Q&A with Wildfire: Singapore VC Association’s Most Innovative Company 2011

Wildfire Pte Ltd, a Singapore Word-of-Mouth Marketing company with operations in China, received the Most Innovative Company Award 2011 in the Interactive Digital Media category from the Singapore Venture Capital Association (SVCA) at the annual Gala Dinner event two weeks ago.

SGE wrote about Wildfire (XingXingHuo in Mandarin) before (exactly one year ago!) when they received their Series A.

A few days ago at the TechVenture 2011 Gala Dinner, I happened to sit next to one of the founders, Christoph Zrenner. We got talking and here we catch up on their progress. Read more

Soon, Twitter will allow you to track your tweets and links

For marketers and firms who want to test the effectiveness of their social media marketing campaigns, tools like Bitly and Google Analytics have been crucial in gauging success.

Now, Twitter wants to get into the analytics space too, and it will be rolling a Twitter Web Analytics feature over the next few weeks, reported GigaOM. Read more

Branding: More than just the logo

There is no doubt the Singapore government is encouraging its citizens to be creative,which is why they are supporting the creative industry by every means possible.

For instance, it was shocking (at least to me) to see ads that are provocative towards competitors in the local scene, or ads that contain literal (and limited graphical) notions of sexuality in their artwork and messages. Read more

Now, even Manchester United loves Mamee

All kids in Singapore and Malaysia know and love Mamee Monster, the famous salty and crunchy noodle snack with a blue monster mascot. The product is certainly ubiquitous with childhood in this part of the world, comparable to Chupa Chups lollipops.

Photo: Mamee Monster (left) and Mister Potato (right).

So I was excited to know that the guests for the Augest 12 session of the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Week would be Datuk Pang Tee Chew, CEO of Mamee Double Decker and his son Vuitton Pang, who is the company’s business development manager. Read more

Singapore’s top 30 business brands on Facebook

Today, Facebook is an essential tool in any marketer’s arsenal. Which is why we decided to feature a list of top 30 Facebook Pages by businesses. The brands in this continuously-updated list are ranked according to the number of ‘likes’ and must be either a) companies started in Singapore b) companies started by Singaporeans c) international brands with a Singapore Facebook Page. Read more

Smaato launches new SDKs that enables rich media ads on mobile platforms

Mobile ad optimizer and mobile advertising company Smaato announced yesterday the launch of new SDKs that support rich media ads on mobile phones and tablets. The SDKs enable application developers to build more interactive banner and full-page ads in new formats. Read more

Saverin-backed ADZ aims to reshape advertising industry

Nestled within the F11 incubator space at the gleaming Fusionopolis building, engineers from advertising solutions company ADZ are hard at work refining a product which they hope could change the way advertising campaigns are run.

Walking past the spacey office shared between a few technology startups, we ventured into a meeting room, where ADZ founder/CEO Reza Behnam and systems technologist Thomas Gorissen are sitting. Taking time out of their busy schedules, they explained to SGE how their product works.

“Imagine iTunes, where buyers can search for the music they want and buy it. We’re doing something similar for the advertising industry, where we’re aggregating advertising impressions and allowing buyers to buy from a variety of publishers’ ad inventory,” says Reza. Read more

Have Your Own PR News Room With MyNewsDesk

Swedish news exchange site, Mynewsdesk has opened its first office outside Europe and its first in Asia. Founded in 2003 and acquired by media giant NHST in 2008, Mynewsdesk enables startups to have “a modern PR service to better connect with journalists and key opinion leaders”. Read more

PHOTOS! Singapore At SXSW 2011 – Part 2

South by Southwest (SXSW) was a BLAST. If you haven’t, you should check out my pictures in part one on SGE.

This yearly conference saw Music, Film and Interactive people descend upon Austin, Texas in the US for two weeks of panels, meetups, day parties (with beer), night parties (with beer x 10) and drunken networking revelry.

I was there to check out the conference, stalk the Singapore delegation, meet old friends and make new ones.

So let’s start with… Read more

PHOTOS! Singapore At SXSW 2011 – Part 1

SXSW 2011 is over. About 20K people from all over the world descended upon Austin, Texas (USA) for two weeks to experience the Music, Film and Interactive South by Southwest festivals.

This year was the first year that our tiny city state of Singapore had an official presence at SXSW Interactive (technology). Made possible by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) (the CIO of Singapore government), SXSWi saw several of our startups exhibit and pitch there.

SXSW has grown in breadth, depth and number of attendees over the past 25 years: check out this cool infographic. This year was my first time there, as with most of the Singapore delegation. Here are some photos! Gorge yourselves. (Part 2 here.) Read more