VCs are seeking Vietnamese Web 2.0 Startups

2007/4/26

Can Yobanbe Survive?

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@ 02:14 AM (16 months, 21 days ago)
The leading Vietnamese game operator Vinagame launched a Yahoo360 clone yesterday. Yobanbe is planned to open beta April 23rd but delay to 25th due to fixing technical backend. Still some problems with forgot password and sign-up as account management shared with gamers data warehouse. Yobanbe even lures Yahoo360 users with import instructions as hot news. The reasons that Yobanbe could face hard future:
  • The brand name is not cool.
  • Launch date: just before long Holiday, Vietnamese people will take 6 days off until May 2nd and traveling is the top choice. Cyworld Vietnam was opened 10 days earlier.
  • Associate with hardcore gamers: Yahoo360 users are female dominated while Vinagame gamers are almost males.
  • Revenue model: what is revenue source for Yobanbe while Vinagame is used to collecting gamers' subscription fees.

2007/4/25

Do we need to educate old media?

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@ 04:17 PM (16 months, 21 days ago)
IDGVV just announced to invest in three companies in Vietnam. Vietnam Investment Review featured the news that I got from Vietnamnet and press coverage section of IDGVV website. The original in Vietnamese only.
"Website yeuamnhac run by the Yeu Am Nhac Joint Stock Company is one of the three companies. This is a professional forum specialising in music established in 2003. More than 500,000 members have joined the forum". What do they mean professional here: is it for music professionals, actually it is an online community for music lovers.
"The third company is Cyworld, a forum about society run and developed by SK Communications, a member of the Republic of Korea’s SK Telecom". This old media guy has no concept of social media, social networking services. Furthermore, SK Communications and  SK Telecom are affiliates (same level) of SK Group. PR is good but it should be adapted to new media influence, PR guys should read The High Cost of Being “AntiSocial”.

2007/4/23

American Idol vs Next Webstar

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@ 07:31 PM (16 months, 23 days ago)
TV show American Idol just came to Vietnam with local version Vietnam Idol. If it had arrived earlier than 2005, it should been a huge success. Some American Idol clones had been on air since then. It is worse now as social media is much more important to youngsters than TV. Next Webstar could be the right answer:

With the explosion of online video in 2006, Next Webstar was born to provide an outlet for anyone to share their talent with the world, without all the clutter of other video sites. The power of the internet has allowed the PEOPLE to define entertainment and has weakened traditional "Hollywood" methods of becoming a celebrity. Innovative sites like YouTube have proven that everyday people can become celebrities if they have that certain something that makes us want to watch. There is no longer the need for years of auditions before you can get your big break. Online video has truly enabled us to choose America's funniest home videos and the real American idols.

Beside Next Webstar, anyone can also enter contest with SingShot, an online singing community that lets you choose from thousands of songs, record your own versions, and share them with the world for free. SingShot was acquired by Electronic Arts Inc. early this year.

Do you want to be the Next Web Startup Star?

China Second Life

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@ 01:29 AM (16 months, 24 days ago)
Tried to be a tester of China Second Life Hipihi but queuing too long, now a demo clip from YouTube clone Tudou.

2007/4/19

Startups Should Have A Blog

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@ 12:00 PM (16 months, 27 days ago)
Almost Vietnamese startups do not blog now. Via an interesting post Why Startups Should Have A Blog
  • Find Co-Founders
  • Find Employees
  • Find Early Customers
  • Get Early Feedback
  • Find Investors

2007/4/18

"Change the World" with DFJ VinaCapital

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@ 02:47 PM (16 months, 28 days ago)
Vietnamese old media could be late featuring the event. I got the news via Entrepreneur27 Singapore. It seems that DFJ VinaCapital armed with Singapore guys, I wonder how they team up with local startups in competition with IDGVV.

2007/4/14

Newspapers United?

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@ 05:39 PM (17 months, 2 days ago)
Everyday we see many newspapers (both online and print) chase the same happening for their news coverage. It is waste of social resources, why these old gangs did not sit together to defend against young social media. CityTools seems to be the answer, it is a kind of social network for newspapers or/and file sharing network for publishers. “Our system allows editors to create innovative content sharing networks with like-minded, and let's face it, visionary, editors at other newspapers. Think of it as a way of creating mini-wire services, defined as narrowly or broadly as you choose.” It sounds cool, who can unite Vietnamese newspapers?

2007/4/13

Job Widget

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@ 01:29 AM (17 months, 4 days ago)
I tried a job widget at a leading online newspaper Thanhnien today, to my surprise, it did not work. Vietnamworks.com is the leading online job site in Vietnam, it owns this widget. At first I think it had added some Web 2.0 features but not now sure. Test below from Hong Kong based Recruit.net.

2007/4/10

Where Social Networking Sites Go

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@ 07:13 PM (17 months, 6 days ago)
Looking back to old CNET's article Five reasons social networking doesn't work, I can see CNET guys are really in the first half of the web sphere. With recent Mixi IPO success and Facebook turned down Yahoo offer, social networking startups would be web enterpreneurs' darlings. Why young people flock to SNS? They can:
  • Send email
  • Chat IM
  • Post blogs
  • Share multimedia: pictures, videos, music
  • Check member profile
  • Meet-up
  • Rate other members
  • .......

2007/4/9

Microsoft is Dead

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@ 11:48 PM (17 months, 7 days ago)
I just met today a friend who came to US with Vietnamese Government officials and some leading ICT figures visiting a Microsoft developers conference. He told me that he feels Microsoft is not powerful as previously and I said  Microsoft era is gone. Came back home, got Paul Graham's new post Microsoft is Dead. Put an end: "Half the readers will say that Microsoft is still an enormously profitable company, and that I should be more careful about drawing conclusions based on what a few people think in our insular little "Web 2.0" bubble. The other half, the younger half, will complain that this is old news". Hope we will see many more young people in the latter half.

2007/4/6

Vietnam Social Networking for Professionals?

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@ 09:57 PM (17 months, 10 days ago)
My friend just got an invitation from vnSpoke, a social networking service for Vietnam's professionals (Vietnameses or/and expatriates working in Vietnam or/and...). The logo is a kind of GoingOn clone. Vnspoke model may follow OpenBC, LinkedIn but I see the Konnects or Zoodango platforms better chance. With Konnects you can join many groups or integrate your own network, that you have somethings in common beside just business concern. Zoodango "connects professionals through local events and preferred venues like Starbucks, a place where you can express your lifestyle in relation to your profession". If you are a professional, do you connect to vnSpoke? Is vnSpoke professional?

2007/4/4

How Big Guy Check Local Partners?

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@ 01:07 AM (17 months, 13 days ago)
I just came across a NOKIA press release on DVB-H mobile TV service launch in Vietnam. I was taken aback by this:”Vietnam Television Technology Investment and Development Company (VTC) is the leading and sole state-owned enterprise under Vietnam Television”. Actually VTC had been brought to Ministry of Post and Telematics since early 2005. Competition between Vietnam Television and VTC was heating up in World Cup 2006 summer. How Nokia manage its communications?

2007/4/3

Vietnam News 2.0?

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@ 03:56 PM (17 months, 13 days ago)
In 2006 DEC launched a print press reading portal Docbao, which scans/captures printed pages of newspapers and magazines. At first, it was in pdf form and now the UI is much better with some AJAX applications. Different from Docbao, some portals aggregate news from online newspapers. Baomoi seems on top of this category: fast loading, different viewing options, nice preview pop-ups. Thegioitin from DTT and Danduong of FPT are similar, but Thegioitin has better UI design and preview pop-ups. Newly launched Diemtin seems get fast and has good mobile format support.
My rating:
 No  Portal  UI  Ads Support
  Mobile Support
 1  Baomoi  Good  Good  Poor
 2  Thegioitin  Good  Poor  Poor
 3  Diemtin  Fair  Good  Good
 4  Danduong  Poor  Fair  Poor

However all these portal have no user generated content elements. They were launch based on presumption that users are eager to read old media news. Actually many users now want to read news from citizen journalists. A good model is OhmyNews from Korea. News 2.0 is the way to go and VCs love someone who standout from the crowd.

[update1] Diemtin had been upgraded with some nice features:new layout, popup preview.