When Facebook spun off Messenger as a separate app, it was a no-brainer. Facebook had long planned to make itself the default messaging service for people to use in place of SMS, email, and instant messaging. Having multiple messaging solutions seems pretty clumsy in the age of connectivity and with Facebook being the one network that almost everybody online is connected on, it seems like an obvious solution. It was a no-brainer and a brilliant idea. Unfortunately it hasn’t caught on.

The latest update to Facebook Messenger app features notices to let people know not only whether the message has been read but also, if it’s a group message, which of the group members have actually seen or read the message. The Messenger app is more functional, more ubiquitous, and more accessible than BlackBerry Messenger or any other messaging app out there yet hardly anybody uses it.

People are still beholden to their own preferred communications channel. Hardcore BlackBerry users are still locked in to BlackBerry Messenger, citing groups, privacy and peer connections as reasons to stay on the network. Non BlackBerry users tend to use iMessage, WhatsApp, or Line for text messaging. And of course, there’s SMS, which is old, not as fun or functional, but available on every single mobile phone on the planet.

Few people see Facebook as a messaging platform. Many Facebook members don’t even send messages to each other through Facebook’s email, chat, or messaging services, they instead write on other people’s walls. Although everyone on Facebook has their own Facebook email address, hardly anybody gives them out. It’s as if Facebook Messenger is invisible. Ironic, given Facebook’s standing as the world’s most popular social network with over 900 million users.

Will Facebook Camera suffer the same fate?

Telkomsel as the largest cellular operator in Indonesia is betting high on the future of mobile data business. It targets to reach 66 million mobile data users by the end of the year, from 40 million listed on first quarter of 2012. Currently Telkomsel has 110 million users all around Indonesia, as reported by Chip [link in Indonesian].

If this goal achieved, more than 50 percent of Telkomsel subscribers is having mobile data package installed. Telkomsel is among top 15 operator in the world, based on the number of subscribers, with China Mobile stays on top of the list.

Telkomsel acknowledges that mobile data will be an important revenue component for the company, as its income from voice and text messaging is declining every year. The number of mobile data revenue is not revealed, but Telkomsel admits to have 9% increase in revenue with significant portion from mobile data subscription.

To achieve the goal, it continues to develop infrastructure all over the country, with around 10,000 3G BTS have been set up. The company plans to enlarge its “broadband cities” from 48 to 100 cities by the end of the year. Telkomsel also did some trials on LTE, although it won’t be rolled over this year. It’s predicted that LTE will be coming to Indonesia in 2014.

This number represents simple fact that most people in Indonesia connect to the Internet using their mobile devices. With geographical difficulties in this archipelago, it’s understandable why the number of mobile Internet usage is larger than fixed broadband one. This fact brings more opportunity as current trend leads to mobile app (or mobile web) development.

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We have learned that Accor group, a leading worldwide hotel groups, has rolled out Indonesian version of its online reservation platform. It’s part of agreement with Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy to boost the platform utilization from the country. The mobile site can be accessed from http://accorhotels.com.

With over 50 properties in the network, including famous brands like Novotel, Mercure, Ibis, and Pullman, Accor is simply the largest international hotel network in Indonesia. Now, not only accessing domestic hotels, Indonesian tourists be able to book Accor hotels using their own fingers.

Accor’s EVP, Sales Distribution and Loyalty, Jean-Luc Chretien, in the press release said, “The launch of Accorhotels.com in Bahasa Indonesia is part of Accor’s strategy to develop its Internet, mobile, and digital presence in Asia Pacific. With more than 100 million users and with Internet penetration reaching 37 per cent in 2015, Indonesia is a promising digital market in the region.”

According to Accor’s Regional Director of Sales, Marketing and Distribution for Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore, Adi Satria, Indonesia constitutes around 20 per cent of hotel chain’s global bookings.

Tourism in Indonesia has been booming in the recent years, driven by larger number of middle class people. It’s undoubtful that many players are trying to grab bigger pies. We count that numerous startups have been established for the past two years to meet these demands.

Previously, we have written several articles about OngkosKirim. Yes, OngkosKirim is a product developed by OpenKurir.com. OngkosKirim service development is faster than OpenKurir itself. And now, since May 4, 2012, OpenKurir was officially launched in beta version and the service can be used by users who want to find a courier service or offer themselves as couriers.

OpenKurir is a service that brings courier and courier service provider in one place. The release of OpenKurir is late from schedule; one of the reasons is a matter of management and operations that were not ready. But eventually, OpenKurir is now available for public in beta version.

OpenKurir is a very interesting service. This service solves a problem faced by most people: the hassle in finding a delivery/courier option (trustworthy/recommended). Most people in need of a courier are the people dealing with busy day-to-day, when they need a courier to pick-up & deliver goods, buy/shop, passenger, children, employees pick up service, tour guide and other courier purposes. These people are the target of OpenKurir’s service.

When trying OpenKurir service, you will be given 2 options, namely as a courier or as courier service user. This separation will also appear at the front page of the two options. I have tried it and it is quite easy to use this service.

What is interesting is the Point feature on the courier service user homepage. When signing up for the first time as a user, user will get 5 points. Previously, I tried to make a request to the courier service. I set 24 hours limit after the request was made. There were several responses from the couriers that they were not interested and could not meet the request. Until the deadline, no response made to the request and my point is reduced and now I have 4 points.

Interestingly, there is a way to add the user’s point and that is by buying point provided by OpenKurir.com. There are three point packages offered by OpenKurir: 10 points, 20 points and 40 points with different prices. Apparently, this is one way to monetize OpenKurir.com. In addition, they also seem to be getting a lot monetization opportunity from OngkosKirim’s service, which also has been discussed on DailySocial.

In addition to travel and e-commerce, cannot be denied that many startups are emerging in user generated content (UGC) segment where user can participate in the services provided by startups. Look at the existing services such as GantiBaju, Bistip, Sribu, OrderKaos and OpenKurir. So, will UGC still interest users?

Inapay.com, a payment intermediary system with service system that is similar with joint account, recently launched a new feature to its members. This new feature is named InaKlik where the members can participate in promoting Inapay via the internet by placing a link provided by Inapay on the members’ blogs and websites.

You may be aware that Inapay is a startup that received investment from EastVenture in mid-January 2012. After the investment, many advances and changes happened in Inapay. Some of them are the change in the tagline on the logo, change of the concept of Gold Member and Silver Member, Inapay even handed out gadget prizes to its members. To be sure, this is done to keep acquiring new users to use this service.

Basically, this feature invites member to participate in promoting Inapay on their blogs and websites. Later on, Inapay will appreciate its members who have helped with the promotion with InaKlik feature. However, there are some provisions applied for InaKlik, namely:

• Each visit derived from one IP will be counted as one visitor in an interval of 2 hours.
• Every visitor who registered as Inapay member and derived from one IP will be counted as one member in an interval of 2 hours.
• Each multiple of 6 visitors will get 1 IPR
• Each multiple of 1 member who has received Inapass (verification) will get an IPR.
• Unverified member will not earn points

From these points, there should be something that can be exchanged by the members to Inapay. With the effort to add user by performing large-scale promotion, will there be many people become Inapay’s members and use this payment service? Does Inapay included as a payment that can overcome the problem of e-commerce world in Indonesia or on the contrary, makes it even more difficult for its users in terms of online transaction?

The world of e-commerce in 2012 is indeed getting warmer. The number of emerging local e-commerce is surely presenting many problems that exist in the world of e-commerce as well. One of the problems of the world of e-commerce in Indonesia today is the payment system; where online transaction Indonesia can be said as not safe when not using a payment system. Convenience in using and security of the payment system is key to the problems of e-commerce in Indonesia.

Cloud service is not only presented by major corporation such as XL Axiata, Telkom and Lintas Arta. A startup called Profitech Indonesia is also trying to bring cloud computing service to the owners of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Profitech delivers Software as a Service (SaaS) in the form of a cloud computing-based accounting system called Profitlook.

Profitech Indonesia was established in 2011. The demo version of Profitlook is now available if you want to try. Rachman Amir, founder of Profitlook, in an interview via email, said that in general, the main target of Profitlook is SMEs owners. Profitlook’s features have been tailored to businesses like car or motorcycle dealerships, small shops, repair shops, salons, restaurants, handicraft industries and many other similar businesses.

Profitlook has some excellent features such as monitoring that allows business owners to check the balance of a transaction, cash balance, and debts balance through a smartphone. The design of financial report and other reports including transaction invoice can be customized by the user. In addition, Profitlook is also developing multi-branch feature that allows SMEs owner with a few branches to get integrated reports from several branches of its business at once. Profitlook also accommodates the user to use more than one currency, give a discount or have an inventory with a lot of stuff.

Later on, Profitlook is planned to be available in two versions namely the paid version (Profitlook Pro) and the free version (Profitlook Free). Profitlook Pro will be marketed with monthly rental system according to connected business units. If the renting SMEs has five branch offices that use Profitlook, then the SME is renting for the price of five business units regardless how many is using the application.

Rachman ensures the security and confidentiality of Profitlook’s users data. Profitlook’s transaction security is using 256 bit encryption to guarantee confidentiality. Profitlook’s server also protected with several layers of firewalls to maintain the security of user data from outside sources. Daily backups are also performed to ensure user data is secured.

Currently, the demo version of Profitlook is available. In a few weeks, Rachman said, Profitlook will launch the free version. If you are interested, you can look around Profitlook’s website at www.profitlook.com and read the full info and see the demo version of this application.

DailySocial will discuss each one of Imagine Cup Indonesia 2012 winner teams and their works. Please join as we discuss from the third place to the first.

Third place of Imagine Cup Indonesia is RedHub project created by Quarternion team. The name of this team is originated from a name of a system of numbers in mathematics. All members of Quarternion are currently in the fourth year of college at the Faculty of Computer Science University of Indonesia. They are Affath Firdausi (winner of Nokia Apps Challenge – as UX and Windows Mobile developer), Agung Pratama (developer), Alfira Fitrananda (business analyst) and Akhmad Rahadian Hutomo (system designer).

The idea of this RedHub project began when Ian, as Akhmad Rahadian Hutomo known to others, participated in last year’s Imagine Cup. In an interview with Indonesian Red Cross volunteer, Ian saw a need to resolve the issue of blood distribution. Prospective blood recipients should be able to get the blood quickly and easily.

With this background, they created RedHub, an integrated system that holds information of blood inventory and distribution of all blood banks. The system will connect the three parties: recipient, donor and health care institution such as hospital and blood banks. RedHub is expected to make prospective recipient to be easily and quickly find potential donors when needed.

RedHub consists of a web application called the Integrated Blood Center Information System (IBICS). Each blood bank will be able to access this IBICS using a web browser and accessing IBICS’s features from blood inventory management, blood donor data management and communication with other nearest data bank.

Quarternion also made Windows Phone based RedHub application. With this application, user can create profile, find the nearest donor and data bank and interact in a timeline known as bloodhub. RedHub application user can take advantage of this timeline to make a post about the need of bloof, blood donor event or other education about blood transfusion. The plan is, this timeline will be connected with social media such as Twitter and/or Facebook.

Quarternion team has presented this project to the Jakarta Indonesia Red Cross Blood Donor Unit. Even though Indonesia Red Cross has in fact have drafted a national information system for blood donor problem, the Quarternion team will keep trying to explore this issue on user part and applies inventory analysis to look at the possibility of the implementation of their designs on the Red Cross’s information system.

In the development of RedHub project, Quarternion team will try to work with the Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia. In the midst of each member’s schedule in finishing their thesis, may their dream to solve the problem of blood distribution in Indonesia can be achieved. Winning the third place in Imagine Cup Indonesia 2012 could be a motivation to finish this project.

Source: Interview via email and Quarternion’s Blog.

Sribu, a media service that bridges creative project owner and designer is changing its look. The startup which takes user-generated content segment is suggesting that the reason behind revamping its look is based on input from its users where Sribu.com’s users demand convenience when using the site, as conveyed through a press release we received.

“In addition to the new look, we also improve the functionality on the website, namely the rating system. In the future, we will launch new additional features for the clients as well as for the designers,” said Ryan Gondokusumo (CEO of Sribu.com) in the press release.
Basically, there are a lot of changes on Sribu.com’s look from the beginning until now. You can compare the look of this site when we first discussed it on DailySocial with its new look today. We also observed that Sribu.com has repeatedly changed its look.

When compared to the previous look, Sribu.com’s look today is not so striking as before. The selection of dark colors on its UI might spoil its users to feel at home while accessing Sribu.com. And most importantly, will Sribu.com gain more user/traffic with its new look?

Have you ever noticed that the social media we know today have the meaning that is quite different for each user? Maybe if it’s about basic definition by only pointing to Facebook and Twitter, everybody would understand immediately but do you ever dig what they actually understand about social media?

Quoting from a conversation with a ex-Yahoo! fellow, Jonas Del Los Reyes who currently resides in the Philippines, you probably can imagine what the situation is here. The quote is as follows, “…our market is still young, definitions are scattered, everyone running with their understanding.” Yes, I think that’s exactly what is happening in this region. I might say it’s chaotic but in a good way.

Maybe you still remember what was done by General Motor (GM) a while ago just before Facebook took the historic step to enter the stock exchange (IPO). GM decided to discontinue its advertising investment on Facebook Ad worth $10 million. GM said that while it decided to stop the investment in advertising, it won’t leave Facebook but would be more focus on content strategy that would keep being distributed via its Facebook Page.

As the most popular platform, Facebook has a large enough number of connected users to make leading brands come to invest in diverse forms, and most of them take the quickest way: advertise. GM did something that arguably made people wonder. Focusing on content and engagement are not the fastest way to grab existing users and potential client.

Back to the condition of social media popularity that makes everyone vying to “plunge” into it sometimes only relying on limited knowledge. Because of this condition then almost everyone is trying to define, mixing, and formulating social media from their own point of views, hoping to optimize this new media. I think GM is going through this phase after they tried, experienced and evaluated then finally decided to focus on content and engagement than on advertising.

Personally, I think GM’s decision is not unsual. Social media, whether it wants it or not, is a form of media which usage would depend on the limitation or focus of said media, and of course adapted to what is needed. Maybe for some readers who had followed the sharing session on Akademi Berbagi still remember that I always use the analogy of Park as a (Social) Media, with the challenges:

1. How to make people want to visit the park?
2. How to make people like our park?
3. How to make people keep coming to the park?
4. How to make the park generate revenue?

Surely, by using this analogy then social media strategy is no longer just a mere campaign or regular advertising with follower’s KPI (which currently even available for trade) but rather how to create a good experience and build loyalty. In other words, we must return to the fundamental community management.

General Motor (GM) has gone through what it judged as ineffective advertising on Facebook. We may disagree but I personally think that with its experience, GM knows and decided what is best for the brand. After GM tried the popular park (Facebook) to advertise, now it wants to go into deeper phase, namely conversation and engagement which in other words is the basics of a community development.

Do you still think social media is a platform for advertising or the means to capture exposure? Maybe you should think more openly. This park is just a vacant lot, popular or not is up to you.

Abang Edwin is a practitioner of online community management since 1998 long before the term social media/social networks become popular. He began his journey by experimenting with several online communities which eventually successful at that, to this day he still gives consultations about knowing character and foster online communities for brands / agencies and individuals.

He was at Yahoo! for over 4 years as a community manager. Currently he is Country Manager – Indonesia for Thoughtbuzz.net, a social media monitoring company.

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[Image: YouAreWeb - Flickr - CC attribution]

Widi Asmoro is the Entertainment Services Manager for Nokia Indonesia who is currently attending All That Matters Conference in Singapore representing Nokia Indonesia as one of the event’s sponsors. This post appeared originally on his personal blog.

Wednesday, 23 May 2012, rain fell in Singapore and pushed back the start of the second day of Digital Matters. The second day focuses on how to monetize content through existing platforms and challenges in which people no longer access contents through just a singe device. The ability to access content on multiple screens became the main topic of discussion among panelists.

The opening keynote speech came from Brian Taptic, VP International Development for Zynga, who underlined his company’s vision of connecting people through social games. Case studies such as the Coca Cola campaign through CityVille is a fascinating study into how a brand can influence its potential customers through a series of stories developed through interaction within the social game. People are no longer forced to see ads and they would even voluntarily participate in promoting the product to others.

At the next panel, there was an interesting message from Adriana Gascoigne, CEO of Girls i Tech who emphasized the importance of placing trust on existing digital communities to deliver the message that products are trying to convey. Moderated by Jay Oatway, writer of “Mastering Story, Community, & Influence”, he concluded that there is a need for brands to be prepared for disasters such as twisted message when campaigning on online media. An example was when McDonald’s asked on Twitter what people think of McDonald’s but what they got was all the bad experience eating McDonald’s food.

So how can digital content generate revenue from social media? The subsequent panel discussions talked a lot about pay TV strategies and how telecommunication operators take advantage of it. The pay TV panel, which was moderated by Nicholas Wodtke (VP Walt Disney Southeast Asia) underscored the importance of consoles (such as XBox) to provide the experience

of accessing content through multiple platforms and screens. This panel also saw that the emergence of smart TV has not been significant enough to help content discovery and consumption. In my opinion, this makes sense because right now people want to consume content whenever and wherever they wish.

From the operator side, PT. Telkom Indonesia presided over a panel titled Operator Matters. Represented by Joddy Hernandy, Executive General Manager, Multimedia Division, Telkom expresses its readiness through its multi-screen strategy. Telkom will capitalize all of its digital content through a platform that they have built, called Smart Digital Platform. Through this platform Telkom will deliver unlimited access to music, radio, television, and even books. The soon t be launched platform will be accessible through mobile phones, personal computers, and televisions. Subscribers will be able to access the content free of charge. It seems obvious that the step to raise Telkom’s average revenue per user will be derived from this platform.

The day ended with the performance of DJ Above & Beyond at Nokia’s Pool Party . As a musician, Above and Beyond has managed to connect with his millions of fans across the world through social media. His songs had been used as soundtracks for short movies to enhance the stories. He will also open Thursday’s Music Matters which will feature Troy Carter who is the manager for Lady Gaga