefold from the beginning of 2011 to reach 29% of total smartphone ownership by October 2011, claims Alven Desnecmen, head of Mobile Phone Marketing Department, Samsung Indonesia.

(4) The marketshare of iOS products in Indonesia is 10.06%. In Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, and Malaysia, iOS penetration reached more than 50%.

(5) Research in Motion and Indosat announced a collaboration that allows Indosat subscribers to purchase applications, themes, and games on the BlackBerry App World and pay for them through operator billing.

(6) Last month, Agate Studio held a press conference to officially launch two of their games, Smash Mania and Sexy Witch, both of which can be downloaded by Nokia phone owners on the Nokia Store.

(7) One of Indonesia’s biggest ecommerce sites, TokoBagus, recently revamp their website and even claimed better User Interface that got positive reviews from users. The revamp is based on feedback from 1.7 million members and 10 million monthly visitors, said the TokoBagus CEO.

(8) Similar to what Kaskus plans to do with its Forum Jual Beli, Female Daily intends to spin off its Market Plaza into a fully fledged e-commerce site.

(9) OngkosKirim is a price comparison service from various courier companies. It is a platform that provides integrated services for checking fares/tariffs, delivery status, and more from various Indonesian courier companies such as POS Indonesia, JNE, TIKI, Pahala, Wahana, etc.

(10) Gilkor can now assist you by finding discounts through various credit card providers. The web version of Gilkor has been available since the beginning of 2011, but recently they have launched their BlackBerry and Android applications.

This has been brought to you by SGE and DailySocial. DailySocial is a blog that covers the Indonesian tech startup scene. They publish in both Indonesian and English.

Thank you to nordicfactory for the flag image.

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When Founders Meet Investors…

We blog a lot. But most wouldn’t know that behind the scenes, we’re occasionally used as the Asian bridge to help entrepreneurs connect with investors (and vice versa). We love to help, because we think it’s good work.

We have looked at the community from a bird eye’s view, and we realized there aren’t many such opportunities in Singapore, and perhaps in most other parts of Asia, for investors and entrepreneurs to meet up. And when such meetings do take place, funding shouldn’t be the only point of interest. More importantly, it is an opportunity to get to know investors on a personal level which is perhaps more important for a long term sustainable partnership.

I don’t recall many opportunities in Singapore that focus on helping entrepreneurs to meet investors on personal level. So we thought it would be fun to set up a meetup session for entrepreneurs in Asia to meet up with investors also here in Asia. Our core team will also be down at Singapore to mingle with our readers and Startup Asia participants.

That founders and investors meetup will be held on February 4, 2012, after our Startup Asia Singapore conference. We just set it up barely just 24 hours ago for our overseas guests and have received over a hundred sign-ups so far. You can find out more information about the event over on the sign up page here. Only entrepreneurs and investors should sign up for this.

We also have a networking session with overseas guests on February 1, 2012. It’s a good opportunity for everyone to meet and chat on a personal level. Have fun, and may you find good opportunities in these two networking sessions.

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Best Dives Sites in World

Filitheyo Kandu is one of the best dive sites in world. Filitheyo Kandu is a hugely popular dive site in the Maldives, a channel spanning 2 kilometers which is comprised of 3 smaller dive sites; Filitheyo Outside, Filitheyo Thila and Dolphin Corner. The dive location Filitheyo Thila is a “U”-shaped reef, with the top ranging from 10m – 20m. This reef encapsulates a beautiful little sand valley; a popular spot for sting rays and large schools of fish. Around this thila you will also find numerous caves, a majority of them surpassing 20 meters in depth. Near the outside reef are two smaller reef outcrops, with a top depth at around 10 meters, and caves on the outside averaging around 20 meters. This particular area attracts a variety of exotic marine life, such as sharks, napoleon and eagle rays. For the more experienced scuba diver, there are further caves for exploration beyond the outside drop off point, starting below a whopping 30 meters. Filitheyo Outside This beautiful dive spot in the Maldives is formed like a protruding reef, gradually decreasing into the channel along a narrow ridge of about 20m width, to a depth of over 30 meters.

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Fuism – when I made the decision…

It’s not every day you see an internet meme spring out of boring, unartistic Singapore. In case you’ve been away from cyberspace for too long, get up to speed by first reading TODAYonline’s “Ministers’ pay-cut formula unveiled” and Yahoo’s “Singapore cuts PM pay but still world’s best paid”, then Member of Parliament Grace Fu’s Facebook response and finally New Nation’s Continue reading →

Related Posts

1. No longer a Goodyear for Temasek
2. s/pores: “Once Bonded”

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Breaking: Yatra acquires BuzzinTown

Travel portal Yatra has acquired BuzzinTown, event + entertainment guide portal (confirmed by Amitabh Saran, Founder & CEO of BuzzinTown)

BuzzinTown started as a ticketing site and partnered with event venues for ticketing service (the company also tested deals service). In terms of traction, BuzzinTown played the content game more than ticketing and was powering content for Yahoo’s Upcoming.org too.

Yatra earlier raised INR 200 Cr from Valiant Capital, Norwest Venture Partners and Intel Capital.

As far as acquisition is concerned (via), it could be a mix of traffic + user acquisition. We will update the post with more details as we get them, but if you are in the know of more information, do share.

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China’s Xiaomi Phone Gets Cloned, But Probably an Online Scam

It's a scam! The Dami phone spam ads that use photoshopped Xiaomi images.

The Chinese startup Xiaomi seems to have hit the big-time – it now has its own local clone. Or, rather, it appears to have a clone called Dami, but it’s likely just an online scam and should be avoided totally.

Promo images for the supposed ‘Dami phone’ are floating around the Chinese web, and are actually using pictures and graphics stolen from Xiaomi. All the scammers are doing is photoshopping the ‘Mi’ branding off of the Xiaomi phone, and changing the images’ logo a bit. Its probably non-existent phone claims all the same impressive specs as the Xiaomi phone, but the Dami price tag is just 1,699 RMB – a full 300 yuan cheaper than the original.

But, of course, this is a scam, so that’s 1,699 RMB that you might as well flush down the toilet – because what you’ll get in the mail from Dami – if they bother sending you anything at all; or perhaps a brick in your parcel – is some random shanzhai phone that’ll bear no aesthetic or technical resemblance to the Xiaomi M1 device.

As so often occurs with these scammers – there are lots of iPhone scam sites around as well – they’ll include one image of the genuine article in their spammy ads. In the case of the Dami, it’s this double screenshot of the web browser:

The only honest image in the whole Dami spam campaign is this lousy web browser which certainly isn't anything like the Android-powered Xiaomi.

That crappy thing isn’t the browser on the Android-powered MIUI phone, and looks more like the UI on some old JAVA OS phone. In fact, that’s probably what you’ll get in the mail – a sketchy old JAVA-powered thing with a flakey Android skin.

So, here’s the public service announcement in summary: the Dami, whatever it is and if it even truly exists at all, is a scam.

[Hat-tip to Sohu IT news for spotting this; all images from spam posted to various Chinese BBS]

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WorldCosplay: A Multi-lingual Cosplay Community for the World from Japan

Popular animation and vocaloid characters are a part of Japanese culture, and even outside of Japan cosplay is wildly popular. And a new website called WorldCosplay aims to capitalize on that popularity. It’s a multi-lingual cosplay community that allows users to submit their own cosplay pictures. The site is provided in 12 different languages including English, Spanish, French, Italian, Korean and more.

It was pre-launched [1] in late December, and since then it has attracted 8,500 registered users and there have been over 60,000 cosplay pictures submitted.

Currently in a beta phase, WorldCosplay is a sister site to Japan’s most popular cosplay community “Cure,” which has been active since 2001. As cosplay became a phenomenon not just amongst Japanese but all around the world, Cure opened an English website back in 2008.  The number of English-speaking registered users has exceeded 20,000, leading to the release of WorldCosplay.

User can create a WorldCosplay account using their Facebook or Twitter credentials. A user’s ranking is generated by the evaluation of submitted photos, motivating cosplayers to submit high quality photos. There are several ranking criteria such as User Ranking, Character Ranking, Title Ranking, and Tag Ranking. Not surprisingly, the most popular character on WorldCosplay is “Hatsune Miku” (featured in the most recent Google Chrome TV commercial in Japan).

So if you happen to be one of the many cosplayers out there, please check out WorldCosplay and let us know what you think!

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1. The company behind WorldCosplay is NHN Japan Corp. NHN just entered into a three-way administrative merger with its subsidiary companies Naver Japan and Livedoor. NHN runs online games and web services (search, media, social networks) from development to operation with more than 400 engineers and designers in-house.  ↩

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Comic Market Waiting-People Time-Lapse Video

Japanese discipline was showed after the Eastern Japan Disaster 3/11 last year. And it is not only at earthquake.

The video by a Nico Nico Douga user munyaka is a time-lapse animation on the third day morning of the massive self-publishers' comic conference Comic Market 81(Comike81), December 31, 2011.

The video started around 00:50, there were already some people lining up. Small red lights moving around are by Comike staff.

Around 5:30 a.m. (00:01:10 in the video), when the first trains were arriving (there are no owl trains in Japan), more and more people came and then Sun shine show up the whole battalion of people who aimed at purchasing popular comics as many as possible.

About 9:30 a.m. (00:02:05), the first group of the long line began to be guided by staff, to move into the convention centre. The more and more arriving people comes from upper-left of the frame.

The one re-uploaded on YouTube may be easier to watch as it does not have overlay Japanese comments (You may turn off the overlay comment by the right-bottom button on Nico Nico Douga embedded player). But this one does not clock, too.

via Hatena Bookmark

Comic Market Waiting-People Time-Lapse Video

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Chinese Net Security Expert: Don’t Trust Online Banking

A series of high-profile hacking incidents of late has tested Chinese net users’ trust in the safety of the online services they use. Thus far, online banking and financial information seem to have been largely untouched. But one Chinese security analyst suggests that online banking may not be any safer than other online activities.

Song Guoqin, the CEO of a major information security company in Guangdong, shocked reporters from the Guangzhou Daily when he told them that despite his security expertise — or perhaps because of it — he doesn’t use online banking or payment systems in China:

“I’m in [the] information security [industry] and I don’t have an internet banking account, I’ve never even applied for one. I’ve never paid for an item online or ordered one myself, I do all that via friends so I can stay away from that environment [...] In this industry, the more you understand, the more you worry about. It makes you behave cautiously.”

Mr. Song — who sounds like a terrible friend, putting his own buddies at risk so he can buy stuff online without exposing himself! — says the problem is that Chinese companies have come to the table late in terms of caring about information security. He notes that there are also regulatory differences between the way e-commerce in managed in China and abroad. Another big problem is just that the sheer number of Chinese net users — over 500 million now — makes any attempt at security more difficult.

Song also spoke about the need for stronger encryption and stronger passwords — if your password is six letters it does not cut it, period — to protect user data from hacking and ensure that even if some data is stolen, hackers aren’t able to view it because they aren’t able to decrypt it. Song suggests the government and police take the lead in guiding people how to be safe online, and noted the trend in real-name authentication as a possible step forward.

In any event, Song is just one man. But the fact that an internet security expert is afraid of online banking and payment systems in China might be enough to give some users pause before reaching for their online wallets on that next Taobao purchase. (We’re guessing probably not, though!)

[Guangzhou Daily via Sina Tech, image source]

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Wedding Planning Portal, BigIndianWedding Raises Funding

Wedding Planning Portal, BigIndianWedding has raised funding from privately held Indian business family. BigIndianwedding will use the funds to launch its e-commerce offering (to be launched on 10th January,2012).

We had a quick QnA with BigIndianWedding founder, Ashish Abrol on site’s current traction and future plans.

BigIndianwedding : Current traction

Ashish Abrol: In terms of the product, BigIndianwedding  offers online listings across 11 cities and 31 categories eg. wedding venues, wedding caterers, makeup artists, ghoriwala, etc. The site currently has 6100 listings and aims to increase to 10,000 listings over next few months. No of cities covered will increase to 15 from the current 11 in the same span of time. Currently, users can send queries directly to vendors and get price quotes. We have generated 123,723 business leads for our vendor partners since going live.

BIW : Is it a content or online services portal?

Ashish Abrol: BIW is also an online magazine for brides and grooms to be. They can come to BIW and read about the latest trends for brides and grooms. We have interviews with leading designers, jewellers, makeup artists, hairstylists, etc. Basically all the information you may need to plan that perfect wedding. We also provide articles on honeymoon destinations, bridal beauty, fitness, budget weddings, destination weddings, etc. 

Future plans?

Ashish Abrol: Our third offering is e-commerce which we are launching on 10th Jan, 2012. This will allow users to shop the latest wedding collections be it saris, salwar suits, honeymoon resort wear, gifting items or home furnishings for the couple’s new home. More services are in the offing over the next 6 months. 

The company has already secured partnership with over 25 suppliers so far and are adding more suppliers every week.  

Also see: ShadiMagic wants to be the marketplace for Wedding Related Services

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