The future of the Check-In

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Budi Putra in Tech

Will the “check-in” feature die soon? Yes, says entrepreneur Mark Watkins over at RWW, while Foursquare investor Chris Dixon says otherwise — “the check-in is alive and well,” adds Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry of SAI.

Watkins explains:

• The check-in is useful for personal branding only.
• The value of check-ins is low and people don’t really care about that.
• The serendipity that comes with check-ins is only useful in big cities.

The opposite arguments say:

• Sharing about hanging out at a cool place always works across all demographics.
• Let’s see check-ins beyond the context of location-based services.
• It’s not only about the check-in, it’s about what happens after people check-in.

What do you think? Will the check-in feature die or stay?

[via SAI]

Check-out Indonesia’s social network services!

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Budi Putra in Media, People, Tech

It’s nice to see there are many interesting e-commerce, forum, directory, applications, social network,  aggregator and Web services nowadays from Indonesia. On this ocassion, let me discuss a bit about some social networking services as listed in StartupLokal site. I picked them semi-randomly [since I prefer to highlight different topics/services in this area].

Here we go:

PersonaFlag
A location based social network game – explore your world, flag it and
share it to your friends
Sigit Purnomo, Den 15June, Reisha Juniar

This is a location based social networking service which aims to get users to share informations about locations: venues, events, ads, and other users. It works from mobile and web. Launched on July 2010, this service lacked some basic needed features which, fortunately, were then adopted on their April 2011 update.

Via the mobile app (currently Symbian-based phones only), users can flag locations, publish trips, and see other users nearby. In order to do these tasks, GPS is needed. Without GPS, users can publish statuses, publish routes, and view maps.

From PersonaFlag’s web, users can publish statuses by manually picking existing venues, comment on friends’ statuses, view position on Google Maps, view published routes, view nearby location information, and other users. Messaging and friend requests can also be done from the web.

Tasterous
A simple way to find great food using your smartphone
Ronald Ishak, Deche Pangestu

“A new location based food hunting game that will lead you to the best local dishes nearby! Play with your friends, earn points, discover new dishes and share with the world!”

That’s what they say on their site, which describes what the app is. This April, the mobile apps for BlackBerry, iPhone, and Android are promised to being released. Other than the picture on Tasterous.com, there is not much to see on the web, yet.

Just joined Tasterous’ board of directors last month were Urbanesia’s Selina Limman and Kaskus’ Ken Lawadinata. If names can promise something, maybe this service’s launch is worth waiting for.

masukitb
Tampilan kehidupan Kampus Ganesha ITB
Hendi Wahyu (domain owner), ITB team

masukitb.com (beta) is a web forum for students of Bandung Institute of Technology and its alumni, and also with school students who dream to be selected as ITB college students.

Users can post articles which can be labeled in order to easy archiving and searching for other users. These articles can be commented directly on the web, and also can be shared to Facebook and Twitter. Users can add each other as friends. Their profile page can be labeled, for example, in accordance to their high school alma maters or their majors in ITB.

This forum does not look like the “usual forum”. The user interface is more blog-like, where the article and comments are easily spotted. The web masukitb.com, as stated on their page, also function as a promotion media of ITB to high school students, and to prevent the cases of “wrong majorship” that often end with dropping out of students. But not only that, on masukitb.com you can peek the fun sides of ITB!

Sixreps
A Social Network for Sport and Fitness Enthusiast
Denny Santoso

This is a social network for fitness and sport enthusiasts. Here, users can make friends and motivate each other. Fitness progress can also be tracked and shared. You can upload your photos, videos, and information about your activities.

Just imagine sharing your pictures of your “before” and “after” your fitness program. The transformation may inspire others to live a healthy life.

But sixreps is not only for sharing. You can keep track of your activity and diet to achieve your fitness goals. From Goal Management menu, users can manage their fat loss program, muscle building, general health and others. There are also training log, food journal, and detailed report to monitor what you’ve been doing.

Location function is useful when users need to find nearest gym and fitness related stores nearby. They can also locate nearest friends and even nearest personal trainers.

Komikoo
Pelopor situs komik Indonesia online
Oray Studios

A portfolio site for Indonesian comic makers and story writers. Komikoo gives them space to share their creations. Not only submitted materials are rated by the readers, there are also comics and stories of admin’s choice.

Users can browse the comics and stories by genre, chronologically, or alphabetically. Komikoo has reward system called komipoint. By doing activities on Komikoo, users get their points: signing up, uploading materials, commenting, and some more actions.

Reading online comics is a start. Komikoo has printed and sell “Curhat Si Koel”, a comis previously shared on the site.

The Urban Mama
There is always a different story in every parenting style
Ninit Yunita, Thalia Kamarga, Shinta Lestari

One stop parenthood portal. A place for mamas (and papas) to share experiences on raising their children. Content wise, the site is based on stories told by its members. You can browse articles about pregnancy, babies and toddlers in various age ranges, and also stories abot children, moms and dads.

Aside from sharing stories (which is usually done by urban moms anywhere, anytime), the site also has a forum to accomodate ‘real time’ discussions.

Mantel
Smart Team Work Anytime, Anywhere
PT Idea Lounge Indonesia

This network is created especially for you who work in team where collaboration must be done effectively and efficiently.  Mantel has a fun looking user interface. It won’t remind you to your office jobs.

A “Mantel” (mantle) is a system created to support such collaboration. You can communicate safely with team members, utilize calendar for events and deadlines, give tasks, manage projects, save documents related to projects, or even discuss the documents.

Mantel works via six features:

1. Conversation: real time information exchange with team members
2. Messaging: safe internal communications, also with archiving
3. File sharing: upload your documents to be viewed and edited by other team members
4. Group: synch meeting and training schedules, deadlines, to your children baptism by using Mantel calendar
5. Delegation/Task: manage and distribute tasks
6. Project: track every aspects and scopes of all your projects

Have you guys tried these services out? How is it? Leave your comments below!

About.me acquisition and the mentorships

Posted on December 22, 2010 by Budi Putra in Featured, Tech

A super simple personal profile tool, About.me, has been acquired by AOL recently (you can learn why CEO Tony Conrad sold his company quickly). This service is amazing. They had 400,000 beta testers before announced publicly!

One of About.me’s secret recipes: They have a bunch of strong mentors! About.me advisors include Twitter’s Dick Costolo, Digg’s Kevin Rose, WordPress’ Matt Mullenweg, Engadget’s Ryan Block.

So, if you want to launch a startup  (or already run a startup), go find your own mentors, too! They might be coming from various fields like technology, business, finance, media etc. Learn from them, then decide by yourself. And let’s see what happen.

[Last but not least, check-out my About.me profile]

re:publica 2010: the blogger and social media conference

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Budi Putra in People

This year’s Deutsche Welle Blog Awards was attached to the re:publica 2010, 14-16 April, at Friedrichstadtpalast, Berlin. The announcement of the DW’s blog winners also will be held at the event on Thursday’s evening. Yeah, since today’s the BOBS jury meeting has done, I decided to attend some conferences this afternoon. There are some cool sessions on blogging and social media.

The conference, focussed on blogs, social media und digital culture, is hosted by newthinking communications and Spreeblick Verlag. The event will take place simultaneously in the neighbouring locations Friedrichstadtpalast, Kalkscheune and Quatsch Comedy Club in Berlin-Mitte.

More than 150 hours of programme will be offered on 3 days on 8 different stages . The many facets of digital culture will be discussed in over 120 lectures, workshops, discussion rounds and events. For the first time within the framework of the re:publica the winner of the “Deutsche Welle BOBS” will be announced.

During the first re:publica in 2007, 700 participants came to the event in Berlin, by the year 2009 the number grew to more than 1600 attendees. This year over 2,500 participants are expected to attend re:publica 2010.

18 interesting firsts on the Internet

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Budi Putra in Tech

Just discovered an interesting list, 18 first different things on the Internet [brief] history, thanks to the TechReaders site!

1. The First Email: Ray Tomlinson sent first email and also made use of @ symbol in email addresses in 1971.
2. The First Ever Domain Name: “symbolics.com” registered by computer manufacturer Symbolics (now obsolete) on 15th March 1985.
3. The First SPAM Email Ever: Gary Thuerk sent spam email messages to 393 people on ARPANET on 3rd May 1978.
4. The First Ever Mobile Phone with Internet Access Facility: Nokia 9000 Communicator (launched in 1996, Finland).
5. The First Ever Website: Info.cern.ch which was launched in late 1990.
6. The First Ever E-Commerce Website and Transaction: NetMarket that claims to process first ever secure transaction on the web on August 11, 1994.
7. The First Ever Online Bank: Stanford Federal Credit Union that provides Online Internet Banking services to all of its customers in October, 1994.
8. The First Ever Search Engine: WebCrawler.com which was launched in 1994.
9. The First Ever Blog: Justin Halls is considered the first blogger who started a web diary in 1994. [The term webblog was introduced in 1997 which later led to “blog” in 1999].
10. The First Ever Podcast: Dave Winer added audio content into the RSS feeds on January 11, 2001.
11. The First Item Ever Sold on eBay: A broken laser pointer worth $14.83.
12. The First Book Ever Sold on Amazon: Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought by Douglas Hofstadter [1995].
13. The first edit on Wikipedia: Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder when doing a test edit with text “Hello, World!”
14. The First Ever Video on YouTube: “Me at the Zoo” video put by the the cofounder of YouTube Jawed Karim on April 23, 2005.
15. The First Ever Message on Twitter: It was a demonstration message with text “just setting up my twttr” by the creator of Twitter, Jack Dorsey on 21st March 2006.
16. The First Ever Voice Chat Service: Rocket Messenger.
17. The First Ever Website Hacked: Federal websites that included US Department of Justic, U.S. Air Force, CIA, and NASA in 1990.
18. The First Ever Social Network Site: Friendster.com which was launched in 2002.

BBC tells news staff: Keep up with social media– or leave!

Posted on February 10, 2010 by Budi Putra in Media

The director of BBC Global News Peter Horrocks said it was important for editorial staff to make better use of social media, since it has been a primary source of information. “This isn’t just a kind of fad from someone who’s an enthusiast of technology. I’m afraid you’re not doing your job if you can’t do those things. It’s not discretionary.”

Yahoo’s strategy for the Social Web in 2010

Posted on January 17, 2010 by Budi Putra in Tech

GigaOM wrote an interesting piece about Yahoo’s social web strategy for 2010, based on interview with Cody Simms (Director of Product Management for the Yahoo application platform) and Chris Yeh (head of the Yahoo developer network) recently.

Some key points:

Yahoo wants to aggregate its users’ activities from around the web. The Facebook Connect integration is the first in a string of coming deals with other social sites.

What about integrating with Yahoo’s own services? Yahoo Updates would be the center of Yahoo’s new open social strategy, which consists of activity streams shown in Yahoo Mail, on its front page, in Yahoo Messenger clients and on its toolbars.

Right now the people you see in your Updates are those with whom you have explicit Yahoo Connections. Next the company will add in your Mail and Messenger contacts.

Yahoo plans to start allowing comments on its incredibly popular News, Finance and Sports sites.

[Diclosure: I'm working at Yahoo!]

Show it, don’t tell it: Self-proclaimed social media gurus on Twitter

Posted on December 28, 2009 by Budi Putra in Tech