A Smarter Tamagotchi? Japan Turns your iPhone into a Robot Dog

An iPhone can be used for just about anything these days. But the folks over at Bandai have managed to turn Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iconic handset into something kids in your house will be sure to enjoy: A robotic dog.

Scheduled for release on April 28th, the Smartpet is a comprised of three parts. The robot body, your iPhone (or iPod Touch) for the head, and the Smartpet application which brings the pet to life on screen.

You can feed your new iDog treats from a menu, and it also appears to respond to calls and hand gestures.

Smartpet isn’t even out yet, but he’s wasting no time winning over the ladies. He has already made a guest appearance in this video from singer Meisa Kuroki, pictured right.

Bandai’s Smartpet comes in white or black, and the application features a number of different dog faces in case you get bored with one dog. You can find it over on Amazon for 6279 yen, but you’ll have to wait until the end of April to get it. The promo video below is in Japanese, but is a pretty fun demo to watch nonetheless.

[Via AppBank]

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Sell to Me: How Sina Users Feel About Enterprise Weibo Accounts

Thinking about setting up an enterprise weibo account for your company, business, or pyramid scheme? Sina has a whole report for you — which we’ve been dissecting bit by bit by bit — but this latest piece may be more to the point: do people really want to follow enterprise weibo accounts? And if so, what kind of people? Sina’s report includes the results of a survey that offer some answers to that question.

It’s not clear from Sina’s report how many weibo users were surveyed in total, or who did the surveying, so take these results with a grain of salt or two. Anyway, here’s what weibo users said when asked how they felt about being getting personalized recommendations of enterprise weibo accounts to follow:

Does this make you more or less likely to set up an enterprise Weibo account? I suppose it depends on your target demographic, but clearly Sina thinks you’re going to be impressed by this. We’ll have more from its weibo user survey in upcoming posts, so stay tuned!

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Why I left my job (for my own startup)

When you have just got married and dream of starting a new beautiful life, sane people will never think of leaving their job. Don’t you think so? And if they would, then it would be for better opportunities.
At least not for chasing a dream that only I can see. But then I didn’t get up one lovely morning and decide to quit. It took me close to two months to gather the balls to say that I quit. However the story that I am sharing here is why did I quit my job?

Lack of Respect

I have been a Business Analyst (BA) for last six years and in these five years the only time I loved working was in HSBC, UK and Blackrock, UK. My last employer was Oracle, Pune where I was recruited as a BA but if I look back I was turned into a tester. Let me tell you what was the reason if you aren’t aware of the same old story of IT industry in India. Most of the requirement gathering happens at the client location and the people sitting in onsite are also Indians but then they will treat you like as if you belong from lower caste. One mistake is highlighted as you are a born failure in life and they will forget the frequent late nights, the weekends and never saying no to work. So in a nutshell I was waste for them and for me every day pulling oneself to work was the painful thing. There was a time when I use to love leaving for office at 9 AM but that changed all. Never did a single requirement gathering but read the requirement documents created by onsite folks. Never was asked to join a product discussion but trained 3 batches of new joiners about the product. And in return I used to frequently get rewarded by a tag that I lack knowledge of the product. Isn’t that interesting? Oh by the way in India if you are a Business Analyst you also should know coding and technical things. Well sir did you describe that in job description? Anyway that was the story but you must be thinking then why didn’t I leave Oracle and join another firm.

In comes my Startup

Well people may ask if a blog Lighthouse Insights can be a startup? I think that it is a blog and a content providing platform too. LHI, as an idea when started had no shape. It was started for the pure love of writing and keeping myself busy. When I started it was never a blog that exclusively captured Indian social media news and insights. The blog was born during the time while I was working in Oracle. I started enjoying my writing, I forgot everything and I was taking the risk of doing all work sitting in Oracle office. Well I know it is unethical but I was selfish. I stopped smoking because I could work on my blog during that time, I stopped going for leisure walks after lunch, I stopped talking to my friends in office. In short it was all for LHI. However whenever I was given any work I did that and it was never sacrificed. This didn’t go well in the top level, as I was not showing interest. Why would I at a place where I had no respect, no opportunity? So life was tough juggling between my passion and money. But it didn’t last long. You must be thinking why not? I had passion, I had money and life was good.

The Final Chapter

Well life was not good. With every passing day I became more engrossed in LHI and I wanted to do more. I used to get frustrated and I still get when I am not able to write with free mind. Everyone at workplace knew what I was working on. You can’t hide things when your work is related to social media. And moreover I was not enjoying that I was working for myself and taking money from Oracle for nothing. I couldn’t take it anymore. But all these things were smaller in front of the fear that was growing in me. Fear and mental peace was the problem. I was not able to write because I was warned that I am spending too much time on Facebook. I was frightened to go to office thinking that it could be my last day and again I would be coined as a loser. So before the fear could kill me I thought of killing it and thanks to my co-founder, angel investor and my wife, I could gather strength in my balls.

15th December 2011 was the day when I walked into my manager’s cabin and said that I have finally made a decision to move on. With that I also made a bold statement that I am not joining any other company but I am joining my company

You must be thinking what I have achieved by becoming an Entrepreneur. I have achieved mental peace and the strength to chase my dream with full vigor. No I am not making the same money I use to but for me money is not important now. I think I am lucky to get an opportunity to chase my dream. Maybe I succeed or maybe I fail but that is not the primary thing. I want do something in my life for once, which I believe in as all my life I have followed a bandwagon. So here I am today chasing my dream with my wife.

If you are chasing any such dream or wish to do so, then would love to hear it.

[Guest author contributed by Prashant Naidu, cofounder of LightHouse Insights, a blog that covers social media space in India. Reproduced from his blog.]

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Startups for Women: More to Expect

When we talk about startups, we rarely take a look at the target users at the first place. Instead, we always place them the same way we deal with traditional industries: we look at the functions provided and divide them into different sectors: SNS, game, commerce, advertisement, media… For me, the business model on internet is simply two: either you sell products (virtual or real) directly to end-users who are willing to pay, or you sell advertisements because you covered a bunch of valuable users who may be willing to buy something because of the ads displayed. That’s what I try to argue here: the users you targeted might be more important than the initial product design or the functions offered at first. Women users, who have great purchase power and excellent curiosity for new internet products, are worth of more attention.

Let’s check some data before starting this topic:

1. Chinese consumers spend US$6 billion on online cosmetics shopping.
2. Among the consumers using mobile as shopping device for Taobao (Chinese ebay), over 50% are women. According to statistics by AppChina, female holders already amount to 53% of the total smart-phone owners. If we check out the quantity of smart-phones activated in China, we can safely estimate the number of female smart-phone users: over 29 million by the end of 2011.
3. Women love social and commerce online. Appdata shows over 97.9% pinterest fans who use facebook are women. For Gilt and Groupon, women users amount to 67% and 77%.

 

According to these data, women users have great purchase power, love social network plus e-commerce, and are better equipped with smart-phone devices than men. We may easily draw the conclusion that there will be plenty of internet products targeted on them? Well, there are some, but still with a lot to explore.

 

Existing tech startups focused on women in China:

1. Independent cloth and cosmetics brands:

Moonbasa(Cloth), AFU(Essential Oils), YuniFang(Masks)

They design and produce cloth or cosmetics with own brand, and adopt internet as the only or main sales channel.

2. Online store:

Jumei (Cosmetics Groupon), Myluxbox(Chinese Birchbox), Wowsai(Chinese Etsy), AG (Chinese Etsy for cloth only)

They skip the manufactory part, but offer an online distribution channel for brands and individuals.

3. Female SNS:

Meilishuo(means “beauty talk”), Mogujie(means “Mushroom Street), Duitang (means “sugar pile”).

The above three share similar product design with pinterest, and the first two focuse more on directing users to online purchasing.

Piaopiao(Quora for skin care), Buykee(Shopping taste test), Mamashai(SNS for new mums)

These webs try to create more contents by collecting related users.

4. New media

LC(online fashion magazine), Voguemate(outfit picture share, similar to WIWT)

These webs offer guide for young girls to dress up, with links to direct purchase.

 

This rough picture shows us some interesting points: 1. Many tech startups for women are still on web only. 2. Chinese tech startups available for women are still limited to certain categories or functions. Some photo-taking apps are popular among women users, but that’s usually what they end up with, not what they initially intended or designed to.

Why is that? I guess demographic might be the answer: Most tech startup founders, and venture capitalists are guys. It’s harder for them to pay attention to women’s market or design products to satisfy female’s needs naturally.

 

Here comes my personal opinion: Women users deserve more attention, especially on mobile apps, given their customer base, purchase power and internet using habits. We have already found “Etsy”, “Pinterest”, “my virtual boyfriend”, “What I wore Today”, “Joyus”, “Spanx”, “Foodspotting” and other innovative products targeting female users. There must be more to expect.

Related posts:

1. Next Mobile Monday Beijing, March 28: Zero Distance MWC2011 & SXSW
2. GMIC – The Money Side of Things
3. Xiaomi Phone Go on Sale 15th Oct

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Report: Nokia Lumia 800 for China Telecom Priced, Desperate to Succeed

We’re only two days away from Nokia’s (HEL:NOK1V; NYSE:NOK) desperately needed second-coming in China in which it will launch a couple of Microsoft WP7-powered phones. One news site, WPDang, has it on good authority that the Nokia Lumia 800 will be set at the official price of 3,699 RMB (US$585).

This pertains to the Lumia 800c model which is CDMA, and is therefore heading to China Telecom (NYSE:CHA; HKG:0728). And while that would make the phone 700 RMB ($111) cheaper than the telco’s iPhone 4S with a one-year contract (at the cheapest 3G package entry point), it’s worth remembering that the Nokia phone, for all its good looks, doesn’t have anywhere near as impressive a screen (just 800×480 pixels) as on the latest iPhone.

That 3,699 RMB price-point, while cheaper than some thought, makes the phone look pricey up against an Android-powered Samsung Galaxy SII. That device will probably follow in the tracks of the first iteration in being China’s most popular smartphone in terms of sales this year.

Still, at least it’ll be cheaper than the utterly pointless Meego-powered N9 (that sports the same form factor as this Lumia 800), which hit the market at nearly 5,000 RMB last autumn.

Nokia is holding a launch event in Beijing on Wednesday (the 28th), so we’ll soon enough find out what the price will be, and if it has any special Lumia app treats in store for Chinese consumers. Microsoft held its own WP7 launch event last week in which it emphasised that there are already 2,000 Chinese-made app for its mobile OS.

[Source: WPDang - article in Chinese]

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T-series partners with Youtube to hunt for Aashiqui2 lead pair

We totally agree with Google India that ‘It does not get bigger than this’, i.e. Youtube has partnered with Tseries to hunt for the lead pair for Aashiqui2, the sequel to 90s super hit movie, Aashiqui.

“It does not get bigger than this. Starting today – Vishesh Films and T-Series bring to you ‘Aashiqui 2 Star Hunt’ on YouTube. For the first time ever, the lead pair for a mainstream Bollywood film will be selected on YouTube. All you need to do is log on to:www.youtube.com/aashiqui2 and upload a 2 minute video from a list of scenes and songs on the Aashiqui 2 channel. Your audition videos will be screened by a Creative Jury, Producer/Director of the film and will subsequently go for Public Voting on the Aashiqui 2 channel.” [official blog]

Watch this video announcement

Online Video Trend in India

Very recently, Sony too announced the launch of MyIndianIdol.com enabling participants to upload their videos in order to audition for the reality show.

When it comes to consumption, India holds #3 position and  most of the video consumption in India happens from offices (read our earlier report: Online Video Consumption–India Holds the Number 3 Position Worldwide). But will Indians take the online route for content production? Initiatives like these will create a new generation of content producers that will embrace web for sharing the original content. Definitely, a good news for the Internet industry as a whole.

Aside, Youtube lost the IPL 5 deal to Indiatimes, i.e. Yyou can watch IPL5 online on Indiatimes this year.

Recommended Read: Youtube brings 19000+ Episodes of Indian Television Online [Smart Packaging]

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The “two speed” state of Indian market adoption

I have been watching / following 7 startups (3 in eCommerce, 2 in SaaS and 2 in consumer Internet) that target the Indian market over the last 14-18 months. All the entrepreneurs approached me with an intent to get seed funding so I had a chance to go over their traction, progress and future projections.

I have formulated a theory of market adoption of products / high technology products in India which I have tested with these and other companies and also with several venture investors.

For background please read “Diffusion of innovations” by Everett Rogers and Crossing the chasm by Geoffrey Moore. Don’t worry, I have only linked to their Wikipedia page, so it wont cost you anything.

At the top of the consumption (and monthly income) pyramid in India are what economists and marketing people call the SEC A and B class who have enough disposable income to spend on innovative new products. For the purposes of this blog post I am going to use 10 Mill (SEC A) + 20 Million (SEC B) households as the target.

The Innovators (less than 1 % of the population or 12 Million individuals) in India (entrepreneurs mostly) who conceive and develop these products for the Indian market and the early adopters (less than 5% of population or approx 60 Million individuals) together make up the entire “early adopter” category. Unfortunately less than 30% of them have both the interest, and the desire to be early adopters of technology.

Indian markets do not follow traditional diffusion characteristics when first innovators buy, then early adopters, then the early majority, and then the late majority and finally the laggards.

My theory on how diffusion of innovations works in the Indian context is as follows.

In India there are only 2 market adopters – those that are early and those that are not.

Abhijeet calls it the “low hanging fruit” and then everyone else.

So lets look at the implications of this observation / theory.

So what does that mean for entrepreneurs?

You will see a “headfake” of adoption and then a taper off.

E.g. The B2B SaaS company will quickly (within 3-6 months) get 10+ customers and over 30 in the pipeline, only to find the next 50 and the next 100 or the next 1000 are either non-existent or will come in 3-6 years.

E.g. The eCommerce company will see 1 -3 Million “registered” users and 1000?s of transactions within 12 months and find that the next 1000, 5000 and 10,000 transactions take 4-5 times as long.

E.g. You will see an initial 20,000 users for your mobile application for social TV extremely quick (within 3-6 months) and the next 50,000 or 100,000 take you the next 3-6 years.

I have seen these numbers play out again and again to know there are exceptions but those are rare.

These numbers are also dramatically different than those of companies targeting US or other markets.

When should you (as the entrepreneur) raise money?

You should raise it at the peak of inflated expectations. I.e. After you have some traction, which the investors think will be long lasting, steady and rapid. You will get the best valuation for the company at that time. Once your investor has some “skin in the game”, they are in to get their money back and then some, so they will do all it takes to make you successful.

What does this mean for investors?

The best time to invest is either very early (starting to build a company, idea and team stage) OR at the trough of disillusionment stage.

If they are early, you will get the bump from the initial adoption, so the value of the company increases many fold before the next round (which you should help the company raise at the peak of inflated expectations.

If you are post the trough, then you benefit from a growth stage.

What makes you go over the trough to the slope of enlightenment?

In my experience:

TIME

Nothing else.

You may think I am being facetious, but I am serious.

This may be a cultural thing, but in India, over time if you have the ability, patience and willingness to survive, you will reach the plateau of productivity.

Anecdotal evidence over several sales transactions also suggests to me that once people in India see you around for 2-3 years, they think “Okay, this company / person is for real. We should give her / the product a shot”.

Big thanks to Abhijeet and Shekhar for helping me with their data points to reinforce my theory.

[Guest article contributed by Mukund Mohan. Reproduced from his blog]

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