Danny Wirianto (Co-founder at Mindtalk) Speaker at Echelon 2012

So Danny, what is the biggest killer for Indonesian startups and how can they avoid this pitfall?

Danny Wirianto (Co-founder at Mindtalk) Speaker at Echelon 2012

“I think the biggest killer is having the wrong expectations that lead them to setting the wrong fundamentals when they first enter the market. Many startups build their companies in the expectations to get acquired and make a lot of money. I believe a great startup has to be focused on how to create a great product/tools/service for their users instead of profit orientation in the beginning. The second thing is choosing the right partner to collaborate with. Third, choosing the right investor or venture capital. Lastly, not understanding the market clearly and building the product for themselves instead of for the audience.”

His new project, Mindtalk, is about social interest where members can share and speak their mind openly with others. Danny sees the rise and opportunities in the e-commerce, travel industry, lifestyle service and community industries in Indonesia in the next three years.

While most of Indonesia’s startups are still focusing on local market, Mindtalk is his very first regional social media platform that focuses on Southeast Asia. Danny feels that most local startups are not seizing international opportunities “mostly because there is a lack of market knowledge and fundings for global competition.”

Danny feels that as an entrepreneur and investor in Indonesia, “Japan, South Korea and Singapore investors can help and benefit Indonesia’s ecosystems. These countries has a better system. However they will need to make some adjustments to mold perfectly into Indonesia’s ecosystem. I see so many players from Singapore and South Korea that tried to copy and paste strategies. In the end, it did not go well because they were unable to adopt and adapt to the local culture.”

Danny Wirianto (Co-founder at Mindtalk) Speaker at Echelon 2012

Danny Wirianto (Co-founder at Mindtalk) is one of the awesome speakers at Echelon 2012. This tech conference is a two-day, double-track event on 11 and 12 June 2012 with over 1,100 delegates, a demo pit of up to 50 regional startups per day and various workshops. Get your tickets now!

Brian Wong (Founder & CEO of Kiip) Speaker at Echelon 2012

According to Forbes, Techcrunch and the Wall Street Journal, Brian Wong, CEO of Kiip, 21, is believed to be the youngest person ever to be funded by a venture capital firm.

Sure, in some clubs, he can’t get even get in but this brilliant young chap owns the stage when he speaks and presents. Don’t miss him for the world at Echelon 2012 on 11th and 12th June at University Cultural Centre in National University of Singapore.

A former exchange student at National University of Singapore, Brian Wong is the Founder and CEO of Kiip (pronounced “keep”), a mobile rewards network.

Kiip has raised over $4.4 million in funding to date and is redefining the advertising industry through “moments” – a based value model, versus the traditional attention based screen estate model.

“I personally believe that rewards and reciprocity are quickly becoming the best way that brands can interact with consumers without interrupting while providing value. Many more companies are trying to figure this dynamic out – we’ve figured it out and are deploying across the mobile ecosystem. Gaming is going to continue to explode.

Audiences are going to continue to explode. Brands are going to need to figure out a way to get in front of those eyeballs in a way that was designed specifically for the intimate mobile experience. Other areas of the mobile industry that I see particularly gathering momentum is the digitization of the wallet. There’s a ton of money being invested in helping build that market out – I’m excited to see who wins the race.”

Kiip was listed by Forbes as one of the “4 Hot Online Ad Companies to Put on Your Watch List” and AdAge’s Creativity Top 50. He was also lauded in Mashable as one of “The Top 5 Young Entrepreneurs to Watch” and was a recipient of the Top 20 Under 20 awards in all of Canada. The Vancouver Sun called him “a budding internet visionary”.

This Einstein of entrepreneurs was an early Bachelors of Commerce graduate from the University of British Columbia, graduating at the age of 18, after skipping four grades in elementary and high school. Before starting Kiip, Brian was responsible for key publisher and tech partnerships at the social news website, Digg.com. He also launched the Digg Android mobile app.

So, what is his biggest entrepreneurship challenge to date?

“One of my biggest challenges has certainly been properly building in operational systems as growth becomes imminent. This means systems personally and within the company – including productivity and prioritizing (more delegating), and also for the company to tangibly hit its main objectives without letting projects fall through the cracks.”

Brian Wong (Founder & CEO of Kiip) Speaker at Echelon 2012

A celebrated innovator of new media, Brian Wong rocks the digital world by storm by developing social networking apps for Twitter. He particularly developed a very popular app for Twitter, allowing other to identify and follow top users by interest and city.

Brian travels around the world to speak and promote youth entrepreneurship, youth-targeted marketing, mobile marketing, mobile gaming and social networking. He has spoken at the Tweethouse in Los Angeles and in Austin, TEDx Miami, the F5 Expo in Vancouver along with Malcolm Gladwell, Digital Hollywood LA, the Youth Marketing Conference in Singapore, TagMe Medellin in Colombia, and OpenWebAsia in Malaysia.

One advice he would give young entrepreneurs who are thinking of taking the leap?

“Just do it and stop thinking about it. I’m tired of hearing excuses.”

Young, talented and undeniably inspiring, Brian Wong will be speaking at Echelon 2012. Don’t miss him for the world on 11th and 12th June at University Cultural Centre in National University of Singapore.

Brian Wong (Founder & CEO of Kiip) is one of the awesome speakers at Echelon 2012. This tech conference is a two-day, double-track event on 11 and 12 June 2012 with over 1,100 delegates, a demo pit of up to 50 regional startups per day and various workshops. Get your tickets now!

Brian Wong on Startup Quote. A Startup Quote and e27 collaboration for Echelon 2012.

To kick-start the program, the Head of Online Sales and Operations in South East Asia, Ghislain Le Chatelier gave a keynote speech on the recent Internet trends. The number of online users are growing at a very fast rate and have reached more than 2.2 billion people.

Looking back, it is evident that advances in technology have drastically changed the way we work, obtain information, communicate etc. Twenty years ago, people obtained their information from the local library or morning paper. Now, with the Internet, there are over 3 billion global searches a day, 48 hours of video clips being uploaded to Youtube and around 1.2 billion Internet users connected to social networks.

Ghislain added on that the behaviors of online consumers have completely changed too. Media consumption level have evolved from getting in information in print to connecting with the online masses. Topping the charts is Internet consumption at 5.2 hours/ day. This is followed by TV at 2.9 hours/ day, magazines & newspaper at 1.5 hours/ day and print at 2.2 hours/ day.

Companies on the other hand, are spending very little in online ads at 9% of total media advertising, whereas 47% of it goes to advertisements in print. This is one big irony. Companies are spending more on the the amount and type of media that consumers are spending the least time on.

There is a great shift in the media consumption and influences on purchase behavior. Around 83% of all purchases made involves prior online research. However, consumers are still not as receptive to the idea of shopping online

As such, there is a huge opportunity in investing on marketing through the online advertising space where most of the people spend their time and hence, higher visibility. However, a vast majority of people who make offline purchases

Interesting Fact:

Did you know that the total number of smartphones and tablets sold have overtaken the total number of PCs and laptops sold since Q4, 2010?

Takeaway from keynote speech:

There is an overall huge growth in the following areas:

-       Singapore’s Mobile industry

-       Time spent on internet compared to other media channels

One golden piece of advice that Ghislain gave to the audience was to invest more in online advertising now when the online ad space is not crowded yet. Although people might not be open to the idea of buying things online now, a large percentage of buyers do their research online prior to buying it offline. Thus, it is good to have some form of advertising and visibility to influence buyers’ choice before they make their decision to purchase.

Photo: e-strategyblog.com

While running campaigns and contests for fans acquisition on your Facebook Page is important, keeping your engagement level with your fans consistent is also vital especially if you’re looking to convert your fans into paying customers someday. By keeping your engagement level high, your Page automatically becomes more visible to Friends of Fans without the ad dollars or development costs for flashy apps.

Here are 5 very simple tips you can do to increase engagement or ‘virality’ as Facebook Insights call it.

1. Ask questions

We are all in social media because we want to be heard. We want to share our thoughts and we believe that someone out there cares. So show your fans that you do care. Ask them how their day is. Ask them what are their plans for Valentine’s Day. Ask them product related questions such as ‘Which do you prefer – Black or White?’

2. Post photos and videos

When we see a nice photo or a funny video, the first thing that we want to do is to share with our friends. When your photos or videos are being shared, your Page’s link appears alongside their posts increasing your chances of being seen. Photos and videos are also known to attract the highest likelihood of engagement on Facebook.

3. Post top of mind topics

Fans tend to interact with posts related to real-time events or topics for example wishing your Fans ‘Happy New Year!’ on 1^st Jan will garner a spike of ‘Likes’ without much effort from your editorial team.  Tying back to point no. 1, asking questions related to these topics will generate higher response rate for example, ‘What are your plans for Valentine’s Day?’

4. Shamelessly request for Likes and Shares

Ask and you shall receive. Give your fans a call-to-action so that they will know what to do. Post a statement or photo or video and ask your fans to ‘Like’ or to ‘Share’. If the content has shareable value, your fans will gladly do as told!

5. Mention other relevant Brand Pages.

Now, this is a little tricky. When you mention or tag another Brand Page in your post, your post automatically appears on the Brand Page’s Wall as well. You have to thread carefully so that your post will not be regarded as spam by the other Brand Pages.  Use this sparingly and only when it is absolutely relevant. This is especially helpful if the other Brand Pages have higher number of fans compared to yours.

What are some of the simple tips that you have come across that I’ve missed out? Do share!

Mei Ying is the owner of Myris Consultancy, a social media marketing consultancy, and blogs at www.meiyingt.com. She’s also loves interacting on Twitter so follow her @meiyingt.

E27’s writer, Joanna Yeo digs into the up and coming startups exhibited at Startup Asia Singapore 2012.

Penn Olson’s first tech conference

Penn Olson held it’s first tech event, Startup Asia Singapore on 2^nd and 3^rd February 2012 at Singapore Post Centre. Early stage investors, entrepreneurs alike gathered to checkout newly launched and product-ready Asian tech startups as they showcased their products and services. The 2-day event was into 3 main portions: 1. Coffee chats between Willis Wee, founder of Penn Olson, and entrepreneurs and investors, 2. Startup Arena- Launchpad/ Battlefield where hopeful startups launch and vie to win the attractive USD10,000 (and many more attractive prizes) and 3. Exhibitions by startups in the region.

Observing the trends

As I explored the exhibition area of 40-odd Asian startups, majority hailing from Singapore, Japan and Indonesia, I observed an obvious similarity or shall I say, ‘trend’, of startups in the SoLoMo (and SoMo) space.

A lot of the exhibiting businesses are set to create (another) social marketing mobile (and web) platform network that focuses on helping brands and companies get their word out by tapping on the community’s viral ability.

The following are some of such startups.

A peek into the some of the Startups following the social marketing trend

Gushcloud

Earn monetary rewards by promoting brands on social networks

Gushcloud's CEO, Vincent Ha pitching at Startup Arena

Gushcloud is social media platform that allows anyone with a message or marketing need to connect with an online target audience and reward them for promoting the message on social networks or performing marketing tasks such as completing a survey.

Since my last interview (view here) with Gushcloud’s founders, Althea and Vincent in December 2011, Gushcloud has introduced more new and awesome features. Besides simple tasks like tweeting, liking/ sharing a Facebook post, companies can now tap on Gushcloud’s strong to get more downloads for their mobile apps, installs for a web application and checkins to an event or location. Their mobile app version will be coming out soon in March 2012.

Note: Don’t try to be funny by thinking you getaway by gushing indefinitely and then removing your Facebook posts/ likes/ shares. You will first receive an email warning from the team. And, if you do try to remove or hide your posts again, Gushcloud will reclaim your rewards.

P.S. Ok, I admit. I’ve tried it. :/

Pointpal

Mobile loyalty card solution

First launched in Australia, Pointpal, a loyalty solution for both merchants and users on a mobile platform recently made its way to Singapore. Available as a free mobile app on both iphone and android- based phones, Pointpal is mobile wallet app that enables merchants to reach out to their consumers as well as Pointpal members.

Noah from Pointpal gave a demo on how easy to use the app was.  The QR code detection was instant (probably due to my awesome Note too).  Pretty user-friendly, I’d say. Currently, users will have to visit Pointpal’s website to get and add the loyalty e-cards from participating merchants to their app. It would be great though if these can be searched and added directly from the app.

Ravesquare

Mobile buffet restaurants and discounts aggregator

Ravesquare's co-founder, Meng Kiat (center) with e27's Writer, Joanna at Startup Asia

Local startup, Ravesquare founded by Henry, Meng Kiat and Bryan launched their first mobile app (the initial alpha version of Ravesquare), Buffet Mania a month ago and made it to the number 1 spot for lifestyle category and number 2 spot for most downloaded app within 10 days of its launch date.

Buffet Mania, as the name suggests, is the app for food lovers to find buffet restaurants based on cuisine types, ratings and credit card discounts.  The in-app calling feature allows you to make reservations by calling from the app itself. Spoilt for choices and undecided on what to eat? Shake your phone and let the app recommend a good, hearty buffet to eat.

Buffet Mania is currently only available in iOS.  Wait up for more updates and its android version.

Gspot pitching at Startup Arena

Gspot

Enjoy discounts by promoting brands on social networks

Another local startup in the social marketing scene is Gspot. Founded by duo,  Kent Hoie and Timothy Ee, Gspot is a web cum mobile application that helps brands to market online through social media marketing.

Gspot allows users to enjoy discounts by simply sharing on social networks like Facebook via its web or mobile app. By tapping on the online community of gspot users and their extended network, Gspot helps brands to go viral online.

With a limited quantity and time to get and use the gspots (discount e-coupons), the concept seems pretty similar to that of a deals site. But unlike your usual deals site, no form of payment is required on the consumers’ part to enjoy the offers and privileges.

SoLoMo in action

With the increasing competition in the SoLoMo space, it is definitely a hard and tough world out there for these startups! Barriers to entry seem pretty low for these ventures and thus can be easily replicated (or are already done) by others. Differentiation, speed and a great understanding of users’ needs are definitely important for success and survival in this competitive space.

For companies and brands, this probably spells good news (or more headache not knowing which to use) for more alternative marketing avenues. Online marketing channels are no longer restricted to ad placements and google adwords.  With a rising smartphone adoption rate and social media-engaged users, companies should consider looking into SoMoLo or SoMo marketing options to tap on the virality that the online community can generate.

Read here for our coverage on the participants at Startup Arena!

On Gushcloud, gushers (users performing tasks on Gushcloud) are rewarded for promoting the brands and products that they like and in return, receive monetary rewards. Tasks include liking or sharing a Facebook page, tweeting, blogging, doing a survey and many others.

For companies or individuals that want to market or get their message out, Gushcloud offers a fuss-free way of creating buzz. This makes social media marketing easy for everyone by tapping on the power of crowd sourcing. Co-founder, Althea realises certain key trends and problems within the social marketing sphere and says, “There was a gap between how brands would like to communicate their ideas and products directly to the consumers, and Gushcloud was built to fill up that gap.”

I have personally tried and tested the platform. I must say that this is definitely an easy way to earn money while surfing the Internet. The extra ka-ching is just a Facebook post away!

The user experience is great. From the cheerful and ‘cutesy’ layout of the website to the ease of performing tasks, gushcloud makes gushing an enjoyable and effortless experience for its users. The simple step-by-step procedure for creating a task or ‘gushcloud’ also makes it easy for anyone to reach out to the online community.

Below is a short interview e27 had with Althea and Vincent, founders of Gushcloud:

Many startups encounter problems marketing their products. What advice do you have for early startups to gain traction?

Start with the basic idea, test it on your target audience, iterate and get a better product fit. Rinse and repeat. Gushcloud started with the backing of our digital marketing agency and our existing relationships with youth influencers. We could tap into that community easily.

For your startup, don’t procrastinate or operate in a silo. Work with potential customers/partners from the onset, be close to your target audience/market and keep networking. Someone might have the right community for your widget/website that you can potentially leverage. If you can’t find customers or users willing to use your product or service early, maybe its time to rethink the idea or pivot fast.

How does Gushcloud differentiate itself from other online crowd sourcing marketing platforms?

Gushcloud makes online marketing and advertising a rewarding social activity. In typical crowd sourcing platforms, you are not a part of a community. Instead, you are more of a contractor looking for jobs posted by vendors, occasionally. Building a relationship might be a goal but more often than not, it is a transaction. Gushcloud was built to help businesses start forming relationships with consumers in ways that complement Facebook and Twitter.

Businesses know who they are targeting and they can target communities instead of just individuals. On Gushcloud, they can look for influencers (other crowd sourced marketing platforms don’t measure influence).

Focus on marketing/advertising: Gushcloud makes it easy for anyone to do digital marketing. No complicated briefs or specifications and we’re not limited to paid tasks. Businesses or non-profits can also post favours.

About Gushcloud:

Gushcloud is social media platform that allows anyone with a message or marketing need to connect with an online target audience and reward them for promoting the message on social networks or performing marketing tasks such as completing a survey.

The company was founded in March 2011 by Ms. Althea Lim (CMO) and Mr Vincent Ha (CEO). Both have been in the online marketing business for the last 2 years in The Barnett Group, an agency that specializes in digital and social media marketing co-founded by Althea. Their CTO, Mr. Bryan Chow has over 10 years of experience in tech startups, mostly in Silicon Valley.

In early November 2011, the core team participated in the 8th Founder Showcase international pitch competition and came in 2^nd in terms of Judges scores and 3rd place for overall position. Gushcloud is the only Singaporean team that has made it to the top 10 of Founder Showcase.

Game Ventures is a gaming company that is based in Singapore and was started with a team of three, including Zaki Mahomed, Hamaad Ravda and Rahil Virani, in 2009. The company states on their website that they develop and publish the world’s finest competitive social games. Listed in their portfolio are four games namely Homerun Heroes, Howzat Cricket, XuQa and Pokerama. The company is now much focused on social sports gaming thus attention is on Homerun Heroes and Howzat Cricket.

e27 was privileged to meet up with the CEO of Game Ventures, Zaki Mahomed to chat about the new developments that they are working on.

The first obligatory question of the day was regarding what is up and coming for Game Ventures. Zaki shared much with us, starting with how Game Ventures is set on producing sports games. There is potential in this genre as  it has not been explored sufficiently on Facebook and other social networks, despite being very a very popular profit-center for mobile, console and PC gaming. The first sports game that Game Ventures built for Facebook was Howzat Cricket and it has been launched on Facebook since April 2011 in an open beta, gathering 425,000 active players to date, making it Singapore’s largest Facebook game. The newest game that is being pushed out is Homerun Heroes that was just released one week ago and to be officially launched by the end of this month on 6Waves, the world’s largest independent network for social games on Facebook. As we understand from Zaki, the team has been conscientiously doing their homework and is making good use of everything learnt from Howzat Cricket and applying it to Homerun Heroes. It  is highly likely that Howzat Cricket would achieve the same success!

In other aspects, the recent trip that Zaki took to the USA was for work purpose and more specifically, he was there to get publishers on-board for both of the games. Zaki is also in the midst of forming a board of advisers and was willing to only disclose one member, Bret Terrill, to us. However, we did manage to find out that most of the advisers would be US-based. When asked why there is no Singaporean on the board of advisers, Zaki said that they were looking for people who were in the industry or have been there for a while and there are few such  resources here in Singapore. The formation of this board of advisers would propel them towards becoming the best in the world in this genre, not just in Asia or in Singapore, by providing insights and guidance to Game Ventures.

Another piece of exciting news is that Game Ventures has recently raised more money in the amounts of S$800 000 from Neotany Labs, Digital Garage Japan, IIPL (IDA) and NRF. This amount of money would go far in funding the building of the games and marketing them to the mass market. Game Ventures is also foraging into mobile gaming apps but the concern that Zaki has was the fragmentation of the current mobile market and the need to build for at least two different platforms. The company size has also expanded to 50 people because young talent is constantly being groomed into tech leaders to keep the supply of developers constant ensuring that Game Ventures never encounters a developer shortage.

Game Ventures has also started to sign BD deals with ESPN, Ibibo, Spil Games, and others for their games. Sharing more about ESPN, Zaki basically outlined their strategy in collaborating with ESPN. Previously, ESPN has a games page that offered simple games in Flash that they are monetizing the audience directly. With the collaboration, Howzat Cricket is available on that website using Facebook Connect, drawing targeted traffic from sports fans who visit regularly. Logically, with a more interesting game, more people would be inclined to visit the page and play the game, driving traffic and increasing advertising revenue for ESPN alongside gaining new gamers for Game Venture. But the real win here for ESPN is the new monetization channel of virtual goods, which was not available with the previous set up. This results in more engaged, happier users who comeback more often and generate more income for both the developer and partner.

Zaki is convinced that sports gamers share a similar DNA and part of how he aims to make the games a huge success is to thoroughly understand the DNA make-up of these gamers to appeal to them and more importantly, engage them and thus retaining them. With an average of two to five percent of the gamers making purchases within the game, the business model is sound and is expected to bring in at least two to three million dollars in profit.

Game Ventures is also one of the few local companies that have ventured into capitalising on the Social Graph of Facebook. Though Zaki wishes that Facebook is friendlier to smaller developers, he adopts a “take it and deal with it” mentality. The benefits of capitalising on Facebook seems to have paid off.

While gamers are scattered throughout the world, Howzat Cricket sees a following in India, Pakistan, the UK, US and Australia. Homerun Heroes would probably see traffic from US and Japan. Zaki is quick to point out that Game Ventures is not platform reliant on Facebook and wants to put his games anywhere sports gamers hang out on the Internet and they will go where they think there is economic sense and ground for engagement.

Looking ahead, Zaki has set clear goals for himself and the company. Game Ventures will look to expanding their portfolio to include four online and mobile games by 2012. The two other games are still being confirmed but they are looking at the possibility of sports such as Soccer and Car racing due to their appeal worldwide. We, at e27, wish them all the best and look forward to news about their success.

The union of social media (Facebook) and online blogshops have produced an offspring- Hallways.

Hallways is the brainchild of Yi Sung Yong, Aditya Kristanto and Daniel Aris Pandu. They envisioned a platform that would allow anyone who wants to sell anything, create and establish a brand name in a social setting, ultimately making shopping fun for the user, and making the shops profitable for their owners.

Currently, Hallways is still in the closed beta stage. There are still some bugs that need to be addressed and the shipping and payment methods have to be readied. It is expected that everything should be up and running in three to four weeks.

Review

I was lucky enough to be given a chance to try out the closed beta version of Hallways.

Good points

Not so good points

e27 had an email interview with Sung.

How did the idea for Hallways come about?

Facebook tags of people trying to sell stuff and promoting their ‘brands’ online were causing us a lot of stress (the notifications were a bitch..)

Who are the target users of Hallways? How are they going to be targeted?

Target users will be everybody who wants to buy and sell stuff. We expect a lot of Hallways shops to be from the same blog and facebook shops crowd. We are also targeting the flea markets (starting in Singapore) to bring them online. In two weeks time, we hope to be seen in the local flea markets, helping our first wave of users set up an online shop on the spot, and designing their logos/brands for them too.

I realise that Hallways is very similar in concept to Clozette. You have already mentioned the difference between Hallways and eBay and others in the FAQ but with such a similar start-up, what might your strengths be/ any defining characteristics or approaches?

Clozette has a very different approach to ‘social’. Same goes for eBay and others. Hallways as a social marketplace does the following:

Are there any special features that we should know about?

The homepage of Hallways is designed to be interactive and engaging; besides that we are in the process of implementing (will be up and running before our official launch), a tagging system – for users (shops and buyers), buyers will be able to type in the search bar: “A cool shirt for prom” and relevant listings (based on the tags) will be shown.

So Hallways is currently in closed beta. What are some future plans you have for Hallways that we can anticipate after launch?

In the pipeline we have the following:

On a side note, we have two other projects (hint: social bookmarks and a local search review system) that everyone should look forward to.

What can we do to try out Hallways before it is launched to the public?

The first 50 people to head over here after reading the article will be included in our next wave of beta testing (with many juicy updates)!

e27 urges you to  head over and try it out  if you are interested.

]]> http://e27.sg/2011/09/01/navigate-hallways-closed-beta/feed/ 0 http://e27.sg/2011/08/25/the-fashion-capitals-london-paris-milan-new-york-city-and-clozette/ http://e27.sg/2011/08/25/the-fashion-capitals-london-paris-milan-new-york-city-and-clozette/#comments Thu, 25 Aug 2011 02:49:00 +0000 Joyce Lim http://e27.sg/?p=13894

The question is: “What could a meal yield?”

For Roger Yuen and his dinner company Chua Chiang Meng, Kersie Koh and Cheryl Tan, the answer is the fruition of a business concept that has so much potential, they invested

…

Milaap is registered in Singapore and India. Milaap is an online microlending platform which brings in foreign capital from international lenders and allows the working poor of the country access to these funds. The loans that are procured are being used to fund various key areas such as vocational training and skill development, healthcare, sanitation, water, sustainable farming, energy and enterprise development.

Currently in an attempt to reach out to the community, they have a presence on the social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Vimeo and a blog.

e27 managed to engage Anoj in a short email interview.

What is Milaap’s philosophy?

Milaap was founded with a simple mission, to connect with ease the struggling 700 million people of India  living below $2 per day with prosperous Indians and the Diaspora, one based on mutual respect and dignity, creating opportunities that change the playing field for the poor.

How  is Milaap different from Kiva or other similar platforms that engage in micro-lending?

Milaap’s idea was sparked when the founder, Anoj, an ardent Kiva supporter was frustrated that a similar service wasn’t available to the Indian poor, constituting more than  25% of the world’s population living in poverty. While Milaap was built inspired by Kiva, certain characteristics are unique to us.

• First in India to enable global lending : Milaap is the first platform that enables anyone in the world to lend to India’s working poor. Other international players such as Kiva follow similar crowd-sourcing models but haven’t been able to work in India . But Milaap holds the unique advantage of sourcing capital for India’s poor from both foreign and domestic lenders. This opens up a whole new segment of people who can pave the way for bringing essential services to the 700 million who live on $2 a day.
• Cheapest Loans for the poor in the world: Milaap passes on the benefits of low cost loans from individuals to the end borrowers who end up paying interest as low as 6 – 9%. In contrast, the average interest rate on Kiva’s loan is around 34%.
• Self-sustaining business model: while Kiva depends on grants and donations to cover its operating costs and doesn’t have a revenue model, Milaap was built with a vision to be self-sustainable by charging a small interest fee to the borrower to cover its operating costs. This fee is 50% or more cheaper than existing sources of capital for the poor in the country.

To date, what is the reach and impact of Milaap?

Milaap has raised nearly $150,000 in loans, working across three states (eight districts) in India namely Tamil nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and impacting over 1750 lives.

Launched in 2008, Brandtology has 170 analysts in 15 countries across Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America. Brandtology provides brand monitoring services to clients using a mix of technology solutions and trained social media analysts. Brandtology also provides multilingual services to clients, covering 12 languages. In April 2009, Walden International invested SGD2 million in the company.

Eddie Chau, Brandtology’s chief executive, said in the press release, “This is the logical and exciting next step for Brandtology, allowing us to continue our rapid growth across existing and new markets and maintain our focus on research and development with the financial strength and broad APAC sales network of the region’s leading media intelligence company behind us.”

Brandtology will remain a separate brand within the Media Monitors Group.

John Croll, Media Monitors CEO, said, “This is Media Monitors first acquisition since being acquired by Quadrant on 1 July 2010 and it reaffirms our growth strategy. This will create significant opportunities for cross-selling across all markets, and Brandtology’s strong presence in China in particular supports our strategic growth story in that market.”

The brand monitoring space is relatively crowded in Singapore, with local companies like Jamiq and Thoughtbuzz competing with Brandtology.

[Image from Brandtology. Media Monitors' Croll (left) and Brandtology's Chau]

Two entrepreneurs, Jason Johnson and Jason Illian, are attempting to not just digitize books, but also make them social. They call it ‘Social Books’. From The New York Times:

“Short-form content (e.g. status updates, tweets) on the Web is very interactive, very dynamic,” Mr. Johnson said. “You can see which of your friends read the same article and what they thought of it. It made us ask, ‘Can this be applied to long-form content? Can we take the advent of social media and apply it to the way we read books on tablets?’”

Social Book, as depicted in the video below, enables friends to read a book together even in different locations. Readers are able to share any part of the content with their Facebook and Twitter friends. The content could also be changed in real time by authors or even the readers. It works pretty much like Google Docs.

Social doesn’t just stop here. Users are also able to purchase a book from a friend’s bookshelf, making eBook libraries connected, searchable and shareable. Lastly, it doesn’t matter whether you’re reading from a Blackberry or an iPad, the application is built to be able to read and share on any device. But for a start, it will launch as an iPad application first before expanding to other platforms.

Phew, it surely sounds like a complicated eBook application?  The greatest challenge is still copyright related issues. The only titles available for download are those in the public domain, which aren’t that appealing to the masses.

“To develop its catalog, the company has enlisted the help of John Ingram, founder of the Ingram Book Company, a wholesale book distributor. Mr. Ingram, who is also an angel investor in Social Books, has done the same for other eBook applications, including iBooks for the iPhone and iPad. Social Books expects its digital shelves to be beefed up in time for the holidays.”

The application isn’t on iTunes yet. But interested individuals are able to register for its free limited beta applications through the company’s website.

– Penn-Olson.com by Willis Wee. Penn Olson is a tech, marketing and business blog based in Singapore.

If you are an influential Twitter user, you might be approached by a major automaker to be its brand ambassador.

Ford, Lexus and BMW are some of the brands that are hiring Twitter influencers as an alternative to hiring celebrities. Like in any social groups, there are people who are more influential than the others. Social networking sites have made those influencers more visible.

Hiring Twitter stars has several advantages. They are definitely more affordable and using the same investment, brands could hire more influencers. Their combined reach could even be stronger than a celebrity’s. People trust people like themselves. Getting social media influencers to represent the brand could be more effective as celebrities are too often used as endorsers; to the point that consumers are getting skeptical.

Ford has used this new endorsement method with some success. Last year, it hired 100 social media influencers to test drive its new Ford Fiesta subcompact and post their impressions on social sites like YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. The campaign generated over seven million views on YouTube and four million mentions on Twitter. It drove 130,000 consumers to its website and 83% were previously non-Ford owners. The Wall Street Journal reported. But it wasn’t revealed how many cars were sold through this campaign.

Similar to engaging bloggers for product reviews, getting social media influencers has similar risk. You can’t control what they write about your brand and the campaign could backfire. Engaging celebrity endorsement is a safer route to gain reach but it comes with a hefty price.

– Penn-Olson.com by Willis Wee. Penn Olson is a tech, marketing and business blog based in Singapore.

Company founder Ramya Prajna explains to e27 that wooz.in is not another social network but an extension service that’s geared more towards events and marketing purposes. During this beta stage, attendees are given a card or a bracelet during events to check in to specific locations, venues, or rooms, that have wooz.in readers set up. The cards and bracelets are for people to keep and hopefully carry with them at the next event held by Think.Web or its clients. Those who have signed up to the service will receive email notifications ahead of any future event.

He said that he was inspired by a similar service used by Facebook during its developer conference some time ago. At that event, Facebook handed each attendee an RFID tag to be used when joining conference sessions which will then publish a message that gets posted on their individual Facebook walls.

Initially wooz.in was developed as a value added service for the company’s clients for consumer engagement activities and it will remain so for the near future. However he hasn’t ruled out spinning off the team from his company should it require greater involvement and an independent development path at some point in the future.

As Indonesians swarm to multiple social networks, updating each of them one by one would be quite a time consuming activity, so he came up with wooz.in to streamline that process. He hopes that it allows individuals to socialize during events without having to fiddle around with their mobile devices and dealing with unreliable network connections.

The primary function right now is for check-in announcements while activity reporting is something that could be added in the future although it depends on negotiations with clients.

Each check in on wooz.in earns a user one pin. Pin collection is one way for the clients to engage with consumers and provide them with rewards or promos after a certain number of related pins has been acquired.

With wooz.in, the content of the message sent to the networks are not user-editable, it is instead determined by the event organizers or clients. This clearly leads to concerns  that the service could be used to promote products or activities without explicit consent from the user.

Ramya assured that as wooz.in develops, they will add granular control to the service for users to determine which kinds of messages are allowed to be sent out from their accounts and which should be suppressed.

He hopes that more mobile devices will adopt Near Field Communication to enhance and streamline these kinds of activities even further.

A new online game called Ionopolis sponsored by Japanese sports drink Pocari Sweat has Indonesian users signing up in droves ahead of its official launch some time this month. More than 12,000 users have registered for the game in the week that registrations have been open. The game seems to be the first, at least in the country, to integrate Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare as elements of the game that players need to use to complete the tasks that they will be faced with.

The game is presented in a comic book form and places you as the hero whose job is to take down and defeat monsters hellbent on dehydrating the city of Ionopolis. To defeat the monsters, players are tasked with answering questions ranging from general knowledge, sports, history, to certain specifics about Pocari Sweat.

Certain tasks can only be completed by posting status updates on Facebook or Twitter or by checking in to certain locations on Foursquare. If you’ve been seeing #ionopolis tags, you’ve spotted them. While Pocari does have a Koprol account, it doesn’t look like Yahoo’s Indonesian social networking property is part of the game yet.

Each player’s energy level in the game is determined by his hydration level which gets renewed daily. Alternatively, players can request for game vouchers with every purchase of a can or bottle of Pocari Sweat from certain stores to power up, especially as energy levels tend to be depleted after an hour or two of gameplay. Clearly, this ties the game very closely to actual sales.

At some point in the game players will be eliminated and the top 100 players move on to the next stage where they will face another elimination round to select the top 10 and then eventually the top two. Prizes include iPod Nanos, gift vouchers, and a trip to Japan.

Unfortunately, whenever I tried to play the game, it kept spewing out PHP errors all over the site, so I’m not sure what’s going on there beyond the initial stage. However, it’s been active for a little more than a week.

On Thursday morning, 28 Oct, the site was down until late in the afternoon, presumably following a surge of new players as information about the game was posted on Indonesia’s top online community, Kaskus, two days earlier and people began talking about it.

We’ll be monitoring the social media-gaming trend in Indonesia as it develops.