Well, China has 100+ Groupon clones and Malaysia is picking up as well on its own scale. Group buying sites are popping out lately in Malaysia. It's a bit of deja-vu like many were attempting to build a local social network site some years back...
Have you been wondering whether is there any Malaysian working in Google? The Malaysia based country consultant is quite publicized but I guess not many are aware of this US based chap, Colin Wong.
As promised, here are some of the quick facts about him:
- Was born in Batu Gajah, somewhere near Ipoh.
- Earned a scholarship at The University of Texas at Arlington and graduated there in 1996.
- Started his career in United States, notably in CRM field.
- Joined Google's Sales Engineering Group at Silicon Valley in 2002.
- Managed many of Google's largest AdSense and AdWords customers.
- Left Google in 2006 and founded Prosperati, a venture capital company.
- Became the CEO of ZoeCity in late 2007, a new internet startup company based in Seattle.
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A study by Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) shows that Malaysia is one of the top 5 most connected countries in Asia-Pacific, alongside with New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. These countries all have between 55 to 80% of their populations using the internet by 2007, while the average in this region is at 20%.
A quick check at Internet World Stats does confirm that 59% (14.9 million) of our population are internet users. By this ratio, we are no.5 in Asia behind Japan (73.8%), South Korea (70.7%), Hong Kong (69.5%), Taiwan (67.2%) in 2008.
No, not the virtual buddy. Zappos is definitely holding this principle well and a role model for anyone doing business online.
Zappos is an US-based electronic commerce service established in 1999. It specialize in footwear and then extended its catalog to clothing, bags and accessories. According to the figures revealed, one out of every 40 people in the United States is their customer, and 75% of purchases come from returning customers. Impressive huh?
Entrepreneurs from Japan, India and China occupied the top 6 positions in Asia Internet Billionaires 2008. Hopefully, we will see a Malaysian on that list in the near future.
Talking about past and present, there are a few local young internet entrepreneurs that have already stamping their mark in Asia.
Two Malaysians were actually being shortlisted (top 25) in BusinessWeek Asia's Young Entrepreneur 2007, although it was eventually won by a Vietnamese.
One of the benchmark for improving Malaysia's IT industry competitiveness is the quality of our local internet ventures. Of course, we are still light years behind Silicon Valley but there are still a few sparks among our local ventures.
WebWatch Malaysia does provide a short list of local internet ventures. I guess it is fair to say that only three companies made it into international (or at least regional) scene up to this moment. Coincidentally, this trio also appeared in TechCrunch news, not all of them being reported positively though.
