Citysearch and Twitter Collaboration

Hmmm... I wonder if we could implement the same thing on Urbanesia.com

Citysearch and Twitter Team Up to Offer Business Tools

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

A new partnership between Citysearch and Twitter offers some clues about what Twitter’s long-awaited paid accounts for businesses might look like.

Citysearch announced on Monday that it will provide the businesses on its site a few tools to help them make use of Twitter — and said that more tools would be coming soon, including some that sound a lot like what Twitter has repeatedly said it will offer businesses for a fee.

Businesses will be able to write tweets from their Citysearch page and create a Twitter account from Citysearch’s Web site, the first time it has been possible to sign up for Twitter without going to Twitter.com.

“We’re excited about it because it’s a step to demystify Twitter, to help small businesses get on from a site they’re comfortable with,” said Kara Nortman, senior vice president of publishing at Citysearch. Many of the types of businesses that appear on Citysearch have been using Twitter as a marketing tool.

Citysearch will also incorporate tweets about a business into its profile page, so people reading about a restaurant, for example, will be able to see what people have recently tweeted about it. Though people can review businesses on Citysearch, they generally do not do so as actively as they do on Yelp, Citysearch’s competitor, so this will be a way to bring more of the customer’s perspective onto Citysearch.

Citysearch wants to become a directory of social media listings, Ms. Nortman said, so that any time someone is looking for a business’s Twitter or Facebook page, for example, they can find it on Citysearch. That will also be useful on Citysearch’s mobile application, because people who want to tweet about a restaurant or bar while they are out can easily find the Twitter name of the business.

Perhaps more intriguing, Ms. Nortman said that Citysearch’s new offerings are the first step in a plan to offer small businesses a bunch of information to help them “understand when and how and where their business is being talked about across the Web.” This will include analysis of what people are saying and whether the sentiments are positive or negative.

That matches up with what Twitter’s co-founders have said Twitter will eventually do, and Ms. Nortman confirmed that the two companies have discussed doing this together. “Our conversations have involved that as a next stage in the partnership,” she said. “They’ll be offering corporate services through their partners.”

Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-founder and chief executive, recently told me something similar, although he suggested that any partnerships wouldn’t be exclusive.

So far, when Twitter has released a new feature, like location-aware tweets or Lists, it has made the technology available to all third-party developers building Twitter applications through the API.

When Twitter unveils commercial accounts, it will do the same thing, Mr. Williams said.

“We don’t plan to do everything, and we plan to offer an API for everything we do,” he said. “It’s the same thing with anything commercial –- it will be a platform for other people to build upon and make money as well.”

Citysearch announcement on its blog

Auto racing and start-ups aren’t that different, really

Auto racing and start-ups aren’t that different, really

Reminder for start-ups out there: Focus on the long term (one or 2 years ahead) instead of trying to solve every other problem going on in your startups.
Love this article, especially since auto racing is used as an example, catchy!

FGD Expo 2009 and Pecha Kucha Jakarta

Sunday I went to FGD Expo and attended the Pecha Kucha workshop CreatiCity – Kreativitas para pekerja industri kreatif di ibukota. The speakers probably only get about 10 minutes, which was good since they had like 10 speakers and they really got their beliefs and points squeezed in pretty well.

I met Purwanto the owner of www.beoscope.com, Indonesian version of youtube. Hopefully we can work something out with them. Met many interesting people.

Nothing was interesting about the FGD though, mostly printing companies or companies selling printing machines. Sigh.. more waste. I like Paperina and its green theme, but I'm not sure if this means they are producing more recycled paper though.

IYEC First Offline Gathering

Saturday was IYEC first offline gathering. IYEC (Indonesian Young Executives Community) is a facebook group for young executives to learn and share with each other about being a young leader in a company. The group was started by Billy Boen and Antonny Liem, who was my ex-boss, this is how i know about the group.

I joined IYEC few months ago because I felt like i will learn a lot from the group. And another hidden agenda is to meet other young executives (read: a person high enough to make decision or influence a decision maker in a company hehe) and tell them about how Urbanesia can promote their companies with a 'low budget but high impact' effect. Plus, all the people there are Facebook users so a web like Urbanesia won't be too hard for them to use.

Pak Liem asked if Urbanesia wants to be the host of IYEC's next gathering. We would love to! I just need to work on prop to visualize Urbanesia and stuffs like business profile to people on a conversation though, it will make my life so much easier :p Not just for this event but for every selling opportunity!

Data Print won Top Brand Award 2009

Last night I just went to the Top Brand 2009 Award at Mulia Hotel. The Top Brand Award was initiated by Handy Irawan of the Frontier Consulting Group and supported by Majalah Marketing. It started in 2007 and identifies brand that has the highest combination of mind share, market share and commitment share compare to other brands in the same category.

The agenda of the event was pretty much dinner, performance by Caroline Zacharie (did i spell that right? hehe), a talk by Handy Irawan and the award presentation to Top Brand 2009 winners. Data Print won the Top Brand in the Refill Ink category.

Presentation by Handy Irawan was short but concise, he talked about myths in brand building and the new belief now. I like one of the beliefs that says a Brand does not need long time to be a top brand. He said that maybe in 5 years there will be many brands built by young people (like people who are building Urbanesia.com!) more well known than the incumbent, as long as we have the right IMC strategy (not just advertising! that's one of the beliefs as well). Can't wait for the time when Top Brand has an online media brand category! ;)

Quantcast

Today, my brother share me this cool marketing tool Quantcast that shows you the demographic of the people visiting the website. I tried Urbanesia but not enough data yet :p so i tried Detik. Turns out they are compiling the audience profile based on users in USA. Cool tool.. but would be more useful if they can present the demographic based on the world.. Probably too much too ask huh..
Here's a screen shot of the report. I'm not going to lie to you. The graphs are pretty. And I like graphs! I think most marketers like graphs :)

Goodbye Michael Jackson!

It's really sad that the world has to lose a philanthropist like him.. He took advantage of his talent and fame to change the world to be a better place. He donated so much that he broke the Guiness Record for the 39 charities he supported like alcohol and drug abuse, famine, hospitals, underpriviliged children and many more. I like this idea of giving back to the community. Like a legitimate Robin Hood :)

During the funeral, the reverend said to the his kids, "Your father is not strange, it was the things he had to deal with that was strange". He will always be remembered for the many lifes he touched and the positive influence he gave. RIP Michael!

My fave MJ song: Will you be there

PRJ 2009

Few days ago I went to PRJ, to be exact the day before Pemilihan Capres. Actually that was the first time I went to PRJ.. Actually I heard a lot of negative reviews about PRJ like it's hot in there, too crowded bla bla.. But the experience was far from what those reviews.. It wasn't hot (well i got there around 6 just about the time when sun set) and it wasn't too crowded too. I think they did a pretty good filtering by charging Rp.15.000 for the entry fee (for weekdays and Rp.20.000 for weekends). I thought it wasnt cheap, since most expos/trade shows in Jakarta usually cost about Rp.10.000 or cheaper to get in.

I quite enjoyed the experience, although it was a bit different from what I had expected since I thought it would be more like local arts and crafts products. It was more like a big promotion of Indonesian products, by big Indonesian manufacturers. The brands were creative in presenting their products and the product identities. The brand that was pretty good at doing this was Gudang Garam International. If the brand wanted to portray a manly, rugged and adventurous image, they did a good job. At the booth (and what I meant by booth is like a maxi booth, most big brands booths are at least 5mx5m i think) visitors can get tattoo imitation, chill at the lounge on the second floor, get a personal embroidery (the manly kind though!) for hats and jackets, and for a minimum purchase of 2 packs of cigarettes, visitors can play a offroad/race simulation on a large screen or wall climbing. Very tempting!


Other brands use this opportunity for sampling or introducing new products like this brand of sandals that were giving away make your own personalized flip flops. Look at the lines! We wanted to check out the booth because of the lines. And I think people enjoy making the sandals as well.


Esia's booth was one of my favorite, I don't know. The giant wheel is just so hard to miss. But Esia has always created attractive booths though. I also like their booth at the festival komputer last month. Their objectives I think mostly were sales.


Futami's booth was pretty fun as well.. I like the huge puzzle.. They also use their to booth to educate the consumers about the 17 beneficial ingredients in their signature drink.


Well going to PRJ opened my eyes.. (haha kasian yah). The point of me going there was to see if Urbanesia will benefit from participating and how Urbanesia should participate next year. Or maybe (hopefully!) collaborate with the organizers.

Dataprint Academy 2009

On the 5th of July I was lucky enough to attend Malam penobatan DataPrint Academy 2009, a week long learning camp for high school students to promote their communities. In order to be these community engines they were fed with workshops to flourish their entrepreneurship skills, creativity, leadership, information technology knowledge, digital graphic, photography and journalism. For more info click here.

On the last night of the 6 days workshop, the 30 students who were involved in the gave a performance to the DataPrint Board of Directors and managements executive and other sponsors of the event. These kids not only are very active (you should see the list of awards they've won) but talented and creative. They gave a spectacular performance only in a few days preparation. At the end of the night 3 of them was awarded money prize for their participation. Overall they really enjoyed the workshops, the experience and the making friends.

I'm glad companies like DataPrint are creating this kind of events to give back to the community. I kind of gave the suggestion that it should be narrow and focus on promoting the community using blogs (inspired by the theme of 2008 Pesta Blogger). I wish Urbanesia someday will be at a place to do something like this.

Here's the youtube link if you want to watch the summary of the event on a TV show broadcasted by TVone:
DataPrint Academy Part 1
DataPrint Academy Part 2
DataPrint Academy Part 3
DataPrint Academy Part 4

Business opportunity

Sometime in May my friend, Wulan bbm me in the middle of the night offering me a business opportunity. Being the opportunist that I am I couldn't resist but to follow through. Although she wouldn't give me any hint about the business until our meeting the next day. But being the positive person that I am, I was thinking what the hell, I might learn something new or better, might get something to improve www.urbanesia.com!

When we met the next day, it turns out she was trying to recruit me to join Faithnet Global which is the support company for Winalite International in Indonesia. Winalite is the company that produces lovemoon, a pricey feminine pads with anion strip that gives out free ion. Its famous pitch is the ion reduces the development of cyst or cervical cancer. I have been offered to market the product 3 times, first time in 2007. Although I never join, I was interested with the product because of several things:
1. I'm scared of cancer, and I think my lifestyle is not exactly cancer preventing
2. It's an eco-friendly product
3. It might reduce this crazy period cramp I get every month
4. The amount of money we can get from selling the product (or actually recruiting members, yes it has an MLM structure)
But I never join them because of money (the product itself is expensive and startup cost is quite a lot for an MLM) and bad timing, like I thought I would never got the time, I was going away on holiday, or I just simple forgot about it..

But Wulan got me to join in less than 24 hours! How?? This is what I would like to share... I'll continue on the next entry! Gotta get ready for work now!

A Shop Owner Dilemma

Besides doing Jakarta people a big favor by creating a make-all-of-our-lives-easier city directory, I’m a just merely an ordinary boutique owner in this boutique-packed city. All this started when my best friend from Los Angeles, Intan along with her big sister Dewi (she’s a superwoman who is directing a big MLM company and somehow managed to write 3 books, 2 are published and 1 is on the way but still found more time to own a boutique. Oh did I mention she’s a mother of 2 kids?) and Michelle, Dewi’s best friend since probably 15 years ago, asked me and my sister to join their start-up boutique. Well I like to dress up and shop for clothes, but I didn’t know a thing about starting up a boutique let alone managing one. Actually they didn’t need me, they need my sister because she was still living in LA and she could be the buyer for the boutique. I joined so that I know what’s going on in the boutique, being the connector to my sister. Well the money was coming out of the same pocket anyway... So there was I, being a silent partner for the newly formed Secret Wardrobe boutique (I was still working full time back then, so I couldn’t afford to be an active partner)

The boutique is tucked in a small ruko complex on Jl. Margaguna Raya (the road between Radio Dalem and Metro Pondok Indah). They presented me with a concept that our boutique is an active boutique meaning that we don’t rely on traffic like other boutiques in the malls, but we do proactive marketing such as events, newsletters, direct selling, and other relationship-based marketing. In addition we are trying to bring in Californian Chic and Hollywood Glamour style at a more affordable price. Trying to be different here, we are buying clothes from up and rising designers who have good workmanship but unknown enough to have a nice-to-look-at price tag. Well I keen on the concept because I thought it was something different and who needs a good location if we have great clothes with great price anyway right??

Well turns out I was wrong :p. There is a reason why the rent in the mall is much higher, because they generate more traffic. More traffic = More sales. But to be honest, I don’t think our boutique can afford a place in an A-class mall. The margin and the volume just don’t make sense. This is I what I call as the shop owner dilemma, especially owners of shops with niche products. I see many shops located as a standalone store sometimes in a busy road side, sometimes in a very quiet neighborhood. There were many times I was very tempted to stop-by, but chances are I was already late on my way to meet someone, in a mall! I believe many shops will get repeat transaction regardless their location or at least from the surrounding neighborhood, but do they get traffic at all?

I want to give shop owners the chance of first traffic. The rest is up to them, if they have good products and great service, I believe it’s easy for them to get repeat traffic and more sales from word of mouth recommendation. That’s why I started Urbanesia.com.