The winning team of ‘AIS: The StartUP Weekends 2013’. Noonswoon, the dating mobile app, is serious about setting up singles with a quality match.
An app designed to set up quality couples takes the prize from other innovative start-ups
If you are a single person who is always busy with work and has no time to find the one, matchmaker Noonswoon can set you up with a quality match and establish a private connection. The app is one of five winners, out of 116 participant teams, from AIS: The StartUP Weekends 2013.
The winning team of ‘AIS: The StartUP Weekends 2013’. Noonswoon, the dating mobile app, is serious about setting up singles with a quality match.
Noonswoon team leader Kavin Asavanant developed the dating app, which is in the Thai language, to serve single people between the ages of 25 and 35. Noonswoon is not the first matchmaker in the market, but Kavin pointed out that where most are about casual relationships, this one is serious about setting up quality matches and establishing a private connection when there is mutual interest.
The app analyses the friends of friends on Facebook and introduces users to one person per day, at noon. Users can make a decision by pressing "Like" or not. If both parties like each other, a message appears and they can begin chatting. Users can also introduce their single friends to others. Noonswoon is 100% confidential. No one will know you are using the app unless you tell them.
The Close Tag app applies QR Code scanning technology running as the mini Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
The app offers users 100 free credits for 10 "Likes". If you run out it costs 30 baht for 10 credits, or subscribers can pay 300 baht per month for unlimited "Likes". Running on iOS, Noonswoon was launched three months ago and has made about 3,000 matches and connections with more than 35,000 chat messages.
Another winning app is Stockguru, which helps investors decide who to trust by augmenting daily analysts' stock tips with their past performances and keeping only the best.
Stockguru ranks and rates stock analysts and aims to solve two of investors' biggest problems: trust and time. Trust, as in, who to trust. Time, as in, it's usually very time-consuming to filter and analyse stock news and recommendations.
Stockguru developer Rattapoom Tuchinda noted that analysts in Thailand release about 90 recommendations per day and it's impractical for lone investors to track their performances.
For each analyst, the app analyses and measures their past performances in two matrixes: of the times they were right and the average profit per trade. When a new recommendation is released, users can also check the analyst's history, filter and drill down their ranking by industry and stock symbols. This way they can identify who's good at what segment.
"Our app is different from other apps in Thailand because we back our information with past performance. We're the only local service in Thailand that ranks analysts from multiple brokers," said Rattapoom.
The TripPacker, a social network for travel lovers, was developed to help people search and share their stories easily and enjoyably. Users can build their own profile and connect with like-minded travellers, view curated content from the web and other users, as well as bring unique experiences to the destinations.
It is very easy to create your own travel profile. You can either import pictures and places from previous trips from other social networks or manually upload them into the system.
"We also redesigned the conventional content creation method and provide the easiest tools to all travellers to tell their compelling stories/reviews/experiences," according to Nutthaseth Sirinanthananon, professional general manager at Semantic Touch, the developer of the TripPacker.
The TripPacker has several types of feeds. Some of them are: Curated feed _ every photograph and story in The TripPacker has "Been there" and "I want to go" buttons. Content in the curated feed come from those with the most "I want to go" votes within 30 days. Following feed displays content from all travellers that the web is following. Wish list feed shows photographs and reviews of other travellers at places where users have clicked "I want to go". The web gathers opinions and experiences of travellers who have been to or would like to go to the destination and presents them in timeline format.
The application has not been launched yet. However, the TripPacker's blog receives about 50,000 unique visitors each month and its Facebook page has 34,000 fans with a 10% engagement rate. "This does not only help individual travellers to plan their perfect getaway but directly impact on Thai's economy," Nutthaseth said. "Small businesses in any city can now have their own online presence and benefit from our system that connects buyers and sellers. The TripPacker crowd-sources travellers' voices to inspire other travellers to visit great places and at the same time indirectly help small-business owners to improve their competitiveness."
Using QR codes to offer additional product information to customers, Nopphorn Lertpiboonpanya created an app called Close tag. The app is like a mini CRM (customer relationship management) platform that provides more product information to customers by scanning the QR code. It's also beneficial to merchants as they get customer feedback.
Nopphorn's app is today being used by wine distributor Italasia Trading. Once their customers post the wine on a social network, the company can gather information about the product because anytime that people "Like" it on Facebook the company will be notified.
"We are now talking to a luxury brand company who will use the Close tag app for verifying the authenticity of products. Instead of using holograms, they simply print the QR Code," said Nopphorn.
Zupzip is a social second screen app that enables audiences to express their feelings about TV programmes on smart devices. With the app, audiences can interact with the programmes they are watching, and respond with "Like" or "Dislike" about the show, the actors or the emcees.
"We found that family members today are more likely to use mobile devices while they are watching television and this app will enable audiences to interact with the programmes in real time," said developer Nattapong Mongkolnavin.
The TripPacker mainly uses feeds of beautiful crowd-sourced photographs to tell stories instead of writing.
Zupzip features voting, information about each programme and links to already broadcast programmes for audiences to watch.
The first phase will cover only free TV channels, focusing on soap operas, variety shows and sport programmes. If the app receives a good response it will be expanded to cable TV.
Zupzip is beneficial to the TV stations and sponsors as they can have instantaneous audience feedback and ratings. The app also has business applications, with the possibility for digital advertisements, for example, while audiences are watching soap operas.
Nattapong said that the team ran a survey by inviting about 300 people from Facebook and found that 30-40% used smartphones while watching television. "Initially, we would like to have a certain number of Zupzip users and then we will launch a campaign by offering 1,000 credits to each user; they can gain more if they invite friends to join to play the game with the app," Nattapong said.
Version one of Zupzip will be introduced to the public this week on the Android platform, while the iOS option will be launched next month.
The matchmaker Noonswoon won the AIS the StartUp Weekend 2013 award and received 600,000 baht from AIS, Invent and KBank along with support in the worldwide market. The other four teams will be supported for their development plans to go the market.
According to AIS assistant vice-president for wireless business marketing Prattana Leelapanang, the result of the event shows that Thailand houses many young, innovative app and web developers who willing to try new things. The event sets the stage for a group of creative people to show off their capabilities and gather in a strong community. Importantly, when Thailand completely moves toward the 3G era, the demand for data communications and mobile applications will grow enormously. This will create new business opportunities to the developers.
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