WAP sites, how are they?

Couple of months ago, my friend from mobile ad-server network (Mkhoj – mobile search) came to Jakarta.

They showed a very optimistic view on mobile internet (again, mobile internet I refer to is accessing internet via mobile phone, not using mobile phone as a modem) and stated Indonesia is having the 3rd biggest mobile internet traffic in the world. At first, I didn’t buy their story knowing that GPRS penetration can’t be said successful in Indonesia. Even, one of the operators said that they still have lots of idle bandwidth for mobile internet.

They invited me again on their second visit (yes, my 1st meeting with them is actually also their 1st visit to Indonesia) with a better preparation and present me with the same story on how they really optimist on mobile internet in Indonesia and how it will bring benefit to advertisers.

Finally, I challenged them with one of .juicer’s lab product; a news aggregator mobile portal rangkum . They gave me some impressions to play and giving me a chance to know how this ad-server work.

Long story short, I created a mobile internet ad that linked to http://m.rangkum.com and ask my colleague to perform a daily checking on its performance.

In 3 days, I see a traffic jump from mobile internet sites (hey…. they do exist and have traffic!!). Total visits to rangkum mobile sites increase by 60% with more than extra 1000 page views per day. Not to mention,these traffic came from Indonesia as I set my ad can only be seen by WAP traffic from mobile operators in Indonesia. Although most of WAP sites that gave me traffic were adult mobile sites, I believe with all giants dotcom companies (friendster, facebook, yahoo) also extend their access by creating a mobile site version, we can see more and more traffic come from these sites and generate even more interesting mobile marketing industry in Indonesia.

With this small yet productive case study, we try to sell this concept to some of advertisers.

everybody can create a website, now it’s easy….. and FREE!!

Trying to get a homepage up n running is not a very hard task this day. I still remember few years back, write a homepage will require you to open your text editor type tags, validate your HTML, then find a place to host it and pay them for the service. Back in those days, creating a websites will require a company spending hundreds to thousands of US$ just to built a static WEB page.

Then few years later DHTML come to solve the requirement to have a dynamic website. ASP, PHP, and JSP enable people to have a database driven website. Updating content not necessarily change the HTML source code, web-administrator only need to insert, update, n delete database. Some -good- web developers also build a user interface to update the contents so clients can easily change texts, images, even upload a video.

Developers that have business sense, then package codes n database into a product. Make web developers’ job easier by not have to create everything from scratch, shorten development time, and most of all create opportunity for more people to create a websites.

WEB 2.0 make things even more interesting. User generated contents reduce web-admin work. Internet users can modify their own page, using easy to modify UI (started by Friendster if I’m not mistaken, where user can modify their profile page..). Blogging sites, more advanced social networking, made internet even more fun.

Some internet start-ups as well as all giants are in race to create the most sophisticated but easy to use applications. I’ve shared my story about google-applications. Saturday morning I got an email regarding newly launched Google product in their google application portfolio.

Before writing this post, I try to play with it and create a sandbox (http://sandbox.dotjuicer.com – not much to see, but for a person that not focus on web-programming it’s very easy… ).

I imagine a if this kind of application can be introduced to SMEs or even home industry in Indonesia. It will surely help them a lot. They don’t need to spend a lot, even they can do it in nearest internet cafe and build their website as if it built by professional web programmers.

So many things can be done; as a start, maybe universities can encourage their IT students to help nearest SMEs or home industries by set-up a short training course to use this new feature from google. This will have a meaningful impact to the community development. It doesn’t need to be sophisticated, the most important is to be exist in www world then any potential buyers can search them through internet.

Google, please get your emerging market team to Indonesia ASAP

we are not quitters!

This inspiring video is one of the Gudang Garam commercial (cigarette company in Indonesia) during last year Indonesia’s education day, inspired by true story about kids in a village in West Java that have to swim across a river everyday in order to get their formal education.

I’m very proud and sad at the same time whenever I watch that commercial; proud because we are not quitters country and it shows in very explicit way on how those kids are risking their life to get their rights. How those fighters do their best in order to get ready for their future no matter what.

I also very sad how this kind of story was not become an interested story to reporters (especially foreign reporters who just exposed Indonesia’s bad stories that create negative image to Indonesia. those reporters who over expose our wrong-doings and our fault without being honest to themselves about their own country). Everybody know the power of media, everybody try to expose every good deeds in the media, but I wonder where are those foreign reporters that can look for sensitive information related to Indonesia (a negative ones) when this kind of media coverage should bring those kids a better way to achieve a better education, a better future.

This story was taken from one of Kompas’ reporter article related to education day. Gudang Garam advertising agency (octovate) asking permission to take that story and make a commercial based on that true story.

the impact? civil engineering from University of Indonesia built a new bridge for those kids for free….

that’s how media can give power to powerless people… Hopefully, this will inspire more people in industry to build a commercial that also have positive impact to society, to Indonesia.

 

wet @ embassy playground 2008

Embassy Playground

PLUS : big event, big DJs, reunion, and safe

event promotion and communications were very big, in duration and presence manners. all Marlboro billboards were changed into this event promo. PVD (former/still (?)) a #1 DJ, become its main attraction. Every party-goers in Jakarta are attracted to this event.

EO also (try to) accomodate all dance music genre (including RnB ) that’s why they have arond 5 venues; 3 in open area, 1 @ segara, and 1 @ jimbaran resto.

the best thing was I met a lot of old friends in the event; which reduced my disappointments.

MINUS : bad sound system arrangements, bad environment settings, bad songs flow

There are 2 stages beside the -massive_lighting_main_stage- , unfortunately sound system arrangement was not carefully done. Unless you really close to stage’s main speakers, sound from ‘neighbor’ stage will be very disturbing.

When PVD start, everybody were so happy… but what this (former/still(?)) #1 DJ not really showed his quality. So many people were complaining about his song flow and how he left DJ deck in the middle of his show — although he came back and somebody (maybe his assistant) need to be beside him until he finished his job…..