Per request by Mas Budi Putra, I wrote a review on my 1 week experience with Nokia E71. Find the full post here. Since then, I have continue enjoying my days with this wonderful gadget.

Previously I carry a Nokia N82 and Nokia 6210 Classic. The N82 was my main phone (powerful!) and the N6210 is the secondary phone (small size!). With arrival of E71, I put the 6210 into retirement and N82 demoted to be the secondary phone. Furthermore, I found myself leaving the N82 in my bag most of the time, leaving me with E71 to accompany me as the only phone. The slim size and durable battery makes me confident and comfortable to carry just a single device.

I also find myself use my laptop less. I own and still carry around my Fujitsu P1620 which already a very small sub-notebook. However I now extensively use email push, browsing, and IM application in Nokia E71, conserving the laptop battery for meetings.

I installed few application to make the E71 more powerful as a work device. Opera Mini is a wonderful Internet browser won me over the build-in browser from Nokia. I installed Slick to connect me to Yahoo! Messenger at any time. I also found Seven to be a very powerful push email application, allowing free email push for POP, IMAP and support for Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail as well. All application is free and some still in beta, but very stable and responsive. Give it a try!

Tags: nokia, e71

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Well, this is nothing to do with IT or mobile, etc. But….
I cannot help not to share this video. It is started out simple, but expectingly gives you good feeling while watching. Very inspiring, moving and memorable. Don’t want to spoil the good things, so watch it by yourself now!

Embedded Video

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I applaud Microsoft Indonesia for this initiative. First time ever the official MS Office 2007 sold at only Rp. 800,000.- Only eligible for student and use for non commercial environment. But you are allowed to install up to 3 different PCs at the same time, making it cost less than Rp. 300,000 per installation.

I think this price point is acceptable by most (urban) students. More reason to stop pirating software.

I see this a a positive move from Microsoft, which previously also release pre-paid system for Microsoft software in Indonesia,m, whereas you can pay as you go via prepaid voucher scheme.

For those who still cannot afford the price, there’s always free alternatives from Open Office.

See below the advertisement from Microsoft on Kompas today (12/7). You can get the special edition software from Bhinneka.com

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UPDATE :

If you go to Bhinneka.com website, you can see that the software is being offered at Rp. 880,000.- (10% more than the price quoted on newspaper ad. 10% VAT?)

Tags: microsoft, software

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Plazes, the location based social networking services has been acquired by Nokia for an undisclosed amount.

For those who aren’t familiar, Plazes is a web service for geo-social navigation. Members of the community can publish and share  their current location with others creating a collection of their favourite and day-to-day locations in a geo-database. Members of the Plazes community can actively locate one another, connecting their digital and real-world identities. By providing location context the service makes it easy for its users to coordinate with friends, family and business contacts wherever they are.

This add on to Nokia’s arsenal on location based services, following up their acquisition of Navteq last year and earlier purchase of Gate5 in 2006, which resulted the Nokia Map 2.0 which we are using now. Imagine if later Nokia can integrate the location sensitive communities and mobile based advertisement togerther. It will be a sure killer service! Nokia should have all the formula as they also the owner of enpocket mobile advertisement platform. Let’s wait and see…

Plazes is a German based company, which is also the winner of MobileMonday Global Peer Awards in 2007! Hmm…

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I was invited to speak inside CommunicAsia few weeks ago, for the Singapore Infocomm Networking Session.I spoke about the Mobile Boom in Indonesia.

Pls find below the link to the article and download of the slides.

Singapore Infocomm Website

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Been away for quite sometimes due to hectic schedule and work and ‘non work’. Undergo a tonsil removal surgery last week - quite smooth and successful, I must say. Will re-gain my voice back next week. Have lots of interesting updates about my trips over past few weeks. Will put as next posts once the painkillers kick in.

Adios

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In case you have not heard, Opera released a report on the usage of Opera Mini. Another exciting finding that Indonesia is ranked number 2 worldwide on Opera Mini user based (number 1 is Russia). 63% of traffic from Indonesia is generated by users visiting social networking site. The top sites for Indonesian according to Opera is Friendster, followed by id.yahoo.com and Google.

The full report is available online here

I have also found out that there’s an Opera Indonesia Usergroup which already have over 1,000 members and organized under the website (here). The community is quite active and planning to host a user gathering in Jakarta by end of June 2008. Looks like a solid group with a lot of enthusiasm, etc. Go there and find out more yourself!

I am also in discussion with some contact from Opera. We will tentatively have someone from Opera visiting Indonesia for MobileMonday (hopefully soon).

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Congrats to Virtual Tribe as the winner of the 1st MobileMonday Indonesia Peer Awards. Virtual Tribe is the location aware game developed by Sandy, a student from Binus University for his final year project. Virtual Tribe command an over 50% lead in collecting vote from mobile industry peer during last MoMo event (May 26, 2008) as compare to the other finalists, i.e. MORE and 12Frenz. Alongside, MORE also awarded as winner for jury favorite for getting highest score during the jury session held previously on May 12.

My other favorite application ZIPZAP, unfortunately did not pass the jury round, thus not participating as finalist.

More information & event detail, visit MobileMonday Indonesia website at www.id-mobilemonday.com

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I got this from MocoNews, an article written by James Quintana Pearce.Juniper Research predicts that streamed and broadcast mobile TV services will become the most lucrative channels for mobile ads by 2010. Juniper predicts that spending on mobile TV advertising will grow from $335 million in 2008 to more than $2.5 billion in 2013. China and the Far East will remain the largest regional market for mobile advertising, because it includes the massive population of China and the advanced mobile markets of Japan and South Korea. Revenus there will rise from $414 million in 2008 to more than $2.1 billion by 2012, according to Juniper.

Total annual global spending on mobile advertising will hit $1.3 billion in 2008, rising to $7.6 billion by 2013 according to Juniper Research. This is at the lower end of predictions.the biggest percentage growth is predicted to be in idle-screen advertising, tapped to rise from $7 million in 2008 to $500 million in 2013.

Success case whereby MobileTV is doing well in advertising is provided by 3 in Italia which in 2007 was making approx 10% of its revenue from advertising.Mobile Ad benefits will come not just with replicating the TV service with simulcast, but with the ability to target key demographics and individuals—which is very attractive for advertisers. It is said that people are accustomed to advertisements in video and are thus less irritated by it than other forms of advertising, especially compared to SMS. However, the ad format will obviously need to be changed because of different viewing habits, and the ads are likely to have a greater amount of interactivity.

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OverTheAir.Org is an event organized by some of the MoMo fellows in London sometimes ago. The event was a blast with over 400 industry experts and developers attended. Check the Over The Air website to view the presentations from other keynotes and sessions. Unfortunately, none of us have the opportunity to attend, so no first hand event report.

Event also include a mobile application prototype competition with 21 competition entries with some very ‘unconventional categories’such as “Most likely to scuceed with CIA”, and “Most Over-Engineered”. Sounds like they are having a great time. The winners were:

* Overall Best Prototype - Mr. Tomm (Future Platforms)
* Best Mobile Widget - Auto Widget Configurator (Owen)
* Best Hardware hack - Phone Fight (lastminute.com labs)
* Best Use of Multimedia - 21st Century Fridge Door (Orange Pirate)
* Best Use of Wireless, Bluetooth or RFID - Bluetooth FOAF (Owend)
* Most elegant solution - Twitter Client for Windows (Dale Lane)
* Most over engineered - Clever Social Tool (Alex squared)
* Most practical / ready for market - Social Network Open Butler (SNOB)
* Best mobile web application - Browser Sync
* Best design / user experience prototype - Phone Fight (lastminute.com labs)
* Best Location Aware Award - Capture the Flag (Location based games)

* Audience Favorite - Capture the Flag by the Pink Pirates
The winners in the unofficial categories were:

* Fun Award - Phone Fight (lastminute.com labs)
* Most likely the succeed with the CIA - (Social Tracker)

More info on the winners, pictures, and other follow-ups will be posted on the Over The Air website later on.

(Credit to Rudy deWaele from mTrends for the info)

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