We’ve witnessed a lot of local start-ups banging their heads just to clone some successful Web 2.0 sites from the US and hoping to strike gold in the process. We’ve seen Digg clones, Friendster clones, Facebook clones, iTunes clones and a lot more but they didn’t seem to take off among the majority of online Pinoys. All buzz, no pizzazz.
I think they’re approaching this social networking model a bit too superficial. Let me share with everyone what I think would be a better Web 2.0 niche for the Philippines.
- Social Job Search. JobsDB and Jobstreet Philippines have been a thriving online business for more than half a decade now. The model relies on paid listings from companies looking to hire people. What if you can democratize this? Create a site which allows people to submit job openings for free and rate the listing by the number of people who applies for that job. Now, it would be interesting to see which jobs are hot and which ones are not. Tag searching would be nice tool to go with that. If this goes well, I think it will kill the paid model.
- Apartment Hunting. I think this is an un-tapped sector. Most of the internet-savvy Filipinos that are working in the metro live in condos and apartments. You could do social reviews and ratings as well as ranking apartment units or condos by affordability and proximity to cetain business districts. You can do this for real estate as well. Ever wondered why Inq7.net’s front page is full of real estate ads?
- Remmitance Service, Web 2.0 style. The volume of money flowing in to the Philippines is in the range of $USD10 Billion (with a B) annually. Be creative and offer something traditional remittance companies, like Western Union, are too lazy to do.
- Mobile Content. Just this morning, Smart sent me SMS infomercials (read: text spam) at least 3 times and I quickly deleted them. But what if one is interested to see the offerings? Sites like Globe Interactive already offer previews before you can download stuff but they aren’t that interactive actually. What if you can provide users the ability to upload their own original mobile content and have it available for others to download for free or at a cheap price. That user can also get his commission thru free loads, Smart Money, GCash or something.
- Metro Maps. FindMe map services might fit the bill but I think new technology could offer something better. Why not invest in street-deep mapping service? Only if Google Earth could zoom down that close. You can get ad contributions from fast food chains, restaurants, hotels and almost every other commercial establishments. I can just see bubbles popping up out of the map announcing sales, bazzaars, concerts,and promos. You could also port this service to 3G phones as well.
There are tons of other ideas I got in mind but for now, these 5 services are on top of my wishlist for a truly Filipino-focused Web 2.0 service. Go ahead and grab the idea. That’s what Open Source Consulting is all about.
47 comments
Abe,
Dont you think that you may be sharing ideas worth millions. 🙂
You are inspiring me to create a filipino-friendly web 2.0 website. I may convert my site in such.
Thanks!
Dude, Firefox 2.0 has spellcheck. (So does GMail, Google Docs, and Word.)
Oh, that gives me an idea for a great Web 2.0 site, Spellchecker 2.0
a friendly website is one that applies usability in its implementation.
Wow favorite subject. oks.ph is the only Pinoy digg clone I can find. Filmcrowd.com is similar to Flixster.com and it seems to be doing ok. What do you think of Mobiuslive.net?
US Web2.0 sites on the subject
Social Job search:
LinkedIn.com – for professionals
Doostang.com – same as above
Whototalkto.com – an insider job hunting (70 – 80% of top US jobs are from referrals)
Apartment Hunting:
Zillow.com – map based, powerful
trulia.com – map based, neighborhood review
-I like your idea better, a review site which is a must for metro cebu / manila. But check out yelp.com – a social establishment review site based in San Francisco. Kill Jobstreet and Clickthecity at the same time. burrp.com is another one.
Remittance: Payeasy.ph has the infrastructure. But a lot of Pinoy business models are not aimed for the masses, not for the average wallet in my humble opinion. Globe / Smart are the exception.
Mobile Content: (no commisions here but interesting concepts)
Textmaks.com – text a keyword like ‘joke’ and receive a response. upload your content.
Mozes.com – same as textmakrs but focus on music.
Dodgeball.com – mobile myspace purchased by Google. (Instead of copying like MS Goo buys ’em).
There’s another one with no vowel on the name. Can’t remember, maybe that’s a bad thing for such name.
Mobile Widgets for Myspace:
Saynow.com – leave voice message to your fav band on myspace.
Broadtexter.com – start a mobile fanclub?
Metro Maps: Hopefully virtual earth will be available for Pinas. Then we can fly over Manila in 3d. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiEnT8_jAOE
apartment hunting – interesting..
heres a thought, a pay per click search engine in philippine peso, by the cents if you may.. not just the usual i-am-a-big-US-based-pay-per-click-company-and-i-will-hire-someone -in-the-philippines-to-offer-my-service-in-their-currency-pretty-much-just-what-like-friendster-did type-of company, no; a real philippine-based pay per click search company that serves english and tagalog keywords for local and international clients..
http://www.philippinesbusinessblog.com coming soon to your nearest suking tindahan..
berlin,
balitabalita is another pinoy digg clone.
I’m taking the third to fifth ideas
Remmitance service: try tapping the not-so-internet savvy market of pinoys for this. I think most of our OFWs fall in this category. an easy and cheap alternative looks like a winner
Mobile Content: How about delayed sms? I don’t know if this works but a text message energizes us more than a task reminder in our cellphones. 🙂
Metro Maps: something useful, like where to find transpo in MM.
0.02 PHP
Mobile Content via SMS? Hard to get an original idea that the telcos will like. You need to show them the revenue.
Maps? See Wiki Maps, I think that’s where he is going.
I had a post here earlier: Calling Pinoy Web 2.0 Companies. Not enough answers to the call.
@bloggementarist – where’s your “web 2.0” websites? Hane.PH? homepagekoto.com? onlinetoyfair.com? IT’s your time to shine! :~)
salamat, just visited balitabalita.com no comment.
btw, what ever happened to pinoyweb2.com?
Re: pinoyweb2.com Pandora Squared became Syndeo Media. I don’t know if they dropped the “Pinoy Web 2.0” idea.
pinoyweb2.com was run by Pandorasquared, which then became Syndeo Media. Perhaps they did not retain it.
I had problems with Web2.0 designs esp using AJAX, most users still couldn’t grasp the concept of not having a submit button on forms or drag n drop concepts for adding and categorizing contents. In the end i still needed to revert to old non-ajax behaviours.
Here’s a few more list of Pinoy Web2.0 sites just waiting for its spotlight.
*Mapping: Kabeet.com
*Money: Kayamoney.com
*Mobile: Txtdomain.com
*Community: Eskwela.com
*Classifieds: classifieds.friendster.com/ph (pusit)
*Prepaid: Loadcentral.com.ph
Here is a few more im looking for:
*Local TV/PPV Streams
*IRC Replacement
*Fastfood delivery/ordering portal
*Bill payment portal
Lastly a technologies worth developing:
*Profile Publishing Protocol – Standardized Shared XML document allowing you to import, export and share your profile accross community sites coz i hate filling out profile forms over and over whenever i join a new community.
RSS tags: add the property on RSS!
@jepoy, grow up.. between the two of us we both know who we really are.. me, my ideas i try to at least do something about it.. you, what do you do..? for me and for a lot of people who have been here in PTB you are just one nonsense blogger who keep on waging war against me.. and for what..? because youre bitter..? sorry about that but get a life man..
Abe,
I think jazzy is right. But thanks! these ideas are really great!
@bloggementarist – before anything else, i would to say that I find you funny, nonsense, and stupid. You have ideas, so what? Were they original? You even boasted you created the very first Web2.0 site, which in reality, is an uber copy-pasted work. And they looked horrible too.
And how were you able to conclude that jepoy is considered nonsense by most bloggers here? Got proof? I do have proofs that you are, as i said earlier, nonsense, funny, and stupid.
Technopinoy
Buwayahman
Jepoyeng
Rebelpixel
Pinoy Tech Blog
And the list goes on… Better stop taking your pictures inside the boy’s comfort rooms 😉
http://i15.tinypic.com/43om89w.jpg
And before you go jumping and pointing your mouth at me, NO. I DONT know Buwayahaman, jepoyeng, technopinoy, rebelpixel, etc. I don’t even have a blog.
Yeah, I hope one of you goes out and implements them. I could use the social job search – I’m hiring.
Reposting a good post:
godie » November 20th, 2006 13:05
I had problems with Web2.0 designs esp using AJAX, most users still couldn’t grasp the concept of not having a submit button on forms or drag n drop concepts for adding and categorizing contents. In the end i still needed to revert to old non-ajax behaviours.
Here’s a few more list of Pinoy Web2.0 sites just waiting for its spotlight.
*Mapping: Kabeet.com
*Money: Kayamoney.com
*Mobile: Txtdomain.com
*Community: Eskwela.com
*Classifieds: classifieds.friendster.com/ph (pusit)
*Prepaid: Loadcentral.com.ph
Here is a few more im looking for:
*Local TV/PPV Streams
*IRC Replacement
*Fastfood delivery/ordering portal
*Bill payment portal
Lastly a technologies worth developing:
*Profile Publishing Protocol – Standardized Shared XML document allowing you to import, export and share your profile accross community sites coz i hate filling out profile forms over and over whenever i join a new community.
RSS tags: add the property on RSS!
What is this web2.0 and where can i download this? :p
Seriously, I still believe in Filipino’s ingenuity, somewhere there, an original (not cloned) idea will be unleash for the world wide web to see.
The idea is very possible but it’s hurt my obstacles to scaling up, growing the business, actually earning revnues, finding talent.
However as Winston Damarillo mentioned at his (Exist Software) presscon it’s very doable. The Pinoy developers should pick up tech (e.g. Ruby on Rails) that makes it easy to develop.
IMO, all pinoy geeks & technopreneurs must start thinking of breaking out in the international scene particularly in the US for web 2.0 projects.
Practically every existing (& dead) web project can be reinvented (resurrected) to become web 2.0 (read: social, collaborative, AJAX UI, and a simply cool web app). Search, Mobile, e-commerce, content sites, etc. can be executed.
So localization and “Filipinizing” every website may have a market but some of us can play with the big boys. Like here http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/04/meebo-to-face-more-competition-from-stealth-startup-wablet/
Startup School/Barcamp Manila, anyone?
Thanks for the post, Abe!
Imagine hosting your site in Amazon’s $10 Billion facility. So I opened and EC2 and S3 account with Amazon.com 2 weeks ago. Check out Amazon EC2 and S3 Web Services. It’s a must for developers and start-ups. VCs are also urging start-ups to host with Amazon instead of wasting money building a datacenter.
http://aws.amazon.com
EC2 is in limited Beta. I think existing customers get priority. So I suggest opening an S3 account first then add yourself in the waiting list for EC2. They added me in less than a week. (S3 won’t cost anything if you leave it empty.)
I’m not a techie so someone should blog about this in detail.
http://www.maluke.com/blog/amazon-elastic-compute-cloud-ec2
Yes. The ideas are worth of millions if we just can market it right and if we can really make it work.
madami ng mga apartment hunting sites dito kaso yun nga they are mostly useless. walang function na maganda.
Top 3 that can make really good money:
JobSearch
Apartment Hunting
Mobile Content / Mobile Web designing
(the Mobile browser is the next killer app)
@emkay40, i dont care what these “friends” of yours think of me, so what makes you think i would care what someone like you who doesnt blog think..?
although i find it fascinating that you already are in defense and im not giving my offense yet..
@bloggementarist: everybody hates you! LOL!
you should have a sitcom titled, “everybody hates bloggementarist”
Interesting link Dave O. http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/08/04/meebo-to-face-more-competition-from-stealth-startup-wablet/
The comments however trashes the creator of Wablet. Not good.
Hi Everybody!
I recently got married in Philippines and moved my USA-Based business to Philippines. I am having difficulty in getting customers. One of my major clients suggested that I creat websites. Any comments on that?
For a quick history about my business… MirandaSoft (AKA “MirandaSoft Computer Services ” and “MirandaSoft International”) operated in Seattle, Washington USA from 1992 to 2006. I closed 99% of my USA-based operations on Sept 20, 2006 and got the DTI permit to operate MirandaSoft Computer Repair Shop (MCRS).
At present, I am fully equipped for full operation… My problem is, advertising. As I have seen, operating a business in Philippines is much different than in USA. Then, when I saw this blog, I feel that I am able to compete with websites in the USA and give Philippines all the credit.
I am located in Pasig City and am needing assistance in getting my *new* Philippine business running to a good start, especially since Christmas is just around the corner.
The URL for MirandaSoft is http://www.MirandaSoft.net
Any (good) ideas? Please let me know. Thanks!
Congratulations, you are Outsourcing yourself to the Philippines! Now that is a topic for a whole new post altogether.
I read your blog. Being half-American (white?) is an advantage for outsourcing yourself – your US-based customers will trust you more.
Sometimes, you have to share really good ideas to keep the pot boiling. 😉
Yeah. I recently rejoined the local Ruby mailing list – ruby-phil – and it seems there is a lot of local action in Rails, the popular Web 2.0 language/toolkit.
MapCentral offers street level maps http://www.mapcentral.ph/
Interface comparable to MapQuest. Hopefully it becomes as user-friendly as Google Maps soon.
Hello Abe. Great ideas! Re apartment hunting reviews et al, I’ve started something fairly similar in my real estate blog, but it’s mostly listing properties. Any tips on how to do it pro-blogger style?
Re: maps online, that would be great to integrate with real estate. As a cyberbroker, I know how useful it can be!
There is no special technique, just use a customized blog layout for your reviews.
For the maps, you can do already it now if you have a GPS. Something like wiki-maps.
Thanks for the info… I tried to check on your website list awaiting spotlight and found http://www.kabeet.com to be cool. But maybe if they could make it offer something more eh? but it’s pretty cool and amazing. hope to see the services in that site improve. Im actually always on the go so I encounter new challenging destinations from time to time, so with this kabeet.com maybe it could make my task a bit easier. 🙂 By the way, do you have any idea why it was named KABEET.COM?
Hi Abe! Just an update. Got so inspired by your Web 2.0 ideas. I recently put up architerra.org for home and condo search then linked it to my RE blog http://architerra.wordpress.com. I’m re-hashing my blog to offer my 2 cents’ advice on the Phil RE home and condo market.
I find that trying to sell products via blog is not as effective in attracting viewers as offering product reviews or consumer advice, then linking it to the product site.
Any new ideas coming in?
Im working right now on my Job portal http://www.Lagahit.com though still at it’s initial phase but the grand plan is quite interesting. By the way, i’m still looking for other country representative and 50% guaranteed income for every registered employers who wanted to use the site. Site feature’s for now is unlimited job posting & unlimited resume browsing for 500/month.
Also I’m looking into a killer app for real estate brokering. This tool will be up by next month and guaranteed savings of 150,000.00 or more if you will use our tools. Were looking into Central Visayas for now and we’ll expand thru open strategic marketing like what i did to my job portal.
I doubt if my new project right now is close to this PinoyTech idea concept.
try to check it for your review http://www.careerclub.com.ph and would love for a link exchange with you guys. tnx..
I guess you’re right. kabeet.com is cool. It pointed me exactly to my search item. Here I was trying to locate the Manila Peninsula
http://www.kabeet.com/flash/result01.php?pid=10186&curPage=1&keyword=manila%20peninsula&file=makati22.swf&category=&location=Makati%20City,%20NCR,%20Philippines#KABEETmap
although it pointed me exactly to the hotel, I was not able to find senator antonio trillanes though… hehehe
Medyo late ang pagkakabasa ko nito. Pero na inspired pa rin ako dun sa idea ni Abe na Apartment Hunting.
http://www.apartmentfinder.ph
I noticed trulia.com and zillow.com being mentioned. And there’s http://www.apartmentfinder.ph too.
Try out:
http://www.haybol.ph
(Philippine-based real estate search engine)
We’re still in alpha/beta. Like Abe, we also want to have a good real estate search engine. What do you guys think?
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Keep up the good job.