The companies were evaluated on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy, and market penetration.

“It’s an honor to stand in front of the shadows of giants like Google, Yahoo, Skype, YouTube and eBay who were all recognized by Red Herring Global 100 during their nascent years,” says Aung Kyaw Moe, founder and CEO of 2C2P. “This award only affirms our leading position in the Asia-Pacific payment space. 2C2P is the first and only one in Asia-Pacific today that is in compliance with two of the highest data security standards in the industry: the PCIDSS and Visa3D Secure. We will continue to develop technologies that break new grounds in e-commerce and mobile payments.”

In 2009, 2C2P took the emerging mobile payment space head-on with its Mobile Credit Card Terminal, a mobile application that allows merchants and consumers to process and manage credit and debit card transactions securely from multiple mobile devices without additional equipment. The application uses standard a Card Not Present (CNP) message format, therefore eliminating the need for a cardholder signature. In July 2009, the Mobile Credit Card Terminal was declared Grand Prize Winner of the 2009 Nokia ‘Calling All Innovators’ Award, granting 2C2P US$30,000 in prize money and premium placement in Nokia’s Ovi Store.

The 2C2P system has processed more than 2.7 million credit card payment transactions to date, and continues to process online payment transactions from 5,000 individuals every day.

About 2C2P
2C2P (short for Credit Card Payment Processor) is an e-commerce payment provider offering innovative payment processing solutions for businesses in Asia-Pacific. Launched in 2008 as a spin-off of leading payment technology provider SinaptIQ, 2C2P has since established itself as one of the leading e-commerce payment providers in Asia-Pacific. 2C2P is backed by Expara IDM Ventures under the i.JAM Microfunding Scheme, an initiative of the Government of Singapore.

For more information, please contact :
Kimberley Ong
Tel : (+65) 9750 1555
Email : kim@expara.com

SinaptIQ and 2C2P

2C2P, a startup under MDA’s iJam Scheme is now entering the Singapore space and has started with baby steps in the right direction by getting into partnership with UOB.

Aung Kway Moe, founder of 2C2P is an established entrepreneur in Thailand. He founded SinaptIQ in 2003 which expanded into three subsidaries of which one of them – Paysbuy was bought over for THB 85M by a Thailand Mobile operator, Total Access Communications (DTAC).

The other subsidaries of SinaptIQ – DCC and 2C2P focuses on different aspects of e-commerce. Dynamic currency converter (DCC), as the name suggests is a real-time application that gives users a choice of paying in Thai Baht or a foreign currency. Its transaction volume breached THB2.0b in Sept 2009 . 2C2P on the other hand focuses on providing Cybersource-esque services in Asia by mainly providing credit card processing, payment gateway solutions and dispute management services.

Established in 2007, 2C2P is a joint-venture between Douglas Abrams and Aung Kway Moe. When asked about why he chose Singapore as the destination to launch 2C2P, he mentioned that Singapore market is open to new transaction-based payment solutions and also sees larger access to funds here.

Singapore Payment Gateway market

In Singapore, the dominant players are Paypal, Worldpay and eNETS. eNETS – the homegrown payment gateway service co-owned by OCBC, DBS and UOB – allows payment through credit and debit cards. Though we are yet to see mass adoption of e-commerce by retailers in the SE-Asian region, Juniper Research estimates that the global transaction market will reach $587 billion by 2011, with much of the payment volume coming from Asia. Aung sees a tremendous opportunity to leverage here, and though he is expecting setbacks from the big players in this market, he is ready to launch 2C2P on a war footing.

Laurels

2C2P was a finalist in the Red Herring 100 Asia 2008 Awards for playing an “important role of technology in Asian economy and throughout the world.” They also won the “Nokia Calling All Innovators” competition in 2009.

Mobile payment solution

2C2P are also entering into the mobile payment market and they claim the solution “is like Square without the device” which to simply put, is like any other mobile solution in the market. Their mobile payment solution will be launched in Thailand on Feb 15th for which they have already acquired a partnership with Amway and they are hoping they can launch it in Singapore by the end of Q2 2010.

With a plethora of mobile payments solutions, e-commerce payment solutions and a variety of players in the value chain, it will definitely be an uphill task for 2C2P to break the mould. Though the solutions they provide are not path-breaking or revolutionary through any lens, it will definitely be great to see more players in this field.

Update: They are also listed as one of the finalists in the Red Herring 2009 Global Awards.

Via E27

These deals cover the launch of a Chinese version of a popular Made-in-Singapore social networking game; a cross-border venture development and incubation effort for new media companies; the digitisation of Chinese television content by a Singapore service provider; a joint collaboration in the psychological analysis technologies on the internet, mobile and social networking sites; and, the commercialisation of a word-of-mouth media channel in China based on a digital technology application developed in Singapore.

The business mission, which covered the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Shaanxi over 23 to 27 November, was organised by the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA), as part of its ongoing efforts to help Singapore’s media companies gain access to the global market. The programme included visits to major Chinese digital media companies and research centres, as well as networking events and pitching sessions.

“As China’s media industry makes tremendous strides and Singapore ramps up the development of its media sector, we believe there are many opportunities for media enterprises from both countries to work together – be it in business development or product innovation. China offers immense market potential and talent; in return, Singapore offers our global connectivity to partner Chinese media enterprises that plan to expand their international operations,” said Dr Tan Chin Nam, Chairman, MDA.
“From the current business mission, we are happy to see more China and Singapore media enterprises jointly charting new territory in the digital media space. Clearly, in this dynamic digital media space, there remain unlimited possibilities for both China and Singapore companies to gain new ground with their products and services through mutually beneficial partnerships,” added Dr Tan.

Besides the new partnerships announced during this business mission, other Singapore digital media companies have extended their reach into China. For example, Mozat and Personal e-Motion have launched their innovations into the country.

Likewise, Chinese digital media companies have ventured into Singapore, with some leveraging on Singapore as a springboard for their global expansion. For example, Beijing Crystal Digital Technology, who was the exclusive developer for World Olympics Games 2008 Beijing, set up its first overseas subsidiary Crystal Computer Graphics in Singapore in 2001. Crystal Computer Graphics has since leveraged Singapore as a hub to handle its Southeast Asia projects, as well as reach into Middle East and India.

There are also regular digital media exchanges on the government-level. With funding from the National Research Foundation under the multi-agency Interactive Digital Media Research & Development Programme Office, MDA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Automation joined forces to set up the China- Singapore Institute of Digital Media, which currently has one laboratory each in Singapore and China. In March 2008, Singapore’s Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, covering bilateral collaboration in the fields of interactive digital media research & development, training, information exchange and joint marketing. Under this MoU, MDA partnered with the Science & Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality to develop and link digital media test-beds in their respective cities.

NURSES in Singapore could soon learn how to treat patients by practising their techniques on a video game. And they are not the only ones turning to games for their ‘lessons’.

The Government is banking on the premise that the local educational games industry will take off, allowing soldiers to use such games to hone their fighting skills, or helping students fine-tune their knowledge of chemical structures.

To give the nascent industry a push, it is in talks with game developers to produce such games, and will later help to fund them.

Mr Thomas Lim, senior director of special programmes at the Media Development Authority, which is spearheading the project, hopes Singapore will follow the lead of countries such as the United States, where video training is commonplace.

Fast-food chain McDonald’s, for example, uses ‘customer-service type of games’ to train its counter staff to deal with customers.

In the United States, students are also using games to learn chemistry by, for example, combining different elements to form certain substances.

The new initiative here, called Learning in Media, was announced by Rear-Admiral (NS) Lui Tuck Yew, Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, at the Games Convention Asia opening ceremony on Thursday.

‘Moving away from entertainment, games are also a useful tool in engaging learners and helping them to develop new skills,’ he said at the convention dedicated to digital media, computer games, and entertainment software and hardware.

Held for the third consecutive year in Singapore, the convention is set to attract close to 120,000 visitors this year, including trade visitors. It is seeing a drop in exhibitors however, due to the economic downturn, with only 80 taking part, compared with last year’s 118.

Source The Straits Times

WANTED: Skilled hands for the fast-growing gaming industry, which Singapore has pegged as one of the next big growth areas for the country.

To boost numbers, working professionals in non-related jobs, such as engineering, are now being courted.

To sweeten the deal, full-time, heavily subsidised gaming courses are being offered to those who want to make a mid-career switch.

The subsidies will come from the Workforce Development Agency (WDA).

Applicants can choose between game art, game design or game programming, and will have to pay $3,000 for a 10-month course.

Trainees will also get a monthly allowance of $1,000.

Successful applicants for the 90 slots available will spend five months at the Digipen Institute of Technology campus here and another five months at game publisher Ubisoft, which will provide hands-on training.

Those who do well will be rewarded: The top 36 trainees will get jobs at Ubisoft, which publishes games like Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell Double Agent and Rainbow Six.

The plan to attract more people to the industry was announced yesterday by Mr Lee Yi Shyan, Minister of State (Manpower, and Trade and Industry) at an event to give out inaugural Digipen scholarships.

Eight scholarships worth $160,000 were awarded. Recipients will begin their undergraduate courses at the Digipen campus here later this year.

On the subsidised gaming courses, Mr Lee said: ‘Gaming is a very fast-growing industry. There are many job opportunities…and big demand in gaming content. I see this as an emerging and very promising industry.’

The interactive digital media industry in Singapore – of which gaming is a big part – has taken off in a big way.

In recent years, major game publishers and studios like Ubisoft, Lucasfilm and Koei Entertainment have set up shop here, employing thousands of workers. The Media Development Authority has also pumped in $500 million in hopes of boosting the industry’s worth – from $4.7 billion in 2005 to $10 billion a year by 2015 – and adding another 10,000 jobs.

Despite all these moves, companies such as Activate Interactive, an online and mobile game developer, say they have trouble finding skilled workers.

Mr Leslie Wou, 38, Activate’s chief executive, said one skill set the company sorely needs is game programming.

Another game developer, Tyler Projects, is facing a different problem. It wants to hire people who are trained in new Web games such as Facebook games, which have been very popular in recent times, but is finding the going tough.

‘Most of the schools train people to develop console games. Our games require a different skill set so we have to do most of the retraining ourselves,’ said Tyler’s founder, Mr Leonard Lin, 27.

To apply or get more information, go to http://singapore.digipen.edu

This article was first published in The Straits Times.

Dr Christopher Chia, chief executive of Media Development Authority (MDA): “Creativity is not questioned today. Instead, we need to ensure that the content pipeline is full and that development teams can easily collaborate with overseas partners at any hour.”

Creativity in IT and IDM would not have been possible without two fundamental strategies that Singapore has been developing over the last three decades: computerisation and government funding.

Twenty-eight years of computerisation produced trained manpower, turned Singaporeans into tech-savv people and built a comprehendisve infrastructure that connects Singapore to the world by submarine cables that have a whopping international Internet capacity of over 100 gigabits per second.

From fewer than 1,000 IT professionals when the national computerisation strategy started in 1981, there are now 139,000 professionals. Students and teachers use computers for learning and teaching. Office workers, housewives and the elderly have also become techsavvy during this time, willing to spend on shiny new gadgets like cellphones and digital music players.

A society so ingrained with technology seeded an environment ready to accept new digital toys and threw up technopreneurs the likes of the Facebook game firm, Tyler Projects, and IT firm ST Electronics that has branched out to
produce animated TV episodes and feature films.

Government funding in the last five to six years for IDM and new media led to fresh ideas, start-ups and companies that are today aggressively pushing the envelope with innovative digital services that are sold on the world market.

The injection of $500 million by the National Research Fund to create interactive digital media resulted in a slew of R&D projects in tertiary institutions as well as treaties with. overseas institutions like the Chinese Academy of Sciences to develop technologies that can be used to create apps.

Initiatives by the MDA to kick-start IDM projects include $50,000 microfinancing schemes to get potential technopreneurs to test their ideas.

World animation giant Lucasfilm is among the many IDM and game companies that opened their
local offices here. Singapore animators at Lucasfilm are contributing to the animation of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV episodes.

As these movies turn digital and with animated films being shot in 3D, the IT capabilities have proven useful. Techies know how to store movie rushes in digital format and transmit them, for example, in secure modes to foreign partners for collaboration. Or IT experts with programming skills are able to code algorithms for new games.

Then the broadband infrastructure that connects every part of Singapore to the world has big data pipes and high speeds which makes data transmission fast. Computergenerated graphics for a fight scene in an animated movie could be produced in a Singapore studio and then passed on to its partner in Amsterdam
at night when the sun sets here and rises in Europe and vice versa. Coding becomes more efficient and productive. Overall this saves time.

Feature-films and animated movies have gained international attention, with nominations and special
prizes at Cannes and other film festivals. Singapore filmmakers such as Kelvin Tong, Anthony Chen and
Jack Neo have all won nominations or awards at international film festivals.

Singapore still has much to do, for instance, getting more people trained to make new films, build
new games or create new technologies. What we have today is a promising start.

Read full article

Inspiring Innovation
Fueling the Future of Media

We are launching the “Future of Media” Initiative to catalyse growth in the interactive digital media (IDM) sector. In 2009, we are including Future Mobile, Future Games, Future TV, Future Worlds and Future Books.

The vision of Future of Media is to pull together companies and combine collectively their user base, distribution networks, development platforms and marketing/ promotion resources with a common goal of accelerating the path to global market and success. Under each Future area, a Partner Network will serve to form a compelling platform for other companies to experiment and commercialise their offerings.

Partner Network

We aim to build a self sustaining mini ecosystem by clustering start-ups, small & medium enterprises and key anchor companies in each of the five areas (cluster called “Partner Networks”). Each Partner Network is encouraged to evolve its own developments based on commercial needs and interests. Companies can benefit from being part of the Partner Network by:

• Synergising to bring about the best of breed offerings;
• Leveraging on one another’s customer base, market access and partners;
• Harnessing one another’s capabilities;
• Inspiring and facilitating innovation; and
• Jointly make Calls for Proposals.

Our Support

Through industry feedback, we understand that companies in this sector face industry challenges in the areas of access to global markets, fragmented local demand, scale and access to funding. We will provide support to fuel growth of this sector through facilitating partnership opportunities for our local companies and match making them with other like-minded industry players:

Projects arising from Partner Networks in these five areas could tap on existing funding schemes for support.

Call for Participation

We are calling for participation in each of the 5 Future areas. Companies which are interested to respond to this Call for Participation may indicate their interest by sending an email to MDA_IMG@mda.gov.sg.

Announcements for Call for Proposals
Future Mobile, Future Games and Future Worlds are announcing Calls for Proposals. The details of each Call will be announced to the industry in April 2009 with a 2 month submission period. Proposals will be jointly evaluated by IDMPO and our network partners.

Please refer to sections behind for more information on each area of the Future of Media.

• FutureBooks
• FutureGames
• FutureMobile
• FutureTV
• FutureWorlds

IDMPO FUNDED COMPANIES IN THE PRESS

A few IDMPO funded companies have garnered interest from the public recently.

Personal e-Motion

Personal e-Motion was featured in The Straits Times because its key product KooBits, has caught on like wildfire in schools here and overseas. Three years ago, only four schools here used it; that number has now grown to 80. About 80,000 budding writers in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and China are users.

The program’s appeal lies in its host of easy-to-use multimedia features, said teachers and students. KooBits is now used in schools not only to teach English, but also science, mother tongue and mathematics.

Read Full Article

MXR Corporation

MXR Corporation was also recently featured for wIzQubesTM, a 3D Interactive Mixed Reality Storytelling product which completely revolutionizes the way children read today. The patent-pending technology has won several awards and received press attention worldwide.

MXR has also confirmed a deal with Sanrio Digital to bring HelloKitty into Mixed Reality. Their first demo has been shown at GDC2009 which has received a lot of interests.

Read Full Article

NRF Research Fellowship 2009

The Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF) invites brilliant, young researchers who are ready for their first independent research appointments to apply for the prestigious NRF Research Fellowship Awards.

Are you among the best in your research field?
Are you ready to lead your first independent research team?

Join the ranks of the elite NRF Research Fellows!

Apply now if you have a PhD degree from a reputable university and work at the forefront of research in your field. A prior post-doctoral stint at a renowned university or research organisation would be a great advantage.

The NRF Research Fellowship provides:

• Complete freedom and independence to pursue your research direction in Singapore
• A 3-year research grant of up to US$1.5 million, with a possible extension for another 3 years
• A competitive salary
• The opportunity for joint appointment at the host university or research institution
• Freedom to select the host institution in Singapore

The NRF Research Fellowship is open to all talented scientists and researchers under the age of 40 years at the date of application, and within 10 years post-PhD. We welcome research in all disciplines of science and technology.

Please apply online at the following web-link before 06 Sep 2009:
https://rita.nrf.gov.sg/NRF_RF_2009/default.aspx

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to Singapore to present their research work, meet local researchers and identify potential collaborators and host research organisations. Final selection for the awards will be made by the NRF Scientific Advisory Board co-chaired by Dr Curtis Carlson (President & CEO of SRI International) and Prof. Ulrich Suter (Professor of Polymer Materials, ETH Zurich).

Here is the full story.

There is money to be made on the Internet and it is not through traditional channels like blogging and advertising. In fact, some Singapore-based start-ups have been raking in the bucks through linking people up with internships, selling virtual items and even lending out virtual money.

One of the companies, Tyler Projects, earns close to $100,000 in a good month selling virtual goods used in their online game Battle Stations.

They are not the only ones.

Of the 150 companies which have received funding from the Interactive Digital Media Programme Office (IDMPO) set up under the Media Development Authority, many are doing well, said Michael Yap, executive director of IDMPO.

“Most of the supported interactive and digital media companies operating in the social networking and virtual worlds are doing well,” he said. “Besides being profitable, some of these companies have also attracted private funding and have reached out to millions of users worldwide.”

With the Web becoming more social, there are now more ways for companies to cater to special interest groups and thus there are more money-making opportunities, said Claus Mortensen, IDC’s principal analyst of the digital market place and new media.

We profile four start-ups here that have got their Web 2.0 ways right.

Netting a job (iHipo)

Patrick Linden was midway through this MBA course in Germany in early 2003 when he decided he wanted to do internships abroad.

But a search online drew blank.

Today, search for “international internships” on Google and it throws up 9.7 million results. The fourth result on the list is a link to iHipo, a social networking site founded by Patrick, Arnout Wagenaar and Heng Cheng King.

The idea for the site first germinated when the three met in Singapore in 2004, while Patrick from Germany was here interning for Mercedes Benz and Arnout from Holland for a brand consultancy. Cheng King, a Singaporean who graduated from the University of Queensland in Australia, was already working as an engineer. They realised that job portals did not carry enough information on internships in Asia to match the demand from students seeking them.

So iHipo stepped in to fill the niche. It connects students and young professionals seeking internships abroad with companies that have these job openings.

Since they started out, the founders have pulled 12-hour workdays updating the website, vetting job postings and approaching companies to discuss advertising deals.

They decided to rent office space in Joo Chiat to keep costs down.

Said Patrick: “We know of start-ups that spend a lot of money at the beginning for prime office space, website infrastructure and consultants. As a bootstrapped start-up, you don’t need that.”

Since its online debut in November 2007, the site has seen its user base grow from 500 to 50,000. It also helps companies book ad deals with related websites, taking on the role of a media agency.

“Don’t see your business plan as a bible you have to stick to,” said Arnout. “The moment you print it, the business plan is already old.”

Business model: iHipo makes money through charging for job postings, advertising and selling premium memberships to users.

Users can sign up to use the site for free, but can pay US$13.90 (S$21) a month to gain access to extra features likes interview guides. Of the three income channels, advertising accounts for the bulk 60 per cent – of the site’s takings.

Brave new world (Fresbo World)

They had “no money or connections” when they started out in 2006, only a passion for coding and a dream to make it big. These were the factors that pushed Vincent Ng (above) and Low Bing Jiang to creat Fresbo World, an online playground for casual multi-player games.

The two computer science graduates from the National University of Singapore did not know how to write a business plan, but they just went ahead.

In 2007, their project received funding from the Media Development Authority through FrontEdge Capital, a company that mentors start-ups.

Since then, it has signed up 500,000 users worldwide, mostly through social networking sites.

“It is a lot easier to spread through these sites, especially to be known overseas,” said Vincent.

Fresbo World lets users customise avatars, play games and socialise in real-time – as they would in massive multi-player online games. The difference through, is that it is not the world of a single game, but a world of seven casual games.

Users can earn or buy parts to build their homes and mini towns. There are also plans to let users build their own games.

Business model: Fresbo World allows players to sign up and play for free, but they pay for premium items, such as blocks tat are used to build houses or even towns. The cheapest item costs only a few cents and the most expensive about $4.50.

Since it started selling premium items in October last year, the company has seen its monthly revenue breach four figures to a high of $20,000 a month.

Pay by card (First Meta)

In Second Life, reputation is priceless. But for everything else, there is Meta Card. That is the virtual credit card issued by Singapore-based start-up First Meta for the virtual world. The company, founded by Douglas Abrams and Aileen Sim in 2007, lets customers open savings accounts and issues credit cards in Second Life.

The two met in 2002 at the National University of Singapore (NUS), where she was a student and he a professor at the NUS Business School.

Said Douglas: “Obstacles to starting a bank in the virtual world are not so great as in the real world relatively.

You can start off with low capital.”

First Meta’s first product was the credit card, which met with a lot of scepticism early on.

“A lot of people were saying default rates would go through the roof and we would lose money,” said Douglas, adding that most of the time, people pay on time. The maximum limit of the Meta Card is 25,000 lindens, which convert to US$100 (S$150).

First Meta is in the final stages of developing a virtual world currency exchange, where people will be able to buy and sell currencies from a few virtual worlds.

Later this year, it will also launch a real world credit or debit card that will let people pay for things like coffee or clothes using the virtual currency they have earned.

Business model: The company makes money from the Meta Card, which charges usage fees, interest and transaction fees much like real credit cards.

Game plan (Tyler Projects)

While their peers are busy making friends on Facebook. Ng Tiam yang (left), Leonard Lim (centre) and Ronnie Neo (right) are busy making money, to the tone of almost six figures a month.

The Founders of Tyler Projects are the brains behind Battle Stations, a multi-player Facebook fame that has 200,000 registered players.

“We would meet at the Bishan McDonald’s to programme games,” said Leonard on how they started. “It was more of a Sunday hobby, until my professor from Singapore Management University encouraged us to start the company.”

The three dragged their feet until the professor secured funding for them.

Their first game, though, did not take off. Mobile Weapon was a single-player title for mobile phones.

“We learnt a couple of lessons from that. If you want to make money, multi-player games are the way to do it, because there is more interactivity. So people will come back to play more and buy more things,” said Leonard.

They created Battle Stations in 2007. They emulated the business model of another popular online game, Maple Story, of selling virtual goods.

“It’s good to be innovative in your product. But as far as business models are concerned, it’s always better to follow something that has been tried and tested,” he said.

Business model: When the company first started, it depended on online ads, which generated $3,000 a month. It now has a turnover of $50,000 a month selling game items, such as action points.

Competitive male-oriented conversations in an industry dominated by men can at times tire Ms Doanna Neville, 26.

“But otherwise there are no problems and I do not think I am treated differently,” said Ms Neville, a Singaporean environment artist working in a local video game-development company.

She is the first game developer to receive a Media Development Authority overseas award to further her studies in art in the United States.

Going by sentiments from the industry, there could be a significant number of women developers not unlike Ms Neville in a growing game workforce.

Game company Electronic Arts Asia Studios’ senior producer here, Mr Hugues Ricour, said: “We see a slow and steady increase in the number of female applicants here.”

What’s more, according to Mr Allan Simonsen, coordinator of the International Game Developers Association’s (IGDA) Singapore chapter, there are also more job opportunities in the video-game sector these days as well.

He said that there are about 700 developers here, compared to 550 last year and 70 in 2004.

“With game companies wanting to grow their local development studios, the available manpower is a bigger obstacle than the available jobs,” said Mr Simonsen, who is also a veteran game developer based here.

He will be speaking on games in Asia at the Games Convention Asia that runs from today till Saturday at the Suntec Convention Centre.

Mr Simonsen attributes this growth to initiatives by the Government, greater public awareness and education opportunities.

In Singapore, compared to other countries, women seem to be grabbing these opportunities.

Based on a 2005 IGDA industry survey with a United States bias, just under 12 per cent of game developers are women.

However, my paper understands from several game companies here that the proportion of female developers in Singapore could be higher, ranging from 15 to 35 per cent.

Mr Siddharth Jain, chief creative director of local game company Playware Studios, said that this is seen in his company as it tends to develop casual and educational games that female developers are usually good at.

Mr Simonsen added: “Women also bring more focus on community, interaction and user control systems in game development.”

For Ms Amy Chang, executive vice-president of corporate development of local game company Mikoishi, gender is not an issue for hiring developers.

“We recruit on the basis of skills and calibre and we have no specific cultural issues and gender definitely does not have any bearing on who and how we select candidates,” said Ms Chang.

Source: My Paper

Research by Frost & Sullivan shows that the republic’s online advertising market, which was worth US$142.1 million in 2007 will grow at CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 19.5 per cent till 2013 to reach US$413.5 million.

Frost’s industry analyst, Kamlesh Kalwar, told BT that online advertising was a big hit with large brand advertisers last year, despite economic woes due to a variety of reasons.

‘Among them is the ability to achieve precise targeting, measurable ROI (return on investment) over traditional advertising, and above all, in dour times, it’s (online advertising) a cost-effective medium amidst shrinking marketing budgets,’ Mr Kalwar said.

The Internet has become a mainstream source for the supply and search of ‘infotainment’ content; its biggest enthusiast – the youths. Advertisers and media agencies alike are cashing in on this.

In Singapore, paid search advertising accounted for 44 per cent (US$62.5 million) of online advertising revenues in 2007.

This segment is expected to continue growing at a CAGR of 22.1 per cent between 2008 and 2013.

Display advertising was the second biggest segment accounting for 25 per cent (US$35.5 million) of revenues, with banner advertisement and e-mail marketing being the two most popular forms of display ads.

Online classifieds accounted for 19 per cent (US$27 million) of the total revenues in 2007.

Driven largely by the rapid audience shift, particularly youths, from print to online channels, this segment is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 17.5 per cent from 2008 to 2013, Mr Kalwar noted.

Although Singapore’s online advertising sector accounted for a paltry 4.8 per cent of the total ADEX (advertising expenditure) in the republic in 2007, Mr Kalwar said that ‘the outlook for this young industry looks promising’.

‘Growth is expected in all four segments of the market – display advertising, classifieds, search and directories. The rising broadband penetration and rapid adoption of mobile Internet are also major drivers for the shift of outdoor ADEX to online medium,’ he added.

Mr Kalwar noted that as users spend increasingly more time online, a growing number of companies are launching commercials online to grab their attention.

‘By 2013, online advertising is expected to account for more than 9.3 per cent of Singapore’s total ADEX,’ he added.

Source: The Business Times