Interview with Thomas Arie Setiawan about Darisini Directory Application

Directory app From here which has just been launched for the iOS platform is getting quite a warm welcome. It is proven to this day that they are still perched in the top ten of the Top Free for the Indonesian App Store. Darisini, according to one of its founders, Thomas Arie Setiawan, is an application that has a feature to find the closest location from the user's position to the current destination.

The development team consists of three people, Firman Maulana, Fredy Sujono, and Thomas himself. Interestingly, Darisini, according to the founder's confession, is a weekend project, not a time-consuming special project. After iOS, the next Darisini will be available for the Android and Windows Phone platforms.

Since its first launch, Darisini has had more than 1500 data entries related to the topics of hospitals, pharmacies, coffee shops, public transportation, and other retail stores. We had the opportunity to chat with Thomas Arie via email about the Darisini application and a number of crucial matters concerning the future of Darisini. Here are the results of our interview:

Tanya (T): Congratulations on launching Darisini. So far Darisini is still in the top 10 of the Top Free Apps in the Indonesian App Store. Is there any data on how many have downloaded so far?

Answer (J): Regarding download statistics, as of May 28, 2012 (data statistics app): 4,068 downloads (total from App Store Market Indonesia: 3,900).

T: From here, it's free and there are no ads, what about the monetization plan, at least for operational costs? In many cases, directory applications like this are forced to go out of business because they are unable to cover operational costs

It is true that at this time (and plans to continue), we will distribute Darisini application free of charge, and without ads. Right now we (as app creators) feel that the ads are annoying us. We tried (in the concept of display) if there are ads in it, it will interfere with the user experience.

Regarding the monetization plan, we do have a plan, but not from the users themselves. We have no plans for example to release a paid or free version, this one might be one of the revenue streams.

Operational costs do exist, and at the beginning we did scenarios so that everything was scalable (server, design, etc.) and efficient. The operational costs do exist, but they are still in a number that we can meet.

Our monetization strategy (sorry can't say more) is for business. By keeping convenience, concept, and features as the main core in development

Q: So far Darisini's database has been manually curated, while the available information will continue to grow. How long will this continue to do or is there a better way to automate it, other than a model user-generated content?

A: Yes, we are currently curating the existing data manually. The concept of user-generated content had been a thought, but we felt that the cost of managing it could be more expensive. We don't want to be preoccupied with keeping the content tidy. Of course, user participation is in the milestones, but we have not made the addition of locations by users the first or second priority. Maybe the third or fourth.

We will present the participation of plan users in other forms.

Regarding the addition of locations, we are in the process of discussing with partners (sorry, can't mention) to provide data. With the partnership, we can present more locations (categories, and numbers) in several big cities in Indonesia. And, we will continue to add locations ourselves so that the data can be more valid, developments can be more measurable.

Q: It has been mentioned that Darisini will also be available on Android and Windows Phone. When is the plan for this product to be launched on each platform and what about the level of difficulty (application creation) on each of these platforms?

A: From the very beginning we wanted to create an application on iOS for one fairly simple reason: the three of us (Firman Maulana, Fredy Sujono, and myself) are iPhone users. From a technical point of view, everything is simplified. In addition to technical conditions related to execution, for example, about screen resolution, OS, built-in features, and others.

In development on iOS, we involved several beta testers who happened to use several different devices.

During that period, we get feedback to provide for Android. Currently for the Android version is in progress, and later we will support for OS 2.3 and above. Windows Phone has plans too, but maybe after Android.

Constraints, of course there is one of them is in terms of preference (of course) :D

But we return to the basics. Also in the development concept is how we try to create an expandable, consistent and optimal data architecture. So that in the next development, we do not need to make a major overhaul.

Q: On the Windows Phone platform itself, there is already an From Here application from Armanovus which has similar features, how do you differentiate Darisini from similar applications?

A: Before we decided to make Darisini app, we have tried quite a lot of apps (especially on iOS). We love Komutta on Android, or even Google Places. There are also of course applications such as Locality, FindNearMe, FindNow, NearMe, Spotdokter, PomBensin and From Here, the last one is an application from Pertamina.

On average (not all of course) utilize Google Maps as a data source. The user determines the GPS location, searches by category, performs a query to Google, and gets the data. Often we find the results are less than optimal or not as expected.

This is where the Darisini app tries to take a slightly different approach. It's true we're using Google Maps, but in the context of finding locations and finding routes. This is probably what causes the development process to take a long time. If in this application there is a location that does not match the information, we can edit it. We can make changes/additions of data easily.

-- That's a bit of our interview about Darisini. In general we are impressed and find it helpful to have an application like this. We hope that its development on other platforms will run smoothly so that Android and Windows Phone users will also benefit from it. If you have any questions for Darisini's development team, please put them in the comments column.

Note: the interview transcript has gone through the editing process without reducing the meaning conveyed