INFO SQUEEZE - Technology, Economy, Business

Promote your Business / Blog / Idea on ORKUT...... FREE

2009-11-21T06:33:00.000-08:00

After status update, suggested friends, chat, SMS, widgets etc features, here comes one more important and most awaited feature orkut ‘promote’: a free tool to help you spread the news to all your orkut friends…and beyond!

Now marketers, bloggers can invest their time in tweaking the ad copy to impress Orkut users, to drive traffic, leads and sales.

When you first create a promotion, only your friends will be able to see it. Once they click on “promote it!”, their friends can see it.. and so on.

To see the number of clicks, views, Promotions, Trashes, goto “promote”, then click on “my promotions” tab.

Ad format support:

For content creation, it supports Text, Image or YouTube Video. Text also supports the regular scrap markup, and is limited to 200 characters.

Only images that you have uploaded to Orkut and which is set to public viewing can be used. You can stop or delete a promotion that you’ve created at any time.

How to make your promotional content VIRAL?

It is obvious that, the content that you are showcasing must be interesting. Along with that, you have to have friends who you actually know. If you just add every friend request and have no idea of who it is, then you most probably will not receive vote for your content(ad).

On the other hand, if you have 1000 active, and known friends your content will go VIRAL very soon.

1. If you are a blogger, you can find 1000 blog readers in Orkut and send them friend request. After they have accepted the friend request, you can use your blog logo and good ad copy to promote your blog/product/service/business.

2. Publish your “Orkut Promotion ads” on your blog, so that your readers are familiar with the ad copy, and can vote for you when they see it in Orkut.

3. Remember, there are more Asians and Brazilian citizens using Orkut, so language also counts. It depends on who you are targeting and more importantly who your friends are.

New things to be expected from Orkut:

1. Algorithm to track people who are trying to game the system.

2. Ability to create a Vanity URL for our profile.

3. Indexable by search engines(except the data which is set private)

Down side:

Also expected

1. More spammers.

2. More scammers, telling that they will make your ad to be shown to millions of Orkut users.

3. More and more people wasting their time trying to game the system.

Do not ignore the potential of promoting your business on Orkut. For more details of Orkut users, you can have a look at their advertise page.

If you are presently seeing adsense ads, then remember, Orkut Promote is used by both advertisers and orkut users. You can advertise on Orkut using AdWord also(which costs money).

Do you already have a strategy to make your content(ad) go viral on Orkut?

How to add Latest Posts Title as Subject of E-Mail

2009-11-21T06:09:00.000-08:00

Most awaited feature of feedburner is now live.

How it feels to see 10 to 20 emails with the same subject line/title and from the same person? Even if the content of the mail is different we get irritated to open it and read. Many times, when we are busy and want to clean/process the inbox, we just delete such mails.

Feedburner used to send a static subject line with all the email updates. But now they have added a feature, using which we can customize the email Subject line and make it more meaningful.

Use ${latestItemTitle} to insert your latest post’s title into the Subject/Title of email.

If we have multiple blog posts?

With two or more items in the update, ${n} shows the total number of items, and ${m} shows the number of items beyond the latest.

Examples

Infosqueeze: ${latestItemTitle}

Infosqueeze: “${latestItemTitle}” plus ${m} more

Infosqueeze: (in this message: ${n} new items)

To activate this, log into your feedburner account. Click on “Publicize” tab. Next, look for “Email Subscriptions (Offer feed updates via email)” link at the left side side bar, click on it. A number of sub-menu items will be shown, among them, click on “Email Branding” link. Now you can follow the above tips to customize the email title/subject line. Actually those tips are given by feedburner on the customization page itself.

Thanks Feedburner.. also fix the chicklet count fluctuation problem!
If you are a blogger, make sure you make use of this feature and stop annoying your email subscribers!

How an Intel Processor is Made

2009-11-18T23:00:00.000-08:00

Sand, Made up of 25 percent silicon, is, after oxygen, the second most abundant chemical element that's in the earth's crust. Sand, especially quartz, has high percentages of silicon in the form of silicon dioxide (SiO2) and is the base ingredient for semiconductor manufacturing.

After procuring raw sand and separating the silicon, the excess material is disposed of and the silicon is purified in multiple steps to finally reach semiconductor manufacturing quality which is called electronic grade silicon. The resulting purity is so great that electronic grade silicon may only have one alien atom for every one billion silicon atoms. After the purification process, the silicon enters the melting phase. In this picture you can see how one big crystal is grown from the purified silicon melt. The resulting mono-crystal is called an ingot.

A mono-crystal ingot is produced from electronic grade silicon. One ingot weighs approximately 100 kilograms (or 220 pounds) and has a silicon purity of 99.9999 percent.

The ingot is then moved onto the slicing phase where individual silicon discs, called wafers, are sliced thin. Some ingots can stand higher than five feet. Several different diameters of ingots exist depending on the required wafer size. Today, CPUs are commonly made on 300 mm wafers.

Once cut, the wafers are polished until they have flawless, mirror-smooth surfaces. Intel doesn't produce its own ingots and wafers, and instead purchases manufacturing- ready wafers from third-party companies. Intel’s advanced 45 nm High-K/Metal Gate process uses wafers with a diameter of 300 mm (or 12-inches). When Intel first began making chips, it printed circuits on 50 mm (2-inches) wafers. These days, Intel uses 300 mm wafers, resulting in decreased costs per chip.

The blue liquid, depicted above, is a photo resist finish similar to those used in film for photography. The wafer spins during this step to allow an evenly-distributed coating that's smooth and also very thin.

At this stage, the photo-resistant finish is exposed to ultra violet (UV) light. The chemical reaction triggered by the UV light is similar to what happens to film material in a camera the moment you press the shutter button.

Areas of the resist on the wafer that have been exposed to UV light will become soluble. The exposure is done using masks that act like stencils. When used with UV light, masks create the various circuit patterns. The building of a CPU essentially repeats this process over and over until multiple layers are stacked on top of each other.

A lens (middle) reduces the mask's image to a small focal point. The resulting "print" on the wafer is typically four times smaller, linearly, than the mask's pattern.

In the picture we have a representation of what a single transistor would appear like if we could see it with the naked eye. A transistor acts as a switch, controlling the flow of electrical current in a computer chip. Intel researchers have developed transistors so small that they claim roughly 30 million of them could fit on the head of a pin.

After being exposed to UV light, the exposed blue photo resist areas are completely dissolved by a solvent. This reveals a pattern of photo resist made by the mask. The beginnings of transistors, interconnects, and other electrical contacts begin to grow from this point.

The photo resist layer protects wafer material that should not be etched away. Areas that were exposed will be etched away with chemicals.

After the etching, the photo resist is removed and the desired shape becomes visible.

More photo resist (blue) is applied and then re-exposed to UV light. Exposed photo resist is then washed off again before the next step, which is called ion doping. This is the step where ion particles are exposed to the wafer, allowing the silicon to change its chemical properties in a way that allows the CPU to control the flow of electricity.

Through a process called ion implantation (one form of a process called doping) the exposed areas of the silicon wafer are bombarded with ions. Ions are implanted in the silicon wafer to alter the way silicon in these areas conduct electricity. Ions are propelled onto the surface of the wafer at very high velocities. An electrical field accelerates the ions to a speed of over 300,000 km/hour (roughly 185,000 mph).

After the ion implantation, the photo resist will be removed and the material that should have been doped (green) now has alien atoms implanted.

This transistor is close to being finished. Three holes have been etched into the insulation layer (magenta color) above the transistor. These three holes will be filled with copper, which will make up the connections to other transistors.

The wafers are put into a copper sulphate solution at this stage. Copper ions are deposited onto the transistor through a process called electroplating. The copper ions travel from the positive terminal (anode) to the negative terminal (cathode) which is represented by the wafer.

The copper ions settle as a thin layer on the wafer surface.

The excess material is polished off leaving a very thin layer of copper.

Multiple metal layers are created to interconnects (think wires) in between the various transistors. How these connections have to be “wired” is determined by the architecture and design teams that develop the functionality of the respective processor (for example, Intel’s Core i7 processor). While computer chips look extremely flat, they may actually have over 20 layers to form complex circuitry. If you look at a magnified view of a chip, you will see an intricate network of circuit lines and transistors that look like a futuristic, multi-layered highway system.

This fraction of a ready wafer is being put through a first functionality test. In this stage test patterns are fed into every single chip and the response from the chip monitored and compared to "the right answer."

After tests determine that the wafer has a good yield of functioning processor units, the wafer is cut into pieces (called dies).

The dies that responded with the right answer to the test pattern will be put forward for the next step (packaging). Bad dies are discarded. Several years ago, Intel made key chains out of bad CPU dies.

This is an individual die, which has been cut out in the previous step (slicing). The die shown here is a die of an Intel Core i7 processor.

The substrate, the die, and the heatspreader are put together to form a completed processor. The green substrate builds the electrical and mechanical interface for the processor to interact with the rest of the PC system. The silver heatspreader is a thermal interface where a cooling solution will be applied. This will keep the processor cool during operation.

A microprocessor is the most complex manufactured product on earth. In fact, it takes hundreds of steps and only the most important ones have been visualized in this picture story.

During this final test the processors will be tested for their key characteristics (among the tested characteristics are power dissipation and maximum frequency).

Based on the test result of class testing processors with the same capabilities are put into the same transporting trays. This process is called "binning". Binning determines the maximum operating frequency of a processor, and batches are divided and sold according to stable specifications.

The manufactured and tested processors (again Intel Core i7 processor is shown here) either go to system manufacturers in trays or into retail stores in a box. Many thanks to Intel for supplying the text and photos in this picture story.

A Proven strategy by Wal-Mart to Compete & Flourish

2009-10-28T00:59:00.000-07:00

The current economic environment has caused many small business owners to rethink their overall strategies. Throughout this downturn, a lot of advice is floating around on formulating strategies that probably won’t work. You will find them all over the Internet. I want to share with you one that has proven to work. It works so well that it propelled a small business into the largest employer in the world!

As Wal-Mart has expanded its operations around the globe the local competitive environment has changed . . . forever! So, what lessons can be learned in a Wal-Mart World? Answers can be found by picking Wal-Mart’s POCKETS!

“P.O.C.K.E.T.S.” is the acronym Wal-Mart uses to describe its business strategies. The acronym stands for: P = Price, O = Operations, C = Culture K = Key Item Promotion/Product, E = Expense Control, T = Talent and S = Service. These are the seven key result areas used by Sam Walton and Wal-Mart that makes competition with them so difficult.

Price

The USP (unique selling proposition) of Wal-Mart is “everyday low prices”. Sam Walton’s low price strategy has forever changed the retail, manufacturing/supplier paradigm and by doing so he has forced competitors to think like discounters.

However, with almost 7000 stores around the world, local retailers don’t have the economies of scale to compete directly on price. The key for them to succeed against low price is “differentiation”.

Operations

Wal-Mart’s elegantly simple model relies on economies of scale, which allow for lower costs. Lower costs allow for lower prices, which, in turn, build sales and profitability. Greater sales and profitability finance the opening of more stores. More stores enable greater economies of scale. At Wal-Mart, operational efficiency is a never-ending mission to drive costs out of the system, which, in turn, allows the company to increase margins and pass more savings along to customers. For many small businesses there is still room in the market to offer higher value (cost vs. benefits) than their competitors.

Culture

“Our people make the difference” wasn’t just a catch phrase to Sam Walton; it was a hard-wired cultural belief shared by company leaders to this day. Sam believed that if you take care of your employees, your employees will take care of the customer and the business will take care of itself.

Entrepreneurial thinking is not only encouraged it is expected at Wal-Mart. The idea for door greeters was originated by employees. Now, door greeters are a mainstay at stores around the world! What great ideas do your employees have if you solicited their thoughts and suggestions?

Key Item Promotion/Product

Wal-Mart’s buyers and store managers do all they can to make sure the products in their stores meet the needs of customers at the lowest prices. This customer-centered focus leads customers to wonder, “Why shop anywhere else?”

As a small business, you are probably not buying at the lowest costs and as a result cannot profitably market at the lowest price. However, you can offer the highest value and make the purchasing experience most pleasurable.

Expense Control

Company profits at Wal-Mart are achieved through tough supplier negotiations and a fanatical focus on controlling costs. The goal at Wal-Mart is to reduce costs in every area of the company’s operation, including stores, home office, distribution centers and fleet.

Sam Walton used to say overhead is one of the most crucial things any business has to fight to maintain profit margins. The Wal-Mart cultural expense philosophy is that every dollar spent foolishly takes a dollar out of their customers’ pockets.

I have found that most small businesses have many opportunities to streamline and in many cases, automate much of what they do. Improved reporting and ordering can reduce “days turn” in inventory. There are literately dozens of ways most small business can lower their expenses.

Talent

Sam Walton had a unique ability to assemble a team of great leaders and to inspire them to focus on the achievement of a common cause. Wal-Mart’s Human Resources function, called “People” is guided by three components: hire the best, provide the best training, and be the best place to work.

If this is important for a company the size of Wal-Mart, wouldn’t it be even more important for a small business where there is less room for error? You cannot produce stellar results with under skilled and under motivated employees. When it comes to training, make sure you are training people with the “talent” and will to succeed. You can fertilize and water a rock forever but it will never grow. And lastly, the most talented people will leave and the others will become counterproductive if you create a less than great work environment.

Service

Sam Walton built Wal-Mart into the company that it is by living the philosophy, “There is only one boss, the customer, and he or she can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his or her money elsewhere.” In any size and type of business, you need your customers much more than those customers need you.

Focusing on the customer is and always has been the most important element of business success. Talk to your customers, find out what they want and buy to those perceived needs. Behemoth-sized competitors can’t possibly specialize to the extent that smaller businesses can. So, be sure to tailor your products and services to best meet the tastes and preferences of the customers in your locale.

In summary, if Wal-Mart’s arrival in town is a wake-up call to local businesses to improve customer service, it is in all likelihood too late. Once a big competitor arrives, it is too late to atone for past service sins. Not serving the customer is a fatal flaw in any business.

So, now that you know about POCKETS, how are you doing? Remember, you’ve only got one chance to make a first impression with your customers, so make it a good one!

How to Develop my Interest Back in Blogging?

2009-10-08T05:10:00.000-07:00

Do you have a blog for your business and it has not been successful? Have you lost interest in your blog? Does your blog have few or no comments and very few visitors? This can make a blog owner quite frustrated. What can you do to increase the overall performance of your blog and to attract more unique and repeat visitors?

Let’s get back to the basics. One of the main focus points when starting a blog is having a set of objectives and a solid plan. What do you want to accomplish with your blog? Do you want to build trust and credibility? Increase your visibility?

A blog without a focus or a plan and that is written in a dry uninteresting style will not attract readers. A successful blog needs a central message and focus on a dedicated target audience. Broadcasting messages for your business requires posts that are written with a purpose in a way that is interesting to your targeted readers. Always write unique relevant content. Relevancy is always the key. Become the expert in your industry.

Find below a couple of tips for blogging that can help you with your blog.

Who or what audience are you trying to reach with your blog? This is the most important question regarding a blog for business. Are you selling products or information?

What

After you have established who your targeted audience is, what interests this targeted group? What information, answers, advice and news are they seeking? This should be focused around a topic that you know and closely relate to regarding your business. Once again – become the expert in your industry.

Focus

Keep focusing on a single topic to maintain the attention of your audience and the search engines. Dominate this topic as the authority. People that are interested in this topic will return often for updates.

Style

Write your topics with personality and with an active voice. Write informative interesting content and express your opinions in a unique way.

Postings

Create an overall plan on how often you will be creating new postings on your business blog. A good example is to write 3 posts a week with a minimum of 300-400 words.

People will keep coming back and you will develop a loyal following if you are consistent and keep your posts interesting and on topic.

ICC Defined Groups for the 2011 Cricket World Cup

2009-10-07T07:18:00.000-07:00

India and Pakistan, Australia and South Africa find themselves in different groups for the 2011 World Cup. The groupings for the tournament, to be held on the subcontinent, were approved on the second day of the ICC Board meeting in Johannesburg. The 14 teams have been divided into two groups of seven.

At the meeting, the ICC also lauded the success of the World Cup's miniature version, the ICC Champions Trophy, which had earlier won the endorsement of Ricky Ponting and Daniel Vettori. "I think most experts of the game and the opinion-makers are now convinced the ICC Champions Trophy definitely has a place in the cricket calendar," David Morgan, the ICC President, said. "It also gives me immense pleasure to say the quality of cricket we have seen in the last 14 days proves that 50-over format can comfortably co-exist with the traditional five-day Test and the short 20-over formats."

Groups for the 2011 World Cup

Group A - Australia, Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Canada, Kenya.

Group B - India, South Africa, England, West Indies, Bangladesh, Ireland, Netherlands.

Rio De Janeiro (Brazil) Celebrating after winning Olympics 2016

2009-10-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

Scenes of jubilation in Rio de Janeiro after it was named the host city of the 2016 Olympics.

Rio de Janeiro has won the battle to host the 2016 Olympics and take the games to South America for the first time after the shock elimination of Chicago in the first round of voting.

There were celebrations on the streets of Rio in evening after the announcement by the IOC president, Jacques Rogge.

Before opening the envelope containing the name of the winning city, Rogge said: "All four projects are of the highest quality – thank you for your hard work, energy and commitment. But in every competition there can only be one winner."

Earlier the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, made an impassioned appeal to delegates, saying Rio's bid represented the hopes of the whole of South America. "I honestly think it is Brazil's turn," he said. "It is South America's bid. This is a continent that has never held the games. It is time to address this imbalance. It is time to light the Olympic cauldron in a tropical country."

The city's bid chief said awarding the honour to Brazil was an opportunity to make Olympic history.

"When you push the button today, you have the chance to inspire a new continent, make Olympic history," said Carlos Nuzman, the Rio bid chief executive and IOC member. "Vote Rio and we offer a gateway to 180 million passionate young people in South America."

Madrid's surprising success in reaching the final round came after the former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch made an unusual appeal for the Spanish capital, reminding the IOC members as he asked for their vote that at age 89 "I am very near the end of my time."

In the end Rio's excellent campaign masterminded by Mike Lee, the communications director for London's bid, proved enough.

In Chicago, thousands of people who had crowded into the city's Daley Plaza anticipating a celebration let out a collective gasp at the news of their bid's failure. Even those who were ultimately sceptical about the bid were shocked to learn the city did not even make the first cut.

"I've never really had a disappointment like this," said Ken Rudd, a 33-year-old salesman, as the dumbfounded crowd slowly filed out of the plaza. "This is one of the saddest things I've ever seen."

Chicago had been the bookies' favourites to succeed London, especially after Barack Obama flew to Copenhagen to address the IOC this morning. His home town's early exit was seen as a snub for Obama, the first serving US president to appear before the IOC. He told delegates he hoped that the games would show "America at its best is open to the world". Michelle Obama arrived two days earlier alongside other dignitaries including Lula and King Juan Carlos of Spain.

With the games going to South America for the first time, Africa is the only continent where none of its countries has been awarded an Olympics.

Visit Rio Bidding Website http://www.rio2016.org/

HBR October 2009 Issue Highlights

2009-09-24T11:10:00.001-07:00

How I can Bring Traffic in my Blog through Search Engine?

2009-09-19T07:40:00.000-07:00

Today i am going to share my experience with you or you can take it as trick to increase your visitors. As everybody has been blogging on different niche in which he's good but at one time in a day you would think for sure, today i should blog about which thing, that can give me visitors.

Yes friends everybody want to increase the visitors to there blog and try to convert them to there readers as much as possible. So i will share one trick on how to get increase your visitors from the search engines,if your blog receives a part of traffic from them.

Lets share an trick with you. What i use to do is, i daily use to check my traffic counter for visitors coming to my blog once a day for sure. As its not possible to check the all thousands visitors daily so just i use to check at random a day and at any time. Now my counter let me know the keywords from which the visitors searched on engines and came to my blog. When i use to check these keywords, i daily use to find some keywords for which the visitors seems to coming to my blog but the content visitor needed based on those keywords was not into my blog.

This means the visitors need some content on that topic and content is not easily provided and he's coming to my blog accidentally. So why not i should provide that content on my blog. So why you miss an opportunity to blog about that particular information on your blog and lets increase your visitors from search engines,if you will do this regularly i promise not only your visitors will increase, your blog will also become so much seo that it will be started loving by engines and will give you high rank in it.

And if you try little bit to target some keywords too on search engines keeping in mind, what keywords people use, to find any particualr content on web and will easily find you with that keyword on top, will also help a lot in beggining.

Pakistan among Top in Citations in Computer Science, Engineering, Material Sciences, Mathematics, Plant & Animal Sciences

2009-09-19T07:13:00.000-07:00

Following the latest bimonthly update to Essential Science Indicators from Thomson Reuters, ScienceWatch.com has produced a listing of the scientists, institutions, countries, and journals that have achieved the highest percentage increase in total citations from the first to the second bimonthly period of 2008—that is, from February to April 2008. These entities are singled out as Rising Stars in their respective fields.

The list of countries with the highest percent increase in total citations is given below, and includes some countries with this distinction in multiple fields, including Pakistan, Nigeria, and the United Arab Emirates.

TUNISIA in Agricultural Sciences
NIGERIA In Biology & Chemistry
SERBIA MONTENEG in Chemistry
IRAN in Clinical Medicine
PAKISTAN in Computer Science
UAE in Economics & Business
PAKISTAN in Engineering
IRAN in Environment/Ecology
ZAMBIA in Geosciences
NIGERIA in Immunology
PAKISTAN in Material Sciences
PAKISTAN in Mathematics
TUNISIA in Microbiology
THAILAND in Molecular Biology & Genetics
SINGAPORE in Multidisciplinary
ARMENIA in Neuroscience & Behavior
UAE in Pharmacology & Toxicology
SERBIA MONTENEG in Physics
PAKISTAN in Plant & Animal Science
TRINID & TOBAGO in Psychiatry/Psychology
BRAZIL in Social Sciences, general
NAMIBIA in Space Science

Why businesses should Tweet?

2009-09-12T03:48:00.000-07:00

I can think of seven specific, revenue-producing reasons why most businesses should be on Twitter. If your customers are using Twitter, you probably should be to. But how, and why? Here are seven places to start:

Get New Customers

What do you sell? There are prospective customers talking about it on Twitter right now. Do a search for that product or service or topic and you'll find them. Reply to their tweets, and engage with them directly as prospective new customers. Better yet, start sending your own tweets with the same keywords or hashtags (which is the keyword with a # in front of it to help others find it). That way you'll start attracting new customers to you with the same topics or products.

Keep In Touch With Customers & Fans

Find out which of your customers are using Twitter, ask them to follow you. Follow them in return. Share news about your business, your new products, and topics your customers collectively will care about. Reply directly to your customers & fans, and retweet their Twitter posts that would be interesting to the rest of your followers. Twitter is a great way to keep an ongoing, interactive conversation going with your customers between purchases.

Watch Your Competitors

Who do you compete with? They're either on Twitter too, or are being talked about there. Do searches for them directly, and you'll not only see what they're talking about to their customers and prospects, but you'll also see what their current customers are saying about them - good, bad and ugly. Not a bad way to find new prospective customers, but at minimum you'll keep closer tabs on the competition - including gleaning things you could be doing to grow your own business.

Announce Sales & Specials

Putting that summer line on sale? Tell your Twitter fans. Announce that anyone who retweets the discount to their own followers is entered in a drawing for free product. Send special coupons and offers exclusively to your Twitter followers (which will encourage more customers to follow you).

Generate Referrals

Contribute content or links that your followers will retweet to their own followers. This will drive new customers to discover and follow you. Run a contest for anyone who retweets about your business today - all new followers and those who retweet are entered in a drawing for a gift card, or free product.

Cross-Promote Neighboring Businesses

If you're in retail or a restaurant in particular, and physically sit with other businesses, you're in it together as far as foot traffic goes. Help promote your neighbor businesses to your followers - even if they themselves aren't yet on Twitter. The more business you help drive to them, the more they'll help drive to you - either directly or via the increased foot traffic to your general area.

Cross-promote Similar Businesses in Other Markets

You're a unique hotel in Seattle? Partner with similar hotels in other markets and cross-promote each other to travelers. High-end French restaurant? Do the same. Build a partner network via Twitter to quickly accelerate the volume of out-of-town traffic you generate.

Asia's Best Younger Entrepreneur 2009

2009-09-12T03:47:00.000-07:00

Ash Singh
Singapore
Age: 27

Company: Interactive SG

Interactive is a versatile creative digital media company based in Singapore that specializes in market research, in-game advertising and product placements, Web application development, and other e-commerce services. Ash's startup has already collaborated on projects with established companies from such diverse industries as entertainment, technology, electronics, and media. Partners include Mattel, StarCommentator.com, and BiggestLoserAsia.com

Asia's Best Younger Entrepreneur 2009

2009-09-12T03:46:00.000-07:00

Carlos Fernandes
Singapore

Age: 33

Company: RecordTV

Carlos Fernandes founded RecordTV after acquiring the assets of a U.S.-based company in 2007. RecordTV is an Internet-based digital video recorder (DVR) with 30,000 subscribers in Singapore and is the latest startup from this entrepreneur. In 2000 he co-founded a software company, and thanks to his work there in 2003 the Singapore Computer Society named Fernandes "Young Professional of the Year."

Asia's Best Younger Entrepreneur 2009

2009-09-12T03:45:00.000-07:00

Iim Fahima Jachja
Indonesia

Age: 31

Company: Virus Communications

Virus Communications is an online marketing consulting firm founded in 2006 by Iim Fahima and her husband, Adhitia Sofyan. Today it is Indonesia's leading online business consultant, known for its online-behavior knowledge and technology. In just three years the company has won big business pitches and handled more than 10 blue chip clients, including Hewlett Packard, Toyota, Auto 2000, Telkom, XL, Smart Telco, Lippo Group, Tupperware, and Sosro.

Asia's Best Younger Entrepreneur 2009

2009-09-12T03:44:00.001-07:00

Lawrence Yang
South Korea

Age: 33

Company: KA Models

Yang's company, KA Models, makes parts and kits for miniature models of cars, aircraft, ships and tanks. KA Models exports to wholesalers, retailers, or model companies in 20 countries, including the U.S., Japan, Britain, France, Italy, Taiwan, and Russia. The company expects to post sales worth $1.6 million this year. That's about double its revenues last year, with about 97% coming from exports.

Asia's Best Younger Entrepreneur 2009

2009-09-12T03:43:00.001-07:00

Charles Pyo
South Korea

Age: 23

Company: Wizard Works

Pyo set up his company in 2006 as a provider of personalized portal services, with the site offering a wide choice of widgets (small chunks of code that can drive applications on Web sites). The personalized portal didn't take off but its widget services were a hit, so Pyo decided to focus on widgets and has now become Korea's leading creator and distributor of them. Wizard Works offers widget marketing services and helps build widget-incorporated intranets for companies. All big portals in Korea, including Naver, Daum, Google, and Yahoo offer widgets created by Wizard Works. Pyo expects revenue to top $1.2 million this year, about triple that of a year ago.

Asia's Best Younger Entrepreneur 2009

2009-09-12T03:42:00.000-07:00

Antonius Dian Adhy Feryanto
Indonesia

Age: 30

Company: PT Pavettia Atsiri Indonesia (PAI)

Since Indonesia is rich in nutmeg, patchouli, and citronella oils, Feryanto figured there was an opportunity to harness them in an ethical way. This chemical engineer embarked on a steep learning curve to acquire the expertise necessary to develop a suitable production process to transform the raw materials into a commercial product. By 2006, Feryanto and his associates established Pavettia Atsiri Indonesia to produce the essential oils on an industrial scale. Since the business began trading it has enjoyed considerable success; its production has increased tenfold and the company has developed a network of farmers.

Asia's Best Younger Entrepreneur 2009

2009-09-12T03:41:00.000-07:00

Roihatul Jannah
Indonesia
Age: 30
Company: Helmiat Bonceng Bocah

As the motorcycle is the main means of transportation in Indonesia, Roihatul's Helmiat Bonceng Bocah (HBB) came up with a product that makes it safer for parents to carry their children on a two-wheeled vehicle. This product is designed especially for child safety. Roihatul refined her design to produce a carrier that successfully combines safety and comfort.

Asia's Best Younger Entrepreneur 2009

2009-09-12T03:40:00.000-07:00

Malariantika Yulianggi
Indonesia

Age: 19

Company: Shoyu Pia Cake

When Malariantika was in the middle of her research on local foods such as cassava, she realized its abundance—and the fact that it still isn't widely used by Indonesian people. So she started to make Shoyu Pia cake (shoyu is Japanese for cassava). Nowadays, Anggi, as she likes to be called, has six employees to meet increasing demand from her customers.

Asia's Best Younger Entrepreneur 2009

2009-09-12T03:38:00.000-07:00

Aziz Setyawijaya
Indonesia

Age: 19

Company: Nomaden Experimental Artworks

Aziz didn't even have his own camera when he founded Nomaden Experimental Artworks in 2008. But as a member of the photography club at Gadjah Mada University, he was able to borrow a camera from his friends to get his work done. The success of his business has allowed it to broaden by producing what he calls a memorial book. In just a few months, Yogyakarta-based Nomaden has generated $7,000 in revenue.

Asia's Best Younger Entrepreneur 2009

2009-09-12T03:37:00.000-07:00

Steve Chao
ChinaAge: 33

Company: Qdero

Chao founded Qdero late last year because he saw the potential of augmented reality technology going mainstream. He focuses on mobile technologies, looking at cross-platform compatibilities. Following the success of Apple's (AAPL) iPhone operating system, Qdero decided to concentrate on user experience and has partnered with a popular domestic mobile-phone brand to create a range of applications tailored for the Chinese market. Qdero is only 10 months old but already has 14 employees, and Chao expects to see strong revenues starting next year. He now is working on servicing the needs of visitors to the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

Asia's Best Younger Entrepreneur 2009

2009-09-12T03:36:00.001-07:00

Oscar Lawalata
Indonesia
Age: 32
Company: Oscar Lawalata Culture

Traditional Indonesian textiles, natural dyes, and ethnic cultures have always been the elements driving Oscar Lawalata to accomplish his work as a fashion designer and entrepreneur. The fact that nearly all of his designs are 90% handmade gives him the edge in the segmented market of the cultural-based fashion business. Last February he won the British Council's International Young Creative Entrepreneur (IYCE) Fashion Award 2009 at London's Fashion Week.

Asia's Best Younger Entrepreneur 2009

2009-09-12T03:34:00.000-07:00

Kanchan Panjabi
Hong Kong

Age: 26

Company: Kanchan Couture

After studying economics and French in New York, Kanchan Panjabi moved on to work with fashion designer Amanda Wakeley in London, where she embarked on an MA in fashion design and enterprise. Kanch, as she likes to be known, is now back in Hong Kong and has launched her own label, Kanchan Couture, of luxury women's wear. With the opening of L'atelier de Kanch, her Hong Kong-based workshop, studio, and creative hub, she has developed a reputation for designing luxurious, elegant women's wear and accessories. Her inspiration is derived from India, Kanchan's country of origin. She hopes to branch into shoes soon.

Asia's Best Younger Entrepreneur 2009

2009-09-12T03:33:00.000-07:00

Eriko Yamaguchi
Japan
Age: 27
Company: Mother House Co.

While studying at graduate school in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Yamaguchi realized that even small children were forced to work for a pittance. Eventually she returned home with 160 jute bags made by local people from her own design. These bags, at $80 each, quickly sold out, and Yamaguchi decided to launch Mother House. Nowadays she has five directly managed stores in Tokyo and Fukuoka and also sells at some major department stores. Sales have gone up to more than $2 million from $30,000 a year ago. Yet Yamaguchi doesn't plan to settle down; she is now in Nepal to start a new business.

Asia's Best Younger Entrepreneur 2009

2009-09-12T03:31:00.000-07:00

Brandon Chang
Taiwan

Age: 26

Company: Greedy Genius

At age 22, Chang formed a sneaker brand called Greedy Genius, which ended up fitting in the market at the right time, securing its name in the footwear industry when there weren't too many lifestyle sneaker brands. For its first launch he teamed up with Barneys New York; that was followed by national campaigns with Toyota and AT&T. This exposure led him to giant retailers such as Finish Line, Foot Locker, and other chains around the world. He says a key to his success is the growth of Internet blogs and social networks that help expand the Greedy Genius brand by word of mouth.