Bloomberg said that the debt ridden Axis, worth about USD 1 billion (just slightly less than Tumblr!) is an attractive target for the Axiata group as it will allow XL Axiata to add services and expand coverage. Currently XL Axiata holds three non-contiguous frequency blocks, out of the available 12 blocks on the 3G band, which prevents the company from taking full advantage of its recently won 3rd block.

Following the 3G auction win by XL Axiata and Telkomsel a few months ago which earns each company one extra unused block on the 2.1GHz frequency, the government is proposing to rearrange the frequency block allocation to maximize usage by each operator as maintaining the current allocation means leaving operators with non-contiguous frequency blocks. As it stands, XL operates in blocks 8, 9, and 12 whereas Axis runs on blocks 2 and 3.

The proposed reallocation which is expected to take place in September of this year would put XL’s three frequency blocks on blocks 8, 9, and 10, adjacent to the two blocks operated by Axis on blocks 11 and 12. A merger between the two telcos would allow XL to operate in five frequency blocks in the 2.1GHz range, making it the carrier with the widest 3G band in the country. Telkomsel would be second with three blocks at 3, 4, and 5.

With ten national mobile operators fighting for customers, Indonesia is the second most saturated mobile market in Asia after India. Over the last ten years carriers have pushed themselves into a highly competitive death spiral undercutting each other with dirt cheap text, voice, and data rates.

Even a single merger will ease the pressure among carriers and allow them to operate in a more healthy manner. Currently changes in rates occur in almost every other quarter from the majority of carriers, causing instability in market condition which contributes to a relatively high churn rate, 30% for voice subscribers and 50% for data subscribers according to Bhuwan Kulshreshtha, chief commercial officer at 3 Indonesia in December 2012.

While XL Axiata president director Hasnul Suhaimi had nothing to share to Bloomberg, he had previously said that his company would be open to efforts in consolidating the Indonesian mobile industry because maintaining the current condition is not an attractive proposition for further investments. XL Axiata currently has 46 million customers while Axis has 17 million. A merged entity between XL Axiata and Axis is said to be called Avelon.

BBM Money was launched in February to overcome mobile payment opportunity among BlackBerry users. With this product, BBM users is enabled to make real-time payments to their BBM contacts who are also signed up to the service. Also, BBM Money can be utilized to buy mobile airtime credit and transfer money to bank accounts. PermataBank is among top 10 bank in Indonesia based on assets.

PermataBank Retail Banking Director Lauren Sulistiawati commented: “We are delighted with the level of customer adoption that we have experienced so far. The popularity of the service is another indication that mobile plays a key role in the future of the banking and payments industry across Indonesia. We have also been particularly excited by the way in which BBM Money has quickly opened up a new, direct route to new-to-bank customers. The ability to engage with new customers and significantly lower the cost of customer acquisition is a real advantage for any financial institution.”

Calvin Lim, Director of AGIT Monitise, commented: “We are encouraged by the adoption trend and customer usage to date. The service can only become more popular as more functionalities are added in the near future.”

Darren Sugden, CEO of Monitise Asia Pacific, said, “It is great to see such a positive early response to BBM Money. As the first comprehensive Mobile Money service in the world to be integrated with any messaging platform, pioneering the approach of turning a social network into a payments network, BBM Money brings second-to-none convenience to Indonesian consumers and businesses. The success of the service in a major world economy which is ideally suited to this type of innovation is a great example of how the financial industry can capitalise on the fast-growing mobile, payments and banking space to meet the day-to-day needs of the consumer.”

With majority of smartphone users in Indonesia are still using older version of BlackBerry, it currently hasn’t supported the latest BlackBerry 10 platform. Previously I was writing about BBM Money in an article that it has opportunity to grow bigger as the ultimate micropayment solution if it extends its service to many aspects in community’s social life. While PermataBank may not be the top three banks in Indonesia, this solution may help attract savvy BlackBerry users who needs simple solution for micropayment among peers.

JP Morgan, a strong investor in many of Rocket Internet’s companies, first invested in Zalora in September last year for an undisclosed sum after investing a reported $50 million in Lazada. Back in March, Tengelmann put in €20 million into Zalora as the company was building a software development center in Singapore.

With all this investment, you can’t argue Zalora isn’t committed into building itself as a significant force in e-commerce in Southeast Asia. The $91 million loss in 2012 reported by German publication Manager Magazin seems inconsequential in the face of this year’s series of funding rounds as the company optimistically sees itself turning a profit in 2015 and reaching billion dollar sales.

Zalora managing director Michele Ferario proudly announced the investment in a press release sent to DailySocial. “It is an honor for us to have reputable investors place their investments into a young company such as Zalora. We aim to continue delivering world class products and services so every person in Southeast Asia can benefit from the wide range of products we carry, the comfort of online shopping, and our speedy delivery”.

The substantial investment will go towards expanding Zalora’s collection of 600 brands and 20,000 products available in each of its individual markets, according to the company. Zalora operates in seven countries across Southeast Asia including Brunei Darussalam, The Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam,  as well as in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Zalora’s mobile app which was just launched recently is seen as one of the major driving factors into Zalora’s growth as it delivers announcements of flash deals, discounts, new items, and sale periods, which are expected to push the likelihood of Zalora customers to make purchases. The company notes that more than 25% of its sales today have come from mobile phones.

Of course, the company wouldn’t simply rely on a single mobile application having created a software center in Singapore. In a separate announcement,  the company revealed that it is launching another mobile app for Android called FitzMe. As the name suggests, FitzMe would allow Zalora customers to try on the clothes available from the store by taking photos of themselves “wearing” their choice of clothing items provided from within the app, which they can then share to their friends to Facebook and Twitter. Although the company told us that the app is available from Google Play, and even provided a link to it, our search came up empty. Perhaps it will be available soon.

Zalora Indonesia also just announced a new fashion collection from Indonesian singer Alika, which will be available until 15 november 2013. The collection was launched in Cilandak Townsquare in Jakarta earlier today. To celebrate the opening of the store, the first 50 purchases will receive Alika’s latest CD single in addition to a personalized thank you card and a shopping voucher for every purchase at the store.

IndoTelko reports that BRTI committee member Ridwan M. Effendi is adamant that the application will be ready before the end of the year although currently the team is still working to overcome both the commercial implementation as well as the interoperability issues that arise from cross-network deployment. “Anything’s possible. Even cross platform money transfer is possible, it’s merely about intent”, he said. “If Messaging Indonesia is realized, carriers will benefit because routing will occur locally so the cost expended will not be so great”.

With foreign apps and services, data connection travels outside of the country and carriers have to pay for the use of those data pipes. By keeping data traffic local, the associated cost can be reduced significantly. On the other hand, by running this service, all data will be subject to Indonesian laws and the government will be able to gain access to the channel if it sees a reason to perform such checks. This is one of the concerns that were brought up against the government’s insistence to have companies like BlackBerry and Google set up servers located within the country. The refusal of both companies to comply so far is supported by others in the industry citing legal, business and practical reasons.

Asked about the launch of the service, Effendi is optimistic, saying, “there’s progress from each routine meeting. It’s possible to launch it this year”.

Axis head of marketing Daniel Horan recently told DailySocial that an effort like this is rife with issues and that the company’s focus is on collaborating with existing services. While it may seem like a there’s a conflict of interest on Horan’s part, all other Indonesian telcos also have data package agreements with foreign messaging companies.

Axis currently has deals with Skype, Viber, KakaoTalk, Line, and others to allow subscribers to purchase messaging oriented data packages which will allow them unmetered data access to the services even after the monthly quota has been reached. The Viber partnership with Axis was signed at the Mobile World Conference earlier this year and is available to customers signed up to any of the Axis Pro data plans.

It remains to be seen whether a cross-carrier collaboration will deliver a service that is not only as comprehensive as existing messaging apps but also as easy to use and as attractive so as to gain widespread acceptance among mobile consumers across the country. Additionally, being an app may limit the adoption of such a service in a country with 70% feature phone mobile share unless all of the major features are also applicable for these devices as well.

This mobile channel is brought to you by Samsung Developer Competition 2013. SDC ’13 is an app competition for Android apps that leverage Samsung’s mobile technologies. For more information please visit http://techne.dailysocial.net/sdc

Back in July 2012 when Marissa Mayer was just announced as the new Yahoo CEO, a campaign was launched asking Mayer to “please make Flickr awesome again”. The Flickr team responded by asking the Internet to join Flickr and “help us make Flickr awesomer”. Almost exactly two months before the anniversary of that campaign, Mayer and Yahoo launched a brand new Flickr. A completely redesigned and refocused Flickr which gives members one terabyte of storage space each for free.

So what does a terabyte of space mean as far as photos are concerned? To make it easier, Flickr’s new homepage provides a slider to give some idea as to what that means. If you take photos at exactly 8 megapixels each, Flickr’s new storage allowance will let you upload 436,900 photos at full resolution. That means you will need to upload almost 50 photos per hour every hour of every day in one year to fill up that space. And if you managed to run out of space next year, well, nobody is stopping you to use a different Flickr account to grab another terabyte. Not yet anyway.

The changes on Flickr didn’t stop there. Thanks to the terabyte giveaway, Flickr now does away with Flickr Pro accounts, for the most part. The paid option to allow members access to their entire photo library has now been removed because it’s been rendered obsolete. However, Pro members will still be able to renew their membership if they wish even though nobody can sign up to it anymore.

The benefits of renewing Pro accounts include absolutely unlimited storage, detailed photo analytics, as well as the lack of advertising whereas those with free accounts will have a banner ad shown on their stream, no analytics, and a limit of 1 terabyte storage space. According to Yahoo, there are no plans to remove Pro renewals. An option to have paid Flickr accounts is still available, but will be covered separately.

Flickr’s other change is the website. Though there aren’t really any new features, Flickr has brought on a fresh design which includes the addition of a cover photo for each member page, a larger profile photo, fully laid out photos across the photo stream and feed for more prominent display.

Those with large screen or high resolution displays will appreciate how photos on Flickr are now laid out. All the controls are still there, just relocated to a more convenient and less intrusive space. Using black instead of white as the background for individual photos makes each of them stand out even more. For all its changes, Flickr’s website still offers all the same features, just presented differently.

The third thing that Yahoo announced with regards to Flickr is the redesigned Android app. While the iOS app has had its redesign in December last year, the Android app hadn’t seen a corresponding major overhaul. You can tell that the Android app has been redesigned entirely independent of the iOS app. While the two apps share similar features, the looks, the layout, the approach to design, they’re all different from one another, each leveraging the style and familiarity of each platform’s audience.

All these changes are not guaranteed to get the public to flock back to Flickr but they’re big steps into understanding how today’s Internet works and how consumers see online services. You can probably draw parallels to the Gmail announcement back in 2004 although there was really no email equivalent of Facebook Photos back then or even Instagram and Flickr is a stagnant brand looking for a reboot instead of a brand new service.

Yahoo’s decision to give Flickr a do-over is important. With Marissa Mayer at the helm, the Tumblr acquisition just announced, a renewed focus on mobile deployment, Yahoo’s revival is just beginning and we probably won’t see Mayer’s master plan unravel in full until next year.

The forum’s purpose is to provide a place for discussion, sharing opinions and knowledge for those who work or have interest in the music industry, which hopefully will provide a common base of knowledge and ideas to further progress Indonesia’s music industry. The more people that are involved, whether from within or outside the industry, the better, because everyone will contribute something to the discourse of the industry’s development. Like I have often written in this column, the more parties involved in the development of the music industry, the better, and it would be even better if all these parties were interconnected in a mutually-influencing and mutually-beneficial ecosystem. So, the ecosystem must grow, and create situations that promote mutual simbiosis between the fans, the musicians, and the industry workers.

One interesting thing surfaced as part of the discussion led by Abang Edwin, which was that some bands or labels made social media accounts just for the sake of being ‘there’. These social media accounts, whether it be on Twitter, Facebook or even as a chat channel on services like LINE or Kakaotalk, are often used only for tour dates, album releases or even ringbacktone codes which essentially are one way information, and have no significant interactions with fans, who are practically the consumers of that band or label. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not limited to social media.

It’s not limited to music – many parties seem to ‘force’ themselves to, say, create a social media account for their office, or find a way to sell their content online, seemingly to fulfill a ‘checklist’, with no proper management or strategy. It is like a marking of territory, which is left empty and quiet. Music sold through iTunes, are “only” promoted with one or two tweets, by way of announcement to the followers. In many ways, preparing an online identity for a band or brand can be done with a relatively low cost, but this kind of attitude, it may impact the decrease the value of brand equity which money cannot buy.

These errors – yes, I call them errors, not mistakes – can be as stupid as not placing a painstakingly-built website’s URL on other marketing collateral. Digital is not some imaginary world that is disconnected to our daily lives, as a digital ‘presence’ must be an integral extension of what the band or brand is about. A website is a home or office that contains everything that we want to communicate to our customers, and it would be even better if there was a guest reception area where they could talk to us or with other customers. These digital mediums are not a one-way loudspeaker, but are meeting points which are easily communicated to everyone, and serve as a basis for further communications.

It is the same case for digital content. People buy content, not bots or programs. The purchasing does take place through various parties and programs that help with payment and distribution, but the purchase or subscription decision remains a human one. So the human factor needs to be considered when conducting a digital business. Who is my customer, and where are they? Will a digital strategy make it easier for me to sell something to them? Will they be willing to pay, and if they are, what is the easiest way to pay for them? And of course, we will not be able to fully know who our customers are, except by opening a two-way discussion with them. Digital enables these discussions to occur on a larger scale.

So, don’t just put up your territorial flag on just any store or digital media – make sure the investment of money and time spent has more purpose. Utilize the digital’s inherent multifunction to enrich the experience with your band or brand, and increase the level of discussion with customers to increase loyalty – or at least, add to what you know about your customers.

Ario is a co-founder of Ohd.io, an Indonesian music streaming service. He worked in the digital music industry in Indonesia from 2003 to 2010, and recently worked in the movie and TV industry in Vietnam. Keep up with him on Twitter at @barijoe or his blog at http://barijoe.wordpress.com.

The company announced the funding achievement through the game’s Twitter account early morning on Sunday.

Full Funded!!!!!!

— DreadOut (@dreadoutgame) May 18, 2013

YEAH!!!! twitter.com/dreadoutgame/s…

— DreadOut (@dreadoutgame) May 18, 2013

Aside from using Indiegogo, the company also sought funding separately for local supporters who wish to contribute to the game by direct bank transfer. The company said that it will close the window for direct contribution at 9 am West Indonesia Time today so it can submit the external funding to Indiegogo accordingly before the deadline of the project which is midnight Pacific Time or 10 am Sunday, local time.

The submission of the external funding is important as it will determine the distribution of the incentives and rewards as described on the Indiegogo project page.

At press time, the game received contributions from more than 500 people around the world, more than 275 of which paid $15, the minimum amount to earn a download of the game along with a wallpaper for their computers and handheld devices as well as a mention in the credits.

Five people who paid $1000 to get the most out of the project will receive a heck of a lot of stuff including a silver necklace replica of main character Linda’s in-game jewelry, a hand painted resin statue of Linda herself, a digital comic book, a printed magazine, physical copy of the game and soundtrack, posters, pins, stickers, a replica of Linda’s bag, and more.

Back in April, Digital Happiness participated in the id-byte roadshow in Bandung which sought local startups and projects that have the potential to grow and be world class companies. At that time, the game received the most rousing reception from the audience and the judges as the team had put together perhaps the most convincing presentation and progress report among all the participants. Rightfully so, DreadOut has earned itself the right to pitch with other finalists at the id-byte conference which will happen in 11-13 June this year.

The company said that previous encounters with venture capitals and investors had left a bad taste in their mouths as they had been asked to divert from their course. Some investors had asked them to make DreadOut a game on mobile platforms while others tried to steer the game away from the horror theme.

We first wrote about the game in January 2012 when Digital Happiness pitched at the Jakarta Ventures Night, run by Singapore VC company East Ventures. At that time the company was expecting to release the game by the June of that year, but apparently the development stalled and they were only able to release a demo by March of this year. Hopefully with the funds the company is set to receive from Indiegogo, it can meet the expected release schedule this time and with any luck, it may receive further support from investors following the id-byte conference, having proved its popularity and resolve.

Digital Happiness will be presenting at casual connect in Singapore on 21-23 May at the Shangri-La Hotel and will follow that up with an appearance at the Game Developers Gathering in Jakarta on 25 May at the JWC campus of Bina Nusantara University. Details for the use of the funds and the rewards for contributors can be found on the game’s Indiegogo page.

As quoted from tech blog Teknojurnal, this partnership is based on the fast-growing number of online games in Indonesia for the past 10 years, making game voucher a lucrative business in the country. MOL Indonesia representative also explained that the partnership is done to make it easier for consumer to buy physical game vouchers.

The vouchers values ranging from IDR 11.000 to IDR 220.000 for MOL vouchers that can be used to play hundreds of games from numerous platforms all over the world. Late last year, DailySocial talked to Patrick Setiawan who was appointed as MOL’s Country Manager for its Indonesian operations.

As we all know, the dying social networking site Friendster got acquired by Malaysia-based MOL (Money Online) and now revived as an online gaming portal. After a while, finally MOL decided to enter Indonesian market by establishing a company PT. MOL AccessPortal and apparently has a dedicated man running the country operations since September 2011.

The BlackBerry 10 version finally earns the ability for users to join photo competitions run by PicMix and its partners, use advanced custom frames, and they also can add stickers on photos as well as in comments. This update brings feature parity to PicMix apps on classic BlackBerry and Android.

A number of visual and interface changes are also present in the new BlackBerry 10 version to allow users easier access to see official or verified accounts of celebrities, brands, models, professional photographers.

PicMix gift card is a way for consumers to purchase and top up their Mix Credits, the virtual currency used to buy in-app items such as stickers, frames, and filters. Previously Mix Credits were only available online to be purchased within the app using credit cards and airtime (phone credits) but with the new gift cards, in collaboration with payment processor and card company Indomog, PicMix users can purchase these MogPlay PicMix cards and add Mix Credits into their accounts.

This mobile channel is brought to you by Samsung Developer Competition 2013. SDC ’13 is an app competition for Android apps that leverage Samsung’s mobile technologies. For more information please visit http://techne.dailysocial.net/sdc

Some of the startups hosted at Freeware are also involved with Ideosource or the now dormant Project Eden in addition to a number of bootstrapped ones.The twelve startups are Lolabox, Maskoolin, Gravira, Kelir.TV, Telunjuk, Glassfinger, TSATB, Blinc*, Kivibyte, Flamingo, Pingmaru, and Diemdiem. While we’ve covered Lolabox, Maskoolin, Gravira, Telunjuk, and Flamingo previously, the others have yet to be highlighted.

Kelir.TV is a B2B video streaming startup serving broadcast TV networks and brands. Founded by former Detik engineers, the company has received investment from Ideosource. Glassfingers is a game development company which was part of Project Eden. TSATB is a digital agency with a focus on youth market, founded and run by Benazio Rizki Putra who is an Indonesian Internet celebrity with his own set of KakaoTalk stickers.

Blinc* is building a customer loyalty program which will launch in a few months, while Kivibyte is an inbound marketing company which was co-founded by Gravira CEO Christopher M. Satriandaru. Pingmaru is a live chat system for e-commerce companies to allow their customers to interact directly with their customer support officers. Lastly, Diemdiem, which literally means hush hush, is still in stealth mode.

Aryo Ariotedjo, co-founder of Grupara and Freeware wants to draw a distinction between his incubator company and the co-working space. While many have linked the two together, he said that they are actually two separate entities. “I would say [Freeware] is a non-profit entity and trying to make our own tenants to help themselves in terms of making Freeware to continue its existence. They felt helped with this program and I am sure they will also help develop Freeware into a bigger community. We always try to make Freeware as neutral as possible”.

Companies incubated by Grupara are hosted at Freeware but the space is also open to individuals and other companies who wish to use the facilities on a casual basis. For long term or permanent use though, companies wishing to reserve spots at Freeware must apply and be approved. “The reason we created Freeware is so that we can build an day to day occurring community for entrepreneurs to build their business together with their other peers”, he said.

As a service to Freeware tenants, Grupara startups, as well as to draw more entrepreneurs to the space, Freeware hosts a weekly sharing session in which it invites industry figures to come and talk about their experiences and views on a number of matters. Past speakers have included former Yahoo Indonesia Country Director Pontus Sonnerstedt, Veritrans CEO and co-founder Ryu Kawano Suliawan, Tiket COO Natali Ardianto, co-founder and CEO for Rocket Internet Southeast Asia Stefan Jung, advertising legend Danny Wirianto, as well as AdPlus co-founder Yazid Faizin.

Tomorrow, Freeware will host Fajar Budiprasetyo, co-founder of Koprol and Ice House, while next Friday, former chief designer at Tiket.com and co-founder of Weekend Inc. Richard Fang will be at Freeware. You can register for Freeware events at Eventbrite.

[Update] we made a mistake in reading the press release and have made corrections to reflect that