Thoughts On Social Media After BlogOut ’09

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March 22, 2009

Google Analytics

Earlier this week, Google announced that it has expanded the capabilities of Google Analytics to offer better support for marketers, advertising agencies and businesses in Singapore and the region. Google Analytics, the search engine’s free, next-generation web analytics tool that shows users how visitors find their website, how they navigate through it and how they become customers. Web analytics users get online data to gain a deeper understanding of customers’ needs and build their website or online campaign around that understanding to improve the effectiveness of their websites, maximize their online marketing campaigns, and convert online traffic to sales.

“In an economic slowdown when consumers are spending more time on the Internet looking for a great deal, local businesses have a great opportunity to use web analytics as a cost-effective, smart way to make sense of online consumer behaviour. Our free and powerful Google Analytics tool helps businesses to understand the customer experience online – to see what type of products customers were trawling for online, what was working on their websites and how to win over customers – and then turn this insight into action for better business results,” said Vinoaj Vijeyakumaar, Customer Solutions Engineer, Google Southeast Asia.

Besides providing enterprise-class features in its free Google Analytics™ tool (such as custom reports, advanced segmentation, an API as well as an updated interface, richer data visualisations and an integration with Google AdSense), Google is launching a new Google Analytics Individual Qualification program and has appointed clickTRUE as its first ever Google Analytics Authorised Consultant (GAAC) in Singapore.

Innovating The Singapore Blogosphere

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March 16, 2009

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Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence team - Pat, Brian and Tania — Ogilvy PR's 360 Digital Influence team - Pat, Brian and Tania

The way the Singapore blogosphere is growing, throw a stone randomly these days and you’re likely to hit a self-proclaimed social media expert, guru or master. Mention Facebook, Twitter or Plurk, and you’d be swamped with unsolicited advice from all over on how such social media platforms do, or do not work, in the Singapore context.

Which is why it’s a pleasure when you meet the true players of the game.

An Open Door Session

The unimaginatively-named “social area” at the Ogilvy Centre was getting packed, and the audience – about two score Singapore-based bloggers – jostled for seats that provided a good view of the projector screen. Welcome to one of Ogilvy’s Open Room sessions.

Ogilvy PR’s Tania Chew, who came up with the Open Room concept, shares that it was meant as a way to get clients comfortable with communicating with their customers and influencers in a more open, casual way, and “not the usual press release/press conference way with one-way messaging push”.

“(We hope) that clients will start to get it,” says Tania, “and get comfortable interacting with bloggers. (They need to) start to understand that they way people communicate has changed and will continue to do so.”

“If they don’t start getting the groove, they’re going to lose out.” Booze was provided by Tiger Beer who, by virtue of their sponsorship and presence, must apparently get it.

That day, the topic was on “how to market your blog like a brand”, with speakers such as Tokyo-based blogger and web producer Jon Yongfook Cockle, ex-SPH journalist Arti Mulchand, and local bloggers Brian Ling and Andy Heng.

Content Is King

If you’ve not heard of the latter two bloggers, it’s probably not a surprise. They’re not well-known in Singapore, but their content reach a global audience. And their traffic is impressive by any standard. Both focus on niche content – Brain’s Design Sojourn looks at industrial design, while Andy’s ToysREvil covers everything toy-related.

Both shared to the gathered bloggers on how they approach their branding when it comes to their blog. Andy was a revelation, sending the audience into peals of laughter with almost every sentence. Yet his humorous manner belied his amazing grasp on what makes a blog really tick.

Andy was asked to share at the Open Room by Patricia Law, Tania’s colleague and along with Brian Koh forms the trifecta of Ogilvy PR’s Digital Influence team in Singapore. Pat got to know Andy through a common love for toys, and as she puts it, “if you spend half the time hanging out with creative boys and girls, you’d know his blog too”.

“And the fact that the local general blogosphere doesn’t know who he is”, Pat laughs. According to urlfan, Andy’s blog is currently ranked #10,279 around the world. That’s creme de la creme. “Local bloggers need to see the bigger picture and that the Internet disrespects geographical boundaries.”

Three’s Not A Crowd, It’s Social

Open Room sessions, contrary to what some might believe, are not elitist events where the delusional self-imagined best of the blogosphere invite themselves to have a social media orgyfest. Instead you’ll find a congenial atmosphere where bloggers share their experiences with their peers, and of course, Ogilvy clients who wish to find out more about this curious virtual world known as the blogosphere.

It’s about bloggers helping bloggers. Innovation and directly value-adding to the entire social cybersphere. Tania, Pat and Brian knows that it is still early days for the Singapore blogosphere, but it’s apparent they feel that they are also charged with helping it grow responsibly.

The Open Room is their way.

Advice For Young Entrepreneurs On Building A Business

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March 14, 2009

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Kelly Sonora shares one of the latest posts from One College Degree, “100 Best Blogs for Young Entrepreneurs”. It’s a useful resource for those who are looking for online resources that provide information, tips and advice for starting and running a business.

Guess who is at number six?

Do Yourself A Favor, Startups, And Get Yourself Media-Ready

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March 12, 2009

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As someone who blogs about entrepreneurship, one of the pet peeves I have when dealing with Singapore startups is their amazing lack of preparedness when I ask them for more information.

“Errr… You can check out my website?” is not the answer I was looking for. In any case, I was already there. And your blog too. There was nothing remotely useful in either, which is why I’m asking you.

Today journalist Hedirman Supian, from the paper’s technology desk, says startups should make it easy for investors and the media to get in touch with them and learn a few basic practices that will go a long way in helping them get the word out on their companies and products:

“(E)ntrepreneurs have to learn how to be media savvy, no one’s going to do your PR for free – it’s part and parcel of owning a business and it’s not exactly rocket science. So you’ve got a great service or product. So what? It’s quite telling if you don’t know how to take advantage of the web to market yourself. Fortunately, there are plenty of rich resources online (presentation videos, podcasts and blog posts) from the likes of Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki or Yongfook – you can be sure there’s already someone who’s already been through what you have, so piggyback on their advice so you don’t exactly have to learn from scratch.”

In case you don’t have the time to scour through all those wonderful resources, here are some tips on what to prepare yourself with before the media comes a-calling:

Your Press Kit

The first thing is to have your most basic but key information ready, which should be put together as a press kit which you can easily share with them.

Items that you should have in your press kit:

A backgrounder – Background information on the company
Biographies of the key founders
A fact sheet detailing key statistics and messages
Images of products, your company logo and profile pictures of the founders. High resolution, of course.
For dealing with social or new media, an online tip sheet with links to URLs to video resources, or websites (such as those of happy customer testimonials) is infinitely useful
Your contact details

Contrary to popular opinion the most critical is not a press release, which you only need if you have something valuable to say, such as the launch of a new critical feature.

The good news is that most of the information you already have in your business plan. You have a business plan, don’t you?

Your Key Message

The journalist has a story to write, and usually has an angle in mind. He/she has limited space (and patience). What can you tell him/her that will make the most sense to his/her story, while bringing the most value to your startup?

Make this very succinct and short. It’s like an elevator pitch. If the journalist can write only one sentence about you or your company, what would it be?

Extending Your Story

Always keep a list of referrals and references ready – investors, customers, or business partners for example. Happy ones, of course. Share them readily: “If you like, you can contact the CIO of XXX company, who has used our product and really liked it.”

Reporters like outside sources to help lend some credibility to their story, and an external testimonial always make you look better.

Make Use of Online Assets

Put your press kit online. If you can’t create a “Press Room” tab on your website, put it under your “About” section. Provide an email address or contact number on the site for them to call you – don’t make them fill in a feedback form, for goodness sake.

Also think about using:

Slideshare, to upload a really nice presentation and sharing it easily.
Skype, so now you can be get interviewed from around the world.
Flickr, for sharing images. But do create a specific set for their use – so they won’t use the picture of you running down the beach half-drunk and semi-naked.

These may seem commonsensical, but like Hedirman says, “you’d be surprised how many local startups miss these things out”. So do yourself a favor, guys, and prepare yourselves well. Make their jobs easier, and they’ll make it worth your while.

Singapore Tops Innovation Study

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March 10, 2009

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The latest study by Washington-based National Association of Manufacturers has named Singapore as the most innovative country in the world. The report, produced by the Boston Consulting Group, places Singapore ahead of South Korea, Switzerland and Iceland.

You can download the full report here.

Singapore Needs A Support Ecosystem For Its Startups

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March 9, 2009

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I submit to you that, in Singapore’s entrepreneurial scene, there is a lack of a proper ecosystem around our fragile startups to nurture, sustain and help them survive in this increasingly difficult times.

It’s not about the lack of money. There are good schemes out there for startups to tap on. I am referring to the lack of a support system – the media, for example, and legal, financial, public relations and other kinds of consultancy services that cater to the unique needs of a startup.

I asked TODAY journalist Hedirman Supian, who writes for the paper’s technology desk, what he thought about my view. His reply:

“I think startups and entrepreneurs have to grapple with the reality that they exist in an ecosystem that’s unfavorable for them at the moment. I wouldn’t exactly say it’s nonexistent.

There are various Government initiatives to drum up funding and support for local entrepreneurs and networking sessions to get them connected to the right people – and to be honest, they’re actually very passionate about pushing local companies to the world stage. Yes, it’s not quite organic but it’ll form the bedrock for a better ecosystem once we’ve got a good track record of launching successful startups. There are also a handful of local entrepreneur communities like The Digital Movement and e27 that foster a more grassroots approach. If you look at the attendance for their meet-ups and events, you can see that the crowds are slowly swelling.”

If it is not money or grassroots support, so what are the missing pieces in our ecosystem then?

1. Lack of Specialized Services catered for Entrepreneurs

Interestingly, Hedirman reveals that he’s never been approached by a specialized PR agency on behalf of a local startup before. This to me is somewhat shocking, as he’s been writing about local startups for more than two years now. Is it because there are no public relations agencies in Singapore that is specially catered to the needs of startups, or is it just because startups simply cannot afford one?

This does not apply to public relations alone. How about specialized legal services, since many startups are not equipped with dealing with intellectual property issues or even something as basic as crafting a contract? Or financial services to help startups balance their books?

2. Where are our Mentors?

One of the key reasons why Silicon Valley has been so prolific in producing successful startups is because it has an ecosystem of successful entrepreneurs who give support to newer startups. Here’s what Sarah Lacy wrote in her book, Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0:

“But the earlier generations would play a huge role in their Internet lives, ensuring that this wave of companies would go about their business in a manner totally different from those of a few years earlier. For every youngun with a cool new project, there was a guardian angel of sorts from previous startup cycles, making sure he or she didn’t get screwed. These guardian angels would frequently find their young charges.”

Josh Schachter of del.icio.us may not have gone anywhere without the backing of Netscape‘s Marc Andreessen. Kevin Rose of Digg.com got help from Equinix‘s Jay Adelson. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook? Peter Thiel of Paypal. The list goes on.

So where is the Singapore equivalent of such mentors? Sim Wong Hoo of Creative Technology – what’s he been up to these days anyway?

3. Publicity and the Media

Singapore media who are interested to write about local startups are few and far between – such stories are rare and on an ad-hoc basis. Very few, like Hedirman, actively seek out startups to write about. That’s one of the key reasons why I have this blog in the first place, and why the folks from Techgoondu.com has to do this.

4. Market Adoption

Of course our startups should aim for markets beyond our shores, but it’s thoroughly sad when many don’t even find market acceptance in Singapore.

For all the government talk and support that EDB, Spring Singapore, MDA and IDA throw at our local startups, the rest of our civil service seems reluctant to give our startups any business. More government agencies should take the lead of the Land Transport Authority, who is currently working with local startup Gothere.sg to develop a user-friendly travel advisory for public transport journeys.

With government projects in their portfolios, it will only be easier for the startups to penetrate the private sector.

We need an ecosystem for our startups. And we need it fast.

Singapore To Get New Posterboy For Entrepreneurial Success?

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March 7, 2009

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The room was totally packed at the keynote presentation in BlogOUT! ’09, but you can’t truly be sure what the crowd was here for.

Jon Yongfook Cockle, a Tokyo-based blogger and web producer who recently sold his recipe social network Open Source Food to Tsavo Media, was speaking about how to turn a blog into a business. A subject topic that’d appeal to most bloggers during such shattered economic times, but that’s probably not what enraptured the crowd.

It was because he was just that dastardly good-looking, and so very eloquent. Judging from the gasps and sighs emanating from the crowd, it’s unlikely that the girls heard a single word of what he said. Twitter was all a-flutter about how cute he was.

He has male fans too, of course. Howie Chang, president of The Digital Movement that organized BlogOUT! ’09, calls Yongfook his idol when it comes to “design and user-interfaces”. Yes so that makes him both talented and good-looking, and therefore easy to hate.

In his presentation, Youngfook shares why he thinks advertising as a revenue model is very limiting for blogs and highlights some of the other ways blogs can be monetized. What you may not know is that Yongfook graduated with a finance degree, just because his mom made him get one (she’s Singaporean after all). So he should know a little about making money.

These days Yongfook amuses himself as the CEO of Egg Co, a business incubator that looks at working closely with digital startups. He is also about to launch Rippl3, a social media campaign measurement service.

The good news for the ladies, is that the half-Singaporean is looking to relocate to Singapore in the near future. When that happens, we’ll get our new posterboy for entrepreneurial success.

It’s A Prettysmart* Appeal For Collaboration

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February 24, 2009

It was a hot and sultry Monday evening at the Raw Kitchen Bar, located on the premises of the old fire station along Upper Bukit Timah Road. More than forty people were crammed into the confines of the refurbished building, but no one seemed to mind. At least ten of them were peering at tiny pieces of blue paper stuck on the white-washed walls.

Upon finer inspection, those Post-It notes contained tips of sorts – ranging from advice on writing techniques to quirky anecdotes. Those present were told that they could take away any of those Post-It notes they liked, but only if they replaced each with one containing a tip of their own.

This Is Pretty Smart

This creative exercise was the brainchild of Natasha Golding, the host for the evening, and the people gathered here were her friends, business partners and acquaintances to help celebrate the launch of her new consultancy, prettysmart*.

Natasha, a seasoned freelance writer, previously provided copywriting services and communications consultancy under her first business, The Right Words. As she worked with her clients during this period, Natasha realized some of the problems they faced with communications – not knowing what their business was about, the words to describe themselves, not having the time or information to plan and create websites to truly reflect their business – and believed she could help them.

And so prettysmart* was conceived. She explains to her audience that, in her new business, “we don’t believe in telling people what to do”. “We give advice, we share our knowledge, but we also help people explore their own ideas and discover their own solutions”, she says.

“It’s about using more of a coaching approach. We provide the steady, practical and kind support that helps people find the solutions that work for them.” But don’t take her word for it – check what her clients have said instead.

During her presentation, Natasha surprised her audience by raving about rising Singapore startup Gothere.sg. She recounted how she first learnt of them at Unconference 2008, where she “was blown away by the energy, the creativity and the comfortable informality” of the event.

“It’s smart,” she says of the location-based service. “It gives very useful, precise and detailed information. Little things like the prices of the bus or cab ride make a difference. The developers have thought about me, and what I need.”

“It’s pretty. It’s not from the old school of technology, built by geeks with no style. It’s simple, comfortable and shows some personality in the conversational copy.” Gothere.sg’s site design, she said, is everything she wants her consultancy to be for her clients – simple, clean, communicative and, most importantly, gives them exactly the results they need.

A Call For Partners and Collaborators

She also tells her audience that prettysmart* is looking at partnering to offer more to businesses. “We need writers who passionately desire to increase the amount of well-planned, meaningful and accessible web text on the Internet. prettysmart* helps businesses do the planning and thinking that forms the basis of great communication. But we also actually write and edit copy.” Many of the people she invited to the Raw Kitchen Bar were freelancers, and to these people she made her call for collaboration.

“We plan to work with more designers and developers. We need people who share our philosophy about websites being a piece of communication. People who believe that authenticity is a key principle in business and communication.”

“If you are one of the people we need to talk to email me, natasha [at] thisisprettysmart [dot] com.”

She ends her presentation by thanking the people who have helped her put her launch party together. Judging by the number and quality of people she thanked, especially the effusive praise she heaped on her web designer Dennis Lim of Mavericks Interactive, it seems that prettysmart* already has a slew of good people the consultancy can work with.

Elevyn.com – Crafting A Way Out of Poverty

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February 1, 2009

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elevyn logo

Social entrepreneurship knows no bounds. You don’t have to be be rich or famous or be an Anita Roddick to make a positive impact in this world.

Take Mike Tee, 29, and Devan Singaram, 30, for example. Both are busy entrepreneurs running their own IT companies (Density Professional and Fuzion Interactive respectively), but they have been so inspired by the idea of social entrepreneurship – business models that are not only driven by profits but also generate positive social impact – that they started Elevyn.com.

Elevyn.com is a platform for communities, NGOs and entrepreneurs to set up online shops that support a worthy cause. A percentage of the sale of every item sold through these online shops goes directly to fund a chosen cause. Co-founder Mike Tee explains how the Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based social entrepreneurship site operates and how it can empower disadvantaged communities. “Elevyn.com only works with indigenous or marginalized communities – who can benefit from access to a larger, global market to sell their crafts at a fair price.”

elevyn process

“Elevyn is not charity. Artisans must produce crafts that people will buy, and over a period of time, we train them to handle orders, packaging and delivery. These are all skills that will last them a lifetime. For buyers, we bring a whole new level of transparency to the buying experience. In traditional models, some artisans get as low as 6 percent of an item’s selling price – but buyers do not know that.”

“On Elevyn.com, we show how much each artisan is making from the sale, down to the very last cent.”

Helping Disadvantaged Communities Help Themselves

The idea for Elevyn.com actually came from another member of the team, Sze Ning, 25, who previously had worked with various indigenious groups in Malaysia and is now their Field Coordinator.

“(Sze Ning) told us her story at a village in Sabah, where the womenfolk – single mothers and aged women – produce beautiful crafts, yet are mired in poverty due to a lack of access to the market. She clearly remembers a feeling of helplessness, when one of the artisans asked her to find a market for their products in the city.”

One key inspiration was Kiva.org, and Mike and Devan was impressed how they successfully utilized the Internet to create a community to help poor entrepreneurs in developing countries. “Being from an IT/online background, Devan and I got really excited and realized that with our combined knowledge, and the vast availability of technology out there – there had to be something that we could do that’s not only profitable, but produces a social impact as well.”

“Then came the eureka moment – Elevyn.com would work with these artisans, get their crafts online to a global audience, and channel as much as 85% from each sale back to them.”

It’s a case of ‘Give a man a fish, and he feeds himself for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’, and something that the Malaysian government recognizes. Elevyn.com received MYR 150,000 (about US$40,000) in the MDEC Preseed Grant which helped them get started. “We also qualified for the finals of the Youth Social Entrepreneur Initiative (YSEI), which offered up to US$60,000 in startup funding. We are looking at a few more grants to continue building the company until it reaches sustainability.”

Tough Times Are Tougher For Some

The impact made by Elevyn.com may be far smaller compared to Kiva.org, but by no means any less meaningful. During the Christmas of 2008, one of the causes it supported was to raise funds for 14 kids in a Sabahan village who need supplies for the new school year. It was, Mike recalled, the best experience they had.

“We raised MYR300 – not a lot of money, but it went a long way. Our field partner in Sabah, Malina Soning arranged for a little Christmas tea party where she presented them with pencil boxes, schoolbags, stationery and other supplies, all of which were nicely wrapped. Many of the kids had never had a proper Christmas before, but they truly enjoyed the occasion and we all felt a little lump in our hearts hearing Malina’s stories and photos.”

sinompuru kids

Children in Sinompuru Village, Sabah receiving their Christmas presents of school supplies

A key objective Mike identified for Elevyn.com is to raise the incomes of all the craftsmen and artisans in their program, but to do that requires them to work with more communities and setting up more shops. He stresses that it is important to work with the communities to understand the idea, getting them organized, and producing crafts that will sell.

The other challenge is to drive more visitors to the site for more sales, which Mike admits is a whole new field and a steep learning curve for them. The current global recession isn’t helping either.

“I think the economic situation will have an impact on sales – by how much I’m not sure. But the whole economy thing is beyond our control, so we don’t stress too much on it. We’re being proactive in things that we CAN do – for example getting the word out on our artisans and their crafts, and raising as much awareness as possible for Elevyn.com.” Thankfully site traffic has been growing, albeit slowly, since their launch November last year thanks to coverage from a number of blogs and websites.

Elevyn.com is looking to build partnerships with any organizations or individuals who share the same worldview. “Alleviate poverty, empowering disadvantaged communities, or reaching out to the same markets, produce handmade crafts, etc. There are no hard requirements, but if there’s a way we can work together for a mutual benefit, please drop me a line at miketee@elevyn.com.”

Networking For Success

Mike looks at entrepreneurship as a crazy challenge, in both the physical and mental sense. “You’ll go from ‘Why the hell am I doing this’ to ‘This is the best job in the world!’ – all in one day!”, he says, sharing almost the same view as Foldees.com founder and fellow Malaysian Lau Chak Onn. “But it’s a learning curve like no other, that no universities and books can ever prepare you for. It builds your character, teaches you hard lessons and you’ll come back for more. Every single time.”

“One important lesson I’ve learnt is to build a network of similar entrepreneurs around you. Entrepreneurship requires a different level of mindset – that 99 percent of your ‘regular friends’ will not relate to. It can be an extremely lonely road. Thus the importance of speaking to people who can understand you, and vice versa.”

“An ‘entrepreneur support group’ works best.”

Welcome to Young Upstarts then, Mike, and I hope you can find like-minded people here.

Foldees.com – Crowdsourcing Greeting Card Design

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January 29, 2009

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foldees

Lau Chak Onn and Alvin Yu are crazy over Threadless T-shirts, and between them they own almost 100 Threadless T-shirts. Threadless prints and sells T-shirts to the public that are designed through contests, and two former high-school classmates figured that the same concept could apply for greeting cards and so Foldees.com was born.

“(The greeting card business) is a very traditional-type industry with very old players, so we reckoned it could use a good old kick -in-the-nuts,” says Lau Chak Onn, or Chak as he prefers to be called. “What we’ve always wanted to do is to bring the joy of greeting cards to the youth (ages 13-35). How we plan to do it is through a combination of great designs that relate to our generation, and giving them the means and reasons to send greeting cards.”

Like Threadless, Foldees.com solicits designs from the public through various competitions it runs with prizes up to US$2,500, which it then prints and sells. “We have a firm belief that with the right designs and the right functions on the site – such as full integration with Facebook to track birthdays and recommending cards based on their Facebook profiles – youngsters will rediscover the joy of sending real physical cards versus e-cards or stodgy Hallmark-type stuff.”

Since its launch in mid June last year, Foldees.com has grown to a modest 1,500 users, with about 700+ pageviews a day. Its primary source of traffic is through the contests it runs, with designers publicizing their designs on their blogs, and general community and media interest. That may seem like a small number, but Chak says the people in his community is extremely active. “Each card gets about 17 comments and rated up to 200 times each. If there are two consistent comments about our cards, it’s that the designs are bizarrely cool, and the quality of the cards is astonishing. This is part of the reason why our designers are fiercely loyal to our site.”

“If you are a designer, do join one of our contests! Even if you don’t win some of our fantastic prizes, you’ll still get royalties and loads of feedback about your designs.”

A Colorful Background

Foldees.com is currently a three-man operation based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. All three members of the team are aged 29 and come from diverse backgrounds. Chak has a media and journalism background, and he handles the marketing and PR as well as the day-to-day stuff for Foldees.com. Alvin, an award-winning accountant, handles financial issues and investor relations and also looks after operations. The last member, whom Chak says prefers to remain anonymous, is (according to Chak) a genius programmer.

Last year, Foldees.com received a grant of RM150,000 from the MDEC Pre-seed fund (a grant given by the Malaysian government to budding technopreneurs) which was used to start the company. On top of that, the founders invested about RM100,000 from their own pockets. “We are currently in the process of looking for more money to expand our operations more quickly and to support our marketing efforts.”

Sales of the cards has been promising. “Since we started selling cards in September, we’ve sold about 1000-odd cards. That’s not enough to pay for our company swimming pool, but it’s encouraging nonetheless, given that our traffic isn’t quite up there just yet.” Chak believes this number will grow despite the challenging economic times. “Greeting cards are naturally viral since you do send them to other people. About the recession, I think for us it’s actually a good thing. The greeting card industry has a history of being relatively recession-proof, and in this climate, things like manpower and property will be cheaper, so it’s a great time for a small company like ours to grow.”

Chak says they are working on implementing social networking functions and are constantly refining usability. One of the key features they are currently working on is a system, @ddress, which ties a person’s mailing address to their email. “Most people don’t have each other’s mailing addresses. With @ddress, say if you send a card to me, you can key in chak@foldees.com and it will display Chak, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, and ask you if this is the person you’d like to send the card to.” The system is targeted to be up by the end of the month. They are also looking at Facebook integration next, although Chak admits that this will depend on whether they get further backing from investors.

The Allure and Challenge of Entrepreneurship

Chak shares his experience with starting an online business. “The challenge of any web business is the same. While people are always saying that the Internet opens them up to the international pool of potential customers, it also opens them up to about 2 million competitors. The average consumer probably goes to about 15-20 sites a day, and 10 of those are probably regular ones that don’t change. Essentially, you’re fighting with the entire web to capture those 5 new sites a consumer visits, and hoping to make it into his regular top ten.”

“To truly succeed is basically a case of plugging away until you reach that magical tipping point where people look for you instead of the other way around.”

“One thing I’ve experienced is that you constantly swing from “we’re going to rock!” to “why am I doing this?!” all the time. And this happens even before you write your business plan. The most important part of creating a business is just that… creating it. Writing it down, committing it to paper and finding the right team. Once you’ve got that, you just grow together, which is the stage we’re at right now.”

“I think that the chances of succeeding an entrepreneur are slim. I’ll put that right out there. But, the main reason why most of them fail are due to limitations on the entrepreneurs themselves. Our motivations, skills, management abilities and passion are all tested – at the same time. And that’s why it’s quite scary and rewarding at the same time. It’s a test of your true mettle and when it succeeds, it’s immensely rewarding. But if it fails, you have no one to blame but yourself.”

Achieving A Breakthrough In Fundraising

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January 22, 2009

Chris Mottau of North Venture Partners contacted me to share the venture firm’s latest e-guidebook, Breaking Through The Broken: The Transparent Guide To Overcoming The Inefficiencies In Early Stage Venture Capital.

There’s advice in there for both new entrepreneurs as well as investors about raising funds. “We’re trying to flip the whole funding process on its head and make it easier for those with great innovative ideas to get the money they need to make a difference in our economy,” Chris says.

If you fall in either camp, you could do worse than to check this guide out.

Learn From The Best

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January 21, 2009

One of the greatest resources for budding entrepreneurs is Stanford University’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders seminar series. Every week, the program invites thought leaders from various business sectors and industries to share their ideas and experiences with aspiring entrepreneurs around the world. There’s excellent content for entrepreneurs here. I’ve RSSed the audio podcasts on my iTunes for so long now that it’s never occurred to me to share this on this blog.

Thanks to Yi Chie for reminding me.

Speaking of thought leaders, the other resource you should check out is TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design). The greatest and best minds of their respective industries and fields congregate to share their ideas on this platform. I’ve got this RSSed as well. This is one series I’d pay to attend if it ever comes to this part of the world.

Youth Entrepreneurship In Singapore Gets Boost; Makes You Wish You Were Young

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January 20, 2009

If you’re young and interested in entrepreneurship, here’s good news for you:

The latest Civil Law (Amendment) Bill has just revised the age at which you can start and run a business from 21 to 18. So while you won’t be allowed into some drinking establishments in Singapore, you still can be a tycoon and buy and run them.

National enterprise development agency SPRING Singapore has also recently launched two new entrepreneurship schemes for young, budding entrepreneurs: the Young Entrepreneurs Scheme for Schools (YES! Schools) and the Young Entrepreneurship Scheme for Startups (YES! Startups). With YES! Schools, educational institutions will be able to tap funds to build a student entrepreneurship program so go ahead and bug your deans and professors to start if your school doesn’t already have a program in place. YES! Startups matches S$4 for every S$1 you raise for your first startup through self-funding, schools or any other third-party sources, up to a maximum of S$50,000.

If you’re still in school and want to start a business, check these schemes out.

Doom And Gloom For Small Businesses In Singapore; Buggered By Greedy Landlords And Hypocritical Public Sector

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January 18, 2009

According to a Straits Times story, 131 small businesses in Singapore closed down last year – an increase of almost 25 percent over 2007, with almost 40 percent of these shutting down from September to December. A check conducted by the paper with 47 businesses found that nearly a third of them had either closed or are planning to.

This is hardly surprising. The global recession that toppled huge financial institutions and the economies of some countries will find small, fledgling businesses easy prey. High rents and poor sales continue to plague local small businesses, especially in the retail and F&B industries.

Even worse, there seems to be no respite from exceedingly high rentals from landlords, and no support nor sympathy from the public sector either.

Just before US Airways Flight 1549 crashed into the Hudson river after hitting a flock of geese that took out both its engines, pilot Captain Chesley Sullenburger warned his passengers over the intercom to “brace for impact”.

This warning would be appropriate to small businesses during this economic turmoil as well.

MyLinkup.sg – Innovative Tuition Agency Goes Web 2.0; Conducts Questionable Blogging Contest?

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January 16, 2009

mylinkup.sg

Picking the right home tutor for your child is an extremely important process, and it can take a long time to find someone suitable. And of course it should – the last thing you want is to end up with a paedophile getting anywhere near your children. Or a sadist – I remember my mom got me a English tutor during my primary school days who had the penchant of punishing me by attaching clothes pegs to my ears when I failed to meet her exacting standards.

But I digress. MyLinkup.sg is a registered home tuition agency that not only helps to matchmake the right tutors to students’ needs, but also manages the administrative details between both parties. Tutors and students can sign up online for future matchups. That’s nothing special, I hear you say. What may be interesting, however, is the way its using the Web for business – engaging communities on Facebook, Friendster, LinkedIn and even Windows Live. How’s that for a mere tuition agency?

One thing I can’t quite agree with is its engagement of bloggers via a blogging contest. It may sound like a great way to get extra online publicity, but paying bloggers to blog about how wonderful your service is without them having to ever try out the service is damaging to the credibility of both your site and any bloggers who do write about you.

I recommend talking to a good social media consultant.

Lost Zombies Scare The Bejeezus Out Of The Rest Of Us

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January 15, 2009

lost zombies

Horror-inspired zombie fiction will never hit mainstream in a big way – does anyone even recall B-grade zombie flicks such as 28 Days Later? But that doesn’t stop the genre’s legion of rabid fans who insist that their choice of fare should be elevated into mainstream popular culture.

Cue in Ryan Leach, the founder of zombie-themed social network Lost Zombies. His site’s goal is to create the first-ever community-generated zombie documentary/mockumentary. “The site has your basic social network features, but what makes us different is that we push our users to submit zombie-related pictures, audio recordings, stories and video clips that we are going to be editing into a feature-length film,” says Leach. Whoa, a crowdsourced zombie fan flick? Creepy. Interestingly, Lost Zombies has roughly achieved about a third of its target of 1,000 video and 10,000 photo submissions so far.

But shouldn’t it be easier to garner more submissions? After all, some of us already resemble groaning, ambling, brain-eating zombies when woken up too early in the mornings.

You’ve GotVMail – Concentrating On A Specific Market Bring Rewards

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January 14, 2009

GotVMail

Siamak Taghaddos and David Hauser met while attending the entrepreneur program at Babson College, located near Boston. Iranian-born (but Boston-raised) Siamak and Manhattan native David had each been involved in previous startup ventures, and were frustrated by the lack of affordable phone solutions available to very small businesses and entrepreneurs to help grow their business. So they pooled some personal savings, along with some funding from friends and angel investors (but no venture funding), and founded GotVMail in 2003.

GotVMail’s virtual phone service basically provides businesses a full suite of communications services to run operations – a toll-free or local number, Web delivery of fax and voicemail messages, a customized main voice greeting, mailboxes for employees and departments, a dial-by-name directory, “follow me” call forwarding capability, for example. And the online service allows you to use any phone – iPhone, land line phones, cell phones, VoIP phones, SmartPhones — without needing to purchase equipment or sign any long-term service contracts.

It’s an attractive deal for small business setups, and indeed Siamak and David pretty much planned it that way. Instead of creating a phone system that tried to be “everything to everyone”, they focused on a specific niche – entrepreneurs who want their businesses to sound bigger than they are and more professional. With this specific go-to-market plan, perhaps it wasn’t too surprising that they were profitable by their second month of operation.

Today GotVMail has served more than 60,000 small businesses, achieved the #66 ranking on Inc. Magazine’s 2007 listing of the fastest growing private companies in the US, and earned Siamak and David numerous young entrepreneur awards.

Not bad for young entrepreneurs who are not yet 30 years old.

Entrepreneurs’ Organization: Entrepreneurs View 2009 With Cautious Optimism

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January 13, 2009

According to the latest findings from Entrepreneurs’ Organization, if you’re an entrepreneur you are likely to be:

1. Concerned about the current economic climate, but are confident about surviving the crisis. Seven out of ten entrepreneurs believe you will ride out the recession. Interestingly, almost half of you anticipate an increase of revenues in 2009!

2. Concerned about obtaining funding. Money, money, money, it’s not so funny.

3. Ready to embrace “green”. Despite depressed economic conditions, more than one third of you will increase “green” commitments while 45 percent will maintain current commitment levels. Mother Earth, and the rest of humankind, will thank you for this.

4. Want to do good. Nearly a quarter of you will increase your priority for corporate social responsibility. About 60 percent of you will maintain your CSR commitments.

5. Think that the time for starting a business is as good as any. One in five of you is more likely to start a business now compared to last year, while more than half of you think it is equally as likely.

Download the full report, or check out the press release.

Event: Seven Keys To Being A Successful Serial Entrepreneur

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January 13, 2009

dan lejerskar

Dan Lejerskar is a serial entrepreneur, starting several successful companies including PFAB, a real estate development company, Prosolvia AB, a publicly-traded simulation compay, e-commerce and interactive 3D company RealityBUY Inc. Currently the co-founder, chairman and executive vice president of EON Reality Inc, Romania-born Lejerskar will be sharing his 19 years experience as a successful serial entrepreneur in an Infocomm Live event on 21 January 2009 from 6.30-9.30pm organized by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), in partnership with E27 and The Digital Movement.

Find out more here or register for the event here.

In Conversation: Heather Chi, Food For All

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January 13, 2009

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Most people don’t experience hunger in food-crazy Singapore. A look around the perpetually crowded food courts and coffee shops around the island reveal that food is certainly abundant and that there’s a lot of food wastage instead.

But the youths from Food for All intends to change Singaporeans’ mind about that. Food for All is an anti-hunger youth collective that intends to bring everyone in Singapore who is interested in, and tackling, on food issues together in dialogue. Its main work revolves around conducting research – such as its annual report on “Critical Food Issues in Singapore” – and assista Central Singapore to do a nationwide survey on food rations in Singapore. It is currently looking into establishing a food bank in Singapore, for food suppliers to deposit their excess stock, to be redistributed to the community.

I chatted with the young founder of Food for All, Heather Chi, on social entrepreneurship:

Q. Why did you want to start something like this? Tell us a little about the inspiration behind Food for All.

You can actually read about my story on my blog here. Basically, I became very interested in food issues after recovering from an eating disorder and got myself involved in a community project distributing food rations to poor people in Singapore, and was quite stricken by the extent of hunger and poverty in the country. I did more research and discovered a wide range of food issues, many of which like food security, food safety, hunger and food wastage, are very relevant to Singapore and the region. Food for All is a community and a space I have created for those like me, in Singapore, who are concerned about these issues and want to do something about it.

Q. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your passions and why you think it is important to contribute back to society.

I call myself an incorrigible pursuer of happiness because it’s true! I find great joy in creating opportunities for both myself and others to fill social gaps using our best skills – be they in event organizing, research, writing, art…even Facebooking! And that is essentially what Food for All is about. I believe each of us would be much happier if we use our best skills to create the greatest personal and community value we can – and that’s what drives me.

Q. Share some of the challenges that you’ve faced so far with regards to the initiative. How about opportunities?

Challenge #1 is volunteer management. I have had quite a bit of difficulties managing the teams when team members (including myself) frequently fly overseas or have very busy schedules. Indeed, many people in the social scene today are the same guys attending all the conferences and networking lunches, and are involved in 347640559 projects! This challenge, however, has encouraged me to adopt a very different approach to bringing people on board. Nowadays, I ‘date’ everyone who wants to come on board Food for All – meet them over a cuppa to find out why they are interested in food issues and the organizations – as well as exactly what they’d be interested to be involved with and to what extent. I try to give people what they want – which I guess is pretty new for an NGO! This has really enabled me to get to know people better, and develop real friendships – which help cement longer-term relationships and commitments.

Challenge #2 – “Resources for the Small Fry”. There are quite alot of funds available for community projects in Singapore but you need to ‘get yourself together’ and ‘get a safety label’, i.e. you have to be registered as a society (or better yet, charity) with a respectable Board of Directors, independent auditors, etc. None of my initiatives are close to this stage – which has really forced us to ‘go guerilla’: (a) finding mentors and financers – including unconventional ones like cafes – with a sincere and strong interest in our ideas, (b) using open source, free software (Joomla) and popular social networks (Facebook) to organize the team and publicize events, (c) occupying cosy cafes as temporary offices… and building up real credibility through doing solid work!

Q. If there’s something in this world that you’d like to change, what would it be and how would you go about achieving this?

Bring the control of food production, distribution and consumption to the people! Few people realize how extensively these processes have been outsourced (97% of our food is imported from mass production farms in developing countries and developed countries employing seasonal workers from developing countries… and a majority of our local F&B outlets are staffed by migrants too!) and this leads to a disconnection with the land upon which our food as grown, as well as the people who’ve shed blood, sweat and tears to get this food to us. I’ve actually produced a relatively comprehensive food report with a list of things anyone anywhere can do, with respect to a wide range of food issues, to intervene in the current system and make a change.

Q. How do you think the current economic downturn will impact on Food for All?

Since the economic downturn and period of inflation, I have been invited a number of times to talk about food inflation, the implications of this and how we can help mitigate the situation – many people are concerned about the rising food prices and we’re actively trying to compile a directory of food rations programmes in Singapore, as well as places people can get free food. These are only temporary measures though – a longer-term plan would be to look at how we can move around the current disintegrated food distribution system with middlemen (especially large retailers) and their high mark-ups!

Q. Does living in materialistic Singapore make us insensitive to social needs? How do you think we can encourage more youth to contribute back to society?

I don’t think so actually. Many other countries that are ‘materialistic’ like the UK and US, have a large proportion of youth doing sincere and committed community work. I believe the problems are self-censorship and apathy, which in part come from the comfortable life we lead here, as well as fears about stepping out, breaking from the norm, making a change. More opportunities need to be opened to youth but more importantly, these need to be opportunities that do not compromise the ability of youth to live a safe and fulfilling life. At Food for All, we always try to make things exciting – try our 3am food waste escapades! – but we find Singaporeans tend to be quite conservative themselves!

Q. Any last comments you’d like to share?

Try to make maximum impact with minimum cost and effort. Haha this is my motto actually! Very Singaporean but it’s amazing how much you can get done sticking to this!

Heather Chi, founder of Food for All

Ten Things You Can Do For A Better 2009

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January 6, 2009

By all accounts, 2009 is shaping up to be a very bad year. The global financial crisis that has wiped out billions of dollars and seen tens of thousands of jobs lost continues to stalk us from last year into 2009.

But don’t let that get us down. Here are ten things you can do for a better 2009:

1. Pick up a new skill. It’s a good time to learn something useful that will add value to your overall skill set. How about learning a new language? If nothing else, learn accounting to help keep your books in order. Most of us – including entrepreneurs! – fail when it comes to basic book-keeping.

2. Pay it forward. Once a day, do something good for someone without expecting anything in return. Help an old lady cross the road. Recommend a trusted service provider or vendor to a business contact. And you don’t even need to spend any money – a smile does wonders to light up someone else’s day. Karma aside, the feel-good factor is an adrenaline rush.

3. Finish what you’ve started. Focus on completing something that you’ve conveniently left aside for some time now. It could be that you haven’t updated your website for a while. Or perhaps it’s the long overdue maintenance works for your home. Finish it!

4. Network. Join business and social networking events to meet more people. Extend your circle of friends, business contacts and acquaintances. You’ll never know when you may need them.

5. Be more knowledgeable. Read more books. Subscribe to a good current affairs magazine. Personally, I subscribe to Monocle and found that my world view has changed since the day I picked my first copy up. Knowledge is power.

6. Start a side project. Do something totally different on the side that will give you another perspective in life. Start a blogshop. Support a cause. Found a social initiative to save the last remaining mangrove swamp in your hometown from reclaimation. My friend Kelvin Quee may be the co-founder of local startup JamiQ, but he also runs Interesthink and that makes him a lot more complete than most people I know.

7. Forgive one person who’ve wronged you in 2008. Seriously, this sounds like mumbo-jumbo but forgiving someone for an injustice done to you does really help you psychologically. Drop that weight off your shoulder and concentrate on the real issues in life.

8. Give up one vice. Smoking, drinking, whoring, gambling, porn, whatever. The amount of time and money you save can be channelled to something more positive.

9. Be more involved in your community. Be a volunteer in your neighbourhood. Join the volunteer corps, or even helping out at the soup kitchen. There’s never a better time to give back to society. I’m considering joining my neighbourhood watch to look out for crime around my district.

10. Maintain a positive outlook in life. Carry yourself with confidence and a positive vibe. People who are positive naturally attracts others to them. Nobody likes a dour person with a face that can sour milk.

Granted, doing any or all of the above will not help you single-handedly rebuild the world’s financial systems. But at least you can look back and feel some satisfaction that you’ve made a difference to YOUR life at the end of 2009.

Happy New Year!

Promeoh.com – Making Shopping For Bargains Easy

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January 4, 2009

promeoh logo

Shopping is a very big deal in Singapore, and shopping for bargains in crowded malls is possibly the most popular form of bloodsport all Singaporeans participate in. But as Vaasu Gavarasana found out, there wasn’t a single comprehensive resource on the latest information on shopping promotions anywhere in the market. A consumer had to look through a lot of places – newspapers, brochures, mailers or online sites – before forming a picture of what’s available. To take that “pain” away, Vaasu founded Promeoh.

The idea first came to Vaasu when he was asked for shopping advice by a friend who was visiting Singapore. Realizing that there was an opportunity, he quit his job, sourced technology, sounded out some marketing gurus and came up with the concept. Promeoh basically aims to provide consumers with comprehensive, updated information on sales promotions so that they can identify the deals that most interest them and go shopping well equipped with this information.

“We are not an e-commerce site – our objective is basically to provide information,” says D. Sriram, Singapore-based Promeoh‘s CEO. “The big new idea here is getting marketers a proper database of consumer reactions to different kinds of promotions and creating an engine for planning and executing sales promotions.”

Both Sriram and founder Vaasu are advertising folks who quit their jobs to start Promeoh. Sriram has some 18 years of experience and was also formerly CEO, Asia-Pacific for Starcom Mediavest Group. Vaasu also spent a similar 18 years in advertising, and was last regional VP at McCann Erickson. He started Promeoh because, as he put it, he wants to “actually live and breathe solutions instead of recommending them and walking away”.

“To us, entrepreneurship is all about finding ways to create value – for our customers and our consumers. If we can do that, we succeed, if we don’t, we fail – and either outcome is acceptable to us as the result of what we do,” says Sriram.

Promeoh’s key USP is also its greatest challenge

Sriram declares that a “comprehensive listing of promotions is our USP and is what will bring users back”. “There may be better places for a specific category – so people who only want that specific category might find that its better to go look in a superstore than on our site – but the next time around, when they shop for furniture, or a TV, or bedsheets, or anything else at all, Promeoh is the only place likely to have it all,” he explains. “Our goal is not necessarily to be the best in every category, but to be the best generalist across categories, and to be the best generalist across all promotion types.” At present Promeoh has between 1500-2000 promotions listed at any point in time (often a few hundred will expire over the weekend so the number fluctuates quite a bit).

However, searching for promotions on Promeoh can be difficult and confusing, and its search engine’s algorithms leaves a lot to be desired. For example, when looking for mobile phones, a keyword search for “phone” fails to return any result. Only when you search “mobile” do you understand why: mobile phones are classified under mobile handsets or mobile smartphones so apparently the engine checks the first word in the search string instead of within the entire string. This is counter-intuitive, and some natural language processing technology is seriously needed here to make the engine work a whole lot better (and smarter). And why isn’t there a way to search for an exact item, say a Blackberry Bold?

Aside from the relatively unattractive design of the site (which can be easily improved), this is potentially the deal-breaker for Promeoh.

Sriram admits that they accelerated their launch to “try and help shoppers over Christmas and New Year and while its pretty much there, there’s a couple of bugs here and there which we’re sorting out on the fly”. One of the key challenges it faces, says Sriram, is that without adequate money some features have to be put on hold and having to work with a smaller content team than is ideal. “But the biggest challenge is trying to get advertisers to give us the time of day since we are a small part of their lives and not the most important thing on their to-do lists.”

Opportunities in times of recession

One of the bright points, Sriram noted, is that given the current recession they are actually finding it easier than expected to get traffic and repeat visits. “We now have an initial visitor base of around 11000 – on that base we need to start selling listing packages to large retailers and use that funding to add features to our product, promote to a larger base and grow into the 100,000+ visitor base at which we would seriously challenge other places where promotions get advertised.”

“Also, our early traffic is giving us some great data on what appeals to consumers which we’re hoping to use to bring in advertising dollars.”

Promeoh is currently fully privately funded through friends, family and associates. “At this point we’ve spent about S$500,000 to develop and launch and expect to use up another S$300,000 by June 2009. Having said that, we’re funded adequately to survive another few months without revenue, and we should be starting to make some money by January.”

Being Smart

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December 29, 2008

Most people think Levi Strauss invented the blue jean. Actually, it was Jacob Youphes (aka Jacob Davis), a Latvian immmigrant to the United States who approached Strauss with the idea of using copper rivets to reinforce denim work pants. Strauss, who knew a good idea when he saw one, accepted Davi’s offer to file for a joint patent and the Levis jeans was born. They sold many pairs of those tough jeans to gold prospectors during the California Gold Rush.

Thomas Alva Edison was credited with inventing the light bulb, but he actually bought over a patent from Henry Woodward who was an early pioneer in the development of the incandescent lamp. Edison did, however, spot an opportunity in the market and created the Edison Electric Light Company (now General Electric) to benefit from it. He even formed a joint venture with a British competitor (Joseph Swan), who had been awarded a patent one year before his, in order to avoid a potentially costly legal battle.

Lesson 1: You don’t have to be smart to be smart. Sometimes you just have to recognize when someone else is smart and leverage from it.

Lesson 2: You don’t have to be the first to invent something. You just need to be able to see the value in something and find a market for it.

Lesson 3: Intellectual property rights can be a pain. Learn to work with the system.

Merry Christmas; Pledge Your Support For Underprivileged Children

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December 29, 2008

Now that the Christmas presents opened and the feasting is done, spare a thought for the needy this festive season. Drop by Samsung Hope and pledge your support for underprivileged children. There’s no donation required – simply pledge your support and Samsung will donate some US$700,000 to various children charities in the region.

Have a merry Christmas!

(Disclaimer: I work for Samsung .)

Of 65 Bits, Nine Geeks And A Hundred Kick-Ass Episodes

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December 27, 2008

Geeks in Singapore rejoice! Tech podcasters Tech65 yesterday celebrated the live recording of their 100th episode with great cheer at Geek Terminal, along with a rabid audience of many regulars in the social media scene in Singapore. The original crew of four – whom I spoke to earlier in June this year – has now grown to a team of nine, and includes familiar local bloggers such as Nicole, DK and Hisham. With this expanded team, Tech65 will finally be able to put up written reviews of the *awesome* stuff they feature in their podcasts.

Interesting, the team also unveiled a new channel – Gear65 – which is a video podcast that checks out the latest gadgets and other tech toys known to bring orgasmic pleasure to grown boys (and girls).

Traditional media watch out – you’re in danger of letting a bunch of young punks pwn you in this space. Woot!

An Upcoming, And Hopefully Interesting, Project

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December 20, 2008

I’m currently organizing a project which I hope will add value to Singapore’s entrepreneurial, and technopreneurial, scene.

Slated to start sometime in January 2009, it will be a series of regular events that will bring together interested parties – entrepreneurs, investors, service providers and even students – based in Singapore for meaningful, yet casual, small-group discussions about entrepreneurship and innovation.

If you fall into any of the above categories and are interested to participate, drop me an email at daniel at youngupstarts dot com with the subject header “Young Upstarts Secret Project 2009”.

Note that participants in this project will strictly be by invite-only, and participation is NOT free.

TANGS In Second Life, Makes Virtual Worlds Fashionable

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December 20, 2008

tangs facade

Virtual TANGS

You don’t usually expect fashion retailers to be online trailblazers, yet local retail giant TANGS announced this week that it will be opening its next store – in 3D virtual world Second Life created by Linden Labs.

Virtual TANGS, to be officially launched in March 2009, will basically be a 3-dimensional replica of the retailer’s iconic 76 year-old flagship store on Orchard Road and hopes to bring beauty, fashion and lifestyle merchandise that Singapore has come to love into the virtual world. TANGS also teamed up with local Singapore startup and virtual world financial services provider First Meta™, making it easier for Second Life inhabitants to be able to purchase virtual fashion modelled from the retailer’s in-house fashion brands.

tangs models

Virtual clothes, modelled from real-life in-house lines

The acceptance of virtual worlds is still relatively low in Asia – for example, the number of Singaporeans on Second Life is estimated at around 1,500. I can’t foresee that virtual TANGS to be as packed as its real-world counterpart, but kudos to TANGS for being the first lifestyle retailer in Asia for attempting something like this on such a scale.

Philip Rosedale would be impressed.

You can read more from this TODAY story.

Moot.com – Woot, A WiFi-based Social Networking Service!

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December 16, 2008

Image courtesy of Moot.com

I got an email from André Mlonyeni, CEO of Ground Control Labs introducing his company’s social networking service Moot.com. Moot connects people within the same WiFi network, usually around a location – such as cafés, school campuses or libraries – and allows them to interact with one another and share stuff peer-to-peer. One of the best things about Moot, Mlonyeni points out, is the fact that “as no mobile operator or ISPs are involved… users will not be monitored by any third party.” Cool stuff.

The Moot team currently consists of five people – three developers, one marketing guy and Mlonyeni – based in Oslo, Norway, three of whom are former employees of Norway telecommunications service provider Telenor. It turns out Mlonyeni himself was Telenor‘s former chief of research. “We’re a small company trying to bring social networking out of the virtual space and into the streets,” says Mlonyeni. “The main idea behind the concept is giving people new impulses based on the place they are and the context they’re in and the tools for broadcasting their personality and file sharing.”

“Therefore we designed this application for local interaction, where people can chat, share and express themselves digitally to other people in their physical surroundings.”

The key benefit for the user, Mlonyeni says, is the ability to communicate digitally with his surroundings without having any prior knowledge to the details of other people. “All Moot users nearby appear on the screen available for communication and sharing. Another benefit is that Moot is totally free. We are targeting the ‘Facebook-generation’.”

Moot is currently in beta. Mlonyeni shares that one key challenge it recently overcame was to ensure good encryption and authentication for its users when they communicate locally and directly with each other without a server. Their key growth strategy moving forward is to penetrate more terminals and platforms, and develop a user profile page that provides users with a history of their Moot events.

It’s a social networking service of a very different take, and not purely Web or mobile- focused like most others. Moot may target Facebook users, but I can see it used in other ways – It’ll kick ass in a classroom, or in a seminar or workshop.

Moot is funded by Norwegian investors to the sum of around US$1.3 million to date.

PS: I love its branding and the cool artwork!

André Mlonyeni, Moot.com

Singapore Location-Based Mobile Service MyWobile.com Announces Beta

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December 15, 2008