Already Indonesia is a country where mobile Internet relatively to the total Internet users is the highest in South East Asia and one of the highest in the world. But still the total Internet penetration of just 21% in Indonesia is the lowest in SEA. According to Nielsen’s upcoming Southeast Asia Digital Consumer Report already 48% of all Internet users in Indonesia use a mobile phone to access the Internet. Considering that Indonesia is an archipelago which comprises around 18.000 islands this is not really surprising for obvious reasons.
But there are more strong signs that in the next years mobile Internet will surge like nowhere else in the world. Continue Reading →
Let’s start this post in Rockto style: Howdy y’all! Now many readers might think I’m an arrogant *beep* who’s only criticizing others and thinks I’m Gods gift to mankind. Well, you might have a point, I haven’t been all that positive about the Indonesian startup scene but that’s gonna change now!
Ever heard of a site called “Rockto”? Huh? Well chances are you’ve never heard of it but you should have. Personally the whole bookmarking/sharing/recommendation phenomenon doesn’t really appeal to me, sites like Digg and Reddit completely passed me by. But somehow Rockto (Rock TOday) is different, Rockto is pretty cool I guess. Rockto is an Indonesian social sharing slash social bookmarking site slash social recommendation site, it’s social anyway and it’s awesome! It’s so 4.0! Rockto is the one Indonesian startup that “as is” could and should conquer the world.
Idul Fitri, a time of family bonds, reunion with old friends, forgiveness and a fresh start. Idul Fitri, the time of year that Indonesia nearly comes to a complete stop. Everyone packs their bags, jumps on their bike or in the car and heads to their hometown for a yearly reunion with family and friends. Because they pretty much do that at the same time and over the same roads (not much choice) this causes incredible mind blowing traffic jams.
At the same time, people who stay behind in Jakarta get to enjoy Jakarta for one week without the usual traffic jams, without the excessive pollution. Idul Fitri, besides the fact that it stands for reunions, family bonds, friendship and forgiveness, it also stands for excesses in traffic, and not only on the roads.
Just three days ago I wrote a post about the seemingly lack of real fighting spirit in the Indonesian startup scene. The lack of discussions and the lack of telling it straight, like it is. Well, for starters it quickly became the most read post on SangatPedas, for whatever that’s worth and but it didn’t get the desired effect, up until yesterday. Continue Reading →
August 17th 1945 is a day that the people of Indonesia celebrate the end of a long period of oppression and foreign occupation. After the bankruptcy of the Dutch East-India Company (VOC) Indonesia became a Dutch colony under the name Dutch East-India.
I’m Dutch and I know that Dutch people knowing and talking about this period often tend to downplay the situation with arguments like “We developed Indonesia” or “We brought Indonesia many technologies and lots of knowledge especially in agriculture” and so on. Now that might be true but conveniently some ‘details’ are left out. First, any colonisation and oppression is wrong and an act of war. Second, the war fought in f.i. Aceh was brutal at the cost of many lives of Indonesian and the establishment of concentration camps in Papua New Guinea are a dark page in both the Indonesian and Dutch history. One thing that’s still inexcusable is that in later history books used at schools in Holland there’s hardly any mention of the suffering we put on the people of Indonesia. On top of that the Dutch occupation was followed by a Japanese oppression which cost the lives of between 2,500,000 and 4,000,000 Indonesians.
Indonesian Startups have become more and more the focus of attention of VC because the Indonesian Internet market is booming! Well, at least that’s what the world is saying and in terms of Internet users and potential that’s fairly accurate. Consequently in rapid pace a pretty big startup scene has arose in Indonesia, mainly young people inspired by te successes of giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter. Full of passion and ambition one by one they’ve launched or preparing to launch their social media platform, e-commerce site, street directory, real estate directory, clothing shop or whatsoever.
Both foreign and local investors have taken their positions or will do so soon so you could say all ingredients are there for some huge successes. But apparently there’s something lacking, that’s not me saying but the consumer. So far the Internet is dominated by the usual foreign suspects except some big media companies, a forum, some portals, banks and a classified site. All of these so far successful local players are already long time operating and from that perspective can’t be classified as startup anymore. And when going further down in the Alexa ranking for Indonesia it’s pretty shocking to see the long time lack of any fast movers.
I’ve almost come to the end of a five day holiday on Bali and things we’re pretty much as usual: no hot water, the refrigerator was broke, the most crappy Internet, no TV and the mosquito’s sucked about a pint of blood out of me. But still, I love this place where you live outside, where even if you work everyday feels like a holiday. It’s now that I realize what a privileged person I am to have lived on this island fo two years and being able to come back here for some R&R.
Anyway, today it’s Waisak and since I owe this holiday to that it’s no more than appropriate to Wiki in what exactly Waisak is. Well, it seems it’s more commonly known under the name Vesak and it encompasses the birth, enlightenment (nirvāna), and passing away (Parinirvāna) of Gautama Buddha. And while browsing some more on this topic I stumbled upon Borobudur, an 8th-century Mahayana Buddhist monument near Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia.
All the most popular Indonesian websites in the most booming emerging markets in the world. Compiled in a Top 20 by SangatPedas, the most authoritative source in Indonesia, or even in the world!
Indonesia is home to 240 mln people, making it one of the most attractive emerging markets in the Internet industry. Guesstimates tell us there are 15 mln people connecting to the Internet through fixed connections and another 25 mln. access the Internet through their mobile. Indonesia is the country where Internet is sold under the name “Facebook” and many people still don’t know that when they have access to Facebook they have access to the whole Internet.
I’m not so much into responding to posts of other bloggers but in this case I would like to make an exception. Last week I read an post written by Funcrowds’ founder Andre Siregar titled “Startup Indonesia: kurang orisinal?“. He wrote this article based on the fact that 9 startup entrepreneurs pitched their business to several VC and all the startups were basically localized clones. What I didn’t like about Andre’s post is that it’s tendentious because he only asks the question without giving his own opinion and just quotes Ryo Umezawa, director of venture capitalists J-Seed Ventures. So I think Andre has raised an interesting question but failed to shed some light on that question or simply didn’t want to burn his fingers on answering that question.
So allow me to share my opinion on this topic, does the Indonesian startup scene lack originality?
Yep, when some guys from the country of molded cheese decide it’s ok, cool and just normal to steal 10.000′s of pages of content from classified sites that actually worked hard(!) an invested money to get this far, I get upset, really upset. But I stay polite and just tell them in my best french: “Faut péter dans l’eau pour faire des bulles” which to my understanding means “have a nice day”.
For the rest I would say enjoy the totally unrelated, off-topic, nothing-to-do-with-this video which doesn’t necessarily express my own opinion or feelings…… Btw, the video is courtesy of Youtube, South Park Studios and Comedy Central. Now, you see? That isn’t so difficult to just follow netiquette and mention the source, comprendre??!!!!
Already Indonesia is a country where mobile Internet relatively to the total Internet users is the highest in South East Asia and one of the highest in the world. But still the total Internet penetration of just 21% in Indonesia is the lowest in SEA. According to Nielsen’s upcoming Southeast Asia Digital Consumer Report already 48% of all Internet users in Indonesia use a mobile phone to access the Internet. Considering that Indonesia is an archipelago which comprises around 18.000 islands this is not really surprising for obvious reasons.
Idul Fitri, a time of family bonds, reunion with old friends, forgiveness and a fresh start. Idul Fitri, the time of year that Indonesia nearly comes to a complete stop. Everyone packs their bags, jumps on their bike or in the car and heads to their hometown for a yearly reunion with family and friends. Because they pretty much do that at the same time and over the same roads (not much choice) this causes incredible mind blowing traffic jams.
Just three days ago I wrote a post about the seemingly lack of real fighting spirit in the 
August 17th 1945 is a day that the people of Indonesia celebrate the end of a long period of oppression and foreign occupation. After the bankruptcy of the Dutch East-India Company (
Indonesian Startups have become more and more the focus of attention of VC because the Indonesian Internet market is booming! Well, at least that’s what the world is saying and in terms of Internet users and potential that’s fairly accurate. Consequently in rapid pace a pretty big startup scene has arose in Indonesia, mainly young people inspired by te successes of giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter. Full of passion and ambition one by one they’ve launched or preparing to launch their social media platform, e-commerce site, street directory, real estate directory, clothing shop or whatsoever.
I’ve almost come to the end of a five day holiday on Bali and things we’re pretty much as usual: no hot water, the refrigerator was broke, the most crappy Internet, no TV and the mosquito’s sucked about a pint of blood out of me. But still, I love this place where you live outside, where even if you work everyday feels like a holiday. It’s now that I realize what a privileged person I am to have lived on this island fo two years and being able to come back here for some R&R.
All the most popular Indonesian websites in the most booming emerging markets in the world. Compiled in a Top 20 by SangatPedas, the most authoritative source in Indonesia, or even in the world!
I’m not so much into responding to posts of other bloggers but in this case I would like to make an exception. Last week I read an post written by Funcrowds’ founder Andre Siregar titled “Startup Indonesia: kurang orisinal?“. He wrote this article based on the fact that 9 startup entrepreneurs pitched their business to several VC and all the startups were basically localized clones. What I didn’t like about Andre’s post is that it’s tendentious because he only asks the question without giving his own opinion and just quotes Ryo Umezawa, director of venture capitalists J-Seed Ventures. So I think Andre has raised an interesting question but failed to shed some light on that question or simply didn’t want to burn his fingers on answering that question.