It’s been an amazing year for Koprol, and you’ve been a good boy or girl. All 19,000 of you. So here’s a little stocking stuffer from us: another feature update! Hopefully these include what you wished for. We’ve got lots more coming next month. Happy holidays!

1. Mute

You got summoned and got stuck in a thread (or roll or prol or trail) that just won’t end? You can now click the mute button and stop getting notifications. Finally!

2. Block

Blocking a person not just avoids you from getting comments from that person, it also avoids you from getting summoned.

3. Tabs

More content is coming in the right-hand column, so we’ve organized it by adding tabs to the boxes. Expect to see more cool stuff in there later.

4. Multiple Review

Want to make a new review of the same place? Before, you have to replace your old review. Now, we will keep your old reviews. But take note: we only count your last rating.

5. Easier Suggest Place

It’s now easier to submit a new place. Like before, when you search a place and can’t find it, just scroll down the page to suggest a new place. Now, we auto fill the name, and there’s an easy text box to choose the area. Just start typing and a list will show up. Choose and proceed.

6. Connect Yahoo! & Facebook to existing account

Even if you have not connected your Koprol account with Yahoo! or Facebook, you can still click those buttons before login. We will then ask you to connect to your existing Koprol account.

7. View Mobile version on your computer

On slow connection? Here’s a tip. Try our Mobile version from your computer. Just go to m.koprol.com. At anytime, you can switch between the mobile version and standard version through a link at the bottom.

Important: Please clear your browser’s cache & cookies, for these new features to work properly.

Koprol has been tested since 10 months ago, but in just these last 2 weeks our membership increased by 40%. We didn’t do any promoting so we think this was caused by the Yahoo! Open Hack Day, amazing press coverage, mentions in Twitter, mentions in BlackBerry community, and through word of mouth.

More than just new signups, we also saw increase in the stickiness and interactivity. Pageviews increased by 300% and comments increased by 400%. And the best is yet to come!

New Features

Twitter Geotagging

Whaddya know? Twitter finally goes location too! But you can’t add geotagging from Twitter yet. You have to use other apps like Koprol. To add location in your tweets, just do these 2 things:

1. On Twitter, go to Account Settings and check ‘Enable geotagging’
2. On Koprol, go to Settings > Sharing and connect to Twitter

No Hashtags

You can now crosspost without hashtags! We added an option for you to not include our location hashtags. Just go to Settings > Sharing, then under Twitter select “none”. Now your Koprol tweets are clean.

Change Username

Hate that long ugly username you picked? No worries. You can now change your username by going to Settings . Just be careful! All your previous mentions will not link to your new profile page. And other people are allowed to takeover your old username. So think twice.

The best is yet to come

Expect our native BlackBerry app and our full-featured ‘business account’ to be available for testing in 2 months. Details coming soon.

SIARAN PERS

Koprol, suatu jaringan sosial buatan lokal, diperkenalkan oleh Yahoo! sebagai contoh pemakai Yahoo! API dalam Yahoo Open Hack Day 2009 yang berlangsung 21-22 Nov di Balai Kartini.

Open Hack Day bertujuan memperkenalkan Yahoo! Developer Tools seperti Yahoo! API ke para pengembang Asia Tenggara dengan memberikan penyuluhan gratis selama sehari, kemudian lomba hacking menggunakan Yahoo! API selama semalam. Open Hack sudah sering dilakukan di Amerika dan negara lain, tapi baru kali ini di Asia Tenggara.

Koprol membuktikan bahwa Yahoo! Tools sangat menguntungkan untuk produk lokal semacam Koprol, karena bisa mendatangkan pemakai Yahoo! yang jumlahnya sangat banyak, dan juga implementasinya sangat mudah. Dalam waktu kurang dari seminggu, Koprol telah implementasikan 3 API yang sangat berguna, yaitu:

• YAP / Homepage App: Koprol bisa tampil di halaman depan Yahoo!
• Fire Eagle: mengirim lokasi Koprol ke Fire Eagle dan aplikasi lain
• BB Auth: pengguna Yahoo! bisa daftar Koprol tanpa membuat password

Selain sebagai contoh kasus, Koprol juga terlibat dalam Open Hack Day sebagai juri. Chief Technology Officer kami, Daniel Armanto, menjadi salah satu dari 6 juri lokal dan internasional.

Mengenai Koprol

Koprol adalah jaringan sosial berbasis lokasi pertama di Indonesia. Bisa diakses melalui melalui mobile web, Koprol membantu pemakai ponsel berbagi foto, resensi tempat, dan melakukan diskusi dengan orang disekitarnya. Koprol juga bisa memberi saran tempat yang popular di sekitar, seperti restoran dan toko, berdasarkan penilaian orang.

Koprol telah dicoba sejak awal 2009 dan telah diterima baik di antara pers, komunitas teknologi, dan tentunya komunitasnya sendiri yang terus berkembang. Koprol bertujuan menjadi panduan kota yang sosial, dan menjadi ruang promosi untuk usaha lokal. Dalam waktu dekat, Koprol akan tersedia sebagai aplikasi mobile dan akan menawarkan promosi khusus dari usaha lokal.

Koprol diciptakan dan didanai sendiri oleh SkyEight, perusahaan pengembang software di daerah Barito, Jakarta Selatan.

SkyEight
Jl. Radio 1/25, Lt. 3
Jakarta 12130
Phone: +62-21-726-7065
Fax: +62-21-739-6031

Kemarin Rama menulis di Daily Social ‘Koprol: Jual atau Tidak?’. Berhubung sudah lama tidak diberi kabar, isinya hanya tebakan. Sori banget, Ram! Perkenankan kami menyusulkan fakta:

(more…)

Selamat menunaikan ibadah puasa di bulan suci Ramadhan. Kami rasa, bulan puasa kali ini akan lebih afdol dengan Koprol. Anda bisa gunakan Koprol untuk berbagi cerita dengan orang sekitar anda, dan bertukar saran mengenai tempat berbuka bersama.

5000 Anggota
Kemarin jumlah anggota Koprol mencapai 5000 orang. Dengan anggota yang banyak, anda bisa coba lihat ada siapa saja di lingkungan anda. Siapa tahu ada kenalan baru.

Tambah Tempat
Koprol sudah berisi ribuan tempat, tapi sekarang anda pun bisa add place! Coba search, bila tidak ketemu, scroll ke paling bawah dan ketik dimana anda ingin menambah lokasi. Misalnya, kalau mau tambah restoran di Bintaro, ketik ‘Bintaro’. kalau mau tambah gedung di Slipi, ketik ‘Slipi’. Ikuti langkah-langkah selanjutnya. Anda akan diminta menunjuk lokasinya di peta dan mengisi data seperti alamat dan nomor telepon.

Ayo tambahkan tempat favorit anda sekarang juga di Koprol

- - -

Happy Ramadhan to all Muslim brothers & sisters. Enjoy this holy month by using Koprol to connect with the people around you and look for places to break the fast.

5000 Members
Until yesterday, 5000 people have signed up with Koprol. With that many members you might find someone new in your neighborhood to share stories.

Add Places
There are already thousands of places in Koprol, but now you can add your own! Try searching it first. If you can’t find it, scroll down to the bottom of the page and fill in the form that asks “Suggest a new place in this area:”. If you want to add a restaurant in Kemang, type ‘Kemang’. Or if you want to add a building in Rawamangun, type ‘Rawamangun’. Click next and follow the steps. You will be asked to point the location on the map and fill in some information like address, phone number, etc.

So go add all your favorite places now! Go to Koprol

“Kami Tidak Takut… Sama Twitter!”

Just kidding. Actually we are very afraid of Twitter, especially its hardcore fanatics. But with Indonesian nationalism all over American social sites, we humbly ask your help to improve your country’s own social site called Koprol, by trying it out for a few days and giving your input.

As a location-based social network, Koprol aims to ‘unite’ Indonesians as they roll around town in their day to day activities, by providing them a way to interact with comments, photos, reviews, based on where they are. Sometimes they use it to spontaneously meet in person and say hi.

We know that nationalist pride does not guarantee usage of local products (sometimes it results in free advertisement of foreign products), but who knows you would give Koprol a try.

Still not sure? You can read what bloggers say about Koprol.

- - -

FOR MEMBERS:

Good news! Today on this Independence Day, we are announcing yet another feature release, based on your input as our valued beta testers:

Tweet from Koprol: People who are on both Koprol and Twitter has been asking for this for a long time. Koprollers can now send status updates to Twitter. Like we did with Facebook, but we’re doing it Twitter-style: the tweets will include hashtags of your location, so Twitter users can click to find other tweets about the location.

What appears on Facebook:

having pizza @ Pizza Marzano, Senayan City

What appears on Twitter:

having pizza #PizzaMarzano #SenayanCity

To activate, go to “Sharing” in the Settings page.

We just have one tip: Make sure your Twitter followers would not mind getting cross posted with your status and location. We don’t want to create another Plurkgate (see Kappachan’s post)

Public Posts: Koprol has been a closed site (users are required to log in), but today we are opening up one type of page to the public, which is the individual post page. Anyone can now see your posts (the ones set to public), including the comments and a map. They also have their own short alphanumeric URL that will get linked from your tweets.

New homepage called “Friends & Nearby”: Usually your homepage only lists people you follow, then you have to switch tabs to see other people around you. Now we are combining them into a new homepage titled “Friends & Nearby” where you will see everyone in the area above you. For instance, if you’re checked in to Grand Indonesia, you will see everyone in Thamrin. If you’re checked in to Pejompongan, you will see everyone in Bendungan Hilir.

Reviews in the main stream: You probably know that you can find place reviews on the sidebar. Well now we are showing the reviews on the main column as well. They will be merged with the stream, so you will not miss new reviews from your friends, and likewise your friends will always see your new reviews. Rate away!

Add Places: Hooray! This is probably the most wanted feature: Members can now add more places to Koprol. Whenever you’re not able to find a specific place on Koprol, just scroll down to the bottom of the search page and suggest a new place. You don’t have to worry about bogus places, because each suggestion will be checked by our admin. So go ahead, search all your favorite hangout places. If we don’t have it, suggest it!

Email Notifications: You have the option of getting an email notification whenever somebody comments on your posts, mentions you, or sends you a message. This should be good for mobile push mail users like BlackBerry users. You can set notifications in the Settings page.

So those are the highlight of this Independence Day update. We also did many small fixes. Please try it out and later tell us what you like or don’t like by clicking ‘Send Feedback’ like usual.

- - -

UNTUK ANGGOTA:

Tepat dengan Hari Kemerdekaan R.I., kami mengumumkan fitur-fitur baru berdasarkan masukan anda selama ini.

Posting ke Twitter: Mereka yang memakai Koprol dan Twitter sudah minta ini dari dulu. Sekarang Koproller bisa kirim status ke Twitter. Seperti ke Facebook, tapi tentunya dengan gaya khas Twitter: tiap tweet mengandung hashtag lokasi anda, jadi pemakai Twitter bisa klik dan lihat status lain mengenai lokasi yang sama.

Yang muncul di Facebook:

jiahh meeting lagi @ Menara Jamsostek, Kuningan Barat

Yang muncul di Twitter:

jiahh meeting lagi  #MenaraJamsostek #KuninganBarat

Untuk menghidupkan, kunjungi “Sharing” di halaman Settings.

Penting! Pastikan followers anda gak bakal ngambek bahwa anda melakukan cross-posting.

Posting Publik: selama ini orang harus log in untuk lihat Koprol, tapi hari ini kita mulai membuka sebagian ke umum, yaitu halaman per posting. Siapapun bisa lihat (asal memang disetel untuk publik), termasuk komentar dan peta. Halaman ini juga akan punya URL pendek yang di-link dari status Twitter.

Halaman depan baru “Friends & Nearby”: Biasanya halaman depan kita hanya berisi orang yang kita follow, lalu harus klik untuk lihat orang lain di sekitar kita. Sekarang kita menggabung kedua itu ke satu halaman yang kita namakan “Friends & Nearby” dimana anda bisa lihat semua orang di daerah satu level di atas anda. Contohnya, kalau anda check in di Bulungan, anda akan lihat semua orang di Kebayoran Baru. Bila anda check in di Mall Kelapa Gading, anda akan lihat semua orang di Kelapa Gading.

Review muncul di kolom tengah: Anda tahu kan review biasa muncul di samping. Nah sekarang review muncul di kolom utama. Digabung dalam stream, jadi anda pasti lihat review baru dari teman, dan teman anda juga lebih mudah melihat review terbaru anda. Ayo bikin review yang banyak.

Tambah Place: Akhirnya! Yang ditunggu-tunggu. Anggota bisa menambah tempat sendiri ke Koprol. Bila tidak menemukan suatu tempat, langsung saja scroll ke bawah dan sarankan tempat baru. Tidak usah takut orang nambah tempat yang fiktif, karena tiap permintaan akan diperiksa oleh admin. Ayo cari tempat favorit anda. Kalau gak ada, langsung sarankan saja.

Notifikasi lewat email: Anda bisa minta dikirimi email tiap kali ada orang yang menulis komentar untuk anda, menyebut nama anda, atau mengirim message. Ini bagus untuk pemakai push mail seperti yang punya BlackBerry. Silakan pilih notifikasi di halaman Settings.

Jadi itulah fitur-fitur terbesar edisi 17 Agustus. Kita juga bikin banyak perbaikan kecil lho. Silakan dicoba dan nanti bilang mana yang anda suka dan tidak suka dg klik ‘Send feedback’. Merdeka!

You probably haven’t realized it, but many of your Facebook friends are already using Koprol.

Now you can find them, as well as your Gmail and Yahoo! contacts by using our new Find & Invite feature. Try it out!

Also: Sign Up on Mobile

People can now sign up on Koprol’s mobile site. So if you run into a friend, you can ask them to join Koprol right away through their phone by simply going to koprol.com

Koprol goes into public beta today (May 19th, 2009). After testing it under private beta for 3 months and gathering more than 1400 beta testers, we are ready to welcome more people to Indonesia’s own mobile social network.

What’s Koprol?

Koprol is a mobile social networking site that connects you with people around you. Koprol allows you to share your short postings, location, photos, reviews, with your friends and also other people nearby. With Koprol you’ll know where your friends are and what’s happening around you.

What’s the difference?

While most social networks make you stay in front of the computer, Koprol goes with you as you roll around town and find friends to meet in real life.

How it works: Wherever you go, you can ‘check in’ to a place (like ‘Pacific Place’ or ‘Bintaro’), and type what you are doing (like ‘having the best pancakes’ or ’shopping for sandals’), then all your friends in Koprol as well as on Facebook know where you are and what you’re doing.

What’s more fun, you can see who else is in your area and what’s happening around you. You can interact with them by writing short comments and maybe even meet up! Also, you can post pictures, write restaurant reviews, view the map, all from your mobile phone. Koprol is very easy to use, works on any phone browser and doesn’t require GPS.

Koprol is designed for Indonesian cities. We started with Jakarta and expanding to other cities and regions based on real usage, like  Bali, Bandung, Surabaya, Surakarta, Sidoarjo, Yogyakarta, Semarang, Surakarta, Bengkulu, Medan, Banda Aceh, Palembang, Makassar, Balikpapan, Cirebon, Papua, Singapore, Houston, Indianapolis.

Beta

During this public beta phase, we will regularly add new features. We are already working on features like BlackBerry application, find restaurants nearby, find friends in the map, etc. But what excites us is the positive feedback we’ve got saying Koprol is easy to use and goes well with people’s daily activities. Everywhere you go, you can share recommendations on dining and shopping from local people through Koprol.

So please try it out now at koprol.com and send us your feedback

Koprol was founded by SkyEight, a software company based in Kebayoran Baru, and Tulakom, a web design service.

As you can see in the chart above, yesterday our traffic spiked dramatically. Let’s see which of our new features caused our unique visitors to multiply:

Could it be the Auto Check-in?

This is a neat feature, especially when you’re on mobile. You can make a post that at the same time checks you in to a place. To do this, start your post with the name of your Favorite between hash characters and follow with your message. For example:

#my campus# going to class!

This checks you in the place that you favorited as ‘my campus’ and the post will be put in that place. This shortcut feature made it that much easier for people to post right away upon arriving. People have been using it and calling it ‘jumper’, ‘teleport’, ‘zap!’, all sorts of nicknames.

Could it be the Messages?

DM is here! Now you can send direct messages by starting a post with ‘to:’ followed by the recipient’s username. You can also send a message to a set of friends which we call ‘entourage’, by starting a post with ‘ent:’ followed by the entourage name. You can create entourage by going to Friends > Entourage. This caused people to send private stuff among their friends that they don’t usually share in public.

Could it be the new navigation?

With the new Messages feature, we restructured the navigation. We combined ‘Commented’ and ‘Mentioned’ into ‘Me & My Friends’ and put the Unread link in front. Now you don’t have to go to Commented then click Unread, because you can click Unread right from the homepage. This easier access caused people to keep on replying each other and made conversations longer than usual.

Could it be the new mobile features?

We added stuff that wasn’t on mobile before, like Alerts so you can approve friends on the go, People search, plus like in the full site the navigation is now simpler with ‘Unread’ more exposed. More fun on mobile mean more reason to check back while on the road.

Could it be the Email notifications?

This must be it. Now people are notified by email when their friends find them on Koprol. This is a common feature, but we just implemented it and so most members just realized that apparently lots of their friends are already on Koprol. Now that they found each other, it’s much more fun to keep testing this beta product.

-

So more of our 1300 beta testers are now active on Koprol. We can’t wait to show you more stuff that are being prepared in our kitchen right now. Meanwhile have you seen our public homepage design for next week? It was leaked by Daily Social

Last night we have successfully moved to a new and better server. With bigger international bandwidth, those using proxy-based browsers such as BlackBerry and Opera Mini browsers should feel an improvement in speed.

We thank Biznet Networks for providing our colocation and hope to bring more commercial cooperation in the near future.