Indonesia ecommerce rank - a dumb review

Ecommerce is not new thing. Back in dawn of this century ( or millenium) early 2000s, internet get strong momentum due to increases of PC user along with improve of hardware and software - mainly user friendliness of Microsoft Windows. Manual office and school works are being converted using so called 'information system'. Webmail and internet portals are the king of internet. Name one. Yahoooooo, you're right.

Some creative people came up idea to bring shopping experience into electronic, so then we were introduce to Ebay, Alibaba (1999) which still big player after almost 15 years later. But more names we only know them as legend and only found in history books. la to name some. And one the Indonesia legend is "www.precision.co.id", first Indonesia professional ecommerce selling IT related stuff. Hello there? Are you still there?

They did not succeed, at least most of it did not made until age 10. Died young. People found they are as not free as go to shopping malls to shop. They have to sit tight on a predifined station which connect to internet to shop. I need to setup modem dial up baut rare to 56.6 kbps in order to just open one page in one minute. Let alone shopping, news reading is still a hassle. After several pages opened, telephone bills start to cause headache. Lot more people cant afford the luxury.

Thanks to mobile telecommunication, the second wave of internet started to pulse.
It bring fresh blood to online activity, especially after mobile technology are become faster and affordable. Second wave of ecommerce is on the raise above horizon. They are actually not born yesterday.  Their seed is in ground awaiting right moment to grow and flourish. Tokopedia founded on 2009. Bukalapak founded on 2010. Lazada founded on 2012. You name it, google will tell you.

Just until recent years, together with improvement of infrastructure from telecommunication, roads and electricity, ecommerce can ride the wave of success. Yes, very basic factor - INFRASTRUCTURE. With good transportation, we can estimate when our package will arrive. With good telecomunication, buyers are keen to check back every few minutes whether any ongoing flash sale. Just ensure to recharge your device when it is low batt, thanks to electricity.

Different class different style
I often make jokes about how ecommerce is being classified. The lowest class is 'Bukalapak'. As a 'lapak' (non-permanent street kiosk) they are often become victim of Satpol PP, civil security force. Middle class we have 'Tokopedia', as they now a Toko, permanent shop or building. At top class we have : Jakmall. Full air-con, nice aisle, luxury shops and fancy restaurant is what we associated with mall. The lesson is : name is very important.

Key to sucess gain customer loyalty  check out decision.
Aggressive promotion accros peer is just to keep up each other, so one doesn't follow will left behind. Next is upgrade site to living platform, which may starts with selling goods now also serving : air ticketing, top up, pay bills, pay anything-you-name-it, hotel, investment, property, used-car, tax, order pizza, complaint about public service, traffic jam, upload video, look for a long lost friend, review a space trip, watch bactery plays. Although some service sound ridiculous for now, but with proper business plan, it can be cash in. But not now.

For now, please focus on : expand seller base to get best price, more product variety, and local shop (and warehouse) to cuts shipping time and cost.
One I need to underline is have a internal police to fight fake seller, good/picture/description doesnt match actual product, crazy cheap laptops, or simply take down those selling iPhone running latest Android.

Be a smart shopper and dont get caught for seller.

Why a three-partied world is so important

Recently we've seen to heat up of mobile operating system competition, involving big names from Google with Android as rising star, Apple iOS with certain fanatic users, and several other with smaller user base, such as RIM's Blackberry, Microsoft Windows Mobile and the blast from the past, Symbian. As market share for those smaller OS is (claimed) declining, perhaps we can say only two OS rule the mobile world now : Android and iOS. These two combined believed have market share up to 80% per 2011, is not a good situation for surround industry, such as wireless provider, application/game developer, and content provider. With big market share, they two can command the direction they wanted. Luckily they seems not get along well, but if they do, mobile world could be theirs with other only supporting role. 

In the past, we've seen  how Zuge Liang with his intelligent insisted a world (although that time only China) with three main ruler. And seems the setting could balanced the ambition and power to rule over other country. And then during cold war, there's initiative to setup new forces to balance it. 

And in Indonesian history, there a three-partied policy proven lasted 3 decades, although it crashed as it actually only one dominant player.

Now, in mobile world, the third player still vacant. No one could claim it now, because of their user base is not significant compared to the two ruler. It's not only Operating system matters, but ecosystem. How surrounding industry supports and user willing to give it a try at the new challenger. In my opinion, the surrounding industry must involve to ensure the third-ecosystem could grow as the other two

For challenger ecosystem, I hope they can, finally, found a way how to synergy and team up as an important third-ecosystem to balance the mobile world. And for kick start, maybe you can create universal messaging system across platform to "steal" some user.

Update : Found this video shows how "tripoly" instead of duopoly :)

Instant Messaging of future

As technology becomes main agent for human interaction nowadays, more and more people connecting to each other indirectly, could via voice, text and video. The  way is texting via instant messaging (IM).

When SMS and voice communication is so yesterday, im offer more attractive and add value to the communication. The killer features is group messaging and ability to attach rich media file into the chat. Other high demanded feature such as share location, virtual activity also available depend on protocol and device.

There are so many IM protocol currently available. From the legendaries ICQ, IRC from the first dot-com booming during new millennia. Then internet giant enters the competition for their users such as Yahoo with Y!msgr, Google with Gtalk, Microsoft/Hotmail with Live (recently acquired Skype), Facebook Chat, AOL and many more that has no significant user. The most recent is smartphone/service vendor to push their own protocol. There are RIM with Blackberry Messenger, Nokia with Ovi chat,  Whatsapp, some local brand like Nexian Messenger and Esia Messenger. 

Remember old day where we can only send SMS within same operator/network, operator never thought the SMS could be one of their revenue machine. But when SMS inter-operator is available, instantly SMS become ultimate revenue generator.  Imagine internet with no inter-networking capability, telephone with no inter-operator switching,  email can only send to same domain user, closed group IM has no future, unless it can communicate thru all protocols/provider.

So IM service provider should start collaborate the chatting inter-operates across protocol. Some already started with limited partners, like Ovi can talk to Gtalk, Y!msgr to MSN (maybe with Skype too?), but still not as one global inter-protocol IM. Only by all-connected protocol, IM will be considered important way to socialize at least for years to come. No more one ID for every protocol if we want to chat with people in the group.

Setting up gammu with smsd

Gammu is the most popular program to build customized sms  server. It can connect to various of handset, from the oldest model until recently launched model.  Also it support populars os(es) such as Microsoft Windows and Linux Ubuntu. 


To setup gammu under windows simply download win32 binary from gammu site. For Ubuntu, even easier. 

$ sudo apt-install gammu

That's all.

Once installed try edit gammurc (gammu config files). Windows version, config file will be in same folder as gammu.exe. For Ubuntu version, the config file is in /etc. Edit where needed. 
My working setting is :


[gammu]

port = /dev/ttyS1
;model = 6110
connection = at19200
;synchronizetime = yes
logfile = /home/says/gammulog
logformat = textall
;use_locking = yes
;gammuloc = locfile
;startinfo = yes
;gammucoding = utf8
;rsslevel = teststable
;usephonedb = yes


To test out :

$ gammu --identify

On success connection it should display our gsm modem properties.

Manufacturer         : Nokia
Model                : 6150 (NSM-1)
Firmware             : 4.12 E (02-12-98)
Hardware             : 2320
IMEI                 : 493002107068660
Original IMEI        : 493002107068660
Manufactured         : 1298
Product code         : 0502690
Simlock 1     : MCC+MNC      00101, opened, factory, counter 0
Simlock 2     : GID1          0000, opened, factory, counter 0
Simlock 3     : GID2          0000, opened, factory, counter 0
Simlock 4     : MSIN    0000000001, opened, factory, counter 0
MSID          : 823c21bb67cc5d6aab0f3caae6
MCU checksum  : 4057
DSP ROM       : 4


Next is configure smsd engine. Create a smsd config file. Ussually named smsdrc. Edit where needed. Put the file in same folder as we running Gammu. I strongly recommend using files style, as you can easily to customize the system.

[smsd]
PIN = 327426
logfile = /home/says/sms/logs/smsdlog
commtimeout = 10
sendtimeout = 20
#receivefrequency = 0
#resetfrequency = 0
deliveryreport = log
phoneid = mdsms

inboxpath = /home/says/sms/inbox/
outboxpath = /home/says/sms/outbox/
sentsmspath = /home/says/sms/sent/
errorsmspath = /home/says/sms/error/
inboxformat = standard
transmitformat = auto

The main part of the system just to read incoming sms save it to /inbox, send any message that we put in /outbox. Next gammu smsd able to do the rest.

Next, create an agent just to read message source to be send out, and retrieve incoming msg in inbox to store in your database. last thing is create nice fancy interface, of course dont forget the user authentication. Then hola, your own sms server is ready to serve.

Download : php agent to read & delete files

Non-CP are taking role of a VAS, so what do "conventional CP" can do?

CP term is quite popular recent years as enabler to work with telco to provide value added services (VAS). As enabler, it provide channel to deliver content or services from other entity, such as news sources, music labels, games developers and marketing companies, as mobile-fit service. So we seen lots of service allied to certain artist, TV broadcaster, even daily product brand. It could be video on demand service, song downloads, games for mobile phone, phone enhancement or sms text news alert. But lately, the term "CP" quite allergic to some correspond to unethical service way.

As now, so many services are product and sells as their internal service. These provider affiliate with handset manufacturer so that ever since the first time we unwrap a new handset, we've forced to review so many services. They are trying to create a shortcut of CP's value chain. Broadcast companies are having their own shortcode, games companies also have their own connection to telco. So what does "conventional CP" can do as their role are no longer needed ?

To answer the economic challenges, there are several suggestion that a CP can evolve to :

1. Be a media company
As media industry expanded, cp could also become as media sources, that specialized for mobile user. Of course kind of hard to beat CNN that has correspondent all over the world, but world now evolve to personal reporting, where everyone could submit their own news. sure this is a very potential business in the future. And I'm glad to say that my company I work now is evolving to this direction too, although the idea is not quite the same. It's more to music-related broadcast channel.

2. Be an IT backend company
This idea is not new. There are used-to conventional companies now are strong player provide back end services for mobile banking, mobile airline service and even telco intern system like billing and RBT platform.

3. Affiliate with music industry
The third way is, become strategic partner with certain music labels. As now, copyright is the main issue where CP no longer can create and sell music product they used to sell, all product variant is binded with string of copyrights. Only product under Cc can be modified and sold freely.
To overcome this matter, either cp be the stratigic partner of music company or have own artists. there are advantages of having own artist, as cp will have unlimited idea to explore an artist could be, beside conventional artist has, like publishing songs, concert, promotion on radio/tv/online.


These are options for a "conventional" CP have, where a company could evolve as one type or all of them if they capable to.  Happy new year 2009 ! May coming year bring properity to us all.

Reference
1. CNBC Mobile
2. Universal Malaysia
3. Metamobile Jusradio

Mobile Platform war

Global economy is slowing down, but tech company and consortium seems not going to slow down their research for next generation mobile device platform.

Mobile platform is not as simple as just OS. But it more to whole system how it interact with user, security, how it connect to any protocol and service.

The platform leads market now is Symbian. Motored by Nokia with its S60, now symbian devices can be found also on other brand, like LG and Samsung. With a very user friendly interface and consume low processing power, this platform is most available on most middle class handset now.

Windows Mobile is emerging from WinCE, now become a mature platform that adopted by some high end smartphone brand, like HTC, O2, DOPOD, some Samsung Pda phone and now Sony Ericsson on its Xperia X1. Backed by user using Windows on their PC, the creator expect user will find it easier to enjoy Windows Mobile.

There are proprietary system develop by each manufacturer, but since maintained by single vendor only, no much application for download and improvement we can expect. But as it implemented on most lower-end handset, these platform still have big portion in the market. Apple Iphone, in my opinion, is in this category also, as it single vendor maintain and very-closed system.

The latest but feared to be next leader, is Google's architech Android. Android believed will be the next generation platform since it design and created based on latest mobile and internet technology. Still some years to come before this platform is widely available on market, especially when economy crisis strike like now.

Enable Google Analytics without javascript

Site counter tracker has been a very important component for us to trace popularity of a web portal. Luckily, a lot of web site counter we can use freely. All these time I count on two site counter to track my pages. StatCounter.com offer a easy to manage and weekly reporting statistic tracker. Simply sign up and add new project to the account, and paste snippet to your HTML template. StatCounter free edition has limitation of storing last 500 records only for analysis.

Google analytics (GA) offer a more complete service, and advanced reporting tools. But so far I searched across the net, found nothing we can do to implement GA in pages (rss or widget) that not support JavaScript. With such limitation, we can't track images loadings, email reads, pdf files, and the most important to me : WML pages.

Got inspired from LinkLove, which is run smoothly on my server but lack of User Agent info, I try to alter some point. Instead of using fopen remote file, I use CUrl function. With CUrl function, we can send set HTTP header to GA to simulate the actual hit by handset to the GA Server. To know more, simply download and try it on your web server. This script is totally standalone, no external 3rd function needed.

On WML/RSS pages, instead of copying GA Urchin JS snippet, simply add a <img src="http://yourserver.com/ga.php" alt="" /> tag like this :

<img src="http://yourserver.com/ga.php?t=UrchinCode&amp;d=your-original-domain" alt="GA" />

RBT, where non-pirated music lives

Ever since telecommunication company found out the possibilities to put sound during waiting a call to be answered to replace the default "tut..tut..tut.." sound, now RBT (ringback-tone) has become a prime channel selling legal music that's the easiest way to control its copyright, and supposed no copyright violation here.

Invented by a Korean company in 2001, now most mobile telecommunication company has adopt this technology as part of VAS. The service so-called RBT has unique brand. Telkomsel, Indonesia largest mobile telecommunication company using the name "NSP 1212" (Nada Sambung Pribadi), then soon followed by i-Ring 808 by Indosat and Nada Tungguku 1818 by XL.

Even the service name may vary but the basic idea is almost the same. During calling to an RBT-subscriber, caller will hear a preset 30-seconds song (or sound) and will played until the call answered or reach maximum divert timeout. Currently, to increase revenue, the business model has become a 30-days auto-renewal subscription which proved very effective.

No wonder, now every new music product always include RBT subscribe code for its song list.
While almost every song can easily be found on internet, there almost nothing can be hack for RBT-song as user only has right purchace-to-hear, but not the song-ownership.

Addendum.
RBT now become the new kid on block for generating income for both telco and CP. As telco implement the auto renewal scheme and CP businesses attacked by unethical premium charging and widespread of free download sites, everybody turns to RBT. Maybe later on, the new kid on the block could become master of revenue. Who knows ?

Use firefox to open wap site

Firefox is now about to take over the position of most popular browser. Due to lack of customization and security reason, now more and more user are turning using Firefox rather than other browser.

For wap developer like me, everyday involve with hundreds of trial-and-fail page load using all available browser, I found it's very useful for you all to have this plugin. WMLBrowser is essential for firefox to determine the content type text/vnd.wap.wml file.

To install, simply go to Tools -> Add Ons. On extensions tab, click "Get Extensions". Your firefox will open a new tab. Just type wml in the search box. Or you can go to WMLBrowser direct link. Once installed now you can open any WML site as it display on phone browser. All plugins above work for Firefox 1.5, Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 both on Windows or Linux.

Another utility that complementary to this plugin is User Agent Switcher, to let you pretend that you really a mobile handset to wap server. This trick very useful to mask yahoo and gmail site to serve us as mobile user, as well as to download contents that should serve mobile user only.

VAS need operator's incentive

Indonesia content market has grew from a second row become first class revenue channel for operator and VAS (value added service) companies. But, as the market become more modern, now VAS companies demanding a new idea to come up with the market grows stagnant.

There is a lot of idea to bring this business back to life again, actually. Backed by 3G technology as transport, and advanced mobile phone platform from Java, Symbian and Windows Mobile, there are likely we have the development scope like desktop programming do.

Some of it are online gaming, full track songs, video on demand, and mobile tv. But all come to a common problem. Most people here is not wealth enough to spend more money for "not-really-important" pulsa. Pulsa refer to prepaid credit, as most mobile phone user here uses prepaid service than post paid. And average ARPU is between Rp. 70.000 - 100.000 (about US$ 8 - US$ 11), most of it are used for SMS and voice call.

But the situation will change if operator willing to become more "flexible" on data charge (GPRS fee). Flexible, is just another way to say "make it free" As this is VAS, user is get charged by the service itself (could be subscription or on demand) and if come with other charges, I personally will think twice to have that service.

Even the technology is so advance that can stream video, but phone with TV tuner feature is very attractive, even we can't really say the quality is satisfying. That's why people here are more like "Nonton TV tanpa pulsa !" jargon than expensive messy mobile tv. So 3G phones just like other low end phones, used for make call, send SMS, and listen to "pirated" music. Do you agree with me ?

Note. VAS company also known as CP (content provider) company.

Building a wap site

Nowadays, everything has go mobile. If you have any service, make it available on mobile phone version, you'll have your service access more than if you just make it available on web only. This all because, almost at least 80% of world population have access to mobile phone network. And mobile phone is the one we carry wherever we go.

To build a mobile phone enabled site, your have few options. There's rich HTML version (HTML v.4.0) that supported by latest device such as Nokia Internet Table, Apple Iphone and Smart phone (PDA-phone). The middle version is xHTML which is supported by newer mobile phone (with colour screen). If you going to make it available on most phone models, use WML (wireless markup language). Latest version of WML is 1.3. A basic WML page would be looks like :


<!DOCTYPE wml PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD WML 1.3//EN" "http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/wml13.dtd">
<wml>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Cache-Control" content="max-age=0" forua="true"/>

</head>
<card title="{$page_title|htmlspecialchars}">
<p align="center"><img src="your-logo-here" alt=""/></p>
<p>
{$main_content}


</p>

</card>
</wml>


Since WML only support basic font display, it only support bold, italic and underline, but no fancy fonts selection. This is the model that I most recommend, especially on developing country like Indonesia where new technology adoption is slow. More reading and discussion about WML can be found at WML programming mailing list. And the easiest way to test out your page is using openwave phone simulator.

If you're going to build a transactional wap site, make sure your server is supported and registered by wireless service provider (telco) so any access to the site can be detected its msisdn (mobile subscriber isdn a.k.a phone number). This information and other useful header can be found on HTTP HEADER variable HTTP_X_FH_MSISDN values. If you're using PHP, you can read that as $_SERVER[HTTP_X_FH_MSISDN] vars. Variables the supplied from telco may vary. Please read the documentation.

To provide content that match to certain phone models, you can use User Agent Profile (UAProf) to identify certain specification of the phone. But due to every device manufactures has different standard, you can use WURFL to determine most phone capabilities and specification. Now you have all the information needed to build a wap site, wap charging and provide content as the device supported.

Indonesia Cellular Tariff

Indonesia is very strategic country for any purpose, huge market place for other country to market their products, and unlimited of natural resources potential from mining, plantation, and fishery. as it grow, there's more and more people need telecommunication, wired and wireless.

Since first time introduced in Indonesia, cellular network has become vital sector that related to most people daily activity. First established cellular network company is Satelindo (now had merged to Indosat). Later, until now there are Telkomsel, Indosat, XL, Hutchison established their service in Indonesia respectively with GSM platform.

While most of existing GSM user complaining the heaven-like GSM tariff, government policy approve another platform license to operate in Indonesia, CDMA, specialized for local (regional) connection only and at low-end tariff. But this policy does not work, as now GSM and CDMA as some CDMA company also operating nation-wide and with GSM-style dial number, where CDMA supposed to use only local-style number, like 021-XXX for Jakarta and 031-XXX for Surabaya. So, these companies are now head-to-head competing for larger market share. But actually some of it are same company that owned major GSM network, such as Telkom Flexi (own by Telkom, also has share on Telkomsel), StarOne (owned by Indosat), Mobile 8, Esia (Bakrie Telecom) and new comer SMART Telecom & Sampoerna Telecom Indonesia.

As the competition war is on, but binded to government regulation on Interconnection tariff (Dirjen Postel, DepkomInfo), all the provider can only "play" on intra-network calls. There are some offered Rp. 10/second, Rp. 1/second, and Rp. 1/minute for voice calls. Some provider offer even 0 (yes Zero cost) for these kind of calls/sms during off peak hours. In this situation of course the larger network subscriber share gain more advantages. Means when provider T with 60% market share has promted Rp. 10/seconds, mean it's subscriber will be able to call to 60% of cellular user with that cost. Compare to these even set Rp. 1/minute, but only have 1% market share. What I'm trying to say is, somehow this kind of promotion is just not appropriate neither effective.

As cellular user need grows, the demand for data calls is rising. But none provider has offered a significant tariff reduction for data. Without these incentive, the main objective to launch 3G (and HSDPA) will need more time to penetrate. We're not talking about speed, neither corporate user where cost is not in consideration list. We are talking about majority user, middle-class user (like me), and I believe this is the biggest portion of user segment.

For me, with current need and price scheme, GPRS is more than enough. And what ever the promotion, I'll still loyal to my number, current provider, "S" from company "T" since the first time I use cellular phone, eight years ago.

Glossary
GSM : Global System for Mobile Communications
CDMA : Code Division Multiple Access
GPRS : General Packet Radio Services
HSDPA : High-Speed Downlink Packet Access