struggling dreams

I don’t know if they know Indonesia is populated by hundreds of million people and we do have internet in our computers. comScore made a report on trends and prediction about Internet titled “State of Global Internet“.

Internet usage is low among Southeast Asia countries except Singapore and Malaysia

are you sure about this? I wasn’t sure they did it right in Southeast Asia coverage. The flaw begins just when they did not count Indonesia in. Simply say please look at the fact that Indonesia is no.4 in world population. Even though Indonesian Internet Users only 9% of its population, still it 4 times than the whole Singapore population (including Singaporean who never use internet).

Although Indonesian international bandwidth mostly using Singaporean or Malaysian channels, it should never be problem for a company like Comscore to trace the request origin.

Alternatively please see:

• google.co.id ranked 3 in Indonesia (alexa) with over 500 million daily pageviews. See Alexa
• Asian Internet Usage

Just like other Internet geek, I like comScore but their flaw coverage on southeast Asia could mislead region specific business interest and overall internet usage mapping.

Early this year, Time reviewed about Friendster moved to Asia. Though I am bit late for the article (just found it), I think it's lame. Everybody in Asia knows that right after myspace and YouTube, Friendster only hope was Asian. However they decided to fight, and they won the social network patent, but for what?

Last year just before the facebook platform hype, it launched its alternative languages features which was chinese, followed by Korean and Japanese but left out all Southeast Asian users which was (is) biggest portion of registered users. Why chinese? Obviously everyone after China for giant market acquisition. How did they perform? Not well…

Friendster traffic ranks in East Asian and Southeast Asian countries according Alexa:

• China 209
• Japan 256
• South Korea 19
• Hongkong 179
• Macao 59
• Philippines 1
• Brunei 1
• Malaysia 2
• Indonesia 2
• Singapore 5
• Thailand 415

And some other regions:

• Australia 20
• New Zealand 30
• United States 101
• United Kingdom 93
• United Arab Emirate 10
• Qatar 11
• India 367

Data not available for South America and Africa (very few).

Look at the traffic ranks, Friendster already failed in China, Japan and Hongkong. China users already enjoy local social networking like 51.com and qq.com, while Japanese has mixi.com. Benjamin Joffe, Managing Director of Asia Internet Consultancy did not even count Friendster in today competition on an interview by ReadWriteWeb.com.

Even though Indonesian contributes as major traffic since 2004, the option to switch to Bahasa Indonesia lastly provided on March this year, and it is very lousy. Other Languages option provided are Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and English.

How is Friendster doing in its birthland, US? According Quancast, Friendster has about 1,3 million American users. About 40% actively contributes traffic on daily basis while 10% described as addicted users and most are Asian of 25-34 y/o. (I can't access Quantcast for second look due to server maintenance?).

I have been user at Friendster since 2004, and it helped me meet long lost friends and new friends as well. I also enjoyed many other services like blog, gallery and feeds. What I found to be annoying were Friendster seems to easily approved fake profiles, did not do much about spams, and did not response well on user reports and complaints. I also had reported some malicious code on few profile testimonials but never received their response. 

They claimed to have 65 user worldwide and growing. I wonder how many of them are fake. 

I suggest Friendster, to be more serious to listen to its constituent whatever languages spoken, find it as more opportunities to reveal. Lucky to have OpenSocial but please do more on the developer page. Also, it is important to have local rep while Friendster execs don't understand what their million users talk about.

Sidenote:

• This blog enjoys traffic from thousands queries on google about "cara daftar friendster" (how to sign up on Friendster).
• Today, I check my Facebook on daily basis.

Yes.. today I am dreaming about few things… the computers, internet, and me working using them. You know, it is never be easy to draw a structure on dreams. Well, this blog enable me to toss them anyway…

Me serving government and enterprises using NET supercomputers.

Yes, even BCA does not have such stuff to process their real time report to partner or regulator system. Can you imagine when they runs their card settlement (clearing house) real time? FYI. Today Visa card and Mastercard payments still settled by a card settlement system running in Tokyo (imagine how rupiah goes abroad). BCA is small compare to Government of Indonesia. I am dreaming NET does have teraflop supercomputers.

  Read more…

here list of my new installed wp 

• 40sale.com
• indohype.com
• cerdasindonesia.org

what they do? it is NET crews practicing how to publish a web. more on content than just an application. they are ours and not for clients.

"The Indonesia Country Consultant (Temporary) will be responsible for leading strategic and operational initiatives that are critical to the ongoing growth of the company. Our ideal candidate will have demonstrated leadership in marketing, sales or general management for an internet/technology company and/or management consulting, and have graduated at or near the top of their class from a leading graduate academic institution (MBA preferred). We are looking for self-starters who can work in a rapidly changing industry, tolerate ambiguity and demonstrate leadership with limited oversight."

This supposed to be trackback for Amir Karimuddin’s post

Harus diyakini dalam inovasi web 2.0 adalah value dari users yang merupakan potensi paling berharga dalam bisnis. Bukan berarti semata-mata ngumpulin/numpukin user sebanyak-banyaknya di database kita, tapi yang lebih penting diperhatikan artikulasi kebutuhan user untuk aplikasi tersebut, yang adanya di alam bawah sadar mereka. Bila sukses dengan challenge tersebut, niscaya user yang tidak berlimpahpun pun akan membentuk nilai bisnis yang lebih tinggi. tinggal pertumbuhan penggunanya yang membutuhkan strategi branding yang mumpuni. Facebook application is the smart thing today.

Berita bagusnya, yahoo, google dan pemain internet dunia lainnya sudah mengincar Indonesia sebagai pasar pengguna potensial. Tentunya mereka juga memperhatikan kesuksesan friendster.

Mengenai bisnis yang bisa dikembangkan, harus diakui bahwa pasar iklan online di Indonesia tidak menjanjikan revenue yang diincar kebanyakan investor di Indonesia. Bayangan saya untuk sebuah inovasi terbaik web 2.0 di Indonesia, akan dibutuhkan waktu sekitar 5 tahun hingga komplit milestone tahap pertamanya. Jadi sebelum itu dimulai pun sebaiknya nafas diatur baik-baik dech… Begitu juga buat temen-temen fupei dan sendokgarpu, bertahanlah… bantuan akan datang

Tulisan lain mengenai dua teman itu: I made the opening for those who have…

Kemarin saking isengnya, saya coba klik dan explore company profile nya google di About Google. Profile raksasa internet itu ternyata dibikin dengan sederhana saja, ga pake desain indah, ga pake flash animation dan lain-lain. Informasinya lumayan banyak, meskipun masih jauh banget dari lengkap mengingat begitu banyaknya layanan yang disediakan oleh google.

Dua hal menarik yang saya mau share adalah Google.org dan Google Grant. Dua dari raksasa ini merupakan kegiatan sosial Google untuk masyarakat dunia. Walaupun layanan-layanannya gratis seperti mesin pencarian (search engine) dan email (gmail), sepertinya Google belum merasa marem kalau belum menyentuh hal-hal yang menjadi isu dunia saat ini seperti pemanasan global, kemiskinan dan kesehatan.

Read more…

Karen Kong adalah seorang penyanyi yang cukup ngetop di Malaysia. Dalam rangka memelihara (dan meningkatkan) propularitasnya, beliau membutuhkan media-media yang paling efektif. Secara friendster termasuk paling efektif untuk menjangkau remaja di Malaysia dan sekitarnya (termasuk Indonesia) maka wajarlah kalau beliau juga maintain profilenya di friendster.

Si agen tukang iklannya Sunsilk melihat popularitas Karen Kong dan Friendster sangat bisa dimanfaatkan untuk penongolan iklan alternatif, terjadilah kolaborasi yang saling menguntungkan antara Sunsilk dan Karen Kong disutradarai oleh agen tukang iklan yaitu membangun sponsored profile di mana user lain bisa nge-fan (daftar jadi fans) di situ. Sunsilk nya nongol di mana? silakan liat sendiri… nongol di mana-mana tuh…

klik aja sendiri yah… bisa kan… Friendster – Karen

banyak yah fans dan pageview nya…

When NET entered brand event promo realm last year, we were helped a lot by a company which specialized on event promotion management named PT Missi Idea Selaras. The company lead by mr. Eka Putra Bhuwana, who were very persistence on this business. Their service range start from consultation, raffle management, direct mailing, prize distribution to call center for the promotion program.

I say Missi is the nation-wide leading company of this business which is only a few players can bring those quality services while the industry (ad – communication) tends to place these works on low level priority.

Partnership between Missi and NET are concluded these prominent projects:

• Coca-Cola World Cup Event Promo – 2006
• Softex – Robbie Williams Live in Concert (Auckland) – 2006
• Listerine Ramadhan Event – 2007 (ongoing)

The partnership will enter the next level this year when together with experienced call center company named PT Mitra Solusindo Nusantara, committed to form Joint Operation for a new Contact Center Services. Hopefully the infant will be a full CRM company and a legal JV by the end of 2008.

If you are advertising, event organizer, promotion, communication or public relations people, you probably need Missi to do part of your project. Visit their website here.

this is a personal note. will be released this week:

• solutions overview for AAJI
• crm solutions proposal for ghm hotels Bali
• scratch on Maxim Magazine Indonesia
• Rizky: hot or not
• cerdasindonesia.org final design
• Listerine ramadhan promo agreement
• portal-project business plan
• contact center for FF notes –>> to be discussed with partners
• banks and financial notes –>> to be discussed with erwin
• ardy's treatment schedule