What the hell happened to Yahoo! Messenger?

By Michael Smith, chief product officer at Spuul and former director of global tech initiatives at Yahoo!. Republished with permission from his blog.

Watching and reading all this stuff happening around chat, games and platforms reminds me of my final, unfinished project, at Yahoo!.

I will admit I don’t use WhatsApp – I just think it is a shitty app but it looks like some people use it. I do use Path cause all my family and most of my close friends use it – therefore it is a nice way to stay in touch, post pics and share what we are all up to. I don’t add many people to Path to keep it simple and useful. Their new chat stuff is okay but still too slow and not super chat friendly. However I think they are moving in an interesting direction that will bear fruit in Asia but not sure everywhere else.

My girlfriend invited me to Line and we use it for chat sometimes and I have been checking out the games – mostly to examine the viral mechanics and such. Line is killing it.

All in all there is much activity in the chat arena. New MessageMe (TiA calling MessageMe a copycat is somewhat comical but that is fodder for anotherpost) on the block, Google with Babble and I am sure there are many other examples. For some reason the space is hot and it has products like Line with huge user bases and what I am guessing is also a decent amount of revenue. Read more

Yahoo! kills Koprol after massive layoffs in Indonesia

Come 28th August 2012, Koprol will be no more. Indonesian tech blog DailySocial has reported that Yahoo!, which acquired the Indonesian location-based social networking startup in 2009, is shutting down the service.

The news comes three months after Yahoo! fired about 80 percent of its technical development team in Indonesia, DailySocial added.  Read more

Japan Digest: Tees made from recycled uniforms, telco acquires stake in augmented reality firm, and more

Here are some interesting startup news from Japan, not only from its capital, Tokyo, but also other startup hubs like Fukuoka, Kyoto, Osaka, and many more. Read more

China Digest: Douban series C funding rumor, Wei Search and more

Here are some interesting startup news from China, not only in its capital, Beijing, but also other startup hubs such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, Hangzhou, and many more. Read more

Indonesia Digest – 29 Jul

Here you can find some interesting startup news from Indonesia, not only in its capital, Jakarta, but also other their tech startup hubs such as Yogyakarta, Medan, Surabaya, and many more. These listed news are taken from our partner, DailySocial, a leading blog on Indonesia’s tech startup scene. 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

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

The Garag3 Innovation Friday (TGIF) – 27 May

Aarti Gumaledar from Yahoo! Corporate Development team will be here to share Yahoo!’s interest in investing and acquiring potential start-ups. Following are the event details. Read more

Chillin’ With Scott Rafer, Christine Songco, Steve Russell – 10 Feb

We’ll be chilling this Thursday with serial entrepreneur Scott Rafer of MyBlogLog (sold to Yahoo!), Lookery, Omniar; Google geek/developer relations Christine Songco Lau and video security expert, Steve Russell of 3VR Security.

When: Thursday 10th February 2011
Time: 7pm
Where: The Merry Men, 86 Robertson Quay, #01-02
(below Robertson Blue condo, opposite river from River View Hotel)

Register here.

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If you’re looking for a real-time Q&A solution for your event, check out PigeonHole Live. The team at PigeonHole has kindly agreed to allow event organisers who quote SGEntrepreneurs to get to use their solution for free till end June 2011.

TWIA #62: O Smithy, Where art thou?

Yes, everyone is checking out on Smithy’s location these days. Yet, the news of the week from TenCube being acquired by McAfee to Google’s foray into China & Japan dominated the Asian landscape for web and tech. The TWIA crew starts off their chat about the future of Android in China & thoughts on the future of Southeast Asia tech scene with Daniel coining his term “Silicon Straits”. Of course, you won’t want to miss our crew’s famous discussion on “who wants to guess how much this company is acquired for”. You can go directly to TWIA website or listen the podcast here in SGEntrepreneurs. Read more

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