Business Info in the IT revolution

After the torpor was, the sites social networking Indonesia mengeliat again. Just look at the success Fupei (Unity program, Friends Especially Indonesia), which encompass 30,000 active members, and the site AkuCintaSekolah.com (ACS) that entrap thousands of students and students in less than a year.



KR Online, Jakarta

Fupei have rocket since May 2004 with digawangi Sanny Ghaddafi, 27 years old, a graduate of the web progammer Bina Nusantara University and Marlinda Yumin, 24 years old, as a system analyst.

A pair of young children is inspired by the success of Friendster in Indonesia. They are interested in the concept of simple and unique Friendster build a successful inter-teman.Tak wonder if the features available in the Fupei follow the trends of development features Friendster. Fupei philosophy "with friends, we're nothing" also senapas social networking site with the largest third world.

Fupei members can discuss music, upload photos and video. Even some of the features in the latest Friendster, such as chat, and mini-flash games, is also available. Applications access the toolbar as a shortcut users can download Internet Explorer, Firefox and other browsers. Fupei list of features is quite long. There are discussion forums, communities, blogs, profiles and links.

Not only in the features, the use of language options Fupei involved the use of local language trends in the use of Google, Yahoo!, And Friendster. Initially Fupei use the English language and Indonesia, now the version of Java language, Sundanese, Betawi and has begun to be developed. Moreover, the quality of closeness with members, Fupei far more superior than Friendster, MySpace or Facebook. Fupei a mainstay events, namely coffee land, in the form of gathering, bazaar, watching movies, social loyalty, to go along.

Coffee land is carried out at least once a month with the average of 50 people. For Sanny and Marlinda, coffee land, other than the first memperat also maintain the loyalty of members. Moreover, the number of active members, including Fupei compared with most other community sites. Moreover, if calculated from the number of registered customers who achieve an 70,000-person.

Growth was initially only member of the 1000 tens of thousands into force Fupei also hosting their own rent. During the first two years, they get free hosting in MasterWeb. Consequently after the Sanny must more personal grope in the pocket to the operational cost at least Rp 4 million per month. Problems funds to become a classic problem for developers in Indonesia. No one had local investors who bid Fupei two years ago. Unfortunately, the investors gave a quote that is too small. Not even sufficient for the monthly operational cost. So rejected.

Later there is the origin of American investors who are interested to buy Fupei. Again they agree decline. The reason, nationalism. Sanny Fupei want to change the money into a bag and the Indonesian people. Finally, they choose to seek funds through advertising and banners. In fact, many parties are interested in advertising on Fupei, such as Indosat, Nokia, Blitz Megaplex, and the committee Abang-None South Jakarta, West Jakarta, North Jakarta and Thousand-Island.

Sanny wonder why no local investors who would fund the Fupei. There is also potential business. This is seen the number of customers in Indonesia these sites, which touches nearly 10 million people. Not yet seen from the number of internet area in the past year have cut through the number 25 million people. If viewed from the side of the technology and features, Fupei clearly not behind the social networking site from foreigners.

According to Sanny, from the technical capabilities, web developers do not lose the quality of Indonesia with foreign developers. Try it through a site built by ACN Agus Saragih, 29 years old, and Christian, 25 years old. The concept of this site is not much different with Facebook. ACN want to be a receptacle of all the people and schools in Indonesia. Both the students, alumni, senior, junior, and fellow teachers across the country.

Design and features of the site was launched on the day of National Education, 2 May 2007 is not less with foreign competitors. Display home page can be personalized with CSS to edit it. Their main features are four, namely People ACS, MyPage (can be filled with photos, video, exchange messages, blogs and bulletin), School of Information (equipped with a database that continues to upgrading at all schools in Indonesia), and Relax Chat.

Other evidence concerning the ability of young people born in Indonesia, also can be seen on the Batara Eto. Men 29 years old in Medan, a large web programmers, this is Mixi, the social networking site popular in Japan. Together Kenji Kasahara, Batara establish Mixi since February 2004. Batara become the chief technology officer (CTO) and Kenji as CEO.

Batara Eto (before moving to become citizens of Japan a year ago called Batara Kesuma) settled in Tokyo after Rockface lecture at the Department of Computer Science Takushoku University, Japan. He began designing Mixi (previously called E Mercury) in December 2003 with the support of various open-source programs such as MySQL, Perl, LAMP, and the Apache webserver. He makes scale-out architecture for Mixi. This design uses many servers and the most common fit for the site of its development rapidly.

One of the key to success is character Mixi community. "To join Mixi must obtain an invitation from the members," Batara said in a seminar, two years ago. Now there are 490,000 community in Mixi. Community members are the place to share opinions and express hobby. The existence of this community in line with the origin of the word mixi, namely Mix (berbaur) and I (I). Community features a unique characteristic of Mixi, which is attracting millions of people. The uniqueness of other sites in Japan, every member get a user ID number.

Since the original, Mixi already features blogs, and there is a window (pane) on the front page that contains a list of blog links all friends concerned. This feature is the new Friendster adopted two years ago. In addition, Mixi is also free of spam, far different from Orkut filled broadcast spam. I wonder if Mixi is enthralling 11 million members, nearly all Japanese people. This figure is far outdo MySpace. Even Yahoo! Japan also less popular with Mixi.

Note peselancar virtual visits in Mixi is also fantastic. Each month, the number of page views (page views) reached 11.75 billion. As a comparison, one of Indonesia's most popular local sites, www.detik.com, "only" recorded 417,000 page views per hour. Note this mixi stockholders in the position of 50 most visited websites according to Alexa, a company pendata traffic website.

From the side of the business Mixi is also very profitable. Since 2006, Mixi is already listed on the stock Tokyo Stock Exchange today. Value of the market capitalization of about U.S. $ 2 billion. Some 80% of the total profits of U.S. $ 9, 6 million came from selling ads. Mixi total income reached U.S. $ 45 million. Of course, Kenji and Batara enjoy the luxury of drawing with the success Mixi. Kenji recorded as the richest person to-37 in Japan takes the wealth of U.S. $ 740 million. Batara release of the crew positions CTO since this year also be a millionaire.

Operation, Batara success can be enjoyed progammer and developers in the country. However, as expressed Sanny, capital and support from local residents and the government is still lacking. "Hence, many who fled abroad," said Sanny. Meanwhile, the government assess the development of the industry TIK Indonesia conducted through the concept of entrepreneurship. According to the Director General on Cahyana Ahmadjayadi, TIK industry as the independence of capital and labor-oriented tools. "Despite the government also help establish a software development center," he said.

Nonetheless, the market TIK national increases from year to year. Data from the research institute IDC noted the number of independent software house in Indonesia will increase to 500 units this year, with the number of professional developers 71,600. However, if viewed from the total number of professional developers worldwide is 13.5 million, the U.S. contributed only 0.5%. The biggest of India (10.5%) and the United States (18.9%). Asia Pacific Region, the largest contributor developer in the world (29.2%), followed by North America (21.7%).

IDC also mentioned, this year the sector to grow TIK will be 81,000 jobs and 1,100 new companies TIK. Software market compared with the total market TIK increased to 11.4% from only about 6% in 2005. The problem is, whether these opportunities can be fully utilized by local developers? Or even taken by the strong players from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. "Markets have seen, so stay to wait for our strategy in the battle," said Satria Wahono facts taken from this site, software engineering researchers from LIPI.

Indeed, geliat facts taken from this site to see the development of local IT content in Indonesia, especially in some sectors. Commercial business on the Internet, both sell goods on the internet or a publisher ad (through Google AdSense, Amazon Affiliate Program, Adbrite, and so forth). Then there is a growing number of user content and knowledge sharing through blogs. Interestingly, Behavior knowledge sharing is done by starting students, young lecturers, researchers, to government officials. Knowledge-sharing communities such as IlmuKomputer.Com and other sectors such as chemicals, metallurgy, social and increasingly rampant.

In the multimedia content and edutainment, developers also show many teeth. Creator-game game is a lot of local circulation. Mobile content, we glow, multimedia, education is also increasingly excited. Products made IlmuKomputer.Com (Brainmatics) have entered into foreign banks, foreign companies, aviation companies, plantation companies, universities, high schools / vocational, educational and TV. Other company also known as the bamboo products are mass media, the Enchantment of Education, Ganesa Exact, and Elex Media compressor.

Ideally, geliat followed up with positive movement proactive government. Especially for a communicator with the parties that requires the software. Protection of the government in progamer developers and local assistance and business capital. "Improved information infrastructure and Internet bandwidth with lower prices so that not more expensive from our neighboring countries," said the facts taken from this site. (Tmn / Slot)