One Tap Hero: A Chinese Dev Studio’s Exciting Experiment in One Tap Gameplay

Here’s a surprisingly fun iOS game from the folks at Chinese game development studio Coconut Island. It’s called One Tap Hero. I think many of us, myself included, when we look at China-made games, there’s an instinct to figure out which western game it has copied from. In this case, I don’t find any obvious answer, but I’m finding elements of Angry Birds, Scribblenauts, Super Mario all rolled up into a fun little package.

But as the title suggests, the most interesting feature of this game is the simplified controls. Your hero is indeed manipulated with just one tap, which could be anywhere on your screen. I always thought that perhaps a virtualized d-pad and on-screen buttons would be a good way to proceed in mobile gaming, but I keep finding this to not be the case – most recently fumbling with the controls for EA’s Madden 12 for iPad. The folks from Coconut Island tell me:

So with this control design we could not only win back the hardcore gamers who hate using d-pad on iPhone to play platformer but also attract the casual players who don’t like to play platformers because of its complicated control.

And the folks at Coconut Island have made sure you can do a lot with a single tap. Your hero is constantly in a state of motion, and invariably is turned back from the boundaries of the playing area by bouncy green arrows [1]. But with a single tap you make him jump (high or low depending on how long you hold your tap), or you can make him climb a ladder. The playing field also contains objects like springs, portals, and levers which you can use to move your hero.

The object of the game is to collect three stars and rescue your girl, who – as I understand, from the intro cartoon – has been kidnapped by a witch and turned into a bear. If you finish a round by collecting three stars, then she magically transforms back into a girl. In the same way that you want to finish a round with three stars in Angry Birds, the same concept applies in One Tap Hero.

And similar to Super Mario, there are coins that you can collect along the way too. You can use these to purchase items in the game for your hero, the first one being a fig leaf to conceal his nakedness. You can also purchase items in the game using real money as well.

Overall, I’m really enjoying this game so far. And while there are certainly many elements borrowed from other iconic games, I think One Tap Hero has built upon these in a way that works, incorporating an original one-tap game control that works very well on mobile.

If you’re looking for a new title to play on your iPad, you can pick it up over on the app store for 99 cents. You can get a preview of the gameplay in the trailer below.

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1. Pictures the way shelled turtles bounce back and forth infinitely between two pipes. It’s a little like that, but a bit slower.  ↩

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2 out of 3 adults are victims of cybercrime

2012 Norton Study: Consumer cybercrime cost Singapore US$944 million. Cost per victim goes up, with social and mobile incidents on the rise.

A study released by Norton reveals shocking findings. The study also known as Norton Cybercrime Report 2012, is aimed at understanding how cybercrime affects consumers. In Singapore, it is estimated that more than 1.4 million people have fallen victim to cybercrime in the past twelve months, suffering approximately US$944 million in direct financial losses.

Last month, Symantec announced the opening of their Security Response Center in Singapore to better identify Internet security threats.

The scale of consumer cybercrime

Norton Cybercrime report 2012 reveals that globally, there are 556 million consumer cybercrime victims per year. That is more than 1.5 million victims per day, or 18 victims per second. Two out of three online adults have also been victims of cybercrime in their lifetime.

In Singapore, consumer cybercrime victims are as high as 1.4million victims per year. That also equates to 3800 victims per day or 3 victims per minute. Out of 10 online adults, 7 of them have been victims.

Changing face of cybercrime

Another significant finding of the report is that increasingly, cybercrime is going social and mobile rather then just relying on phishing attacks through emails. Just when we thought social and mobile is the buzzword for startups nowadays, cybercrime is also picking up the trend.

In Singapore, four out of five adults use a mobile device to access the Internet. This opens up a whole new channel for cybercrime attacks. 31 percent of mobile users in Singapore have received a text message from someone they did not know requesting that they click on an embedded link or dial an unknown number to retrieve a “voicemail”. Little did they know, that it is a malware or mobile virus which can give cybercriminal access to sensitive mobile information.

70 percent of adults do not use a security solution for their mobile device, and up to 43 percent are not aware that security solutions for mobile devices do exist.

What can be done?

Norton was kind enough to share some general tips and best practices for online users.

Consumers should check our credit card and bank statements regularly for fraudulent transactions. If you think your personal or financial information might have been accessed by a cybercriminal, you should immediately change them.

As email is a potential gateway for criminals looking for personal and corporate information, strong email passwords is still key in preventing cybercrime. Creating complex passwords that are hard to guess which includes a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols would help a lot in warding off cybercriminals.

Read the full press release below.

 

Press Release

****

Singapore – Sept. 6, 2012 – Norton by Symantec today released the findings of its annual Norton Cybercrime Report, one of the world’s largest consumer cybercrime studies. The study is aimed at understanding how cybercrime affects consumers, and how the adoption and evolution of new technologies impacts people’s security. With findings based on self-reported experiences of more than 13,000 adults across 24 countries, the 2012 edition of the Norton Cybercrime Report calculates the direct costs associated with global consumer cybercrime at US $110 billion over the past twelve months. In Singapore, it is estimated that more than 1.4 million people fell victim to cybercrime in the past twelve months, suffering approximately US $944 million in direct financial losses.

According to the Norton Cybercrime Report 2012, 72 percent of Singaporean online adults have been a victim of cybercrime in their lifetime, a decrease of 8 percent compared to 2011. In the past 12 months 48 percent of online adults in Singapore have experienced cybercrime, (3,800 victims of cybercrime every day, and 3 victims per minute) and the average direct financial cost per victim is US $657.

Globally, every second, 18 adults become a victim of cybercrime, resulting in more than one-and-a-half million cybercrime victims each day. With losses totaling a global average of US$197 per victim across the world in direct financial costs, in the past twelve months, an estimated 556 million adults across the world experienced cybercrime, more than 100 times the total population in Singapore. This figure represents 46 percent of online adults who have been victims of cybercrime in the past twelve months, on par with the findings from 2011 (45 percent).

Changing Face of Cybercrime

This year’s survey shows an increase in “new” forms of cybercrime compared to last year, such as those found on social networks or mobile devices7 – a sign that cybercriminals are starting to focus their efforts on these increasingly popular platforms.

In Singapore, one in five online adults (20 percent) has been a victim of either social or mobile cybercrime, and 36 percent of social network users have been victims of social cybercrime, specifically:

- 12 percent of social network users reported someone had hacked into their profile and pretended to be them.

- 12 percent of social network users said they’d fallen victim to a scam or fake link on social network platforms.

- While 80 percent believe that cybercriminals are setting their sights on social networks, less than half (46 percent) actually use a security solution which protects them from social network
threats and only 55 percent use the privacy settings to control what information they share, and with whom.

- Nearly one-third (31 percent) of mobile users received a text message from someone they didn’t know requesting that they click on an embedded link or dial an unknown number to retrieve a
“voicemail”.

“Cybercriminals are changing their tactics to target fast growing mobile platforms and social networks where consumers are less aware of security risks,” says Effendy Ibrahim, Internet Safety Advocate & Director, Asia, Norton by Symantec. “This mirrors what we saw in this year’s Symantec Internet Security Threat Report which reported nearly twice the mobile vulnerabilities in 2011 from the year before.”

The 2012 Norton Cybercrime Report also reveals that most Internet users take the basic steps to protect themselves and their personal information – such as deleting suspicious emails and being careful with their personal details online. However, other core precautions are being ignored: 41 percent don’t use complex passwords or change their passwords frequently and more than a third (40 percent) do not check for the padlock symbol in the browser before entering sensitive personal information, such as banking details, online.

In addition, this year’s report also indicates that many online adults are unaware as to how some of the most common forms of cybercrime have evolved over the years and thus have a difficult time recognizing how malware, such as viruses, act on their computer. In fact, 36 percent of adults do not know that malware can operate in a discreet fashion, making it hard to know if a computer has been compromised, and more than half (65 percent) are not certain that their computer is currently clean and free of viruses.

“Malware and viruses used to wreak obvious havoc on your computer,” Ibrahim continues. “You’d get a blue screen, or your computer would crash, alerting you to an infection. But cybercriminals’ methods have evolved; they want to avoid detection as long as possible. This year’s results show that nearly half of Internet users believe that unless their computer crashes or malfunctions, they’re not 100 percent sure they’ve fallen victim to such an attack.”

Strong Email Passwords Still Key

Two in five (40 percent) online adults in Singapore report having been notified to change their password for a compromised email account. With people sending, receiving, and storing everything from personal photos (54 percent) to work-related correspondence and documents (52 percent) to bank statements (32 percent) and passwords for other online accounts (23 percent), those email accounts can be a potential gateway for criminals looking for personal and corporate information.

“Personal email accounts often contain the keys to your online kingdom. Not only can criminals gain access to everything in your inbox, they can also reset your passwords for any other online site you may use by clicking the ‘forgot your password’ link, intercepting those emails and effectively locking you out of your own accounts,” says Ibrahim. “Protect your email accordingly by using complex passwords and changing them regularly.”

For more findings from the Norton Cybercrime Report globally and by country, please visit:

http://www.norton.com/2012cybercrimereport

###
About Norton

Norton protects the Stuff that matters to consumers, across all aspects of their digital lives. Norton provides a range of security solutions including technologies for PCs and mobile devices, live tech support services and online backup. Like Norton on Facebook.

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2 out of 3 adults are victims of cybercrime

2012 Norton Study: Consumer cybercrime cost Singapore US$944 million. Cost per victim goes up, with social and mobile incidents on the rise.

A study released by Norton reveals shocking findings. The study also known as Norton Cybercrime Report 2012, is aimed at understanding how cybercrime affects consumers. In Singapore, it is estimated that more than 1.4 million people have fallen victim to cybercrime in the past twelve months, suffering approximately US$944 million in direct financial losses.

Last month, Symantec announced the opening of their Security Response Center in Singapore to better identify Internet security threats.

The scale of consumer cybercrime

Norton Cybercrime report 2012 reveals that globally, there are 556 million consumer cybercrime victims per year. That is more than 1.5 million victims per day, or 18 victims per second. Two out of three online adults have also been victims of cybercrime in their lifetime.

In Singapore, consumer cybercrime victims are as high as 1.4million victims per year. That also equates to 3800 victims per day or 3 victims per minute. Out of 10 online adults, 7 of them have been victims.

Changing face of cybercrime

Another significant finding of the report is that increasingly, cybercrime is going social and mobile rather then just relying on phishing attacks through emails. Just when we thought social and mobile is the buzzword for startups nowadays, cybercrime is also picking up the trend.

In Singapore, four out of five adults use a mobile device to access the Internet. This opens up a whole new channel for cybercrime attacks. 31 percent of mobile users in Singapore have received a text message from someone they did not know requesting that they click on an embedded link or dial an unknown number to retrieve a “voicemail”. Little did they know, that it is a malware or mobile virus which can give cybercriminal access to sensitive mobile information.

70 percent of adults do not use a security solution for their mobile device, and up to 43 percent are not aware that security solutions for mobile devices do exist.

What can be done?

Norton was kind enough to share some general tips and best practices for online users.

Consumers should check our credit card and bank statements regularly for fraudulent transactions. If you think your personal or financial information might have been accessed by a cybercriminal, you should immediately change them.

As email is a potential gateway for criminals looking for personal and corporate information, strong email passwords is still key in preventing cybercrime. Creating complex passwords that are hard to guess which includes a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols would help a lot in warding off cybercriminals.

Read the full press release below.

 

Press Release

****

Singapore – Sept. 6, 2012 – Norton by Symantec today released the findings of its annual Norton Cybercrime Report, one of the world’s largest consumer cybercrime studies. The study is aimed at understanding how cybercrime affects consumers, and how the adoption and evolution of new technologies impacts people’s security. With findings based on self-reported experiences of more than 13,000 adults across 24 countries, the 2012 edition of the Norton Cybercrime Report calculates the direct costs associated with global consumer cybercrime at US $110 billion over the past twelve months. In Singapore, it is estimated that more than 1.4 million people fell victim to cybercrime in the past twelve months, suffering approximately US $944 million in direct financial losses.

According to the Norton Cybercrime Report 2012, 72 percent of Singaporean online adults have been a victim of cybercrime in their lifetime, a decrease of 8 percent compared to 2011. In the past 12 months 48 percent of online adults in Singapore have experienced cybercrime, (3,800 victims of cybercrime every day, and 3 victims per minute) and the average direct financial cost per victim is US $657.

Globally, every second, 18 adults become a victim of cybercrime, resulting in more than one-and-a-half million cybercrime victims each day. With losses totaling a global average of US$197 per victim across the world in direct financial costs, in the past twelve months, an estimated 556 million adults across the world experienced cybercrime, more than 100 times the total population in Singapore. This figure represents 46 percent of online adults who have been victims of cybercrime in the past twelve months, on par with the findings from 2011 (45 percent).

Changing Face of Cybercrime

This year’s survey shows an increase in “new” forms of cybercrime compared to last year, such as those found on social networks or mobile devices7 – a sign that cybercriminals are starting to focus their efforts on these increasingly popular platforms.

In Singapore, one in five online adults (20 percent) has been a victim of either social or mobile cybercrime, and 36 percent of social network users have been victims of social cybercrime, specifically:

- 12 percent of social network users reported someone had hacked into their profile and pretended to be them.

- 12 percent of social network users said they’d fallen victim to a scam or fake link on social network platforms.

- While 80 percent believe that cybercriminals are setting their sights on social networks, less than half (46 percent) actually use a security solution which protects them from social network
threats and only 55 percent use the privacy settings to control what information they share, and with whom.

- Nearly one-third (31 percent) of mobile users received a text message from someone they didn’t know requesting that they click on an embedded link or dial an unknown number to retrieve a
“voicemail”.

“Cybercriminals are changing their tactics to target fast growing mobile platforms and social networks where consumers are less aware of security risks,” says Effendy Ibrahim, Internet Safety Advocate & Director, Asia, Norton by Symantec. “This mirrors what we saw in this year’s Symantec Internet Security Threat Report which reported nearly twice the mobile vulnerabilities in 2011 from the year before.”

The 2012 Norton Cybercrime Report also reveals that most Internet users take the basic steps to protect themselves and their personal information – such as deleting suspicious emails and being careful with their personal details online. However, other core precautions are being ignored: 41 percent don’t use complex passwords or change their passwords frequently and more than a third (40 percent) do not check for the padlock symbol in the browser before entering sensitive personal information, such as banking details, online.

In addition, this year’s report also indicates that many online adults are unaware as to how some of the most common forms of cybercrime have evolved over the years and thus have a difficult time recognizing how malware, such as viruses, act on their computer. In fact, 36 percent of adults do not know that malware can operate in a discreet fashion, making it hard to know if a computer has been compromised, and more than half (65 percent) are not certain that their computer is currently clean and free of viruses.

“Malware and viruses used to wreak obvious havoc on your computer,” Ibrahim continues. “You’d get a blue screen, or your computer would crash, alerting you to an infection. But cybercriminals’ methods have evolved; they want to avoid detection as long as possible. This year’s results show that nearly half of Internet users believe that unless their computer crashes or malfunctions, they’re not 100 percent sure they’ve fallen victim to such an attack.”

Strong Email Passwords Still Key

Two in five (40 percent) online adults in Singapore report having been notified to change their password for a compromised email account. With people sending, receiving, and storing everything from personal photos (54 percent) to work-related correspondence and documents (52 percent) to bank statements (32 percent) and passwords for other online accounts (23 percent), those email accounts can be a potential gateway for criminals looking for personal and corporate information.

“Personal email accounts often contain the keys to your online kingdom. Not only can criminals gain access to everything in your inbox, they can also reset your passwords for any other online site you may use by clicking the ‘forgot your password’ link, intercepting those emails and effectively locking you out of your own accounts,” says Ibrahim. “Protect your email accordingly by using complex passwords and changing them regularly.”

For more findings from the Norton Cybercrime Report globally and by country, please visit:

http://www.norton.com/2012cybercrimereport

###
About Norton

Norton protects the Stuff that matters to consumers, across all aspects of their digital lives. Norton provides a range of security solutions including technologies for PCs and mobile devices, live tech support services and online backup. Like Norton on Facebook.

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Ecommerce Marketplaces in India : Its Crawford Market Vs Bigbazaar

Indian e-commerce is changing. And is changing fast. Though not new to India, a different approach called the marketplace model in industry parlance is gaining traction. In India, since mid 2011, at least half a dozen online marketplaces including Shopclues, Ladyblush, SellonSnapDeal and Nethaat.com have been launched and it is rumored that biggies like Flipkart and Jabong are planning to launch marketplaces.

Online marketplaces are similar to offline mandis. While companies like Flipkart and Amazon are online equivalents brick and mortar supermarkets like Bigbazaar or Spar, online marketplaces are like the Crawford market in Mumbai or Russel Market in Bangalore (bit more organised perhaps). In the mandi model, people who own the marketplace do not keep any inventory but let their premises be used by third party vendors. In the online world, the marketplace takes care of the marketing, logistics, customer support and payment while sellers take care of manufacturing  inventory online.

The marketplace model, pioneered by companies like eBay India is likely to be adopted by Rocket Internet backed Jabong.com, according to industry sources. If sources are to be believed, Flipkart is also thinking of launching a marketplace model. This is a big shift from the traditional approach Indian startups and businesses have taken to e-commerce as opposed to the inventory model which was in fashion until recently.

Global success of marketplace model

The model has been highly successful globally. Except Amazon in US, in most other countries, a marketplace model has ultimately become the market leader. For example, Taobao in China, Mercado Libre in Latin America, Gmarket in South Korea. As of now, each of these newly launched marketplaces target a different audience.  For instance, Shopclues sell everything that is allowed to be sold online and can be practically shipped, whereas, Ladyblush is a marketplace exclusively for women. On other hand, Nethaat connects sellers and buyers of handicrafts, designer handmade items and eco-friendly products.

Who else is joining the league?

Joining the marketplace league almost a fortnight back, Snapdeal launched a platform Sellonsnapdeal that enables small and local businesses to leverage Snapdeal’s 17 million registered consumer base. In September 2010, Tradus, a sister concern of ibibo (MIH) had entered into marketplace space. In July, 2011 Tradus moved from .in to .com for better recognition as an online company.
Recently, Buytheprice repositioned itself as a marketplace from etailing, and when asked the thought-process behind marketplace approach, Ranjith Boyanapalli, founder, Buytheprice answers “It is much easier for a marketplace to move into horizontal than an etailer. Given the electronics only focus we had, we realized that we are missing out on a huge opportunity when there is consumer appetite for other categories”.

Why marketplace?

So, why have founders of these companies chosen the marketplace model over other formats of e-commerce? In fact, most of these companies see the marketplace as a platform solving the e-commerce pain points in India with minimal investments.
In their view, an inventory model (which e-tailers follow) gets more complex as the business scales and as one introduces new product categories. Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, ShopClues says, “Given, how fragmented Indian retail is, how challenging it is to hold inventory, almost impossible to predict the consumer demand at stock unit level. A marketplace is the right answer to this peculiar structure of India’s e-commerce industry”.
Although, the marketplace as a model is difficult to start but over time, it is easy to ramp up and scale. “It is highly scaleable once you are able to fine-tune the processes and put right systems in place to be able to maintain marketplace hygiene” says, Rahul Sethi, co-founder, Ladyblush. In addition to that, Nethaat believes, in India the marketplace model can be a successful venture in almost any product type. With so many sellers having their businesses offline, they can use the marketplace to sell their wares online.

Boyanapalli of Buytheprice points out that the capital needs for etailing are way high over the marketplace model, and it might further extend the timeline for operational breakeven. According to Boyanapalli, marketplace model helps for quicker launch of new categories and greater customer engagement as when you are able to sell more of what consumer uses, you are increasing the engagement levels.

Margins are higher, burn rate lower

Unlike etailing where gross margin vary from 15 to 30 percent depending on category, marketplace model usually charge nearly 10 percent as selling fee. While etailer usually makes net profit of around 5-7 percent after incurring expenses such as logistics, payment gateway etc., marketplace manages net profit anywhere between 3-5 percent. Although, Buytheprice did not disclose the exact shift in revenue post marketplace model as they moved to this space very recently. But Ranjith says that the trend is certainly positive.
“Buytheprice in electronics etailing was just positive at unit economics, but now the marketplace is able to generate cash. I expect to see a 2% to 5% jump in revenues purely due to shift of the model” adds Ranjith.

Growing growing

Online marketplaces seem to be growing well too. Shopclues had become available in beta in January this year and within 7 months of its public debut it comfortably falls in top 10 e-commerce sites if we go by Alexa ranking. Currently it ships around 2500-2700 orders everyday. Over 2,500 merchants who have signed-up with ShopClues since its launch.
Launched in February this year, Ladyblush initially started with categories such as cosmetics, lingerie and sarees; it has forayed into clothing, home decor , kitchen and toiletries. The marketplace is growing 60 to 80 % month on month across categories with lingerie leading the show, says Sethi.

At present, Ladyblush has more than 120 sellers from across the country. One of the strong focuses at Ladyblush has been unit economics as Sethi says “We ensure that we make money on every transaction that we do. Our gross margins are healthy considering that we focus on fashion and lifestyle category, marketplace as the model, private labels – smaller and lesser known brands as the sellers”.
Sandeep Komaravelly, VP (Marketing), Snapdeal did not reveal the numbers of sellers currently active on Sellonsnapdeal. “We have launched this platform two weeks back and at this stage it would be premature to make any comment”, mentions Sandeep.

Sethi of Ladyblush says that the company wants to grow slowly but steadily. “Our target is to surpass run-rate of Rs 1crore a month by the end of this financial year”. Meanwhile, Shopclues is confident that it will “become the first ecommerce Company in India to achieve profitability,” by the fourth quarter of 2013. It is also under the belief that it will have the largest catalogue of products for any e-commerce company in India by mid next year. With most of the system and services in place, Nethaat intends to put its efforts into increasing the product range, market the brand more aggressively and generate  consumer confidence.

Opportunity ahead

With verticalization of marketplaces, are there enough opportunities to accommodate existing as well as new players? The answer is probably yes, as this model has been only evangelized by few players and we do not think that an inventory led ecommerce business model can offer product selection and price advantage to customers similar to a marketplace.
As e-tail stores rely heavily on capital, debuts of more marketplaces could be well expected. However, the road for creating marketplace is not all smooth and it poses dependency on every aspects of business on third parties or outsourcing right from supply chains to payment and logistics. Out of which cracking supply chain is most complex and this is where Flipkart can score over other players as it  has been ramping up its own supply chain processes.

eBay India was one of the first to pioneer the marketplace model. Currently, it boasts over 4 million registered users including 30,000 sellers every year. Ebay India gets approximately 80 % of its business by selling new fixed price products such as camera, mobiles, laptops and flat panel televisions. However, it is trying hard to move consumers towards high margin categories like apparels rather than electronic, gadgets and books.

We do not know which of these models will ultimately triumph in India, but the jury is out and many e-tailers are on a very short leash.

What are your thoughts?

[Image credit: drewwith/Flickr]

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China’s Taobao Agrees with Movie Studios Reps to Better Tackle Piracy

Back in December of last year, we reported that China’s top online storefront, Taobao.com, was still blacklisted on an official US directory of piracy-tainted sites. But today the company behind Taobao, Alibaba Group, has done something about it, and has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Motion Picture Association (MPA), a group affiliated with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), to try stamp out movie piracy in the popular shopping service.

Clearly designed to stem the selling of fake DVDs on Taobao – a C2C site made up of tens of thousands of amateur virtual shopkeepers – the MOU will involve, says the e-commerce firm, “The adoption of more transparent criteria to address recalcitrant sellers of goods copyright owners have identified as infringing.”

So there won’t be any dramatic crushing of a mountain of fake DVDs by several bulldozers (which is fun to see), but there will be tougher monitoring of Taobao shopkeepers. The MPA represents studios such as Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal, Walt Disney, Warner Bros – pretty much the lot.

This morning’s announcement explains:

Taobao.com also agreed to work with MPA to efficiently and effectively identify and remove listings of MPA’s member company products that they have identified as counterfeit or otherwise infringing, and to jointly work with law enforcement to pursue serial offenders.

That’ll likely extend to fake merchandise and general misuse of copyrighted names, as well as actual DVDs.

Mike Ellis, president of MPA Asia Pacific, added:

In the past year, both MPA and Taobao.com have been engaged in discussions to address the availability of infringing content on Taobao’s online marketplace. This MOU is a very significant step in promoting the legitimate sale and distribution of audio-visual content on the Internet. We are very confident of seeing positive and immediate results arising from this initiative.

Now, MPA guy, can we have a discussion about making genuine DVDs a sane price so that piracy is not such an attractive solution for people? No? Hmmmkay.

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AngelPrime launches Ezetap, India’s Square [Mobile PoS]

AngelPrime, a incubator started by Bala Parthasarathy, Shripati Acharya and Sanjay Swamy has launched Ezetap, a mobile POS Company. Ezetap allows feature phones, smart-phones and tablets to be converted into full-fledged Point of Sale terminals by the addition of a secure, yet compact accessory – the Ezetap Card-Reader – which has been designed and manufactured in India. Ezetap is co-founded by former Oracle and NGPAY executive & Harvard MBA, Abhijit Bose who is the CEO and Intel veteran Bhaktha Kesavachar, CTO; AngelPrime’s Managing Partner and payments industry veteran, Sanjay Swamy is the Chairman.

The Ezetap service complies with all global banking industry best practices, and allows merchants of all sizes to benefit from a substantially lower cost solution that integrates with their business processes and allows them to accept credit/debit card payments at the point of transaction – whether in-store, on the road, or at the customer’s doorstep.

The service works with feature phones such as Nokia S40, as well as Android, Windows Mobile and Apple iOS platforms, and has already been piloted by leading merchants and is being offered by leading merchant acquiring banks in India. By electronically capturing signature, the service has eliminated the need for paper receipts – making for a customer-friendly and environmentally-friendly service.

The company has been running pilot with ecommerce companies and the company has designed and developed the entire hardware and software technology stack in India. The team claims that service can be launched by banks in 2-3 weeks and by merchants in a matter of minutes.

A big market – Ezetap can be the next big thing helping Ecommerce companies solve their CoD woes (by PoD, i.e. Payment on Delivery).

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Rohan Mahadevan appointed as new vice president for PayPal Asia

Rohan Mahadevan is the new vice president for PayPal Asia and has plans to lead the company for more growth while pushing PayPal to greater heights.

Rohan is replacing former vice president, Rupert Keeley to oversee PayPal Asia and is currently based in Singapore. Rohan has various plans to elevate PayPal Asia towards explosive growth of e-commerce and m-commerce across all Asian markets. Having been with PayPal since 2004 under various leadership roles, he previously held dual roles of vice president of Global Cross Border Trade and vice president of Latin America. He accomplished many successful deals prior to his current appointment, thus lifting PayPal to a whole new level.

Rupert Keeley commented, “I am delighted to welcome Rohan as our new Asia head as he brings exceptional leadership skills and a proven track record in building payment businesses in some of the world’s most dynamic economie. Rohan’s deep knowledge of PayPal’s products and capabilities will be invaluable as we deliver on our vision to enable secure payments anytime, anywhere and any way for millions of Asian consumers through PayPal’s innovative online and mobile commerce services.”

According to Rohan, “I’m excited to take on this new role in Asia as we build up our business in many of the largest commerce markets in the world – from Japan to Greater China to India to Southeast Asia – and localise our global payment capabilities to address the different and unique needs of our merchants and consumers across Asia. Beyond enabling cross-border trade for local merchants to sell globally and for local consumers to buy securely from overseas, we have a golden opportunity to bring more payment innovation to the region and transform commerce in the large and accelerating Asian consumer markets.”

Possessing an impressive educational background, Mr. Mahadevan holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the California Institute of Technology, a PhD from Harvard University in the field of astrophysics, and was a post-doctoral scientist at Cambridge University, England.

Read the full press release below

 

Press Release

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September 3, 2012, Singapore – PayPal today announced the appointment of Rohan Mahadevan as PayPal’s new vice president for Asia effective immediately and reporting to Rupert Keeley who has recently taken up a broader leadership role as PayPal’s senior vice president of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia Pacific. Based in Singapore, Mr. Mahadevan will provide strategic direction for the company’s fastest-growing region and will be responsible for increasing the company’s presence and capabilities to capitalize on the explosive growth of e-commerce and m-commerce across all Asian markets.

Mr. Mahadevan has been with PayPal since 2004 in various leadership roles. Prior to his current position, he held the dual roles of vice president of Global Cross Border Trade and vice president of Latin America. As VP of Global Cross Border Trade, he was responsible for defining and executing PayPal’s cross-border strategy to enable 113 million PayPal users to conveniently and safely purchase from international merchants in 190 markets. As VP of Latin America, he led the strategy and localization of PayPal’s services for domestic consumers and merchants and partners in Brazil and Mexico, opened up PayPal’s first offices in these markets with Spanish and Portuguese language support, and accelerated cross-border trade across this region.

“I am delighted to welcome Rohan as our new Asia head as he brings exceptional leadership skills and a proven track record in building payment businesses in some of the world’s most dynamic economies,” said Mr. Keeley. “Rohan’s deep knowledge of PayPal’s products and capabilities will be invaluable as we deliver on our vision to enable secure payments anytime, anywhere and any way for millions of Asian consumers through PayPal’s innovative online and mobile commerce services.”

“I’m excited to take on this new role in Asia as we build up our business in many of the largest commerce markets in the world – from Japan to Greater China to India to Southeast Asia – and localise our global payment capabilities to address the different and unique needs of our merchants and consumers across Asia,” said Mr. Mahadevan. “Beyond enabling cross-border trade for local merchants to sell globally and for local consumers to buy securely from overseas, we have a golden opportunity to bring more payment innovation to the region and transform commerce in the large and accelerating Asian consumer markets.”

Rohan holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the California Institute of Technology, a PhD from Harvard University in the field of astrophysics, and was a post-doctoral scientist at Cambridge University, England.

About PayPal

PayPal is the faster, safer way to pay and get paid online, via mobile devices and in store. The service allows people to send money without sharing financial information, with the flexibility to pay using their account balances, bank accounts, credit cards or promotional financing (where available). With more than 113 million active accounts in 190 markets and 25 currencies around the world, PayPal enables global commerce. PayPal is an eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) company.

PayPal is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. and its international headquarters is located in Singapore. More information about the company can be found at www.paypal.com.

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Featured Image Credits : PayPal

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Tencent Registers Thousands of User Domains in Preparation for CNNIC Partnership

A couple days ago I wrote about Tencent’s surprise partnership with CNNIC to offer QQ users their own unique domain URLs. Yesterday, Tencent registered tens of thousands of .CN domains in preparation for the partnership, which will see the company offering free .CN domains to QQ users.

Users — some users, anyway — will be able to register their QQ numbers as .CN urls, and to this end, Tencent has registered all the previously unregistered domains from 10000.cn to 99999.cn, and from 100000.cn to 430581.cn. Presumably, Tencent plans to continue registering domains as many newer users have QQ numbers with more digits. (My latest QQ number, registered a month ago because I keep forgetting them, has nine digits).

That doesn’t mean these domains are available to users yet. This is just Tencent preparing for that eventuality by registering a whole buttload of domains. But the service should be coming pretty soon; Tencent QQZone boss Xie Xian has told reporters that the first stage of the project will be launched before the end of September. It’s not clear whether all users will be able to register their unique domains at that time, or whether some may have to wait until later.

Still, this is a lot of time and money for Tencent and CNNIC to put into what seems to amount to being more or less just a fun gimmick for most QQ users. There’s no word yet on whether or not Tencent will be trying out some kind of value-added service to go along with the launch, or adding something like that on at a later date. For now all we know is that pretty soon, lots of QQ users are going to be able to get .CN accounts with their names on them. That’s not much, but it’s kind of cool.

[National Business Daily via Sina Tech, Image source]

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Leading Indonesian crowdsourcing design company, Sribu, launches new features

Being supported and reviewed as the leading crowdsourcing design company in Indonesia, Sribu currently has a community of over 16,000 designers who have produced more than 62,500 portfolios for their clients.

Founded by CEO Ryan Gondokusumo, Sribu now runs a bilingual website in English and Indonesian which sees 18 different product categories for consumers. By creating the multilingual feature, it attends to the needs of those from overseas other than the graphic design needs of SME businesses in Indonesia. Sribu understands the need of global understanding which sees the usage of English to promote its company.

Customers are now assured of their various crowdsourcing designs from many talented designers for an affordable price. Payment can be done through PayPal and credit cards. Sribu has also integrated with Veritrans, a payment gateway that provides world-class payment platform and fraud detection service. No more worrying over that online transaction when purchasing their products. If customers have any feedback, they have also installed a new feature which allows customers to voice their feedback. For more constant updates, do check out their page and tweets for more exciting news.

Featured Image Credits : Businesses Grow

The post Leading Indonesian crowdsourcing design company, Sribu, launches new features appeared first on e27.

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Leading Indonesian crowdsourcing design company, Sribu, launches new features

Being supported and reviewed as the leading crowdsourcing design company in Indonesia, Sribu currently has a community of over 16,000 designers who have produced more than 62,500 portfolios for their clients.

Founded by CEO Ryan Gondokusumo, Sribu now runs a bilingual website in English and Indonesian which sees 18 different product categories for consumers. By creating the multilingual feature, it attends to the needs of those from overseas other than the graphic design needs of SME businesses in Indonesia. Sribu understands the need of global understanding which sees the usage of English to promote its company.

Customers are now assured of their various crowdsourcing designs from many talented designers for an affordable price. Payment can be done through PayPal and credit cards. Sribu has also integrated with Veritrans, a payment gateway that provides world-class payment platform and fraud detection service. No more worrying over that online transaction when purchasing their products. If customers have any feedback, they have also installed a new feature which allows customers to voice their feedback. For more constant updates, do check out their page and tweets for more exciting news.

Featured Image Credits : Businesses Grow

The post Leading Indonesian crowdsourcing design company, Sribu, launches new features appeared first on e27.

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