Aftermath of E27 Unconference Singapore 2008 Kudos to the E27 team, the Unconference Singapore 2008 held in Matrix, Biopolis had been a fantastic and well-organized event. It had an overwhelming turnout, hitting between 200-250 people. From a surprising excellent keynote from Daniel Ingitaraj (Director, Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft) to the enthusiastic pitches from many start-ups in the event, it was a gathering of many enthusiastic minds for a growing and emerging Internet industry. Of course, the event started with registration till lunch. There was an exhibition area where Microsoft had a booth allowing the audience to try out their latest Xbox craze, Guitar Hero II. Other than that, we have the founders from several start-ups, for example, Homespace, ZopIM, Eteract, Widgeous, Phlook, GoThere, Podfire, Hibernater, Yum.sg, PatSnap and many others featured here. Surely with the good food and drinks, we mingled around the area to watch demos from the entrepreneurs about what they have worked on for the past few months. Following on, the event started with a keynote by Daniel Ingitaraj, (Director, Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Singapore) entitled ““Innovation: Persevere or Perish”. In the talk, Daniel went from a slow start in defining two important ideas from Ted Levitt’s “Marketing Myopia” article from Harvard Business Review and Christensen’s “Innovator’s Dilemma” about disruptive technologies and talked about how technology has evolved from the past to present. He went to discuss the three major trends that is to come: (i) user experience, (ii) collaboration and (iii) cloud computing. The talk ended with some interesting demos (likely we will get a video soon). After that, the keynote was followed by the start-ups pitching about their products and demos. Once that ends, the event is followed by the six major breakout sessions split between 2 hours: (i) Enterprise 2.0, (ii) What’s so difficult about valuing and investing in Internet Companies? (iii) Mobile Platforms, (iv) Social Media in Asia Pacific, (v) Web2.0/Mobile Startups in Eastern Europe/Africa/East Asia, and (vi) Interoperability for Startups. The event has drawn a lot of people together, bring back old friends and new ones to the grassroots movement. Sometime back, Preetam (a well-known web evangelist in Asia) and BL (our editor in SG Entrepreneurs) have expressed a worry that they have been meeting the same people over different events in Singapore. Since the eBay.dev.shack till this event, we are heartened to realize that we are now meeting new and enthusiastic people from all walks of life who come and share their ideas and thoughts on the industry. Of course, we do have interesting photos to share with you for this event. :) Related Links 1. Mohd Hisham, e27 Unconference LIVE Update using Plurk. 2. Thinking Nectar, Unconference 2008. Photo 1: Unconference Singapore 2008 Exhibition Area. Photo 2: Peter Du and Michael Cheng at the Podfire booth. Photo 3: Ridzuan evangelizing about the Widgeous platform at his booth. Photo 4: Royston pitching Zopim to interesting enthusiasts. Photo 5: Talk by Daniel Ingitaraj (Director, Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft). UK’s Musion® Systems names Singapore startup Elasticity as their local Partner Musion® Systems names Elasticity as their Singapore Partner and Elasticity announce an alliance with the Show Company. Wednesday, 9th July 2008 - PALME Asia: Today, Musion® Systems UK are pleased to announce that Elasticity will become the Singapore partner for its products and services. “Elasticity’s ground-breaking appointment as the Eyeliner™ licensee in Singapore will develop the use of holographic technology in this mature market and act as a driving force in the development of top quality, high definition video content in Singapore. Elasticity joins a 30 strong network of international Eyeliner™ resellers carrying out pioneering work maintaining the position of Musion® as the world leader in holographic projection,” said Ainsley Henn, Channel Development Manager for Musion® Systems. Elasticity is also pleased to announce that it has forged an alliance with the Show Company. This partnership will further enhance the services of both companies in the areas of content and production development of new experiences. Joseph Gan, Director of the Show Company said; “We are pleased to form this strategic alliance with Elasticity as it will clearly enhance products and services for our clients as we move forward with our business. We are particularly pleased at this opportunity to further expand our potential in emerging technologies and concept development opportunities.” “The formal partnership with Musion® is crucial to us and Musion® expertise, technologies and connections are pivotal for our success in developing new experiences. The Eyeliner™ System will play a central role in everything that we create when it comes to content development. The alliance with the Show Company further enhances our position and forms a synergistic platform in the development of new ideas and production support. I am truly grateful to both companies for their support in us,” said Graham Perkins, Managing Director of Elasticity. Musion® Systems Musion® Systems Limited is a privately owned company and the exclusive master global Licensor for the Eyeliner™ projection system. Eyeliner™ is unique worldwide and protected by patents granted in countries all over the world. Musion® is principally an Intellectual Property licensing company. Elasticity Elasticity are protagonists of next-media experiences with fresh ideas for new canvases. Leveraging from new technologies such as holography, LED and 3D imaging, Elasticity integrate these technologies to develop a platform of interactive ideas in the areas of Design, Art, Media and Entertainment. The Show Company The Show Company is an integrated production and gear hire company based in Singapore. Specializing in large arena production work, the Show Company are often appointed as the official production company for major league shows in Singapore and other international venues. For further information please do not hesitate to contact either of the following: Ainsley Henn Channel Development Manager Musion® Systems ainsley@musion.co.uk Graham Perkins Managing Director Elasticity graham@elasticity.sg Joseph Gan Director The Show Company jogan@show-company.com Interview with the team at MotionElements.com Helmed by three founders, Joanne, Mark and Sean, MotionElements.com is a unique marketplace that allows digital artists to browse, buy and sell Asian-themed keyed live footages, 2D / 3D animation, 3D models and other stock motion elements. We speak to them to find out more about their story. Gwen: Hi MotionElements, thank you for accepting this interview at SGE. First, what is MotionElements and who is it for? MotionElements: MotionElements is an online marketplace for the buying and selling of digital assets - the eBay of stock footages, animation and 3D models. It’s for post-production houses, 2D/3D animators, motion graphics designers and creatives in the media industry and anyone who wants an easy way of creating and enhancing videos. Gwen: How did the idea come about? MotionElements: Pain. The idea was borne because we personally felt that if such a platform existed, life would be so much sweeter. It was a need that was not met in the market. Gwen: Tell us more about the team and your backgrounds before this. MotionElements: 3 friends – Joanne, Mark and Sean. Joanne and Mark are partners in a post-production studio that they started called Emoxis (www.emoxis.com). Sean was in consulting and finance and does not pretend to know anything about digital media previously. Gwen: How did you guys get together to work on MotionElements? MotionElements: We met through common friends a while ago, and also briefly worked together creating corporate videos in our previous roles. Mark and Joanne had pondered on the idea a while ago, and Sean was roped in only later over a weekend lunch at Robertson Quay. Gwen: What is your business model? MotionElements: MotionElements is a platform that connects buyers and sellers. We want to make it simple and fruitful for the user to come and find exactly what elements he/she needs for his/her job for a reasonable price. Conversely, we allow the user to monetize his/her previous creations which are sitting idle on a hard-disk by using our platform to sell to other users. Our role is one of quality control, creating an effective search tool and gathering a lively community of creatives to exchange and enhance each other’s works. Gwen: How are you different from other video aggregation sites? And how do you intend to keep out competition? MotionElements: We focus on content with Asian influences and aim to gather a large database of quality stock footage, animations and 3D models from the top creatives in this region. This stock motion video-exchange space is not as crowded today as say, the still picture-exchange space. Thus we want to forge ahead quickly to establish quality standards; build an easy-to-use and secure site to attract the best quality creations. Gwen: At what stage of development is MotionElements at currently? And do you intend to add any more features? MotionElements: We’ve soft launched MotionElements at the recent BroadcastAsia and CG Overdrive in June 2008 to a notably receptive crowd. A substantial number of enquires have been made regarding the contribution of content material and the purchase of elements. The site is open for business! We do not rule out any new features, but at the moment we want to focus our energies on continuing to enhance the experience of using MotionElements. Gwen: How has the journey been so far? MotionElements: We have not killed or sacrificed anyone yet so guess that’s a good sign. Gwen: What experiences can you share with other entrepreneurs? MotionElements: Do not DIY – find a team where each person has a set of complementary skills. Also, make plans to the best of your abilities, but allow room for massive changes. Gwen: Thank you for your time, and all the best! Editor’s Note: Bernard and Gwen are with Thymos Capital, an investor in MotionElements. HomeSpace launches HomeValue, making past listing & transaction data available to public Singapore – 7 July, 2008 - Real estate search engine HomeSpace.sg has unveiled their latest feature, HomeValue, which allows Home buyers to determine their negotiation advantage on real estate that they are interested in. “Homebuyers are usually very helpless when it comes to negotiation. They usually rely on an agent to advise them on the price to offer.“, said Vinod Nair, CEO of HomeSpace.sg. With HomeValue, home buyers can now be well informed of the pricing trends and past transactions of comparable homes, which means that they are empowered with data that helps them determine the best price they should pay for the house. HomeValue is unlike any other price trend feature available. HomeValue actually does a radius scan for similar property in the area and pulls up the past transaction and listing data for those units. “To derive an accurate offer price, you have to refer to similar properties in the area. You cannot compare 5 room flats with 3 room flats. Even units of the same type within the same neighbourhood differ in price based on proximity to amenities.”, explained Vinod. HomeValue cuts down more than 90% of the workload and information gathering one has to go through before making a price decision on the house. Potential buyers can track the past transaction mean of similar houses within the area of their desired house up to 2 years back. With this latest feature added into HomeSpace’s arsenal, it now boasts of the most number of pro-consumer features to help consumers effortlessly obtain relevant information on their desired homes. Contact Vinod Nair Email: vinod@homespace.sg Contact No.: 92722692 About HomeSpace HomeSpace is a real estate search engine that helps home buyers and sellers to find and list homes in Singapore that are for sale in the simplest and fastest way possible. Founded in May 2007, HomeSpace is the brainchild of enterprising NUS graduates Vinod Nair,  Zhuo Weifeng, Jarrold Ong, Staelen Yew and Timothy Kua. HomeSpace is supported by Media Development Authority (MDA) of Singapore, the National University of Singapore Enterprise and Entrepreneur27 Singapore. For more information on HomeSpace, visit www.homespace.sg 65 Bits Episode 78 : Cheap iPhones? Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: (1) Technology library to loan test gadgets for disabled. - The Infocomm Accessibility Center of the Society for the Physically Disabled, (2) The Creative ZEN X-Fi rumored!, (3) Hutchison Telecom (Hong Kong) has revealed its pricing and service plans for the iPhone 3G, (4) iCall App Enables GSM to WiFi / VoIP Switching On The iPhone, (5) Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today revealed Diablo® III, (6) Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. introduces Blizzard Authenticator, an optional extra layer of security for World of Warcraft® and finally, Byte of the week : Mozilla Labs - Introducing Weave. Do click and check out their podcast. The Geek Goddess Show Episode 6 : HP TouchSmart Blogger’s Event Part 2 Now we have the part 2 from the HP TouchSmart Blogger’s event held in Brotzeit restaurant, Vivocity, with the well known tech & lifestyle bloggers to tell us their thoughts and opinions about the HP TouchSmart PC. Through Estee and Peter, we have interviewed many friends from the Tech65 team (Jerrick, Daniel and NTT), Howie and Su Yuen (The Digital Movement), Nadnut, Linda, Mohd Hisham, Sheylara, Brian, Mark, Nicholas and Hillary (from CNET Asia). We thank also the HP Asia Pacific together with Melvin Yuan and his team (Daryl and Jael) from Waggener Edstrom. So, enjoy the videocast here: Singapore PHP User Group Meetup - July 2008 The theme for the event is “Something big is brewing…”. So what is going to happen to the Singapore PHP User Group from here? If you want to know, do attend the coming the Singapore PHP User Group Meetup by RSVP here in Facebook. The event will be held next Wednesday July 9 2008, in Microsoft Singapore. Other than the major announcement, a session for “Introduction to Cake PHP” is happening too. Here are the details for the event: Date: Wednesday, July 9, 2008 Time: 7:30pm - 10:00pm Location: Microsoft Singapore, NTUC Centre, 22nd Floor, One Marina Boulevard ============================== +++ Program for July Meetup +++ 1) Launch of PHP Society Presenter: Michael Cheng, President, PhP Society 2) Intro to CakePHP Open Call for Volunteers / Speakers ======================= We’re on the lookout for volunteers and speakers for our monthly meetups and year-end events. Do email us at meetup@php.com.sg. Many thanks. Sponsors ============================== Venue: Microsoft Singapore Prizes: Zend Technologies Ltd http://www.zend.com The Geek Goddess Show Episode 5 : HP TouchSmart Blogger’s Event Part 1 This week, we have two hours of the Geek Goddess show for the recent HP TouchSmart Blogger event, held in Brotzeit restaurant, Vivocity. In the first part, we have Estee interviewing Ms Chua Hwee Koon, the director for Consumer PC & Handheld Business Units, HP Asia Pacific about the design philosophy, the cost and the date of the actual launch for the HP TouchSmart PC, while Peter Du focus on the interesting technology features of this new touchscreen PC with Mr Daniel Cheng, the product manager from HP. So, check out the latest videocast here… Morange (Singapore) Bags Golden Olive Award in Sony-Ericsson Mobile Application Competition Morange, the leading free mobile communication suite, more than double its user base in the first half of 2008. Beijing/Singapore, June 29, 2008: Singapore-based, mobile application developer MOZAT Pte Ltd today announced it has received the Golden Olive Award in Beijing. MOZAT’s premium mobile software product, Morange, won in the category of Best Mobile Entertainment Service in the 3rd Sony-Ericsson Cup China Mobile Application Competition. This is one of the largest and most influential competitions in the mobile industry in China held once a year by Mobile China Media, the authoritative magazine in the mobile field, and Sony-Ericsson, the globally renowned mobile device manufacturer. MOZAT was invited to enter Morange in the competition in April this year. After more than two months of voting from end users and a rigorous evaluation and review by mobile industry researchers, investors and analysts, Morange beat over a hundred other candidates, winning the Golden Olive Award for Best Mobile Entertainment Service. Ms. Judy Fei, MOZAT’s marketing manager for China, attended the Golden Olive Award Ceremony held in Beijing on June 27th and gave a short presentation. Dr. Michael Yin, CEO of MOZAT, said, “We are very honored to receive the Best Entertainment Service Award in this year’s competition. This is very important to us because it indicates Morange has been recognized by both mobile experts and ordinary users in China. Morange is our key product, which was developed in Singapore and released in the end of 2006. It has accumulated millions of global users and has been recognized internationally.” Earlier this year, Morange was nominated as one of the ‘Top Innovator’ mobile applications at GSMA in Barcelona, the world’s largest mobile exhibition. In the coming years, MOZAT is working to bring Morange to China and localize the Morange service for Chinese users. MOZAT’s mission is to unleash the power of any mobile phone and to establish a mobile communication and social-networking platform for every mobile user. Added Dr. Yin: ”We believe Morange will change people’s mobile lifestyle and we hope everyone will enjoy Morange and support us.” Morange, the leading application suite for all your communication needs, can be downloaded at www.morange.com. A beta version of Morange V is now available for testing. Morange has millions of registered users across the world, and has doubled its user base in the first half of 2008. Media Contact: Mr Michael Yin, CEO & Founder, MOZAT Pte Ltd michael@mozat.com Phone +65 9423 7466 Mr. William Klippgen, Director, MOZAT Pte Ltd william.klippgen@bafspectrum.com Phone: +47 96 86 04 61 About Morange Morange is a Mobile Social Networking application and service platform with the following features: - Global friends searching and chatting - Mobile Photo Sharing - Mobile ”Sayings” (Micro-blogging) - Instant Messaging (MSN, Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ and AIM). - Push Email - Integrated Web Browser - Global Weather For more information, please visit www.morange.com About MOZAT Pte Ltd MOZAT Pte Ltd was incorporated in 2003 by a group of PhD research scholars from the National University of Singapore. With offices in Singapore, Guangzhou and Shanghai, the company has a strong focus on mobile research and development. The company is currently providing custom implementations of Morange to a series of leading mobile operators around the world. MOZAT has won industry awards by providing complete, reliable and scalable mobility solutions that work across devices and geographies. The mission of MOZAT is to establish a global mobile community and let people communicate without boundaries. For more information, please visit www.mozat.com E27 Unconference Singapore 2008 Design your own Unconference experience. The breakout sessions give you the chance to exchange ideas and opinions with IDM enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and professionals. This is your chance to have your say and voice your ideas! Let us know what you want to see discussed. Simply click the edit button at the top of the page and write your ideas and suggestions. We’ll be happy to work it in. The event will be on 12th July 2008 from 11.30 am to 6 pm. The venue will be in Matrix @ Biopolis, 30 Biopolis Street, Singapore 138671 and the tickets are sold at $10 with buffet lunch and drinks provided. For more information, go to their main page here. ACE’s “Why Not” campaign contest Have new, bright ideas to either a) increase Singapore’s attractiveness as a place for business OR b) nurture entrepreneurs of tomorrow OR c) encourage more innovative and competitive businesses? In celebration of Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE)’s 5th anniversary, a campaign has been launched showcasing some of the new ideas, new ways that would seem not viable or unattainable just a mere 5 years back. In conjunction, ACE is running a nation-wide contest to encourage more questioning minds and seek the best Why Not? Ideas. Top entries stand to win attractive prizes! You can take part by filling up the form here. The “Why Not? Contest” is looking for new ideas that will (i) increase Singapore’s attractiveness as a place for business OR (ii) nurture entrepreneurs of tomorrow OR (iii) encourage innovative and competitive businesses. It is open to everyone. Prizes 1st Prize: S$1,000 Cash 2nd Prize: S$500 Cash 3rd Prize: S$300 Cash 5 Consolation Prizes: S$100 Cash each Results will be announced in the last week of July. Winners will be notified via email. Registration is now open and will close on 17 Jul 2008. Visit www.ace.sg for more information and to sign up now! 65Bits Episode 77 : The end of an Era Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: (1) Good Bye Billy Boy Gates, (2) HP Touchsmart showcase in Singapore - Shout out to Podfire and Suyuen, (3) Creative Commons in Singapore finally - Support Creative Commons in Singapore, (4) Microsoft promises to support XP until 2014, (5) Nokia buys Symbian, turns software over to Symbian Foundation and finally, Byte of the Week: Street directory Alternatives. Do click and check out their podcast. SYINC Connect 08 - Youth Conference on Social Entrepreneurship Want to meet like-minded people who are passionate about making a difference? Want to learn from respected and experienced community leaders and social entrepreneurs? SYINConnect is a one-day youth conference that connects participants to urgent social issues, and what people are doing about them in Singapore. Participants will get the opportunity to meet the community leaders making change in our society today, and build the skills, networks and confidence to be effective agents of change. Youths in Singapore are engaging more with civil society on both a local and global level – be it through formal programmes such as CIP in schools, or through the initiative of dynamic young individuals. Syinc is a Singapore youth group that drives young people to act as agents of social change. We do this by: 1. Connecting people who share a common desire to create positive social change; and 2. Equipping them with the resources, tools and opportunities to make it happen. SYINConnect is a one-day youth conference that connects participants to urgent social issues, and what people are doing about them in Singapore. Participants will get the opportunity to meet the community leaders making change in our society today, and build the skills, networks and confidence to be effective agents of change. Information about the event: SYINC Connect 08 Venue: Republic Polytechnic Date: Saturday, 26 July, 2008 Applications open on 28 June. For more information, visit http://www.syinc.org/syinconnect If you have any queries, do not hesitate to contact them at syinconnect@syinc.org. Interview with Julian Low and the team behind ZopIM Zopim is a company incubating under Garag3 from NUS that helps improve your visitors’ experience on your website. Their product enables your visitors and clients to stay in touch with you through your website, using the most convenient form of communication, instant messages. Of course, they have a larger than life story on how they got started. So, we managed to lock Julian Low and his fellow team mates in the Zopim team (Wenxiang, Royston Tay, Yang Bin) for an interview to tell us about ZopIM. BL: Hi Julian, thank you for the interview. Tell us about your background. Julian:Hi Bernard, for the interview, with your permission I would like to include the rest of my core team in this interview as ZopIM is our baby and I feel they too deserved the recognition for all their efforts. A very brief background of the team is as follows: Wenxiang is ZopIM’s server side developer & residential punk who despite having a rebellious streak, labors day and night, tweaking away to ensure that everything runs smoothly at ZopIM. Graduating from the National University of Singapore’s Faculty of Computer Engineering, WX’s thesis involves advanced customer profiling solutions which is integrated into ZopIM as a very useful tool for ZopIM users to track and understand their visitors’ web path and behavior. Royston previously honed his engineering skills as a QA/software engineer at FaceTime Communications Inc, a leading company in Enterprise IM security. He helped developed internal stress and monitoring tools, and was involved in some technical marketing as well. At ZopIM, he is now heavily involved in developing the web-based interface for ZopIM’s corporate customers and also chips in for Business Dev as the official Business Dude Yang Bin aka YB is ZopIM’s Client & Agent side developer and is also our resident Javascript ninja. A coding masochist, YB has outlasted his peers in coding marathons and at last check, has not left his cubicle since. A gaming enthusiast, YB is the co-founder of Fragnetics.com, one of Singapore’s very successful game hosting companies. As for me, I am just your average Joe who plain lucked out by having the wonderful opportunity to work with these extremely talented individuals, who not only share my passion for ZopIM but are crazy enough to go on this rollercoaster-ride adventure with me. Majoring in Life Sciences, I was previously employed as an intern at Alpha Innotech Corporation based in San Leandro, California. I worked my way to Junior Product Manager and was handling multiple product lines before I left them last summer. During my stint in Silicon Valley, I was given the opportunity to be part of a 2-man startup company called NandoDrop Array Technologies. ND-array Technologies was a company that was aiming to commercialize a small molecular drug discovery platform that was developed in NUS by my co-founder and which provides a 96% cost reduction in screening for potential drug targets. Despite early successes in raising funding from local sources, I was unable to garner serious industry interest in the U.S to realize its full potential, largely due to undercapitalization. Eventual undercapitalization forced us to shut the company down and it was a painful lesson but I would still do it again as I gained many invaluable lessons through it. Many of which had benefited me as I venture forth with ZopIM.com which is also aiming to challenge and optimize existing business practices. BL: Tell us the story behind ZopIM! and how did the whole team get involved in the project? Julian: ZopIM like many other startups was an idea borne out of idle conversations. I had roomed in with Wenxiang and was classmates with YangBin when we were in Silicon Valley and we had an idea which goes basically like this: “What if you could have a browser-base chat session that could persist across multiple web pages? What if every hyperlink becomes an opportunity for you to interact with a fellow human being in this extremely populated but still surprisingly quiet place we call the internet.” This remained an idea until 18th April 2007. That fateful day, Tim Draper the Founder and a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a venture capital firm had arrived in Singapore for an event and was having a dinner meet up session with local aspiring entrepreneurs. WX who was never invited, gate-crashed the event (with the help of Roy) and shamelessly pitched his idea to Tim. As luck would have it, Tim liked the idea and asked when he could see the prototype. WX, thinking that Tim was kidding, said: “Two months?” Tim: “Okay, I want to see the prototype exactly 2 months from now, 18th June in my office. I will arrange a meeting with you with my secretary.” When WX went home that night and received an email confirmation from Tim’s personal assistant Karen, he practically fell off his chair. That was when all hell broke loose. Realizing that this was a rare opportunity, WX needed more help and roped in Roy who was eager to get in the fray. Within 2 months, Roy+YB+ WX had ZopIM’s 1st prototype up and we presented it to him at his Sandhilll office in Silicon Valley. Like most VCs, he did not reject us outright but basically told us that he thinks the idea is scalable and that we were to approach when we gain some traction. Despite this, Tim’s encouragement gave us the impetus to continue developing on the idea. Though we were still schooling, we had successfully applied and obtained funding from MDA’s iJam’s program and the rest as they say is history. BL: As we understand that ZopIM is a next generation sales Instant Messaging platform, how is it different from the remote desktop types of messaging platforms which are available? Also, what are the features in ZopIM! that you deemed interesting for your users? Julian: Live Chat for customer sales and support is not new. However the industry is filled with cloned solutions that just do not satisfy the needs of small online businesses. If you take a simple Google search and download the ready-made Live Chat solutions today, you’ll find that most are them are: a. Cumbersome to use and requiring software downloads. b. Have bad user interface design. c. Costly and not applicable for small online businesses ZopIM differentiates itself from the rest of the market by focusing a lot of our developmental energies in solving the pains our customers as well as the end-customer (their customers). You can see this in the features that we offer like… a. Offline notifications/messaging and a browser-based Dashboard platform that help our customers talk to people on their websites even while they are on the not near a computer. We believe we are the first Live Chat service provider to offer this for now. (If you do find one, do let us know) b. Incorporating business features like customer ranking, canned messages and survey functions that help our customers to engage their web page visitors more efficiently and effectively. At ZopIM, we place a lot of emphasis on interface design for good user experience. Unlike conventional live chat programs that have intrusive pop-out windows, our windows are in-screen and will persist chat sessions across the entire website. This allows the end-customer to have a smooth chatting experience with the website owner without having to switch from windows to windows. Also Cost-wise, we are risk-free for most small businesses to use and deploy on their websites. This application is built and designed for the small guys and thus we want the rest of the world to enjoy using it without burning a hole in their pockets. Currently, we are still working on the pricing model with our Beta Clients but one thing we can assure is that it would be a Freemium model where it would be free for most websites till they reach a certain high traffic stage. BL: Who would be the customers of your product? Julian: So far, our Beta customers base come in all shapes and sizes. On top of a few Web design & IT firms that deploy our platform, we have a Spa Treatment Website (www.spahaven.com.sg), a Gaming Console Webby (www.qisahn.com), a Bag aficionada cum sales blog (www.cassis-room.blogspot.com) and even a Political Webby (www.voterscentral.com). However, the one thing that is common among them is that they rely heavily on their websites to reach out and engage their customers. BL: How does ZopIM! create a sustainable revenue model given that the messaging platform is free and can be deployed on any platform? Julian: Yes, its free for the majority of our customers. However we will be working on a Freemium model, we will charge our customers an affordable subscription fee when they reach a certain traffic or need more advanced features (e.g SMS notification, intelligent routing, etc). That way, we can build a sustainable business while providing ZopIM for our beloved customers. BL: What are the trends that you see in the instant messaging platform space in the web? Julian: In the social IM space, we see more and more integration and aggregation activities going on. We also see that IM clients which were once mostly desktop-based migrating/merging with the browser. Popular clients like Meebo and Ebuddy are evidence of this. Once dataplans become cheaper and accessible for phones, it’s a no-brainer to postulate that the next Big IM War will happen on the phone. Ok, what I postulated are boring conclusions that have been debated since the 90s. Personally, I would like to go out on a leg to predict that IM would one day become smarter tools than just a simple text-base medium you see today. I believe very strongly that Netizens one day will use embedded IM tools on the web (like ZopIM) to conduct other activities. (E.g. Book an appointment with your doctor/restaurant, request for information or automate a multitude of online tasks) BL: What are the three important traits of a young entrepreneur that you think are important? Julian: Most self-motivational books would tell you that the 3 important traits that an entrepreneurs should have are Courage, Passion and Honesty. However, I would like to propose to SGE’s readers a slightly more non-conventional lesson for young entrepreneurs that we have learnt so far. Team ZopIM would not be where it is today if not for our Mentor and Friend , Charlie Giang who is a successful entrepreneur in his own right. Through our drinking sessions (where he sponsors our liquor and get us horribly dead drunk), we were able to glean from him a few pearls of wisdom. Chief among his many advices is that a young entrepreneur MUST have the willingness to “po fu chen zhou“. “Po fu chen zhou” is a Chinese proverb that basically translates to destroying the cooking pots and sinking his boats. The proverb relates to orders an ancient Chinese General Xiang Yu assigned to his army when they landed on enemy shores. The result of the orders hardened his army’s resolve and they were able to defeat their enemy who were numerically bigger and better prepared. Likewise, a young entrepreneur going into the marketplace should be desperate to succeed. When he/she makes the conscious decision to cut himself off from the comfort of a 9-5 job to fill a gap identified in the market, he has nothing to lose. He/she would naturally have the means to adapt accordingly and to develop other traits (E.g. People skills) as challenges come along. Thus said, there are no fixed traits or winning formulas any successful entrepreneurs should have. If you wait to develop those traits before you decide to plunge in, it would be too late. When you are young, you have nothing much to lose. So make the plunge today and learn those traits as you go. BL: Thanks for sharing with your story and thoughts. We wish you and the team from ZopIM the best of luck for your ventures ahead. 65Bits Episode 76 : The one with open secrets Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: (1) Apple’s open secret: SproutCore is Cocoa for the Web, (2) Youtube tries long form content, (3) Communicasia and multitude cellphone announcements, (4)iPhone wannabes and why they don’t cut it or why they DO!?:, (5) ASUS gets official with Atom-powered Eee Box, (6) Nvidia and AMD launch TONNES of new graphics cards and Snow Leopard, (7) Solar energy concentration by 1000 at a low cost and SMALL sized?!, (8) Opera 9.5 vs Firefox 3, (9) SIA A380 Super-Jumbo made from Lego and finally, Byte of the Week: Spore Creature Creator. Do click and check out their podcast. Change of venue for eBay.dev.shack Please take note that the venue for the event eBay.dev.shack organized by our partner organization, E27, has been changed due to unforeseen circumstances. It is now at The Arts House and NOT at Timbre @ The Substation. Please refer this map for details. The address of the venue is The Arts House, 1 Old Parliament Lane, Singapore 179429 and you are assured that the quality of the event has not been compromised in any sense. For more details, you can directly check out at this wiki page or in their facebook event for details. Interview with Ridzuan Ashim, co-founder of Widgeous Widgeous is a platform that allows applications and people to communicate via multiple channels like widgets, SMS and Instant Messaging. Co-founded by two young and passionate entrepreneurs, Ridzuan Ashim and Chua U-Zyn, the team recently launched their platform at the Barcamp Singapore II - Maps and Mobile Unconference. So, we took the opportunity to speak to Ridzuan and got him to do an interview with us here in SGE, to tell us more about the story and features of Widgeous together with his thoughts on the trends of building platforms in the Internet. BL: Thank you for the interview with SG Entrepreneurs. Let’s begin by telling us your story. How did both U-Zyn and you come about starting Widgeous? Ridzuan: Well it started some time in the middle of last year when U-Zyn came up to me with the idea of building some sort of SMS-applications platform. I bought into the idea because it sounded like a really good way of making some of my own communication practices easier. In two days we shaped up something to present for a Master Class conducted by former Amazon Chief Scientist, Andreas Weigend. Needless to say, the idea was still so ‘infant’ that very few understood what we were doing but it served as a good sounding board for refinement of the idea. Fast forward a few months and we’re here…still a long way to go though. BL: What were your backgrounds before engaging in your current start-up? Ridzuan: I’m majoring in Computer Engineering in NTU while running a small web consultancy/development company outfit while Uzyn was, as many probably already know, a freelance developer and also founder of local blog community Ping.sg. It helps that both of us are somewhat actively involved in the blogosphere because it allows us to understand some of the needs in cyberspace. Aside from that, both of us have a lot of little projects that keep us plugged into various developments in other areas which I feel is essential in understand where innovation and synergy can occur. BL: As a platform, what are the main problems that Widgeous is trying to solve for the community? Ridzuan: Fundamentally, we want to achieve 2 things. Firstly, we want to make it easy for people to communicate. We’re inundated with so many communication options like Twitter, Instant Messaging protocol, email, text messages, social networks, etc. This really makes it complicated when we want to deliver a message to another person because we now face that need to deliberate over which channel would best be used. With Widgeous, the platform decides how best to send something across. It even gives the recipient the power to control how he wishes to receive messages from other individuals as well as applications. Secondly, we want to make it easy for application developers to deploy their applications across communication channels. Traditionally, developers create an application and have to keep up with making sure it supports the various channels. This takes time and in the event that an API changes, many developers would be forced to make modifications. With us, developers can plug into our API and have immediate support for all the various channels. And because we intend to not just consolidate digital communication channels like email and IMs but to also include SMS and social networks, applications plugged into us would follow users wherever they went. BL: What are the three essential features in Widgeous? Ridzuan: 1. Cross communication channel support – With Widgeous, you’re plugged to your friends as well to the applications from wherever you are. 2. Central Contact List – A central place where you can store your online and offline information and have this data seamlessly transmitted to your friends. Not entirely new (as compared to existing services) but we’ve got some interesting ways of leveraging on this… We’ll tell you more about this soon. :) 3. A repository of application – once we establish a sizable repository of apps, widgeous users would be able to have access to everything from information-on-demand services all the way to full scale applications like mini-games, event coordination tools and more! The repository will also give exposure to the applications which would be a great way to leverage on our userbase. BL: How does the developer gain from working with the Widgeous API? Is it difficult to develop from your platform? Ridzuan: Difficult? Definitely not. We will be providing a REST API for developers to use later next month which will be really useful. Basically, developers would have to request for a developer’s key, build their app and have it listed in our repository. From there, they’re good to go. BL: Given the trends in the Internet industry are moving towards the “web as a platform” or web 2.5, what is the position of Widgeous in the ecosystem? How does it attract the end-users? Ridzuan: Well, quite honestly, we see ourselves as that layer that sits between applications and the people. Our platform would connect various websites and various groups of people to each other as easily as possible without sacrificing control. The traditional strategy of simplifying interaction between people-to-people or people-to-applications is to create a new standard that requires people to leave a service and adopt a new one. Now we all know how difficult it is to convince a friend to leave one social network for another…or perhaps to try out a new Instant Messaging service. What we’ve decided is to not replace anyone but to be that layer that helps to manage the connections…So you could on say gTalk and I could on MSN and we would still be able to get messages to each other. So how does this translate to something useful for end users? Well, in time to come it wouldn’t matter what services your friends are using or whether someone changed their mobile number because all you have to do is make sure your friend is in your contact list and you can talk to him/her from anywhere! And if you’re the one changing your particulars, you no longer have to update all your 10,000 friends about it. But that’s only half the benefit. As users of applications that are plugged into our platform, you can also use these applications from wherever you are. You could check the status of the weather or get the movie listings direct from your IM or you could start an event direct from your mobile. It wouldn’t even matter if there’s no WI-FI in the area because you could interact with the application via text messaging too! BL: Is there a business model behind Widgeous or just another web service that you grow a community and wait to be acquired? Ridzuan: Yes there is business model behind the company although let’s be honest and practical - if someone named a reasonable price one day, it’s only responsible that we consider it right? Right now, we’ve adopted several forms of monetization but the immediate one would be the option for companies and organizations to use our platform as a white label solution. BL: What are the challenges for the team at the moment? How do you all try to overcome them? Ridzuan: As a platform, we have a chicken and egg issue - we really have little value unless there are applications that realize our capabilities. At the same time, users will have little incentive to sign up if there are no applications. So how do we intend to breach this problem? We’ll begin by first engaging the developer community and try to convince them as to why they should be plugged into us. In a few weeks, we’ll be opening up our API and start being a bit more liberal with our invitations into the platform. We’re also in the midst of planning a hackathon of sorts for next month (local and overseas) so that we can teach people and at the same time get to know where our API is lacking (and we’ll try to build those shortfalls on the spot). Do check out our blog as we break the news. BL: Our favourite question to your team: What are the three most important attributes that an entrepreneur must have? Ridzuan: 1. Perseverance - to ride out the tough times and the naysayers (although please be realistic about one’s idea). Don’t believe all the glamour that the media attaches to the word ‘entrepreneur’. 2. Passion for the idea – It’s the fuel when nothing else motivates you and you’re trying to go through the dip. 3. Faith coupled with a quick feet– If you’ve thought it out and you truly believe it’s going to bring value that people want, then have faith. That said, it’s important to be able to react quickly to changes. Besides, as a startup entrepreneurs, speed is what we have against larger corporations..it’ll be a terrible waste not to capitalize on that. BL: Given the proliferation of the platforms by the established players (for example, Apple iPhone Apps store, Google Apps Engine and Facebook Developer Platform), what do you think are the key challenges issues faced by small medium enterprises who are also developing platforms to provide essential web and mobile services? Ridzuan: One challenge I think would have to be marketing and adoption. These bigger players have an existing user and developer base. They have all the resources to help push applications out. But the fundamental question to ask is, “what value would our platform really bring to the participants of our platform?” I say, don’t fight the big boys but instead complement what they have. And this is where the bigger problem begins…With the industry developments speeding up, keeping up to date with the latest developments become really difficult but still very much crucial. And when it comes to web and mobile services being a field that everyone is trying to go into (the mobile operators are trying to get onto the web and the web players are trying to get into phones!), it’s crucial to know who’s doing what and to react quickly. Profile of Widgeous founders Ridzuan Ashim – CEO, Co-Founder and his Widgeous ID : ridz84. Ridzuan is a passionate individual who has been involved in the Web Development scene since early 2000. After using his first computer at the age of 6, he is an avid adopter of technology and believes that while technology should allow us to perform more complex tasks, it should remain as easily usable for the common man on the street. U-Zyn Chua – CTO, Co-Founder and his Widgeous ID : uzyn. U-Zyn Chua has been actively involved in the Singapore web industry scene since he was still a student in National University of Singapore. He has created various web-based applications for various companies in and outside of Singapore besides being the founder and the sole developer for the online community for Singapore bloggers – Ping.sg. Connect The Dots@Singapore blog by Professor Wong Poh Kam Professor Wong Poh Kam, the director of NUS Entrepreneurship Centre and also an associate professor in the NUS Business School & Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy has just started a blog - Connect The Dots@Singapore to share his thoughts and opinions on different aspects of entrepreneurship, from social innovation to public policy. He started this blog from the inspiration of Steve Job’s famous commencement speech in 2005. Other than his strong academic credentials, Professor Wong is also a known angel investor with the BAF Spectrum in the community. Event: eBay.dev.shack by E27 Our partners, E27 is organizing an event for eBay called eBay.dev.shack. It’s a conference for developers interested in pursuing the development of eBay and PayPal API’s. At the end of the event, the eBay developers’ competition would be officially launched, and in the course of the event, there’ll be an auction going on as well. For more details, you can directly register at this wiki page or in their facebook event. Here is the flyer for the event: CrunchNetwork Singapore Meet-up with Greg Kumparak With a last minute arrangement, a group of us from the local community met up with Greg Kumparak, the MobileCrunch Editor from TechCrunch. He was here to visit and report about the CommunicAsia event. Of all places, he has picked Zouk, one of the famous places in Singapore (like the number 11 out of the top 50 clubs in the world - I may be wrong about this). Here is a short account on what transpired in this gathering. It was an informal gathering in the Zouk winebar as we exchange thoughts on the mobile and web industry. I reached the Zouk winebar 15 minutes before 8 pm but Greg has reached there earlier with his friends. His group of friends include the PR team (one of them I remember by the name of Eric) who promoted Samsung’s new smart phone “Omnia“. They were there to chill out after a long day in CommunicAsia 2008. I did not get a chance to see the “Omnia” when I visited the exhibition earlier in the afternoon. So I asked them to show me the Omnia. They were happy and ready to show me how to use the device, which is a five megapixel built-in camera, 3.2-inch touch screen. I got the chance to really try the functions of this new phone. I thought the interface is pretty clean for a Windows Mobile phone. In fact you can see the interface from this picture. Some of the young entrepreneurs from the E27 group - Julian and Royston (ZopIM) and Vinod (Homespace) have come to share what their start-ups are about with Greg. We also have Joanna, who was recently a guest host for the Geek Goddess show, popping by for the gathering. For myself, I discussed with Greg and several people my thoughts about the web and social media scene in Asia (for example, the OpenWeb Asia initiative and some of the emerging web start-ups funded by Thymos Capital LLP and other incubators under the MDA microfinancing scheme). I also shared some of my thoughts about Asia web start-ups that has evolved with their own competitive advantage, for example, OhMyNews which delivered an interesting model on citizen journalism. Group photo of the Singapore web enthusiasts with Greg Kumparak We stayed till about 11 pm before some of us headed home from there while the rest (including Greg) moved on for the Mambo night in Zouk. CrunchNetwork Singapore Meet-up Tonight at Zouk! Yes, this is not an April Fool’s day joke. As you all heard that Greg Kumparak is in Singapore for the CommunicAsia event. He has requested for a CrunchNetwork Singapore Meetup. So through our editor Bernard Leong, we have arranged a last minute gathering at 8pm tonight in Zouk to catch up with him. This is going to be an informal gathering. So, see you all there tonight. Update: More details follow: From: Greg Kumparak The Singapore CrunchNetwork reader meet-up will be tonight at 8 pm, at Zouk (http://www.zoukclub.com/main.php). Bit of a last minute thing, as this evening is unfortunately my last in Singapore. I look forward to meeting everyone that can make it. For anyone that has yet to visit Zouk (myself included): gettin’ in costs $23, which includes 2 drinks. If it’s not immediately apparent which group is us when you arrive, feel free to call my cell phone (+1 201-951-6516). If all else fails, you could probably narrow it down with my TechCrunch introduction shot (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/09/meet-greg-kumparak-the-new-mobilecrunch-editor/). If you arrive around 8 pm, we’ll likely be in the wine bar area. Any later than 9, and we may have migrated around the club a bit. As a side note: Tonight is intended as just a nice, relaxed meet up of like-minded folks. Nice and informal, by all means. Just come grab a drink or two, kick back, and chat it up with others who have a love for tech. Tell your friends! See you tonight, Greg Kumparak Event: ACE BlueSky Festival 2008 The theme this year is Celebrating the 5 Years of Entrepreneurship Movement in Singapore. From the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) site, the ACE BlueSky Festival is an annual flagship event to celebrate and profile the spirit of entrepreneurship in Singapore. It also offers an excellent platform for the exchange of ideas, experience sharing and networking opportunities between entrepreneurs, industry experts and practitioners from diverse backgrounds. This year also marks a special occasion as ACE and its partners celebrate its fifth anniversary in the national entrepreneurship movement. To register for the event, please go to their main site: BlueSky Festival for more details. BlueSky Conference BlueSky Conference on ‘Charting New Growth Paths’ The BlueSky Conference is an interactive one day programme embracing a series of topics and issues critical for growing enterprises. The underlying sub-themes of winning business models, managing capabilities and resources for growth will be further expounded by the distinguished speakers and industry experts. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will grace the Conference as our Guest of Honour. Other prominent speakers include Dato’ Tony Fernandes (Founder & Group CEO, AirAsia Berhad, Malaysia, Leading No-frills Airline), Mr Michael Ma (Group CEO, IndoChine Group of Bars, Restaurants, Clubs, Hotels and Resorts – Unique contemporary Asian lifestyle entertainment concept), Ong Peng Tsin (Founder & Chairman, Encentuate Pte Ltd - Leading provider of identity and access management (IAM) solutions). Date and Time for BlueSky Conference: 17 Jul 08, 9am-5pm Venue: Raffles City Convention Centre BlueSky Gala Dinner As we culminate the Festival, the BlueSky Gala Dinner is an evening of dining, networking and the gathering of camaraderie amongst our entrepreneurs, guests and industry practitioners. It is also a momentous evening as ACE celebrates its fifth anniversary together with our active partners and friends of ACE who have relentlessly supported our initiatives. Be sure to join us! Join us in our celebration – five years of turning ideas into business reality. Date and Venue of BlueSky Gala Dinner: 18 Jul 08, 6.30pm-10pm Venue: The Padang Guest of Honour: Mr Lee Yi Shyan, Minister of State for Trade & Industry Minister in charge of Entrepreneurship 65Bits Episode 75 : Firefox 2 is dead! Long Live Firefox 3! Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape: (1) More iPhone Talk, (2) Apple Introduces iPhone 3G Videoconferencing Kit, ZOMG!, (3) EFiX: OSx86 with a twist, (4) Dell E and E Slim revealed, taking on Eee and Air in one fell swoop, (5) Yahoo ends all talks with Microsoft, shares plunge, (6) Britain Launches Final Real-Life Skynet Satellite, (7) Opera 9.5 Brings Speed and Syncing to the Browser, (8) Google Browser Sync To Be Discontinued and Byte of the Week : Firefox 3 to Drop on Tuesday. Do click and check out their podcast. The Geek Goddess Show Episode 4: OpenWeb Asia & Social Media Breakfast This week, while Estee takes a break, we got a guest host, Joanna together with Peter, and they will be talking about the OpenWeb.Asia initiative which has started two weeks back with SG Entrepreneurs, The Digital Movement and E27 being part of the Singapore coalition inside, followed by an interview with the founders (Daryl, Sheylara and Derrick) of the Social Media Breakfast in Singapore. You can watch the video here or check out the show notes in both Podfire and the Geek Goddess TV. Of course, like the last episode, we are reading comments from our readers, and we feature a comment from U-Zyn, the founder of Widgeous and Ping.Sg this week. Singapore startup firm offers helping hand to developing world entrepreneurs Micro-loans from Singapore-based Remarkable Innovation will help entrepreneurs in the world’s poorest nations. SINGAPORE, June 13th, 2008 – Local technology advisory firm Remarkable Innovation is putting its reserve funds to good use by making loans to third-world entrepreneurs through visionary website Kiva.org. Endorsed by well-known figures including former US president Bill Clinton, Kiva allows “investors” to finance loans for people starting or expanding a business in the world’s poorest countries. So far, Remarkable Innovation has already made loans to clothing and food vendors in Uganda and Tanzania, as well as a flower growing business in Cambodia. “Starting a business anywhere is difficult, but in Singapore we’re very lucky to have so many sources of funding” says Remarkable Innovation Managing Director Dr Mark Reilly. “Government grants, bank loans and private investment aren’t always available in the developing world. Kiva is doing a great job filling that gap.” Remarkable Innovation specialises in advising investors on technology deals, so they took a methodical approach to investing in Kiva, even going so far as to assign a researcher to find out more about the micro-loan concept. Now, having discovered the benefits micro-loans can bring, the company is encouraging others to follow their lead: “Most businesses have a bit of money sitting in a corporate account unused and earning very little interest. Why not put it to some good?” says Dr Reilly. About Remarkable Innovation: Remarkable Innovation provides technical advisory services to clients investing in technology. Event: Singapore PHP User Group - June 2008 It’s that time of the month. The Singapore PHP User Group will have their monthly meet-up for the month of May again. For this month, the event will be held on 18 June 2008, 7:30pm - 10 pm in Microsoft Singapore, NTUC Centre, 22nd Floor, Marina Boulevard. For this month, our speakers will be talking about PHP topics again with Zend, Silverlight and Wordpress in the limelight. Do RSVP for the event if u have a facebook account. Its June and we’re in the holiday mood! Here are the details for the event: Date: Wednesday, 18 June 2008 Time: 7:30pm - 10pm Location: Microsoft Singapore, NTUC Centre, 22nd Floor, One Marina Boulevard Program for June Meetup 1) Launch of Zend Core for Windows 2008 Presenter: Rama Yurindra 2) PHP + Silverlight Presenter: Apurva Lawale, Web Developer Evangelist 3) Developing for WordPress 2.5 Presenter: Lester Chan, WP Plugin Extraordinaire Sponsors Venue: Microsoft Singapore Prizes: Zend Technologies Ltd Videos from Barcamp Singapore II - Maps and Mobile Unconference Part III - Mobile Session Finally, the videos for the the Barcamp II - Maps and Mobile Unconference held on 21 May 2008 in NUS Extension, Park Mall are out. The event was organized by the combined team of Singapore PHP User Group, E27 (Garag3) and Barcamp Singapore. The third and final part focus on the Mobile session and the demos presented by Cinepura - iPhone app, TenCube, Widgeous, Mobile Sorcery and VoiceRoute. Cinepura - iPhone app TenCube - http://www.tencube.com Widgeous - http://www.widgeo.us Mobile Sorcery - http://mobilesorcery.com VoiceRoute - http://voiceroute.net Videos from Barcamp Singapore II - Maps and Mobile Unconference Part II - Maps Session Finally, the videos for the the Barcamp II - Maps and Mobile Unconference held on 21 May 2008 in NUS Extension, Park Mall are out. The event was organized by the combined team of Singapore PHP User Group, E27 (Garag3) and Barcamp Singapore. The second part focus on the Maps session and the demos presented by SingGeo, Shoplette, Lilihood, Homespace and Gary Chan - Nokia. 10 minutes demos by several companies utilizing Google Maps API Gary Chan - Nokia, Singapore and Jon Petersen, SinGeo - http://www.singeo.com.sg Shoplette - http://www.shoplette.com Lilihood- http://www.lilihood.com Homespace - http://www.homespace.sg. Videos from Barcamp Singapore II - Maps and Mobile Unconference Part I - Keynote Addresses Finally, the videos for the the Barcamp II - Maps and Mobile Unconference held on 21 May 2008 in NUS Extension, Park Mall are out. The event was organized by the combined team of Singapore PHP User Group, E27 (Garag3) and Barcamp Singapore. We thank Google Singapore for sponsoring this event. The first part will feature videos from the two keynote speakers - Andrew McGlinchey (Geo Product Manager for SE Asia, Google Singapore) and Gerard Lim, CTO of Bak2u. Keynote 1: “Google Maps - Building the Geoweb Together” by Andrew McGlinchey (Geo Product Manager for SE Asia, Google Singapore) Keynote 2: Secured Mobility by Gerard Lim, CTO of Bak2u. 65Bits Episode 74 : Netbooks galore Our friends at Tech65 are talking about these issues for their weekly podcast with guest stars - Preetam Rai and Mohd Hisham: (1) NetBooks at Computex : (i) Acer’s Aspire One (8.9?), (ii) MSI Wind (8.9?), (iii) Gigabyte M912 (convertible tablet), (iv) AMD enters netbook game, (v) Ubuntu’s going netbook too, (vi) Nvidia’s GPU for laptops, (2) Plurk.. The new Twitter?, (3) HTC Touch Pro launched, (4) VueStar Patent : An official reply from IPOS and Byte of the Week : Penzu. Do click and check out their podcast.