Why are Time, Place and Occasion the 3 New Pillars for Total Product Offering in Online to Offline Commerce?

It’s all about context (museums provide perspectives to context to the past as well as the future and so I used the image of the museum for this post) today when consumers are inundated with a myriad of products and services, when merchants struggle to match their product offerings to the tastes and preferences of consumers.

With mobile technologies, our daily lifestyles are both helped by and yet at times crippled by the lack of recommendations for products which are relevant at certain times of the day or week, around certain places we are located or preparing for certain special occasions like birthdays or end of year get-together with family and friends. Search on PC and Mobile helps with the first layer guide and then we, as consumers have to sieve through the second layer of pages of content from wikis, blog sites or lifestyle guides. Alternatively, we could draw inspirations from either mobile food and lifestyle apps or from our circle of friends from our Facebook or Instagram communities. Practically though, when it comes down to the decision point, you may end up asking your spouse or close friends (WOM, word-of-mouth) due to the urgency of the moment or lack of relevancy in the content you read to your context, tastes and preferences.

To get to the context for today’s mobile lifestyle consumers, merchants have to match the time, place and occasion parameters of the consumers with product offerings relevant to consumers’ tastes and preferences. And this will be an iterative testing, gathering and learning process.

With regards to time, merchants could think about the time of the day (breakfast, lunch, tea-time, dinner, supper?) or time in the week (weekdays, weekends?) or time in the year (school time, family holiday time?) and customize their product offerings in their communications to the right target segments.

With regards to place, merchants could think about the differences between customizing and offering their products in the central business districts, offices, industrial parks vis-à-vis the suburban residential neighbourhoods.

With regards to occasion, merchants could think about the nuances in product offerings to different cultures, festivals, or special moments for families and friends.

Again these are nothing new. Many merchants are trying to reach out to consumers from their brick and mortar stores or online presence and both traditional and digital marketing. However to capture today’s time-starved consumers’ mindshare, a merchant’s total product experience will need to go from today’s noisy practices of mass-communicating their product offerings and drive to more effective and targeted capture of consumers’ mindshare, by appealing to their lifestyle daily habits through testing constantly and providing hybrid curation of content and recommendations which strikes a chord with the consumers’ context in time, place, occasion.

What are your perspectives in the use of time, place and occasion to target today's and tomorrow's consumers?

Talk more in 2015. Happy new year!

Nelson Wee sending greetings from Singapore

Profile http://www.linkedin.com/in/nelsonwee

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How has the ecosystem evolved with the daily habits of mobile Internet users?

How has the ecosystem evolved with the daily habits of mobile Internet users? The journey from the PC Internet to the current age of the Smart device Internet is charting an exciting path on how the market ecosystem is evolving with the daily habits of mobile Internet users of today ... 

In the last 20 years, we have witnessed 4 Phases in the Journey to the Mobile Internet. From the age of the "PC Internet" to the "Feature Phone Internet", "Smartphone Internet" and now the "Smart device Internet".  We have also seen how users of the Internet have evolved in their daily habits of information and content consumption - this is evident as we review the market development in the five pillars in the digital content Internet business. 

How has the evolution been in the ecosystem during the 4 phases in our journey to the mobile Internet?

(1) Content has grown richer in variety and depth

• From black and white to colour and having depth in colour in graphics (remember days of black and white operator logos, picture messages in Nokia feature phones)
• From mono tone ring tones to polymorphic ring tones to MP3s and today's streaming and high-def music services
• From simple flash and java games to today's rich app store games and multi-player social games
• and the list goes on ... video, TV, 3D, augmented reality characters and so on ... consumers are spoilt for choice

(2) Advertising has evolved across multiple screen sizes, devices, content and purpose

• Ads are no longer restricted to the TV (broadcast, content and ads in DVDs) and PCs (with multimedia cards allowing for TV, video playing, radio listening).
• Ads are now also seen in various apps (e.g. chat, youtube); and apps are now in Smart TVs.
• Ads are evolving as content for the brands - attempt from brands to engage audiences.

(3) Access to Internet and content is widely availed to a global audience

• Content is now availed through TVs, radio, PCs, laptops, feature phones, smartphones, tablets, phablets, wearables, and so on in all manner of smart mobile devices - one of the trends in recent years and into 2013 ... 
• Feature phones are also getting smarter and driving mobile Internet access and innovative content consumption, especially in the emerging markets where mobile phones outnumber PCs.

(4) Payment for content (and now products) and the players in the ecosystem are fast evolving to cater to consumers' lifestyles and daily habits

• No longer restricted to just credit cards and PayPal,
• Operator mobile billing via sms, money online payment methods like bank transfers, scratch cards, COD (cash-on-delivery) are offering alternative payment modes for not only digital contents but potentially also for physical products and merchandise.

(5) Fulfilment, the last mile in terms of delivery of products and content and personalised bundled offers is being invested 

• Besides Amazon who leads the pack in this area, China's Alibaba and local ecommerce players like Redmart are investing in owning logistics fulfilment to ensure continual customer satisfaction and retention.

How are digital content players working to shape daily habits of mobile Internet users?

• News is sticky - look at Yahoo, local news sites like Malaysia's Malaysiakini.com, Indonesia's Detik.com and you will see them feature in the top 20 Alexa rankings for the local markets. And as for apps for news ... new ways to read news online are constantly evolving in their offers.

• Communication - mobile instant messaging (social chat), private chat, mobile Internet call (Skype), or good ol' email, is a hotly contested space in the market today, globally and especially more so in Asia.

• During Echelon June 2013 Asia startups event in Singapore, a number of players I met with are focusing on apps which cater to the following daily habits of users - take a look at the slideshare showcase below.

Echelon June 2013 Singapore - showcase of mobile apps and startups to daily habits of mobile Internet users by Nelson Wee from Nelson Wee

Consumers are growing spoilt for choice for content, products and mobile devices and appliances from where they can consume content and buy products from. With more choice fighting for a growing yet at the same limited attention span of the consumers, lots of innovation and change in the ecosystem will be taking place in this current age of "smart device Internet" and future ages to come - this indeed spells out for more exciting moments to come to see how the daily habits of the mobile Internet users will continue to evolve.

For your reference, please see below for the rest of the presentation deck which I presented my "Journey into the Mobile of the Internet" recently on 19 June 2013 at Salesforce.com Biz Academy (I would like to thank Sultan Semlali for this wonderful opportunity). Appreciate your comments.

Journey into the mobile of the Internet - Nelson Wee Salesforce.com Biz Academy Presentation 19 june 2013 from Nelson Wee

I look forward to continue with my conversations with you.

Talk soon~
Nelson Wee
Profile: Nelson Wee, Singapore
Blog: http://myovi.blogspot.com
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.com/nelsonwee 
Twitter: @nelsonwee

What are the Daily Habits in Online and Mobile Internet Users?

With help from the rapid proliferation of mobile devices, mobile data connectivity with affordable data plans from mobile network operators and wifi services and innovations from the apps and contents ecosystems, the online and mobile Internet today has been shaping how consumers are consuming apps, services and contents and converting into daily habits.

Here is an analysis on how the daily habits of online and mobile users with respect to the different categories of apps, services and contents, served up and consumed on their feature phones, smartphones, tablets, PCs etc, are being segmented. The 4 types of segmentation are characterised against the frequency of usage vis-a-vis retention over time (source: analysis of Flurry blog analysis and AC Nielsen consumer studies on apps and second screen).

Daily Habits of Mobile Internet Users (Analysis May 2013) from Nelson Wee

(1) In the upper right hand corner Quadrant I "High Engagement and Value" segment, communication (email, social instant messaging)  and news come up tops being habitually consumed by consumers intensively and to which consumers grow loyal and stick to over time. With a power base of stable, growing audiences, advertising revenue or subscription charging are business models being pursued.

(2) In the upper left hand corner Quadrant II "High Engagement and Churn" segment,  social networking, social games, streaming music etc serve as high traffic drivers with consumption often contained within short bursts. To stem churn, acquisition and retention have to be constantly reinforced via for example, in-app item purchases, gamification.

(3) In the lower left hand corner Quadrant III "One-off premium use" segment, contents for education, health and fitness or medical tend to lead to one-off consumption and so warrant a premium charge. Entertainment and personalisation also fall under this categorisation where the situational context could lead to the users needing to buy a piece of music, standalone game or a theme to personalise their mobile devices.

(4) In the final Quadrant IV "Scheduled use but high value" segment, here we see habits for travel, navigation, utilities etc, as they are highly valued by the users when the situational context demands it, like for that schedule business trip or social holiday.

The focus on daily habits of mobile and online users were highlighted by Yahoo's Marissa Mayer when she laid out her vision in transforming Yahoo and bringing the cool of the Internet portal back into its stable. Real life momentum in developing on the daily habits of mobile and online users are in evidence today. 

• We constantly see Yahoo continuing on its acquisitions of startups which are entrenched in the daily habits of users - on email management (communication) and to do lists (utilities), Summly (news), Tumblr (social networking, user-generated content, communities) etc.
• SK planet has developed an app "Jukebox Hero" which turns your music library into social music jukebox and more in the portfolio addressing a range of consumer habits.
• eShopping trends today show growth in both ecommerce and mobile commerce.
• Retail Showrooming which see consumers doing price comparison research (Deals) whilst in store 
• Retail apps usage are surging 525%
• College students are finding deals on mobile
• What do users want in a location based app - a quora discussion around the emotional and rational drivers on consumer location-based habits

Understanding the daily habits of online and mobile consumers provide great value by helping businesses determine their digital content Internet business go-to-market strategies by reviewing first, which consumer segments, what content categories  and business models, how to evolve product portfolio and so on.

I look forward to hear your thoughts and experiences.

Till the next post, you can find me on:
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nelsonwee
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/nelsonwee
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nelsonwee
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/nelsonwee


signing off,
Nelson Wee

Photo credit: Phil Hawksworth / Foter.com / CC BY

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 

3 Phase Strategy in Digital Commerce

It's been quite some time since my last post on "5 Pillars in the Internet Content Business", where I was discussing the areas to look at from content to advertising, access/browsing, payment, and fulfillment/monitoring. I have been busy but I am back with a couple of ideas brewing in my head.

3 Phase Strategy in Digital Commerce from Nelson Wee

Lately, I have been deliberating on what are the phases in which the various players in the markets are putting into play as they go-to-market in digital commerce. I came up with the following 3 phases which I would like to share and discuss with you - all comments most welcome to refine this further :-)

(1) Apps (& Content)

• Today we are seeing apps and content ecosystems and symbiotic cross-platform partnerships being put together to address the needs, routines and opportunities of the consumers' Digital Life.
• The battle of the ecosystems is growing more rampant - Apple, Google are leading but Amazon, Microsoft are coming up with wave after wave of new hardware, content business models design and collaborations.
• Why? Cos I figure Apps (& Content) provide excellent outposts in the marketplace for the businesses, in listening and understanding the consumers on how they engage with the apps and contents on their screens - smartphones, tablets, PCs or even your humble feature phones.
• Content consumption is going mobile and across different screens and businesses need to experiment and learn from the changing habits of the on-the-go consumers.

(2) Social

• Today, we are also witness to the battle of the social networks - Facebook, Twitter, and recently and Google+ giving the former 2 a good run.
• Consumer fatigue in the above "traditional" social networks amongst especially the millennials are leading to exits from social networks like Facebook to micro-blogs like Tumblr and more rapid and engaging conversations through instant messaging.
• And so, instant messaging is also turning social.  And there are many players in the market - the popular WhatsApp, Naver Line, KakaoTalk, SK planet TicToc fast mobile messenger and more.
• Tremendous opportunities abound to engage communities from apps drawn to the social messaging platforms, with a relevant content marketing calendar.

(3) Commerce

• What we have been hearing like a broken record these days "Commerce is getting social"
• Indeed by understanding the conversations taking place in social networks, microblogs, group boards etc, businesses would be able to discern patterns and profiles of consumer behaviours.
• Not only will these consumer analytics help in the commerce of digital products but rather, end to end, with consumers buying time these days (ease of purchase key), businesses could look to explore differentiated offers via transmedia connecting people to a new world of entertainment (digital and physical merchandise).

Definitely non-prescriptive in the approach of how the above 3 phases "Apps-Social-Commerce" need to be deployed by businesses. It all boils down to sitting down and understanding the markets businesses would like to play in digital commerce and pursuing the relevant game-planning.

What do you think about the above 3 phases in digital commerce? What have your strategies been for your businesses and markets you play in?

Talk soon,
Nelson Wee
Catch me on Twitter @nelsonwee
Look me up on LinkedIn

10 Key Takeways from the Ancillary Revenue World Asia 2011 Conference in Singapore

I attended and presented recently at the Ancillary Revenue World Asia 2011 conference in Singapore.  It was an excellent 2 days where I valued meeting up and learning from a number of key management illuminaries from the airlines, hotel, travel, banking and insurance industries.


Here are 10 takeaways I put together from the conference.

1. "Treating People Right" - Tune Hotel's Mark Lankester believes in focusing on the customer's core needs, debundle the rest like insurance, transport and even air-con which could be offered as an upsell when required.
2. Mobile commerce will go Social and Local (with location-based services) and audience management of your consumers through search will go from PC-WEB to Mobile-WEB to TV-WEB (XBox-Kinect), says Manish Ladha, Microsoft.
3. Apps can expand ancillary channels to your business by driving new different ways in content consumption, and also offering new debundling and repackaging opportunities to your products - says well me, Nelson Wee, SingTel
4. Move from segments to customer-centric approach in targeting your customers - says Steve Pinchuk, Melco Crown Entertainment
5. Embed cross-selling opportunities before, during and post the booking process - best practices from Amit Saberwal, Makemytrip.com
6. Grow your partnership from a marketing partnership (value driven) to an ancillary partnership (revenue driven) - Wong Soon-Hwa, Hertz International
7. Best route to ancillary revenues is not to aim directly at revenue but at customer experience and value (case study on grabbing in-destination share of wallet through ancillaries) - says Aseem Sadana, Isango!
8. Using opt-out to good effect in booking process can give outstanding customer take-up in your ancillary services - Lim Kim Hai, Regional Express
9. Manage effective revenue management by balancing between your core and ancillary products, creating value for your customer and never over-bundle (instead review and fine-tune your current bundles) - Doug Hesley, The Four Seasons Hotel & Resorts
10. Generate revenue from cross-selling across multiple products through a centralized marketing organization, who looks to solving a need of your customer with a simple to sell, buy and service product, and follow up incremental value through life stage mapping - says Basker Rangachari, Standard Chartered

Well ok, I cannot resist providing a bonus takeaway from a good buddy of mine, Miguel Bernas, SingTel who was among the panelists during the "Social Media: Dwindling Potential" discussion.
11. Social Media could potentially replace the ice-cream parlour or the Saturday night poker game where you gather with your buddies and engage on stuff which happened over the recent week.  Perhaps brands could offer a corner of the ice-cream parlour and partake in the engagement and conversations of their customers.

Here is also my presentation deck for your viewing.  Most welcome your views!

How the use of apps can successfully expand ancillary channels & viability

View more presentations from Nelson Wee

Til later,
Nelson Wee
engage me here or in Twitter @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

5 Key App Insights from AppsXchange Asia 2010 Event in Singapore

The recent AppsXchange Asia event in Singapore on 16-17 June 2010 brought together the entire Apps Eco-system in Asia together -mobile phone manufacturers (Nokia, Samsung), operators (Telenor Group, Digi, Maxis, Singtel, AIS), content developers (mbounce, Zing Mobile, Touch Dimensions etc), mobile ads providers (Buzzcity, Mobile Spinach), platform solutions and payment providers (Oracle, Volantis, Globys, PayPal).

Here are the 5 key app insights gleaned from this 2-day discussion and networking forum around the Go-To-Market programs for Apps and the roles Operators and players could play in.

(1) With APPolution, Application Discovery is a Key Concern

• In an earlier post "3 social News Apps for a Nokia Phone", I wrote referred to the increasing number of apps offered by media publishers in the many apps stores available today.
• Arnie Chaudhari, Vice President, Sales and Business Development, mBounce, highlighted that with APPolution (i.e. app evolution), the applications marketplace is becoming increasingly crowded.
• Praveen Rajan, Head of Mobile Internet, Digi, talked about working with partners from other apps stores to push recommendations of apps via various operator online, mobile and offline channels. One case study he shared was around promoting daily content discovery through SMS subscriptions to Youtube alerts

(2) Traffic and Downloads are going off-deck

• Simon Wong, Sales Consulting Director, Oracle, highlighted that 50% to 80% of apps are now downloaded off-deck (note: Juniper Research)
• Praveen Rajan from Digi also advised that from experience, that operators need to rethink the Operator WAP Portal.  He suggested simplifying the operator wap portal with key promotional messages like attractive data plans, value-added service packages, or contests involving apps.

(3) Operators are trusted brands and offer value in platform enablers and to partner

• In his address on "Developing converged apps for TV, mobile and online", Naveen Wathan, Head of Product Innovations, Product Development and Infotainment, Maxis, saud that the role of the of the network operator is to enable applications across different user interfaces (TV, Mobile, Online) - use the Cloud, develop easy to use APIs for developers & co-market.
• Tanis Kuneepong, Partner VAS Marketing Manager, AIS (Thailand's largest operator) ahso shared about SingTel's regional apps store program, which is scaling up through shared apps sourcing, shared in -apps ads inventory, shared VAS offers across the Singtel group.
• Dr. Calicrates Policroniades, Senior Researcher/Business Developer in Content and Applications, Telenor Group Corporate Development, highlighted that the Telenor group's strategy is to focus on providing platform enablers to apps developers, rather than building their own apps stores.

(4) Operators offer value in consumer insights and marketing

• Praveen, Digi had started the event saying that "Everyone has favourites" (apps for that matter) and there are many opportunities for operators to promote apps, value-added services (VAS) and data plans to their consumers. Think about how to sell VAS the Apps Store way.
• Duanne Edwards, co-founder and Senior Vice President of Product Development, Globys, stated that operators can win the apps race by enabling discovery, profiling their consumers and understanding occasions - i.e. segment apps by occasions of usage, thereby driving downloads for developers through marketing contextually relevant apps to consumers.
• Urvashi Sahay, Director, Mobile Services and Integration, Singtel, reiterated support in providing more transparency to developers from Operators. Singtel for example is committed to sharing consumer insights to developers - what are the opportunities and in which verticals should developers be work on.

(5) Think about Feature Phones - they need some loving too

• Tanis Kuneepong, AIS, shared that out that 7 of the top 20 top performing phones for their AIS Apps Store (launched 8-FEB 2010) were Nokia feature phones.
• Arnie Chaudhuri from mBounce, Urvashi Sahay from Singtel, Dr. Lai Kok Fung from Buzzcity reminded the forum to think about the needs of the emerging markets which were largely proliferated with feature phones rather than smartphones. These consumers are looking for mobile ads with value, apps with sms-based content, utility apps for their feature phones.
• 2 examples of apps stores supporting feature phones are GetJar and the Nokia Ovi Store (which support more than 100 models of feature phones and smartphones today).

As seen by the 5 apps insights from the AppsXchange Asia event,

• In Asia, where there are both developed and emerging markets,
• where there are both smartphones and feature phones co-existing,
• there are different needs of consumers which could be catered to by the apps eco-system players - operators, content developers, mobile phone manufacturers, solution providers etc. 

I am very excited to be part of this dynamic and exhilarating apps growth market here in Asia.  How are your experiences in the apps market space?  Any best practices, case studies or key issues to share?  I look forward to hearing from you.




best regards,
Nelson Wee
or tweet me at @nelsonwee

3 Showcase Takeaways from Nokia Connection 2010 Singapore

Here is my post on the Nokia Connection 2010 event in Singapore where I added in my self-recorded videos on the 3 showcase takeaways - Nokia X5, local apps for Nokia Devices & the Nokia N8 (caveat: amateurish first raw takes on my part!).

Chris Carr, VP Sales for Nokia SEAP opened the event when he talked about how Nokia's strategy is to integrate Ovi services (map & free global navigation, millions of songs, integrated social networking access and globally local app store - Nokia Ovi Store) across Nokia devices of different price points, to be able to address different consumer segments who use Nokia Smartphones or feature phones.

Jo Harlow, Senior Vice President of Nokia Smartphones, further augmented with the message that Nokia continues to own the largest market share of mobile devices, smartphones, with more than 1.2 billion people are using a Nokia device today - and so lots of opportunities (to reach).

And now for my 3 showcase takeaways from the Nokia Connection 2010 event.

(1) Nokia X5 Hip with Colors, QWERTY Keyboard, Cool Spin & Shake Features

The Nokia X5 is the latest addition to the ever enlarging portfolio of Nokia's QWERTY keyboard devices.  It was just announced on 14 JUNE and will be availed in Indonesia in Q3 2010. The Nokia X5 feels nice when tucked in the palm of your hand. Slide the QWERTY keyboard out and you are on your way to access your favourite social networks on the nicely spaced out keyboard keys. View the video below which was recorded from the Nokia Connection 2010 event on other cool spin and shake features of the Nokia X5!




How cool is that?

1. Spin the Nokia X5 to change the music track.
2. Shake the Nokia X5 to hear beeps on how many unread sms you have.

(2) Local Apps from South East Asia Pacific

Presenting Nerd Attack, a 2 man company based in Malaysia who had developed upon their web design background with Web Run Time skills, built more than 10 apps in the past 1 year, working on regional South East Asia Pacific apps to the Nokia Ovi Store. 

Key app titles from Nerd Attack include:

1. Sky News Australia
2. KL Traffic
3. Headlines
4. I-S Mobile

Presenting Nanyang Polytechnic, an educational institution based in Singapore, whose students had developed 9 apps (sms utilities, fun casual games and more) which have generated more than 500,000 downloads globally from the Nokia Ovi Store (October 2009 to 14-June 2010). Have a look at the video below on Nanyang Polytechnic's apps. And there are many more upcoming in Nanyang Polytechnic's apps pipeline - so stay tuned.



 

Presenting Breakdesign, a 3 man South African award winning Adobe Flash developer team who are now based in Singapore. The Breakdesign team have developed Barking Seed, which is an indie mobile gaming community that connects players together with social elements tied into a portfolio of flash games, now available exclusively globally from the Nokia Ovi Store (more than 635,000 downloads globally in last 4 to 5 months till 14-JUNE and growing). More about Breakdesign in a later post. Have a look at the 2 videos from 2 of the founders Rick Treweek and Stefan Wessels below.







Here Rick talks about Barking Seed.





Here Stefan introduces the latest new Barking Seed enabled game title (very soon to be launched exclusively to the Nokia Ovi Store) 10PM!

(3) Nokia N8 Smartphone HDMI Dolby Stereo Video Showcase

The Nokia N8 was showcased, attached via HDMI cable to a plasma TV and a home entertainment set. Imagine the possibilities ... 

Signing out from the 3 showcase takeaways from the Nokia Connection 2010 event in Singapore. The possibilities are endless with Nokia's leading market share, consumer reach, new upcoming Devices and local Apps. What are your thoughts?




cheers,
Nelson Wee
@nelsonwee

For other related links to Nokia Connection 2010, do refer below:
1. VR-Zone's Post on Nokia Connection 2010
2. TechieLobang.com post on "Nokia Connection 2010 Debut N8 and Unveil X5"
3. Hip to be Square: Two Xseries launches at Nokia Connection (photo gallery)
4. Nokia N8: First hands-on reactions (what the media are saying)