Rocket Internet, a German company well-known for their ability to clone thriving businesses and execute it in other geographical markets, have launched a Pinterest clone called Pinspire, reported Daily Social.

Not exactly an inspiring name, but Rocket Internet is not known for being original either. What’s unique about them though, is how fast they are able to copy a business idea and get it up and running in no time.

Pinspire, which, like Pinterest, is an online bulletin board that enables users to bookmark and collect images from anywhere on the Internet, has been launched globally, including the Southeast Asian countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Vietnam.

Their decision to copy Pinterest isn’t exactly a surprising choice. According to comScore, Pinterest is the fastest growing independent website in the US to hit ten million unique monthy unique visits.

This latest revelation sheds further light on Rocket Internet’s warpath in Southeast Asia. Last month, I broke the news that Rocket Internet has already launched a fashion e-commerce site called Zalora.com in Malaysia. The site has since launched in Singapore.

They are also going into the furniture and online food takeaway business.

Successful companies that they’ve already invested in include: OZON.ru, an Amazon-like website, BigLion, a daily deals site, and ivi, an online video site.

They also operate a separate fund called RTP Ventures, that focuses on US investments.

In Southeast Asia, they have already funded MJ Group, a Vietnamese e-commerce platform. They are looking at the Indian market next.

The Russian firm hopes to pump in around US$5 to 20M in a single transaction, focusing on startups that have already gone pass the seed round and operate in the areas of online travel, e-commerce, entertainment, and social gaming.

Right now, they have Digital Media Partners, a VC firm in the emerging markets in Southeast Asia, as a regional partner.

Just recently, they launched a pilot program in Singapore’s train stations to allow locals to purchase Valentine’s Day gifts at discount using QR codes, reported AllThingsD.

To purchase a gift, commuters would need to download a QR code reader on their mobile phones to scan the right spot on the poster. They will be brought to a webpage where they can purchase the product using PayPal. The experiment is being run on 15 subway stations in Singapore.

PayPal’s initiative follows a similar move by Cold Storage supermarket during the Christmas season last year, in which they offered groceries like Christmas ham to commuters at a couple of train stations.

Both programs are likely inspired by supermarket chain Tesco in South Korea, which is apparently the one that started the whole trend.

While Tesco reportedly received positive results and increased sales because of their virtual stores, it’s unclear if Cold Storage experienced a significant boost as a result of their experiment.

Although QR codes have frequently been dismissed as a gimmick and a passing fad, it’s more likely that the technology will see niche usage among marketers, who are still figuring out how to use it effectively.

It is also competing with even more advanced technology like NFC, which many believe will herald the new age of mobile payments. But NFC is unlikely to supplant QR codes completely, since both have different use cases.

PayPal appears to understand this well. It is putting its eggs in many baskets, investing in NFC for its Android app, and also working with Home Depot in the United States on a small point-of-sales trial.

Check out the video about PayPal’s Valentine’s Day special in Singapore:

More epic stuff about QR codes:

Ten QR code sins to avoid
QropIt hopes to take QR code implementation to the next level
Good and bad examples of QR code implementation (from Facebook)

Philippines telecom operator Globe has partnered with Singapore counterpart SingTel to bring MyAppsMall, a cross-platform mobile app store, to Globe prepaid and postpaid subscribers in the Philippines, reported ABS-CBN.

The app store contains over 20,000 free and paid apps, which includes categories like games, social networks, Internet browsers, lifestyle, news, entertainment, and more. The app can be accessed via a web browser on both PC and mobile.

Being cross-platform, the app store contains content for Android, Symbian, Java, and BlackBerry devices. It serves as an additional platform for developers, especially Filipino ones, to create, distribute, and monetize their apps internationally.

SingTel has made the app store available outside the Philippines.

Customers of Globe and other SingTel affiliates can pay for content via operator billing, which means expenses incurred on the app store are charged directly to their monthly mobile bill.

Network subscribers outside the SingTel Group can still buy content from the app store, but they’ll have to use their credit cards.

MyAppsMall is billed as an initiative to promote Filipino talent to the international market by giving them an extra distribution channel for their works. In crowded marketplaces like Apple’s App Store and Android’s Marketplace, it can be hard for new app developers to get their content noticed.

More epic stuff:

5 trends that will shape the app world
S’pore-based company offers glimpse of future with HTML5 game Dollar Isle

The founders, Tham Keng Yew and Eileen Feng, recently shared in a press release some tips regarding how companies can expand regionally.

Bearing in mind the limited resources that SMEs and start-ups have, here are the four guiding principles:

1. First-priority region: Which target market could give you a strong competitive edge? Cost of expansion? Who are your competitors over there? Price point? Why should your potential buyers switch over to you?
2. Anchor buyers: Who do you need to get on your side in order to verify your business model in that country?
3. Relevant introductions: Let professional business matchmakers help you find potential buyers and introduce you to them. An introduction made by a trustworthy matchmaker could be the key to being on your buyer’s radar.
4. Meet your buyers to close the deal: In order to make your overseas trip worthwhile, you can participate in an international trade show with a business matching program. Invite your potential buyers to meet you there.

Keng Yew, CEO of Singapore-based Socialwalk, emphasized again the importance of professional matchmakers, which allows entrepreneurs to “jump the queue” when seeking buyers. Socialwalk can play such a role.

A senior sales executive from Clean Air & Fluid System in Malaysia, one “Mr Akram”, used Socialwalk when he were in Jakerta. He claimed he was able to get more partners and clients that way.

Socialwalk is also in talks with key Chinese trade show organizers and export-ready companies to provide their buyer-seller matching services.

From Valentine’s Day to 28th February 2012, Socialwalk is offering export-ready companies with an introduction to a relevant buyer. If you’re curious, send your contact details to eileen@socialwalk.com, with “Subject : I am ready to expand overseas”.

More epic content that’s related:

Interview with PropertyGuru CEO Steve Melhuish on how he expanded overseas.
A look at countries that tax your company to death, and those that don’t.

The founder, Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin, a former Navy officer, said: “Southeast Asia is close to our door and has lots of support from the Singapore Government and other governments, and larger corporates. We want to be part of that.”

He added that a US presence will be established in San Francisco. Both locations will be formally launched simultaneously, and all the incubators will eventually be linked via video-conferencing.

BlueChilli also plans to launch a new start-up every month. In the works is GiggedIN, a site that gives musicians a new way to book gigs, and RenterFixer, a tool for real estate managers to streamline the process of fixing broken appliances or utilities.

Sebastien said that his incubator’s approach is different from other tech businesses. It focuses on getting the business model right before looking at the technological solution, while many start-ups work the other way around.

(1) The Nomura Research Institute says that Japan’s social gaming market will likely be worth 393.5 billion yen (US$5.1 billion) in fiscal year 2016, roughly doubling in size when compared with 2011.

(2) Ad agency Hakuhodo’s Future Technology Works department has come up with a new app that controls your dreams. The Yumemiru (translated as ‘see the dream’) app lets users select different scenarios to dream about. It influences your dreams while you snooze by broadcasting sounds.

(3) Square Enix can be satisfied with the performance of Final Fantasy Brigade, the first social game based on the classic RPG series. The title has hit 500,000 registered players, 13 days after launch on Mobage on January 7th. In another news, Emblem Of The Gods, a social card battle game DeNA launched on Mobage last November, has racked up 500,000 users.

(4) A Social Game Academy will be launched this April, the beginning of the fiscal year for many Japanese companies. It will be located in Roppongi Hills in Tokyo’s Minato ward.

(5) Japan’s biggest real-identity social network Mixi and Mobage operator DeNA have announced an e-commerce partnership. The companies are in the process of setting up an online shopping service for Mixi members that’s scheduled to start in late March this year.

(6) Konami announced the launch of Star Wars Collection for GREE, a social game based on the movie.

(7) CyberAgent CEO Susumu Fujita said his company is ready to open the Ameba platform on smartphones for third-party developers in May this year.

(8) Shin Sengoku Buster, a “historic” social game developed by Tokyo-based social game maker Klab, has hit one million users. Klab started offering the game in March last year, first on Mobage for feature phones.

(9) DeNA is striking back in the ongoing lawsuit with GREE. To recap, in November 2011, GREE sued their rival, seeking damages of US$13 million.

(10) Sangokushi Kingdom, a social card battle game (again), racked up a total of two million registered users on GREE. The first-party game was launched on GREE for feature phones in September 2011, when the company was exhibiting at the Tokyo Game Show.

We thank nordicfactory for the flag image.

(1) PT Kompas CyberMedia, the company behind Kompas.com, announced an investment in city directory startup Urbanesia.com.

(2) Metro TV officially announced (via Twitter) that they have released a mobile application for Android platform and it is available for free on Android Market.

(3) Plasa CEO Iriana Muadz has officially resigned a few weeks ago. Iriana officially took the CEO hat since March 2011, together with COO Widi Nugroho.

(4) At the end of 2011, the Blaast mobile platform began to open access for general users, especially  low-end mobile users (Nokia, etc). Although Blaast only did a soft launch of their beta version, it has reportedly been downloaded more than 10,000 times, with the majority of them coming from Indonesia.

(5) Following their acquisition by LivingSocial  in June 2011, Dealkeren has rebranded itself as LivingSocial Indonesia. Their website has changed from DealKeren.com to LivingSocial.co.id.

(6) Despite the large number of generic Chinese phones flooding the Indonesian market, PT Industri Telekomunikasi Indonesia (INTI), a state-owned enterprise, will be forging ahead with plans to release its own brand of Android smartphones.

(7) Cabara.co.id is a local Internet service that offers a booking service for helper/assistant/informal workers (maids, baby sister, chauffeur, nanny, office boy, office girl, etc.). It is still in beta, and some features aren’t available yet.

(8) Go Indonesia, a local travel site, seems to be getting a lot of attention on the Internet. Its motto reads: “The real and The First Online Travel Agent in Indonesia”.

(9) Bhinneka has been the dominant e-commerce site for gadgets for a long time. Recently however, they’re finally getting a new competitor namely JuraganGadget, that just launched in Jakarta few weeks ago.

(10) East Ventures officially announced two more startups that they’re working with. They are: Inapay and Jajalindo.

(11) Huawei Tech Investment was appointed as a partner of PT XL Axiata to manage its mobile network for the next seven years. The designation is based on Huawei’s experience in managing the network and the ability to provide assurance that the XL network services will remain reliable.

(12) idblogNetwork, a local ad program aimed at bloggers, will launch a new feature that allows advertisers the option to work on a pay-per-sale or pay-per-lead basis. Advertisers will only pay based on the number of items sold with a referral program that is owned by idBlogNetwork.

(13) Tiket.com is finally accepting payments via credit card. Tiket.com claims that their payment system uses the best technology to detect fraud.

(14) Location-based service, Yotomo, released the latest version of their service for BlackBerry and Android. Yotomo uses Foursquare’s location data to bolster its own service.

(15) Content filtering service Tandif has now officially entered beta stage. The startup offers a way for website owners to filter text-based user generated content such as forum posts, SMS, and emails. It is now available to the public.

(16) Hackerspace Bandung (HackerspaceBDG) has shifted their location.

(17) Several days ago, Telkomsel has formed a cooperation with PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) to launch the Tap-Izy service, which facilitates the purchasing of Prambanan Express (Prameks) train tickets. Tap-Izy can be used in Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Solo.

(18) Three Indonesian developers have been selected as finalists in the global Create 4 Millions competition. There are four major categories in the competition and each has 10-11 finalists.

(19) Akamai — a company that deals with Internet content delivery to end-users — has confirmed that Indonesia has become the “champion” of Internet crime.

This has been brought to you by SGE and DailySocial. DailySocial is a blog that covers the Indonesian tech startup scene. They publish in both Indonesian and English.

It was not a happy year for big bookstores.

In August and September 2011, Borders closed both its outlets in Wheelock Place and Parkway Parade. In October, Computer Book Centre, at Funan IT Mall, followed suit, becoming an exclusively online business.

More bad news followed in December: Home-grown book retailer Page One announced that it will close its store in VivoCity on 19th February this year in VivoCity due to high rentals. The company has been incurring major losses since its opening in 2006.

The trend continued this year, when Harris Bookstore, which is owned by Popular Holdings, told the press that its Great World City outlet will cease operating, coincidentally, on 19th February. High rentals, again, was to blame.

Harris is now left with one outlet in 313@Somerset, after the company’s Jurong Point bookstore shuttered for good in 2011.

The rate of closure of bookstores recently has been startling. That’s six stores in seven months.

But while the stated reason has been the unforgiving rentals, I suspect it’s masking the true cause — their revenue just isn’t enough to cushion any spike in rentals. The profit margins, it seems, just isn’t what it used to be.

While it’s difficult to determine whether the Internet and the increasing popularity of e-books have directly resulted in the declining sales of physical books, I can safely say that the golden age for mass book retailers has long passed.

Why waste two hours making a trip down to a bookstore when I can easily find what I want on Amazon and get it shipped to my house? Why carry ten books around when I can store a hundred on my iPad?

Physical books will never go extinct, that’s for sure. Just like how radio stations are continuing to exist today in spite of the television and the Internet. Some people will always prefer the experience of flipping through a physical book. But this group is a diminishing breed.

Meanwhile, small, independent bookstores seem to be hanging on. What a turnaround from more than decade ago, when movies like You’ve Got Mail portrayed independent bookstores as being threatened by retail giants.

In Singapore, small book retailers like BooksActually, Woods in the Books, and The Pigeonhole continue to draw a cult following. BooksActually has even experienced a 30 percent sales increase since last year, the owner told The New Paper.

But as consumers continually warm to the idea of e-books, online retailers, and their obvious benefits, will independent bookstores eventually come under threat too?

How these small businesses innovate is key.

The Pigeonhole’s business model may possess some answers. It does much more than sell books — it bills itself as a multi-use space for holding events and dining in. It’s a place that provides a cosy environment for people to eat and network, thereby addressing a fundamental need. These activities can never be totally replaced by the Internet, not for the foreseeable future.

BooksActually is adopting a different strategy to stay afloat. Instead of just stocking books, it has positioned itself as an important facilitator for the growth of the Singapore literary scene. It provides a venue for events like writing workshops and also acts as a publisher of local works.

The company also stocks eclectic items and memorabilia which brings to consumers a sense of nolstagia. I remember visiting an outlet once and coming across vintage Pez dispensers and “country erasers”, which has doubled as a childhood game that is popular among boys.

The pleasant experience of browsing the store and discovering these little delights is an intangible element that online retailers can’t quite duplicate. In a country where important landmarks are frequently bulldozed over, BooksActually provides customers a sense of rootedness to an increasingly murky past.

What is clear is that physical bookstores that only serve the utilitarian function of selling books will not do well in the digital age. If browsing is all customers want to do, they’d might as well do it online with a web browser and the search button.

Therefore, modern book retailers must think harder about how to entice customers to their stores. Just “selling stuff” doesn’t quite cut it anymore.

Kinokuniya, Times, and MPH should consider themselves warned.

Photo: Chicago Geek

Buildings that are connected to the network includes: Suntec Office Towers, HarbourFront Centre, Shaw House and Shaw Centre. The announcement was made by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) in a press release issued last week.

This initiative could eventually be a boon to tech startups, serving as a catalyst for research and development as well as innovation in the interactive digital media and creative industries.

To help occupants and the public identify which commercial buildings are connected to the Next Gen NBN, IDA will roll out the Fibre Ready! Mark for non-residential buildings.

Said IDA’s CEO Ronnie Tay: “Today, we have 12 service providers offering more than 40 fibre connection packages to cater for both residential and enterprise needs. However, not all enterprises are aware if their premises are fibre ready. With the Fibre Ready! Mark for buildings which have been connected to the Next Gen NBN, enterprises located in those buildings can be kept informed and therefore prepare their premises to be powered by Next Gen NBN.”

Residents too have been signing up for the program. IDA hopes that by mid-2012, 95 percent of homes and offices would be connected to the network.

Has your company been help or hindered in some way by the Next Gen NBN? Share your story with us!