How GameMaki came back from the brink to become a blueprint for Singapore’s startups

Startups in Singapore are caught in a bind. While located in the heart of Asia, the city has a minuscule domestic market and is surrounded by countries with varying levels of internet adoption.

Developed economies like Japan and South Korea, while tech-savvy, pose language challenges. China, meanwhile, plays by its own set of rules. US and Europe aren’t a walk in the park either.

Nonetheless, Singapore-based startups aiming at developed markets do have several possible paths to pursue.

Gamemaki offers one blueprint. It looks like a Silicon Valley style startup on the surface. Its most visible product is a mobile social network where denizens earn points for completing fun, real-life challenges. Not exactly a certain money maker. Read more

Life is just one big game at Demo Asia

There were two major themes in DEMO Asia’s pitch session on social media startups (live blog): gamification and modernizing customer loyalty programs. It’s the battle between start-ups —  those that encourage you to have have fun in your daily life verses those that help you make money.

Keith Ng at GameMaki brought a Angry Bird plushy on stage and challenged the audience to put away their mobile games for real world challenges. He asked the audience to join the game by taking a picture with a DEMO friend and put it up on the GameMaki app, which allows people to see what interesting challenges are taking place around them and easily join in by snapping a picture of the completed activity.

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In Conversation with Keith Ng, co-founder of FAME & Socialico

Are you one of those who are always chasing entertainment news about celebrities? Or, are you someone who prefer to spend the time on the stock exchange to sieve out the most interesting stocks to invest? If you like both, then the Facebook application and game, FAME will be something that you will check out. An interesting application that combines a stock market exchange game and people, FAME, started by two founders, Keith Ng and Damon Widjaja who have worked with each other for the longest time – 7 academic projects before deciding to get into it. Since they have launched the FAME beta on March 2009, they have started talking about their product at tech conferences within Singapore and was a finalist in the FB Fund 2009 (a contest run by Facebook to source for the latest and innovative apps out there). We have managed to catch up with Keith Ng, one of the founders from FAME (under the company Socialico Pte LTD) for an extensive interview, chatting with him about FAME and its features, the tips on how to develop on Facebook Platform and entrepreneurship in general. Read more