Jakarta Globe – AFP, Sep 28, 2014
 |
Big brand names like Facebook, Google, Viber and Instagram have rapidly
expanded their presence in Myanmar, lured by the growing market.(Bloomberg Photo) |
Yangon. From
navigating gridlocked city roads to playing a favorite national sport, new
homegrown apps are blossoming in Myanmar as cheap mobile technology ignites an
Internet revolution in the once-isolated nation.
Myanmar web
surfers were once paradigms of patience and ingenuity as they dodged and weaved
through the former military regime’s communications blocks in decrepit
backstreet Internet cafes.
But
commuters in Myanmar’s biggest cities can now be seen tapping away on
smartphones as an online awakening sweeps the country, fueled by the loosening
of junta-era restrictions and foreign telecoms firms unleashing a flood of
affordable SIM cards.
Big brand
names like Facebook, Google, Viber and Instagram have rapidly expanded their
presence in the country, lured by the growing market. Web-savvy local
entrepreneurs are also seizing the chance to create Internet ventures in
Myanmar style.
“There are
so many things I want to do — I think about it not as business but as a way to
find solutions to problems I face,” said Ei Maung as he demonstrated his
prototype traffic app in a car inching through the congested streets of the
commercial hub Yangon.
“Yangon
commuting is worse than bad. It’s terrible. You waste countless hours queuing
in traffic every day,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
His
Cyantra: Crazy Yangon Traffic app went live in June and allows smartphone users
to share traffic problems and view potential snarl-ups on their driving routes.
Internet
boom
Internet
access has already increased exponentially since the country began to throw off
the shackles of military rule.
Just one
percent of the population was thought to be online three years ago, as the
democratic transition began, but the loosening of web controls and greater
access to affordable phone cards has opened the Internet up to millions.
On Saturday
Norway’s Telenor launched SIM cards costing just 1,500 kyat ($1.5) in Mandalay
— a far cry from the $3,000 a card could cost under military rule — ahead of a
wider roll-out in Yangon and Naypyidaw.
The move
comes after Qatari firm Ooredoo began selling its SIM cards at the same price
last month, throwing open the mobile Internet floodgates.
An
estimated 25 percent of people are already online and the Myanmar Computer
Federation expects around half of the population, over 25 million people, to be
surfing the net in the next three years.
David
Madden, whose Yangon-based Code for Change group seeks to promote and support
budding techies, said that unlike in the West where web design began with a
focus on computers and laptops, Myanmar Internet consumers will be primarily
using cheap smartphones.
“People are
going to be able to afford one thing and they are going to want it to do a
lot,” he said. “It’s the thing you want in your pocket, it’s the thing you want
when you are sitting in a bus stuck in traffic.”
Local
twists
Social
media giant Facebook has dominated the Myanmar web to such an extent that it is
the first — sometimes only — port of call for web users.
But
Google’s Myanmar-language search engine has struggled to attract users because
it uses a standardized font — unicode — whereas many Myanmar websites are
written in a locally-produced zawgyi font, meaning they are unreadable on the
international search engine.
A local
firm Bindez, led by former Google employee Rahul Batra, is taking on the web
Goliath as it tries to create a zawgyi-compatible search engine.
The booming
tech scene has also given the country a chance to showcase local passions, from
checking personalized horoscopes, to a game that allows armchair sportsmen to
play virtual “Chinlone” ± a beloved traditional cane ball game — with a quirky
owl avatar.
And while
connections often remain glacially slow, online entrepreneurs are now grappling
with the dilemma that has tormented web-based firms the world over — how to
turn clicks into cash.
Mobile
money — using the credit bought to top-up mobile phones to make payments for
other goods and services — helped by the flood of affordable SIMs now entering
circulation, could help.
It is seen
as a vital potential tool for the vast swathes of Myanmar’s largely unbanked
and rural population to access anything from loans to retail payments.
One popular
Myanmar comic, Putet, has already begun using this style of payment system —
495 kyats a month (50 US cents) is skimmed from users’ mobile phone charges,
giving them unlimited access to hundreds of colorful cartoon strips.
“It is
important to make money — we have to buy cartoons, pay our staff.
Advertisements do not make enough money,” editor Aung Chit Khin told AFP.
Readership
of Putet’s paper version had plummeted from 10,000 to just 4,000 in the eight
years before the app was launched, as it vied for attention with foreign
comics, television and games.
While the
comic still is not turning a profit, there are now 8,000 app users, attracting
more buyers of the paper edition, which has seen its circulation swell to
6,000.
“The app
has saved it in a way,” he said.
Agence France-Presse
