Rakuten .. again

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Rakuten acquires online shopping service Slice

August 12, 2014, by Allison Enright 

The Japanese e-commerce company previously invested in the Silicon Valley startup.

Rakuten Inc. has acquired Slice, a shopping application that helps consumers keep track of their online shopping.

Terms of the buy were not disclosed. Rakuten, a Japanese company that operates online marketplace sites around the globe and has made numerous e-commerce investments in recent years, first invested in Slice last year, leading a $23 million funding round.

Slice’s shopping app, launched in 2011, organizes the order confirmations and shipping notifications that e-retailers e-mail to consumers after they purchase. Consumers let the Slice application access their webmail accounts.

“We couldn’t have found a better partner as we grow our business and product portfolio,” writes Slice founder and CEO Scott Brady in a blog post announcing the purchase. “Joining forces with Rakuten now enables us to exponentially increase our ability to develop the technology and products to bring that transformative vision to life more quickly and at a scale beyond what we could achieve independently.” Brady goes on to say Slice will operate as a stand-alone business and retain current management.

Rakuten had no immediate comment on why it purchased Slice or what it intends to do with it.

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Japanese e-commerce powerhouse Rakuten launches a $100 million startup fund

June 30, 2014 by Don Davis

The company plans to invest in early-stage companies based in Asia, the United States and Israel.

Like many successful Japanese companies, Rakuten Inc. has taken profits from its operations in Japan to expand globally. That continued today with the Tokyo-based company announcing plans to create a $100 million fund to invest in young technology companies that have a focus on improving user experience.

Rakuten Ventures, the investment are of Rakuten Inc., said today the new fund will focus on investing in technology start-ups in Israel, the Asia-Pacific region and the United States. It will be based in Singapore and run by Saemin Ahn, managing partner of Rakuten Ventures. Rakuten Ventures set up a similar fund last year to invest in companies in Southeast Asia.

Rakuten, whose Rakuten Ichiba marketplace is the leading e-commerce site in Japan, has invested billions in recent years in e-commerce and online marketing companies in North and South America, Asia and Europe. The company’s global e-retail sites and shopping portals accounted for $18 billion in sales in 2013, while the company reported revenue grew 29.5% to $4.9 billion and net income more than doubled to $412.6 million.

In a statement announcing the new fund, Saemin Ahn, pointed to two companies with roots in Israel as examples of the kind of start-ups that have rapidly won consumer loyalty: Waze, a mobile travel app developer that Google Inc. acquired last year, and messaging service provider Viber Media Inc., which Rakuten acquired in February for $900 million.

“More Asia-based VCs are venturing out into different regions to look at investment as long-term growth vehicles,” he said. “Since 2013, Rakuten Ventures has been one of such VCs to aggressively invest larger amounts into younger companies, to enable them to focus on product and service development.”

Rakuten chairman and CEO Hiroshi Mikitani has made clear his global ambitions: He said last year aims to operate marketplaces in 27 countries and process $125 billion in transactions by 2020. By contrast, eBay Inc. reported the total value of transactions on its shopping portals in 2013 was $77 billion, and Internet Retailer estimates Amazon.com Inc.’s sales on its worldwide sites last year amounted to $100 billion.

To achieve that growth, Rakuten has been on a buying spree in recent years.

The company in 2010 acquired U.S. e-retailer Buy.com for $250 million, renaming it Rakuten Shopping and turning it into a marketplace that hosts other merchant’s products but does not sell on its own behalf. Other investments include purchasing a stake in image-based social network Pinterest in 2012, buying e-reader company Kobo in 2011 for $315 million, and taking a stake in U.S. e-retailer The Grommet Inc., No. 415 in the 2014 Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide. In 2005, Rakuten acquired affiliate marketing network Linkshare for $425 million.

Rakuten’s European investments include: acquiring French online shopping mall Price Minister in 2010 for $248 million; taking an 80% stake in 2011 in Germany web marketplace operator Tradoria GmbH; buying U.K. e-retailer Play.com in 2011 for $39 million and participating in a $100 million investment round in 2011 in Russian online retailer Ozon.ru. Play.com is No. 28 in the 2014 Internet Retailer Europe 500 and Ozon.ru is No. 89.

Europe smart meters projection

From Berg Insight 's report 

December 2014

40 percent of Europe's gas customers will have smart meters by 2020 

According to a new report from the research firm Berg Insight, 40 percent of all gas customers in Europe will have smart gas meters by 2020. At the end of 2014, there were 2.5 million smart gas meters in the EU28+2 area, corresponding to a penetration rate of around 2 percent. By 2020, the installed base is projected to reach 49.0 million units. The increase will mainly be driven by nationwide rollouts in France, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK. In early 2015, the Netherlands will become the first European country to reach 1 million units installed as the Dutch utilities start the mass-deployment of smart meters. At the end of the year, Berg Insight also expects that massive installations will get underway in Italy and France. Earlier this year, the French national gas distribution network operator GrDF placed orders for a total of 11 million smart gas meters that will be deployed until 2020. GrDF and several leading gas network operators in Italy intend to use 169 MHz radio technology as the communication platform for their solutions, while smart electricity meters will be used as local communication hubs in the UK and the Netherlands. 

While the smart gas meter rollouts are largely proceeding according to plan in the countries mentioned, the UK is facing a more difficult situation. Following the announcement that the country’s centralised data and communications system will not become operational before the end of 2016, Berg Insight expects that the mass-rollout of smart meters will not begin before 2017. As a consequence of the delay, the official target that the rollout should be completed by 2020 seems unattainable. “We are fully convinced that the UK smart metering project will eventually come to its conclusion, but the multitude of challenges arising from such a complex undertaking require considerable time to resolve” says Tobias Ryberg, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight and author of the report. “If there is one thing that can be learned from a decade of smart metering projects in Europe, it is that they get delayed.” 

70 percent of Europe's electricity customers will have smart meters by 2022

At the end of 2014, there were 67.9 million smart electricity meters in the EU28+2 area, corresponding to a penetration rate of 24 percent. By 2022, the installed base is projected to reach 199.7 million units. The vast majority of Europe’s smart electricity meters are today deployed in Italy, Spain and the Nordic countries. Over the coming 6–8 years, nationwide rollouts are planned in a number of additional countries in Western Europe, including France, the UK, the Netherlands, Austria and Ireland. Moreover, Berg Insight expects a significant uptake in several countries in Eastern Europe such as Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Estonia. The outlook for Germany is however less optimistic as several regulatory and technical issues still need to be resolved. 

Berg Insight expects that the European smart electricity market will perform well in the coming years as a number of new and ongoing rollouts ramp up to full speed. During 2015, shipments of smart electricity meters are expected to grow by 30 percent to 8.4 million units, fuelled by new and expanded projects in France, the Netherlands and Norway. By 2017, Berg Insight also expects that the much delayed rollout in the UK will finally get up to speed. “Based on the current time plans and projections, the European smart meter market will peak at 25–30 million units per year in the early 2020s”, says Tobias Ryberg, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight. “Besides greenfield deployments, we also expect to see next generation upgrades of the oldest existing systems in countries such as Italy“. 

Rakuten Corporate Action

OverDrive       $410 million : will April 2015 ? : e-book distributor
Lyft Inc            $530 million
Ebates Inc        $981 million : October 2014
Viber Media    $905 (or $900?) million : March 2014 : mobile chat and app platform provider
Wuaki.tv
Viki Inc
Kobo Inc.         $350 (or $315?) million : ? 2012 : e-reader and e-book provider
Play.com          $39 million : 2011 : U.K. e-commerce operator

Ikeda                75% stake : June 2011: e-commerce technology and services
Tradoria          80% stake : 2011: e-commerce platform
PriceMinister  $248 million : 2010 : France-based e-commerce operator

Buy.com           $250 million: 2010 : e-retailer

Total                 $3.2 billion

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From internetretailer.com 's article
Rakuten pays $410 million for U.S. e-book marketplace OverDrive

March 19, 2015 by BLOOMBERG NEWS

OverDrive will strengthen Rakuten’s e-book business by adding a distribution platform, more than 2.5 million titles, relationships with 5,000 publishers and 30,000 libraries.

(Bloomberg) -- Rakuten Inc., operator of Japan’s biggest Internet shopping mall, will pay $410 million in cash for e-book distributor OverDrive Inc. to expand its digital content business.

OverDrive will strengthen Rakuten’s e-book business by adding a distribution platform, more than 2.5 million titles, relationships with 5,000 publishers and 30,000 libraries.

Rakuten has spent about $3.2 billion over the past three years to buy companies as it expands into online services and selling e-books, video and other content. The company said earlier this month it would invest $530 million into Lyft Inc. and paid $981 million in cash for Ebates Inc. in October, after acquiring Viber Media Ltd. last March for $905 million.

Rakuten’s billionaire chairman Hiroshi Mikitani has introduced tablets in Japan to help sell e-books, tracking rival Amazon.com Inc.’s strategy of delivering digital content through its Kindle platform. Mikitani is Japan’s third-richest man with a net worth of about $9.8 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

OverDrive supplies the industry’s largest catalog of e- books, audiobooks, music and streaming video to 33,000 libraries, schools and retailers worldwide. It will operate as a subsidiary of Rakuten’s U.S. unit.

As of Dec. 31, Rakuten had about $9.9 billion in net cash, according to Bloomberg.

Rakuten.com Shopping is No. 46 in the Internet Retailer 2014 Top 500 Guide, while Rakuten Inc. is No. 20 (2?) in the Internet Retailer 2015 Asia 500. Amazon.com is No. 1 in the Top 500.

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Japan’s Rakuten buys U.S. rebate site Ebates for $1 billion
September 9, 2014 by BLOOMBERG NEWS

It represents another step toward expansion into the U.S. for the company that previously bought Buy.com and other e-retail assets.

Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Rakuten Inc. agreed to buy U.S. rebates web site Ebates Inc. in Japan’s largest e-commerce deal as the operator of the country’s biggest online mall seeks expansion outside its home market through acquisitions.

Rakuten will pay $1 billion in cash for all of Ebates, it said in a filing to the Tokyo Stock Exchange yesterday. San Francisco-based Ebates offers cash rebates to customers who buy products ranging from laptops to lipsticks from the web site’s retail partners.

Rakuten is betting the purchase will help push its global e-commerce strategy. Rakuten has also been plowing cash into technologies such as mobile applications and online video as it seeks to add to its online marketplace business.

“This deal doesn’t just mean we’ve started a cash-back web site in the U.S., I think we can operate this model all over the world,” Mikitani told reporters at a briefing in Tokyo yesterday. The purchase will lift the proportion of Rakuten’s e- commerce transactions from outside Japan to 16% from about 6% currently, he said.

Rakuten targets to raise the proportion to 50% of total around 2020, said Mikitani, Japan’s fourth-richest man with a net worth of about $7 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Points Program

Rakuten fell 1.3% to 1,254 yen in Tokyo yesterday, the lowest level since May 23. The stock has lost 20% this year, compared with the 0.2% decline in the benchmark Topix index. The shares dropped the most in three months on Sept. 8 on concerns about the deal’s cost effectiveness, after Rakuten confirmed it was in negotiations.

The company wants to create with Ebates a membership-based marketplace with “the world’s largest product line-up” ranging from niche to luxury items, and featuring a points program, Rakuten said in the exchange statement. The potential impact on its earnings from the acquisition is “difficult to estimate” at present, it said.

Ebates, which has 2.5 million active members and more than 2,600 retailers in its network, posted an operating income of $13.7 million on net revenue of $167.4 million in fiscal 2013, Rakuten said. Members spent $2.2 billion shopping through Ebates last year.

“Joining forces with Rakuten will help accelerate our U.S. and international growth,” Kevin Johnson, chief executive officer of Ebates, said in a Rakuten statement distributed by Businesswire.

Viber Purchase

The deal comes after Rakuten announced 18 acquisitions since the start of last year, and the cybermall operator said in June it’s open to more large-scale buys following its bond debut. Rakuten bought messaging service Viber Media Inc. for $905 million in March, Japan’s biggest e-commerce deal at the time according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The company, which Mikitani founded in 1997, was an acquirer in three of the top ten e-commerce deals in Japan before the Ebates purchase was announced, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. As of June 30, Rakuten had about 1.7 trillion yen ($16 billion) in cash and short-term investments, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

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Rakuten buys mobile messaging company Viber for $900 million
February 14, 2014 by AMY DUSTO Associate Editor

Viber allows members to chat and talk for free on mobile, as well as purchase and send each other digital stickers. Rakuten’s CEO says it has “tremendous potential” to become a gaming platform, too.

Rakuten Inc. has purchased mobile chat and app platform provider Viber Media Inc. for $900 million, the retailer announced today. Viber provides free chat and voice-over- Internet (VoIP) services to consumers. It also allows users to purchase and send digital versions of cartoon-like stickers, similar to emoticons in chat messages, to one another. Additionally, Viber has “tremendous potential” as a mobile gaming platform.

Viber understands how people actually want to engage, this makes Viber the ideal total consumer engagement platform for Rakuten to bring deep understanding to vast new audiences. 

Viber grew its user base by 120% in 2013, to 300 million. Viber will gain access to markets in which it does not currently have strong penetration, while Rakuten will benefit by gaining access to over 277 million new prospective Rakuten users in markets where Viber has an established presence, such as Western Europe.

Rakuten operates the largest online shopping portal in Japan and is the No. 2 e-retailer in all of Asia by sales according to the Internet Retailer’s Asia 500. The company acquired U.S. online discount retailer Buy.com in 2010. It later renamed the retailer Rakuten Shopping and converted it into an online marketplace that hosts other merchants’ shops but does not sell on its own behalf, in the model of Rakuten Japan.

Rakuten has been building out its digital services over the last two years, starting with its acquisition of e-reader and e-book provider Kobo Inc. for $350 million in 2012. Since then, it has also bought two streaming video services, Spanish Wuaki.tv and Palo Alto-based Viki Inc. Today, Rakuten offers 40 Internet services associated with its Rakuten Super Points rewards program, which has roughly 225 million members worldwide. With Viber, the retailer will bring many of those services together onto one platform with single login for members. The acquisition also illustrates a fundamental shift in Rakuten’s strategic direction, which is mobile-first.

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Rakuten books space in the e-reader market by acquiring Kobo

November 8, 2011 by MARK BROHAN Research Director

The value of the all-cash deal is $315 million.

Japan-based Rakuten Inc. keeps on buying up companies it believes will transform it into a global online retailer powerhouse.

This time the merchandising category is the lucrative electronic books and digital content market and the acquisition is Kobo Inc., the e-book reader maker and content  provider that’s also a unit of Toronto-based retailer Indigo Books & Music No. 177 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.

Rakuten, which acquired U.S. e-retailer Buy.com in 2010 will acquire Kobo for $315 million in cash.

Kobo provides one of the world’s most communal e-book reading experiences with its innovative integration of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter; while Rakuten offers Kobo unparalleled opportunities to extend its reach through some of the world’s largest regional e-commerce companies.

Kobo, which in July launched its first overseas venture in Germany, agreed to be acquired because a bigger organization could help Kobo diversify and grow quicker against bigger rivals such as Barnes & Noble, which makes and markets the Nook e-reader, and Amazon.com, which develops and sells the Kindle e-reader.

Kobo is the most social eBook service on the market and one of the world’s largest eBook stores with over 2.5 million titles. This transaction will greatly strengthen position in current markets and allow to diversify quickly into other countries and e-commerce categories.

Kobo was increasingly an also-ran in the U.S. e-book reader market with only 6% market share in April 2011, according to a survey by e-commerce software firm Elastic Path reported by research firm eMarketer. But Kobo commanded 36% of the market in its home country of Canada in August 2011, according to a survey by market research firm Ipsos.

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Japan’s Rakuten to buy U.K.-based online retailer Play.com
September 21, 2011 by Thad Rueter

The acquisition marks the latest global e-commerce investment for the owner of Buy.com

Japan-based Rakuten Inc. today said it will buy U.K. e-commerce operator Play.com for 25 million pounds (US$39 million).

The acquisition of the retailer, which sells music, DVDs, books, consumer electronics, office equipment, mobile phones, toys and other products, marks the latest global e-commerce investment by Rakuten, which in 2010 bought U.S. e-retailer Buy.com Inc.

Play.com, No. 26 in the Internet Retailer Europe 300 Guide, had online sales of $660 million last year, up 18% from the year before.  Buy.com is No. 32 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.

“The U.K. market is one of Europe’s largest and most mature e-commerce markets. Play.com is not only a pioneer in the market, but also one of the U.K.’s most successful e-commerce businesses,” says Hiroshi Mikitani, chairman and CEO of the Japan-based e-marketplace operator. “We aim to leverage our e-commerce strength and experience to further expand and develop Play.com’s business model and channel its loyal user base, merchants, and deep product offerings into Rakuten’s global e-commerce network.”

Rakuten says it will buy up all of Play.com’s stock.

Earlier this month, Rakuten was part of a group of investors that raised $100 million for Russia-based online retailer Ozon.ru, which, like Play.com, sells a wide variety of products.  The investment followed Rakuten’s purchases in June of a 75% stake in Brazil-based Ikeda, which sells e-commerce technology and services to more than 100 of the largest online retailers in that country. Rakuten this year also acquired 80% of Germany-based Tradoria GmbH, which sells an e-commerce platform. In 2010, Rakuten bought France-based e-commerce operator PriceMinister.

Asia Pacific (excl Japan) Online Game Market Projection

Taken from enterpriseinnovation.net 's article

Online gaming in APAC to breach $30B in 4 years

The online gaming revenue in the Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) is expected reach $30.39 billion in 2018 at a CAGR of 18.53%, according to IDC.

This growth comes despite a slowdown in Southeast Asian markets in 2013 as service providers prepared to include mobile games into their business strategies and game portfolios. 

Online gaming revenue in APEJ was $12.96 billion in 2013 with growth of 14.27% over $11.34 billion in 2012. IDC said that the number of online gaming users will rise to 335.88 million in 2018, from 240.74 million in 2013.

What is most encouraging is a corresponding rise in the number of paying online gamers, from 102.81 million in 2013 to nearly 150 million in 2018.

“Online gaming in the APEJ region is not only a fast growing segment but it is also poised to take advantage of the wave of consumer smartphone adoption to access the mobile internet across the region,” says Shiv Putcha, associate research director for consumer mobility at IDC Asia Pacific. 

Putcha said that the first major driver comes down to strong regional growth. China has been and will continue to be the dominant force in online gaming but other markets, like Korea and Taiwan, are also seeing strong growth. The top three markets — China, Korea, and Taiwan — make up 95.56% of online gaming revenue in APEJ.

On the other hand, emerging markets, like India and Indonesia, have nascent online gaming markets but have made great strides in the last year, he observes

"The higher penetration of internet, broadband, PC, and mobile device and completely free-to-play (F2P) game offerings increased the popularity of mobile games,” said Putcha.

“eSports and competitive games such as MOBA games continue to attract online PC gamers,” added Putcha. “The popularity of competitive games, such as e

Sports and mobile battle arena games, continue to attract online PC gamers in Asia Pacific."

Putcha notes that the online gaming market has completely transitioned from a subscription fee–based business model into a freemium model.

Success recipe

Take  from Business Insider

50 Universal Truths That Will Make You More Successful
by JULIE BORT OCT. 28, 2013

No matter what is going on in your career, good advice is universal. No matter what problems you are trying to solve, chances are someone else before you had a similar problem.

There are certain universal "business truths" — tips and tricks that work for nearly everyone in every business. They are:

1. Have a passion for your work. If your work is meaningful to you, your work life will be a joy.

2. If you can't be passiona7te about the work itself, be passionate about the reason you do it. Maybe you don't love your job or company or career, but the money and benefits are good for your family. Be passionate in your choice to do right by your family.

3. If something needs changing, be the one to lead the change. If you dislike your job but are stuck, work on getting the skills that will get you unstuck. If there's a problem at your office, work on being the one solve it.

4. Start small and build from there.

5. Do the obvious stuff first, then progress to the harder stuff. (Otherwise known as going for the low-hanging fruit.)

6. If it's not broke, don't fix it. Do improve it.

7. The hardest lesson to learn is when to keep going and when to quit. No one can teach you that. At some point, you have to choose.

8. The definition of crazy is to do the same thing the same way and expect a different result. If the result isn't good, change something.

9. No one succeeds alone.

10. Ask for help. Be specific when asking. Be graceful and grateful when help comes.

11. Surround yourself with positive people and you'll have a positive outcome.

12. Embrace diversity. The best way to compensate for your own weaknesses is to pick teammates who have different strengths.

13. People experience the world differently. Two people can attend the same meeting and walk away with different impressions. Don't fight that. Use it.

14. You don't have to like someone to treat that person with respect and courtesy.

15. Don't "should" all over someone, and don't let someone else "should" all over you.

16. No matter what you do or how much you achieve, there are always people who have more.

17. There will always people who have less, too.

18. No matter how much you excel at things, you are not a more worthwhile human being than anyone else. No one else is more worthwhile than you, either.

19. If you spend most of your time using your talents and doing things you are good at, you're more likely to be happy.

20. If you spend most of your time struggling to improve your weaknesses, you're likely to be frustrated.

21. Practice is the only true way to master a new skill. Be patient with yourself while you learn something new.

22. The only way to stay fresh is to keep learning new things.

23. To learn new things means being a beginner, and that means making mistakes.

24. The more comfortable you grow with making beginner mistakes, the easier it is to learn new things.

25. You will never have all the resources (time, money, people, etc.) that you want for your project or company. No one ever has all the resources they want.

26. A lack of resources isn't an excuse. It's a blessing in disguise. You'll have to get creative.

27. Creativity and innovation are skills that can be learned and practiced by doing your usual things in a new way.

28. Take calculated risks.

29. In the early stages of a company, career, or project, you'll have to say "yes" to a lot of things. In the later stages, you'll have to say "no."

30. Negative feedback is necessary. Don't automatically reject it. Examine it for the nuggets of truth, and then disregard the rest.

31. When delivering criticism, talk about the work, not the person.

32. Think big. Dream big. (The alternative is to think small, dream small.)

33. Treat your dream as an ultimate roadmap. You don't have to achieve your dream right away, but the only way to get there is to take many steps toward it.

34. If you think big, you will hear "no" more than you hear "yes." They don't get to decide. You do.

35. How long it takes you to create something is less important than how valuable and worthwhile it will be once it's created.

36. If there is one secret to success, it's this: communicate your plans with other people and keep communicating those plans.

37. Grow your network. Make an effort to meet new people and to keep in contact with those you know.

38. No matter what technology or service you are creating or inventing at your company, it's not about the product; it's always about the people and the lives you will improve.

39. No matter how successful you get, you can still fail and fail big.

40. Failure isn't a bad thing. It's part of the process.

41. Things always go wrong. The only way to keep that from hurting you is to plan for that.

42. Learn how to respectfully, but firmly, say "no."

43. Say "yes" as much as you can.

44. In order to say "yes" often, attach boundaries or a scope of work around your "yes."

45. No matter how rich, famous, or successful another person is, inside that person is just a human being with hopes, dreams, and fears, the same as you.

46. Getting what you want doesn't mean you'll be happy. Happiness is the art of being satisfied with what you already have.

47. Working with difficult personalities will be a part of every job. Be respectful, do your job well, and nine times out of 10 that person will move on.

48. For that one-out-of-10 time, remember you aren't a victim. Do what you need to get a new job.

49. As soon as you have something to demonstrate, get an executive champion to back or support your project.

50. Focus on what you want, not what you don't want.

Why it is called "cloud"

Taken from BusinessInsider 's article
Why ‘cloud computing’ is called ‘cloud computing’
by MATT WEINBERGER

Rewind to the early nineties: Computer scientists and engineers needed some way in their diagrams and slideshows to refer to “the network,” that big grouping of computers and storage devices out there somewhere. In other words, they needed some way to refer to something that was, essentially, somebody else’s problem.

They settled on a cloud.

You can see one of the earliest uses of that idea in this diagram from US Patent 5,485,455, “Network having secure fast packet switching and guaranteed quality of service,” filed in the January of 1994.

If you squint, that “Network” bubble is cloud-like. The patent’s authors just meant to illustrate that what was in the network wasn’t important for their purposes.

By the time US Patent 5,790,548, “Universal access multimedia data network,” was filed for in the April of 1996, the cloud looked a lot more like a cloud:

It’s just meant to be a vague description of things happening elsewhere.

This usage led to the growing popularity of the term “cloud computing” to refer to servers, networks, and data centers that were located or managed elsewhere and thusly someone else’s problem. A Compaq document from 1996 was probably the first time the term was used in any kind of official capacity, reports the Technology Review. But the term really caught on when Amazon Web Services launched its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) in 2006.

Amazon EC2 basically sells virtual servers to other companies — the very definition of “somebody else’s problem.” Other companies caught on and started offering software (like Salesforce), storage (like Box), or a mix of the two (like Microsoft Office 365) from their own data centers to companies who don’t really care where it comes from. To them, the cloud providers are their own squiggly lines on a diagram.

What is Programmatic Advertising

Taken from digiday.com 's article
WTF is programmatic advertising?

Klasmaya additional figure

Source: BI Intelligence estimates, Magna Global, IDC

Programmatic ad buying has changed the face of online advertising, but there’s still confusion around what it actually is. Here’s a primer, in plain English:

What is programmatic ad buying?

“Programmatic” ad buying typically refers to the use of software to purchase digital advertising, as opposed to the traditional process that involves RFPs, human negotiations and manual insertion orders. It’s using machines to buy ads, basically.

Why does programmatic advertising matter?

Efficiency. Before programmatic ad buying, digital ads were bought and sold by human ad buyers and salespeople, which are expensive and unreliable. Programmatic advertising technology promises to make the ad buying system more efficient, and therefore cheaper, by removing humans from the process wherever possible. Humans get sick, need to sleep and come to work hungover. Machines do not.

So robots are replacing people? Great.

Yes and no. Technology is being used to replace some of the more menial tasks that humans have historically had to deal with, like sending insertion orders to publishers and dealing with ad tags, but they’re still required to optimize campaigns and to plan strategies. Programmatic technology will probably mean there are fewer ad buyers in the world, but it could also allow both marketers and sellers to spend more of their time planning sophisticated, customized campaigns instead of getting bogged down in bureaucracy.

Is programmatic buying is the same as real-time bidding, then?

No, it’s not. Real-time bidding is a type of programmatic ad buying, but it isn’t the only one. RTB refers to the purchase of ads through real-time auctions, but programmatic software also allows advertisers to buy guaranteed ad impressions in advance from specific publisher sites. This method of buying is often referred to as “programmatic direct.”

Is programmatic “the future of ad buying”?

Probably, yes. It’s impossible to tell what portion of advertising is now traded programatically, but it’s definitely on the rise. Some agencies now say they’re eager to buy as much media as possible through programmatic channels, and some major brands have even built out in-house teams to handle their programmatic ad buying as they spend more of their marketing budgets that way. At the moment, it’s mainly online ads that are traded programatically, but increasingly media companies and agencies are exploring ways to sell “traditional” media this way, including TV spots and out-of-home ads.

Telecom's e-commerce in Indonesia

Taken from The Jakarta Post's article

Telcom firms build up e-commerce outlets

Driven by a huge market potential and hundreds of millions of Internet users in the country, domestic telecommunications operators are getting more serious about developing their e-commerce businesses.

Three major telecommunication operators PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom), PT XL Axiata and PT Indosat have allocated some amount of investment this year to revamp their e-commerce businesses.

XL

Through its financial report, XL disclosed that on Jan. 27, it poured US$12.1 million into Elevenia (www. elevenia.co.id), its e-commerce outlet. That investment was equal to the amount invested in the marketplace by its partner SK Planet, a subsidiary of South Korean SK Telecom.

"The additional investment was part of Elevenia's blueprint that has been agreed upon by both XL and SK Planet," said Elevenia chief financial officer Lila Nirmandari.

Both business partners open the possibility of adding more fresh capital to the marketplace in the coming months, depending on the market dynamic, she told The Jakarta Post.

Lila said most of the $24.2 million investment would be used to support sales and promotion activities to make Elevenia known better outside Greater Jakarta.

Officially launched in March last year, Elevenia was first established in mid-2013 with initial investments of $18.3 million from XL and another $18.3 million from SK Planet, giving each of them a 50 percent of stake.

As of February, Elevenia had around 20,000 merchants and 2 million products comprising eight categories: fashion, beauty & health, babies & kids, home or garden, gadget, electronics, sports or hobby and service or food.

Elevenia aimed to increase its revenue by four to five times this year compared to its revenue of Rp 3.5 billion ($267,500) last year, leveraging on XL's surging data subscribers.

Last year alone, around 51 percent of XL's 59.6 million subscribers (including postpaid users) were data users.

Indosat

Separately, Indosat also aims to boost. its e-commerce outlet Cipika (www.cipika.co.id), which is run by the company's digital commerce division.

Taking a bolder stance to differentiate it self from other marketplaces, Cipika plans to change its product focus from local food and snacks to gadgets this year.

"Focusing on gadget and electronics [this year], we want to leverage on Indosat's core products and core networks," said Indosat's head of digital commerce division, Carlos Karo Karo. As of September last year, Indosat had 54.2 million subscribers, of whom around 50 percent were data users.

Cipika would sell phones bundled with Indosat's mobile packages as well as phones bundled with competitors mobile packages, Carlos said.

In the span of November 2014 te January this year, gadgets contributed to around 30 percent of transactions in Cipika, while food and snacks remained a major contributor, he added.

In 2014, food and snacks contributed to around 80 percent of transactions in Cipika, while the remaining 20 percent was from another three product categories: gadgets, travel and lifestyle.

"This year, we hope 80 percent of the transactions will be from gadgets," Carlos told the Post.

Carlos refused to disclose how much Indosat would invest for Cipika this year to support its marketplace , business transformation, but said that an investment fund dedicated to the development of the marketplace was already in place.

Indosat usually spends between Rp 7 and 8 trillion in its annual capital expenditure, part of which is allotted for its digital service.

Carlos said Indosat would continue investing in its digital service in the future as it had still an ample room to grow.

Only around 1.7 percent of transactions in Indonesia's market were currently done online and it was forecast to increase to 7 percent by 2019, he said.

"Cipika aims to cater between 17 and 20 percent of those online transactions in 2019," he went on.

Telkom

Meanwhile Blanja (www.blanja.com), a marketplace jointly run by state-owned telecommunications firm Telkom and US-based marketplace giant eBay, does not target specific growth rate this year but foresees a huge potential.

Telkom, which netted around 138 million subscribers as of September last year, and eBay initially established PT Metra Plasa with a total investment of $14.2 million in April 2012 to make a joint e-commerce marketplace. It later developed into today's Blanja.

Officially launched in December last year, Blanja currently has around 80,000 page visits per day and almost 500,000 registered customers, said Blanja CEO Aulia Marinto.

"Let's not forget that the e-commerce industry is still quite new and there is ample room to grow as Internet penetration gets better and the economy keeps growing," he added.

UBS has projected that Indonesia's Internet penetration will hit 55 percent in 2017, meaning that there will be around 130 million people having access to the Internet.

However, while the potential is huge, challenges for e-commerce remain at logistic, payment gateways and regulation certainty, according to the three telecommunications operators.

Blanja's Aulia said e-commerce very much depended on external factors that could become enablers, such as logistics services and payment methods.

Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara said recently that the government planned to issue an "e-commerce roadmap" in the next three to six months to provide clear guidelines on logistics services, payment gateways and taxes for the e-commerce industry.