Category: Tech

Koprol

~ michael_msft ~ 1 Comment

I was sitting at a dinner with some VC’s and a LP talking about the region.

This came up:

https://www.techinasia.com/happyfresh-asia-funding-news/

I chatted a little about Yahoo and Koprol. How Yahoo totally blew it and this closing of Indonesia R&D was the signal for the slow, ever continuing downfall of Yahoo.

At the same time the Koprol deal kicked off the SEA deal making phase and created a group of techies that are slowly infiltrating the region working for startups or startung them. Or hanging at the mall.

I won’t try and list names. You all know who you are.

Congrats!

#SEArising

Getting by in Singapore w/o a car or motorcycle

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Singapore has awesome public transit – no question, but sometimes I just have to get somewhere in a hurry or work is paying and I need a cab.

I used to always use comfort SMS booking – in fact it is still the most convenient way to book a cab. sms postal code. Done. Kills all apps hands down.

Then Uber comes. I tried Uber black a few times and it’s awesome but a waste of money. I tried the other cab services and mostly they all suck but honestly – they are just cab aggregation apps that aggregate the same shitty cabs that like to tell me they don’t have change, their machine is down or they grumble about where I am going. So yes – there is an app for that. If what you want is cabs. I don’t.

About the only product as of late that works for me is UberX. It is cheaper than cabs and seems to be more readily available apart from peak times – which is a still a big Singapore issue. Now some will say – check out GrabCar – the non-taxi product from GrabTaxi.

Let me tell you how that went:

Order GrabCar
Confirmed
Called
Argued with driver about where I actually was
Waited
App crashed
App restarts showing I have no booking
Called driver – still coming but thinks I am somewhere else but since no app I can’t confirm where he is going
Waited
Text driver – no response
Call driver – no answer
Call driver – no answer
Call driver – driver hangs up

I sms driver to say go to hell

GrabTaxi has the worst apps ever. I am still baffled where all the millions go. Durians I guess.

Back to UberX

Biased advice

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

We all know it is a full on startup frenzy in Asia. Not saying it is a bubble but just saying its frothy but I have no complaints. However I would like to offer some unsolicited advice.

If you are a rockstar coder, a super sales person, an amazing manager or the slickest bizdev person this side of the North Pole – then just close this browser window and carry on with your world domination plans.

If you are neither of these but plan on doing a startup – might I suggest getting some work experience first? I am constantly stunned when mentoring folks or talking to people about this startup or that, how little experience some folks have in doing things that are key pillars in business. Selling, managing or business development. Again – maybe you have such a killer idea that this advice is just not warranted but for the rest of you, the 99%, why not try working for the big dreaded corporate or join another startup so that you can learn some things before taking the plunge.

I had a great lunch today with Dr. Bernard Leong. Yes – that Dr., he can code and has done quite a bit of entrepreneurial things in his life but still talks about all the things he wants to learn before becoming the CEO of his own startup. That Dr.

Me – even now I feel like I am being schooled in how to be a proper exec, manage a team and keep up with some incredibly fast moving tech. And I’m old.

The point is I see so many people struggling or thinking they want to start something and yet, all around us are good, funded companies looking for talent. I suggest joining as a cog in the big wheel and learning the ropes. You might not think it is cool but trust me, you will learn a ton and be even closer to starting your own thing.

Carry on.

flockdata

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Met one of the founders this week, Jeremy, for some coffee. Jeremy used to work at AWS Singapore and also did a local startup after that. Then he moved back to the USA to start flockdata with a partner from New Zealand.

http://www.flockdata.com/

There is so much going on in the data world. For guys like me I swear it takes a lot of work just to keep tabs on big data. My world now is keeping tabs on languages, advertising products (customer acquisition and revenue), web tech, mobile tech, streaming tech, analytics and now data. 

There are always lots of ways to skin something – you can roll your own, use the off the shelf stuff from AWS, grab lots of open source stuff or spend lots of cash on commercial products. I guess it all depends on money and time to market.

flcokdata has an interesting model and I plan on checking into it more.

Netflix launches in Australia & New Zealand on March 24

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http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/03/netflix-australian-launch-date-revealed-march-24/

We knew it was coming but now we know when. Will be interested to see if this finally buries Quickflix and how Stan will get going.

I guess we will start to see if having regional TV and newer Hollywood movies will help combat the sheer scale and tech of Netflix.

Will get this worked into the list :: http://www.nokpis.com/ott-asia/ 

Watching the Aussie market and thinking about SVOD

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In our little part of the world the most advanced video advertising market and the market with lots of OTT competition is generally considered to be Australia and New Zealand.

For example :: http://www.nokpis.com/2015/03/02/quickflix-is-starting-to-fall-apart/

Some of the players :: http://www.nokpis.com/ott-asia/#australia – guessing more are coming as well.

So it is interesting to read an article like this :: http://mumbrella.com.au/svod-catalyst-tv-evolution-278126

For example this is a very good point:

Subscription video services have a monetization model devoid of creativity.
They rely on subscriptions and subscriptions alone to bring in the mullah. It makes it easy to balance the books and has the potential to be quite lucrative in a market like the US where there is a whopping 115 million households that will potentially buy the product.
In comparison, Australia will only have nine million households to market to by 2016.
This means that the maximum revenue potential for the entire SVOD market is roughly $1.1b (based on a $10p/m subscription) in Australia.

But I think this also points to the fact that a large regional player looking at ANZ region as just a piece of the puzzle probably doesn’t care too much about the economics. To me the guys that have to worry about these numbers are the one or two country services. Like Quickflix for example which is already hurdling towards going out of business.

This is the good part though:

I am glad that the TV industry is getting scared.
This invasion of innovation and technology will hopefully spur the industry to evolve.
The SVOD infrastructure seems like the perfect foundation for a new ad funded model that blends the programmatic, targeting and measurement benefits of digital advertising with traditional television.
With a web-augmented and data fueled TV and ad experience the TV industry could have something financially viable on their hands. They could give people the tailored and on-demand content that they desire.
They could banish the Nielsen family and create a robust and reliable TV measurement model.
They could continue to sell us that precious ad space.
If the networks use this opportunity to evolve, the arrival of SVOD services could be the best thing to happen to Australian TV since Kerri-Anne Kennerley.

There is room for some innovation. There is either subscription model or freemium or just free with ads. There are lots of other ideas but generally what happens is the folks that own the content don’t allow the OTT services or the OTT aggregators room to innovate. They are stuck doing the same old thing and having to kowtow to the owners of the content. To me the lack of innovation around the OTT space has to be blamed on the content owners who frown on doing things like download or experimentation around social or payment models. That leaves the content owners needing to be the ones to come up with something cool. Maybe they can use TV to do that or try to take advantage of the what OTT can offer by coming up with something truly innovative.

I am not really holding my breath waiting for it to happen though.

The app economy

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As I browsed DF today I can across this :: http://vesperapp.co/blog/native-support-for-ipad-and-landscape/

I think I bought the vesper app when it was on sale for 2.99 and thought to myself that it was a decent price for the app. I didn’t think it was a steal or a huge bargain because I felt like that was about what I would pay for a notes app. I am sure others thought that it was a huge bargain, an app made by some semi-famous folks that was suddenly on sale.

So here we are today looking at a 9.99 price tag now that the app goes horizontal and works on an iPad. I find this slightly comical. Any of us in the app world normally won’t ship an iOS app that doesn’t work on an iPad from day one. At least I wouldn’t.

The app economy is bizarre since the whole notion of pricing has been eroded to the point where Gruber is almost using this move as a line in the sand. Hey indie devs – put your price up so people value the ecosystem more and truly respect the value of our craft.

I hope it works but somehow I doubt it will.

If Gruber and his tribe can’t survive on a reasonably priced app – 10 bucks is not reasonable, then I am not sure who can. Without a doubt vesper gets way more traffic flowing across it than most other apps just due to Gruber talking about it all the time. 

Unlike Marco with overcast, who has open sourced some of his financials, vesper is three guys who ship stuff pretty slowly. It’s nice stuff but I never have seen it as earth shattering or amazing. Just a good solid notes app that I use to supplement my Evernote addiction. Trip stuff, quick meeting notes and my grocery list type of things are in vesper. Everything else is in Evernote.

So if Gruber can’t make it on decently priced apps then who can?

I know lots of indie devs – http://www.mailtoself.com/ – but these guys have a day job. They are doing this to be able to craft stuff outside of work and see how they can dent the universe with apps. 

Then there is – http://www.cleanshavenapps.com/ . I use dispatch all the time and I have beta tested some new stuff they are working on. This team does well but I don’t know how well or what their view is when it comes to this pricing stuff. I do know that they realize it’s more about marketing than anything else now.

I can remember when I did one of my fist startups whike blowing through millions of dollars having to buy real hardware, databases and app servers – just to launch. Now one guy can rent hardware and use his own code with open source stacks to launch an empire.

However the issue still is about how does one get exposure? Some have to buy it thus increasing the need for capital. Some people are famous and use their fame to launch or propel an app. I am guessing with the vesper price move they didn’t get as big as they had hoped cause if they had millions of users even on 2.99 they would be doing okay.

When I chat with any indie dev it’s all about getting the word out, holding on to their users and the hope that if they build something new, their current users might be customers of their new product.

We all know the app gold rush is over. Done.

Users think everything should be free or cheap – it’s sad it got to this but it happened. I don’t know what the answer is since I have only built apps that come as part of a service versus building an app I needed to sell to make a living.

Will be interesting to see how vesper does with the new premium pricing.

The OTT tsunami has arrived

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My OTT Asia tracking page :: http://www.nokpis.com/ott-asia/

Obviously I write this from the perspective of someone working in the OTT space but of course confined to a specific content niche – Indian video globally available to anyone who wants it. Fortunately it means that I have experience with building a global OTT platform given spuul has customers dotted around the globe.

If you are in developed regions you probably have had the choice of some sort of regional or global OTT network for years. Netflix is clearly the big one to contend with and it is very interesting to read their latest view of the market and their place in it :: http://ir.netflix.com/long-term-view.cfm .

I love how their business plan and goals for the product are clearly explained. It is also interesting how they directly discuss the competition. I think Netflix knows it will take serious money to stay on top since as the content leaders bifurcate and run their own services – Netflix will have to continue to ramp their original content to make up the gaps.

When it comes to developed markets I think Netflix is unstoppable but I always watch for HBO to do something but the problem is HBO is not a tech leader and this is their Achilles heel in competing with Netflix. However when it comes to content and marketing – HBO is a force to be reckoned with.

The emerging markets though are a totally different story with the excess of regional content to be mopped up and the strength of the telcos to be reckoned with.

I can only really discuss Asia with the caveat that I will leave China, Korea and Japan out of it since they are unique markets. Netflix already as their sights set on Japan and China has enough of it’s own players to contend with.

If one looks at the ANZ region it will be a market to watch the evolution play out since quickflix is on the way down while Stan takes a shot it before Netflix comes to town. Stan does have a chance given they will have a lot of local TV content bottled up but maybe that is not enough to combat Netflix technology and their huge swath of original content.

The rest of Asia though appears to be up for grabs. India may or may not look like China with local incumbents winning but given English as a dominant language, the local market may be open to large international players. I think apart from niche players, spuul for example, India will likely have Amazon and Netflix giving it a go. It also seems that the large local telcos will try to own the market as well as regional players like the newly formed HOOQ. India is big enough to support all this competition – it is after all the next China. In general the south Asian market will be lead by and grouped in with India.

Southeast Asia though is almost another region in and of itself. Already each country is home to some country based players but my take is that they will not survive a regional play since the economics of a regional player will allow for larger catalogs and better technology. HOOQ appears to be the first to really go after this market but they will not be the last.

I reckon that there are lots of players sitting on the sidelines waiting to dip their toes in due to the market size and the complexities that will allow for specific innovation in payments, tech and telco partnerships that could easily allow a competitor to sprint past another. I have no way of validating this list apart from my own gut and the rumor mill but this is my guess for other companies that will either start or partner to create another SEA OTT service – Astro, Starhub, and Catcha Group come to mind but just look at any media company or telco not yet in the game or partnering with someone as a possible entrant.

The potential market with the growth of mobile and Internet is just too big to ignore. Problem is that this market doesn’t look like the developed markets so freemium models, telco payments and multi language support will prevail. Not exactly a good fit for Netflix or Amazon.

Of course apart from Asia there is also the Middle East and Africa to think about. In theory one could argue there is the total set of emergent markets for an OTT player to try and win over with the right mix of Hollywood content, global TV content, regional TV and movie content all buttoned up with a focus on mobile, payments and tech that rivals piracy and YouTube. What many forget is the main competitor in all these markets is piracy – not incumbent services.

I have been patiently waiting for the deep pocketed Rakuten to take their Waiku.tv property and the tech and audience behind Viki to build a more focused emerging markets premium video play but doesn’t look like it is in the cards. Or maybe with Razmig exiting Viki, he is actually working on just this?

It’s 2015 – the next 3-5 years in the OTT space is going to be pretty insane.

I am sure consumers are in for a lot to benefits as the competition slugs it out.

Apple to offer carrier billing?

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

So now I get it. Must say that the tech in Asia headline is quite misleading.

This article explains it better :: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/435673/scitech/technology/smart-allows-purchases-from-apple-itunes-app-store-using-load

Th carrier is creating a virtual credit card via the user’s phone account. So apple sees a credit card still but user doesn’t have one.

Brilliant idea. More carriers should do this.

That being said – apple needs to step up their game. Biggest win for android is being able to modify the payment model.

My old post ::

This is the biggest news in tech if so!

https://www.techinasia.com/smart-communications-philippines-direct-billing-app-store-itunes/