Local developers must grow.
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(VIVAnews/Tri Saputro) |
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VIVAnews - Yahoo! is making its way to Indonesia. The internet pioneer will shortly open its branch office in Indonesia. It is part of Yahoo!’s strategy to open a new recently-developed online market by establishing its position earlier than its competition, Google.
Strategy adopted: trying to be local and grounded for its Indonesian users. Since the beginning, Yahoo! has been trying to approach developers and form its ecosystem in Indonesia. This year, two major events were held to bring local developers closer to Yahoo!’s platform.
The events were Yahoo! Mobile Developer Award in May and Yahoo! Open Hack Day last weekend. It was the first Yahoo! Open Hack Day ever held in South East Asia and one of the biggest hack day events which were attended by about 500 developers from Indonesia and its neighboring countries.
Yahoo! also reportedly teamed up with five local start-up companies in online industry. One of them is location-based social networking site Koprol.com. The collaboration is to enable Yahoo! including local contents on their site at the time their office operates in Indonesia that is most likely in January next year.
While attending Yahoo! Open Hack Day on Saturday, November 21, 2009, VIVAnews talked to Michael Francis Smith Jr, the Director of Yahoo! Developer Network, Yahoo! South East Asia. Smith, who is able to speak Phasa Thai, told about his activity of interacting with the developers and working together with local start-up companies to create a solid Yahoo developers ecosystem in Indonesia.
What is the purpose of Yahoo! conducting the event in Indonesia?
This is the first Yahoo! Open Hack Day in South East Asia. We feel that Indonesia is the right country to host the event. But, we would also hold the event in other South East Asian countries. More or less, this will be an annual event in every country in South East Asia.
This is one of Yahoo!’s ways to build an ecosystem here. Could you explain about the development of Yahoo!’s ecosystem in Indonesia?
I can’t mention the number of developers in Indonesia. However, developers are the key factor to market development everywhere.
I do not really learn about the business model applied here. I am only focusing on the developers.
I think developers are the key factor to any ecosystem, including Yahoo!. The openness employed by Yahoo! has actually just started over the past year (since Yahoo! launched Yahoo! Open Strategy, Ed) and Yahoo!’s message of openness has reached Indonesia. That is why I think it is the key factor to our development in this region. We think developers are playing an important role. No doubt.
How do you compare this even with other previous Yahoo! Open Hack Days?
This is a tough question because the event has not been held before in Indonesia, even in any other South East Asian countries. It is fair to say that it is one of the biggest events we ever made. Generally it is one of the biggest Yahoo! Open Hack Day events.
But, if we compare it with a similar event which we will also hold in Vietnam or the Philippines, we would not know. It might be bigger. So far it is one of our biggest events.
Recently, Yahoo! shut down Yahoo! Go and directed the customers to Yahoo! Mobile FrontPage. Why?
The strategy is quite simple if you see what is going on in the internet. Apparently, running one program to work everything out on mobile platform is not going to work. Now, every website has its own mobile version and it is different than each other. So, what clients are accessing on mobile devices must go through the same process, like what must be done on the internet a few years ago.
For example, Yahoo! Meme (Yahoo! Meme is some sort of new Microblog service from Yahoo! which allows its users to post videos, photos, music files and texts, Ed) that also has its mobile version. Other websites also have their own mobile version which supports numerous browsers on various types of mobile phones. Therefore, Yahoo!’s strategy would work properly. I think if you could see internet and mobile devices evolutions, they force the change of strategy itself.
CEO Carol Bartz once said that Yahoo! would not make a social networking site. But I believe Yahoo! Meme is one?
I think what Carol was trying to say is Yahoo! wanted to be an innovator, at the same time she was saying that it would be useless for us to make some kind of Facebook because Facebook has already been successful. So, we believe Yahoo! Meme is not like Facebook. Yahoo! Meme is more like Tumblr, a meme micro blog where we could easily upload videos, audio and texts at the same time.
So, it is not the same at all. Like Carol said, we will not create the same social networking site. Instead, we will make something new that suits out users. As we could see on Twitter, people need TweetPic or the likes to add the photo function that is not on Twitter. So, just like on Tumblr, we only need one interface to do everything. That is actually Yahoo! Meme’s strength. It is different than any existing social networking sites.
After cooperating with local social networking site, Koprol, you were reportedly chased by local developers who wish to be on Yahoo!’s frontpage?
I will explain to you what I usually do with the developers. I usually come to them, I spend about 2 hours with them, doing demo together, learning what sites they are working on, telling what Yahoo! has got and then, I try to help them putting out ideas.
Afterwards, we will see what we could do in the next step. I will talk to all developers who wish to collaborate with Yahoo!. I certainly hope there will be more developers in Indonesia doing the same thing like Koprol does. For instance, there is another local site called Urbanesia. But, it is an ongoing program and Koprol is indeed the first one.
Do you have any target on how many social networking site you want to cooperate with?
I am not targeting social networking sites. I am targeting anyone who wishes to collaborate. Personally, I wish for hundreds of other sites besides Koprol. There is no final number. We want to get it as many as possible.
I do not work together with Koprol just because they are a social networking site. I like working with them because I like what they are doing. I like their openness while collaborating with us. They also have their own uniqueness. They are a location-based social networking site.
I think you will witness the rise of hybrid social networking sites. The idea is that Facebook is the only social networking site. Whatever you do with Facebook, I will not be offended even though I am speaking on behalf of Yahoo! or any other parties.
New social networking sites will adopt hybrid forms. Hybrid social networking sites would help you finding your friends on Facebook. To me, Facebook is only one of the models. You will see how popular it could be in the future. But there will still be rooms for other companies.
So, there is not really any target like at least wanting to get a certain amount of application through this event?
No, there is no special target. It is an open event. Some people may even came just to have fun.
Then what is Yahoo!’s strategy to be more local in Indonesia?
The question might be more suitable to be addressed to Pontus Sonnerstedt (Indonesia Country Lead Yahoo SEA, Ed). I am just dealing with the developers. To me, it is very simple. It is how to get more sites like Koprol. I will help them to grow. That is my strategy for the developers.
Is there any attempt, for example, to make Application Programming Interface (API) more local?
Programmers code in English. I think we do not need API in any other language. Will there be any other way to make API more local? Maybe. But that means we might need a partner. If there is any local partner who could push the data into the YQL (Yahoo! Query Language, Ed), to be used, and it could be done in Bahasa Indonesia, it would be great. But, there will surely be language problem there.
But, if you ask me whether we could be more local with what the local developers are working on, the answer would be yes. We have various ideas on that.
For example, Yahoo! Mim (the Indonesian version of Yahoo! Meme, Ed) which is available in Bahasa Indonesia. We may be able to help the developers to make some kind of translation in group level. There are tons of other ideas. But from API perspective, I think it would remain in English.
How many people have joined Yahoo! Mim?
I do not have the data. But Mim is developing well in Indonesia, especially with the presence of the Indonesian version. Mim is a product that we just launched. We have also launched it in some languages (currently it is only available in four languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish and Indonesia, Ed) and we are waiting for its development results. We have not even promoted it. But we are putting it on the frontpage so people could see it. Mim is still in Beta stage. We are not setting any target and we want to see people’s reactions towards it.
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Translated by: Nataya Ermanti
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