iTunes store arrives at 12 Asian countries, lets users buy music and movies

Starting from today, consumers in 12 Asian countries can finally purchase local and international music, as well as rent or purchase movie from the iTunes store.

These countries are: Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.  Read more

That thing you (forget to) do part 2: Product marketing

Recently, I was invited by the incubator JFDI.Asia to deliver a talk entitled “That Thing You (Forget to) Do” (inspired loosely from Tom Hanks’ movie “That Thing You Do”) on best practices of product development, management & marketing. Following up from part one, this article focuses on two fundamental aspects of product marketing: distribution and public relations. Read more

65Bits #180: We Love To Queue

Our friends at Tech65 starts off this week with their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape with their thoughts [1] Official: HTC rolling out Android 2.2, 720p video, iTunes sync to unlocked Euro Desires this weekend, [2] HP Won’t Make Any Windows Phone 7 Devices, [3] Apple starts patenting mobile app ideas, [4] StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty – 12 Years of Wait – StarCraft II : Wings of Liberty, [5] iPhone 4 and 3 Mid-night Launches, [6] RSVP to Tech65 Party 2010. Note that the Tech65 are catching up with editing and publishing new episodes for listeners and do bear with them. Do click and check out their latest podcast here (and they jump forward 3 episodes this time). You can now also listen to the Tech65 podcast here as well by coming to the blog post directly. Read more

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65Bits Episode 159: What will Apple ban next week?

Our friends at Tech65 starts off this week with their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape: [1] Apple Sues HTC For Infringing On 20 iPhone Patents, [2] Apple yanks Wi-Fi detectors from iTunes, [3] Microsoft: “No Windows Phone 7 upgrade for Windows Mobile 6.x devices”, [4] Nokia N900 and [5] Norton 360 V4.0. Do click and check out their latest podcast here. You can now also listen to the Tech65 podcast here as well by coming to the blog post directly. Read more

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Laylio from Radioactive: Radio for the iPhone

Radioactive is a Singapore based company which recently develop a proprietary streaming platform that allows users to get broadcast quality radio into the mobile phone. They have launched their first product, Laylio, an iPhone app which allows anyone to tune to their favourite radio stations in Singapore. We review their latest product Laylio (which has been the number 1 download app on iTunes store for a couple of weeks) and thought that you want to check out this interesting product which was launched a month ago. Read more

The Chronicles of a Mobile Web Economy

You have probably read the recent article “A Guide for Mobile-Web Developers to Smartphone Apps Stores” which was partly inspired from a talk I presented at 16th Infocomm & Media Horizons, Genexis Theatre, Fusionopolis on 7 Oct. Ever since the launch of the iPhone, the iTunes platform has brought together the mobile and web developers into the same space of development. How does the developer navigate in such a space filled with apps stores: Apple iTunes Store, Nokia Ovi Store, Google Android Market, BlackBerry (RIM) Apps World and Microsoft Windows Marketplace? This talk addresses the trends and observations in the current market (mobile & web penetration, user usage on both mobile and web), and seeks to provide a perspective as to where the roadmap for the mobile-web economy will head towards. It also talks about the three main lessons which developers should learn about the ecosystem.
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A Guide for Mobile-Web Developers to Smartphone Apps Stores

With the emergence of the iPhone, new opportunities emerge with the long tail economy for the mobile-web entrepreneurs and developers with respect to the mobile smartphone apps store. While there is a choice for a lot of mobile-web development platforms from Google Android to iPhone OS 3.0, most developers are not sure about the market reach, coverage and how many devices that their apps can reach to. Here is a guide on the 5 most well-known mobile-webs store: Apple iTunes Store, Nokia Ovi Store, Google Android Market, BlackBerry (RIM) Apps World and Microsoft Windows Marketplace. Read more

King Kong and App Distribution

Fresh from receiving updates on Nokia’s Ovi app store in Kuala Lumpur last week, this geek is now hearing about the launch of the Intel Atom Developer Program (IADP) in the Intel Developer Forum 2009 in San Francisco. An Intel netbook app store will be launched soon in conjuction with IADP.

From the initial groan of hearing about more app stores, this geek concludes that app stores should be the way forward as we move towards the attention economy. To quote something I heard at Nokia One Connected World conference in Kuala Lumpur last week, “if content is King, then distribution is King Kong!”

Well, our dear friend “King Kong” has to evolve as distribution models have changed drastically in this day and age. As compared to developers trying to market and distribute their apps all by themselves with limited resources, they can now Read more

65bits Episode 79: Now in Low Quality!

Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: (1) Creative launches the ZEN X-Fi with Wireless LAN, (2a) The Singapore iTunes Store is live! Sort of… – Side story: (2b) SquareEnix’s Song Summoner RPG for the iPod Classic and iPod Nano, (3) The International iPhone Launch. What will ours be like?, (4) Seagate comes up with new 1.5 terabyte hard drives, (5) Xbox 360’s Mid-range console receives further price drops. What is Maxsoft doing with the Wii?!?, (6) Konami lodges patent suite against Harmonix, MTV over Rock band, (7) Google launches their own Second Life called Lively and finally, the Byte Of The Week: Evernote: Remember Everything. Do click and check out their podcast.