After being operational since late 2011, Southeast Asia’s fashion e-commerce site Zalora finally launched its mobile-friendly website yesterday. The new mobile site looks a lot simpler with three main tabs shown for mens’, womens’, and kids’ clothing. The company also claims that the mobile site’s processing speed increased too.
This will help them cope with the forecasted boom in the m-commerce market happening this year. The new mobile site revamp is live on all Zalora branches across Southeast Asia – Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
The Singapore government’s Ministry of Finance today launched an app that will give users live coverage of the upcoming Budget 2013 announcement, to be delivered on 25th February.
The app, available now on Android and iOS, will have live video feeds, budget quizzes, press releases, and other information related to the much anticipated Budget 2013, expected to introduce measures to boost Singapore’s dismal productivity rate.
Some content is already available on the app, which seems to be little more than a native mobile-optimized website. Bugs will need to be ironed out to, as the menu displays weird behavior at times.
While an app to broadcast a live feed sounds interesting, it could be let down by Singapore’s spotty Wifi and 3G coverage, rendering it instantly useless. We also don’t know if there’s enough demand to justify the cost of creating it, especially when Singaporeans have a bevy of options to get their news.
Interestingly, the iOS App Store lists the Ministry as the developer. This could mean that it could have more apps in the works, or perhaps it is simply an attempt to test the waters.
It may have to tread carefully. With suspicions of government spending running high due to past incidents such as the Brompton bicycle saga and the AIM incident, questions remain over how much it cost to develop the app, what was the procurement process behind it, and who was the third party developer engaged.
Got a travel wishlist? Bangalore based TripThirsty connects armchair explorers with fantastic deals that turn travel dreams to reality. That is, you and your friends collect places you want to go to in wishlists, and the company works out group discounts for you behind the scenes.
The way TripThirsty works is very simple – start creating wishlists of places you want to visit and once a place is wishlisted, TripThirsty’s deal search engines go to work. That is, if multiple people, especially (Facebook) friends are interested in a particular trip the TripThirsty team will try to find group deals for them that they cannot get otherwise.
TripThirsty
That is, an exclusive offer that will come with a certain deadline.
What about the backend (of deals)?
Typically, vendors who are looking to fill the last few seats in a tour/flight can use TripThirsty for help with filling those seats. No customer information is provided to vendors unless the customer explicitly expresses interest in a deal. Deals are emailed to customers, and when they accept the deal, TripThirsty connects them with the vendor.
Launched by IdeoPhone, TripThirsty’s beautifully done product isn’t trying to be a information portal around travel, but importantly has a CTA (call-to-cation) built around the wishlist, which I believe is of immense value. In fact, it might just lead to people traveling more often and tick marking their wishlists.
There are a few good feature implementations that needs a mention:
#1: Seeding
There is a great amount of content that has been seeded before the launch. You can surely say that the team behind TripThirsty has been thirsty enough for trips and great collection of images just adds to the experience.
#2: This:
Honest with Facebook social feed
Being upfront about not abusing your social feed is a feature these days and very few startups respect this.
#3: Content Packaging
Even though it’s not as deep as what one would expect to have (for say, a package like ‘In the land of the Soviets‘), it does sets a tone for the visitors. Each package contains details of places (which you can mark as visited or add to wishlist), though one would expect more details about these places (weather/best time to visit etc etc).
Overall, great UX and I’d recommend the team to look at a timeline view of the wish – i.e. bring more call to action around wishlists (example: Wish to go to Disneyland, Hongkong by Oct 2013) which will also enable them to get better deals from travel vendors (demand forecasting?)
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Launch Contest
User who creates the most popular travel wishlist in February month gets 2 nights for 2 at any Linger property in March (disclaimer: Sameer of Linger is also part of NextBigWhat team).
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The product does compete with several travel startups (like MyGola,GoGoBot, Trippy etc) as well as startups like Wishberg who are building a horizontal play, but TripThirsty’s focus is to help people find places they want to go to and connecting them with friends who also want to go there.
SO if you are thirsty for trips, start your navigation and share your comments.
Undead Slayer is set in China’s famous Romance of the Three Kingdoms historical period in the waning years of the Han Dynasty, but with zombies thrown into the mix.
As I cut a path of destruction across different battlefields in ancient China, cutting down undead hordes ranging from human-sized zombies to lumbering giant warriors to even more towering Boss Generals, I have to pause and marvel at how one man could have done all this.
By “one man” I mean Kim Dong-gyu of one-man Korean development company Hidea, who single-handedly created the mobile action role-playing game Undead Slayer published by NHN subsidiary Hangame. Undead Slayer can be downloaded for free from iTunes and Google Play.
One thing I like about Undead Slayer is you basically only need one finger to control all the action in a fast-paced hack-and-slash title that looks and feels like a console game. Forget the virtual game pad that you usually find in other smartphone games – the intuitive controls and rich features make it even easier for you to lose yourself in this highly immersive game.
Which makes it even more impressive that just one developer created Undead Slayer, from game design to graphics to sound to actual coding.
Dong-gyu told e27 that it took him roughly a year to develop Undead Slayer.
Asked how he was able to create the whole game by himself, he replied: “I started off my gaming career by working as a graphic designer. My previous company was small and had only a few employees, so I had to do all different types of fieldwork.
“From 2D, dot, and other graphic skills to 3D, and later on, animation, effects, shaders, and other skills were in need, so I learned them from scratch and applied them to my work. I was able to experience everything I wanted to know about game development, and it was really helpful for me to build up my career.
“To develop Undead Slayer, I started studying programming languages such as C# on my own.”
One of the striking things about Undead Slayer is that it is set in China’s famous Romance of the Three Kingdoms historical period in the waning years of the Han Dynasty, which has been the inspiration for a treasure trove of books, TV dramas, movies and, yes, even a number of video games.
Why then did Dong-gyu decide to add zombies to the mix?
“It was an attempt to create a ‘familiar but uncommon’ world,” he said. “The Three Kingdoms world and zombies are both familiar subjects for all. Creating a unique world by combining two unbalanced subjects can be an easier approach to attracting gamers than creating a brand new world.”
In the game, you play the one-eyed hero Xiahou Dun, a real historical figure who served the famous warlord Cao Cao. If, like me, you’re fascinated by Romance of the Three Kingdoms and by history in general, you’ll get a kick out of seeing different heroes and villains of this historical period making an appearance in this zombie-filled game.
The game features four different kinds of battlefields, including Basic Battlefield: Annihilation, Special Battlefield: Escort or Siege, Boss Battlefield: Assassination, and Bonus Battlefield: Gold. Annihilation is what you’ll first encounter and it’s admittedly my favorite. As you might guess, all you have to do is mow down all the enemies you’ll encounter.
The Boss Battlefield has the Boss General making an appearance toward the end of the stage, and they are gigantic versions of historical Romance of the Three Kingdoms generals. Make sure your character is buffed up to take on these bosses. The good thing though is that not only does your character become stronger as you level up, train and acquire new items, but you can also recruit captains and even creatures who will aid you in battle.
In a statement, NHN Singapore managing director Eric Lee expressed confidence that Undead Slayer will capture the imagination of gamers, especially in Southeast Asia.
“With features such as spectacular graphics, visuals coupled with easy-to-play finger movements and the storyline of a popular Chinese classic, it will prove to be a hit,” he said.
For his part, Dong-gyu said the game was designed to be an immersive experience.
“I believe there’s a common element in action games that attracts players. If a game follows basic rules such as having smooth game controls, hitting effects along with various skills, it can appeal to anyone in the world. Also, it’s hardcore style action but with a casual style graphic approach to attract a large audience of gamers.
“It is difficult to find a game that is easy to control for mobile devices. In my opinion, this is the strongest aspect of Undead Slayer: easy-to-learn controls and a great number of enemy battle systems.”
Indeed, you might think the game would grow old after a while, but the simple one-finger touch control allows different nuances. Pull off a fatality for the first time, and you’ll know what I mean. Not to mention the rich battle system and the different upgrades that are available, with anime-style character designs and slick animation being icing on the cake.
Here’s a taste of the gameplay.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have more hordes of undead warriors to annihilate.
3D printing promises a world of amazing possibilities, bringing small-scale manufacturing onto your desktop. But hardware costs are holding back its adoption. Singapore-based startup Pirate3DP is aiming to combat that, and is “developing the most affordable and user-friendly 3D printer for the mass-consumer market.” Today, Pirate3DP announced that it has attracted S$589,000 (US$482,000) in seed investment from Red Dot Ventures, which is one of the Singapore government-supported incubators.
Pirate3DP hasn’t even launched yet, and the countdown on its homepage indicates that the startup is 72 days away from revealing its own 3D printer, dubbed the Buccaneer, which is currently in the prototyping phase. The startup says that its creation will “provide consumers with an affordable and easy-to-use 3D printing solution, but it will also become the playground for artists to create, monetize and share ideas with others.”
The Pirate3DP founders are childhood buddies Roger Chang, Brendan Goh, and Tsang You Jun (pictured), along with experienced entrepreneur Neo Kok Beng of the National University of Singapore. In today’s announcement, Brendan explains that the product grew from their frustration with existing, costly 3D printers:
The Pirate3DP team.
After six months of losing hair over jammed printers, and nine failed prints out of 10 arising from 674 different problems, we decided that we could probably do better than all of this. Hence Pirate3DP was born and so was our dream.
Red Dot Ventures’ managing director Leslie Goh reckons that “3D printing is going to make a dent in the universe” and he wants to be part of a local startup contributing to that huge disruption. We’ll be sure to keep an eye out for the device’s launch in April.
In an interview with Techcrunch TV, 500 Startups’ Dave McClure shared their investment focus and the industries which they are particularly excited about this year.
500 Startups is an early-stage seed fund and incubator program located in Mountain View founded by Dave McClure, alongside Christine Tsai as well as Paul Singh. Some of their investments include TaskRabbit, Twilio, Cubie, PeaTix, 9GAG, Reclip.it, SendGrip, Unbounce, Launchrock, Udemy and more than 300 other companies.
The accelerator is now calling for application for its sixth batch, and you can either be referred into the program, or apply through AngelList.
500 Startups announcing their venture partner in China and Southeast Asia soon?
In an interview with Techcrunch TV, founding partner Dave McClure and Christine Tsai made several remarks which we think is really important for the ecosystem in this region.
At the seventh minute of the interview, Dave McClure shared that 500 Startups is actively investing all over the world, with a few venture partners investing in Brazil, Mexico and India. How 500 Startups spreads their influence around the world is to work with local venture partners in each new region. For example for Mexico, 500 Startups acquired Mexican VC last August to help them keep an eye on investments in Mexico. Then in October, 500 Startups welcomes New York based Shai Goldman as well as India based Pankaj Jain to the 500 Startups family. Both Shai and Pankaj is helping 500 Startups to invest in companies based in New York and India.
“We have, as of this week, probably ten people doing investing literally all over the world, and most of the folks are here in Silicon Valley, a few of them are in Brazil, Mexico and India, and actually probably very soon now, in China and maybe Southeast Asia.”
So does this means that 500 Startups will announce their venture partner in China and Southeast Asia soon? Which countries would they be based in? For Southeast Asia, we wouldn’t be surprised if they set up a local presence in Singapore, particularly because of Singapore being the hub fo Southeast Asia. This will make it easier for 500 Startups to have access to startups in the region, especially in key countries such as Thailand, Vietnam as well as Indonesia. If it’s China, Beijing or Shanghai would be key cities as Beijing is known as the “San Francisco of China” while Shanghai is the equivalent of New York.
JFDI, a Techstars Network incubator has also proved itself to be successful for basing in Singapore and taking in regional startups for their 100 days programme: more than 60 percent of the startups in its first batch succeed in securing S$500,000 to S$700,000 funding at the end of the program.
We are also particularly excited about the news because it means that startups around in this region would be able to have access to Silicon Valley and learn from the best minds in the Bay area. This means more exposure, be it exposure to the Silicon Valley way, or even media exposure from the west.
Another interesting point which Dave McClure shared during the interview with Techcrunch TV is that he is very excited about the food tech. Here’s what he said during the interview:
“But new stuff that we are going to be looking for particularly this year, maybe Christine can talk abit about family tech, some of the education topics, but things that I am really excited about: Food. Food tech has been kind of an area that we have been making a number of investments in. Kind of a big boring industry, but a lot of people eat.
We think that there’s a lot of opportunities in helping improve finding food, delivering food, ordering systems, notifications system, and its a very frequent purchase item for a lot of people. That is in a very big market that can have a lot of innovation, which there are not a lot of tech savvy innovation happening right now, but its a multi-billion dollar industry.”
This means a lot, especially to our region where food culture is a big thing in our region.
Looks like we are going to hear a lot more from the food tech industry this year. For consumer and end users like you and me, this is great news too. Why? Because discovering awesome food is only going to get easier, and getting our food at our favourite restaurant or even at the comfort of our home is only going to be faster and more efficient.
The ‘read it later’ app Pocket has looked to China for some inspiration for its newest update, and added the ability to share articles to Sina Weibo. This uses the in-built Sina Weibo account in iOS 6 and above. Pocket also added the same functionality for Facebook in iOS.
This is not Pocket’s first big play for more Chinese users, as an update in November allowed for sharing to YinXiang Biji, which is the official Evernote China. Today’s v4.3 for iOS update fixes a bug with that to ensure ‘Evernote International’ users in China (like myself) can now log into that service within Pocket.
Pocket supports Sina Weibo today. Click to enlarge the update log.
Pocket has plenty of local competition from general reading apps and also some ‘read later’ services in China. One we looked at recently, called Wumii, combines both those aspects while claiming to cleverly suggest articles you might like to read based on your previous reading habits.
Of course, if you use Pocket for Android, then you already have system-wide sharing between any apps that you have installed, so you’ve had this “feature” since day one on absolutely any version of Android. Just sayin’.
iSnap helps being Thailand’s major newspaper to live with augmented reality capabilities.
Thailand’s Nation Multimedia Group’s three national newspapers namely The Nation, Kom Chad Luek and Krungthep Turakij have adapted the iSnap multimedia augmented reality (AR) capability. iSnap is developed by Singapore-based Knorex Pte and has penetrated the mobile market by enabling readers to watch video, browse through photos and graphics, play game, engage in social media communication and interactive advertising.
With iSnap, people can read newspapers through smart phones on their iPhone and Android ‘Nation News’ app from February 4 and Nation News currently has a download base of 208,000 and that number is expected to grow. In order for users to use this app, they need to download the “Nation News” app then choose the iSnap feature. This turns on the camera and then users can snap stories on newspapers marked with “iSnap” logo. After that, it will reproduce the stories with different formats. Not only readers will benefit from this service but the publishers as well by increasing the value of newspaper advertising as it is now more interesting and interactive.
With iSnap, users are able to engage with up-to-date news as it is a complete real time augmented reality. According to Director of Knorex Pte, Justin Tan, this technology was developed to help traditional publishing industry to get the most out of digital world.
How does iSnap work? It basically helps to bring news stories in newspapers to live with various multimedia features. With augmented reality, these newspapers provide news stories through video clips, news photo galleries, animated infographics as well as the original sound of the story-all via the printed paper. Readers are now informed of news by watching and listening to these stories via the mobile devices which are now on both iOS and Android platforms. Malaysian-born Tan also says that people today consume a lot of information but from different channels. Instead of absorbing news from conventional ways, they get their daily news through tablets and smart phones.
Currently, the iSnap feature is being launched with leading newspapers throughout Asia including The Star (in Malaysia), Eleven Media (in Myanmar), Philippine Daily Inquirer, China Daily Asia Weekly, The Edge, Singapore, Kompas and The Jakarta Post, and Thailand’s Nation Group daily newspapers, said The Nation president Pana Janviroj.
But there is a sub economy to be found in startups building products catering specifically to the needs of other developers. Appacitive is a cloud based platform for mobile and web based developers to build a scalable backend for their applications.
Launching their beta product at UnPluggd 6th edition, cofounder Nikhil Prasad emphasized the usability of the Appacitive over similar products currently available in the market. The service allows developers to draw the application model on their graphical designer without any need for coding. The team from their end uses the diagram as a blueprint to generate the backend on the cloud to integrate with the app. Appacitive SDK/APIs are used to integrate with the app and the system is up and running.
The most promising feature is the emphasis of the service on scalability. The app developer pays only for what they use. In the current pricing model, the developer can use the free version wherein they have access to a million API and push notifications requests with 200 active users. Going all the way upto the enterprise account, wherein they can customize the package suitable for the needs of the app developers.
The service currently supports apps catering to iOS, Android, HTML5 and Windows devices. Appacitive has nearly 80 app developers using the beta version of the app helping them iron out the kinks. Apps which are data intensive, games or those used for content generation form their target client base with the demographic being the US and the European markets which are app advanced systems.
Appacitive’s backend infrastructure as a service for the enterprise customers coupled with an easy to use intuitive interface and focus on scalability might be key value proposition. If you are an app developer, do give their product a spin and share your comments/feedback with the team.
This week there are reports in Vietnam’s local papers, and even on the Vietnamese prime minister’s website, that Vietnamese mobile users are dropping WeChat. The app, which is one of the big players in the Vietnamese mobile messaging battle, contains maps that Vietnamese say violate Vietnam’s sovereignty. The “cow tongue” on the maps, slang for the dotted line China puts around disputed islands it claims as its own, shows the Paracel and Spratly Islands under Chinese dominion. To many Vietnamese this is offensive.
In the WeChat mobile app, users can send their location to chat buddies, and WeChat shows embedded maps from either Apple or Google. The English-language maps inside WeChat are either sourced from Apple Maps (on WeChat for iOS) or Google Maps (for the Android version), and the English maps don’t display the so-called cow tongue. In the Vietnamese version, users will not see the controversial island claim. But when users change the app’s/phone’s language settings to Chinese, the “cow tongue” map appears with its Chinese sovereignty claims. This might explain why Vietnamese users didn’t discover the controversial map layout until this week even though WeChat has been growing in Vietnam for some time.
Nevertheless, the source of this issue is actually Google and Apple, who are being forced by Chinese law to comply to Chinese geographical standards. Technically, neither WeChat nor its makers, Tencent, are doing anything wrong, and it’s a bit of a stretch to be boycotting the maps which only show up if you go so far as to change your phone’s system language. But that’s the way the controversy has turned. Here’s how it looks:
English maps on the left, heinous Chinese maps on the right.
The report has fired up Vietnamese forums and even spawned a Facebook group (in the last 48 hours) dedicated to boycotting WeChat. In one image circulating on the web, a Vietnamese celebrity is targeted for her support of WeChat.
Bao Thy is a famous vietnamese singer. Apologies to Vietnamese speakers for the foul language in the picture.
A similar maps-based controversy emerged a few a few weeks ago in which the Chinese-made game Chinh Do (released by local web giant VNG) also featured a version of the “cow tongue” map. In the minds of hasty online users, that’s two strikes against Chinese software in Vietnam.
Whether or not the map will actually impact WeChat user acquisition remains to be seen. But this is already becoming a great excuse for Vietnamese to stick with more popular apps like Viber, Whatsapp, or Facebook Messenger, or even the up-and-coming Vietnamese Zalo. The overarching concern here for Chinese software companies entering Vietnam will be whether they can survive once Vietnamese users discover they are Chinese. Baidu, China’s top search engine, has already found this out the hard way. Any maps inside China are required by law to contain the “cow’s tongue,” so Chinese companies are between a rock and a hard place when it comes to overseas expansion.
Undead Slayer is set in China’s famous Romance of the Three Kingdoms historical period in the waning years of the Han Dynasty, but with zombies thrown into the mix.
iSnap helps being Thailand’s major newspaper to live with augmented reality capabilities.
