Ten Things You Can Do For A Better 2009 By all accounts, 2009 is shaping up to be a very bad year. The global financial crisis that has wiped out billions of dollars and seen tens of thousands of jobs lost continues to stalk us from last year into 2009. But don’t let that get us down. Here are ten things you can do for a better 2009: 1. Pick up a new skill. It’s a good time to learn something useful that will add value to your overall skill set. How about learning a new language? If nothing else, learn accounting to help keep your books in order. Most of us - including entrepreneurs! - fail when it comes to basic book-keeping. 2. Pay it forward. Once a day, do something good for someone without expecting anything in return. Help an old lady cross the road. Recommend a trusted service provider or vendor to a business contact. And you don’t even need to spend any money - a smile does wonders to light up someone else’s day. Karma aside, the feel-good factor is an adrenaline rush. 3. Finish what you’ve started. Focus on completing something that you’ve conveniently left aside for some time now. It could be that you haven’t updated your website for a while. Or perhaps it’s the long overdue maintenance works for your home. Finish it! 4. Network. Join business and social networking events to meet more people. Extend your circle of friends, business contacts and acquaintances. You’ll never know when you may need them. 5. Be more knowledgeable. Read more books. Subscribe to a good current affairs magazine. Personally, I subscribe to Monocle and found that my world view has changed since the day I picked my first copy up. Knowledge is power. 6. Start a side project. Do something totally different on the side that will give you another perspective in life. Start a blogshop. Support a cause. Found a social initiative to save the last remaining mangrove swamp in your hometown from reclaimation. My friend Kelvin Quee may be the co-founder of local startup JamiQ, but he also runs Interesthink and that makes him a lot more complete than most people I know. 7. Forgive one person who’ve wronged you in 2008. Seriously, this sounds like mumbo-jumbo but forgiving someone for an injustice done to you does really help you psychologically. Drop that weight off your shoulder and concentrate on the real issues in life. 8. Give up one vice. Smoking, drinking, whoring, gambling, porn, whatever. The amount of time and money you save can be channelled to something more positive. 9. Be more involved in your community. Be a volunteer in your neighbourhood. Join the volunteer corps, or even helping out at the soup kitchen. There’s never a better time to give back to society. I’m considering joining my neighbourhood watch to look out for crime around my district. 10. Maintain a positive outlook in life. Carry yourself with confidence and a positive vibe. People who are positive naturally attracts others to them. Nobody likes a dour person with a face that can sour milk. Granted, doing any or all of the above will not help you single-handedly rebuild the world’s financial systems.  But at least you can look back and feel some satisfaction that you’ve made a difference to YOUR life at the end of 2009. Happy New Year! Promeoh.com - Making Shopping For Bargains Easy Shopping is a very big deal in Singapore, and shopping for bargains in crowded malls is possibly the most popular form of bloodsport all Singaporeans participate in. But as Vaasu Gavarasana found out, there wasn’t a single comprehensive resource on the latest information on shopping promotions anywhere in the market. A consumer had to look through a lot of places - newspapers, brochures, mailers or online sites - before forming a picture of what’s available. To take that “pain” away, Vaasu founded Promeoh. The idea first came to Vaasu when he was asked for shopping advice by a friend who was visiting Singapore. Realizing that there was an opportunity, he quit his job, sourced technology, sounded out some marketing gurus and came up with the concept. Promeoh basically aims to provide consumers with comprehensive, updated information on sales promotions so that they can identify the deals that most interest them and go shopping well equipped with this information. “We are not an e-commerce site - our objective is basically to provide information,” says D. Sriram, Singapore-based Promeoh’s CEO. “The big new idea here is getting marketers a proper database of consumer reactions to different kinds of promotions and creating an engine for planning and executing sales promotions.” Both Sriram and founder Vaasu are advertising folks who quit their jobs to start Promeoh. Sriram has some 18 years of experience and was also formerly CEO, Asia-Pacific for Starcom Mediavest Group. Vaasu also spent a similar 18 years in advertising, and was last regional VP at McCann Erickson. He started Promeoh because, as he put it, he wants to “actually live and breathe solutions instead of recommending them and walking away”. “To us, entrepreneurship is all about finding ways to create value - for our customers and our consumers. If we can do that, we succeed, if we don’t, we fail - and either outcome is acceptable to us as the result of what we do,” says Sriram. Promeoh’s key USP is also its greatest challenge Sriram declares that a “comprehensive listing of promotions is our USP and is what will bring users back”. “There may be better places for a specific category - so people who only want that specific category might find that its better to go look in a superstore than on our site - but the next time around, when they shop for furniture, or a TV, or bedsheets, or anything else at all, Promeoh is the only place likely to have it all,” he explains. “Our goal is not necessarily to be the best in every category, but to be the best generalist across categories, and to be the best generalist across all promotion types.” At present Promeoh has between 1500-2000 promotions listed at any point in time (often a few hundred will expire over the weekend so the number fluctuates quite a bit). However, searching for promotions on Promeoh can be difficult and confusing, and its search engine’s algorithms leaves a lot to be desired. For example, when looking for mobile phones, a keyword search for “phone” fails to return any result. Only when you search “mobile” do you understand why: mobile phones are classified under mobile handsets or mobile smartphones so apparently the engine checks the first word in the search string instead of within the entire string. This is counter-intuitive, and some natural language processing technology is seriously needed here to make the engine work a whole lot better (and smarter). And why isn’t there a way to search for an exact item, say a Blackberry Bold? Aside from the relatively unattractive design of the site (which can be easily improved), this is potentially the deal-breaker for Promeoh. Sriram admits that they accelerated their launch to “try and help shoppers over Christmas and New Year and while its pretty much there, there’s a couple of bugs here and there which we’re sorting out on the fly”. One of the key challenges it faces, says Sriram, is that without adequate money some features have to be put on hold and having to work with a smaller content team than is ideal. “But the biggest challenge is trying to get advertisers to give us the time of day since we are a small part of their lives and not the most important thing on their to-do lists.” Opportunities in times of recession One of the bright points, Sriram noted, is that given the current recession they are actually finding it easier than expected to get traffic and repeat visits. “We now have an initial visitor base of around 11000 - on that base we need to start selling listing packages to large retailers and use that funding to add features to our product, promote to a larger base and grow into the 100,000+ visitor base at which we would seriously challenge other places where promotions get advertised.” “Also, our early traffic is giving us some great data on what appeals to consumers which we’re hoping to use to bring in advertising dollars.” Promeoh is currently fully privately funded through friends, family and associates. “At this point we’ve spent about S$500,000 to develop and launch and expect to use up another S$300,000 by June 2009. Having said that, we’re funded adequately to survive another few months without revenue, and we should be starting to make some money by January.” Being Smart Most people think Levi Strauss invented the blue jean. Actually, it was Jacob Youphes (aka Jacob Davis), a Latvian immmigrant to the United States who approached Strauss with the idea of using copper rivets to reinforce denim work pants. Strauss, who knew a good idea when he saw one, accepted Davi’s offer to file for a joint patent and the Levis jeans was born. They sold many pairs of those tough jeans to gold prospectors during the California Gold Rush. Thomas Alva Edison was credited with inventing the light bulb, but he actually bought over a patent from Henry Woodward who was an early pioneer in the development of the incandescent lamp. Edison did, however, spot an opportunity in the market and created the Edison Electric Light Company (now General Electric) to benefit from it. He even formed a joint venture with a British competitor (Joseph Swan), who had been awarded a patent one year before his, in order to avoid a potentially costly legal battle. Lesson 1: You don’t have to be smart to be smart. Sometimes you just have to recognize when someone else is smart and leverage from it. Lesson 2: You don’t have to be the first to invent something. You just need to be able to see the value in something and find a market for it. Lesson 3: Intellectual property rights can be a pain. Learn to work with the system. Merry Christmas; Pledge Your Support For Underprivileged Children Now that the Christmas presents opened and the feasting is done, spare a thought for the needy this festive season. Drop by Samsung Hope and pledge your support for underprivileged children. There’s no donation required - simply pledge your support and Samsung will donate some US$700,000 to various children charities in the region. Have a merry Christmas! (Disclaimer: I work for Samsung .) Of 65 Bits, Nine Geeks And A Hundred Kick-Ass Episodes Geeks in Singapore rejoice! Tech podcasters Tech65 yesterday celebrated the live recording of their 100th episode with great cheer at Geek Terminal, along with a rabid audience of many regulars in the social media scene in Singapore. The original crew of four - whom I spoke to earlier in June this year - has now grown to a team of nine, and includes familiar local bloggers such as Nicole, DK and Hisham. With this expanded team, Tech65 will finally be able to put up written reviews of the *awesome* stuff they feature in their podcasts. Interesting, the team also unveiled a new channel - Gear65 - which is a video podcast that checks out the latest gadgets and other tech toys known to bring orgasmic pleasure to grown boys (and girls). Traditional media watch out - you’re in danger of letting a bunch of young punks pwn you in this space. Woot! An Upcoming, And Hopefully Interesting, Project I’m currently organizing a project which I hope will add value to Singapore’s entrepreneurial, and technopreneurial, scene. Slated to start sometime in January 2009, it will be a series of regular events that will bring together interested parties - entrepreneurs, investors, service providers and even students - based in Singapore for meaningful, yet casual, small-group discussions about entrepreneurship and innovation. If you fall into any of the above categories and are interested to participate, drop me an email at daniel at youngupstarts dot com with the subject header “Young Upstarts Secret Project 2009″. Note that participants in this project will strictly be by invite-only, and participation is NOT free. TANGS In Second Life, Makes Virtual Worlds Fashionable Virtual TANGS You don’t usually expect fashion retailers to be online trailblazers, yet local retail giant TANGS announced this week that it will be opening its next store - in 3D virtual world Second Life created by Linden Labs. Virtual TANGS, to be officially launched in March 2009, will basically be a 3-dimensional replica of the retailer’s iconic 76 year-old flagship store on Orchard Road and hopes to bring beauty, fashion and lifestyle merchandise that Singapore has come to love into the virtual world. TANGS also teamed up with local Singapore startup and virtual world financial services provider First Meta™, making it easier for Second Life inhabitants to be able to purchase virtual fashion modelled from the retailer’s in-house fashion brands. Virtual clothes, modelled from real-life in-house lines The acceptance of virtual worlds is still relatively low in Asia - for example, the number of Singaporeans on Second Life is estimated at around 1,500. I can’t foresee that virtual TANGS to be as packed as its real-world counterpart, but kudos to TANGS for being the first lifestyle retailer in Asia for attempting something like this on such a scale. Philip Rosedale would be impressed. You can read more from this TODAY story. Moot.com - Woot, A WiFi-based Social Networking Service! Image courtesy of Moot.com I got an email from André Mlonyeni, CEO of Ground Control Labs introducing his company’s social networking service Moot.com. Moot connects people within the same WiFi network, usually around a location - such as cafés, school campuses or libraries - and allows them to interact with one another and share stuff peer-to-peer. One of the best things about Moot, Mlonyeni points out, is the fact that “as no mobile operator or ISPs are involved… users will not be monitored by any third party.” Cool stuff. The Moot team currently consists of five people - three developers, one marketing guy and Mlonyeni - based in Oslo, Norway, three of whom are former employees of Norway telecommunications service provider Telenor. It turns out Mlonyeni himself was Telenor’s former chief of research. “We’re a small company trying to bring social networking out of the virtual space and into the streets,” says Mlonyeni. “The main idea behind the concept is giving people new impulses based on the place they are and the context they’re in and the tools for broadcasting their personality and file sharing.” “Therefore we designed this application for local interaction, where people can chat, share and express themselves digitally to other people in their physical surroundings.” The key benefit for the user, Mlonyeni says, is the ability to communicate digitally with his surroundings without having any prior knowledge to the details of other people. “All Moot users nearby appear on the screen available for communication and sharing. Another benefit is that Moot is totally free. We are targeting the ‘Facebook-generation’.” Moot is currently in beta. Mlonyeni shares that one key challenge it recently overcame was to ensure good encryption and authentication for its users when they communicate locally and directly with each other without a server. Their key growth strategy moving forward is to penetrate more terminals and platforms, and develop a user profile page that provides users with a history of their Moot events. It’s a social networking service of a very different take, and not purely Web or mobile- focused like most others. Moot may target Facebook users, but I can see it used in other ways - It’ll kick ass in a classroom, or in a seminar or workshop. Moot is funded by Norwegian investors to the sum of around US$1.3 million to date. PS: I love its branding and the cool artwork! André Mlonyeni, Moot.com Singapore Location-Based Mobile Service MyWobile.com Announces Beta Singapore startup MyWobile.com today announced the beta launch of its location-based social networking mobile application. The application integrates social networking with location-aware services that focuses around online commerce, advertising and in the near future, gaming. It allows you to track where your friends are, find the latest special offers and events around you, and even form communities by location. All Symbian Series 60 3rd edition are supported in the current version, and support for other platforms such as Windows Mobile will be made available soon. MyWobile is backed by local startup incubator Azione Capital. LeapFish.com - Swimming With The Big Kahunas Of Search Google and Yahoo! may be the big boys of search today, but that hasn’t stopped other new search engines such as Cuil from popping up to challenge these incumbents. The most recent entrant is multi-dimensional search aggregator LeapFish.com, announced just last month, that promises to “conveniently surprise users with new-found search information as it combines the best of the web in a single search”. Type in a search term and LeapFish delivers relevant results from Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, along with blogs, news, Q&A, videos, images and even sites like Ebay and YouTube, all in a single interface. “LeapFish offers a one-stop convenient solution for more complex searches by querying the web’s most sought-after destinations and rendering the results to users in a surprisingly easy-to-use format,” saya Behnam Behrouzi, President and CEO of LeapFish. He explains that convenience comes in two ways - LeapFish keeps users up to date by offering search results from internet authorities people already care about, and the engine conveniently surprises users with information that they wouldn’t have normally been aware of had they used a traditional engine. “(Hence) users have a more well-rounded set of results per search query.” Behrouzi believes that accessibility to relevant information is become more and more difficult and fragmented due to the sheer nature of the vastness of the Internet, the variety of the authorities online and the continuous birth of new authorities online. This is the problem LeapFish was created to solve, Behrouzi says, by innovating and delivering value to end users by helping defragment the accessibility of the growing web and keep users abreast of the latest information from across the Internet with minimal work. Behrouzi points out that LeapFish does not intend to compete against Google or Yahoo!, but instead seeks to leverage what is already working and wanted online. “LeapFish utilizes what already works to capture the breadth and variety of the web and lends more accessibility to what is already valuable to us in the vastness of the Internet,” he says. “We seek to integrate them as indexers in the multi-dimensional search aggregator that we have developed.” Of course, the fact that LeapFish will gun for the same lucrative online advertising market was conveniently left unsaid. LeapFish’s search algorithm utilizes proprietary hyper-threading technology to communicate with all major online portals simultaneously to deliver the various search results from a single search query. The current version of LeapFish queries a preset list of online authorities in each search request, including Google, Yahoo!, YouTube, Yahoo! News, Associated Press, Yahoo! Answers, Ebay, Amazon, Accuweather and WikiHow. “Future releases will allow LeapFish to intelligently decipher the search term entered and deliver the most relevant search widgets from a growing list of over 200 currently being developed,” Behrouzi reveals on its future growth strategies. “Users will receive instant results from relevant online authorities in maps, music, real estate, social sites and more, based on the search term they enter.”  It is also developing an affiliate marketing system that allows webmasters to monetize their existing websites by integrating a widget into their sites, earning revenue based on the number of unique searches their visitors perform using the LeapFish search widget. LeapFish is backed by DotNext Inc. which is also funded by Behrouzi, who previously co-founded Reply.com. There are no outside investors. FiveSprockets.com - Creating User-Generated Video Content, Professionally President, founder and CEO of FiveSprockets.com Randy Ullrich always had a passion for filmmaking. The son of a Screen Actors Guild Hollywood actress, Ullrich was an aspiring actor as a child and even made a film when he was only ten years old. Recently he authored two full-feature screenplays, one of which was a 2005 Fade-In quarterfinalist. It was this deep passion and understanding of the industry that allowed Ullrich to identify some of the problems that many aspiring filmmakers face during production. “I participated on several short film shoots and observed aspiring filmmakers and crews making what seemed like lots of mistakes and running very inefficiently. Through my own personal studies and experience, I also knew that filmmaking was (really) a ‘collaborative endeavor’,” Ullrich says. He recognized that the current tools available to media producers were decidedly narrow in focus and non-synergistic, and hence didn’t truly meet all the needs of professional and aspiring producers. “I looked at many of the software tools being applied to media production, and noticed that they were non-collaborative by design. Conversely, the Web – particularly with the advancement of second-generation tools – is built for collaboration.”  Ullrich saw the gap as a potential opportunity, and the idea for FiveSprockets was born. This was in March 2007. The FiveSprockets USP Combining his professional expertise with his long-time passion for film (he had more than 20 years experience leading early and mature-stage software/Web companies), Ullrich proceeded to design FiveSprockets as a collaborative platform to support the five phases of media production - story development and scriptwriting, pre-production; production; post-production; and marketing and distribution. FiveSprockets positions itself as a “virtual production studio,” offering filmmakers and digital-media producers the tools, such as on-demand software, they need to make better media, more efficiently and profitably, anywhere they are. For example, tools such as vScripter, a story development and scriptwriting software, and vProductionOffice, a production management software, allows users to work on projects in a collaborative manner. There are even job boards to help producers find suitable cast and crew. It is especially suited to digital media projects, such as the creation of Webisodes or Mobisodes. After raising an angel round of financing in early 2008, a private alpha of FiveSprockets was released in the spring and the public beta went live in September 2008. “My first investors were people I had known and/or done work with for several years. They knew I would work very hard to make FiveSprockets a success and thought that our business strategy was a sound one.” “FiveSprockets’ target market is anyone who needs to make video or film, which is a lot of people these days! From feature/short films, to corporate industrials and training, to advertising, millions of people work professionally in motion-picture media production, and many more aspire to create digital video. To grow our user base, we are using a combination of traditional marketing methods, along with newer, social-media based marketing techniques,” says Ullrich. User-Generated Content Ullrich credits user-generated content (UGC) as one of the drivers that led to FiveSprockets‘ existence. “We want to help people do that better and we do that by giving our users Hollywood’s tried and true tools and business processes so that they can make better user-generated content.” Today Ullrich manages all strategy, corporate development and operations for FiveSprockets, but still insists on having a hand in product development. And his team loves the film industry as much as he does. “I was really interested in recruiting people who (not only) had the technical or creative skills needed, but also had a strong interest in video and film. This was so the team would have the same passion for FiveSprockets that I do.” “What’s resulted is that several key folks who are either employees or consultants are filmmakers, screenwriters, or related, and the passion is directly influencing FiveSprockets‘ strong and dedicated team.” FiveSprockets recently unveiled several enhancements to its virtual production studio, including a new suite of script formats, improved profile features and direct access for users to ProtectRite®, an online service for time sealed intellectual-property registration. This partnership with ProtectRite enabled FiveSprockets users to access the ProtectRite service directly from vScripter, FiveSprockets online story development and scriptwriting software. “The latest enhancements to FiveSprockets help us meet the needs of a wider group of media creators,” Ullrich says. He reveals that their product roadmap includes some plans to help content creators monetize their content, although that will only happen in due time. Economic Crisis and Opportunity Ullrich admits that the economy may be bleak at the moment, but it is unlikely to affect FiveSprockets much. “We’ve kept our operating costs very low since inception, which is reflective more of our personalities than the existing economic climate. FiveSprockets is riding the wave of video user-generated content, which is only growing stronger. We’re weathering this storm by keeping our operating costs low, and by having a compelling offering to ride it out.” “Also, note that many of the Internet successes over the last few years were started during the last economic crisis of 2000 through 2002. Economic downturns can be a great time to be a start-up,” Ullrich reminds us. Randy Ullrich, president, founder and CEO of FiveSprockets Interesthink 3: Causes & Ideas Interesthink is holding its third meetup, “Causes & Ideas”. Modeled after TED (Technology, Entertainment & Design), Interesthink is a community-run project that aims to build a culture around the sharing of ideas. The upcoming event will feature talks by Douglas Oloughlin from Joy of Learning, Patrick Lambe from Straits Knowledge and Information & Knowledge Management Society (IKMS), Alfie Othman of Pertapis, Fong Hoe Fang from Ethos Publishing, Robert Kee from Operation Hope Foundation and Tan Puay Hoon from the Restroom Association (Singapore). Founder of Interesthink Kelvin Quee shares that before the event proper starts, participants are welcome to pick up the microphone for lightning talk sessions of around five minutes each, which is something they’ve never tried before. You’ll also find display booths championing various causes, such as open software folks Neo FreeRunner, activist group Darfur Awareness and volunteer group First Aid Corps. Sure it’s a mixed bag, but it’s all about the sharing of causes and ideas after all. “Causes & Ideas” will be held on 12 December 2008 from 6 to 10pm at The Pod, National Library. You can find out more about Interesthink at its wiki, or register for the event here. An Old Man And His Craft During my vacation to Hong Kong last week, I made a day trip with my wife to nearby Macau. As we walked past Senado Square, I saw this very old man slaving away over his charcoal-fired oven in his dark side-alley shopfront. He was painstakingly making egg rolls, dropping 5 small balls of egg batter each time in each cast iron griddle. When they were done, he’d pop the piping-hot pastry out and drop them into a metal tray. The smell was heavenly, and we bought a pound of these simple egg pastries for 10 Macau dollars. Some shops down the row, there was the far more famous Pastelaria Koi Kei, which has grown to a chain of stores all over Macau (and swarmed by tourists). They sold the same egg rolls, in multiple flavours, in fantastic packaging. I couldn’t help but think what would happen when the old man passed on. In all likelihood, his craft and his skill will go with him. I wonder if he ever regretted not expanding like his competitors? I don’t have the answer, but I mourn the day when we lose all these skilled craftsmen when we move with the times. CountSpin.com - Getting Into The Spin Of Things CountSpin is a live auction portal that revolves around (pardon the pun) falling prices. It’s eBay with a twist - at any one time, an item is up for sale and its bid price falls as time goes by. This continues until someone bids for the item, or its price reaches zero. So yes, technically you can get something for free (not inclusive of US$20 shipping and handling). The site is essentially a deep discounter, perfect during a bleak economy when consumers are very price-sensitive and are looking out for bargains. CountSpin’s a somewhat unique and entertaining way to shop, and can also be mildly addictive. However, the novelty does wear thin after a while. For starters, only one item is ever up for sale. Also, CountSpin admits that the biggest criticism it has is the lack of variety in the merchandise, with the site predominantly selling only men’s watches as of now and that has restricted its growth. It currently has less than 500 users since its beta introduction over a month ago. Interestingly, many of these users buy on the site to resell on eBay. Unsurprisingly, CountSpin will be increasing the variety of merchandise over time to attract larger audiences. One key demographic it is targeting are female shoppers, and so will look to add perfumes, cosmetic, accessories, jewellery, and kitchenware in the future. Started by Suraj Daryanani and Jay Gupta, CountSpin is self-funded and plans to grow organically. Both founders are based in Asia. Jay has a consulting and training background while Suraj is a serial entrepreneur with a background in banking. CountSpin is their first launched venture, and there are others are in the pipeline. Away to Hong Kong! I’m finally going on vacation! I’ll be in Hong Kong from 26 November to 30 November, so let me apologize if I’m unable to reply to your emails during this period. Microsoft Gets Into The Game With BizSpark Microsoft finally announces its BizSpark startup support program in Singapore, which was earlier unveiled on 8 November in San Francisco. In a press event this week, Microsoft Singapore’s managing director Jessica Tan gave an overview of the software giant’s local software economy initiatives while platform evangelist John Fernandes showed the nuts and bolts of the BizSpark program to the local press. Essentially, BizSpark allows startups that are developing software-based products or services (and meet the program’s eligbility requirements) to get access to current full-featured Microsoft development tools and licenses of server products, with no upfront costs and minimal requirements. In addition, these startups will get professional support from Microsoft and its network of community-driven, entrepreneur-focused organizations. If you’re an incubator or other similar organization within the local software ecosystem that is engaged with supporting high-potential, early stage startups, you can also consider signing up to be a BizSpark Network Partner. Also, you may want to check out Microsoft’s Startup Zone. Greed Will Be The Death Of Singapore’s Food Culture Last night, I ordered dinner at a foodcourt in a shopping mall. It tasted appalling. Perhaps I should have hesitated when I saw the mainland Chinese cook manning the kitchen. Before you raise your heckles, I have nothing against foreign talent. And I don’t expect authentic kick-ass cuisine from a foodcourt chain. But I do expect to get what I pay for. My main gripe is this: I believe that gross greed and commercialization is killing Singapore’s highly-prized food culture. Greed, ranging from exorbitant rentals to the now accepted practice of cutting corners in the name of “cost-effectiveness”, has resulted in the legions of unskilled labourers manning our foodcourts, restaurants and hawker centres. Cooking our food, many of them, rather badly. My mom and her generational peers still wax lyrical over how wonderful the food they grew up with used to taste in the “good old days”. Sadly for them - and the rest of us - many of the true culinary artisans of their time have either retired or been driven out by many of these chain eateries. I don’t blame these workers. They are giving us EXACTLY what their meagre salary and training allows. I blame greed - the kind of greed that maximizes profits at all costs, and just providing the barest minimum of standards you can get away with. Singapore has always prided itself as a cosmopolitan food haven, and even promoted as such by the local tourism authority. With the proliferation of such sub-standardness, I worry that this may no longer be the case. It’s ironic how we’re trying to export Singaporean food culture overseas - such as the Tiger Beer Chilli Crab Festival in Dubai - when our food industry is hurtling towards mediocrity. If you’re a local entrepreneur in the food business, I beseech you. Take pride in the food you serve, train the people you have, and honor the customers you serve by giving them the best that you can. You can still be profitable - and best yet - help Singapore to reclaim our reputation as a food destination. Singapore Press Holdings Eats Up Shareinvestor.com Singapore’s media powerhouse Singapore Press Holdings yesterday completed the acquisition of local web-based share trading platform Shareinvestor.com, founded by ex-doctor Michael Leong, for S$12 million and a further S$6 million if certain financial targets are met. Singapore Press Holdings will be retaining Shareinvestor.com’s entire management team. Dr. Leong previously wrote a book on entrepreneurship called “Be An Entrepreneur!”. Seasoned Entrepreneurs On Opportunities In Tough Times I just came back from the ACE BlueSky Exchange & Evening event “Challenging Times & Managing Challenges” organized by ACE and Hong Leong Finance, which is part of the Global Entrepreneurship Week series of events. The event featured a panel with Tracy Chua from Hong Leong Finance, Mohamed Abdul Jaleel of MES Group of Companies, Francis Koh of Koh Brothers Group, and Benedict Soh of Kingsmen Creatives, and facilitated by Professor Annie Koh, Dean of Executive & Professional Education from Singapore Management University. I’m excerpting some key ideas from the conversations by the panelists that apply to new startups and early entrepreneurs (note that this is not verbatim): (On financing, the current credit crunch and how banks are reining in credit facilities) Mohamed: You need to work very hard and convince friends to support you when you go to the bank. Francis: Talk to your bank. They are also worried. Communicate with your banks so that they know what you are doing. They will then be more willing to maintain and/or extend their credit to you. Benedict: Financial institutions are not my favorite. When you meet bankers, make sure you can prove to them you are able to repay. Surprisingly it was easier and more pleasant experience of getting help from the Government. Tracy: Lenders are looking for same thing. If you don’t have a track record, you must have a business plan. If you come prepared, you’re better able to convince us so that we can convince the credit committee. (On the surprise announcement of support from the Government, and their own wish list) Mohamed: Property and income tax cuts. Francis: Same as Mohamed. The Government should say how much they will spend to prop up the market. That gives us confidence. Benedict: We can afford more public spending. I hope for the lowering the cost of doing business - electronic road pricing (ERP), electricity costs etc. (On the current recession and financial crisis) Mohamed: This scale of this crisis has frightened us. We have to redesign our lifestyles and get mentally prepared. Get in touch with clients and make sure everything is healthy. Francis: It will be more severe than the crisis of 1997. What worries me is that Singapore entered recession before even the US. The tsunami has not reached us yet. We have understand to our clients better, to know if their business is ok and gauge the impact. We have to give our suppliers confidence and secure terms of credit. Business partners have different opinions as well so you need to talk with them to come up with a solution. Internal communications with your staff is critical - they like to know what’s going on so communicate is important. Watch your profit and cash flow - many companies during the previous crises were profitable but were not cash-flow healthy and thus went bankrupt. Benedict: I think Singapore is better prepared this time. We are in a better position. Why? Although we started recession before the US, Singapore was experiencing 6 to 7 per cent growth. The US was growing at around 2 to 3 per cent, but much of that growth was not real. Many local companies are still doing well. (On retrenchment) Mohamed: No retrenchment. See if there is a need to revise salaries, but retrenchment is not an option. Francis: The construction business is still ok at the moment. Streamline operations, increase productivity and control expansion - if anything happens, then you’re better prepared in times of crisis. It’s more important to manage the change. Another strategy is diversification. If done correctly, it manages risk. Benedict: I agree. Throughout our history we’ve never retrenched, and only frozen recruitment. (On when a startup should go for financing) Mohamed: It depends on the business you’re in. (Opportunities for people to start business in Singapore) Benedict: Go into a space in which you’re more qualified for a better chance. Any business is a good business Francis: You must have passion. You’re better able to reach a certain level if you’re passionate. Do something you have the passion in. But passion alone is not enough. Benedict: The word passion is overused - it’s X-rated in my company. When you talk about entrepreneurship, you make your business plan by looking at the opportunity and the market. (On identifying the right partners to start a business) Francis: Get to know them well first. It’s just like marriage. It’s easy to marry, difficult to divorce. Better to first know them as a friend, and know their character. Find out whether you have chemistry, whether you can solve challenges together. Benedict: Setting the ground rules is most important - who can do what, and who calls the shots. Discuss the prospects, shortcomings and the worst-case scenarios. Mohamed: I’ve no experience with partners. If you think you can work hard alone, try it out. A partner must be understanding, and able to tolerate what the other partner command or decide. Francis: When you come into a partnership, always plan an exit strategy. Not that you plan to split up with a business partner, but you need to set up the procedure for separating which is very important to save a relationship after the separation. (On succession planning) Francis: In a listed company, there must be a succession plan. It is impossible to keep a company within the family. Benedict: When we talk about company succession, there must be a separation with ownership and the organization. An organization must be structured and organized to run with or without the founder. (Wise words for aspiring entrepreneurs) Tracy: Seek funding from family members first. Also consider government micro loans. Mohamed: Work very hard, focus is very important. Be sincere in your business. Keep your staff close to you. Francis: Plan well. Have character - what are your values in life? Be thrifty. Benedict: There’s good business is everywhere. You just have to make a differentiation. I’m not supportive of those fresh from school to start a business. You need to work for someone else, so you know how to deal with people who work for you in the future. Look after your people well, and they will look after you. *A big thanks to SPRING Singapore’s Veron Huang for inviting me. Singapore Property Tycoon Gives S$5 Million, Encourages Technopreneurship Local property tycoon Chua Thian Poh, who’s head kahuna of Ho Bee Group and also president of the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI), gave S$5 million to the National Technological University (NTU) to set up an entrepreneurship fund. The government matched Chua’s contribution dollar-for-dollar, giving NTU a $10 million war chest for funding interactions between technopreneurship and innovation students with overseas talent, such as overseas educational tours for local students or facilitate the visits of successful entrepreneurs to the university. That’s also a lot of beer money. For more, read the Straits Times article here. Locomi.com - Three Friends, Three Places And One Startup Food can unite people. In the case of Sumit Shah, Ravi Bhushan and Siddharth Vanchinathan - the founders of Locomi.com - also discovered that the love for food can be a source of innovation, and the basis for a startup venture. I first heard of Locomi on Plurk, when co-founder Ravi was asking around for interns, so I caught up with him for a chat. He tells me the three of them, who met in India’s elite La Martiniere Calcutta, are foodies to the core and loved discovering great but unknown places to eat and hang out. Even after they went ways after graduation - Sumit headed to the University of Southern California (USC) in the States, Ravi to the Singapore Management University (SMU) in Singapore, and Sid to Manipal University in India - they kept in close touch and continued sharing on the best places to eat in their respective countries, scouring online food review sites like Yum.sg, Hungrygowhere.com, Yelp.com, CitySeach.com, Burrp.com. Identifying the pain point “While these are excellent tools to search for reviews of local destinations, many people in our social circle didn’t frequent them. This meant that it wasn’t possible to share a new discovery with them or see the places they liked and recommended. Neither was it very easy to see how close by a place was, unless one was very good with addresses,” Ravi tells me. Inspired, the three thrashed around some ideas and came up with what Ravi says was the “rather laughable solution of making yet another social network”, which would integrate local destinations and adding what they figured would be a key USP to the site. “That’s a story for a different day,” Ravis laughs, “Lets just say it was a lot tougher than we imagined. We were unable to find the talent we needed to make our vision a reality, and building the kind of community we envisaged would have been a mammoth task.” That idea didn’t last long. The three friends figured that they needed to add a new dimension to existing social networks rather than reinventing the wheel, and leverage on existing social graphs instead. The result was Locomi.com, the beta version of which is now on Facebook. “We started development in May, 2008 and have been working at breakneck speed since then to develop the application.” Shaping the idea “We developed Locomi for Facebook first because that’s where most of our social circle is. To get Locomi to the stage where it currently is, we had to get a lot of data from different sources, sift through it and clean it up. We developed an algorithm which used landmarks, addresses and a lot of other parameters to pinpoint the data on Google Maps with a fair degree of accuracy. The result is that we have quickly been able to launch Locomi in Singapore as well as seven cities in India - Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Pune and Bangalore.” When you open Locomi, users are first asked to plot their home location. The app takes you to the explore segment that shows you various destinations around your locality and allows you to discover new places around you. Places are divided into 4 categories - Food & Beverages, Shopping, Entertainment and Utilities. You can review and rate places, and read reviews from others. “We believe that people would be more encouraged to visit a new place that’s been recommended by a friend rather than by an unknown person. The latest reviews and ratings are pushed out to users in a city, while an easy to use search interface means that they can easily find what they are looking for. Users can invite others to hang out at a local destination, recommend a place to a friend, or reminisce about a place they recently visited together,” Ravi explains. It surprises me that all three cofounders are based in different parts of the world. Ravi graduates from SMU this year with degrees in Information Systems Management and Business Management and works part-time on Locomi for now in the area of business development.  CTO Sumit, recently graduated from USC, California in December with a degree in Computer Science and a minor in Management, is based out of Kolkata, India and works on Locomi on a full-time basis. Siddharth, the third co-founder who is in charge of user experience, also graduated this year with a degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Manipal University and is based in Bangalore. “We are really happy that we have the team that we do. Each one of us brings special skill sets to the table. Moreover, since we are all high school friends, we find it quite comfortable working with one another.” Locomi is currently self-funded with some S$25,000 from friends and family. The team currently has two full-time developers and two data analysts, besides the three founding members. “We have always been using every cent like its the last. We will be needing funding though, to take Locomi to newer platforms. We are currently seeking out some form of angel or government funding.” The company aims to start pitching for its first round of private funding next year. In such bleak economic times, I wish them a healthy dose of luck. Future roadmap Ravi says Locomi is currently working on expanding to other platforms, with OpenSocial and Friendster versions of the application on the immediate horizon. They are also looking at developing a version for the iPhone, especially with its location-aware capabilities. “On the feature front, we are also looking to add more interactivity to the application by introducing quizzes, besides also integrating citywide events and latest deals as key components of the application. Next steps also include expansion into second-tier Indian cities and places across the Asia Pacific.” “We realize that space we are operating in is a crowded one. While most companies in this space concentrate their efforts on search, we are more focused on discovery. We believe that the true potential of Locomi lies in its ability to leverage a user’s existing social graph to discover the most exciting destinations around town. This was always the core focus of our application and we hope this draws the users in.” RentSpace.sg Goes Live, Makes It Easy To Find Temporary Accommodation The Real Group launches Rentspace.sg, an online full-featured map-based search engine that makes it easy for users find apartments and rooms for rent in Singapore. Currently with around one thousand listings, the site allows users to simply key in landmarks such as schools, neighborhoods or roads and will return a map with all the available rental units available in a one-kilometer radius. Rentspace.sg is The Real Group’s second online service, the first being HomeSpace.sg (a similar engine that returns homes for sale rather those for rent). Global Entrepreneurship Week, 17 to 23 November 2008 17-23 November this year marks the Global Entrepreneurship Week (also known as The Week, for short), in which 75 countries all around the world coordinate an entire week of events that celebrate innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. In Singapore, NUS Enterprise and Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) will host a series of activities that will hopefully give those amongst us with entrepreneurial desires or tendencies a proverbial kick in the butt. I’m highly recommending The Week to three kinds of people: 1. The seasoned entrepreneur. You’ve seen it all, but you’ve recently hit a brick wall, come up with blanks, or found the going increasingly tougher. Go to The Week and get excited all over again. Soak in the enthusiasm and the passion from other veterans and the young guns alike. 2. The new entrepreneur. You’ve just started your venture and you’re brimming with energy, ideas and zeal. Find out what other entrepreneurs are up to, look for mentors who can help guide your startup or find mutually-beneficial partners at The Week. 3. The could-be entrepreneur. You’ve always wondered what it’ll be like to start your own business, or if you’re cut out to do your own thing. Go to The Week and find out if you’re right for it. Two events in particular to look out for: Monday, 17 Nov, 7-9pm - ACE BlueSky Exchange & Evening networking event, ‘Challenging Times & Managing Challenges’. The event features a panel of speakers from various industries to discuss the current economic outlook and share their strategies and approaches in steering companies in such turbulent times. Click here for more information. Saturday, 22 Nov, 9am-5pm - ‘Speednetworking the Globe’, organized by The Digital Movement (TDM), will feature speednetworking sessions between technology startups from Singapore, Silicon Valley and Stockholm, conducted totally through online chats and video links. Check the wiki out for more updates. I’m definitely looking forward to it. For more information on Global Entrepreneurship Week activities around the world, check out UnleashingIdeas.org. For activities specific to Singapore, click here instead. *This is a sponsored review brought to you by BLOG2u. Reinventing Customer Service What if customer service folks were among the most highly-paid in a business? Or if businesses hired the best and the brightest to handle customer service? What happens if customer service personnel are empowered to make decisions? Would that change the level of customer service? I reckon it will, but I don’t think this will ever happen here in Singapore. Stealth Mode - A Silent Way For A Startup To Die During one of the recent events I attended, I spoke to this guy working in a new local startup who proudly declared, “We’re in stealth mode.” Stealth mode. Wow I don’t really know that means, but doesn’t that sound cool? When I asked him in greater detail about why his venture was in ’stealth mode’ he couldn’t answer me. “I can’t tell you what we do, our web service is in a really competitive space,” he explains. If you’re such competitive a space you’re screwed already, bro. And if you don’t have an answer, I can think of a few: 1. You don’t have a clue what you’re doing. 2. You have a vague idea which you don’t know how to articulate anyway. 3. You probably don’t have an investor and are embarrassed. Heck, you probably don’t even have a target market. OnStartups.com names a few real reasons why startups won’t talk. On the other hand, David Beisel argues that there are legitimate reasons for startups to remain covert. Mark Fletcher of Bloglines pointed out in 2005 that he believes stealth mode for web startups is the kiss of death. He says three months is all a startup should stay in stealth mode while it works out the kinks before its beta launch. I agree with his assessment. It’s probably more advisable to get your product out quickly, and test it often with your users. Otherwise your ’stealthed’ startup may just die silently in its infancy. How An Alumni Helped Unigo.com Get Off The Ground Being an entrepreneur is hard, but for a student entrepreneur, things can get immeasurably harder. With no money and armed only with an idea, where can a young entrepreneur find funding and support? For Jordan Goldman, founder of Unigo.com, his answer - and salvation - lay in his college alumni. The recent graduate from Wesleyan University had an idea of a wholly student-contributed online college resource where other future students can get unbiased advice on the colleges they were thinking to apply in. “Choosing what college you go to is an enormous decision. It’s stressful, it’s incredibly expensive, in many cases entire families save for years and (everyone has to) chip in,” says 26 year-old Goldman. “Up until very recently the best way to make this four-year, $50,000 to $250,000 decision was to buy a college guidebook.” When Goldman was 18 years old, he came up with an idea to help make those guidebooks a little bit better - he created a series of 100 per cent student-written college guidebooks called the Students’ Guide to Colleges, published in a couple of editions by Penguin Books. The Idea About a year after he stopped doing the guide, Goldman realized the limitations of print guidebooks – each college only got a small number of pages, with no photos, no videos, no interactivity.  For a decision this important, that resource didn’t seem helpful enough. “High school students and parents needed more accurate, authentic, honest information.  And college students needed a place where they could really represent their college lives - if they loved their school, if they had issues with it, if they were someplace in-between.” “The internet provided the opportunity to create an enormous, comprehensive and totally free resource that could help everyone.” Goldman proceeded to hire an 18-person editorial team for Unigo, and spent about three months researching 250 colleges.  “We hired interns on the ground, who really believed in what we were trying to accomplish and who helped corroborate our research.”  For the next 5 months, Unigo evangelized to students one by one, asking them to be part of creating a ‘crowd-sourced’ student resource.  “We put in extra effort to ensure we received reviews from students from every major, extracurricular, gender, race, religion, political affiliation, sexual orientation and more … students who love their school, who have issues with it, or have mixed feelings.” In the end, more than 15,000 students from these 250 colleges had contributed more than 35,000 pieces of content.  In some cases, a full 10 per cent of the student body took part.  Goldman explains that such a volume of reviews Unigo allows them to tap on the wisdom of crowds. “If we have 150 reviews of a college, you can search by a variety of criteria.  You can say, only show me reviews by English majors, or African-American students, or politically right-wing students at a left-wing institution … so you can see a school from the eyes of someone who’s just like you.” Unigo - The collaborative students’ guide to colleges Unigo launched on 17th September this year, and offers a slightly different site for high school students and college students. High school students get access to an enormous amount of free and honest information about each college such as editorial overviews, reviews, photos, videos, documents and more. For college students, Unigo gives them tools to create content about their college life - reviews, videos, photos, upload class notes, academic writing, creative writing, campus journalism. “They can write blogs, interact in forums, create profiles and message their classmates and other prospective students. Anyone with the right .edu email address can create content about their school,” says Goldman, who was recently interviewed in the New York Times for his startup. Funding Goldman started working on the idea for Unigo when he was 23 and recently graduated from college. He decided to just go for it and lived on his meagre savings while he worked on developing his idea further. Goldman recounts how he managed to stretch his savings - which he thought would last six months - into one and a half years. “At a certain point I starting growing more and more frugal - dividing Chinese food lunch specials into two or three meals, living in the cheapest sublets I could find and sleeping on people’s couches – to make the money last as long as it possibly could, so I could take the idea as far as I could.” The English major one day realized that there were a lot of really amazing alumni living in New York City. What if he was able to tap on their expertise? “So I went into Wesleyan’s alumni database and emailed lots of knowledgeable people in NYC, asking them if I could buy them dinner while they listened to the idea and told me what they thought.” And respond they did, even if some were complete strangers. The alumni were willing to be incredibly helpful, and over time, and after meeting with lots of alumni, their advice helped Goldman’s plan get better and better. “Literally two or three weeks before my last dollars were set to run out, some alumni came together and actually pitched in the initial funds to start building the website.” Being open to good advice Goldman thinks that the advice he received from the Wesleyan alumni was as important, if not more important, than their funding of Unigo. One challenge, he shares, was recognizing that the ideas had plenty of flaws in the beginning. “People would listen, and nod their heads, then go on to rip it apart.” They said things like “you didn’t think of this, what would you do in this scenario, this part doesn’t make sense”, Goldman remembers. “Sometimes that can be hard to hear, especially if you’re living only on your savings, with everyone telling you to get a real job while you’re trying your best to keep at it to get your idea off the ground.” “But in the end, it’s actually the best thing in the world, those people who pick your idea apart.  You have to kind of put yourself aside, and listen to what they’re saying, then go home and take out your pen and go ‘okay, they identified a hole, how do I fill that hole now?’.  Once you’ve done that, ask them to sit down with you a month later and test out your patch, see if it holds. If it doesn’t, try again.” Goldman says he probably had 50 or 100 of those ‘hole-finding’ lunches before the idea evolved enough to raise funds to create Unigo – trying out ideas, testing them, getting shot down and building them up. “You really do learn from that process.  And your idea gets immeasurably stronger.  Not being defensive and opening up was one of the hardest - and most worthwhile - things that got done.” Jordan Goldman, founder of Unigo.com It Pays To Follow Your Passion (Most Of The Time) Passion makes things happen. This is never so clearly evident as with Finnish video-making cult hero Timo Vuorensola or Hugh Hancock of Strange Company. Timo created Star Wreck, a Star Trek parody, while Hugh was responsible for Bloodspell, a feature-length machinima film made using the gaming engine from Neverwinter Nights. The two of them, along with Iolo Jones of TV Everywhere, shared some insights behind what drives them in an exclusive new media discussion at the Singapore Digital Media Festival 2008. They certainly didn’t start their creations for monetary reward, although they are now somewhat rather compensated for their efforts. Unfortunately such thinking is not quite so prevalent here in Singapore. Some of the bloggers present at the discussion, including me, bemoan the fact that many UGC creators here are simply too fixated on financial rewards -  or as Coleman Yee points out, extrinsic motivation - instead. Timo shares how Star Wreck was in some part funded by unemployment and student welfare checks from the Finnish government. (OK, we don’t have the dole here so this option is out of the question for us Singaporeans.) But Timo and Hugh will still advise us to follow our passion. Passion got them to where they are today after all. From L: Timo Vuorensola, Iolo Jones and Hugh Hancock IDMPO Makes It Ten With SiTF The Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation (SiTF) today announced itself as IDM Research and Development Programme Office (IDMPO)’s new sleeping partner. SiTF will act as an incubator by administering IDMPO’s microfunding scheme for individuals and startups in the interactive digital media space, and its members will offer mentoring with their technological and business expertise. With this new tie-up, IDMPO now has a network of 10 incubators that will collectively nurture some 450 startups in Singapore over the next few years. Existing incubators have funded some 90 projects of which 15 have been completed. About four have received private investment. It will be interesting to see how an industry association of more than 400 corporate members - many of whom are competitors in their respective industries - can make sense and value add to the growing numbers of local startups. Weigend Says Companies Are Losing Control I was at the Singapore Management University this evening for the Shaw Foundation Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series to hear ex-Amazon chief scientist Andreas Weigend speak on the topic The New Business Model: “Me-Business”. Weigend shares that there are three kinds of companies - the “E-Business” or one that is focused on itself and on control, the “Me-Business” (the customer-centric business), and finally the “We-Business”, one which acknowledges that its customers are now bypassing the company and talking to one another i.e. becoming a community. You can find out more of what he presented in his blog post here. He argues that the company who is stuck in the first category will struggle. Businesses who understand that the balance of power has shifted to the consumer and ride that wave will survive and even prosper. The old ways of thinking are gone, Weigend says. There’s also a panel session that follows, comprising of Michael Issenberg, Chairman and COO of Accor Asia Pacific, OCBC Bank’s Senior Executive Vice President and Head of Global Consumer Financial Services Andrew Lee, Executive Vice President (Consumer) and CEO of Singtel Mobile Quek Peck Leng, and chaired by Assoc Professor John Davis from SMU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Business. Wow. It feels like a disused library with so many stuffy titles. From L: SMU's John Davis, Andrew Lee of OCBC, Andreas Weigend, Quek Peck Leng of Singtel Mobile and Accor's Michael Issenberg At least the conversational was humorous at times. OCBC’s Lee candidly jibes that his company is in a legacy business that is stuck in the first category. He’s not totally convinced on the We-Business, but certainly agrees that his company can work on being more customer-centric. Singtel Mobile’s Quek and Accor’s Issenberg argues that companies have to be all three - since they are profit-oriented after all. Quek says that his users are increasingly demanding customization of their mobile usage, but this means that his company increasingly loses control. The rest agrees. Weigend jests that the idea of ‘control’ is so last millenium, and the whole audience laughs. I leave at that point, and rush across for the Singapore Digital Media Festival’s opening night at the National Museum conveniently located across the road from SMU. Just as well I was late - it was basically a digital media onslaught, mostly 10-minute film shorts, for more than two hours. Honestly I wasn’t too impressed - most of them being overly-slick productions. Red vs. Blue (a machinima film built around the Halo engine) was irreverently fun though, and the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD was suitably impressive. I left halfway through the program; I was that tired. It’s been a busy, busy day. I’m looking forward to the actual DM Fest proper tomorrow, though. The Developer Is Everybody’s New Best Friend I had the opportunity to meet Jeff Roberto of Friendster over lunch today, along with Ben Koe of JamiQ, Howie Chang from TDM, Michael Lim of Comiqs, Mohan Belani of E27 and Ridzuan Ashim of Widgeo.us. Jeff, who was in town for yesterday’s Google DevFest (Google’s first-ever Hackathon in Southeast Asia), shared with us the latest developments on Friendster’s developer program and the company’s support of Google’s OpenSocial. He explains why developers should port their apps to Friendster and the various monetization models they can employ on its platform. No surprises here - advertising is by far still the most viable revenue source. Interestingly, Friendster can and will tie developers up with brand advertisers for specialized marketing campaigns. So it seems like everyone’s trying to open up their platforms and make friends with developers of all stripes. Local developers for some time have already been hard at work developing apps for both Facebook (check out the Facebook App Developers group) as well as the iPhone. Nokia will engage local developers with Forum Nokia on 31st October. Crowdsourcing applications is the ‘in’ thing. Friendster's Jeff Roberto shares that Friendster still kicks Facebook's ass in Southeast Asia