In November 7, 2008, Ikobo announced that they will discontinue their money transfer service. They did not give any reason for such but gave people time to withdraw all their money from their accounts. Today, Ikobo announced in an email that they are back and connected with a new bank.

GOOD NEWS: iKobo Money Transfer is back! We have been working around the clock to make the world’s most trusted money transfer service even better. iKobo has joined the M2 Financial family of products, giving you the safest and best money transfer service available. (See the press release: visit www.M2-Global.com and click Press.) We hope you were not inconvenienced during our transition.

Improvements we are making to iKobo may require you and your sender to re-apply for a new account and get new recipient cards. If your account was with any bank other than Global Bank of Commerce (check the back of the recipient card), you will need to re-apply. To make this easy and convenient, we are offering no-cost or discounted shipping on new and replacement recipient cards shipped before December 25th, 2008.

For a limited time, when you open a new account get free basic shipping or discounted premium shipping of a new or replacement card. Here are the details:

Card going to a recipient in the US or Canada? Use coupon code NWDOMSHP for free USPS shipping. Or, spend just $9.96 for premium FedEx shipping and get your recipient card delivered in 1-3 days.

For free international basic shipping use code NWINTSHP. Delivery in 7-14 days. Or, you can receive a card anywhere in the world for just $12.96 with delivery in just 1-3 days. Use coupon code NWINTSHP when you sign up.

(Delivery times for US and Canada “Basic” shipping are dependent on the US Postal Service, typically 3-5 days. “Premium” shipping for US, Canada and all International destinations is 1-3 days.)

Offer expires December 24, 2008.

Everyone will need to open a new account with them so this is like a fresh start for all old Ikobo users.

Apple has officially launched an Online Store for the Philippines. In a phone call with Apple Asia’s PR Manager today, Apple will be offering the entire line-up of their products online including free shipping to anywhere in the Philippines.

From today until November 28, online buyers also get a free Apple T-Shirt for every purchase as well as free engraving of iPod products. Purchases are made in Philippine pesos and shipped for free to the Philippines from Apple’s regional hub.

Visit the Apple Online Store here via YugaTech.

This afternoon, Globe Telecom launched Globe Labs which is primarily tasked to bring in the latest information and communication technologies at the earliest market-relevant time to customers.

As a new department inside Globe, this group is designed to build future technology development test beds.

“As our first effort in Globe Labs, we have just concluded our 3G Multimedia Challenge, which garnered a lot of attention from developers and schools.” said Fernando Teodoro, Innovations Development Division Head at Globe.

The 3G Multimedia Challenge launched last January 31, 2008 invited developers to a contest in voip, mobile gaming, IM, whiteboard, social networking and m-learning using the SIP/IMS (Session Initiation Protocol/IP Multimedia Subsystem).

Winners in this contest include D3System, Inc., students from the Ateneo de Manila and eScience Corporation.

More of our coverage about Globe Labs here.

This afternoon, I sat down with Dan Neary (Vice President for Emerging Markets) of eBay SouthEast Asia to talk about the recent developments of e-commerce in the country.

Since the official launch of eBay Philippines (eBay.ph) in November 2004 and the re-launch of a full site in November 2007, the online auction and listing service has grown to be one of the top destinations of Filipinos online. Dan Neary says “… we do not give out market specific figures but I can tell you we have about 1.6 Million unique visitors going to eBay.ph per month”. Since the November 2007 re-launch “eBay.ph has had over 36,000 new registered users”, adds Eunice Lim, PR Manager of eBay SEA based in Singapore. There’s an average of 18 pageviews per visitor, spending an about of 23 minutes on the site.

Pressed for numbers, Dan points me to publicly available figures (Alexa stats) comparing them to other Philippine-based auction sites like Auction.ph and Bidshot.com:

On the eBay.ph alone, top items being sold and bought includes clothing & accessories, jewelry & watches, toys and cellphones. Everyday, a Pinoy buys on eBay.ph an average of 158 toys, a watch every 15 minutes, and a cell phone every 20 minutes. According to a recent Nielsen survey, about 3,000 Filipinos are making a full-time living off (as primary and secondary source of income) of selling items on eBay.ph.

One of the top users they featured during a short video presentation was Gilbert Ledesma (eBay ID:brum2000) who makes his living off selling miniature jeepneys on eBay. Gilbert reveals that he’s making around $1,000 a month from this and has since expanded his listing to other toys and collectibles. Other top sellers include Ariel Roda (eBay ID: la perfumeria) who sells branded perfumes and Aldwin Pagdanganan who’s into Japanese collectibles and katana.

Asked whether they have plans of putting up a local office in the Philippines, Neary comments that they work on a centralized system but have actually been doing global customer support from the Philippines (outside Metro Manila) for some time now. Though they would not specify which BPO or location, my guess is that it could be one of the call centers in Cebu.

He added that the Philippines is an important market for eBay and with an estimated 21 million internet users in the country, they expect a grow rate of 21% in e-commerce every year between 2008 and 2010. In South East Asia alone, eBay Philippines is the most active site, followed by eBay Malaysia although the latter is higher in terms of total volumes. eBay Philippines has also recently announced partnership with Globe GCash to support mobile payments.

Banco de Oro sent out a security bulletin to all its customer about a recent internet scam being circulated in emails that is part of a bigger modus operandi.

The scam being circulated through email attempts to lure recipients into giving details of their account and other information so that this may be used as a receiving account to commit the fraud.

This is the content of the email:

MISS. MARY ELLAINE VILLANUEVA
HEAD OFFICE BANCO DE ORO UNIVERSAL BANK
12 ADB AVENUE, ORTIGAS CENTER, MANDALUYONG CITY
PHILIPPINES.

Good Day,

Let me start by introducing myself, I am Miss. Mary Ellaine Manguerra Villanueva, an ACCOUNTS CLARK with the BANCO DE ORO UNIVERSAL BANK. I am writing you this letter based on the latest development at my bank which I will like to bring to your personal edification. I am writing you this letter with so much joy and excitement even though my heart goes out to the very powerful and distinguished gentleman who I was fortunate to have worked for and extremely privileged to have known for numerous years. I am an official in charge of client accounts in BANCO DE ORO UNIVERSAL BANK inside the Philippines.

This is a legitimate transaction, and you will be paid 20% for your “Assistance”.If you are interested, please write back by mail and provide me with your confidential telephone number, fax number and email address and I will provide further details and instructions. Please keep this confidential;finally, please note that this must be concluded within two weeks.

I will assume all responsibilities for this endeavor so you don’t have to worry about any legal ramifications, just what you will do with all that money. Your urgent response is highly anticipated so please email me back for more details on this transaction as soon as possible. This should be kept very secret and confidential. I believe you know.

Kind Regards,
Miss. Mary Ellaine Villanueva.

The Modus Operandi

The Fraudster contacts the prospective victim with money-earning opportunities either via spam mails, through the Internet chat rooms, or job search websites whereby the fraudster will convince the victim to supply contact information. Once the victim responds, the fraudster tries to get additional information from the victim in the hope of getting an account related to a target bank.

The victim will receive funds into his account. These funds are stolen by the fraudster from another account or accounts that have been previously compromised.

The victim is then asked to take these funds out of their account and to transfer the amount overseas, typically using wire transfer, leaving a certain percentage to the victim as commission. Cooperating in such an activity is illegal. When caught, victims often have their bank accounts suspended, including their own money.

Paypal has just sent out notices to all Paypal Philippine members that they can now withdraw their funds into their local banks. This, on top of the existing methods of withdrawing funds thru debit cards (like UCPB’s EON card) and Philippine-based credit cards.

There’s a Php50 transaction fee when taking out amounts below Php7,000 and no charges (free!) for any amount in excess of Php7,000. Just login to your Paypal account and add the bank account numbers and the bank codes.

The Philippine Bank Codes are published by eBay as follows. To complete your PayPal withdrawal, you will need to enter the name of your bank, your bank account number and the corresponding 9-digit bank code, which identifies your bank.

Allied Banking Corp. – 010320013
Asia United Bank – 011020011
Banco de Oro (& Equitable PCI Bank) – 010530667
Bank of Commerce – 010440016
Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) – 010040018
China Banking Corporation (China Bank) – 010100013
Central Bank of the Philippines – 010030015
China Trust Commercial Bank – 010690015
Citibank N.A. – 010070017
Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) – 010590018
East West Bank – 010620014
Export & Industry Bank – 010860010
HongKong & Shanghai Bank (HSBC) – 010060014
International Exchange Bank – 010680012
Land Bank of the Philippines – 010350025
Maybank of the Philippines – 010220016
Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company (Metrobank) – 010269996
Philippine Bank of Communication – 010110016
Philippine Trust Company (PhilTrust) – 010090039
Philippine National Bank (PNB) – 010080010
Prudential Bank – 010150018
Philippine Veterans Bank – 010330016
Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) – 010280014
Security Bank and Trust Company – 010140015
Standard Chartered Bank – 010050011
United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) – 010299995
Union Bank of the Philippines – 010419995
United Overseas Bank – 010270189

The other banks include:

Australia New Zealand – 010700015
Bangkok Bank – 010670019
Bank of America – 010120019
Bank of China – 011140014
Bank of Tokyo – 010460012
Deutsche Bank – 010650013
Fuji Bank – 010640010
International Commercial Bank of China – 010560019
JP Morgan Chase Bank – 010720011
Korea Exchange Bank – 010710018
International Nederland Bank – 010660016

Withdrawal process typically takes 5-7 business days. However, depending on your bank’s policies, it may take longer. Regardless of the foreign currency (USD, EUR, AUD, etc.) you are withdrawing from your PayPal account, the funds will be converted to your local currency.

Filipino’s who have recently used the search engines to look for Philippine Buy and Sell sites could have easily bumped into Sulit.com.ph owing to its high rankings in the Search Engines. Which shouldn’t come as a surprise owing to the popularity of Sulit.com.ph. Because of its huge user base and the traffic generated from it, Sulit.com.ph received 10.4 million Pageviews and 1.7M visitors for the month of November alone. To add further to its accolades, Sulit.com.ph recently ran away with the People’s Choice Award for E-Commerce site in the recently concluded 10th Philippine Web Awards. Sulit.com.ph is definitely a rising star in the Philippine online classifieds scene. Whats remarkable still, is the fact that Sulit.com.ph has been around for only a year.

I got a chance recently to throw some questions at the team behind Sulit.com.ph, RJ David (developer) and his Girlfriend Arianne(Design and Testing), to get the story on how Sulit.com.ph came to be. Prior to interviewing RJ, I informed him that I have a similar Buy and Sell Site targeted at a different market, since in a way we might be competitors, he could opt out of the interview. Even with that card laid out RJ replied to me:

“No problem. I actually learned much of what to add to Sulit.com.ph by looking at similar systems. So it is not a big deal. I will be glad to share the experience to others.”

I first encountered RJ within the catacombs of the Philippine PHP User group forums. At that time Sulit.com.ph was still nonexistent. I could characterize RJ as a very amiable and helpful fellow in the forums. Someone who was eager to give Sage advice to the Noobs of PHP. I should know as I got some good advice from him when I was still starting out with PHP. I dropped out of hanging around PHPUGPH for a while, but the last thing I remembered was RJ promoting Sulit.com.ph in the Forums. Fast forward a year later and I see my wife trolling incessantly the forums of a site that looked very familiar. Sure enough it was Sulit.com.ph. I got surprised at the growth and advancement of Sulit.com.ph after just a year of existence.

To really get to understand the attraction that users get from Sulit.com.ph I had to take a step back and ask my wife, who was looking at Sulit.com.ph from a user’s perspective and not through a techie’s eye. She said that what she liked about Sulit.com.ph was:

1. The clean and simple interface
2. The great Javascript enhanced image enlarge on mouseover picture gallery of the products for Sale.
3. The large amount of posts in each category.

RJ David is young at 27 years old of age. He was a former Mechanical Engineer who left his field to become a web developer. He entered the IT industry in 2003 as a Software Test Engineer then moved on to be a PHP Architect / Senior Developer in 2005. By the end of 2005 he decided to go full time with freelancing. He said that the decision to leave the security of employment was brought about by the influence of the book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” (by Robert Kiyosaki) on him.

Aside from IT projects, he also dabbled in other forms of entrepreneurship outside the IT field. But the lack of passion in those none IT ventures led him to drop them to concentrate on web based businesses. Prior to hitting the mark with Sulit.com.ph, he had four other businesses that didn’t quite make it.

With the advent of Web2.0 phenomenon, he was inspired by how the small websites/startups, run by a few founders, made it big in the industry. By May 2006 he decided to create his own online application. He realized that the capital needed to operate and maintain a website was way cheaper than other offline ventures.

During one brainstorming session with Arianne, they came up with an idea to create a classified ads website. They initially planned to operate it for a few months to collect data then analyze it afterwards to see which category would be the most popular so that they could target that niche afterwards. After 2 months of development (around August) Sulit.com.ph was born. Officially launched in September, RJ had to grapple with work responsibilities and Server issues during the launch.

Here are his answers to the questions I threw at him: [* Author's Notes]

1. What inspired Sulit.com.ph to be created despite the fact that it already looks like a crowded webmarket?

I initially didn’t have the perception that it was already a crowded web market since it was really meant to be an experiment to gather data. Early December 2006, my girlfriend and I came to realize that there would be a nice future with Sulit.com.ph but we have to compete with big players in the local market which have already existed for years and even international classified ads with local listings were making it big locally. And of course quite a number of small and new websites trying to grab a piece of the pie in the classifieds market. Yet, the story of Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, really inspired me on how he created a service using a simple website for the community and ending up with the most successful and popular classified ads website worldwide. Ever since, I believed that if I can deliver a good service to the users through Sulit.com.ph, it is also possible to make it big someday.

2. How many people does it take to run Sulit.com.ph?

From September 2006 until July 2007, I was running Sulit.com.ph alone in my bedroom with the help of Arianne for a few hours at night answering forum posts, online marketing and other web design tasks after she was out of the office (she was working as project development lead in one of the banks in Makati). By August 2007, I requested her to resign from her job and help me manage Sulit.com.ph full time. Since then, I focused on System Administration, Maintenance and Development, Analytics, SEO and the business-side of Sulit.com.ph. Arianne take on the role of Web Design, Testing, Support, Marketing, Paper works and Organization.

3. Aside from the opportunity to network, what else do you think you are offering your users that makes it a cut above the rest?

1. More exposure of ads to people actually searching for related keywords -> with 10.4 million pageviews and 1.7 visitors last
   November 2007
2. Administrators listen and communicate with the members – Arianne and I are always visible in the forum.
3. Continuous improvement of the website giving more and more benefits to the members. Members see and feel the improvements.
   We also implement member suggestions when it is proven to be beneficial to the majority of the members.

4. Did you experience any start up bumps during Sulit.com.ph’s early days that almost made you want to quit and throw in the towel?

A number of times.

1. When Google penalize our website and removed us from the search engine result pages (SERPs) in April 2007. I painstakingly analyzed changes in the site from January to April and removed those which I think had an effect with the penalty. We were lucky to be back in the SERPs but I didn’t know what really caused it and those features removed never made it to Sulit.com.ph again.
2. I am a web developer and not a system administrator. With the growth came problems with server performance due to high traffic. I ended up learning how to optimize a server in 2 days without sleep but it was all worth it.
3. Yahoo! Mail bouncing all e-mails coming from our server and had more than 10K e-mails not sent to members. I had to learn how to “properly” setup an e-mail server and end up changing our e-mail policy and adding e-mail settings to profiles of our members.

5. What are the factors that you think helped Sulit.com.ph reach where it is today.

1. SEO
2. Service-oriented goal
3. Community-driven approach

6. What methods of promotion did you use to market Sulit.com.ph?

1. SEO, forums and directory listings
2. RSS
3. Recently, joining expos as media sponsor
4. Raffles

7. How do you envision Sulit.com.ph to be 5 years down the road?

Available in different countries

8. Any sister sites in the offing after the Success of Sulit.com.ph?

“Success” might still be a far-fetched word in my vocabulary. But I do have 2 other projects in mind which I hope to start by next year after I have completed all the major functionalities that I am planning to add to Sulit.com.ph.

Currently, I have another project to be released in Dec. 10, which is targeting local entrepreneurs called Bizyonaryo.com. This project will provide the offline marketing needs of entrepreneurs which is obviously missing with the online nature of Sulit.com.ph, and a lot more. This project is created in alliance with PowerShopper, Inc. which is a provider of a unique Free Door to Door Media Bag.

* For current entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs looking for an online and offline marketing medium, check out the Sulit.com.ph Team’s : Bizyonaryo. It is a site where entrepreneurs can look to create and save cash for their business.

9. What monetization channels do you use to finance Sulit.com.ph?

1. Adsense
2. Direct Ads (major change by April 2008)
3. Ex-deals with companies and individuals

*Ranked according to amount contributed.

10. What is the most active sector of Sulit.com.ph?

Buy and Sell followed by Real Estate.

11. Describe the average Sulit.com.ph user

Interests and professions are as broad as the categories in Sulit.com.ph. Regarding age, gender and location, I do collect the data but I still haven’t done any analytics but this will be available for the major change in Direct Advertising in Sulit.com.ph by April 2008.

12. Ycombinator VC, Paul Graham, believes that in order to succeed in an online venture, you must be a two man team. Case in point, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Paul Allen and Bill Gates, etc. Do you believe in this theory?

Sulit.com.ph is founded and being operated by a 2-man team, Arianne and I. Although I believe it should be at least 2, and one should be a techie who knows the ins and outs of the application.

13. What Offer would it take to part with Sulit.com.ph or open it up to a partnership?

Until I complete the system with the major functionalities that I plan, I don’t think it will be open up for partnership. But if ever my plan to expand to different countries pushed-through, I will definitely be looking for someone with experience to run and build a working team around this worldwide project.

Thanks to the folks behind Sulit.com.ph, for agreeing to be interviewed. Good Luck to Sulit.com.ph, Bizyonaryo as well as your other future projects.

I got this lead from one of my visitors at Technobiography:

November 15, 2007 – OMI Mobile Solutions conducted its internal live test at MRT North Ave. Station to Taft Ave. Station. Succesfully activated OMI E-Wallet and purchase single journey MRT mobile tickets for SMART Communications and SUN Cellular.

Some notes:

* Not much detail about the live test in the omniprime website. Omniprime was the group behind the mobile cinema tickets.
* Good to see the system integration between MRT, Smart and most especially SUN!. This is the kind of collaboration we’re looking for to make more robust and more inclusive mobile services (instead of the giant telcos developing services that don’t work with the rival telco — we want services that are interoperable)
* It turns out Omniprime is the system integrator for the MRT mobile tickets which I discussed back in August 2007.

Visit Omniprime for the article (http://www.omniprime.net/).
Omniprime, how did the testing go? Let us know when it’s publicly available.

Goodluck!

ka edong
sa florida, hindi ako blanco

As I mentioned before, I see a great potential that Paypal is bringing in as far as Philippine ecommerce is concerned.

I’m kind of documenting the success (or failure) of Paypal here in the Philippines. And I’m taking the risk — I’m trying it myself without precedents. Yesterday, I received my first transaction from a client abroad. Then I transfered the amount to my Unionbank EON account. Paypal notes that this transaction will be completed in 5 to 7 days. I’m going to wait and report here.

Anyone who has done this ahead of me? How did it go?

Cross-post from Life 2.0

Recent news of Paypal Philippines now being able to send and receive funds have been making rounds in the blogosphere. When Paypal first became available in the Philippines some 12 months ago, it was a little disappointing then because the only way Philippine-based members can use it is by sending funds. Receiving funds was not still allowed then.

This development has finally made Paypal support in full circle. However, there are still some caveats. First, despite the fact that you can now send and receive funds via Paypal, there is no practical way to getting those funds locally, unless of course you have a US-based bank or a US-based credit or debit card.

So what does this mean? Well, like many other countries listed as having Paypal support, it’s not really what others would call “Full Paypal Support”. Well, its obvious from my previous statements. Even if us Filipinos can receive payments via Paypal, the only way to can easily dispose of those funds is by using it to purchase services or goods online as well. This makes the recent limited support practically useless to 99.9% of Filipino Paypal users in the country.

In that end, one would still have to use other 3rd party services like Xoom to actually send funds and deposit them to local banks. That makes it more expensive actually since money will have to go thru 2 channels now instead of one.

So, the next time someone asks if they can remit payments to you via Paypal, you might want to reconsider.