Web Product Innovation in Emerging Markets

Web Product Innovation in Emerging Markets
Michael “Smitty” Smith
ShananDelp
Yahoo!

We’re not
Daniel Raffel

Yo
We’re the dudes that convinced Yahoo! thatKoprol is awesome

Working Hypothesis
Web innovation is becoming globally decentralized
While Emerging Markets are booming
How Interesting

The Old Way:
Valley Web Exporters
Silicon Valley Satellie View, 硅谷卫星地图 by Yan and Yung’s Album

The Old Way
Global companies launch global products with language sensitivities
Global companies launch language specific regional products
Regional companies launch locally (and stay there)
Global companies excel at scale/monetization but tend to fail at being regionally adored
Regional adoraton scales poorly

The New Way:
Distributed Innovation
Hytle by jdlasica

Why there needs to be a new way
Almost half the 500M internet users coming online in the next 5 years are from emerging markets

Has the old way been blown away?
Different customer patterns, but not that different
Platforms allow anyone to scale globally
Regional companies can shoot for the globe

Younger – first web citizens in family
Social is the killer app
Mobile (will) dominate PC
Origins of Innovation

Follow the Platforms

Platforms (disruptive & unranked)
Hosting
Cloud (RackSpace,Joyent), Amazon, YQL, AppEngine, MSFT
Federated ID
FBconnect, yConnect, OpenID, Google
Location
Maps, checkins, places – part of the platform?
Social
FB, twitter, diaspora, OpenSocial
Ads
Display/search moving to – mobile, social, location, network generated
Payment
FBcredits, PayPal, MOL, Tencent, virtual goods as currency
No true global dominator yet!
Platforms

Operating Systems (unranked)
Web
IE, Mozilla, FF, Safari, Chrome – HTML 5 to rule them all?
Location becomes common place building block
Vs. Native apps
Native OS: Nokia, Blackberry, Android, iPhone and ???
PC
Windoze, MacOS, iPad, Netbooks, Chrome and ???
Browser and cloud are the OS of the future
Don’t forget SMS/Notifications
The ultimate universal OS (see Twitter and Gupshup)
Platforms

The Language Platform
Is English a common web platform, critical to crossing borders?
Localization is important? Customers are doing this for some products like Facebook.
English + local language + crowdsourcing covers your bases
Works to scale system across borders
Local language from customers fills a need for locally relevant content
Platforms

Distribution
FB / Twitter
Platforms
Facebook_yoville1 by Narisa

Platforms

Big internet companies exploring emerging markets – not limited to US. Ex: Tencent
Startups with regional dominance and/or a view to emerging markets growth. Ex: MiG33
Local VCs today but big VCs with global views could easily take over. Ex: IDG Vietnam
Emerging markets incubators – Singapore looks like a nice base!
Internet entrepreneurs with both valley and emerging markets exposure
China $$$ are flowing out of China
Power Brokers

Which countries are innovating?

BRIC
Brazil – Social! Dominated by local media players, and late to mobile revolution.
Russia – Money flowing through and out, but tough political environment for outsiders
India – Huge opportunity. Mobile is key, but mobile web is nascent. Telcos are powerful. English? So far, tough to monetize.
China – Tough for non locals. Will they export ideas, or just capital?

SEA
Vietnam – Closed-feeling. Will it open up?
Philippines – on the cusp? Funding environment needs work. Too focused on outsourcing? Mobile is a huge.
Indonesia – Mobile is the key. Very open but online monetization still weak but lots of eyeballs
Malaysia – regional hub? Maybe but not if Singapore has a say. Local market small.
Thailand – huge potential but technically the backwater of SEA. Not open enough. Strife?

Singapore as a Global Web Hub?
Yes
Singapore government is engaged
Funding pools have arrived – private & public
The incubator schemes are attractive
Infrastructure in spades – pipe, cloud, money, law
Many big internet companies use a Singapore terms of service throughout the Southeast Asian region
Hacker community & incubators
Hackerspace, barcamp, seedcamp…
Good location – nice travel hub
Jus a few hours away from anywhere that matters
Echelon

Singapore as a Global Web Hub?
No
Talent pool is small– startups are competing with the government and global companies
Funding might be too easy & focused on locals
Funding metrics should be associated with milestones achieved outside of Singapore
Startups need to start local and go global
Singapore is too small scale wise for EM testing
Singapore is smartphone heavy

Prediction
Emerging markets will export innovation
Follow the money, and the users crossing borders
Will you need international partners to do this?

Thank you
http://twitter.com/dreampipe
http://twitter.com/shanand

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Web Product Innovation in Emerging Markets

by Michael Smith on Jun 02, 2010

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Web Product Innovation in Emerging Markets — Presentation Transcript