Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel)  announces that it has signed an agreement to acquire 100 percent of GTW Holdings Private Limited (GTW), the owners of HungryGoWhere, Singapore’s most popular food website, for S$12 million.

Restaurant review portal, HungryGoWhere.com is the leading online food portal in Singapore, with additional presence in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Australia. Under the agreement, GTW will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of SingTel. Its operations will be merged with inSing.com – also a subsidiary of SingTel – Singapore’s leading lifestyle and local search site.

The combination of these top lifestyle sites will change the game by creating an audience of two million customers – the largest food and lifestyle audience in Singapore.  By combining HungryGoWhere with inSing.com’s food channel, SingTel will be the leading digital expert on food and culinary establishments and will serve over 70 per cent of the visitors who rely on mobile and online means for food and restaurant advice.

SingTel will extend this model beyond Singapore because the food vertical is critical in Asia. In addition SingTel will add automated restaurant reservations and use the expertise to expand overseas across Asia.

“A cornerstone of SingTel’s growth strategy is to build digital solutions that help consumers in their daily lives – as they live, work and play.  Possessing the local knowledge and content is critical as it allows us to compete effectively in these areas.  SingTel will continue to form partnerships for important and unique content, including in retail, entertainment and other lifestyle needs,” said Allen Lew, CEO Group Digital Life, SingTel in the press release.

I’m happy to report that despite some beta issues, it’s shaping up to be an exciting next leap for the most-used operating system in the world.

First Impressions

Microsoft has certainly taken a bold step in its next version of Windows, eschewing the traditional start bar and icon-based desktop designs for a sleek, dynamic layout of squares and rectangles. Transitions and animations between opening and closing programs are smooth and slick, though learning the correct gestures might take a little time.

Though it’s likely to be disconcerting to traditionalists, I quite enjoyed the new look and feel. It’s bold but not too showy, striking a nice balance between customisability and utility. Gone is the unspeakable horror of seeing a million cluttered icons on your desktop upon booting up, I think.

Some GUI features are clearly meant for use on a touchscreen surface, with certain swipe motions more suited for a tablet interface. Dragging and dropping using a mouse is an odd experience for sure, but I guess the future of technology is touch, and Microsoft’s obviously signalled that this is the direction they’ll be going into.

Exploring the Accessories

However, the old Windows Desktop interface isn’t gone, finding a place in a tile labelled ‘Desktop’, so it’s a good starting point for those who are insistent on managing their content old-school. One thing I like is how the space on each tile is fully filled with relevant data after opening, updating itself to effectively convey realtime information at a quick glance.

For a preview, there are a surprising number of apps in the Store. Some of the main draws would be the award-winning Cut The Rope, Cookbook by Bewise for the foodie in all of us, and Mahjong Deluxe as one of the top downloads. Unfortunately for the mahjong ‘kakis’ out there, this isn’t the Singaporean version of mahjong played at various family gatherings around the island, but a Mahjong Solitaire game that isn’t quite as satisfying. An odd blast from the past was a Carmen Sandiego app that couldn’t start up properly, displaying a temporary loading screen only to revert to the Start Menu when clicked. Windows’ usual error reporting function was mysteriously absent, but hopefully will be added later.

The Finishing Touches

All in all, I think there’s certainly something for everyone, and this is for a platform still in its early stages yet. Full integration across all its services seems to be what Microsoft is gunning for, with Live ID logins, Xbox companion services and Skydrive just some of the services that are collated under one roof, made accessible at a single click. Now that’s what I call stylish practicality.

About Nicholas Tan

Nicholas is a freelance writer fascinated with emerging technologies and the end-user adoption experience. In his spare time, he writes music and watches too much television.

Perx, a mobile loyalty programme puts merchants as their top priority

Perx is no stranger to mobile users in Singapore who are on mobile loyalty programs. The Singapore based startup which is backed by Eduardo Saverin, cofounder of Facebook, is available at more than 450 locations in Singapore, including common names like Happy Lemon, Subway, Dunkin Donuts and many more. Recently, Perx pitched at our Singapore Satellite and won the Judges’ Choice Award, and we spoke to them to find out what they have been up to since:

Could you share with the community what Perx is and why is it different?

Since the Singapore Satellite, our team has been working aggressively to expand our footprint in Singapore and work on our plan to grow in the region. Perx is a social marketing platform, not just a tool to track loyalty chops. We have combined a suite of tools to allow SMEs to truly campaign each customer. For example, 315 people visited Siam Kitchen last week because of our Chop Mob campaign without any upfront discounts. Other than that, there were over 12,000 people who have posted on their personal Facebook walls about our merchants because of our Perx Wheel which gives out instant prizes. We are carefully launching push notifications with personalized messages instead of random geo-fencing and spam tactics. Our goal is to help merchants engage their customers before, during, and after their visit to the merchant. While others focus on giving consumers more discounts or points, we want to help the merchants as our first priority.

Do share with us some numbers in terms of number of users, active users, growth rate, as well as your user demographic.

Since October 2011, we have grown to 50,000 registered users on 220,000 chops. More than 65 percent of our users are active.

The Perx team with founders Jon and Andrew. Photo: Perx

Could you share with us the idea behind Sponsored Chops?

Mobile ads need to move beyond banner ads, they need to have a purpose. Sponsored Chops are the first type of mobile ad that consumers will actually like. Who doesn’t want a free chop? We didn’t want a traditional model that charges merchants some huge fee per month or per chop. But we also couldn’t run around town announcing we are free, because that is a red flag for most merchants too. So Sponsored Chops allows us to connect the dots between the advertisers, merchants, and consumers. More details are coming soon, but we are signing up some of the largest brands in the region on our ad platform and will launch our first batch of Sponsored Chops in June.

How can startups or SMEs leverage on mobile loyalty program to create more value to their customers and users?

We have established a specific methodology to help our clients get the most out of the Perx platform. The call to action is always going to be important. Consumers are very savvy in Singapore and will do the math to determine if the loyalty reward is worth the effort. Also, we encourage our merchants to think of loyalty beyond upfront discounts. Many of them are signing up simply for the social sharing of the Perx Wheel or from the thousands of surveys we have collected for the merchants.

What are the opportunities you see in Asia?

The opportunities are abundant so it is more about focusing on the right stuff. Singapore has been a phenomenal place to start-up a company and we have big aspirations. However, we also know that growing into other markets is like starting a new company. So we are picking our partners and our next steps carefully.

The Perx headquarters. Photo: Perx

What’s next in the pipeline for Perx?

We are working on a few major announcements that will allow us to acquire users and merchants both in Singapore and abroad. We recently signed exclusive agreements with two of Singapore’s major Point of Sale providers. Basically, we are seeing a shift away from long-term point accumulation to shorter term recognition of consumer loyalty. Recognition and hospitality matter to the consumer.

What is Perx mainly looking for at Echelon?

We would like to meet new advertisers, potential partners in the region, merchants, and of course to network more with other start-ups. We get busy executing our plan and feel that we miss out on some of the great events. We are really glad to have been invited to participate in this year’s Echelon.

Perx will be exhibiting at Echelon 2012 Startup Marketplace. The team pitched their product at the Singapore Satellite in April.

The Perx team outside one of their merchant's restaurant. Photo: Perx

As part of IDA’s efforts in promoting the adoption of Cloud Computing, they are calling out to interested parties to submit their proposals for innovative cloud based projects.

This call was launched last week, on 15th May 2012 at CloudAsia 2012. Successful proposals will receive 50% support of cloud resources and access to the Institute of Infocomm Research and Exploit Technologies’ Intellectual properties (IPs) and Big Data advanced analytics software and tools.

Submission of project proposals will be open till 16 July 2012. A public briefing on Call 5 will be held this coming Friday.

Public briefing on Call 5 cloud computing proposal

Date: 25 May 2012.
Venue: 10, Pasir Panjang Road, Mapletree Business City, #10-43, Singapore 117438
Time: 9:30am – 12:00pm (Registration starts at 9am)
Click here to register.

More information on the Call 5 cloud computing proposal can be found here.

Co-Founders Josep and Ridwan at Sparxup Awards

In order to help immobilized and mute people converse with each other, Josep William Widjaja and Ridwan Djuhari dedicated their lives to develop abilities augmentation products.

Inspired by Kwa Geok Choo, the wife of Singapore first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew and the story of how the couple still communicated with each after Kwa’s severe stroke in 2008, the duo decided to help the handicapped and vulnerable gain back control, independence, and improve their lives with physical computing technologies.

Aibilities is one such instance. DokterKita (DoKita in short; “Our Doctor” in English) is their second product, which targets the general market. It is a telemedicine app where one can receive consultation and healthcare services from respective doctors. The beta app is currently looking for more doctors – maternity, infant health and nutrition specialist to join their network.

Also known as “ANDTechnology”, the duo, who knew each other ever since their university days, initially focused on assembling hardware to solve this problem. However, they later realized that implementing hardware-based solution was not practical since consumers would be unwilling to buy a hardware, which is priced higher than merely acquiring a mobile application.

They then turned into developing an eye-tracking Android app in order to provide a communication platform for those experiencing movement disabilities.

The team then went onto to win the Android Samsung Mobile Apps at SparxUp Awards last year and have devoted the Eye Control app in Samsung Market exclusively for six months. Even before its official approval, the app has already been garnering several positive response and heavy users. The Lite version is completed and available for download without any charge.

Strategic partnerships with Ikatan Dokter Indonesia (IDI) Jakarta Barat have also been established. ANDTechnology received certain amounts of commission resulting from the managment of doctors’ database and developing of their membership portal. Another tie-up is with Lab Wira, where they help the health lab in moving various medical tests and results to the cloud database and providing the users with web and mobile access.

“Realistically speaking, we plan to hit around 1000 users for Eye Control and 5000 users for Dokita this year. If the user responds positively, new features such as remote control for television or air-con and SMS with the ability in sending fixed-sentence messages will be launched soon afterward,” Widjaja adds.

Unlike tyical startups in Indonesia, this duo does not ascribe titles such as CEO or CTO to themselves. They believe that the appropriate time comes when “product revenue grows till a point where the management level calls for a proper organizational structre.”

Currently, Widjaja is heading the technical strategical direction whereas Dhujari is in charge of product development. They both work together on the company vision, goal, milestones, market research, analysis, and the execution plan.

Sarim Aziz (Team Lead, Developer Relations Asia Pacific at Research In Motion)

Sarim Aziz is the Team Lead for Research In Motion‘s Developer Relations Team. He  joined RIM in 2004 and with over seven years of experience in the mobile application industry, he lives and breathes mobile technologies, and truly believes a mobile app can help solve any problem.

Sarim’s background consists of a degree in Computer Science and Software Engineering, and his specializations include multimedia, performance, optimization, and what it takes to make a Super app!

Sarim Aziz rides the mobile wave on how startups are changing the mobile landscape at Echelon 2012.

What is RIM’s direction for the next six months and where does RIM see itself in the next year?

RIM is using the next few months to focus preparing for the company’s most dramatic and significant launch to date – the bringing to market of BlackBerry 10. With our developer community, we aim to establish a healthy ecosystem that brings amazing experiences to customers using BlackBerry 10.

What are the opportunities on the BlackBerry platform and how will the BB10 enhance this?

We always believed it but the data out there speaks for itself. The BlackBerry platform has become one of the most profitable platforms for mobile developers.

BlackBerry App World has more paid downloads per month than the Android market. (Yankee Research Group). In Q2 2011, BlackBerry App World generated 43 percent more average daily downloads per app than App Store (research2guidance). We offer Carrier Billing which has proved to dramatically increase the download numbers, and is available on 40 carriers in over 36 countries.

Sarim Aziz (Team Lead, Developer Relations Asia Pacific at Research In Motion)

How is RIM differentiated from the other players like Apple and Google and how is this beneficial to developers?

We understand that forcing developers into a single proprietary development framework is not in their best interest. Our developer tools have evolved to meet the needs of developers from different backgrounds such as web, native, gaming, etc. We are committed to our developer community and have made it much easier for them to debug, test and build in graphics and UI elements with cutting-edge tools and technologies such as Cascades, Ripple and open standards such as WebGL and HTML5.

The public thinks that BlackBerry is a diminishing platform, what is the true story behind this?

Our ecosystem stats say otherwise. In the last quarter of FY2012, Vendors registered in BlackBerry App World grew by 68 percent. Applications submitted to BlackBerry App World grew 42 percent. BlackBerry PlayBook apps alone grew in submissions by 240 precent which demonstrates tremendous interest in the new BlackBerry 10 platform. Apps for sale in BlackBerry App World grew by 27 percent again showing that developers are continuing to successfully monetize on our platform.Other than being a supporter of tech events like Echelon, where does RIM see itself coming in to support the regional developers?

We have several global and regional programs to engage developers across Asia. We are focused on building new and supporting existing developer communities in many countries.  A few weeks ago we had our global developer launch for BlackBerry 10 in Orlando, FL where we had a strong showing of developers from across the globe. We are now taking this on the road and going through several cities in Asia to bring BlackBerry 10 to the regional developers. Last, but not the least, we are looking forward to another successful BlackBerry Jam Asia developer conference later this year.

For a developer deciding which platform to build on, what would RIM’s pitch be to him/her?

Developers are smart. They like to make their own choices when it comes to choosing the best tool or platform to do the job. That’s what the BlackBerry 10 platform offers them: a familiar environment, yet powerful set of tools, frameworks and services.

Secondly, developers like to know that their intellectual property will be protected, yet easy to discover. BlackBerry App World offers them both, and we work hard to help promote content our users want.

To close off, we will continue to invest heavily into the developer ecosystem to ensure BlackBerry developers are successful.  As an example, BlackBerry 10 applications that meet certain guidelines will be certified by RIM when they are posted for sale in BlackBerry App World. These certified apps will be guaranteed to see a revenue of $10,000 in the first year. This shows our confidence with the new platform and the importance of developers as part of the success mix.

Photo: sonartribal.com

YouTube, the world largest video sharing site, turns seven today!

Created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, the world largest video sharing site has came a long way and seven years later, it has gone from being a site available on desktops to now being available on almost any device that connects to the Internet.

Throughout this seven years, the company has grown to 800 million users with 50 percent subscription rate and watching over three billion hours a month. On average, 72 hours of videos are uploaded to the site every minute (fun fact: that’s 1,194 Nyan Cats uploaded every minute). In 2012 alone, YouTube global mobile playbacks have gone up to 600 million per day.

YouTube wants to thank everyone for the continuous support, and says that: “Behind the tens of millions of channels on YouTube featuring talented filmmakers, home videos, skateboarding tricks, music, and car enthusiasts there has always been one consistent voice: you. Throughout our seven years you’ve made the YouTube community what it is. Thank you!”

Here’s a heartwarming video by YouTube showing how it has grown over the last seven years:

We at e27 want to wish YouTube a very Happy Birthday, and continue to bring more awesomeness to the community locally as well as in the regions.

Happy Birthday YouTube!

Chris Chandler, former VP of Business Development at mig33. Photo: Facebook

Chris Chandler, VP of Business Development at mig33, is now working on his social networking/gaming startup.

We have just received news that Chris Chandler, who used to handle business development for mig33, has ventured out to work on a startup of his own. According to Chris, he is working with a team and doing a lot of research in the social network and social gaming space.

mig33 is a mobile social network with over 50 million registered users around the world. mig33′s services includes integrated instant messaging, miniblogging, virtual gifting and sharing of photos.

Prior to joining mig33, Chris has headed mobile divisions at Microsoft and Yahoo! in the Asia-Pacific region. Chris is also the cofounder and spokesperson for Mobile Monday Singapore. With tons of experience under his belt, it would be exciting to see what Chris will be up to next. The team at e27 wishes him all the best and look forward to sharing more news from Chris.

Chris having fun surfing. Photo: Facebook

PegiPegi Grand Launching (Photo: CHIP)

In the latest synergy between Recruit Global Incubation Partners Co., Ltd., Recruit Co., Ltd, PT. Alternative Media Group (AMG), PT. Altavindo and Go Online Destination (GOLD), new Indonesian hotel reservation site ‘PegiPegi’ was launched.

The IDR 36 billion  site, also known as “Trip” in English, is a strategic combination of Recruit’s extensive experiences and system technologies, digital signage based media business’ AMG and Altavindo’s payment services.

Indonesia has a promising rise of Internet users and expansion of its domestic travel market. The country is also the fourth largest populous country in the world with nearly 250 million people. It is the largest economy in Southeat Asia region and continues to show tremendous economic outlook of approximately six percent growth.

These trends had led to confidence that the partnership possessed high potential for growth.

“It is a money-spinning market with huge potential in improving the nation’s tourism and creative economy,” said Indonesia’s Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy Mari Elka Pangestu, who oversaw the launch. According to her, local tourists have marked 245 million trips last year. As quoted from:

Similarly GOLD CEO Davy Makimian mentioned that they would have “ an important role in Indonesia’s tourism industry as well as in supporting the government’s plan of optimizing domestic travelers and creative economy potentiality.”

Recruit, a Tokyo-based classified advertisement, publication and human resources company, also offers identical services that are dedicated to travelers throughout Japan. Named ‘Jalan’ (A Bahasa word with same meaning with ‘PegiPegi’), this booking site not only proffers hotels reservation but also adds Ryokans (a Japanese-style inn) as part of their portfolio of services.

“PegiPegi” does not simply provides information on mainstream and well-known tourism destinations, it offers plenty choices of travel-less cities and exotic spots across 17,000 islands archipelago with affordable prices.

Mandiri Click Pay, ATM BCA, ATM Mandiri, KlikBCA, VISA and MasterCard are payment methods available at this stage. All transactions are also complemented with Safepit and GeoTrust to ensure the highest forms of security.

Managing customer relations can be a pretty hefty task for companies. Of course, there are CRM tools out there to help manage a company’s interaction with their customers and clients. But, all the current available tools out there do not come cheap. What Vietnamese startup, Biaki aims to do is to offer a solution similar to salesforce.scom, but at a more affordable rate to the Vietnam and Southeast Asia market.

e27 caught up with President of Biaki, Quang Mai Duy, to find out more about the product.

What was it that led you to create Biaki?

When founding Biaki, our ambition was to create a platform that can reduce time in creating business applications, to normalize all the workflow and all the hard work needed to have a business application running with the customers’s specific design. With Biaki, people can have their very own application in lightening speed, which can fit their current business without requiring much time and technology skills.

With the Biaki platform, we have contributed to the market, a comprehensive solution called BiakiCRM. This CRM gives the customers all the requirements to run and manage a sales cycle from managing contacts, deals, opportunity management to email marketing, sms marketing, social marketing and help desk. BiakiCRM is a cloud based system that reduces deploy time instantly. Being cloud-based, BiakiCRM customers can access it via a web browser or native application on iOS and Android securely.

Founders of Biaki. Photo: Biaki

Your team boasts great experience in software development, sales and enterprise. How did you manage to get your team members on board and how have their experiences contribute to the company?

The Biaki Team consists of founders and staffs with talents in many fields.

• Quang MD, President and CTO with 12 years of experiences in developing large solution from scratch, five years of leading a German technology company
• Anh NV as VP of Sales, who was previously trained & educated in France. Anh has many excellent ideas and executions in Sales and Marketing strategy
• Tuan TA, Deputy General Director with 10 years of managing a technology company
• Tuyen HV, the Sales Manager who is a tactical guy in technology sales & consultancy for small and medium business
• Chinh HD, VP of Operation, who is trained and educated in Singapore with a wide range of knowledge and experiences

Everybody that believes in the Biaki strategy has dedicated all their strength to the development of the product. Founders and staffs are working hard everyday and playing smart together in many other activities, from learning, singing, playing football to building a sustainable technology family.

The Biaki Team. Photo: Biaki

Currently, Biaki has quite a bit of traction with a number of clients already on board. What are some the company’s future plans?

Biaki has a roadmap for the next five years with expansion from product range, to market and staffs. We are also planing to achieve a big success in Vietnam in the next two years. Our goal is to become Number One in SAAS & PAAS services provider in Vietnam and to expand to the other markets in Germany, France and Singapore from 2012 to 2016.

What would you mainly be looking for at Echelon 2012 Startup Marketplace?

We are mainly looking for investments in Echelon 2012 to enable us to expand fast and quick. We are also looking for partnerships with others firms in both technology exchange and market exchange.

Biaki's office. Photo: Biaki

Biaki will be exhibiting at Echelon 2012 Startup Marketplace. The team pitched their product at the Vietnam Satellite in April.

Kristine Lauria (Creator & Head Blogger at Urban Hikers)

Kristine is a community builder, digital media dynamo and world explorer. She began her career promoting truth and reconciliation at the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation in NYC and took her messaging digital after moving to San Francisco in 2006.

Last year, Kristine left PBwiki.com to backpack across Asia — and liked it so much that she set up shop in Singapore. Now she’s running Singapore’s first Walkabout, where the companies behind your favorite products and services will open their doors for a city-wide open house.

The real and official other half of Vincent Lauria, Kristine will be moderating the panel discussion of Startup Growth and Scaling and will also be part of the panel discussion on “The X Factor in Tech” at Echelon 2012 .

Tell us a bit more about your role at PBWorks and share with us the key takeaways from it.

I was the eight person on the PBworks team and my role was Community Evangelist. This role is usually explained as being the customer voice inside the company and representing the company outwardly in online communities.  I did things like advocate for the customer during product development, represent community concerns and support issues, ran user testing, created customer outreach and ran education programs.

There were many, many takeaways but the biggest was to test early, test often. Put your ideas on paper and get them in front of your community – even before you start to develop.

A quick story: Our most requested feature was a password-free login feature for students. As a tech company, we favored an online, paperless solution but couldn’t figure out how to verify the users login. Each teacher that we spoke with preferred a labor-intensive solution where they had to print out the login information and verify the student personally. After much internal debate (and against our personal judgement) we decided to push forward with the solution that was vetted by and preferred by our community. Huge success. We still get emails thanking us for this “easy” student login. Always test your assumptions before you spend hours developing a feature that people don’t know how to use!

Kristine Lauria (Creator & Head Blogger at Urban Hikers)

What are some of the key points to customer engagement for a tech startup?

Responsiveness – Easiest step! Be present and respond to users in online communities, through support channels, on your blog and twitter.

Transparency – You don’t have to tell your users everything but don’t lie. Set expectations and deliver.

Consistency - You’re building a relationship, not enjoying a one night stand. Whether it’s new feature development, changes in terms of service, alerts about downtime, etc –  be consistent with how, when and where you share information with customers.

After touring Southeast Asia, how would you describe the tech startup ecosystem here and how is it different from anywhere else?

The scene here is just taking off, there is a lot of excitement and youthful exuberance. Many local start-ups focusing on how to break into the US market and others are building products and services that solve a country-specific problem. The market is still fairly fragmented. I’m looking forward to the day when a local startup will capture the East Asian market – over 2.1 billion people! It only takes one huge lesson on success (or failure!) to clear the path for others.

Off topic, how’s it like to be married to a serial entrepreneur who seems to love the road?

Life is never dull! I love meeting new people, learning their view on life and how they see the future. No matter what country we’re in, we’re always surrounded by talented people who are willing to take a risk to see their ideas succeed. I find this incredibly motivating and inspirational.

Kristine Lauria (Creator & Head Blogger at Urban Hikers)

As with most conferences, Seed Forum will be packed with company presentations, company pitches, keynotes and a networking lunch.

Attendees of the event include individual investors, investment companies and other key finance intermediaries who will gain first-hand insight into a select group of innovative born global companies looking to expand their internationally. They can expect to meet executives of aspiring born global companies from Scandinavia who will be presenting their investment case at the forum. Each of the presenting companies have been pre-selected by the Seed Forum selection panel.

About Seed Forum

Seed Forum is a global organization hosting investor conferences in more than 30 countries and is considered as one of the most professional and experienced venues for presentations of investor ready start-up companies.

You can find more information on Seed Forum at www.seedforum.org

Online spams or comments with negative contents such as profanity or those containing malware could hurt your website’s credibility as well as hurt your SEO and Google ranking. Businesses and websites owners dont want this to happen. Tandif, an Indonesian based startup, aims to provide the solution to help businesses filter out these unwanted contents. We at e27 spoke to Ahmad Fathi Hadi, CEO of Tandif, to find out more about their solution:

Could you introduce Tandif to our readers?
Basically, Tandif is high accuracy filtering platform that is capable of filtering and moderating any negative digital contents such as profanity, spam, malware/virus domain, etc. As a platform, Tandif can cater to a wide range of different customer segment such as website, blogs, forums, mobile, social media, etc.

How is Tandif doing in terms of user traction, specifically the number of users (paying and non paying), as well as user growth?
Currently we are still in beta and we are doing lot of product development. Since our launch in 29 Jan 2012, we are focusing on accuracy and speed, not on traction. Currently, Tandif is used by our partners for testing purposes on their websites, and some of our major partner includes MindTalk and Indonesia’s Adobe user group. Once we are happy with our product, we will shift our focus to marketing and gaining more traction.

How does the technology of Tandif differs from the other existing moderation technologies?
As I mentioned before to the judges at Jakarta Echelon Satelite, you have to try it yourself. We can confidently say this: Our accuracy is really good. Mollom and Akismet focus on spam filtering, while Webpurify and Tandif focus on profanity filtering. That said however, we are more than just spam and profanity filtering, we want to make filtering easy and accurate.

The Tandif team. Photo: Tandif

What is in the pipeline for Tandif? Are there any exciting updates and features which the community can expect soon?
Yes, first we are going to release Tandif for free, and secondly, we will also be lauching image filtering service and mobile filtering service, complemented by a management service. What we are really excited about is that users do not need to install any application on their mobile devices, because filltering will be made at telco operator/provider service level. Tandif will also add more language support and language detection system in the near future.

Could you let us know what Tandif is looking for at Echelon?
We are looking for investment.

Tandif will be exhibiting at Echelon 2012 Startup Marketplace. The team pitched their product at the Indonesia Satellite in April.

Founder of Guestlist.ph, Ron Baetiong

Like to feel like a VIP everytime you party? Want to be up-to-date about the latest clubbing events? Hate to get confused on which event to go? Guestlist.ph is here to help.

An online guest list to Manila’s best nightclubs, lounges and bars, Guestlist.ph makes sure that having difficulties in finding the right access to the right parties becomes the thing of the past.

e27 interviews founder of Guestlist.ph, Ron Baetiong, to find out more about how he is shaking up the night scene of Manila.

How did the idea of Guestlist.ph come about? And what difference has it made to the partying scene in the Phillipines?

Guestlist.ph was first conceived when I was writing a thesis while studying Entrepreneurship in the University of Santo Tomas in 2009. Our thesis involved actualization the business during our senior year and running it for a whole year.

Longing to start something creative of my own, I decided to combine my passion, clubbing, into my brainstorming sessions of how I could improve the whole system. I discovered that the main problem of clubbing is that if you didn’t know any club promoter, you’d have to pay the cover charge at the door. Plus, one may be limited to a certain promoter depending on which night it is.

Thus, I thought that it would be a great idea if everyone could just choose where they want to go without going through the hassle of looking for a promoter. With no marketing budget, it became a hit. Guestlist.ph revoluntionized the whole guest listing system and we were able to get 50,000 party enthusiasts to use our free online guest listing system.

Do you think Guestlist would be able to be exported to other countries too? How well received do you think it’ll be in other countries? (Since the partying scene is different in different countries)

Wherever you are in the world, being on the guest list is always considered a privilege gaurantees free entry. It is a way for clubs to drive traffic to their venue and thereby increasing their chances of having higher bar sales (their main revenue stream).

Rules may vary in other countries but there is a common denominator for all clubbing enthusiasts nontheless. Everyone wants to save money or at least maximize their money’s worth. With that being said, we are confident that we can transplate this to other parts of the world no matter which country we are in. It is just a matter of adjusting to the culture but the system is pretty much the same.

What problems have you encountered during the actualization of Guestlist?

The main constraint that we have encountered in this project is awareness. Clubbing is a habit-forming business. People are used to doing the same things over and over again, until they realize that there is a better way for them to do things easier.

So far, we are doing a good job reaching out to people and telling them the good news that we are here to make partying easier for them. However, there is still much work to be done in order to reach everyone and tell him or her the good news.

Were merchants open to this idea since Guestlist is essentially bringing all the competitors closer to one platform?

At first, clubs were skeptical about the idea but when they saw how much traffic I was able to give them. But they soon realized that Guestlist.ph allowed them to promote their venue and their events with much greater conveneince. We started to build a lasting symbiotic relationship with them.

What are your future plants for Guestlist? E.g. partnerships, feature developments, market expansion etc.

Guestlist.ph is just the first step of the 3-step process that we have laid out. We are in the process of partnering with big telecommunications sponsors and brands that would give our users more perks when they go out.

Also, we are developing the e-commerce functionality of the site and after a few months we will be launching the app. The next step for Guestlist.ph is to usher in 2 more projects that would give our users the choice to go out to more nightlife hotspots (not just clubs) and by January, we want to migrate our site to Singapore or Thailand under a name that would be globally known.

How is the traction like for Guestlist and what are some of the feedback you’ve gotten from partygoers so far?

We have grown rapidly ever since Guestlist.ph was launched 3 weeks ago and there have been increasing number of users who use the site and the Facebook app. We have been getting positive feedback about it and have been featured on several radio stations, magazines and other sites.

This is only the beginning. We expect to be full blown during our launch party by late June or early July.

Vincent Lauria (Co-founder of Lefora and Founding Partner at Golden Gate Ventures)

Vincent Lauria spent more than half a decade  in Silicon Valley building two different startups, Meetro.com, a location-based chat service which was dissolved with many lessons learned in 2007; and Lefora.com, a hosted forum service which grew to over 100,000+ communities and was acquired in 2010.

Spending 2011 traveling around Asia, meeting with startups, investors, and budding entrepreneurs, Vincent Lauria  is part of a panel discussion, “State of the Investment Ecosystem in Southeast Asia” at Echelon 2012.

More lovingly known as Vinnie, he is passionate about the startup and entrepreneurial lifestyle and truly enjoys bringing the Silicon Valley spirit to other places. He is also sometimes known as “Paul Bragiel‘s other half.”

From your journey as a startup founder to an investor, what is the biggest takeaway for you?

‘People’ are what make great startups, not ideas.

What attracted you to settle in Singapore and look for investment opportunities in the region?

The community.  Singapore has a really strong community of entrepreneurs and developers helping each other out.  I had the fortune of first seeing this at HackerSpace, then a few months later at SuperHappyDevHouse.

Vincent Lauria (Co-founder of Lefora and Founding Partner at Golden Gate Ventures)

How do you view the ideas coming out from Southeast Asia and where do you think their potential lies?

Quite honestly, not as refined as the valley on how to get to market.  However, I see great potential across the region.   A lot of entrepreneurs here are doing this for the first time, there isn’t the same platform of the valley, with an ecosystem of serial internet entrepreneurs and angel investors to help with mentoring and connections.  I can feel some exciting changes coming over the horizon.

We have seen many products making the West to East move, but few in the other direction. Should startups here concentrate on the markets close to home or attempt to expand into the western markets? How can they do it better?

My bet is that startups should concentrate here on the markets close to home as the ‘low hanging fruit’.  As the ecosystem matures, it will open up opportunities for competing in western markets.

Vincent Lauria (Co-founder of Lefora and Founding Partner at Golden Gate Ventures)