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

Why the Nokia Communicator was loved in Southeast Asia

In my last post, as I wrote about the doorway to the Internet opening very quickly in Southeast Asia markets, I also remembered how the Nokia Communicator came to the market. 

Why?  Because the Nokia Communicator was one of the very first converged smartphones in the market - a wide screen, comfortably spaced QWERTY keyboard, sms, fax, connectivity to the internet, black and white to color in a solid clamshell build ... from the Nokia 9000 in 1996 to the Nokia E90 in 2007, a new Communicator arrived every 3 years.  And the Nokia Communicator certainly caught the hearts of a number of loyal fans and communities in Southeast Asia.

I remember fondly of being part of the launch of the Nokia 9500 Communicator in Southeast Asia (a touch of nostalgia for fans of the Communicator with the attached Nokia 9500 product video), and particularly the Indonesia go-to-market experience.

During the 2004 launch of the Nokia 9500 Communicator in Indonesia, consumers were lining up since 4am in the morning.  Here is a photo of crowd I took on the day of launch.  A steady flow of people streamed in continuously in long lines, some with babies in hand and a thick wad of cash in the other for the converted smartphone!

3 things which drew the Southeast Asia fans to the Nokia Communicator:
(1) Status
One of the very first converged smartphones in the market, the Nokia Communicator belonged to a league of its own class.  Those who owned a Communicator felt that they had achieved a key milestone in life.  Both the men and the ladies - businessmen, celebrities, I spoke to in Indonesia (and other markets) would attest to that.  Status is a very key driving factor for Southeast Asia (and the larger Asia) consumers.  And the Nokia Communicator grew a strong and loyal following in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

(2) Communication Options
The Nokia Communicator had sms, fax, internet connectivity and email as part of its rich communication options and further complemented by a wide screen and a well-spaced QWERTY keyboard.  Businessmen used the Communicator to keep in touch with their personal and business networks with the flexible communication options.

(3) Productivity
Asian consumers have a very large number of contacts.  I remember talking to many businessmen and government officials in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, who literally owned a filofax of thousands of contacts in their Nokia Communicators!  Just look at the photo I captured below of a consumer (notice the intense look) who was transferring the contacts, sms messages from his previous Nokia Communcator to his new Nokia 9500 Communicator.

Key productivity use cases of the Nokia Communicator:

• Festive sms greetings could be prescheduled to their networks.
• Business agreements conducted and captured over long sms threads.
• Purchase orders could be conveyed over fax.

It's been a rather fascinating journey back in time as I reminisced the birth and passing of one Nokia Communicator to the next.  With great interest and anticipation, I look forward to the arrival of the Nokia E7 smartphone, which just may herald the coming of the next line of modern Communicators into the market after the previous Nokia E90 Communicator in 2007 (of which I was also proud to be part of the go-to-market).

Any thoughts from you on your experiences with the Nokia Communicator?

Til later, more thoughts
Nelson Wee
@nelsonwee

Doorway to the Mobile Internet opens in Southeast Asia, a high growth market in the making

I was writing in my previous post about the "5 Key App Insights from AppsXchange Asia 2010 Event in Singapore" where I was highlighting the evolution of the Asia mobile apps ecosystem.  As I look back over the 10 years, I can't help but feeling amazed on the changes in the consumption habits of the Southeast Asia (SEA - comprise markets like Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore etc) consumers for the Internet, for apps and contents, for checking out and into nearby events - all these, happening on their mobile handsets.  With market competitive dynamics at play, consumers here are increasingly able to get hold of mobile handsets with mobile internet access with supporting data plans.  QWERTY (full keyboard) mobile handsets incidentally are hot not only with working professionals but also with the youths, and these are getting lower in price in the markets here.

Profile the SEA's consumers being largely prepaid customers without data plans, cost-conscious and using their mobile handsets to make a call or sms and you would be very surprised to learn (source, dated 30-OCT-2010: http://www.checkfacebook.com/) that Indonesia with 29.8M Facebook users is the #2 largest Facebook community globally, with the Philippines with 17.9M Facebook users, also in the top 10 at #6! 

Consumers in SEA today are getting on their mobile handsets:
1. Faster Mobile Internet speeds to browse the Internet with the deployment of 3G
The sprouting of more and more Internet Cafes and WiFi hotspots, particularly in the tier 1 cities, are catering to the voracious Internet access to the youths, is also a key enabler to mobile internet access and content downloads.

2. Transitioning from sms, to email and social networking interactions
Whilst sms will not yet go away in the forseeable future, mobile email has grown increasingly popular as PC penetration is low in the developing markets.  SEA consumers are also using the mobile internet to reach out in social networks - Facebook, Yahoo and Twitter (btw, Indonesia is in the top 10 of Twitter users globally too!) are the 3 most popular social networks in SEA (source: http://www.alexa.com/).

3. Colorful and interactive apps and contents
From the days of yore when black and white tones, graphics and games were the in-thing, these days we see that downloads of customization contents like themes, wallpapers, ring tones (also subscribing to ring-back tones) and games are the drawing power for digital content, app stores in SEA.

There are undoubtedly challenges to account for, such as a number of SEA's dominant markets, e.g. Indonesia, Indochina, Thailand, Philippines, are dominated by prepaid customers who shop around for bargains.  However, if you like me, are reading "The Developing World" by Fredrik Haren, you will discover that consumers from developing markets, like in SEA countries, engage more with the Internet and hence social networks, leveraging this global platform to the fullest, voicing their views in blog posts, personal updates, doing research and checking in on the latest events in-country and globally.

Watch out for the rising wave of the Mobile Internet sweeping through Southeast Asia.  What have your Internet experiences been in the Southeast Asia markets?  I will be writing more posts in the future regarding related topics for the SEA countries.

Later,
Nelson Wee
connect with me in Twitter @NelsonWee

More Related Reading References:
1. ANALYSIS - Southeast Asia telcos shine, tap mobile data for growth
2. Mobile Phones in South-East Asia - Talk is Cheap
3. Data Services to Drive Growth As Southeast Asia's Mobile Market Nears Saturation
4. Twitter Facts and Figures, 13 MAY 2010
5. Indonesia is The top Twitter users penetration in the world
6. [Updated 19-OCT] Facebook releases Messenger for BlackBerry