Interview with Ridzuan Ashim, co-founder of Widgeous

Widgeous is a platform that allows applications and people to communicate via multiple channels like widgets, SMS and Instant Messaging. Co-founded by two young and passionate entrepreneurs, Ridzuan Ashim and Chua U-Zyn, the team recently launched their platform at the Barcamp Singapore II – Maps and Mobile Unconference. So, we took the opportunity to speak to Ridzuan and got him to do an interview with us here in SGE, to tell us more about the story and features of Widgeous together with his thoughts on the trends of building platforms in the Internet.

BL: Thank you for the interview with SG Entrepreneurs. Let’s begin by telling us your story. How did both U-Zyn and you come about starting Widgeous?
Ridzuan: Well it started some time in the middle of last year when U-Zyn came up to me with the idea of building some sort of SMS-applications platform. I bought into the idea because it sounded like a really good way of making some of my own communication practices easier. In two days we shaped up something to present for a Master Class conducted by former Amazon Chief Scientist, Andreas Weigend. Needless to say, the idea was still so ‘infant’ that very few understood what we were doing but it served as a good sounding board for refinement of the idea. Fast forward a few months and we’re here…still a long way to go though.

BL: What were your backgrounds before engaging in your current start-up?
Ridzuan: I’m majoring in Computer Engineering in NTU while running a small web consultancy/development company outfit while Uzyn was, as many probably already know, a freelance developer and also founder of local blog community Ping.sg.

It helps that both of us are somewhat actively involved in the blogosphere because it allows us to understand some of the needs in cyberspace. Aside from that, both of us have a lot of little projects that keep us plugged into various developments in other areas which I feel is essential in understand where innovation and synergy can occur.

BL: As a platform, what are the main problems that Widgeous is trying to solve for the community?
Ridzuan: Fundamentally, we want to achieve 2 things. Firstly, we want to make it easy for people to communicate. We’re inundated with so many communication options like Twitter, Instant Messaging protocol, email, text messages, social networks, etc. This really makes it complicated when we want to deliver a message to another person because we now face that need to deliberate over which channel would best be used. With Widgeous, the platform decides how best to send something across. It even gives the recipient the power to control how he wishes to receive messages from other individuals as well as applications.

Secondly, we want to make it easy for application developers to deploy their applications across communication channels. Traditionally, developers create an application and have to keep up with making sure it supports the various channels. This takes time and in the event that an API changes, many developers would be forced to make modifications. With us, developers can plug into our API and have immediate support for all the various channels. And because we intend to not just consolidate digital communication channels like email and IMs but to also include SMS and social networks, applications plugged into us would follow users wherever they went.

BL: What are the three essential features in Widgeous?
Ridzuan: 1. Cross communication channel support – With Widgeous, you’re plugged to your friends as well to the applications from wherever you are.