I used to think that people in Southeast Asia are somewhat similar due to common characteristics in geology, ethnic background and economy. But I was totally wrong. Working and a little traveling have given me a chance to take a closer look into what SEA people are doing online which reveal a lot of differences.

Blogging

I once thought that most SEA people were introvert, but it seems to be that this statement can only be applied to the Vietnamese. I was surprised to find out how active people in other SEA countries are on the Internet.

In Vietnam, there are only a small number of “professional” bloggers. Most “hot” bloggers emerged from Yahoo! 360 and became famous because of sensational rag news, sex, short stories, etc. (things that tradional media can’t mention). It’s true that bloggers in Vietnam aren’t paid much attention. Earlier this year I attended PestaBlogger in Indonesia and I was amazed. It attracted about 1000 bloggers of all social groups: young, old (I even met some 50-something bloggers there); male, female (though male bloggers seem to be more prevalent); poor, rich. They blogged about anything: politics and other sensitive topics. Every blogs in Indonesia [Blogger.com ranks 5 and WordPress.com ranks 7 in Alexa Indonesia]!!

Blogging is also very popular in Malaysia [Blogger.com ranks 6 and WordPress.com ranks 15 in Alexa Malaysia].

In Philippines, there is even a bloggers association and the Philippines Blog Awards. [They call themselves a blogging nation].

It’s also true with Youthsays.com. Even though there are only 13 330 members in YouthSays Indonesia, new questions are submitted at the rate of 1 question/min. YouthSays Philippines is also much more active than YouthSays Vietnam.

Web Services

Generally, youths in Southeast Asia favor internationl products against local products. In almost every country in SEA except Vietnam [Thank to Zing.vn and VnExpress.net], 5 first places on Alexa belong to internationl products [the common denominator are Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Windows Live/YouTube]. Although Facebook is now dominant, there are still some other popular SNS and they vary in each country. Thai people show highly favor for Hi5 while the Flippino go Friendster.

Friendster

Unlike in Vietnam, Friendster is a little bit popular in other countries in SEA. As we all know, it just had a brand makeover to target Asian youths, makes it look like just a MySapce-wannabe (according to a friend of mine). The color, logo and tagline are new but the features almost remain the same except they launched “Friendster Virtual Gift Shop” and “Friendster Games” that make it look just like an Asian-born product.

Friendster claimed that it “pioneered social networking, and today is a leading web site throughout Southeast Asia, with over 75 million registered users and over 90 percent of daily traffic coming from the region.”. But from what I observed, Facebook is winning it over.

According to Reuters, there is a rumor that Friendster will be sold off by the end of this year to an Asian Internet company with the value of at least $100M. Our Vinagame might be interested [I'm just joking, but who knows, Vinagame is valued at $500M, they are rich].

In August 2008, it got funded $20M by IDG Ventures. Around that time, they did some pretty noisy marketing campaign in Vietnam but didn’t get any success.

******

Some quick facts:

1. Only in Vietnam that people love reading news that much. Of Top 10 websites on Alexa Vietnam, there are 3 newspapers, 1 portal and 1 porn site lol

2. Singapore has the highest Internet penetration rate, 72.4 % population, Brunei ranks 2nd with 55.9% while Burma has the lowest, only 0.2%. Burnese government imposes very very strict censorship upon Internet usage. In Laos, there are only 130,000 (1.9% population) and in Cambodia there are only 74000 (0.5% population).

3. In Singapore, there are only 3,370,000 Internet users but 1,789,840 Facebook users which means more than 50% Internet users there on Facebook. The rate is also super high in Indonesia where there are 30,000,000 Internet but more than 14,000,000 Facebook users. The Indonesian do not only love blogging, they also love facebooking

Hey calm down, I’m not gonna make another long speech about macro-economics or noble patriotism. Just some thoughts about the future of Vietnamese web services in relationships with Vietnamese users and esp. early adapters.

One week ago, I had a very interesting discussion over this matter with CEO of VON - Paul Nguyen. His arguments agaisnt exotic products are:

- We Vietnamese people have to use Vietnamese products. Exotic comapnies like Google, etc. they don’t even have offices here, so they don’t have to spend so much money in Vietnam, don’t create jobs for Vietnamese but they still get users. In the mean time, Vietnamese companies have to spend millions US dollars, pay all the taxes, creates thousands jobs for Vietnamese, they should get something in return. In some countries like China, they require exotic companies to open offices in China, hire Chinese, pay taxes for Chinese governments in order to do business in China.

- Exotic products don’t necessarily mean they have better technology than Vietnamese products. Like Yahoo! 360’s technology & concept is such a lame that no where else in the world use it, except Vietnam. Yahoo! 360 plus is just a failed product in HongKong, then brought back to Vietnam. He believes Vietnamese products can do much better than that. But exotic companies have big names, and Vietnamese people are very fond of exotic things.

But he still believes in the future of Vietnamese products in general and Vietnamese social network sites in particular, b/c:

- We early adapters might find Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Linkedin, etc. very useful and interesting. But the gap between early adapters and mass users in Vietnam is just too huge, and the number of early adapters are just so small (we have around 70k-80k facebook users compared to 2-3 millions Yahoo! 360’s users) that every service provider knows where their cash flow should go to and come from. Many Yahoo! 360’s users don’t even know how to upload a picture, they just simply hit the button “compose a blog entry” and type and send. Exotic products might be too complicated for them.

- The Vietnamese love color and show their own styles, while exotic products are normally just too simply designed. Just an example among many other differences in anguages and cultures.

He said, early adapters should use and talk more about Vietnamese products. Because if we just support exotic products, we will gradually kill Vietnamese products, let the foreigners take over us.

Several days ago was the inauguration of Nguyen Thanh Nam - the new CEO of FPT - the biggest Vietnamese IT company at the moment. One idea in his speech that drew public opinion’s attention was that he called for FPT people to use FPT’s products, not because of love only but because of trust in the products’s quality and the future of company. That might sound delirious, but is it absolutely impossible? He has his point, ofcourse.

Hm it has made me think a lot. Are we too enthusiastic about Facebook, Google, WordPress, Twitter, etc. and forget about Vietnamese products? Are we early adapters, and if yes, where do we stay if no service providers care about us?

I’m confused, though I obviously have my own explanation, but I want to hear your opinions first. Every idea is welcome. Thanks.

********************
As you all know, VON’s 3 most noticeable products are Timnhanh - a Viet search engine and Yume - a blog & social networkig site, and Kiemviec - an HR site, of which I’m interested the most in Yume - one of prominent candicates for Yahoo! 360′s substitute together with Tamtay, Yobanbe, YouSecond (Yeah in Vietnam blog means Yahoo! 360 and most people have no idea of what social network is. But well, it’s going to be shut down). According to Paul, Yume is gonna have a risky chance in June, with much more social features learned from Facebook.

 Loading ...

Today (Monday Apr 27, 2009 if you are curious lol), Nganluong.vn, Vietnamese Paypal, was officially launched, allows Vietnamese users to purchase from eBay without a Paypal account required. Nganluong.vn, together with Chodientu.vn belong to PeaceSoft Solution, a company invested by IDGVV and SoftBank China & India Holdings. Chodientu.vn is the biggest e-commerce site in Vietnam & the official partner of eBay here. And I’m sure their targets for Nganluong as well as Chodientu are set much higher than that.

As you already know, online payment is always considered as one of the biggest obstacles for e-commerce in Vietnam together with users’ consciousness and legal corridors. I haven’t tried it yet ços my stupid account at Vietnam is still locked up, but IMHO, the launch of Nganluong.vn has definitely lit up new hope about a future of being able to buy everything online Most of major e-commerce websites in the world still block trading from Vietnam (Am I too optimistic or too pessimistic??)

Some facts about Nganluong.vn and Chodientu-eBay:

- Nganluong.vn won’t cost you anything to use Nganluong.vn to buy things, but will cost sellers 1.000 VND + 1% total transaction value.

- After 4 months of piloting, Nganluong.vn now has 50,000 online payment accounts. Don’t know how many accounts are active and how many accounts they target after 1 year

- And ofcourse Nganluong.vn is not for eBay or Chodientu only, but PeaceSoft is willing to integrate Nganluong into any e-commerce website totally free of charge. Well from this point of view, can Nganluong.vn be seen as a competitor of other online payment company in Vietnam like VinaPay (another IDGVV’s porfolio), Paynet, Mobivi, OnePay, Payoo, etc.??? Actually I don’t know much about this competition things so anyone could please explain for me?

- Chodientu-eBay also partners with Vietnam Post & Telecom Group which allows users to debit money into their accounts at 3000 post offices in Vietnam. I just wonder if we can debit via mobile phones someday.

- Nganluong.vn accepts payments via local banks, including Vietcombank, DongA Commercial Bank, Techombank and Vietnam International Bank (VIB-Bank) and others in the Smartlink network. It also accepts payment via VISA, Master, Amex or JCB cards.

- Nganluong.vn guarantee 100% refund if you don’t recieve exactly the product you order. For more information about this program.

- Ebay’s Gross Merchandise Value from Vietnam’s users grew 82% in 2008.

Some facts about Vietnam Online Payment:

- Online Payment accounts for 3.2% total payment in Vietnam (account transfer, cash, post office transfer), according to Ministry of Industry & Trade.

- The biggest obstacles for Online Payment are: people’s habit of using cash; security & safety during online payment process; legal corridors for this type of payment are still under construction; online payment infrastructure.

- In 2007, JetStar Pacific was one of the first companies to allow customers to book tickets and pay online. And in the past 2 years, JetStar Pacific lost billions VND (more than 500,000 USD) because of risks during payment process.

- A recent survey of Vietnam E-commerce and Information Technology Agency on 50 e-commerce websites in Vietnam revealed that: (Frankly I don’t think Vietnam has that much so-called e-commerce websites)
+ 98% has information about products & services provided with prices but only 38% has a clear price structure.
+ 46% doesn’t have any transaction clause.
+ 98% doesn’t provide sufficient information about seller (name, age, phone number, email, business license, etc.) & 96% doesn’t have a policy to resolve contentions.
+ Only 12% publishes a policy to protect personal information.

Rumors of Yahoo closes its offices to escape from Vietnam were settled off when Yahoo officially announced that it would open a subsidiary company here to better serve its sales & marketing strategies in this market. The move will take place on Feb 20. Vietnamese – languages websites will still be operated by Yahoo! Southeast Asia headquartering in Singapore. For more details, click here. or:

“Under Yahoo’s long-term plan, the company will implement many investment projects in Vietnam through the forthcoming subsidiary, and cooperate with some Vietnamese partners to establish a joint venture to localize its digital content for Vietnamese Internet users.” (SaigonTimes)

Seems like Yahoo! is trying its best to make money out ouf its 5th largest market in the world. Some acquisitions are negotiated, significantly is between VON (Vietnam Online Network) and Yahoo! Vietnam over the destiny of Timnhanh. After “dirty content” scandal on Timnhanh servers and  huge lay-off, it seems to be the best escape for Timnhanh. The price is not yet revealed, but it’s supposed to be much cheaper than unsuccesful negotiation one year ago. Looking forward to seeing Yume.vn to join Yahoo! 360 & Yahoo! 360 Plus family. (Someone from VON plz confirm that rumor).

About Yahoo! Vietnam & the market:

• Yahoo! totally dominates Vietnamese Internet users with about 16M – 18M users (out of 20M Internet users in total) for all Yahoo! services.  Its locally relevant and essential services accessed by 90% of internet audience in the country.
• Yahoo! Messenger is the most popular chat engine in Vietnam with approximately13M – 15M users.
• Yahoo! Mail reaches out to most of the total internet users in Vietnam and is the most used personal email engine.
• Yahoo! 360 in Vietnam has approximately 2M accounts out of 5M accounts of this services worldwide. (this one is not reliable)
• Yahoo! Music for Vietnam was shut down last month (Jan ‘09) due to issues over music copyright, local partner selection and digital content.