Category: English

English articles about technology startup, ecosystem, and industry in Indonesia

Happy Birthday #StartupLokal!

Located at fX Lifestyle X’enter Jakarta on Saturday, April 9, 2010 yesterday, #StartupLokal held a ceremony to commemorate their first birthday. There were two series of events held that day, the first was for limited invitations, held at XXI and the second was a regular monthly Meetup #StartupLokal program, held at Indochine.

With the theme “Digital Heroes goes Global”, in addition to celebrating the anniversary, the event this time would also launch the book #StartupLokal Kita: Ide, Dedikasi, Strategi (#StartupLokal Us: Ideas, Dedication, Strategy), which contains 22 writings of the founder of the Indonesian startups with editors Rhein Mahatma and Joshua Kevin.

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[Guest Post]: Event Review Suwec “AprilMob(ile)” Meetup + Workshop

The following article was given by Imam Muttaqin and Suwec friends who held a Meetup and workshop event on Web & Mobile App Opportunity last Saturday in Surabaya – Indonesia.

DailySocial Readers may have read some articles about these events in other media, and to be distinct, this article was written directly by Imam Muttaqin as one of the Suwec initiators who wrote the recap of the events.

There were four speakers and a series of events that not only presented the main speakers but also StartUp ShowUp! and QT Smartphone workshops. Following is the coverage.

Monthly meetings held by Surabaya Web Community (suWec) in this month was very lively. No fewer than a hundred people attended the event, titled #AprilMob: Web & Mobile App Opportunity. Hotel Novotel Surabaya Ballroom on that day (Saturday, April 2, 2011) was filled with web and mobile lovers from Surabaya, Madura, Sidoarjo and surrounding areas, as well as some web / mobile developers from the community Bancakan 2.0 Yogyakarta.

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BREAKING: Groupon Acquires Indonesian Clone Disdus.com

Groupon today announced the acquisition of Disdus, one of Indonesia’s leading group-buying sites, as it expands its presence in Southeast Asia. The newly renamed Groupon Indonesia will join 46 other markets in Groupon’s network including Groupon’s recent acquisitions in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

“In just a few months after its launch, Disdus has become the market leader  and a first class example of collective buying site. Groupon Indonesia will harness strength of the Groupon network to sharpen the way local businesses reach customers throughout Southeast Asia,” said Rob Solomon, former Groupon President and COO, who announced his resignation from the Chicago company on March 22.

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Reviewing the Promotion and Monetization Strategies of Sixreps.com

Since its emergence, Sixreps.com continues to grow, both from members and from the developments relating to the introduction of this service to the public. DailySocial first wrote about SixReps in early October while it still in the introduction and not open to the public yet. One thing which for me should be underlined is the CEO of this service and niche segments they’re targeting.

SixReps implemented strategies to create a niche social networking, with a special segment of sports fans – fitness. Although it can be used by all people, but various features and facilities that exist in SixReps are optimizing fitness fans users. Denny Santoso (founder and CEO of SixReps) also mastered the field of fitness, because of his background as a CEO of Ultimate Nutrition Indonesia. It’s a mix that can support each other.

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The Winners of Agate Mobile Game Developer War (+ Video)

Mobile Game Developer War Event which was held on Thursday, March 31, 2011 yesterday have been accomplished. This event was a final of Mobile Developer Camp event series that have been held for two weeks in Bandung, Jawa Barat – Indonesia.

The event was held by Agate Studios and sponsored by Nokia, featuring 10 finalists from 25 teams of Java-based game developers that previously had been through workshops and selection. 10 teams consisting of artists / graphic designers and programmers were presenting the results of their work, gave demonstrations and answered many questions from the judges.

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Applying Game Element on Web or Mobile Based Service

Game element is nothing new in internet, both applied on web/mobile based service and applied on application accessible through web or mobile device. Several services from Indonesia also applied various game elements in one of features on service offered.

Based service such as Foursquare, Gowalla are using game element to their service, and other local (Indonesia) services like Bouncity or Tasterous will also applied game element on their service. This game element application is not only apply on location based service, but social recommendation like Rockto and shirt design competition service GantiBaju also provide badges for their users.

There could be many detail explanations on game element jargons, but what I meant in a simple way in this article is as a certain part of service/application or feature inviting users to ‘play’ or do certain activity (which usually is fun) and get ‘prizes’ from the activity. So the feature can make users use the service longer, have fun element, persuasive and addicting (in a positive way) over a certain service.

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Rockto.com and LintasBerita on Service Development Plan After The News of Digg’s ‘Death’

Late last week came a few articles that basically showed that Digg is ‘dead’. The term ‘dead’ here certainly is using quote marks, not actually closed, but more on the services that dimmed and its fading brand charisma.

I put enough attention to what is going on Digg, although I did not use their service very often but I wrote about their updates several times, such as Digg v4. Digg for me is one of the many legends of the web, as written by Sarah Lacy, they made a breakthrough by bringing the element of Web 2.0, and one of its founder is also a rockstar in the Internet world, Kevin Rose.

However, the development of the Internet is dynamic, when one service is popular; other services would come later to drop the popularity of the previous service. Digg is one of the case example, in addition to the development of other more popular services (Twitter – Facebook) internal policies with the release of v4 that was opposed by those loyal users and it lead Digg to restore some of the favorite features that were previously removed are a few ‘mistakes’ that Digg made.

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Waiting for Facebook Places Adaptation By Local Users

Check-in facility in Facebook had been able to use since a few months ago, but the release for public users (global scale) is still gradual. For Indonesian users, check in at a particular location via Facebook Places at least can be enjoyed for BlackBerry users, while for iPhone users – despite the places icon already exist – it could only be used widely around last week. At least that’s what happened to me and some friends when we tried the check-in facility on Facebook.

Just like any other check-in facilities, Facebook Places provides facilities for users to view locations around them (by GPS), do check in, and then tag the friends who are in one location. Users can also view a list of location updates from their friends and if the location is unavailable, users can add the locations.

The question is will the Indonesian Facebook users adapt massively? Will there be a location-based promotions appear through Facebook, and how is the opportunity of location-based promotional for local businesses?

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Why I Haven’t Bought Any Daily Deals Promo Coupon Yet

DailySocial often review about various daily deals websites that are popping out everywhere lately. Most of them are considered as not less than groupon clones, although there are some which have different selling techniques. Each site must have its pros and cons, but what they offers are similar, which is the price promotion of an item or service that is more interesting than the regular price, whether it’s food, hotel services, or consumer goods.

There are sites that look interesting and segmented, but there are still less appealing appearance and still lack of the offering frequency. Each site had a different partner when they offer what they consider as interesting discounts or promotions. Then why have not I try to buy a daily deals promo coupon?

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Event Review: FOWAB #5 – Technology Trends for Digital

Forum Web Anak Bandung (FOWAB) #5 event was held on Saturday, 19 Maret 201, collaborate with SparxUp Award presented ‘Technology Trends for Digital’. It was held at S28 Cafe & Resto, Jl. Sulanjana No. 28, Bandung, Jawa Barat – Indonesia and attended by more than 70 people from various backgrounds, programmers, college students, and other profession.

Like previous FOWAB events, it was started by 10 by 10 segment. 3 people gave presentation related to FOWAB’s theme. The first speaker was Teguh with The Ultimate Sophistication: Simplicity. Teguh wanted to remind participants that simplicity is what costumers need, and customer based technology development should pay attention to that.

Next, Panggi and Willy from Bistip.com presented Agile Web Development. They explained how to develop web with iteration principle, work process or quick development (adaptation and decision making), continuous and sustainable. As example, development process and test in their office are done continuously and fast, it is also supported with ‘open’ office environment, discussion process between employees can be done in a fluid way and enables open discussion.

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