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Bagaimana cara pakainya? dan apa saja yang ditawarkan oleh Plasa.com? Simak reviewnya di Webicara episode #017!

Stay Alive and Stay Online!

Interview by Notsogeeky

Topik:

• Tren industri kreatif saat ini, terutama bila dikaitkan dengan perkembangan di bidang teknologi informasi
• Dengan semakin banyak yang mengadopsi media digital, bagaimana pengaruhnya terhadap media konvensional?
• Hal apa yang harus diperhatikan sebuah brand untuk pemanfaatan media online

Topik:

• Cerita dibalik rebranding plasa.com dan konsep baru yang diusung
• Solusi plasa.com untuk menjawab konsep e-commerce dalam arti sesungguhnya
• Mekanisme pembayaran dan model bisnis yang diterapkan oleh plasa.com

Can We Turn Ecommerce Lifestyle to Become an Economic Powerhouse?

A current study by BBDO, our morning ritual consists of brushing teeth, taking shower, having something to eat, talking to family members, shaving (for males) and having make up (for woman). Most of this is not part of our daily lifestyle just a hundred year ago. We take a bath once in a week. And we don’t differentiate soap and shampoo. Guess who is responsible for making this become a lifestyle–our way of living? Consumer brand of course!

For GAP, creating a new lifestyle has made the brand become an icon. A new tradition in many American corporations is changing the way we dress for work. The dress code will vary for every company, but ‘Casual Friday’ is becoming a popular trend. In general, employees will dress up in ‘business’ attire on Monday through Thursday. Then they are allowed to dress down on Fridays. Many people say that this casual trend allows employees to feel more relaxed and be more productive. It is sweeping through America and becoming very popular.

Not only brand that is able to create such an influence. Ali Sadikin – the legendary Jakarta major is the key figure to make Friday to become Batik day. By doing that, an industry is born overnight. Before that, practically there’s no dress code that represents Indonesia.

Similar case study happened in food industry. Rather than selling instant coffee to a country dedicated to tea, Nestlé created desserts for children infused with the flavor of coffee but without the caffeine. The younger generation embraced these desserts. Their first imprint of coffee was a very positive one, one they would carry throughout their lives. Through this, Nestlé gained a meaningful foothold in the Japanese market.

Hoka-hoka Bento and Pizza Hut in Indonesia introduce Japan and American food culture to the local scene. The food has been localized to suit the local taste. It influences the Indonesian generation to make them as part of their food vocabulary. And later opens up the door for more exotic Japan and American food respectively.

Dendy Darman, co-founder and owner of Bandung’s best-known independent clothing label, Unkl347 (or just 347 for short) is one of hundreds of independent clothing labels popping up all over urban Indonesia that use international commercial culture as the visual vernacular in their designs. Kickfest, the celebration of this new urban culture that attracts hundred thousands of visitors, has cemented indie clothing from a mere trend to mainstream market, that culminates in the new form of urban lifestyle.

We can trace a lifestyle today was a trend yesterday. So, can lifestyle be designed or it’s just happened by accident? Previous study shown that it can be created. This is when design thinking plays its role. It starts with a problem, then turns this insight to become an empathic solution for consumers. Instead of relying on analytical solution, design thinking offers more, it gives an emotional touch on the solution.

Indonesia currently was swept away by Facebook. 30 millions Facebook accounts to date. Why people use it? Some use it just for fun, some use it for friendship and networking, but some use it for business. They tag their friends and use it for selling clothes, accessories, electronics and many others. Suddenly the empowerment of small business born through their fingertips. As we know, Indonesia needs entrepreneurs. A lot of them!

Is this just a trend or is it a potential to change the way we do the transaction? Is this trend happened only in all connected society? And how to turn this trend to become a lifestlye? If this lifestyle enabling entrepreneurs to sell products and services, is this really build their economy? And can this be a sustainable and scalable? If so, what is the key factor to make this ecommerce lifestyle to really become economic empowerment? What kind of ecosystem need to exist to support this lifestyle?

This is still an open ended question, that I want to find out. How to turn a simple trend to become an economic powerhouse.

SITTI – Indonesian Answer to Google Adsense

 

I got a invitation to attend SITTI Open House. What is SITTI?  I believe SITTI got its name from Siti Nurbaya, a novel created by Marah Roesli. Ask Andy Sjarif (@andysjarif) why he picked that name! I believe he is related to this legend somehow ;) 

What interest me the most is that SITTI will share its finding how they compare to Google for the past 3 months since their inception.

Basically SITTI is a contextual advertising platform very similar to Google Adsense. I have heard this team working on this algorithm for the past year and met a few times with Max, the genie behind the algorithm. At that time, I mention that this kind of technology will be useless without proper services. Turns out that this team manages to build a challenging one like this! A service that challenge the mighty Google. If Google build its engine around 129 language, they concentrate only one, Indonesia. Focusing their energy only on one thing, building a network of content publisher that use their contextual advertising platform. So far, the giant of Indonesian media like Detik and Kompas has given them a chance to prove the technology, not to mention hundreds of bloggers.

In the past six months, their engine manage to index 600 millions Indonesian web site and in the past month, they are able to serve 3300 ads from 529 brands. A good start!

An interesting facts is that SITTI claims to have 88.5% impression over Google Adsense 11.5% during the test and click through rate 64.06% over 20.87%. It means that they their engine is more relevant and people click more to see advertising served by SITTI over Google Adsense. Nice number!

In some of the vertical market, Andy Sjarif admits that Google Adsense is better for travel and real estate industry compares to SITTI. In a discussion with Google, turns out that Google is really concentrating on servicing this vertical industry, since this industry have the most lucrative advertising budget on Adsense.

Is good technology and services enough? I believe is not a matter of which one is better, or which one should we pick over the other. The market will decide. And I believe Indonesia is big enough to have a very long tail market in which some platforms will coexist.

Is Google notice this? Exactly! Is Google able to build such an engine? Certainly! But, the most important is not only the technology, it is the network of publishers and advertisers that gives the real value. SITTI real challenge is to build this as fast as possible. They need to get big fast before Google step its giant foot.

Now, comes down to the monetizing. Who will use this services? By seeing the invitation list, I see numbers of advertising agency, media agency and brand to attend this open house. Meaning that SITTI trying to engage the big advertising spender to use their services. The one that bring the assurance and weight for the brand owner is not necessarily the numbers. Having Ibu Artine Utomo, former CEO and Marketing Director of TPI as SITTI Commisioner, certainly brings credibility to this team. 

Back to Google, I see that Adsense and Adwords truly excel on SME market instead of aiming only the big advertisers. In my opinion, concentrating too much on the web and take on Google is one thing, but if SITTI wants to monetize the SME market, it needs simpler way in which people can put contextual advertising through mobile connectivity and mobile payment.

Anyway, I wholeheartedly congratulate this brave team to challenge the big guy! Way to go Andy, Rene and the rest of the team!

Antonny Liem (@antonnyliem) of Semutapi, me, Andi Sadha (@andigudip) of Activate and Gunawan (@gunawanX) of MediaX. Thanks to Rene the Career Coach (@ReneCC)!

Adi Panuntun, the creator behind Kota Tua video mapping

 

Adin Panuntun, the creator behind Kota Tua video mapping.

Desain ID at JCC

 

As the largest interior design event in Indonesia, Desain.ID offer myriad of products for interior decoration, home designing, furniture and furnishings, etc. This event held on November 18 - 21 at Jakarta Convention Center. The major theme of the event is “Decoding Space+Experience”.

In the Plenary Hall, I find fascinating interior display featuring some interior designer. I even bought the wooden tree installation to be put at IDS|international design school :)

Give Blood with Charles Bonar Sirait

The idea came from Charles Bonar Sirait (@charlesbonar), who works with IDS|International Design School and Kerja Kreatif (@KerjaKreatif) to have this as a Creative Social Responsibility event. Number of artists, including Dennis Adhiswara, Maylaffayza (@maylaffayza), Stinky bands, Andrie Djarot (@andjrot) from tvOne and writer Clara Ng (@clara_ng) give blood on this event. Thanks to Indonesian Red Cross and Prodia, this event runs smoothly.

We see so much disaster in our country, Wasior, Mentawai and Merapi. As a creative community, it's our responsibility to be able to contribute to our own family & friends. Giving blood is a way to express our concern and responsibility. Not to mention that we are able to contribute to Thalassemia patients.

Thanks to all who participate in this wonderful event. We are planning to have this as a regular event, in which we can contribute and be responsible for others.

Teknopreneur – November 2010

Fortune Indonesia – November 2010

Kalau Saya Kaya with Fransoa

 

photo with Fransoa

When Google Powers the Digital Economy – A Story for Indonesian

One day my daughter cried since she forgot to prepare a present for her good friend that lives in France. Then I typed in Google search to find 'buy teddy bear Nice France' – Patrick Pitchette

The problem is solved within a few minutes. That's how amazing how Google is able to help our lives. This is a story that truly touch me, a story about lives, not about technology. An evening to remember, when I was invited to Google office in Singapore, thanks to Erika. Patrick Pichette is the Chief Financial Officer of Google and used to held position at Bell Canada and McKinsey before joining with Google.

Google is a company built by engineers, so it is runs differently with other company. Android team is a small operation, only 150 people around the world. It's hard to explain to the shareholders that giving away software like Android will help them to grow. By any measurement, Android is big, 200 thousands Android phones are sold in a day. People use Google search more in a phone, this will grow their advertising business even more.

The challenge of getting information is tried to be solved by scanning all the printed forms in the planet. Google started to scan. All the books ever printed. Currently they are sitting in the servers, ready to be accessed by any human being. Let all the lawyers worry and solve the copyright problems. Youtube strikes a deal with Indian Premiere League, that it will host live IPL cricket matches in the UK, so the fans are able to see the cricket games for free. This liberates people to access to any information.

Do they always successful? A big NO! 95% efforts of what they do was failed. But they keep trying. Android is a big success. Chrome is also a big success. Failure is part of the success. Those two started by two different team, with different problem as a starting point. Android is designed for a small screen, with no keyboard in mind. Chrome is designed for PC, with the keyboard in mind. So, the problem happened with these success is to find ways to integrate them.

Asia is big, both from engineer point of view and financial point of view. 5 billions people are living in Asia, compare to the 1 billion in which Google already serves in US, Europe and Australia. By storing story of our lives in a server, through cloud computing, in the form of email, data, etc, Google help small and medium business, a common people to stand in the same height of any corporations, without the need to build the infrastructure. Google enables the mantra mention in Thomas Friedman's best selling 'The World is Flat', which is flattening the hierarchy of live, the freedom to access to any information. The power of computing comes to every desktop, to every individual that have access to the Internet. That's what 'Digital Economy' is.

And Indonesia is not only a market in which Google is ready to get into. It is a partner to ease the transition to the 'digital economy'.

Carpaccio di Manzo at Otto Ristorante

Carpaccio di Manzo Giapponese can Insalatina di Funghi e Parmigiano
Wagyu beef ‘Carpaccio’ with parmesan cheese and mushroom salad

Beautiful lunch at Otto Ristorante, Red Dot Traffic Building, Maxwell Road Singapore

The wagyu beef....hmm....melt in your mouth. Truffle topping...

Really perfect lunch or dinner. Would love to come again!

Thanks to Jason and Agnes for setting the lunch.

Monetizing BPL through Channels, not Contents

Learning from Barclay Premiere League, an Exploitation of Intellectual Property Rights on Sports Content

“Send BPL to 7879 to subscribe for BPL update, live score, players update, Win a chance to see BPL live match.” This is how the premium SMS advertised. It gathers literally thousands of subscribers to get daily updates on Barclay Premiere League digital content. But this is hardly represent the potential of digital content licensing.

Understanding the Rights

IP exploitation can be separated into various rights, such as consumer products rights, publishing rights, media rights and digital rights. Media rights is sold through TV channels, while publishing rights is sold to publishers. These two rights are the key driver for the property known by the consumers. Some successful sports content are FIFA World Cup, Barclay Premiere League and NBA. Notable character properties are from Disney, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.

After the media and publishing, comes the consumer products rights. Licensing for consumer products rights is based on article list, like apparel, toys, foods and many others. This is one of the most lucrative licensing since every merchandise pays a certain minimum guarantee to the IP rights holder and additional royalty if the licensee is interested to add more items to be produced.

Last but not least is the digital content licensing. The content provider that licensed the rights sells the content through telecommunication provider to distribute quizzes, wallpaper, ring back tones and rich content.

Exploiting the Rights

Mojopia, the content aggregator for Telkom group is the official mobile licensee for BPL. A licensee have to be creative in exploiting the rights. As a licensor, BPL concern is protecting the content, in which Mojopia granted the right to distribute images and rich content through digital media. Based on this content, the access to market then becomes very limited since it can only be distributed through telco channel like SMS premium and interactive menu. SMS and ring back tone are the backbone revenue generator on telco channels. Other potential is creating games based on this property, distributed through WAP site or ODP (on device portal).

Instead of only relying on contents, it’s a lot better to monetize through various channels. Each family of handset like iPhone, Blackberry and Android, each has become its own distribution channels through their apps store.

By bundling the contents with handset, a licensee are able to sell the phone with value added content and application. By bundling phone starter packs or top ups with content, enables telco to retain customer and increase their spending on the phone.

Some more creative ideas can be used by providing a digital coupon on mobile as a loyalty for brands. By collecting digital contents, it can become a qualifier for reward purchase or purchase by purchase that once popularize in retail environments.

Be creative when exploiting the digital rights. Don’t rely solely on content and explore various channels!

The World is Blinking to Indonesia: In the Midst of Early Internet Boom

BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), a term coined by Jim O’Neill from Goldman Sachs now has to add the new ‘i’, to become BRICi, which stands for Indonesia. Quoting William Pesek from Bloomberg, ”China, India and Indonesia already generate economic activity equal to 44% of the US economy.”

Indonesia caught the Internet world off-guard, to become the number two countries in the world to adopt Facebook. A study by Comscore shows that Indonesia reported the highest penetration, with 20.8 percent of Internet users in the country visiting Twitter.com. Koprol acquisition by Yahoo has really put Indonesia on the map. By establishing a local office in Jakarta, Yahoo committed to build local content to cater Indonesia growing Internet users. Koprol successfully grows their users 10 times from 50 K to 500 K in just 6 months after the acquisition. The services soon will be launched to other countries.

Tiger Global, IDG Ventures and Naspers, all the Internet investor giants has been looking into Indonesia market recently. They are interested in Indonesian Internet, mobile and gaming industry. Tiger Global, the early investor of Detik, consider the site ready for IPO in a few years. They are looking for growth. Within 5 years, a company that double every year will become 32 times its size today. Early Internet player like Kaskus and Bhinneka are still the hottest candidate. Expect a surprising news soon.

Nusantara ventures founded as part of Bakrie group to invest in Indonesia Internet startup with Vivanews as its first venture. East Ventures acquires some shares in Tokopedia.com and Urbanesia.com. Unofficial information indicates a key figure from Djarum involves with various startups such as Krazymarket.com, Lintasberita.com, Dailysocial.net after previously put a stake in Semutapi Colony, an integrated communication agency and MediaX, a digital publisher manager company.

I am witnessing something intriguing, we are in the midst of early Internet boom. The world is blinking to Indonesia! What an opportunity in a lifetime...

Become profitable from day one is Good!

“Advertising won’t get you there, services will possibly better to monetize”

This is the insight I got from Sarah Lacy – Techcrunch editor at large while she presents at SparxUp  seminar. My schedule this week is filled up with all about startup world, from Techcrunch visit to IDS|international design school (@idseducation) on Tuesday, sharing a startup insight with Startup Lokal (@startuplokal) on Thursday to SparxUp award seminar and award on Friday and Saturday.

Learning from SparxUp and Startup Lokal

SparxUp (@sparxup) is an award initiated by Semutapi to identify the most promising startup in Indonesia. Meanwhile Startup Lokal (@startuplokal) is a regular meetup event initiated by startup community as a support group. SparxUp comes with the whiz bang celebration by having seminar inviting Yahoo, Google, Techcrunch and startup pitch at fX atrium. Meanwhile Startup Lokal is a close discussion between startup and future technopreneurs.

I was invited as one of the judge at SparxUp. Being a bad judge, I was late to do the judging process, rarely attending the brief and miss the final awarding event. Still, I am able to attend the seminar and the public pitch by these startups.

Surprisingly, quite numbers of Indonesian startup rise to the surface. In the final, the selected few are done not by first timer, they have previously done other ventures or products. Even among the one that didn’t make it, I see a good potential, either product, technology or simply future creator or entrepreneur that are able to create value.

The winner is the one with a simple business model. As a startup, this surely win the judges vote, but in a real world, it needs a business acumen to bring the business model to become sustainable and scalable. So the real test comes not to win the award, but to be able to stand the test of time.

Then, what’s next? If it’s me, I will think really hard to find a profitable business model. A profitable business model is not necessary sustainable and scalable. Then it’s perfectly ok to have more than one business model. Test the market, make mistake, that’s what startup does. To give you a sample, Google monetization comes from advertising revenue (Adsense, Adwords), software as services (GoogleApps), ecommerce (Google Checkout). They also sells white label email services to telco provider and ISP. And they also provides search engine for corporate services.

So, become profitable from day one is good! And making money besides advertising is even better!

7 Business Model from SparxUp Winner

You can check SparxUp site for the complete list of the winner. I like to highlight a few that I am familiar with. The one that I have spent sometime with the founders.

Gantibaju.com won the Most Promising Startup. I know Gantibaju.com while preparing my previous events, FGDexpo2009. I saw something interesting going on, that this site is a T-shirt designers community, in which they share their design and comments, very similar to Threadless. Even though the sales is not there yet, it already gathers a strong community support, a good indication! Their investor insisted on having a physical store that attracts visitors to shop. Online as a channel currently is too small. This site can be scaled by following a clothing business cycle and building relationship with various channels such as tying up with other retail stores which already have many presence.  It will give the benefit to the designers community to have more presence.

Lewatmana.com is a website offering traffic information, a real solution for Jakarta. It is created by Hendry Sulistiyo a close friend of mine from Malang, Very strong on technology integration, this site is yet to find a business model. My take on this site is to have a collaboration with GPS distributor who has the benefit for providing tracking information instead of traffic information. The business will comes from selling the device and subscription services. The traffic information becomes a value added services offer as a branding and mass communication.

eEvent.com, a software solution created by a developer based in Ohio have a good potential to offer services for event organizer to manage their event, from ticketing, payment and invitation. The challenge currently is that the electronic payment is not yet mass adopted. But I believe most event organizer in Indonesia is having a hard time to reach their own customers as they lack of CRM application. By providing simple services as email and invitation management, eEvent will be a solution for any event organizer. Later on, it can be scaled by providing targeted event communication or even become a ticket or sponsor aggregator. One of the founder turns out to be my high school friend from Malang.

Orori.com is a unique ecommerce site that offer one thing, wedding ring! How hard could that be, shouldn’t a wedding ring bought offline instead of online? Apparently George Budi Sumantri succeeded to persuade new couples to buy their wedding ring online. This business is really scalable, a small ring cost you hundreds or thousands of dollar. And the possibility is endless, since everybody will spend on valuable products more than once in lifetime. I truly believe in commerce, especially one with a very high margin like these.

Infokost.net is a real hardwork. Collecting all those boarding house data from around Jakarta is not an easy task, yet this site successfully get this data. The challenge is the business model though. I am not sure that small boarding house is willing to pay that much for a services or advertising. Hopefully so! But I think the same platform can be used for a higher margin such as villa in Bali or apartment, in which most of them are willing to share their customer acquisition to the site.
 
Lintasberita.com is very similar to Digg. It feeds traffic to other site. Currently the traffic is pretty impressive and has generated advertising revenue. But, I believe the business model have to grow one day, as currently it doesn’t really offer depth of information so practically forward any traffic to other site. Simple to monetize, but in the end, have to find something to become really scalable. Another site from Malang ;). I am very proud that my hometown produce such numbers of successful dotcom.

Adadiskon.com have a very impressive Twitter followers. 57 thousands of followers and follow only 1, its founder. Talk about narcissism ;) Turns out Indonesian loves discount. This site have a potential to become the Indonesian Groupon, make a living by negotiating bulk discounted products and services. But currently it’s just too many Groupon copycat out there. So, let’s see who is the final winner in a few years.

I still have a doubt on casual game business model, even though Zynga proved that Indonesia is the biggest poker gamers and Farmville addicts. The problem simply we don't have the micropayment platform. It will survive in short term if they get into mobile gaming services since it's easy to monetize.

As for the rest, I have not spend enough time with each of them to understand the possibility. You judge yourself how this companies will grow one day!

5 Inspiration from SparxUp Seminar

In SparxUp seminar, Sarah Lacy (@sarahcuda) from Techcrunch inspires me the most by having such a simple presentation in her hand written small note. Most of this inspiration comes from her while the last inspiration comes from the Koprol team.

• Inspiration 1. Culture of openness and iteration
  Mark Zuckerberg learns everything from the failure of Napsters. What Facebook have today is keeping the improvement iteration. It’s all about execution.
• Inspiration 2. Advertising won’t get you there, services will possibly better to monetize.
  If Silicon Valley have a second chance, most people will find a way to monetize even if it’s small number.
• Inspiration 3. Find mentorship, not cash.
  A good mentor is better than millions of investment.
• Inspiration 4. A product can be a copy, but find innovative business model around it.
  This is the lesson learnt from QQ, as they are able to monetize instant messaging
• Inspiration 5. Getting investor IS NOT your exit strategy, it's your chance to open a new market
  Koprol proves this by having 10 times the users before Yahoo acquisition, and Yahoo opens up Koprol services in other countries.

5 Tips to Build Your Startup Business

Startup Lokal (@startuplokal) is a regular meetup event created by Natali Ardianto (@nataliardianto), Sanny Gaddafi, (@sagad) Nuniek Tirta Sari (@nuniek) and Aulia Halimatussadiah (@salsabeela).

Invited to sit as a panel in its 7th installment of Startup Lokal, I was put together with Chandra Marsono (@chandramarsono) from Oxford English School and moderated by Sumartok (@sumartok). Turn out that this is a vibrant night attended by many new startups and future technopreneurs which learn from each other and build their network.

This is some of my key points during the nights:

• Tips 1. Choose to be a celebrity or making money, pick one!
  You might ended having both if you concentrate on one, but when you try to do both all at once, you will running out of resources.
• Tips 2. Make money from day one
  Too many startup says that they use advertising as their revenue model. This is the sign that the site will fail since advertising can only be monetized at later stages where all the traffic has already built up. Find other short-term business model such as services or product selling and use advertising as other income. Kapanlagi.com did this by having mobile content company as a revenue generator to finance their website early stages.
• Tips 3. Serving a bigger client is a simpler & more profitable in a short-term business model than advertising-based business model.
  Get into media industry by having advertising as a business model is a tough market. Getting into retail market too soon will drain your financial resources. Getting into B to B market is simpler since you serve a bigger clients needs. But keep in mind that B to B don’t build your brand, so keep your retail business to build your brand. Bhinneka.com did this by providing procurement services as well as retail market.
• Tips 4. Brand is more important than brain.
  Partner with a bigger company and brand, tap in their customer database and offer value to this partner. Your own knowledge and effort to build your own market will usually take a lot more time than riding the access to market by a big partner or brand. Kaskus takes 12 years to build their own loyal community. Koprol reach quarter the users of Kaskus in 6 months after acquired by Yahoo. And you don’t have to be acquired to partner with other brand. The key is providing value proposition to this partner.
• Tips 5. Value that you can offer: product, access to market, media and attraction factor
  Define your strength and look for partner that complement the other value. If you have a killer product, then find the right partner to access the market. If you have the access to market, look for the right product or media that benefit your customer, if you have the media, find something that will create a wow factor.

Hopefully what I share tonight will inspire future technopreneurs!