Akazoo Mobile Music Service Will Soon Expand to Southeast Asia, Including Indonesia

We just learned that Akazoo, a mobile music platform, will expand to 12 countries in 2012, including Indonesia. Akazoo is owned by UK-based mobile marketing company, InternetQ and has conquered Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Kenya into its service area during the first quarter of 2012. Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines are the countries that will be visited by the end of this year. Before, Akazoo was only focusing on European market.

Akazoo is not too well-known here, just like Spotify or Pandora. Even though bringing the buzz word “mobile”, Akazoo’s website is not compatible for mobile browser. I haven’t find any mobile application that supports this service. According to its site, Akazoo received its income based on subscribe scheme, with the lowest fare of EUR9.99 (around Rp 121k ) a month that will the customer 3000 token. We haven’t received how many songs can be downloaded with such amount of token.

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Nokia Indonesia Aggressively Pushing Digital Music Downloads Through Nokia Music

Martin Chirotarrab presenting the Asha 302 — Nokia Indonesia President Director Martin Chirotarrab at the Asha 302 launch

Nokia Indonesia launched its latest mid-range mobile phone, the Asha 302, yesterday in Jakarta. While DailySocial doesn’t normally cover gadget launches, there’s something different about this that relates to how Nokia is trying to maintain mind share as well as market share in Indonesia. Part of the strategy for this product is something that has been mentioned before on DailySocial. It may not be fool proof but Nokia certainly has the right ingredients, it’s just a matter of how the company puts them all together in its marketing push.

One of the most significant part of the puzzle here is the inclusion of Nokia Music Store in the Asha 302. Consumers who buy the 302 get a six month access to the music store in which they can download as many songs as they like for free and listen to them as often as they want.

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[Music Monday] Sebenarnya, Startup Musik Sudah Lama Ada di Indonesia (Part 1)

Sebenarnya apakah definisi startup itu? Dan dalam konteks DailySocial, apakah startup teknologi itu? Berdasarkan Wikipedia, sebuah startup adalah, “Perusahaan atau organisasi sementara yang dirancang untuk mencari model bisnis yang dapat berkembang atau diulang”. Artikel di Wikipedia tersebut menjelaskan lebih lanjut bahwa, “Perusahaan startup memiliki berbagai macam bentuk namun istilah perusahan startup sering diasosiasikan dengan perusahaan dengan perkembangan pesat yang berorientasi teknologi. Investor umumnya lebih sering tertarik pada perusahaan baru yang dikenal oleh profil risiko/ganjaran dan skalabilitas”.

Anda bisa membaca penjelasan lengkap pada tautan di atas, namun saya pikir saya telah menuliskan kata kunci dari definisinya, dan saya pikir sebagian besar dari Anda juga akan menambahkan keterangan ‘beroperasi tidak lebih dari 3 tahun’ dari kriteria tersebut.

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[Music Monday] Actually, Music Startups In Indonesia Have Been Around For A While (Part 1)

What is a startup, actually? And in the context of DailySocial, what is a tech startup, anyway? According to Wikipedia, a startup is a “company or temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model”. The article goes on to describe that “Startup companies can come in all forms, but the phrase “startup company” is often associated with high growth, technology oriented companies. Investors are generally most attracted to those new companies distinguished by their risk/reward profile and scalability”. You can read the whole thing on the link provided, but I think I’ve put the key definitions here. And I think most people would add “under 3 years old” to that criteria.

Now, with all the attention that tech startups have been receiving the past year, a quick look at the the Startuplokal.org Showcase shows a small smattering of music startups, some defunct, some only having a beta signup page, and some not live at all. Although I agree that it the list is less than comprehensive, it shows that at least music startups have largely gone unnoticed by the recent wave of media attention towards startups in general. If you don’t believe me, try an internet search for music startups in Indonesia, and see where that gets you.

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[Music Monday] How Going Digital Can Help Music Licensing

Today we’re happy to announce Music Monday, a new column by Ario Tamat about the digital music scene. Ario Tamat had been in the music industry throughout the 2000s, being involved in the now defunct SoundBuzz and later Universal Music, dealing with digital licensing, distribution, as well as ringback tones. Music Monday will appear every week.

Recently, many people have been talking about the so-called “future of music’, on how the music industry and/or the musicians can make money from music. A lot of focus has gone into mobile music offerings, music download services, and the music streaming services much heralded to be the “next big thing”. They’re all basically consumer-facing businesses, where the services – and the music companies partnered with them – attempt to monetize their music library direct to the music-loving consumer.

The music licensing aspect, however, is not talked about much, and even less understood. A music composition (created by a composer) or a music sound recording (recorded and produced by a record label or the artists themselves) can be licensed out to various parties who have corporate uses for the music; the most recognizable being music for television or radio commercials.

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Android Market Menjadi Google Play

Sebuah langkah berani dilakukan oleh Google. Android Market kini menjadi bagian dari Google Play, di mana Google Play juga menaungi konten musik, video, dan buku. Secara efektif jika mencoba mengakses http://market.android.com, sistem akan membawa kita ke alamat baru Google Play. Sistem terintegrasi ini merupakan jawaban bagi solusi yang dibutuhkan oleh Google untuk bermain di era multimedia ini. Sayangnya, selain Apps, solusi lain masih belum tersedia untuk region Indonesia. Segala pembayaran di Google Play menggunakan Google Wallet.

Saat ini berdasarkan data yang dimiliki oleh Google, sudah terdapat sebanyak 450 ribu aplikasi dan permainan di Google Play, ditambah dengan 20 ribu lagu yang tersedia secara gratis dan jutaan lagi secara berbayar. Bisa dibilang koleksi Google ini adalah salah satu yang terbesar di dunia dan siap bersaing dengan Apple yang terlebih dahulu menikmati pasar ini dengan environment iTunes-nya.

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What Lies Ahead for Digital Music Industry in Indonesia

This is a guest post by Ario Tamat. Ario worked in the digital music industry in Indonesia from 2003 to 2010, and currently works in the movie and TV industry in Vietnam. Keep up with him on Twitter at @barijoe or his blog on http://barijoe.wordpress.com

After reading Aulia’s post, I felt that I needed to add to it with some more facts and insight, and throw in my own opinion about the much-discussed yet perceived-as-slow-to-develop state of the music industry’s move to the digital medium in Indonesia.

I have written extensively on where the industry should go – digital or otherwise – and fronted several tough questions around the RBT controversy, so I won’t revisit those issues.

Let’s get through some points in the article first:

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How Would You Bring Digital Music Sales to Indonesia?

Indonesia’s music industry at the moment is beholden to ringback tones, the audio replacements that you hear when you make a phone call to a mobile number. While sales of physical albums have deteriorated over the last decade, ringback tones have become highly popular since its introduction in the mid 2000s. These can come in the form of song snippets, quotes, chants, or just about any sound.

Ringback tone is a premium service made possible through content providers who offer these audio snippets through the use of premium SMS service. Mobile subscribers can request to change their tones to one of many selections from their respective network operators.

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Ecosystem is Key in Mobile Industry and Nokia has the Right Pieces to Play

I spent most of Thursday with product managers and PR agents for Nokia Indonesia as the company locally launched its flagship qwerty+touchscreen phone, the Asha 303. The phone, which I think is going to be a pretty strong contender in a mobile market like Indonesia, carries the S40 operating system but offers capabilities popularly sought from more expensive smartphones. We discussed on a lot of points regarding Nokia’s position in the country as well as among competitors.

Yes, Nokia has fallen on hard times, the once mighty creator of the smartphone product category is down in the dumps. Sales dwindled, market share took a nosedive, profits flew the coop, its shares are no longer traded on many of the world’s largest stock markets.

In my hand was my N9 which was just brought back from a coma. We spoke about Nokia’s music strategy and the mobile market in Indonesia. I had been using Nokia Music in my N9 and figured I could give them some of my thoughts about the service directly.

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MelOn is Now Available on BlackBerry and Android Platform

Do you want to enjoy music service on your phone but you haven’t found the legal way yet? Now you can subscribe to MelOn from two mobile platforms; BlackBerry and Android. MelOn is a joint venture between Telkom and SK Telecom that lets you stream and download music. MelOn has more than 500.000 songs registered on its database.

In the middle of possibilities for foreign music digital services to start entering Indonesia, such as Deezer from France, the step done by MelOn is quite strategic which people has been waiting for. It is not a secret that MelOn takes people who listen to music more from mobile devices than from PC as the target market. As a company established by local community, MelOn has eminence on the number and the more complete collection of local songs. It might be equaled or defeated by foreign apps but surely needs a long time.

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