AllThingsD » Korea

Co-Founder Yat Siu on Animoca's Big Menu of "Fast Food" Mobile Games

Eric Johnson — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:19:20 +0000

If you’ve never heard of Animoca, it’s probably because — like nearly every company in the mobile games industry — the Hong Kong-based studio has never had a huge hit on the scale of Temple Run or Candy Crush Saga.

And Animoca couldn’t be happier about that.

Co-founder Yat Siu calls them “fast food apps.” His 150-person company, a conglomerate of 12 smaller studios, has developed and published more than 350 apps, he said, currently at the rate of about four every week. Its goal is to one day crank out a new app every day as it expands its reach further into Asia and beyond.

Siu, who is also the CEO of Animoca’s parent company, Outblaze Ventures, said as much in a recent interview with AllThingsD. But he also had a lot more to say about the advantages of working outside of Silicon Valley, the maturation of Google’s Android ecosystem and why quantity is sometimes better than quality.

AllThingsD: What’s the difference between being based in Hong Kong and being based in Silicon Valley?

Yat Siu: In terms of our [Android] ecosystem, it is the dominant marketplace, whereas in the Valley, there’s a lot of focus on Apple. We don’t have that much venture capital available to us, so we have to focus on profitability and the bottom line very, very quickly. Our games aren’t all profitable, but our business is. And we’re just a small island city, so we do not have a domestic market. It’s go global or die.

How do your games fare in different regions?

When we first started [in 2011], the U.S. was our biggest market, but just because it had a larger ecosystem. That’s changing today. North America as a continent is now in second place to Asia because Japan and Korea are driving a lot of the revenues. … The people who are buying iPhones or Android phones in the U.S. today are not the first movers, whereas in Asia, a lot of the marketplace still has way under 50 percent smartphone penetration rates. In Japan, at the start of this year, it was under 30 percent.

Is Android fragmentation a problem for you? Putting most of your eggs in that basket means you’re dealing with phones that range from the very low end to the very high end, right?

Two years ago, we had a testing rack of 600 devices. Now, Samsung is outselling basically everyone else, except in China and Japan. The second thing that’s different now is that “low end” is no longer really “low end.” You used to have really poor devices with poor resolution and processing power. Even the so-called “cheap” devices that are sold in China today are quad-core or dual-core devices; they just cost $100, is all. And they’re all standardizing around Jelly Bean (the most recent version of the Android OS). The whole Android philosophy was, “Here, take the operating system. Do what you want. Good luck!” We had weird memory issues because people would be coding stuff on top. Now, with Jelly Bean, most of the stuff that’s going on in the operating system is going on in the application side.

Pretty Pet Salon is one of the more popular games Animoca has published, and started a “Pretty Pet” franchise.

Tell me about your games and how they perform. How do you evaluate success?

We look at every product as a gateway to another product. The key driver is popularity. Monetization will come, we think, once people are in there, but the ability to cross-promote to other games becomes important. We want to make sure that the user always has at least a few of our games to play, because we don’t believe that there is such a thing as a person who can play a game for years and years and years. It’s “fast-food apps.” People just want to consume quickly, move quickly and go on to the next thing. It doesn’t mean that they won’t come back to it, but they’re not prepared to invest console-style, sitting down and playing for four hours.

And if you spent $60 on a game, you’re probably going to invest a lot more time than if you spent nothing or spent 99 cents.

That’s true, too, definitely. But also, with mobile, whether it’s in trains or one-handed game time, sometimes it’s just when you’re lying in bed, the behavior that we’re seeing now is that a person is playing a game, and then after five minutes, he wants to move on to another game. He’s not necessarily playing the same game for an hour. He’s like, “I feel like something else.” It’s no different than people switching TV channels every once in a while, except they’re switching games.

So it’s not as much of a “hits-driven” business for you as it might be for others?

It’s all relative. What is a hit? Because it’s a global audience, a niche segment is pretty large. And yet, if you have a five-million-user niche, is that a hit? It’s probably a hit for an indie studio, but it’s not a hit for us because of the scale we operate in. Typically, we call anything a hit if it has over 15 million downloads, but as a franchise, as a series. We might have one app, and then if it does well and has a few million downloads and reasonable revenues, then we put sequels and additions on top of it. Out of the series, we may wind up having something like 20 or 25 apps.

For those games that aren’t sequels to existing games, how do your studios come up with new things to publish?

We have studios that are as small as six people. The producer is empowered to have his own budget and his own creative vision. There’s a weekly meeting where all the producers come together and talk about what they’re doing, and then go off and do their own thing. The advantage for the business is, if you start off with a studio of six people and it bombs, who cares? It’s not great for them, but the business can afford to do it. If they do well, they have a platform.

The independence of our studio is also attractive to our staff. They have the chance to be a startup without the startup risk. They don’t have to worry about payroll or finance, they can focus on the product and build their own team. The additional unintended advantage is that, in Hong Kong, we’re unique. So, if you want to do games and you want to publish your games, then, frankly, there’s nowhere else to go. People come to us because the other option is banking or finance — which is a good career, just not if you don’t like it. If we were in the Valley, we might end up getting slaughtered by the amount of recruitment and loss of staff. Who knows?

But it’s worth noting that you do also maintain an office here in San Francisco for non-game development roles like partnerships and PR.

In the past, the meccas of the global gaming space used to be different. They used to be Sony, Nintendo and, at one point, Sega. But it was never centered around Silicon Valley. That changed with the smartphone. Now the new mecca is the Bay Area, because Google Play is here and Apple is here. We have an office here because we have to pay homage to the new temples. Even though we’re not in the Valley, it’s absolutely required for us to go in. Every other app company that’s international that wants to succeed must do the same.

Almost all of your revenue, about 95 percent, comes from in-app purchases. Are you looking at other business models?

Advertising will come, but it is not dominant yet. Primarily, the buyers for that now are other app companies, and we’ve got our own network. If we focus more on our cross-promotion, we get more out of that than necessarily opening up inventory to everyone else. Right now, ads are generally low-quality, and they’re also spammy, so it’s a bad user experience. But that will change. The experience is there already — think about how much time you’re spending on mobile versus PC — but [ads] have to deliver value to the user. Facebook has the right idea. People who like casual games, you should really only show them other casual games. Today, the targeting doesn’t exist.

What does your conversion rate of non-paying to paying players look like? The typical curve has a lot of people at the bottom paying nothing or almost nothing, then a long tail with a bump at the end, composed of a small number of players who pay a lot.

That is the hardcore type of model, where basically you have a very low conversion rate, something like 2 percent, and a very high consumable model where people can spend thousands of dollars. That’s not our model. If you look at games like Pretty Pet Salon, you’d be hard pressed to spend more than 20 bucks, just because of the game play. We are expecting to have more volume of titles with a larger frequency of players coming in from outside. So, for instance, Pretty Pet Salon has an 8 percent conversion rate. Now, when we start working with Forgame (Animoca recently accepted a “strategic minority investment” from the Chinese hard-core game maker), that is different. We will listen to their suggestions, and it does appear that that will be the strategy, because people are prepared to spend that kind of money. It’ll be a learning experience for us.

Apple's Tim Cook Returns to D Stage to Open 11th Annual Conference

Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:36:08 +0000

Although we are only about a month out from our 11th D: All Things Digital conference, we still have a few big speakers to announce, not the least of which is Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Cook, who made his debut at D10 last year in his first major interview as the new leader of the iconic and powerful tech giant, will be kicking off the proceedings with an interview with us on the opening night of the conference.

There’s lots to talk about, from the explosive growth of the mobile market to intense competition from a range of rivals, most especially Google’s Android, as well as innovative offerings from Korea’s Samsung. It will also be interesting to talk about the changes at Apple under the leadership of Cook, who took over from the late co-founder and industry legend Steve Jobs, as well inquiring about what new products are in the pipeline and how the company is faring in an increasingly high-pressure market.

Cook joins a long list of stellar speakers slated to appear onstage at D11 from May 28 to 30, including Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Motorola Mobility’s Dennis Woodside, Pinterest’s Ben Silbermann, Jeff Immelt of GE, new Android chief Sundar Pichai, Sony’s Kaz Hirai, ABC’s Anne Sweeney and more.

But we are not quite done yet, so stay tuned for announcements of out final speakers. And, while we never reveal them before the event, our D11 demos are among our best ever. (Special note: D11 has been sold out for months, but we provide coverage and videos from it throughout the conference.)

Until we get them all in person, here’s the full Cook interview from D10 to peruse:

[ See post to watch video ]

LivingSocial Hack Update: Investigation Ongoing, While Emails Out to 50 Million Users

Kara Swisher — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 19:45:02 +0000

After a massive breach of its computer systems yesterday, LivingSocial has sent out emails to all of the 50 million customers impacted, a company spokesman said, and is now working with law enforcement in an investigation to help find the perpetrators.

The company declined to give more information about how the hackers might have entered the Washington, D.C., daily deals company’s system to get access to names, emails, birthdates and encrypted passwords. But it did note that it was taking extra measures to restrict access to all of its systems and consumer data and has been doing heavy monitoring of consumer accounts.

LivingSocial also underscored that credit card information of its users has not been hacked. “We store credit card data through a financial processing network, so the full number literally does not exist anywhere in our system,” the spokesman said.

Still, the hack is a huge blow for LivingSocial, which is owned in part by Amazon, impacting 50 million customers, who will now be required to reset their passwords. All of LivingSocial’s countries across the world appear to have been affected, except in Thailand, Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines, as LivingSocial units Ticketmonster and Ensogo there were on separate systems.

This is the latest big data breach in the consumer Internet space, which has seen troublesome incursions into some high-profile companies recently, including Zappos, LinkedIn and Evernote.

The attack comes at a tough time for the company, since it has been trying to turn itself around after a downturn across the daily deals landspace. LivingSocial got a large cash infusion recently from investors to help stanch its losses. Amazon owns 29 percent of the company.

LivingSocial Hacked -- More Than 50 Million Customer Names, Emails, Birthdates and Encrypted Passwords Accessed (Internal Memo)

Kara Swisher — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 20:15:00 +0000

LivingSocial, the daily deals site owned in part by Amazon, has suffered a massive cyber attack on its computer systems, which an email from CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy — just sent to employees and obtained by AllThingsD.com — said resulted in “unauthorized access to some customer data from our servers.”

The hack includes customer names, emails, birthdates and encrypted passwords.

The breach has impacted 50 million customers of the Washington, D.C.-based company, who will now be required to reset their passwords. All of LivingSocial’s countries across the world appear to have been affected, except in Thailand, Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines, as LivingSocial units Ticketmonster and Ensogo there were on separate systems.

One positive note in a not-so-positive situation: The email sent to employees and customers noted that neither customer credit card nor merchant financial information was accessed in the cyber attack.

This is the latest big data breach in the consumer Internet space, which has seen troublesome incursions into some high-profile companies recently, including Zappos, LinkedIn and Evernote.

When asked for comment on the email, a LivingSocial PR spokesman confirmed the attack and that 50 million customers were impacted.

The attack comes at a tough time for the company, since it has been trying to turn itself around after a downturn across the daily deals landspace. LivingSocial got a large cash infusion recently from investors to help staunch its losses. Amazon owns 29 percent of the company.

More to come, but here’s the email sent to employees, including one that will be sent to customers soon:

Re: Security Incident

LivingSocialites –

This e-mail is important, so please read it to the end.

We recently experienced a cyber-attack on our computer systems that resulted in unauthorized access to some customer data from our servers. We are actively working with law enforcement to investigate this issue.

The information accessed includes names, email addresses, date of birth for some users, and encrypted passwords — technically ‘hashed’ and ‘salted’ passwords. We never store passwords in plain text.

Two things you should know:

1. * The database that stores customer credit card information was not affected or accessed.

2. * The database that stores merchants’ financial and banking information was not affected or accessed.

The security of our customer and merchant information is our priority. We always strive to ensure the security of our customer information, and we are redoubling efforts to prevent any issues in the future.

To ensure our customers and merchants are fully informed and protected, we are notifying those who may have been impacted via email explaining what happened, expiring their passwords, and requesting that they create new passwords. A copy of the note is included below this email.

If you have any questions or concerns, please visit Pulse –https://pulse.livingsocial.com/intranet/Home/more_updates.html — for a list of frequently asked questions. If you have additional questions that aren’t answered in the FAQs, please submit them via email to XXX@livingsocial.com.

Because we anticipate a high call volume and may not be able to answer or return all calls in a responsible fashion, we are likely to temporarily suspend consumer phone-based servicing. We will be devoting all available resources to our web-based servicing.

I apologize for the formality of this note, which the circumstances demand. We need to do the right thing for our customers who place their trust in us, and that is why we’re taking the steps described and going above and beyond what’s required. We’ll all need to work incredibly hard over the coming days and weeks to validate that faith and trust.

– Tim

Subject: An important update on your LivingSocial.com account

LivingSocial recently experienced a cyber-attack on our computer systems that resulted in unauthorized access to some customer data from our servers. We are actively working with law enforcement to investigate this issue.

The information accessed includes names, email addresses, date of birth for some users, and encrypted passwords — technically ‘hashed’ and ‘salted’ passwords. We never store passwords in plain text.

The database that stores customer credit card information was not affected or accessed.

Although your LivingSocial password would be difficult to decode, we want to take every precaution to ensure that your account is secure, so we are expiring your old password and requesting that you create a new one.

For your security, please create a new password for your *email_address* account by following the instructions below.

1. Visit LivingSocial.com

2. Click on the “Create a New Password” button (top right corner of the homepage)

3. Follow the steps to finish

We also encourage you, for your own personal data security, to consider changing password(s) on any other sites on which you use the same or similar password(s).

The security of your information is our priority. We always strive to ensure the security of our customer information, and we are redoubling efforts to prevent any issues in the future.

Please note that LivingSocial will never ask you directly for personal or account information in an email. We will always direct you to the LivingSocial website — and require you to login — before making any changes to your account. Please disregard any emails claiming to be from LivingSocial that request such information or direct you to a different website that asks for such information.

If you have additional questions about this process, the “Create a New Password” button on LivingSocial.com will direct you to a page that has instructions on creating a new password and answers to frequently asked questions.

We are sorry this incident occurred, and we look forward to continuing to introduce you to new and exciting things to do in your community.

Tim O’Shaughnessy

CEO, LivingSocial

Galaxy S 4 Is a Good, but Not a Great, Step Up

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:03:48 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

Samsung has been on a roll. The success of its many models of smartphones, aided by massive marketing campaigns, has made it by far the leading maker of devices running on Google’s Android operating system and the chief rival to Apple in smartphones. In fact, Samsung is almost as synonymous with Android as Google.

The Samsung Galaxy S 4

Now, the Korean electronics giant is about to launch its latest flagship phone in the U.S., a market where it hasn’t been able to dislodge Apple’s iPhone as the leader. The new model, called the Galaxy S 4, will roll out over the next week at AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, and likely sometime in May at Verizon Wireless.

I’ve been testing the Galaxy S 4 intensively for four days and while I admire some of its features, overall, it isn’t a game-changer. It’s an evolution of the prior model and despite some improvements, it still is especially weak in the software Samsung adds to basic Android. I found Samsung’s software often gimmicky, duplicative of standard Android apps, or, in some cases, only intermittently functional.

I urge readers looking for a new Android smartphone to carefully consider the more polished-looking, and quite capable, HTC One, rather than defaulting to the latest Samsung.

The new Galaxy boasts a giant 5-inch screen, a bit bigger than the 4.8-inch display on its predecessor, but its mostly plastic body is thinner and lighter. It may stretch some small pockets and purses, and look funny when held to your ear, but it doesn’t feel like a brick.

Apple iPhone 5

Still, compared with the iPhone 5, with its 4-inch screen, the S 4 is 30 percent larger and 17 percent heavier. The new Galaxy has a 13-megapixel camera, compared with 8 megapixels for the iPhone 5.

Nearly all Android phones already come with two email apps — one reserved for Google’s Gmail. But on the Galaxy S 4, there are also two online video and music stores, two music and video players, two calendars and two browsers.

Yet out of the box, there’s no camera icon on the lock screen so you can immediately take a picture. (You can add this feature, via the settings menu, in — you guessed it — two different ways.)

Some of Samsung’s new software features worked well. A feature called Air View lets you see expanded information about things like email previews and calendar items by hovering over them with your finger. A multi-window feature splits the screen so you can view two apps at once. But both features only work with certain apps.

I also liked an improved version of Easy Mode, which substitutes the sometimes confusing normal screens and settings panels for simpler ones with larger, cleaner icons and simplified settings.

Another good move: Samsung rewrote the standard Android email app so it’s better, with a unified inbox and other nice improvements.

HTC One

Speaking of settings, Samsung is proud of an expanded panel of one-touch settings icons you can get to by pulling down the Android notification window from the top edge of the screen. I liked the idea, but this panel is likely to confuse users with items labeled “Air Gesture,” “Smart stay,” “S Beam” and other special Samsung features.

There’s an array of new camera effects, such as one where you can superimpose for fun a small square image of your own face onto a picture you’re taking, and another where you can create a “Drama” shot in which a single moving person appears multiple times in sequence. These are easy to select, but I doubt they’ll be used frequently.

I had almost zero success with a suite of features that claim to take certain actions by detecting whether you’re watching the screen. For instance, Smart scroll will scroll the screen based on the angle of your head and Smart pause will stop playing a video when you look away. I only got these to work about 10 percent of the time. Samsung blamed lighting conditions, even though I used it in many settings.

On many key hardware specs, the Galaxy S 4 shines. Its screen and camera resolution beat the iPhone 5’s and I found its pictures to be slightly better than those from the Apple phone, which is nearly a year old. Its removable battery gave me a full day of use.

But the plastic body felt a bit insubstantial to me and the mono speaker on the rear was only fair. Oddly, I found the sound via headphones to be too soft in some cases, though voice calls were clear.

Prices will vary because T-Mobile has stopped subsidizing smartphones and Sprint has a temporary new-customer discount. But AT&T will sell the base 16-gigabyte model for $200 with a two-year contract. T-Mobile’s price, paid over two years, will be $630, $50 more than the iPhone 5. Verizon hasn’t provided details, according to Samsung.

My test model was running on the T-Mobile network and even indicated that it was using super-fast LTE, which T-Mobile is still building out, in some areas. But data download speeds in the D.C. suburbs averaged just 6.96 megabits per second, versus 20.81 mbps for an iPhone 5 running Verizon LTE. The Galaxy S 4 would likely be faster on Verizon in the same location.

While many will compare the Galaxy S 4 with the iPhone 5, I also compared it with the $200 HTC One, which came out April 19. The HTC has a handsome, sturdier, aluminum body, dual stereo speakers, an excellent camera, better screen resolution than the new Samsung and twice the base memory for the same price.

If you’re a nut for lists of new features, love Samsung or crave an even bigger display, the Galaxy S 4 may be for you. It’s a good phone, just not a great one.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

The Dark Side of the Digital Revolution

Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 17:46:57 +0000

How do you explain to people that they are a YouTube sensation, when they have never heard of YouTube or the Internet? That’s a question we faced during our January visit to North Korea, when we attempted to engage with the Pyongyang traffic police.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Weapons in Cyber Attack on South Korea Killed Targeted PCs

Arik Hesseldahl — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 19:52:46 +0000

The cyber attack that rocked South Korean TV stations and banks yesterday apparently wiped out the hard drives of the affected computers, according to an analysis of the incident by McAfee.

The involved malware infections destroyed the master boot record of the hard drives of the machines attacked. The MBR on a hard drive contains crucial information on how file systems on the drive are organized. The malware involved overwrote data in the MBR with the following string of characters: “PRINCPES, PR!NCPES, HASTATI.” It also overwrote random parts of the file system with the same characters.

After that the system was given a forced reboot command, but because the MBR and file system had been corrupted, it was unable to restart, McAfee said in a blog post today.

Meanwhile, Renesys, the research company that closely monitors the pulse of the Internet, watched the attacks take place, and noticed what appeared to be a smaller, secondary attack against the network in North Korea. “It is impossible to know from connectivity measurements alone whether these outages were the direct result of cyber attacks,” the firm wrote in a corporate blog post. “However, given the recent rhetoric between these two nations, it is hard not to see these as ominous developments on the Korean peninsula.”

The Battle for the Living Room Is Over -- The War for the Consumer Is On

P.J. McNealy — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 21:19:07 +0000

The ultimate goal for consumer electronics companies 10 years ago? Control the consumer living room experience. That way, they could control consumer identities, consumer experiences, consumer credit cards and commerce — business model nirvana as consumers in markets such as the United States were upgrading from clunky cathode-ray televisions to the new, slim, high-definition TVs. Key players in this battle? Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Nintendo and Microsoft.

Fast forward to today: The battle for the living room is already over, and the overall war for the consumer is on. Key players in this big war? Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Samsung and LG. Sony, Panasonic, Sharp and Nintendo? By and large on the outside looking in, wondering how the vision for living room dominance blew up.

When do we stop calling them phones or tablets or TVs?
Thanks to Moore’s Law, the advancements in storage, battery life, screen display, processing power and improved networks in the past 10 years have allowed numerous “screens” to become pervasive in a consumer’s daily life. These screens are ubiquitous, and not typically locked to a location, except TVs. Consumers spend time on phones, tablets and notebooks both in the home and while mobile.

We are rapidly iterating devices to simply be powerful screens connected to the Internet, connected to clouds. The main question for a consumer will soon be, “Which size screen will I use in the car? On the train? In rooms in my house?” That answer will be driven by which hardware vendors have aggregated the best services for consumers, coupled with a compelling user interface (UI), frictionless commerce opportunities and social and communications layers built in.
The reality today is that consumers can do nearly the exact same things on a device with a 4-inch, 8-inch, 12-inch, 15-inch or 20-inch screen. There will naturally be some functions that will be more appropriate on one screen size over another, but interchangeability is already here.

So who is leading in the war to control the consumer?
The single biggest key to everything? Control the UI on the connected screens. Companies who control the UI will then dictate how software is accessed, and which software. Making a compelling, fun, friendly UI is considered to be a very special sauce — rarely made and hard to do.

As shown in the chart above, most of the leading companies for controlling consumer interactions have at least a decent UI. Apple clearly leads the way, but Amazon and Google have made strides with improved UI. Microsoft took a big step forward with the Windows 8 UI, and Facebook has worked on improving its UI on both laptops and mobile.

If you take the same chart and substitute the companies for the countries of origin as shown in the second chart, the subtle trend of UI success becomes clear — companies based in Silicon Valley and in the greater Seattle area are dominating, and Japan-based companies are seriously lagging. While the hardware manufacturing base may still be in Japan and Korea, UI and software development are still based in the U.S.

To this point, efforts have been made by both Japanese and Korean companies to build a presence in Silicon Valley. Nintendo moved many of its operations from Redmond, Wash., down to Silicon Valley in an effort to become more in touch with connected companies and potential partners. Earlier in February, Samsung announced plans to open up a research and development (R&D) center in Silicon Valley as well, largely focused on software — with an assumption for UI development, too. For all Samsung’s dominance in phones, memory, TVs and appliances, UI has not been a strength.

While much of the focus today is on phones, tablets, laptop and TV screens, part of the connected consumer idea will soon include connected appliances. Remote management of the oven, inventory management for food in the refrigerator, or remote management of home security or heating systems are going to become more mainstream. It’s not quite a Star Trek-type leap of faith, but software solutions will have to be built for the TV and the fridge. Samsung, given its pole position in many hardware solutions, would have great potential in these expanded connected devices, but it is still early. Hence, the investment in a Silicon Valley lab could prove hugely strategic over the next 10 years.

How do TV manufacturers change to stay competitive? How does Japan stay relevant in a connected world?
Partnerships are going to be more critical than ever because software development and UI are not core strengths for many Japanese-based consumer electronics companies. However, partnerships with non-Japan based companies are rare, and a huge challenge is to change the corporate culture of many Japanese companies. Many of these companies are engineering-driven cultures with long-standing histories of making successful products over the past 50 years. Unfortunately, the analog age of standalone devices is over, and the connected, digital world awaits. For many companies, it’ll mean partner or perish.

P.J. McNealy is founder of consulting firm Digital World Research and has conducted research in the technology and gaming sectors for 15 years. He authored “Early Days: The Market for Social Gaming and Facebook’s Potential Achilles’ Heel,” in May 2013; it is available on Amazon.com.

Valley Cred: Samsung Plans to Open New Start-Up Accelerator in Downtown Palo Alto

Kara Swisher — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:28:00 +0000

While it is one of the largest consumer electronics and mobile companies in the world, Korea’s Samsung has a relatively quiet profile in Silicon Valley.

In fact, while it has had a longtime facility in San Jose for two decades, its execs are not well known to many except the top echelons of the tech sector here and Samsung’s interactions with the entrepreneurial culture have been decidedly low key.

No longer, it seems.

Besides a previously announced new 8.5-acre campus in Mountain View for its U.S. research and development center, slated for completion in 2014, sources said the company is close to signing a deal for a prominent venue in downtown Palo Alto that will house a start-up accelerator.

The location that the company is now negotiating is the second floor of the former Borders Books space on University Avenue. The historical property has a splashy movie marquee, since it used to house the Varsity Theatre.

It’s not quite Oppa Gangnam Style, it is a big move for Samsung.

While it is unclear if the new office will focus on making investments in start-ups or incubating its own innovation, sources said it will be aimed at linking Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and other players more closely with Samsung.

Sources said the move is being spearheaded by a relatively new hire by Samsung: David Eun, who became its EVP to lead a new push to create more media offerings in December. Previous to Samsung, Eun has been an exec at both Google and AOL.

Eun is well known in the Valley already, but a new location that will focus Samsung’s digital efforts should raise the company’s profile with the digerati here.

Also on the docket to do that is Samsung’s other new major facility. In September, right in the middle of its high-profile patent trial with Apple, the company announced that Samsung Information Systems America, its U.S. R&D Center, would expand and relocate to a new campus.

“The R&D Center will provide a state-of-the-art campus that can support the current rapid growth in the organization, and also provide the infrastructure to support Samsung’s open innovation and university collaboration activities,” Samsung said in a press release at the time. “Construction is anticipated to start in the second half of 2013 on the company’s two new six-story class-A office buildings totaling approximately 385,000 sq. ft. and two 5-6 story parking structures, with occupancy expected in 2014.”

In other words, Apple: Samsung is now officially in the house in Silicon Valley.

The Debut of Yahoo CEO Mayer: "Tailor-Made" for Marissa

Kara Swisher — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 21:07:05 +0000

Yahoo turned in a meh third quarter, which came as no surprise to anyone. But none of it matters, since all eyes were on what new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer would say on the investor call today.

Here we go! It is Mayer’s first outing as a public company CEO. She’s been an exec at Google her whole career and, while she has been a prominent public figure in Silicon Valley, she has never run the whole show herself.

Until today, that is!

2:01 pm: Finally, we are hearing from Mayer, who arrived from Google in July.

She is “thrilled to be at Yahoo” and the first 100 days at the company have been a lot of fun.

She’s apparently been a fan since her undergraduate days at Stanford University.

Finally, she tries to answer the big question: “Why did I in particular come to Yahoo?”

Why, indeed, given she and others at Google have spent those years since college putting Yahoo directly into the ground. (Did you know Yahoo gave Google its first big search break, a deal engineered by Mayer and others?)

But, says Mayer, Yahoo is “tailor-made for me,” ticking off arenas such as “search, mail, advertising, home page.”

It’s what she built her career on, apparently — yes, in kicking Yahoo’s behind — but now she wants to help the troubled Silicon Valley Internet giant “grow and help redefine” itself.

Still, she stresses, trying to buy as much time as possible from investors: “It will take multiple years to get to where I want the company to be.”

2:08 pm: Mayer, of course, touts her Apple iPhone-and-free-food spending to make the life of Yahoos better (and on parity with the rest of the digital sector).

To be fair, given the past two CEOs, anyone who did not come in and kick the employees where it counts was going to get some claps.

Mayer’s goals are “simple,” she says, “to execute fast, attract the best talent and make Yahoo the best place to work.”

She says she has assembled a stellar world class exec team to accomplish that.

2:11 pm: Now we get to meet one of that team and a Yahoo newbie — CFO Ken Goldman (pictured here). It’s his first day.

He repeats the results that Yahoo has already put in its press release, which is why I usually zone out here and focus on superficial stuff.

Like how much he sounds like former and ousted Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson. Eek!

Goldman touts Yahoo’s recent Alibaba Group deal in China (done not by Goldman, but by outgoing — jacked by Mayer, really — CFO Tim Morse) and notes a $765 million credit facility that Yahoo apparently got this month.

That’s more dough to add to Mayer’s ever-growing pile to spend on fixing Yahoo.

2:23 pm: Mayer is back — Goldman is nice enough, but everyone wants to hear from the former Google wunderkind.

She makes an obvious statement: Yahoo has to “grow at the same pace as the market we are in.” Yep. Yahoo’s growth has been practically non-existent, while the industry has seen robust increases for years.

Mayer is now hitting all the high points on what needs to be fixed.

Search, communications, a desperate need to invest in mobile. “Our top priority is a focused, coherent” mobile strategy, she says. It’s everybody and their mother’s top priority in the Internet space, but it’s gotta be said.

So Mayer says it again: “Yahoo will have to be a predominantly mobile company.”

She also name-checks “delighting users,” improving advertising and personalization.

2:27 pm: She also underscores that Yahoo will now hold onto its ad tech business.

“No one wants Yahoo to grow more than the people who work here,” says Mayer, who says she is going back to Yahoo’s roots. “We believe Yahoo’s best days lie ahead … and we intend to win.”

It sounds very good, but Mayer has been relatively unspecific overall.

Now to Q&A to see if she will drill down more.

2:30 pm: The first question is about Mayer’s vision as compared to others.

Apparently, it does not mean a “pivot” into different and new businesses. It does mean improving what Yahoo has done well.

“I don’t think this is a situation where there’s a giant pivot and we go into a completely different business,” Mayer says flatly. In other words, no string of Yahoo diners in the offing.

In addition, Mayer says that Yahoo occupies a unique spot that does not put it into “channel conflict” with other rivals and, presumably, can be a better partners.

Also asked about search versus display, she’ll take both, but found display “more compelling.”

The next question is about international markets and the local ones.

Growth, says Mayer, although Yahoo will be narrowing the offerings to be more compelling.

She refers to the recent closing of Yahoo operations in Korea. “We had a very hard time finding a growth story moving forward,” says Mayer.

As to local, which Mayer worked on at Google right before she left, Yahoo’s efforts are merely “good” and it’s not slated for investment going forward.

The next question is about metrics to judge progress. Yahoo left out user numbers it has usually provided in the past and Mayer is not giving up any data now either.

Instead, she is going to rely on internal data and not use third-party data any longer. (It makes some sense since the numbers have been not so pretty over time.)

2:37 pm: Mayer did not want to go into acquisition strategy, which came in a question about its giant pile of dough.

No billion-dollar buys for her, she claims, so cancel that Tesla order for Foursquare, Dennis Crowley!

Mayer noted that most acquisitions will be smaller scale and under $100 million. She noted she had done about 20 of those in her career at Google.

A question about Microsoft.

While there has been “disappointment,” Mayer says the goal is to work with the software giant. In other words, she’s not calling her old pals at Google quite yet (she hasn’t yet, in fact).

The next question is about mobile, with Mayer noting once again that the company has to be primarily mobile-focused going forward.

She’s going to hire as many mobile peeps as possible, especially via smaller-scale acquisitions.

2:44 pm: Goldman gets a little awkward in noting that his young-adult kids think Yahoo is all happening. Hmm, I suppose since he comes from the deservedly defunct Excite@Home and the successful but security-dull Fortinet, that makes sense.

In fact, getting back the young folks is one of Mayer’s top challenges.

A very good question — these are all good ones on the call — is how Yahoo can compete without a mobile operating system, such as Google Android and Amazon Kindle and Apple iOS.

Mayer notes that Yahoo has compelling content that others do not.

Another question on search and, specifically, on mobile search.

Mayer is unspecific, except to note that Yahoo has the ability to be pertinent and competitive.

She is a little more clear on the issues with the Microsoft Bing search relationship. Mayer does know this stuff well, and it is clear there is some serious low-hanging fruit to be plucked by someone who knows what they are doing.

Mayer knows search, to be sure, so I am thinking she will make some bank here.

A question about “overmonetizing” the Yahoo site — i.e. cluttering it up with icky ad units that drive consumers nuts.

Mayer notes that cutbacks in ads to improve user experience will only be done to increase traffic, which is a dicey proposition as it can also kill revenue.

A question about content and where that us going.

Mayer touts the Olympics programming — hat tip to former interim CEO Ross Levinsohn — as something unique to Yahoo. Interestingly, the media folks at Yahoo are still wary of pro-engineering Mayer.

2:55 pm: Another question about her interest in content and investment focus in ad tech.

“I am very product focused,” says Mayer, who uses the term “low latency,” a term that no media person ever would use as a hallmark of success.

She is much more comfy talking tech and that’s an area she knows better. Still, she says little about possible investments.

Mayer is then asked about goals for growth at Yahoo. She does not just want to grow at industry rate, but beyond that! But she’ll take industry rate for now (actually, that would be a huge accomplishment).

Goldman says little on the stock buyback, using the Alibaba dough, except they are buying.

3:01 pm: There are a lot of questions today for Mayer — which is no surprise — but now they are beginning to repeat.

(Plus, I have LOLcat’s Ben Huh waiting for me in the ATD Global HQ lobby — and you all know how I feel about them cats!)

Ah, the last question: It’s about data and personalization and what’s been lacking at Yahoo in not taking advantage about the pile of data it has about .

Yes, that should happen and it will under the regime of Marissa Mayer.

Mayer ends by noting, “It’s time for Yahoo to execute and bring our results back to growth.”

So it is written, so it shall be done.

Exclusive: Daniel Kim Stepping Down as Nexon America CEO

Tricia Duryee — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 21:30:25 +0000

After three years running Nexon’s U.S. office, Daniel Kim is stepping down as CEO to join his family in Korea.

Maple Story

Nexon confirms to AllThingsD that effective Sept. 1, Min Kim, Nexon’s SVP of live games, will be replacing Daniel Kim. The announcement was made in front of the company’s 200 U.S. employees this afternoon.

A spokesman says Daniel Kim will continue working with the company from the Korea office in a yet-to-be-determined role, and is looking forward to being back with his family after commuting between the two continents since 2009.

Daniel Kim

“It’s been part of a long-term plan,” Min Kim said, in an exclusive interview. “This has been overdue. He’s done a great job and has positioned it well for growth. After three years here, he’ll be back with family and make up for lost time.”

Min Kim joined Nexon in 2003, and moved to Los Angeles in 2005 to help open the U.S. office.

In his new role, he will oversee the company’s free-to-play PC games, including MapleStory, Dragon Nest and Combat Arms. The games, which are monetized through virtual goods, are available directly from the company’s Web site, and more recently, through the Steam platform. As part of the role, Min Kim will not be managing the company’s social and mobile game efforts, which are based out of the company’s Korea offices.

Awareness about the Japanese company has increased dramatically over the past year after it raised $1.2 billion in an IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange just days before Zynga went public, raising a similar amount.

Min Kim

Min Kim said the company has come a long way since first launching operations in the U.S. At the time, he said free-to-play was a “freaky thing going on in Asia, and was never going to happen here.” He said the company had to work hard to prove that not only would customers be willing to play games online, but they would also be willing to pay for virtual items. In 2007, Min Kim spearheaded the effort to develop gift cards that enabled online payments to be made more easily.

Even though North America has made a lot of progress, it makes up only 7 percent of the company’s overall revenue. For the full year 2011, the North American division reported total revenue of $80 million, which is up 50 percent since 2008.

Min Kim said he sees a big opportunity lying ahead in the traditional games space, where people play games for years at a time and for long stretches every month. As a younger gaming demographic grows up, and moves on from other experiences, such as Disney’s Club Penguin, “we’ll be in the sweet spot,” he said.

Another Signal That the iPhone Is Getting LTE

John Paczkowski — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 21:48:22 +0000

There are plenty of good reasons to think Apple’s next generation iPhone will support 4G LTE wireless, the new iPad being top among them. Here’s one more: Senior executives at Korea’s SK Telecom and KT tell The Korea Times that they are currently negotiating with Apple over LTE service for its next iPhone. Since their 4G networks rely on different LTE frequencies from those used in the United States, the carriers are understandably concerned that Apple might not offer Korean consumers LTE as an option for the new iPhone, just as it did for the new iPad.

Nexon Pays $685 Million for Stake in South Korean Game Company

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:27:28 +0000

Nexon, a Seoul-based game company that recently raised $1.2 billion in an IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, has bought a $685 million stake in NCsoft, a South Korean maker of online games. Nexon is known for such free-to-play games as MapleStory, while NCsoft develops massively multiplayer online game titles, including Lineage and Guild Wars. Nexon paid KRW 250,000 in cash for each share, for a total acquisition cost of KRW 804,522,750,000. Nexon is now NCsoft’s largest shareholder, with a 14.7 percent ownership stake.

Samsung Electronics Took in Roughly $40 Billion Last Quarter

Ina Fried — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 04:21:45 +0000

Samsung Electronics reported preliminary first-quarter earnings on Thursday, saying that the company took in revenue of about 45 trillion won ($39.8 billion), with operating profit of approximately 5.8 trillion won ($5.1 billion).

Samsung Spins Off LCD Business

Lauren Goode — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:47:07 +0000

Samsung, currently the biggest LCD panel maker in terms of sales, will spin off its unprofitable LCD operations on April 1 into a new firm, called Samsung Display Co. As The Wall Street Journal notes, analysts had widely expected the spinoff, as the LCD industry shrinks and the Korean electronics giant focuses more on higher-margin OLED screens for TV sets and tablets.

Report: Apple's A5 Chip Made in Texas

Lauren Goode — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:48:16 +0000

Reuters reports that, according to sources, the A5 processor used in Apple’s iPhone 4S and iPad 2 is made in a sprawling 1.6 million-square-foot Samsung Electronics factory in Austin, Texas. The Korean electronics giant began supplying the A5 processors to Apple this year from the Austin plant, the story says. Both Apple and Samsung spokespersons declined to comment.

Samsung: We Shipped 300 Million Cellphones This Year, and It's Not Even Over Yet

John Paczkowski — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:03:15 +0000

Samsung has recorded a massive increase in the shipments of its mobile phones over the past year, charting a new milestone.

Late Sunday, Samsung said that handset shipments for 2011 have surpassed 300 million units, the first time they’ve done so since the company entered the mobile-phone market in 1988.

More impressive still: They reached that number by the end of November.

So really, this is an 11-month record. It also happens to exceed Samsung’s 2010 handset shipments by a fairly wide margin. Last year, the company recorded sales of 280 million handsets. And it took a full year to do it.

Obviously, Samsung has seen sales accelerate significantly over the past year. And according to company executives, that’s largely thanks to its flagship Galaxy S series smartphones. The S series has been Samsung’s fastest-selling device to date, passing the 10-million-sold mark in just five months.

“We attained the 300 million mark because we’ve introduced hit models in succession by banking on upscale designs and cutting-edge technology,” a Samsung executive told the Dong-a Ilbo, adding, “The attainment of the 300 million mark in mobile handsets effectively demonstrates that Korea is taking the center stage in the global mobile handset market.”

Google's Schmidt Says Android Will Remain Free

Jung-Ah Lee — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 08:00:48 +0000

Google Inc. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said Tuesday that the Internet search giant remains committed to offering its Android mobile operating system for free to its handset manufacturing partners.

Mr. Schmidt also reiterated that Google’s planned takeover of U.S. handset manufacturer Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. won’t have an adverse impact on its Android partners and said the company won’t “violate the openness” of the software platform.

In August, Google unveiled its plans to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Cellphone Etiquette on the Subways of Seoul and Taipei

Ina Fried — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:30:34 +0000

Smartphones are a common sight on subways all around the world.

Even in places where cell signals are scant or nonexistent, the versatile devices are being used for playing games, listening to music and watching videos.

However, where there is a signal, cellphones are often a lightning rod for controversy: There’s an ongoing debate over how to handle something that can be very useful — and also very irritating to those nearby.

In Taipei, signs and recorded messages encourage commuters to think twice before annoying fellow passengers with loud conversations. A sign depicting a talking cellphone suggests that phone users consider sending a text message rather than talking and, if they must converse, urges them to keep things brief and and use a quiet tone.

On the subways of Seoul, where wireless coverage is strong and ubiquitous, there is plenty of opportunity to talk on cellphones. On the Web site for the Seoul subway system, transit authorities list tips on how to be a polite passenger, starting with using a soft voice and setting cellphone ringers on vibrate.

Instead of talking, many transit passengers opt to use their phones as on-the-go TVs, utilizing Korea’s unique mobile video service, known as Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB).

In both Taipei and Seoul, it was fairly uncommon to hear someone yakking away on their phone — something I hear all the time on the buses and streetcars of San Francisco, even if service here is a whole lot spottier.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Mall in Seoul (Video)

Ina Fried — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 11:15:55 +0000

During one of my evenings off in Seoul earlier this week, I headed to a popular mall for dinner.

On my way, I ran into a group of Koreans who were line dancing for what appeared to be no reason at all. I’m told it had to do with the local mayoral election, which at that time was just a couple of days away.

I’m not sure what it was meant to signify, but I will say it was a lot more fun than getting handed a pamphlet. In any case, it seems to have worked, as the party being backed by the dancers — the liberal opposition party — saw its candidate, Park Won-soon, win the election.

How I Spent My Last 12,000 Won on a Hamburger-Shaped iPhone Case

Ina Fried — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:00:53 +0000

With just moments to go before boarding my flight from Seoul to Beijing, I had 12,000 Korean won (about $11) left, and it was buring a hole in my pocket.

I was surrounded primarily by overpriced duty-free shops, which, annoyingly, only took U.S. dollars. Thankfully, there was an Internet cafe that had a handful of goods for sale, including one or two tech products. There were a few USB drives, but who needs another one of those?

Then I saw it — an iPhone 4 case shaped like a hamburger bun. Turns out it was originally priced at 20,000 won, but had been marked down to 10,000. Sold!

Then, with the remainder, I made it a combo, buying a real-life Coca-Cola light (what we in the States know as my beloved Diet Coke).

And with that, I bid Seoul a fond farewell.

Is It a Tutor, a Child Monitor or a Toy? No, It's a Kibot (AsiaD Demo)

Bo Kim — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 06:42:29 +0000

Meet Kibot, the brand new “kid’s robot,” from Korea Telecom. Though mixing games and education is nothing new, the company hopes that this plastic monkey will push the boundaries of learning hardware.

Korea Telecom demoed the Kibot at AsiaD, showing how the monkey can read books and sing nursery songs (in Korean) to your kid.

Kibot plays language learning games on its touchscreen belly, and if your children don’t interact with it for a few minutes, it will get bored and roam the house looking for a playmate.

Kibot’s aim is to keep kids interacting and learning — which hopefully abates any creepiness about having a child-seeking robot in the home.

Though Kibot primarily serves children ages three through seven, some features are definitely aimed at parents. Not only can they call their children to video chat, they can control the Kibot and use it to watch their children remotely.

How does it work?

After it’s switched on, the Kibot’s monkey body becomes a control panel. Holding the left ear views the next story, song or game. Holding the right ear goes back to the content you just left — an interface that makes sense if you’re used to reading Korean rather than English.

Kibot’s nose doubles as an RFID reader for special Kibot books. Swipe one and it will start reading the book aloud. There are also word cards, to teach vocabulary, and telephone cards, which allow the child to call only numbers that parents have pre-registered.

The Kibot is currently available only in South Korea. Korea Telecom hopes its smartphone-like revenue model will be a hit with parents. Kibot requires an ongoing service plan, and the add-on games, songs and stories are all for purchase.

With No iPhone 5, Koreans Change View of Apple -- And Themselves

Evan Ramstad — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:30:12 +0000

Apple Inc.’s rollout of a new version of iPhone 4 rather than the major redesign that many techies were expecting is being portrayed in South Korea as good news for the country’s big electronics companies — even as Apple fans in the country, like many elsewhere in the world, said they are disappointed.

Whether or not Apple’s iPhone 4S will really make a big difference for the Korean companies — Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Co. — in the global smartphone race remains to be seen.

But it is sure to change the perceptions of that race among South Koreans and the portrayal of it in the domestic media.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Final AsiaD Speakers: Apple's Phil Schiller and Former VP Al Gore

Kara Swisher — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:15:32 +0000

And then there was Schiller and Gore.

That would be Apple’s SVP of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller and former Vice President Al Gore, who round out the stellar list of speakers at our upcoming AsiaD conference.

Taking place from Oct. 19 to 21 in Hong Kong, the lineup is already impressive, with a mix of speakers from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, as well as Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

The previously announced speakers include: Alibaba Group’s Jack Ma; Google Android head Andy Rubin; Twitter inventor and product guru, as well as Square co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey; Nvidia founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang; Asus Chairman Jonney Shih; Sony president and second-in-command Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai; Google+ guru Bradley Horowitz; Hollywood big shot Peter Chernin; Huawei’s North American R&D head John Roese; Microsoft’s Windows Phone head Andy Lees; and a panel of Silicon Valley start-up stars — Joyus’ Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, SurveyMonkey’s Dave Goldberg and Airbnb’s Brian Chesky; Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang and Asia head Rose Tsou; LivingSocial’s Tim O’Shaughnessy, along with founders of two of its Asian units, Daniel Shin and Paul Srivorakul; Samsung mobile head Dr. Won-Pyo Hong; HTC CEO Peter Chou, who replaces Chairwoman Cher Wang.

Schiller, who reports to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook (and before that, Steve Jobs) is a member of the executive team of the tech icon, where he has worked for 17 years. He is responsible for a swath of Apple’s outward-facing businesses, including product marketing, developer relations and business marketing.

Today, in fact, he was onstage at Apple’s iPhone event, outlining some of its new product offerings. In addition, Apple just opened its first retail store in Hong Kong.

Gore, who had a memorable interview at the fourth D: All Things Digital conference in 2006, needs little introduction. The former VP and Nobel Peace Prize winner is now chairman of Current TV and also continues as a prominent environmental activist.

Gore is on the board of Apple, while also being a senior adviser to Google, which is a neat trick. At the same time, he is a partner in the famed Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins, and co-founder and chairman of Generation Investment Management, a partnership that is focused on sustainable investing.

And, as most people know, he knows a thing or two about the Internet.

Walt Mossberg and I could not think of two better people to add to the lineup we have for AsiaD, which has very few seats left.

See you in China in two weeks!

Even More AsiaD Speakers: Yahoo's Yang, HTC's Wang, Samsung's Hong and More!

Kara Swisher — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 05:08:36 +0000

With AsiaD just a little over a month away, Walt Mossberg and I are adding even more speakers to the list, for what we hope will be an awesome event in Hong Kong.

Taking place from Oct. 19 to 21, the conference lineup is already impressive, with a mix of speakers from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, as well as Silicon Valley and more.

The previously announced speakers include: Alibaba’s Jack Ma; Google Android head Andy Rubin; Twitter inventor and product guru, as well as Square co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey; Nvidia founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang; Asus Chairman Jonney Shih; Sony president and second-in-command Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai; Google+ guru Bradley Horowitz; Hollywood big shot Peter Chernin; Huawei’s North American R&D head John Roese; Microsoft’s Windows Phone head Andy Lees; and a panel of start-up stars — Joyus’ Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, SurveyMonkey’s Dave Goldberg and Airbnb’s Brian Chesky.

Now, to add to the kitty:

Yahoo co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang, who will appear with the Internet giant’s Asia head Rose Tsou. For all of the noise around the company these days, Yahoo has a huge footprint in the region, maintains a big e-commerce business there and holds massive stakes in key firms, such as Yahoo Japan and China’s Alibaba. One of Yahoo’s first big investments came from Asian investor Masa Son, in fact, way back when.

Also on deck is LivingSocial’s CEO and co-founder Tim O’Shaughnessy, who will appear with Daniel Shin, the CEO and co-founder of South Korea’s Ticket Monster, which the daily deals site just bought as part of its aggressive move into Asia. Competing there with its U.S. rival Groupon, as well as a myriad of local social buying services, the market is a tough one.

Because of Samsung’s increasing importance as a global player in smartphones and tablets, we thought it was important to have Dr. Won-Pyo Hong. He heads global product strategy for Samsung’s mobile business, which has surged in the past year to make the Korean tech giant a leader in Android-based phones and tablets, and a significant challenger to Apple.

Also key in the mobile arena is Cher Wang, the chairwoman of three Taiwan companies, including HTC, the important and innovative handset and tablet maker which has been a key player in Android’s success story. But just this week she talked about the possibility of HTC buying an operating system, which would further strengthen its hand in the competitive market.

That’s it for now, but we will have more big names to come, as well as some pretty cool demos we will be putting onstage at AsiaD. So stay tuned.