Having launched Daum Mobage in Korea earlier this week, DeNA (TYO:2432) just announced that it will be bringing its social gaming platform to Huawei smartphones in China now too.
This means that the Chinese version of Mobage will now be listed in Huawei’s (SHE:002502) ‘HiSpace’ app store. There are also plans for a link to HiSpace’s list of Mobage games on Huawei smartphone homescreens. You can check out some of the screenshots below.
Readers may recall that this is not the first partnership that DeNA has made to push Mobage further in China. The Japanese social gaming giant has also partnered with Baidu and Alibaba Cloud Computing to bring Mobage to their respective mobile operating systems, and it struck a deal with social network Kaixin001 back in December.
According to the announcement, Huawei had shipped about seven million smartphones in China last year. The company is moving up quickly among the world’s top smartphone makers, along with domestic rival ZTE. It’s now gearing up for MWC 2012, where it is expected to unveil its MediaPad 10, which chairman Richard Yu says is the “most power tablet that ever existed.”
Founded in last April, China southeastern Fujian prov.-based MobileMomo (移动陌陌) is working on something quite different from – or even against last year’s social trends, namely LBS-empowered stranger-based social networking concept that powered lots of similar service in China like immomo.com, shanju.com and so forth.
How many Sina Weibo followers or retweeter you know in real life? Do you really know all those people who “liked” your Facebook updates? Not really. MobileMomo believes that social connections between real-life acquaintances is more valuable for being the “raw power” of social networking. As high as 82% of Facebook users only connected with people they knew in reality life, according to Huang Zhongyi, product designer of MobileMomo.
MobileMomo takes a light-weighted approach to mobile social networking in product design by leveraging 3G and your phone book. All your phone book contacts will beome your Momo friends automatically (privacy concern, though), and you can send text messages, files to and share location with contacts even though they have no MobileMOMO client installed in their phone. All the information will be showed on mobile browser. Message receiver could directly reply your text or download the file from the browser.
To put it simply, Qiyu is a location-based elastic social networking service aiming to help people in the same area get connected. The app also encourages uses to transform their connection from online to offline with real-life gatherings, using it is like get started with an adventurous journey, you never know what’s gonna happen next, said Gao Cao who designed the product.
Qiyu launched the first version in early last December, as of now the service has more than 60,000 users while more than 13% of them are in Taiwan, which according to Gao Cao is quite an interesting thing. One of the reason, Gao said that is because there’s nothing similar in Taiwan.
While the Internet is commonly being seen as distinct and separate from real life, that notion is increasingly being challenged. Augmented reality, as well as mobile commerce technologies like QR codes and NFC, are blurring the lines between the physical and virtual world, allowing consumers to transit seamlessly between both.
This trend is happening in the events space as well. Startups in Asia are at the frontier of this revolution, arming event organizers and participants with digital tools that enhance productivity and foster personal connections.
Here, we’ll look at just how these Singapore-based startups are shaping the way events are organized and merging them with the digital world.
Beepmo: A location-based professional social network for mobile
Billing itself a professional social network, this startup invites direct comparison with LinkedIn and BranchOut. Yet it isn’t the same.
Co-founded by Simon Lower and Mark White, Beepmo has developed a mobile app that enables event participants to easily find and connect with one another. It is now available on the iOS, and coming soon to Android and BlackBerry.
I do like a lot of what I’m see at Beepmo. I can post status updates, find people that are nearby and filter them out by certain characteristics. I can connect with people directly on the app, chat with them, and even add them on LinkedIn without launching the LinkedIn app, similar to Rapportive.
The ‘Ice Breaker’ feature stands out as one of my favorite features. This nifty tool allows me to see the common friends a person and I have on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Beepmo, and even the common interests we share, based on Facebook ‘likes’.
I also like that I can check out nearby industry-related event. Not only is it a great feature, it makes much sense business-wise, offering Beepmo a potential revenue stream.
It becomes not just a social network, but also a platform for organizations to promote their events, like what Bandwagon is doing for the music scene in Singapore.
Launched only this month, Beepmo has so far seen over 2,000 connections made across 70 industries in 26 cities.
The app is still in its early days, however, so a lot of features aren’t ready yet. The most glaring obmissions are the event-related tools, which according to Simon, are on the way.
As of now, while I am able to see the events around me, there’s no way I can ‘check-in’ at an event, or find out on a map how to get to the venue. I’m also curious to know if the app will offer a self-serve platform for organizers to create their own events.
Some minor gripes with the app: Curiously, I can’t respond to a friend’s status updates, and I can’t find a search function to invite people to join Beepmo from my list of contacts.
Noddon: Eliminating the need for physical namecards
While Beepmo has great all-around functionality, it doesn’t quite close the loop in digital professional matchmaking. There’s no way I can save the contact information of people I know on Beepmo into my mobile address book.
Noddon, however, promises to deliver a mobile app with this feature. The app will hopefully provide an efficient process for exchanging contacts — better than giving and receiving namecards, which I find anachronistic and cumbersome. Digging up that obscure namecard you need post-event is a nightmare, as I’ve learnt.
Even while writing this article, I realized that I needed to contact somebody for information. Unfortunately, I left his namecard at home, along with his mobile number. Sure, apps that scans namecards do exist, I find that they’re inaccurate.
Noddon’s co-founders, Jackie Lam and Kelvin Koh, have sent their app to the Apple App Store, but they’re still seeking approval. They’re also developing versions for Android and the web.
Nonetheless, from what we know so far, noddon will enable users to discover one another at conferences and meetings, exchange contact information, and automatically update a contact’s particulars when changes are made. This is achieved by syncing the app with the mobile phone’s address book.
Like Beepmo, Noddon will only be useful only if more people use it, so it remains to be seen what user adoption strategy it has.
Until we try out the app ourselves, we can only show you this video, which illustrates what it’s about:
Pigeonhole Live: An easy way to ask and moderate questions during live Q&A sessions
This startup fulfills a different need: It provides an easy way for an audience at a live Q&A session to ask and rate questions.
Here’s how it works: A password will be publicized online for users to access the Pigeonhole Live web app before the actual event, where they can ‘up’ or ‘down’ vote any question they want. Fellow attendees can continue to vote and ask questions before and during the event.
Organizers have the option of getting the top questions displayed on a projector screen as the Q&A session begins. Questions will move in real-time according to how the audience votes — popular ones will shift to the top while unpopular queries will disappear out of sight.
Co-founders Lyon Lim and Joon Yeng Hew have been off to a blazing start. Not exactly strangers to the tech scene in Asia, their startup has already been featured in many publications (including ours). Companies and organizations like Canon, P&G, A*STAR, and Nanyang Technological University have used this app.
And most recently, they’re seeing action on a couple of programs on Channel News Asia: Talking Point – The Vote, and Bridging Asia — The Singapore Debates.
One limitation they face is that Pigeonhole Live personnel must be present at every event that is running their system. This restricts the number of markets they can reach out to. However, they will soon be launching a self-serve platform that would enable anyone around the world to use Pigeonhole Live.
If user adoption picks up, 2012 would be a very eventful year for the company.
How PigeonHole Live works:
Check in next week for more startups that are rocking the events space. If you know of more startups in Southeast Asia related to event publicity, organizing of events and so on, drop us a note below and we’ll be sure to check them out.
The TSF Shell launcher app, which will launch next week on February 29th.
An amazing 3D homescreen interface experience is about to hit Android phones, and it’s thanks to a team of Chinese engineers who call themselves The Special Forces (TSF). The crew’s upcoming first app is, essentially, a third-party launcher app that gives Android users a new way to interact with their phones.
From the demo video (embedded below), the UI is certainly something to look forward to. The main feature of TSF Shell Pro – which is the launcher app’s name, which will launch in the Android Market on February 29th – is the great customizability of your screens. It adds all kinds of new gestures apart from the usual tap, long-touch, or zoom: it has double touch for making multiple selections, a lasso-like action for moving stuff, fast and fluid screen-switching, advanced menus, the ability to rotate app icons, and even to randomly organize the icons and stuff them into box-like folders on your screen.
TSF Shell features animated special effects. Click to enlarge.
Lots of extra 3D widgets are built into its launcher app – for notes, weather, music – and all featuring a uniquely interactive and animated style. Other interesting creations include a a pop-up menu, lots of lovely props for theming your homescreens, special effects such as icons splashing in a sea (pictured right; plus there’s a video showing that graphic effect on Youku), and even icons on fire which you can use just for fun. After the app’s launch, users can download new widgets, themes and other gizmos from the upcoming TSF in-app store.
The Shenzhen-based TSF crew describes themselves as “passionate about creating new computer graphics display effects as well as innovative and practical human-computer interaction modes.” TSF says it uses a custom-built “C3D engine” in its Shell Pro launcher to enable all this extra action on your regular Android phone, and that the aim of it all is to make the mobile user-experience more fluid, so that you can fling things around just as you would with papers or physical objects.
It’s not yet clear what are the performance requirements for a phone to be able to use this app. There are a lot of other launcher apps on the Market, but most of them are just about theming (such as Launcher Pro, or other Chinese-made ones such as Go Launcher EX, or QQ Launcher) and don’t have such a remarkably different user-interface.
So, if you want a new homescreen experience for your Android phone, check back on the TSF homepage or the Android Market on ‘leap day,’ February 29th.
Here’s the team’s own demo video (or mobile readers can go watch on YouTube, or Youku):
This Friday, Singapore Polytechnic will hold their 55@SP again, this time with the theme: Making Money Startup Essentials and Funding. During the session, experts who discuss about entrepreneurship and funding. Topics to be discussed include: Available government grants for entrepreneurs and different types of them for startups for their business will be few among questions what being discussed.
Event Details
When: Friday, 24th February 2012
Time: 55pm-830pm
Where: InnoVillage Event Space 1, Singapore Polytechnic
Any enquiries can be directed to anniesung@sp.edu.sg
Starting their Founder Drinks for 2012, E27 will bring Christoph Zrenner of Wildfire (see SGE’s articles on the company). Cristoph will talk about how he raised the first round of investment for Wildfire, how startups can better use word-of-mouth marketing and also understand social media in order to effectively grow their user base.
Event Details
When: Thursday, 23rd February 2012
Time: 630pm-9pm
Where: Suffle Bistro Bar, Blk 3D River Valley Road #02-03, Clarke Quay, Singapore 179023 (Map) Register here.
Ecommerce logistics service, Chhotu has secured funding from Global Super Angels, an angel network founded by Rajesh Sawhney and members include Sasha Mirchandani, Naveen Tewari, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Dinesh Agarwal, Deep Kalra etc.
Chhotu (or Santa Claus Couriers) is a last mile delivery solution targeting the niche eCommerce logistics space. The startup claims to keep costs and delivery returns low due to effective use of technology. The return rate in their case is about 1.5% for all reasons of failure.
Post funding, Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Dinesh Agarwal will join the company’s board as director and board observer, respectively, reports Vccircle.
. What is it that you think the regular courier guys are doing wrong and how do you make it better?
Regular guys are doing business in a traditional way in which they are suppose to “just make the delivery” and get paid for it. We see our relationship with E-Commerce companies as partners and we act as an “extension of their sales channel”.
We align our revenue model to E-Commerce revenue model. In around 99% of cases, we charge our partner when he is making a sale. In other words, we empathize when a sale is lost on CoD. That is one example of alignment. Second thing I would say is responsiveness. We are working with technology companies where things are suppose to be very responsive, be it their website, customer support or shipment. Other players lack this which makes the whole shipping experience painful for shipper and shippee (if that is a real word). Our technology is very focused on collaboration. Simply put, three parties involved in a process needs to have a predictable streamlined communication medium. Chhotu relies on technology for this. Despite we are small today, our technology is evolving around that philosophy which is really working.
Phones. Lots of people are using them. (via New York Times)
Everyone knows China’s GDP has been climbing at a pretty astonishing rate for some time now. But the telecommunications industry is growing too, and at a conference today MIIT chief engineer Wang Xiujun announced that for the first time ever, telecom industry growth outpaced GDP growth in 2011 in China.
The overall telecom industry growth was 10 percent, Wang reported, and revenues rose 15.5 percent over the previous year for a total of over 11 trillion RMB ($1.7 trillion).
Some other impressive stats Wang shared about China’s telecom industry as of the end of 2011:
China has 1.27 billion phone users.
China has 986 million mobile phone users.
China has 128 million 3G users.
China has 156 million broadband subscribers, 84 percent of which have at least 2 Mb/sec connections.
China has 513 million total net users.
China has 13.5 million IPTV users.
China has 59 million people watching video on their phones.
Impressed yet? If not, 2012 should bring further improvements. Wang said goals include better broadband penetration, three-network (phone, internet, TV) integration, and just generally making things better. Here’s hoping they’ll get to work on the abysmally slow internet.
Sameer is partner at August Capital Partners, a VC fund focused on early stage consumer products and services businesses. You can follow him on Twitter @sameernarula.
From IFC's 'Ease of Doing Business' survey
Founded in the 14th century as Sinhapura, by King Parameswara and turned into a major trading center, in the 1800’s by Sir Raffles – Singapore has been at the crossroads of global commerce and culture for centuries. My earliest memories of the city are from the late 1980s. The nation was in its baby boomer days, young citizens were moving into HBDs high-rise towers, gleaming new infrastructure in places like Sentosa was being built, and there was a general sense of optimism in Singapore’s young population about what their country could become.
Almost a quarter of a century later, I am happy to see that Singapore has been one of the developmental success stories of our region. Singaporeans have shown the world what a small multi-ethnic island without any natural resources or military prowess can achieve through just human endeavor and visionary leadership.
I believe that the country now stands at an important juncture in its story. It could, like parts of the west, walk into the sunset with its aging population, or it could leverage the physical, social and economic infrastructure it has built, and become a symbol of economic hope for a new, confident and resurgent Asia.
The convergence of opportunities
The Economist recently wrote about how our world is increasingly divided into three socio- cultural spheres of influence [1], the Anglosphere, the Indosphere and the Sinosphere. The article quotes a study by Pankaj Ghemawat, ‘Why the world isn’t flat,’ [2] that two countries which share a common language trade 42 percent more with each other than two otherwise identical countries that lack that bond and countries with former imperial ties trade an astounding 188 percent more often. The article ends with a reminder on the enduring ties of tribes and how this will continue to shape the cultural and economic future of our globalized world in this new ‘Asian century.’
Along with its administrative advantages, Singapore’s unique cultural, linguistic and historic linkage to all three of these spheres is creating a situation where the country now offers some of the same ingredients that made cities like London, New York, Bombay and Shanghai great economic centers in the past.
I believe that the current environment in Singapore makes it inevitable that more than a few great global businesses will emerge from here in the coming years. Whether “natives” or immigrants start all of these is a moot point.
On a recent visit, I had the opportunity to attend Startup Asia, a regional summit for startups in Singapore and the ASEAN region. The international nature of the entrepreneurial ecosystem was evident from the various companies I came across, with Indian, Malay, Japanese, Indonesian, American etc entrepreneurs or key team members.
Based on the 25+ companies I met while in Singapore, the strong Web 2.0 bias of purely Singaporean teams seemed evident. On the other hand, more international teams seemed to have a greater depth of focus on addressing regional and global consumer opportunities within healthcare, security, education and environmental technology. This is hardly surprising. In a country with the cleanest air in Asia, negligibly low crime rates and radio taxis that arrive within minutes, there don’t seem to be many visible problems to solve. When there is a cross-pollination of ideas from around the region, a more robust and interesting business focus seems to emerge within the company.
In addition to government investment programs like SPRING Seeds, IDA’s Infocomm fund and numerous incubators, there seems to be an active Angel, VC and PE investor ecosystem in the country. These investors are increasingly investing in local start-ups to target regional and international markets. LPs seem to be supporting this trend eyeing cleaner corporate governance and greater exit potential of portfolio companies based out of Singapore.
On the talent front, competitive salaries ensure that graduates from respected local institutes like SMU, NUS, NTU are joined by top graduates from India and Australia. The protracted slow-down in western markets, Chinese political challenges and Indian uncertainty also seems to be accelerating the brain-gain [3] into Singapore. On this one trip alone, I met at least four seasoned entrepreneurs who were relocating into Singapore from the west to take advantage of the Asian markets.
A few hurdles to overcome
As is usually the case, all this has come at some cost. From an increasing disparity among its ethnicities, an often over-bearing government and recent distaste for skilled immigration, the city-state has some tough issues to address. Add to this its aging population and rising regional competition from cities like Shanghai and Dubai, success is not as imminent as it once seemed.
The recent push back on immigration and PR approvals [4] for qualified foreign nationals from certain countries has created uncertainty and risks upsetting the momentum that has been built up over the last decade. The last thing Singapore needs at this point is to catch the west’s economic malaise by restricting investors and entrepreneurs who want to build global businesses in the country.
Singapore’s tryst with destiny
As greater affluence and economic integration makes political divisions less relevant, Singapore has the opportunity to become a major center of entrepreneurial activity in Asia. Its efficient administration, cutting-edge infrastructure and access to international multi-lingual talent make it a safe-haven for entrepreneurs, from which to build regional and global businesses.
The IFC’s annual ‘Ease of doing business survey’ consistently ranks Singapore at the top [5]. According to Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Mr. Teo Chee Hean, 5000+ new tech enterprises have been registered in Singapore every year since 2006 [6]. He also shared that 61 percent of all enterprises survive for more than three years. These are impressive credentials!
It is often said that chaos breeds creativity. Asia as a whole should be a hotbed of creativity – and it is. However, a factor that is often ignored is that unsupported creativity often leads to failure. Creativity needs nurturing and support to turn it into something tangible.
At the confluence of three powerful socio-economic spheres, Singapore seems to offer the perfect environment for great ideas to convert into great businesses. It remains to be seen if this small island will seize a historic opportunity and position itself as a crucible of great ideas and businesses.
This Friday, 
Starting their Founder Drinks for 2012, 
angel network founded by Rajesh Sawhney and members include Sasha Mirchandani, Naveen Tewari, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Dinesh Agarwal, Deep Kalra etc.
