Kachop -- Picture Crop Tool, 1st Prize Startup Weekend Tokyo 2010

Kachop is a web and mobile application that allows the user to crop pictures easily. The Kachop team won the first prize of Tokyo Startup Weekend (Nov. 14-21), competing against 8 other teams. As the winner, it moved on to Global Startup Battle, where they will be competing with other teams and products from all over the world. (Sadly, the voting time has ended. I felt sad for posting this so late.)

One of the members of Kachop team is Marie Engelene Obien, a Filipina. She used to teach at Atene de Manila University before moving to Japan.

Source: kachop.com

Following are details of Kachop which I lifted from its facebook page:

Description:

Kachop is a web and mobile application that allows the user to crop pictures in 3 very simple steps:
1) Choose new background you like
2) Choose photo to crop
3) Tap to remove unwanted background from photo

The Kachop Team developed prototypes for web and Android. iPhone and Windows Phone apps will come along the way.

Everything will be free so we want everyone to enjoy using it!

Founded:

November 21, 2010

Company Overview:

Kachop is built during Startup Weekend in Tokyo, a 3-day event jampacked with action towards building a new startup.

The idea came from an original one: Around the World. Eventually, it was developed into something helpful, fun, and may probably be.. viral!

Products:

kachop.com
kachop for Android

I hope to download soon the Kachop android app, and will post screenshots and a short review of it on phmobileapps.com. On the other hand, you can check Scribeit and Anywhere Bingo which, I believe, are collaborative work of Marie Engelene Obien and Nico Prananta, who is also part of Kachop team.

KupSter -- a microblogging for the kups or trying hard to be a**holes

KupSter is a microblogging site with a Pinoy twist. As defined in their site:

"A "kups" in Filipino is a generic a*hole who has the ability to create chaos in less than 140 characters, a "kups" just like a "twit" is just a short burst of brainfart. Kupster is a webpage that allows you to publish whatever you're doing at any moment in a message of only 140 characters. Usually this is more than enough to express the feelings or whatever a "kups" wants to say."

KupSter is one of Jared Odulio's website. I don't think he is a kups -- just trying hard to be probably? Anyhoo, it is based on Jisko, an open-source microblogging platform. I guess when we say microblogging, it's twitter that will come into your mind. So yes, KupSter is something like twitter. KupSter would even let you integrate your twitter account to it.

Once your twitter account is integrated to your Kupster, you can then find your twitter timeline within the application.

KupSter also has a mobile web version so KupSter-ing will be easier when via your mobile phone.

Please add me at kupster.com/owrange if you decided to be a Kups, or wanting hard to be Kups.

St. Peter's Gate -- memorial networking site and of other death memorial eServices

St. Peter's Gate is a memorial networking site produced by St. Peter Life Plan. The main feature of St. Peter's Gate is probably the eLibing where interment videos of St. Peter clients are uploaded online. Relatives, friends and other interested people, especially those who are in abroad, can view the interment celebration online. 

The St. Peter's Gate eLibing is said to complement another service of St. Peter Life Plan which is the eBurol. The eBurol is defined in their website as:

e-Burol

As part of our best service to our customers,

we are providing this e-Burol facility to enable relatives

and friends, who can not go to the wake of their deceased, to view

it anywhere in the world thru this website. It is a digital and

everlasting tribute to a loved one.

While the eLibing are uploaded videos of the interment, eBurol are the live online video of the wake of the death which is held in St. Peter's chapels. The eBurol is a free service to aid those relatives who are in other parts of the world and cannot come home for the wake. It came before eLibing. Following is a screenshot of eBurol which I got from their user's manual.

The St. Peter Memorial Gates / eLibing service was launched July, 2009, and they claimed it to be an instant hit among Filipinos here and abroad, and they plan it to make it available in all their chapels nationwide just like their eBurol service. 

If St. Peter Life Plan offer this kind of service, it must be a sign that there is a big need / market for this kind of  death-celebration related products, at least for the Filipinos. The point here is that the typical social networking sites can be a tad saturated market already, why not go for this kind of theme in your social network sites. Or, if death is too morbid for your taste, then how about value added services for birth celebrations. You can have eBirth / eAnak where people can upload birth delivery videos or live streaming of birth  deliveries. I guess it's worth looking at before or after life for our next products.

What Do Globe Philippines and PT XL Axiata Indonesia Have in Common?

Aside from they're both TELCO (telephone communications),

* They both launched a social network site last year, 2009 -- PIXLINK for Globe PH, and funbook for XL Axiata ID.

* Both their social network sites -- PIXLINK and funbook -- have, more or less, similar format, look, and even the features.

Both the format of their home pages are strikingly similar -- list of features on the top, a picture on the left side, then the recent, most rated, and most commented pics on the lower left. Then, top tags on the lower right side of the home page.

Both PIXLINK and funbook have the same list of features except for one feature. They both have: My Media, Friends, Public Media, and Upload. But they differ with PIXLINK having Get PIXLINK, while funbook has Media Map.

Get PIXLINK is for you to download a PIXLINK widget into your mobile phone, while funbook's Media Map is a display of map with the pictures so you can see pictures based on location. I'm not really sure if I get the Media Map right, though.

* But scrolling down the home page of PIXLINK and funbook, you will see another thing they both have in common -- both are powered by Pixsense.

 So who is this Pixsense?

Let's just say that with people now more active using their mobile phone -- browse, upload pictures to their different social sites, email, and IM. They are now posting more contents to facebook, twitter, google, and other user-generated-content sites. Then, these social sites monetized the users' contents via Ads. 

So if you look at the equation of who gets more profits. TELCO can only earn from the internet data charges, while social sites and other media sites earn from ADS and other way they can monetize from their users. So it can mean that social / media sites may have a bigger chunk than the TELCOs.

A lot of data -- SMS, MMS, images -- pass through the TELCOS line but they cannot make money out of it, except for the SMS / calls / internet fees. But who does not want an extra income from ADS? TELCOS kind of have a google-envy. Well, the local TELCOS used to provide us ADS, which they called it information text or VAS (value-added service) to sugarcoat it but then Sen. Enrile axed it.

This is where Pixsense enters. They are provider of Mobile Social Platform (MSP).

"PixSense MSP™ (Mobile Social Platform) enables mobile operators to monetize user generated media through social networking

PixSense provides a media-management platform to mobile operators for monetizing user-generated mobile media. By providing a tight integration with the operators’ billing and messaging infrastructure, PixSense’s MSP platform allows rapid monetization of social-media services and third-party applications. A developer API exposes these capabilities to third-parties who can seamlessly integrate into the service and create compelling applications and revenue-generation opportunities. PixSense offers MSP in a unique operator-friendly business model based on revenue-sharing." (Quoted from their Products page)

So TELCOS can now have their own social sites without having to build from scratch. So instead of facebook, twitter, google making money from the pictures and data that pass through their fiber optics, they can now also profit from it.

So now what?

This can be interesting. Because instead of building your own social network site, and doing the marketing to get users to use your site. You can also do it like Pixsense, create a generic social network site platform then offer it to TELCOS or anybody interested. Then, the TELCOS or other parties can then do the marketing part.

TinaPay.com Beta - Free Web-Based Tool for Invoicing / Billing & Receiving Payment

TinaPay.com is a simple no-frills invoicing tool, which you can use for your businesses, freelance or side projects. It is easy to set-up so even if you are not tech-savvy, you can use it without getting lost.

Once you are registered to TinaPay.com, you can get started by going to the Settings to create the profile of you company, and your payment gateway. One thing about TinaPay.com is that it integrates PayPal to its system already, thus setting up your payment gateway is just one step and you're done.

The workflow design of TinaPay is quite well-thought that you will no longer grope as to what to do or set-up next. So after you create your company profile, you will then automatically be asked to create a record or

CHITS - Community Health Information Tracking System

 

CHITS (Community Health Information Tracking System) -- let me quote the whole of their About page to describe CHITS since I do not have exposure to health care.

CHITS is short for the Community Health Information Tracking system, a free and open source software electronic health record system for local government health centers in the Philippines. CHITS was created by Dr. Herman Tolentino through a grant from the International Development Research Centre of Canada. Since 2004, CHITS has been expanding to rural health units around the country.


CHITS is being managed by the UP Manila – National Telehealth Center. It is an integral part of the “Using Computers and Cellphones to Improve Local Health Information Systems” program.


Director and CHITS Program manager: Alvin B. Marcelo, MD

-------------------

So basically CHITS is, imagine, an electronic version of doctor's chart. When you go to your doctor for a check-up or something, her / his secretary will hand her your record which is usually a piece of paper with the history of your past check-ups.

Now, why would we bother with electronic medical record?

Katherin Kuan, an MIT student and part of the SANA team, made a research regarding the health care system in the Philippines entitled, Delivery of eHealth and Telemedicine Services to the Philippines From a Sustainability Perspective. Cited in her paper is the following statement:

"There is a disconnect between what is happening on the ground and what those needs are compared to the policies being made in the PhilHealth headquarters. Hence, there is a tremendous need for electronic documentation of care to ensure quality care."

You might say we don't need computerization of our medical records, we need medicine. But as stated in one of CHITS blog posts, it provides information for decision making. So in case of baranggay health care centers, if their records are in electronic form like CHITS, the concerned departments can easily get a quick overview of the statistics of the diseases. As such, government offices can then provide proper allocation of the correct medicines. Because as reports said, baranggay health centers do not really lack medicine supplies. The problem is that they have the wrong supply of medicines thus stocks going to waste.

CHITS made a pilot implementation in Pasay City, where they also implemented an SMS reminders functionality for pregnant women for their pre-natal check-up. Then, they also expanded to selected areas of Tarlac for pilot testing.

You can take a look at the CHITS application from their demo page. Following are screenshots I made of CHITS application.

Screenshot of Community Health Information Tracking System (CHITS)

Some of the people involved in CHITS are: Dr. Alvin Marcelo (TOYM awardee), Eric Pareja, and Alison Perez. If you are interested to be part of CHITS team, and improve our healthcare system, you may check with them. Just imagine working on a social network site that helps improve people's lives.

Game Developers Association of the Philippines -- Want to be in the Gaming Industry?

Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP) is, as desribed in their About page:

"The Game Developers Association of the Philippines (GDAP) is a non-stock non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the game development industry in the Philippines. It is composed of game development studios in the country, both foreign and local, and has strong ties to the government, technology suppliers, education sector and the international community of game developers via the International Game Developers Association."

Following are the gaming outfits that are members of Game Developers Association of the Philippines:

Animation Vertigo - Based on their testimonials page, some of the games they had worked on are: Battle for the Pacific, 007, and Soldier of Fortune.

Anino Games - They created the first Filipino RPG game, Anito. They have a roster of popular clients, just to name a few: Namco, EA, Walt Disney, and others.

CheQ Systems - Cheqyourgame is their division for gaming.

Digital Art Chefs 


FunGuy Studio - They produced games like World of ActionJetz, Camp Treehouse, Financial Villains, and
Sqwishland.

Gameloft Philippines 

Glyph Studios

Komikasi Enterprises - They're an illustration  / graphics company.

Moanima

PODD Corporation - They are based in Cebu.

The Studio of Secret 6 - They worked with EA, Bandai Namco, and others.

SunGame S.E.A. 

Suspended Animation Media

TechFactors, Inc. - They are e-learning system provider in the Philippines.

Zeenoh Games - They have quite a lot of apps which are still in the pipeline. You can check here.

Interested with the gaming industry and be a Filipino game developer, going through the Game Developers Association of the Philippines members roster is a good start to get familiarize with the industry.

Dear Globe PH, Congrats on your new website design! Is that a slot machine?

 

Did Globe Telecom get an online gambling developer to put up their new website? Because their ultra user-centered 'sentence interface' feature looks like a slot machine to me. It's fun trying make 'I WANT' get what you want.

Also are they redesigning it as an online shopping store because I keep seeing Cart (empty) at the top of the page anywhere, even when I just want to read about the company info. So this is like slot machine meets amazon online store.

Love,

Ray Tard Jr.

Ray Tard Jr.: The Best Tech Blogger to Happen in the Philippines

Hi. My name is Ray Tard Jr. In case you wonder if I'm a real human. No. I am better than the human specie. I am a troll.

I welcome my self to this Philippine tech blog site, techboba.

I am the best thing that will happen to your Filipino internet technology. I am the most sought-after tech evangelist. Oh wait, does tech exist in the Philippines?

I am an expert in the Web 2.0 technology. I have a basecamp account, you know that web-based app from that 'Less is More' religion. I am currently involved with a productivity life-changing social network site which can save lives, whales, and end hunger.

I am an expert in design. I know IA, UI, IXD, UX, BS to ABC designing. I read 'Don't Make Me Think' book -- the book that confirms how humans are such naturally dumb.

I have a very rare valued social media skill. I am unique because I am an anti-social media expert. Humans are by nature social so any human can be social media expert, but not anti-social media expert.

I am a start-up adviser. All people who wants to build the next Google come to me.

And, I believe that the next best thing is mobile, which is older than Steve-Jobs technology. And, that soon the SEO / SEM / Pro-blogger experts will soon be expert mobile app makers.

I am the BS in BS.

Noypf.com -- Pinoy Social Network. Fake or Not?

Noypf  claimed they are the Pinoy Social Network. They have interesting topics / groups that are so Filipino like Pinoy JPop, KPop, and others.

It also has interesting members, celebrity members like Manay Lolit, and Bob Ong.

Social Network Movie -- Luis Buenaventura (Part 2)

To read the previous part of the story, please check Part 1.


If in Part 1, Luis Buenaventura was weaving webs of social sites left and right hacked during holidays when everyone is getting cozy. At this part, we could see Luis got entangled more in the webs of building start-up companies than producing social networks. So you might see more company names than product names in this post. Just like the Part 1, all things written here are from my imagination and interpretation so please do not take them as facts.

PandoraSquared

With Luis' factory of social sites, he got the attention of a Web 2.0 company PandoraSquared -- think 37signals. Probably after a lot of wooing, PandoraSquared was able to convince Luis to be part of their team. Luis then became part of a Philippine revolution -- Web 2.0 revolution here in the Philippines which was PandoraSquared's goal.

Though, I could say that, with his social network factory, Luis already started one without consciously knowing it. Maybe Luis should get the Father of the Philippine's Web 2.0 revolution.

MobiousLive.net

Just like it's name, it's hard to guess what MobiusLive.net was. This product started as one big secret, and mixed with dramas down the road.

Unlike with his previous projects where Luis usually openly shared in his blog what he'd been working on even before the release, he did not share much information in his blog. This was a signal that MobiusLive.net was something really big to happen in the Philippine history. He was mostly secretive about this one except for a few bits of hints here and there.

But even before he was officially part of Pandora Squared, he already dropped a hint in his April 2006 post that the next industry he would conquer is music after highfiber (web programming), oKs.ph (digg-ish), gibbity (gaming), filmcrowd (movies).

Then, a month before they opened it to public, Luis posted another hint,

Work on our next major project has been slowly unwinding; I’m not sure exactly how much of it I can write about without breaking our pinky-swear NDAs so I’ll just say that we’re putting together a very big Filipino social network focusing on one of my favorite things (no, not poker).

It was by Semptember 2006 when they had finally shared it to public their top secret project -- a local / 3rd world equivalent of iTunes, MobiusLive.net. Leaping from Kevin Rose to Steve Jobs, Luis Buenaventura made it look like it's an easy task.

As described by him, "MobiusLive.net is a social network focused on local independent music."

MobiusLive.net offered Php 20 per music track. And as Luis style, he could always start big even at the start. They were already able to feature popular local bands -- Greyhoundz, Chicosci, Valley of Chrome, Queso, and Narda.

Syndeo Media

Just like in the movies, some drama had to happen. Just right after they made the first Filipino iTunes / social network for music made publicly available, they called it quits for their PandoraSquared company. But it looked like more of renaming their factory name to Syndeo Media, than quitting. With new name came new strategy:

syndeo::media exists to build its own, internally-spun web
products, but we’ve come to the conclusion that our current resources
will not be sufficient to properly support all our ideas. The strategy
now becomes fairly obvious: over the next few months, we continue
looking for client work and refining our process. Once the appropriate
resources present themselves, we can apply all our learnings to our own
brands.

And, a hint that they would welcome 3rd-party investment. With their reputation, it would not be hard. So was it money matters?

Lesson learned: With revolution comes drama (sweat, bloods, and tears?).

Watch out for the next part. Would he be back to building corporate websites, or be chased by investors?

Part 2.5 is now available here.

ReserveUp -- Upcoming Booking Solutions for Hotels & the Likes

ReserveUp is a booking solutions for hotels, resorts, pension houses, inns, and the likes. This is created by PIGMATA Media Inc., an interface design and web application development company based in Philippines.

At first look, I thought it's a 3rd-party web application primarily for the customers / users where people can find a listing of hotels and resorts where there is a filter feature according to rates, locations, availability, and such. Then, from there people can make their bookings and reservations. But it's more that they are providing their application to the hotels, resorts who will then be the one to introduce the application to their respective customers.

If you are part of the management of a hotel, resort, inns, and for-rent-places, you can now request a beta invite from ReserveUp site, http://reserveup.com/. You can check if it is something that will fit in your business. It's free.