4 Hot Trends to watch in 2013

Looking back 2012, lots have certainly transpassed.  It was incidentally around the same time last year  when I penned "5 Hot Trends to watch in 2012".  In 2012, cloud, social and mobility drove the feverish growth in the ecosystem from startups, incubators, investors, system integrators, enterprises, brands etc, as well as choice and consumption changes in consumer behaviour. 



With 2013, we could see the promise and potential in the following themes:

1. Everything gets smarter, more fun and unstructured.
2. Devices help consumers with recommendations to content and merchandise.
3. Cloud enable content and data transport, storage and backup to different devices everywhere.
4. Consumer loyalty will be driven across multiple experiences.

How would the above factor out in terms of possible trends? Here is part 1 of the view from Nelson Wee :-)

(1) Tablets will rule with Smart Tabs, Mass Tabs, Phablets

• Tablets and its hybrid convertibles phablets (large 5" to 7" screen touchscreen devices) will get smarter, cheaper and made available en-masse.
• In my earlier post "why are there huge opportunities in Connecting People through Mobile Social Messaging", I brought up Mary Meeker's 2012 year end internet trends presentation which pointed out the high internet user adds especially in the emerging markets (i.e. Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam). I also wrote about this in an earlier post "Doorway to the Mobile Internet opens in Southeast Asia, a high growth market in the making".
• Increasingly Asian mobile consumers value larger screens to consume mobile content, in parallel with TV watching.
• In fact, living with the larger screens in with phablets and tablets becomes addictive.
• And one more proof point, iPad mini and Samsung Note tablets have been out of stock in Singapore in the last couple of weeks apparently from the retail stores here I have heard!

(2) Content and merchandise everywhere

• To match the mobility and on-the-go lifestyles of consumers, not only will content need to be availed via multiple screens (feature phones, smartphones, tablets, PCs, Smart TVs etc), physical merchandise will be sold via mobile and bundled with digital content  - this being evident with Amazon.com's foray into the tablet and mobile commerce market.
• Whilst digital rights management (aka DRM) technologies are available today from the likes of companies like Lotaris, the current on-going debate between eBooks and publishers lends caution however to the business issues which need to be resolved along the content value chain.

(3) Apps with niche communities thrive

• In an earlier post "Key themes from Sparxup 2012 in Jakarta", various apps based on niche focused communities (e.g. for backpackers, food recipes) are sprouting up and have the potential to continue to thrive together with the larger social media communities, Facebook.
• Social networks around education and kids via edtech technologies also have an opportunity to grow in particular with the needs of parents and their concerns for their children's future.  Content portals made relevant for kids like WhizTimes are also establishing their foothold to cater to this market.
• Coupled with mobile and social technologies, niche communities can flourish in tandem.

(4) Communication made richer via mobile social

• In my last post "Why are there huge opportunities in Connecting People through Mobile Social Messaging", I highlighted the why and how hot the mobile social messaging market is developing globally, in particular Southeast Asia.
• Additional industry momentum on such Rich Communication Services is also being orchestrated by a global program, marketed as "Joyn", and project led by GSMA, is increasingly deployed to more operators to enable inter-operator instant messaging or chat, video sharing and file transfers.
• Consumers are looking for quick and easy sharing of their media (photos, videos, text etc) with their circles of friends and extended networks, depending on their context.
• Stay tuned to how the various mobile social messaging players evolve their solution platform offerings (e.g. mobile social games, themes, ancillary apps, merchandise) to ensure frequent engagement and viral acquisition.
• Here is Tictocplus - an example of a mobile social messaging platform service for quick and easy sharing of your photos and videos in your chats with your friends (disclosure: Tictocplus is from SK planet, where I am at currently).

Here are my initial take on 4 hot trends I see coming for 2013.

What are your thoughts on 2013 hot trends?

Talk soon,
Nelson Wee
twitter: @nelsonwee
my profile: http://www.linkedin.com/nelsonwee

More reference links for your read:

1. What 5 trends to look out for at CES 2013
2. Most anticipated tech gadgets for 2013
3. 10 Tech Trends to watch for in 2013
4. 10 Marketing Trends to watch for in 2013
5. Arip identifies top 5 trends to watch in 2013
6. 5 predictions for Twitter in 2013
7. Living with a big screen phone

3 Key Themes from Sparxup 2012 in Jakarta

I visited Indonesia recently for the Sparxup 2012 event in Jakarta. There was a hackathon in day 1, followed by presentations and panels in the next 2 days. As always, it was refreshing to engage and listen in to ideas from the market - most of the presenters and the booth participants were from Indonesia though there were representations from Japan and Singapore as well.

Amidst the vibrant energies and furious presentations, I came back with the following 3 common themes from Sparxup 2012.

1. Community can thrive in local tribes with common passions

In my previous posts, I had discussed about how apps continue to act as outposts for communities of common passions. Apps like DishPal for food lovers sharing recipes in virtual potluck parties, and StyleTag for street fashion trend spotting target specific vertical communities and the specific mobile routines in their communities like sharing, enhancing and achievement oriented engagements. (declaration: DishPal and StyleTag are apps from SK planet, where I am now at)

In Sparxup 2012, communities and the development of which, in the local Indonesia market context, were very much represented by the respective passionate founders.

DapurMasak featured a social network dedicated in making the cooking experience fun, both in the bid to preserve the traditional recipes of Indonesia as well as to develop and enrich further the recipes. "Recu" represented the "like" in this local food community.  DapurMasak community members further continue to share and enrich their recipes through "cooking" accomplishments on the social network. Read more here on the gamification elements (cook points and badges) and monetization models (brand sponsorships in cooking challenges) in DapurMasak.

Another community, trackpacking.com focused on user generated content for backpackers. Groups in this dedicated backpackers' community were identified as "tribes". The use of "track-in" for a specific track submitted to this community, were highlighted by community members who have tried the specific track - hence the validations by this niche social network on the contributors of backpacking tracks. And by the way, this community was developed by one man, Kurniawan - simply amazing, what passion can drive!

2. Location holds context to everyday life's discovery

In my previous post, I looked at the opportunities in location-based mobile offerings. And these are increasingly being mashed into various social contexts. In Sparxup, the mobile routines around location, like sharing location information, writing, reviewing and keeping digital memories and planning were highlighted by a number of startups.

Memories associated to each moment in your travels are precious - this is the premise developers of a travel diary/travelogger app focused their energies around their offerings. This travel diary app from StoreQ, targeting bloggers, help log the travel diary entries with the help of Bing Maps and Evernote, as private notes in defined notebooks and are shareable to blogs, Facebook and Twitter public networks.

Another local travel in Indonesia, called Baroo, took care of trip planning app for holidays in Indonesia. Incidentally, this is where Baroo is located in Indonesia - yup the app was named after this place.

In terms of a different take and a wow user experience, I found Harpoen refreshing. Harpoen is all about making places social by enabling users to tagging and leaving your marks or "harps" at specific places you would like to leave your memory trails via digital messages. You could read more about Harpoen here (WSJ article) and over here (Techinasia article).

3. E-commerce is growing in developing markets

With more than 240 million people living in Indonesia, a growing middle class family with 20 million IDR monthly income to target, while shopping malls are sprouting up in a number of new places, persistent traffic jams and huge geography of Indonesia open up opportunities for e-commerce.

Fashion goods, clothing feature prominently on the agenda of e-commerce players in Indonesia as this forms the top category of goods purchased via e-commerce currently there, according to a report by DailySocial. Whilst largely driven by users surfing from PCs and at home, this has not dampened the momentum in players going to market with their offerings.

Small startups like shoppingmagz who position themselves to be the first digital shop and lifestyle magazine in Indonesia, are standing tall against other new but more established e-commerce players like blibli.com.

Blibli.com prides themselves in their quality of service and capability in delivering on their mantra of "anytime, anywhere shopping". Blibli.com aims to enable their time-poor consumers to lead less stressful lives by providing relevant lifestyle recommendations through their digital merchandising and deliver the products with easy click to buy payment options. The end to end level of service carries on to the convenient logistics fulfilment options and call centre customer service.

Seeing the energies and passion from all the presentations, panel discussions and booth visits in Sparxup 2012, these simply reaffirm my previous posts where I was writing about how:

• internet growth of southeast asia through mobile
• the evolution from print to digital of retail circulars
• how are eshopping trends shaping the market

are all leading to continual development and engagement in local or vertical communities, social conversations and the entry into commerce - these I alluded in my previous post on "3 Phase Strategy in Digital Commerce".

What are your observations on the common themes in apps, social and commerce in Indonesia or Southeast Asia in general?

Let's connect to discuss further.

Talk soon~
Nelson Wee
profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nelsonwee
twitter: @nelsonwee

How can Apps help build up your Social Currency?

In my last post "3 Phase Strategy in Digital Commerce", I brought up the potential ways in which:

1. Apps could act as outposts to consumers and build up communities.
2. Social messaging platforms and content marketing could engage with your consumers.
3. Commerce in general is bringing in the social engagement and recommendations to the online and mobile space as consumers are increasingly on-the-go and expect value from differentiated offers.

Wikipedia definition of social currency for your business states that it constitutes the entirety of actual and potential resources which could arise from the presence of your business in social networks and communities - digital or offline.

So how do mobile apps come into the picture in helping to build up social currency for your business? Growth in on-the-go consumers and mobile content consumption are changing the ways in which consumers are putting their attention and mindshare on business and marketing news. In southeast asia markets, whilst largely feature phone driven, smartphone growth are fast outstripping the growth of feature phones in the recent 2 years with the availability of low cost affordable smartphones. Internet access via low cost tablets and wifi enabled cafes are also helping the fuel internet access and content sharing. Have a look at my initial take on the Southeast Asia mobile and internet market (I will be updating this in another post) and you would see the potential reach of apps in Southeast Asia markets. Should you look into getting a piece of this channel? Yes. Is it worth your while? YES!

Southeast Asia Market Sizing for Internet Commerce from Nelson Wee

In developing the app strategy for your business, you would need to understand that in today's world of on-the-go consumers and pervasive mobile internet access, the market landscape for the consumption of business and marketing information is changing. No longer static in nature, there is a shift of information sharing and communication from static documents in your PCs to browsers and now increasingly via apps in smartphones, tablets, feature phones and more upcoming screens.

Here is a slide on how mobile apps: 

• could be used as experimental outposts to reach your consumers 
• to seed and incubate concept messaging, 
• and build up specific vertical communities for businesses. 

Open declaration here: the apps DishPal, StyleTag and StARCALL are from SK Planet where I currently work in.

Apps build communities from Nelson Wee

By nurturing your communities, engaging your users with the all-important relevant content calendar, you start to be able to mine and garner value for your business from your interactions with your consumers through the profiling of your community users.

Referring back to my previous post on the the 3 phases in Digital Commerce, the social messaging platform when coupled with nurtured communities and consumer profiling from apps, will grow richer with more relevant consumer and business context.

Let's discuss further - in subsequent posts or reach me directly.

I look forward to hear from you.

Nelson Wee
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nelsonwee
Twitter: @nelsonwee
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.com/nelsonwee