What Does Nokia Have in Mind for Qt?

DailySocial for the past couple of months has been running DevStart, a mobile apps development competition, on behalf of Nokia using its Qt platform with MeeGo as its target device. It’s somewhat a curiosity why Nokia Indonesia decided to press on with the event even though it has practically abandoned MeeGo before it was even properly launched.

MeeGo was the mobile platform that Nokia was prepping to become the foundation of its future, but that was before Stephen Elop took over as CEO and brought on Microsoft’s Windows Phone to ruin MeeGo’s party.

The Linux-based mobile operating system was then relegated to a curiosity, a pet project done simply to see out its final development phase before being cast off as another mark in history. The N9 is all but confirmed to be the one and only commercial MeeGo device by Nokia.

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Notes About the Games in Top Free Apps List

In last few days, some blogs and media stated that Hiyoko and TouchTen are the in Top Free Apps in the iTunes the USA. Although it seems not yet followed by the successful of the paid version, but it is a good achievement. Previously, TouchTen also got an honor when the Google Executive Chairman mentioned Hachiko at GEPI 2011. Hachiko is also in the USA iTunes list. In my perception, Hachiko and Hiyoko has similar gameplay. Another fact is that Hiyoko is not in the chart of 20 Top Free Apps at App Store Indonesia. Is it the typical game commonly played in the USA?

Hachiko and Hiyoko has many similarities. Those game both are funny—bird and dog. They both have the same purpose that is to move the main character to the destination place. Extra rewards provided are similar to Angry Birds, to get three stars for the best score. However, the level of difficulties is little bit different and I feel that Hiyoko is harder than Hachiko.

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How to Deal with Competition

Some days ago, I watched the video of Kevin Rose (Foundation) interviewing Dennis Crowley from Foursquare.

Frankly speaking, I like the interview although there are some questions have been discussed in other media. However, the interview is inspiring enough. Some parts of it make me think about how to develop startup and the lesson faced on startup development process of both users and the service.

Foursquare, off course, has became the big location-based service–may be it’s the most popular one. Now, Foursquare has more than 1,5 billion users. I am not going to talk about the Foursquare detail, but more about Dennis comments as Foursquare co-founder. I think there is one interesting thing in the interview. It is about competition.

Competition is needed to make us more competitive or to educate market. However, when the competition is in higher level, the startups tend to lose their focus on their own service. They wrongly keep their focus on their competitor’s service.

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Indonesian government threatens RIM with additional taxes over Malaysia decision

If you had been following my tweets yesterday or read the news online elsewhere you would have known that the Indonesian government is planning to exact revenge on Research In Motion for setting up manufacturing operations in Malaysia by imposing additional tax on imported BlackBerry devices.

Indonesia and its government has long held strong animosity towards Malaysia despite or perhaps due to the shared heritage and culture. Claims of theft over cultural aspects and the arts have long been a sore point between the two countries and this latest decision by RIM only adds to that long list of reasons.

Indonesia is a massive market for RIM. Its one of the few countries in the world (if not the only one) in which BlackBerry devices outsell both iPhone and Android phones combined. The BlackBerry in this country is not seen as a business device but instead it is primarily a social device.

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Searching for The Ultimate Technologist

Editorial: This time Razi Thalib will bring us to see the nature, the divine force behind the creation and management of nature, contemplation, technology and how all this could inspire better digital development.

As the holy month celebrations pass and we begin to return to work some of us may have briefly considered our spiritual place in the universe. For those of us living and breathing “digital” the day to day work we perform may on the surface be far removed from our connection to any divine purpose. It is therefore rare that we experience engaging with people who connect technology development with how they approach appreciating their spiritual existence. It is often the case in fact that the two are placed in entirely separate mental compartments.

Whatever our beliefs are in a higher entity, none of us can deny the awesomeness that is life, the existence of nature that supports it and the force behind such exquisite beauty. Upon reflection there are many insights that we can glean from such power. As a proponent of great technology permit a layman like myself to share some humble and brief reflections on several of these learnings that may inspire better digital development.

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Why are we still using key generator devices for Internet banking?

One of the barriers to Internet banking in Indonesia is the compulsory requirement to use a physical key generator as an additional security measure to prevent unauthorized access to your bank account. While it may make it more difficult for someone to try and break into bank accounts, the inconvenience of it becomes a price to pay for consumers to engage in safe internet banking.

Inconvenient because every time you need to perform an online transaction session, you would need to enter a set of numbers produced by the key generator. This means you have to carry this small calculator-like device with you at all times among a collection of your other gadgets that you carry on a daily basis.

What’s the big deal, it’s just another small gadget, you probably are asking. The big deal is that if you lose it you’ll need to request another one from the bank and it’s not that convenient if it happens to be at five in the afternoon or you’re in an area without a branch of that bank, for example overseas.

Additionally if you’re overseas for an extended period of time and the battery in your key generator runs out. You’re pretty much prevented from any online transaction using your Indonesian bank account.

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Options: Focus on Users Growth or Monetization

Two days ago, I wrote about Crapto.com, regardless the weird name for this costumer-based-service or business chances (income) that possible to reach by this service, another question is spinning in my mind after reading some comments about this service on DS article or from other media, also when i’m thingking about other services that i’ve reviewed.

The question also came up after a discussion with some of my friends, at the office or in my community who work around startup. The question is; Should a project, startup, or new service (especially costumer-based-service), focus on the perfect monetizing? Or should it focus on the users growth?

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After the Standard of WiMAX Technology being Freed

As we know, the government – The Ministry of Communication and Information, and Board of Indonesian Telecommunication Regulation, finally become softer on the standard of technology used for WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) network as one of wireless methods to access high speed internet. Quoted from detikInet, The Broadband Wireless Access (BWA—including WiMAX) in frequency 2.3 Ghz is free to choose the standard of used technology.

WiMAX which usually called as “Wi-Fi on steroids” in which the Internet network can be transmitted by wireless system with a wider coverage area. First, we need to trace the classification in WiMAX. The first is IEEE 802.16d that commonly called as Fixed WiMAX. The next is IEEE 802.16e that support mobility as known as Mobile WiMAX. In many parts of the world, Mobile Wimax is the most popular standard WiMAX used. If you want to read the further technical details, you may consider some sources, including its Wikipedia page.

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Detik Deal Do not Offer Deal Anymore, Does the Natural Selection Happen?

I got the information that DetikDeal as a daily deals (especially for group purchase) service supported by a giant online media, Detikcom, now does not offer daily deals anymore. Its last service is on last August 19th 2011. We do not know whether it is because of approaching the Lebaran day or they have already surrendered in this business. Actually, there are not many events shown in DetikDeal, the deal purchases are not so many, even the twitter account only shares about old feed deals without any interaction with (future) costumers. DetikDeal was established in May this year.

DetikDeal is not the only one facing the tight competition of daily deals sites in Indonesia. Some other daily deals that sometimes I visit—though still offer their deals—seem to be in the saturation point. The coupons that are sold for more than 100 for a deal can be counted with fingers. There are only two sites remain active. They are DealKeren and Disdus. This may be not a surprise since both of them have affiliated with giant international daily deals. DealKeren, which claiming to have domination around 60% of the market, can sell around 1000 coupons for each deal.

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BlackBerry Outsells iPhone by a 12-to-1 Ratio, Android Takes 20% Smartphone Marketshare

Along with the growth of Indonesian mobile market, we started to collect few data that could probably help understand the mobile market better. We’ve written about the future of smartphones and feature phones here, but we haven’t exactly write about the numbers to support it. So here it goes.

Indonesia claimed 63 percent mobile internet adoption rate, a 158 percent monthly increase. This significant growth is mostly triggered by the availability of cheaper smartphone devices with standard features like web-browsing, Facebook, Twitter, chat, emails and cameras. Lots of cheap phones enter the rural mass-market with prices as low as $80 and ridiculously cheap data plans as low as $4 per month.

Barriers all gone.

Continue reading BlackBerry Outsells iPhone by a 12-to-1 Ratio, Android Takes 20% Smartphone Marketshare