Update Views, Qbaca This Year Try Approaching the Community

One of the products managed by Telkom's Digital Business Division (DDB) which targets the digital book market, Qread, some time ago has refreshed the appearance of the service. Along with this change in appearance, the Qbaca portal also provides several additional features to accommodate the needs of its users. This year, they also plan to collaborate with many communities, especially independent writers, with the hope of increasing the interest in writing and reading among Indonesians.

Refreshing the display that is done on the Qbaca portal is taken not without reason. According to Telkom's Program Acceleration Manager who was appointed by DDB Management to be part of the 2015 Qbaca Campaign Team, Wawan Iskandar, this change in appearance was taken based on input from users, publishers, and also digital book observers to accommodate their usage needs.

Wawan said, "This reshuffle (display) of Qbaca comes from the input of user, publishers, and digital book observers. It's difficult to adopt all the needs, but we are constantly trying to improve in terms of ease of use, a better appearance fresh, and other things that (can) accommodate the needs of readers and publishers, both on the Q . portalRead and applications."

At first glance, the appearance of the Qbaca portal on the Desktop is actually not too different from its previous appearance, from the side layout, when compared to the catch in way back machine. However, you can also immediately notice that there are changes to the main menu presented in the new Qbaca portal.

In its latest appearance, the main menu of the Qbaca portal appears slimmer, and if you log in to the Qbaca portal with the account you have, you will also see a new menu, namely Group. Qbaca itself actually embeds three new features along with this overhaul of the display and Group is its flagship feature.

Wawan said, "There are additions (features) to Qbaca version 2.0 where the newest feature is reading on a PC or laptop, the highlight & bookmark readings and special features for certain groups or groups. Our mainstay is in the features that are intended for the Group so that Qbaca has great benefits for the community and corporate groups."

The inclusion of the Group feature is actually inseparable from the target of the Qbaca portal to be realized this year, namely to be able to work together with more communities, especially independent writers. The hope to be achieved, according to Wawan, is to improve the writing skills of Indonesians and also to invite more people to prefer reading digital books so that the market can grow.

"Our target this year is cooperation with many people community platforms, including para indie writer. [...] In addition, we also target the education community which has a large market where the need for reading and writing is very high in that segment," said Wawan.

Furthermore, Wawan also said that currently the digital book market in Indonesia has not been able to show significant growth. This can not be separated from the low interest in reading Indonesian people and also the need for adequate internet access in Indonesia. Nevertheless, he remains optimistic that in the next few years the digital book market will show an increase like what happened in developed countries.

Wawan explained, "We are optimistic, with more and more people using smartphone and the level of public education and the growing need for information and entertainment, in the next few years, the market eBook (only in Dutch at the moment) (digital books) will increase as will the market eBook (only in Dutch at the moment) what happens in developed countries. The most optimal educational strategy is through writing and education communities that are accompanied by facilitating facilities for writers to write and write self publishing in Qbaca."

"In 2014, it was recorded that almost 20 thousand ebook purchase transactions occurred at Qbaca and almost 60% of the users were male and generally domiciled in big cities. We realize that in the regions there may still be many limitations for users who will use Qbaca, because the use of Qbaca to download the ebook requires sufficient internet access," added Wawan.