Here’s one to throw on your calendars, friends: DrupalCamp 2012. All around the world, the communities that support the open source content management platform, Drupal (what is Drupal, you ask?), are getting together and Taipei is no different.
On July 7th-8th, a two-day conference is taking place in Taipei, and contrary to the hardcoreness often found at these types of conferences, this year’s DrupalCamp is aimed at the newbies. [read on!]
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From its beginnings in 2004 to its IPO this year, it’s tough to argue that Yelp hasn’t set the standard for review sites around the world. Its service provided the individual with unprecedented ability to voice both the good and bad, and ever since, few entrants have strayed very far from Yelp’s tried and true model.
Taiwan’s Citydomo, however, is breaking out of the Yelp mold by adding a layer of user incentivization to the review process. The site rewards users with points, called Domo Dollars, for participating in the site that can be exchanged for a variety of rewards. After a promising start this spring, Founders Kevin Lin and Joe Pearce hope that in a rewards-happy country, this rewards system coupled with a renewed vigor after last week’s Echelon’s Taipei satellite event will open a gateway for these relative newcomers. [read on!]
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Last night the Singporean blog E27 held their Taiwan satellite event in Taipei. Fourteen teams, mostly from Taiwan but also several from Hong Kong, Korea, and even the British Virgin Islands, took to the stage to pitch their startups and product ideas. In the end, the five judges (RIM’s Alan Wong, appWorks’ Jamie Lin, E27’s Thaddeus Koh, TMI Holdings’ Mark Hsu, and KKBox’s Izero Lee) chose Ragic, an enterprise startup delivering a suite of spreadsheet-based business applications, as the best in show. [read on!]
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Singapore’s E27 is in the midst of a series of pan-Asia satellite events to find and invite 50 of the hottest Asian startups to the main stage of their signature Echelon event.
Save the date: Taipei’s satellite event is happening next Tuesday (4/24), and will be emceed by none other than yours truly. Register here (it’s free!), and check out more info about the Taipei satellite here or 這裡(中文).
The Deets:
Five suggested reasons you should consider attending are: [read on!]
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Cubie Messenger, a new messaging app from game developer Gamelet, has passed 400,000 downloads in just over a month, ranking 1st in the social networking category in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. It is currently the number 1 iPhone app in Malaysia, regardless of category. [read on!]
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In what was perhaps the largest nod to the internet startup industry here in Taiwan to date, several major figures from the Taiwanese government participated in ‘Start-up Taiwan,’ a full-day event held last Friday dedicated to small and medium enterprise.
Taiwan’s Vice President-Elect Den-Yih Wu (吳敦義), Economic Minister Yen-Shiang Shih (施顏祥), and Executive Yuan Premier Chun Chen (陳冲) all gave speeches to open the precedings that included a keynote speech on innovation by K.S. Pua and a panel discussion on globalizing and marketing startups that was arguably the highlight of the event.
Seated left to right: Christopher Fay, Polo Wu, John Fan, Chao Tung-Wen, Jerry Kuo, Far Tseng. Not pictured: Volker Heistermann, KS Pua
Even though the government representatives’ speeches were given perfunctorily, the event was symbolic nonetheless. It was the first time I can think of that such broad and politically-oriented audience members and speakers were talking about startups. Less importantly, it marked the one-year anniversary of TechOrange Global, and what an interesting year it’s been. Let’s have a look back, shall we? [read on!]
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Last Friday, appWorks founder and VC Jamie Lin pulled the veil from his fourth class of internet and mobile startups. This season appWorks saw its biggest class yet, sporting 24 teams looking to enter the startup fray.
To begin the show, Lin gave a quick update on past appWorks teams whom are making strong progress: Richi (working on e-commerce and e-platforms), Good Life, Tagtoo, EZTable (making a big hiring push of 20 engineers, founder Alex Chen promised a 10% raise and good dinners), Q.L.L, and MamiBuy. His remarks were followed by a few words on cross-strait cooperation in the internet space from representative from Sina, a company making its first appearance at a Taiwan startup event.
There were many teams with solid demos; here are six that TOG readers might care to know a bit about: [read on!]
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