TechNode Ideas MeshUp Workshop, Saturday May 5th: Create a Mobile App to Make Life Easier in China

Sometimes while walking around Beijing on a nice sunny day, a bright startup idea pops into our minds. We then start to think how cool it would be, what it would look like, how much money you could make and if you could be the next Instagram that sells to a Facebook for $1 Billion! But after some time, the idea starts to fade and eventually it amounts to lost brain energy and potentially a future “I thought of that!” moment.

But what if there was a forum or workshop to share these ideas, bounce them around with like minded entrepreneurs’ and see how far you can take it into reality? That’s why instead of hosting another keynote speech/panel discussion we are experimenting with a workshop called ‘Ideas MeshUp Workshop’.

 

Held at Big Bang Café in Guomao, a start-up co-working space, the day will run like this. Firstly, Peng Ong, Partner of GSR Ventures and former serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Match.com and Interwoven (NASDAQ:IWOV) will give short presentation about his journey as an entrepreneur. Then it’s time for the fun to begin, with the interactive workshop. Participants will split into small groups and start to share and brainstorm a new concept for a mobile app that will make life easier in China. It could be anything! During the thinking time, Peng and the TechNode team will mingle and give feedback. At the conclusion of the brainstorming session, teams will be required to present their idea and explain what problem they are trying to solve, how the mobile app would work and what it looks like. Peng will then judge who he deems has the best concept to turn into reality and giver general feedback.

The goal of the day is not to create or build a working demo, but instead come with a solid idea which can then be studied more closely or taken to another event like Startup Weekend to actually build a demo version of it. The workshop is important because, sometimes ideas in isolation die too quickly. If you have had an idea for a while and just need to shape and sharpen it more in a fun way, this workshop is for you.

Here are the details:

Date: Saturday May 5^th

Time: 1:30-5PM

Location: Big Bang Café (Near the CBD Cultural Sports Square, CBD Jian Wai Soho, 39 East Third Ring Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing)

Cost: 100 RMB (online pre-registration) or 150 RMB at the door – both types are paid at the door in cash and includes snacks and drinks

Register here

Related posts:

1. TechNode is Now On Flipboard! Check it Out!
2. Why We Created ChinaBang – To Encourage True Innovation in China
3. [CHINABANG] TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld Opens ChinaBang Day 2

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Experience HTML5 on Metro – 10 May

HTML5 is here, and with it, web applications take on power, ease, scalability, and responsiveness like never before. HTML5 on Metro lets developers learn how to use HTML5 tools to build Windows 8 applications with unparalleled functionality, speed, and responsiveness.

Featuring Giorgio Sardo: Giorgio is a popular speaker worldwide and in the last 5 years he has presented at many conferences about HTML5, the Web and Mobile Platform. He is the mind behind many beautiful HTML5 applications and games at beautyoftheweb.com and Cut the Rope for IE.

Agenda:

930 AM Registration and Breakfast
10 AM Behind the Scenes of Cut The Rope IE
11 AM Getting started with Window 8 Metro Apps
12 PM Lunch
1 PM Metro for HTML/JS Developers
2 PM Responsive App Design with CSS3
3 PM Break
330 PM Client + Cloud integration with Azure

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Event Details

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When: Thursday 10th May, 2012
Time: 9.30AM – 4.30PM
Where: Level 7, NTUC Auditorium, One Marina Boulevard, Singapore 018989

Register here.

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Mana Rapid Transit is an app that lets you report train breakdowns in Singapore

Don't get the reference? Ask around.

Recently, Singaporeans have been getting hot and bothered by the rapid succession of train breakdowns on their once faultless Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (SMRT) system.

Ever since the two major disruptions last year, which has led to the resignation of SMRT CEO Saw Phaik Hwa, the problems have not ceased. In fact, it has almost become a way of life for commuters.

Now, there’s even an iPhone app, called Mana Rapid Transit, that uses crowdsourced data to inform you where and when a train breakdown is happening, or how crowded a train service is. Mana is ‘where’ in Malay, and I guess the app’s name is meant to sound more like a question, as in, “Where got Rapid Transit?”

That’s Singlish for “Our Rapid Transit network isn’t what it used to be”, in case you’re wondering.

As you can probably tell by the name, the app is entirely tongue-in-cheek, made to be useful and at the same time poke fun at the broken public transport network system. It is created by the folks at Singapore-based Buuuk, a mobile app development company that has created apps for the Straits Times, Maybank, and many other clients.

I’m not sure how practical the app is though. Sure, the app allows you to report on train breakdowns and gauge how crowded it is, as well as tell from one glance what others are reporting. But I’m not sure if there are enough responses to make this feature useful:

 

It did, however, send me a push notification about the breakdown of one of the Light Rapid Transit lines yesterday. So I might keep it just for that feature.

But the app did give me a laugh or two. Look out for a surprise guest appearance by Phua Chu Kang, a well-known comedic character from Singapore.

Should you download this app? Hell yeah, if only for its mild entertainment value.

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Former Australian PM Kevin Rudd Joins Sina Weibo

Over the past few weeks we have noted how more individuals and companies are flocking to Chinese microblogs in an effort to reach out to Chinese people. The premier of Victoria Australia Ted Baillieu as well as opposition leader Daniel Andrews both took to Sina Weibo last month to reach Chinese speakers in their city. And now former Australian prime minister and foreign minister Kevin Rudd, who actually speaks Mandarin Chinese, has finally jumped on Weibo as well.

For Rudd’s first tweet, he sent a short thank you note to CCTV International host Rui Chenggang:

@ruichenggang hello. Thanks for encouraging me to start using weibo! I hope to have many opportunities to chat with my Chinese friends. Lao Lu.

He also noted that he hasn’t used Chinese characters in a long time, and when noting that his characters are like a five year old, he used the wrong character for ‘five.’ The error was quickly corrected by his followers, but many reacted that the mistake was ‘cute.’ Rudd then said perhaps his writing is closer to that of a four year-old. Indeed it’s this kind of genuine interaction that’s likely to win him an even greater number of admirers.

So far Rudd has over 116,000 followers since joining back on April 18th. His approach certainly contrasts with that of London mayor Boris Johnson, whose own weibo blunders we wrote about last week.

As we recently noted, Chinese is reportedly soon going to overtake English as the dominant language on the web, so expect more high-profile people and brands [1] to use weibo as a means to reach out to this portion of the web.

[Via Sydney Morning Herald]

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1. Social data platform Gnip tells us that their clients are demanding data from Sina Weibo specifically, a strong indication how important the platform is for companies outside of China.  ↩

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Meeting Startup Founders in Depok, Indonesia

Last Saturday, a couple of us headed south of Jakarta to visit the city of Depok, which takes about an hour to two to reach by car from the heart of the capital. Why Depok? We had already heard so much about it and just had to see things for ourselves. In short, the startup scene here is small but is pretty active and encouraging.

We had lunch with the good folks from Teknojurnal (thanks Firman and Putra) before meeting with about 30 founders and developers. It was very educational for us, and most of the founders we met were involved with mobile-based game development studios, but there are others who are working on e-commerce and social networking related products. I’m sure there are many more amazing Depok-based startups which we haven’t met as well.

The core group of entrepreneurs are mainly from the University of Indonesia, which is one of the best schools in the country. The startup scene here is vibrant but small, according to many of the local entrepreneurs. But it’s growing and many hope Depok could be something like Bandung, where the Bandung Institute of Technology and the Foweb Community are located. The city also has a community called Depok Mobi, which holds monthly meet ups focusing on mobile technologies.

Many founders say are seeing more graduates from the University of Indonesia stepping out to create their own companies. Mega Denditya, a recent graduate of that school and the co-founder of Chocoarts is only 20 years old this year. The other founders mostly fall between the ages of 20 to 25.

I came to understand that most game developers are building content for the Symbian mobile operating system. Nokia handsets are still the mainstream mobile device used by Indonesians. Nokia has been active engaging with developers in Depok. There were some, like Tempa Labs, who build games and host them on mig33. Android and iOS developers aren’t the mainstream although most claim that they know how to build apps for the two platforms.

Capital is scarce in Depok. Most developers have to do contractual work for other companies while building their own product to sustain the startup’s financial health. A fun fact that I learned was that Chocoarts, a company which we featured a couple of months ago, is likely the first startup from Depok to have raised funding. The founder, Mega, though happy to be the first, is very focused on getting his games built and launched.

All in all, the startup scene here is still very much in a growing stage. I mean, this isn’t news anymore. Most of parts of Asia are still in the infant stage when it comes to startup culture. But the energy feels right at Depok. I can’t comment too much as everything above is merely what I have learned thus far. Our conversation with the community at Depok will continue, and we’ve promised to pay them a visit again next month.

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Rocket Internet takes on IKEA with Home24 in Malaysia and Singapore

IKEA is perhaps the most well-known furniture company in the world. They’re recognized for cutting-edge innovation too, even coming up with their own smart TV.

But if they’re not careful, they may find their market share eroded by Home24, Rocket Internet’s online furniture store that debuted in Germany and France and is set to launch in Singapore and Malaysia.

While the websites in those two countries are not up yet, they have already begun establishing their social media presence. The Home24 Malaysia Facebook Page and Pinterest profile are already posting updates about home furnishing ideas, while the Home24 Singapore Twitter and Pinterest profiles are also up and running.

Their Pinterest Boards are worth highlighting: They’ve already posted over 400 furnishing items like plates, beds, and cushions.

Right now, Rocket Internet is in the midst of hiring staff for their Southeast Asia operations, judging from this job posting for a logistics manager, as well as others.

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DropMyEmail.com growing faster than Dropbox, Fab.com, Pinterest and Twitter

Growth chart Photo:DropMyEmail

DropMyEmail.com has seen growth faster than Dropbox, Fab.com, Pintrest and twitter did when they were at a similar stage.

The service, which allows users to backup their online emails to the cloud has announced user numbers of 525,000, “only 50 days after starting operations. The company began the freemium service on 1 March, 2012. Within days, the coveted hockey stick growth kicked in; the company has been adding close to 15,000 new users per day since” according to their press release.

The company has since raised funding from Crystal Horse Investments and other unnamed angels and is currently looking to raise a US $10 million round.

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DropMyEmail.com growing faster than Dropbox, Fab.com, Pinterest and Twitter

Growth chart Photo:DropMyEmail

DropMyEmail.com has seen growth faster than Dropbox, Fab.com, Pintrest and twitter did when they were at a similar stage.

The service, which allows users to backup their online emails to the cloud has announced user numbers of 525,000, “only 50 days after starting operations. The company began the freemium service on 1 March, 2012. Within days, the coveted hockey stick growth kicked in; the company has been adding close to 15,000 new users per day since” according to their press release.

The company has since raised funding from Crystal Horse Investments and other unnamed angels and is currently looking to raise a US $10 million round.

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Thoughts on the Vietnam Tech Scene

I spent 3 days in Saigon earlier this week, 1 of which was spent attending e27′s Vietnam Echelon 2012 satellite event. I’ve always wanted to visit the country since our fund started investing from May 2010 on, but was unable to tear myself away from other priorities until now. I’m glad I was able to [...]
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Japan’s Web News Week 16

This week’s Japanese Web/IT related news which we did not write as a dedicated article.

Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated.

• Tohoku Websites For Foreign Travellers Are Lots Of Machine-Translated Mistakes – There were no budget for translations so that some company voluntarily worked on it with machine translation without human check.
• Twitter’s #FlywithTwitter Event Report, Q&A Session With Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, He Mentioned Castle In The Sky Twitter Fever, Dick Costolo Tokyo Speech on Japan Times [En]
• Tokyo Metro Employee Stalks A Lady Via Pasmo E-Card, also uploaded her transfer history on 2-channel. He was fired. Pasmo security trouble I wrote on The Japan Times, though this stalker is an employee and employees are still possible to browse anyone’s history.
• Zaku Tofu, Tofu Package Themed By Enemy Robots From Popular Animation Gundam [En]

  

  I saw this tofu sold at a suparmarket in my town.

• Social Game Provider Klab Establishes US Branch In San Francisco
• Asahi Reports Amazon Japan Gets 40 Publishers From Middle-to-Small, soon later 2 Of 3 Mid-sized Publishers Scooped By Asahi Denied, The Other Says No Comment
• 100face – iPhone App To Change Your Face Photo Into Art
• KDDI’s Concept Smartphone Comes With An Analog Clock

  

  ha!

• Naver Japan’s VoIP App LINE Passes 30 Million Downloads, 13 Million in Japan.
• D2C Mobile Usage Research – Smartphone User Reaches 1/4 in Japan
• Nike Free Face Campaign [En]
• A Man Scribbled Porn Site URL Over 500 Public Toilets Arrested – He earned some money from affiliate programs. He was planning to do that at 2,600 WC in 36 prefectures.
• Swedish Facebook Giftcard Service Wrapp To Start Japanese Localization [En]

If you want to know any specific news more, but unable to find them in other English blog/media, please let us know.

Japan’s Web News Week 16

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I will manually add 1000+ R E A L followers in 5 days or less for $10

During 10 days I will add 1000+ followers to your twitter account. When adding I will look for followers who are REAL HUMANS (not bots or or real looking followers) and active in tweeting.To do this I would need your username and password. I promise not to use your account for anything else except for adding new followers.Upon delivery you can change your password if you want. I will provide you screenshots when starting and after closing order. Details

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7 Asian Startups That Caught Our Eye This Week

In the last seven days, we have covered a couple of startups on Tech in Asia, specifically from Indonesia, China, and Singapore.

For folks who are interested in investing or partnering with these startups, drop us an email — editors[at]techinasia[dot]com – anytime. No promises, but we’ll try our best to be the bridge.

And if you’re a tech startup based in Asia hoping to get featured, please send us your pitch here.

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1. Yotomo | Indonesia

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Founded in April 2011, Yotomo is a location-based social network similar to Foursquare, Bouncity, or Koprol. It’s a clone but with some localized distinctions, or as the team notes, “Innovation within local context.”

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2. MadeiraCloud | China

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MadeiraCloud is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) venture and has a great concept of managing your cloud architecture the way you design it – diagrammatically.

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3. Mogujie | China

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Mogujie revealed to be earning over 100,000 RMB ($15,900) per day in ad referral clicks to Taobao, China’s largest e-commerce site. Mogujie.com, according to its own stats, has quickly grown to have 9.5 million registered users by the end of last month.

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4. Touchten | Indonesia

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Indonesia-based game development startup, Touchten, has partnered with music label Aquarius Musikindo to jointly launch TouchJam, a web-based rhythmic game that challenges gamers to match a sequence of notes onscreen using the A-S-D-J-K-L keys on the keyboard.

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5. PicMix | Indonesia

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PicMix has reached 1 million users within the last two months, which the founder says puts it on a pace faster than Instagram in its early days.

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6. Kaskus | Indonesia

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Kaskus is a familiar and admired internet brand in Indonesia. Behind this giant internet company is an inspiring story of hard-working entrepreneurs building an internet startup back in their college days.

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7. DropMyEmail | Singapore

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Just 50 days into launching the Dropmyemail service for email cloud backup and migration, the Singapore-based startup has announced its 525,000th user, averaging the addition of 10,500 new users per day.

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Related stories

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• Green Tech Startups in Indonesia in Focus as IVAP Picks 2 Winners
• Local Heroes and Speakers at Startup Asia Jakarta
• A Visit to CyberAgent Ventures’ Startup Base Camp
• Passion or Money First?
• 10 Things Chinese Startups Can Learn from Facebook

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8 Must-Read Tech Stories in China This Week

This week’s China tech scene saw a high-profile e-commerce failure, an upstart social commerce success, some free wifi news, and a fascinating infographic on the rise of the Chinese language on the web. And, as ever, there were more mysteries and shenanigans on Sina Weibo, the country’s hottest Twitter-like site.

1. Rakuten to close its China e-commerce venture with Baidu

In a major embarrassment to Chinese search engine Baidu, its joint-venture e-commerce effort with Japan’s Rakuten has officially failed. It has been announced that the ‘Lekutian’ site will be shuttered in a few days’ time.

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2. Mogujie: China’s biggest Pinterest clone is a social commerce money machine

The Chinese startup Mogujie this week claimed that its users are making 60,000 purchases every single day on the e-commerce site Taobao.

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3. The average Chinese smartphone user makes $12,698 per year

Some interesting insights from a new ProsperChina survey on China’s “middle-income” iPhone buyers.

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4. Free wi-fi coming to Beijing buses

Who here likes good news? Everyone? Good news, everyone! You’ll soon be able to access free wi-fi on Beijing’s city buses, presuming your arms aren’t pinned to your sides.

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5. Rumor: Baidu in talks with Foxconn, perhaps for a Baidu-branded smartphone

Getting back on the subject of Baidu, we heard that it’s tapping Foxconn, the OEM assemblers of the iPad and hundreds of other gadgets, to make a Baidu-branded phone that’s almost certainly running its Android-based ‘Yi’ OS.

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6. Did Sina just introduce – and then kill – an anonymous news reporting platform

Chinese authorities are not fans of real-time info or activism, so it was a surprise when Sina seemed to launch a platform for citizen journalists that had both those qualities. But the plot thickened when the new service very quickly vanished, likely never to be seen again.

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7. Why I think ‘real name’ registration hasn’t really affected Sina Weibo

After jokingly writing much of the impending Weipocalypse when ‘real name’ sign-up became mandatory on Chinese microblogs like Sina Weibo, we decided to track the popularity of trending topics over the course of two months – and made some surprising discoveries.

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8. 24% of web content is now in Chinese, will soon surpass English [Infographic]

A new infographic shows that Chinese will soon overtake English as the dominant language online. But, despite that, the web is still too monolingual.

That’s all for this week, folks! For our full, all-you-can-eat banquet of China coverage, you can click here or subscribe to our China RSS.

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Indian District Court restrains Google from sharing a users Gmail password

In an interesting twist of events, Indian district court (Vishakapatnam) has restrained Google from complying with a subpoena issued by the Superior Court of California, which ordered Google to share the password of the Gmail account belonging to an Indian citizen residing in Vishakhapatnam.

As per this blog:

“The Indian citizen, Mr. Kopisetty Sreeramulu, represented by M/s Badrinath & Madanmohan, informed the District Court that he had received an email, on 14th March, 2012, from google-legal-support@google.com informing him that they would share the information in his gmail.com account, in pursuance to a subpoena from the Superior Court of California unless he could produce an order quashing the subpoena. Mr. Sreeramulu, a freelance IT professional, who provides services to U.S. based companies, does not appear to be a party to the litigation before the Superior Court of California. The litigation before the California court pertains to a dispute between two other parties and it appears that Mr. Sreeramulu, or rather his gmail.com account, was in possession of certain documents or information which was vital to the litigation before the California court. Discovery of evidence under American laws is quite strict and applicable against even third parties who may possess evidence vital to litigation between other parties. “
(link to warrant of summons).

Interesting that the American court has directly asked Google to share the plaintiff’s password and did not channel it through the Indian government. In such cases, where there is no geographical ownership of content (and user id/password/server etc), is Google right in sharing Gmail password?

OR

Is Indian government right in asking companies like Google, Yahoo etc to move their servers to India (and Indian user data to servers in India), in order to manage such cases effectively?

As per Google’s T&C:

The laws of California, U.S.A., excluding California’s conflict of laws rules, will apply to any disputes arising out of or relating to these terms or the Services. All claims arising out of or relating to these terms or the Services will be litigated exclusively in the federal or state courts of Santa Clara County, California, USA, and you and Google consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts.

So, can an Indian court challenge this?

Recommended Read: Facebook India says its not responsible for user generated content on the site, Facebook.com | Google’s First Implementation of Country Specific Censorship : Blogspot Redirected to Blogspot.in in India

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