RI1.tv Looks to Put the Social Buzz Into Indonesia’s Next Presidential Election

Recently, the election for Jakarta’s governor used social media in quite a few interesting ways. So some might say this is a good time for Indonesian national politics to embrace the web even more. One Indonesian startup is taking on this space by launching a social-engaged political news site for the upcoming 2014 general election RI1.tv. Can the startup prove to be a media industry changer in Indonesia?

Launched last week, RI1 aims to connect Indonesian citizens with the country’s president and the general election process. That sentence alone speaks volumes about the startup’s ambition. Riding on the upcoming presidential election, the site offers users the ability to ‘vote’ for the candidate ¹ they hope can be chosen as president, and lets people issue challenges to those same candidates about dire problems that need to be tackled by the next president. Furthermore, RI1 users can also read about the presidential candidates and find related news about them. While the domain is ‘.tv,’ RI1 doesn’t offer live streaming just yet, but there are self-produced videos for people to watch.

After browsing through the site and speaking with COO Agung Setiawan about the media startup’s plans, I found both good and not-so-good things about the way RI1 is being executed and about the direction it’s heading in. Let’s first start with the good ones.

3 good things about RI1

First, I think RI1 is playing very smart in launching its service in anticipation of the upcoming presidential elections taking place next year. This will help encourage all parties, including the presidential candidates, netizens, and media to be more willing to engage with RI1.

Second, RI1 has got off to a good start. The startup has received support from celebrities and influential people like Pandji Pragiwaksono (368,000 Twitter followers) and Aidil Akbar (106,000 Twitter followers). Some of them will go on to become RI1’s local influencers by sounding out the user-generated challenges to the presidential candidates every week.

Third, there aren’t that many political startups as of yet in Indonesia. So RI1 has little competition in this space. The potential user reach is quite big as well. Agung says that there are around 87 million youths – people aged between 17 years old to 35 years old – that can participate in next year’s election, and they’re likely to be engaged with the political process mainly via social media like Twitter and Facebook.

Sensitive business model

The first not so good thing about RI1 is how the startup balances its independence with its business model. RI1 earns its money from interested political parties, either by putting banner ads on the site, or by hiring RI1’s service to advise them should they want to hold offline talkshow events. Politics, of course, is a sensitive matter. The first time a user sees a banner ad from one political group on RI1, it might already make the site look biased.

So how can RI1 stay objective if their source of income is, potentially, from one particular presidential candidate? Agung assures me that the only thing the candidates can buy from RI1 is banner ad spots, and that’s it. The candidates cannot influence RI1’s news content nor it’s online voting results. It remains to be seen if users care at all if there are banner ads from political parties on the site.

Will there be political groups wanting to post ads on the site? Apparently so. Agung told me that he has quite a few connections to those parties and he has confirmed that these parties now have digital media divisions to help win campaigns.

Agung believes that an ad from a political group won’t ruin RI1’s independent character. Moreover, the funds will help support RI1’s mission to encourage youth participation in the upcoming election. RI1’s content and offline activities in reaching out to young people can help build the startup’s image, and that is where the startup’s focus lies.

The second thing that RI1 needs to watch out for is its revenue sharing scheme. Do you remember about the startup’s feature that lets users post challenges for the president candidates to solve? If a candidate wants to put banner ads on a user’s challenge post, he or she will earn a 30 percent commission from them.

RI1 content isn’t that deep

Future plans and present concerns