Some Meowsings......

Still trying to figure out Twitter

A lot has been made of Twitter, the social media platform that allows what is termed as “micro-blogging”. For the three people out there who have never heard of it, Twitter allows you to post status updates of not more than 140 characters (including spaces) long. Its somewhat like the status updates in Facebook and more recently, LinkedIn.

However, unlike Facebook and LinkedIn, thats all Twitter has in terms of functionality. You can obviously follow someone else’s Twitter or have your own Twitter followed. I’m still trying to figure out why there is a claim that Twitter will soon overtake Facebook and MySpace as the predominant social media platform. I’ve used it, read reports on it, read reviews on it, read the business plan, etc…..and yet I am still uncertain of its commercial or social value. Recently it raised US$35 million in a round of funding…inspite of having no revenue and maintaining a headcount of 29. Sure, Academy Award nominees and attendees such as Ashton Kucher were reportedly updating their Twitter while the Awards were going on, and sure, Obama is on Twitter, constantly updating the rest of the unwashed masses on his latest policies (usually links ), but at the end of the day, after taking away all this hype, if Twitter were to become a paid service or accept advertising money, where would the users go? Also, with their 140 character limitation, how much real information can be transferred in this manner?

I read of Twitter supporters claiming that they get the latest information updates via Twitter and that they couldn’t live without it. Isn’t that the internet in a nutshell? Our attention spans have become so short that we can only assimilate twitters and no longer have the patience for thoughtful, well researched articles. It panders to our need to be popular and have people follow our every move online or share our thoughts (albeit in a soundbite). Honestly though, are our lives so shallow and meaningless that a service like Twitter can become the next poster child of the Social Media revolution?

I was speaking with a business owner yesterday about Social Media and he swears by Twitter saying that he communicates with his customers on Twitter and that it has helped him grow his business. That said, his business has yet to breach the US$100K in revenue per annum and is some way from being profitable. Then isn’t the opportunity cost of the time he spends “communicating” with his Twitter followers very poor with respect to what he COULD be achieving if he spent more time on his business itself? When put to him, he acknowledged spending more time than normal on Twitter and communicating when he should have been at the factory floor supervising production throughput. His Twitter addiction has also seen him cut down on visiting customers overseas (obviously the time spent in an airplane and the deadair on Twitter is too much for him). So then, is Twitter a tool for his business or a hindrance to his growth? I think only he can answer that question.

For me, I maintain my Twitter account, but its not linked to my phone nor will I update it more than a couple of times a day. Of course once I see real value in it, I may change my mind. Good luck to the guys at Twitter….

Tong Hsien-Hui

3D TV…impressive!

I had a chance on Friday last week to visit a company that develops the consoles and software to deploy 3D TV programs. In the past, 3D television or movies have required viewers to wear special glasses (with red and blue lenses) or for the movie screen to be large enough to incorporate the number of pixels required for such programs.

I’m not sure if this has been in the market for some time or whether its new, but I was seriously impressed with the quality of the images. You can literally see the objects flying out of the screen towards you. From what I understand of the technology, the software manages 8 layers of images superimposed into one reel. By playing these images at different times, a special 3D imaging effect emerges.

The content is till poor at this time. I watched only a couple of demos developed for the purpose, one a cartoon and the other an ad for a car. The screen itself, while the same size as a large screen TV, apparently retails for close to 15K euros. Due to the weak content currently available, sales have not been significant which in turn does not allow the price of these screens to go down. And obviously the high price of the screens and poor penetration does not lead many companies to want to develop their own content. A truly chicken and egg problem.

Be that as it may, while I may not consider investing in this company at this time, I believe that in the very near future, 3D movies will be available to the consumer and I look forward to it.

Tong Hsien-Hui

My Five Best Cities to Live if the Economy keeps Tanking

Read this article in today’s feeder on the five best cities to live if the economy keeps tanking. In a nutshell, the five cities are Medellin (Columbia), New Orleans (USA), Saigon (Vietnam), Vilnius (Lithuania) and Cape Town (SA).

Now, I can understand Vilnius which has been designated the European Cultural city of 2009, and if I push my imagination, I can see Saigon with its low prices as being attractive, but I really wonder how they came up with the rest. I mean if cost were the criteria, I would speculate that Cape Town or New Orleans are not the towns that offer the best cost savings for standard of living. I mean, if the economy keeps tanking, we are looking for the best standard of living for lowest cost. With that in mind, I offer this list in its stead.

1. Rio de Janeiro – Brazil (good standard of living, cheap, sunny, what else would you want?)

2. Bangkok – Thailand (decent place to live, cheap and it seems they have sorted out their political issues….)

3. Marrakesh – Morocco (a bit more controversial, but food is not expensive and seems quite dynamic)

4. Singapore (Things are getting cheaper…what else can I say?)

5. Perth – Australia (Not as vibrant as Sydney but cheaper and there’s always Margaret River nearby….)

Tong Hsien-Hui

http://matadorabroad.com/five-best-cities-to-live-in-2009-if-the-economy-keeps-tanking/

Does Facebook own our information?

There has been an uproar in recent days about Facebook’s recent changes in their Terms of Service. The gist is that there is a concern that Facebook not only owns the rights to all information posted by users on their platform including photos, videos, etc….but also owns them even after the user has closed his/her account. This article was posted on the site of the New York Times yesterday. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/technology/internet/17facebook.html?_r=1

I suppose the question most of us have is what Facebook will do with the information. There is a fear that in the event someone with a Facebook account makes something of his or herself, previously posted embarrassing pictures or videos posted might be used or sold even if taken off the site. While there is obviously a possibility that the terms could be exploited as such, I really doubt that Facebook are the “evil” that Google envisaged. More probably, Facebook intends to use information derived from user interactions and sell it as marketing information. Much more lucrative and legal than outright blackmail.

That said, their ownership to the rights to pictures and videos posted on their platform is somewhat curious. It would be reasonable for Facebook to own certain rights to reproduce it in their marketing collateral, but their current direction seems more extreme than that.

As of now, Facebook has issued a statement denying their intention to exploit this information, but more pertinently, they have not agreed to amend the terms as yet. It remains to be seen what is going to happen if this issue blows to the extent where large numbers of users start to close their Facebook accounts. I for one will refrain from posting more pictures on their platform for the forseeable future till things are clearer.

Tong Hsien-Hui

Do we need a new Internet?

This was the title of an article in the New York Times published on Valentine’s Day. The link is here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/weekinreview/15markoff.html?_r=1. The gist of the discussion is whether it makes sense to ditch the existing internet in favor of one with more control points and greater security. In effect, to gain entrance, one would need to register and have their identity confirmed before being allowed in. The current ability to remain anonymous online will no longer be possible with this new internet.

The issue is one that has been debated for some time and in fact I refer to it in my earlier blog post on how the Government could takeover the internet. The question really is how acceptable will this be to the current users, and if not, why not? I can’t really see how a responsible person who wants to use the internet for responsible activities and penning his thoughts could possible be against such a move. That said, if the country in which the person resides does not allow certain liberties, then he/she would be similarly restricted online. In effect, the online world becomes a mirror of the offline world. In a more tightly restricted internet, the controls put in place by the law can be enforced easily. It is still currently possible, but at great expense in time and money. The benefit obviously is that it will be harder to perpetrate online scams (I’m not so ignorant that I believe a more tightly controlled internet will eliminate ALL crime) and that people will put in more thought and consideration before posting inanities on blogs, commentary, etc….. It will also be easier to police the darker aspects of the internet such as child pornography, etc…..

In general, I am in favor of an internet that offers better security and would be willing to surrender my anonymity to partake in a more thoughtful network. Having said that, I do realize that most people would not. The internet in its current incarnation offers them a release from the real world and the one being touted is too much a mirror of the real world for them to like it. So, while I see great benefits of such an action, I believe that it won’t happen anytime in the next ten years. I mean, the UN can’t even agree as a body on some simple issues. How do they plan on establishing a global change on the internet? All it takes is for one or two countries not to accept the new conditions and everyone would flee to their servers and set up shop there from which they can go rogue.

As a sub thought, I seriously question how many of the 174 million Facebook users are unique users. I know of many many friends who have more than five IDs on Facebook by registering with five different email accounts for a variety of reasons. Could the growth of Facebook effectively just be the same users registering the new IDs?

Tong Hsien-Hui

Women are less tolerant than men. They needed a study to find that out?

This is a good one. A study conducted in the US showed that girls are less tolerant of bad behaviour than men are. Apparently this study was published in the US Journal of Psychological Science. This is the link from which I got the story: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/4609018/Women-less-tolerant-of-each-other-than-men-are-study-finds.html

I really can’t verify that the source of this study is accurate, but all I can say is that the results are as obvious as the day following the night. Being married, having had women as bosses, colleagues and staff, meeting them in social and professional areas, I have to say that I often find it strange when I read that women are supposed to be the more tolerant, yielding and inclusive sex. Maybe blame it on the interactions that I have had, but in nearly all the cases, women tend to have been more prejudiced and judgemental than most of the men I have worked with. In the house, things must be spotless and rubbish has to be cleared (we men don’t care about these things….as long as we can move around comfortably and the dust doesn’t make us sneeze!), at work, small altercations get blown up into world ending arguments, etc……. And women bear grudges for far longer than men as well. I think the term that revenge is a dish best eaten cold must have been coined by a woman!

We men tend to be more easygoing and our grudges seldom extend for more than the time it takes to order another beer. Maybe thats why we make better bosses! Ooooh….I think I’m going to get slaughtered on this post!

Tong Hsien-Hui

“Green” Packaging more environmentally unfriendly

The news today wasn’t so great. It was a toss up between a piano playing cat and an article on Newton Running shoes whose “green” packaging was actually not so green. I figured the cat wouldn’t mind so its the article on green packaging. The gist of the story is that after remodeling their packaging to include 100% recycled content and moulding it to fit only the shoes, it was found that the effort needed to produce and transport this packaging made it even more environmentally infriendly than if they had used new cardboard and regular boxes. The article is here http://www.greenerdesign.com/news/2009/02/11/newton-running-shoes-learn-a-lesson-green-packaging/

I think it says something about the green movement when such issues are not seriously evaluated before they go live. I know of so many “initiatives” that actually set the environment back considerably in the name of “green”. It seems like every commercial entity wants to get on that bandwagon without really understanding the real issues on sustainability. There were cases such as the move to sugarcane or straw pulp paper which was supposed to save trees but whose production resulted in so much toxic chemical waste that the idea of going full steam with it was ludicrous. There are also cases where companies like Office Depot put environmentally friendly labels on products such as mechanical pencils because they are environmentally friendly in the way it is reuseable and not because the production of the end product and raw materials used was sustainable.

Even the so-called wind and solar farms for energy eat up environmental space and are a hazard to the wildlife around it. At the end of the day, I applaud the movement towards sustainable and green initiatives, but I do believe we need a body that evaluates these initiatives more carefully before they are allowed to be labelled as such.

Tong Hsien-Hui

Better online deals if the site doesn’t know who you are?

As part of my daily routine, I get a snapshot of all the latest, craziest news published on the web. Some are patently false, some are true and verified and some fall in between. Not obviously fake but then again, hard to believe if they are true. This article is one that falls in between: http://www.mainstreet.com/article/smart-spending/delete-cookies-save-cash

It speaks of the ability to get better online deals from e-commerce sites such as Expedia if you clear your cache and cookies such that the site can’t pull out your previous purchasing pattern. The logic is that the site is clever enough to verify that you are indeed a habitual e-commerce customer and set a higher price point for you. From a design standpoint, this is possible. In fact when I worked with Amazon in their early days as an advisor on data mining, the intent was similar. Develop algorithms and predictive models based on current or prior behaviour. That said, once the models were developed, it was hard to ensure service quality as running those modelling programs in the background took up a lot of resources and slowed the interaction down. Given that the power of computing has increased several fold since I was involved in this area, it is possible that these issues have been ironed out.

I am very keen to test out the truth of this and will probably spend a couple hours on it later. If it does work, then it will certainly help to determine how I plan to approach e-commerce sites in the very near future!

Tong Hsien-Hui

New Ministers for Singapore?

With Obama and Congress pushing for limits on the salaries of CEOs in companies the US Government has had to bail out, there has been an uproar in the private sector that this would lead to an outflow of talent from the US. Given that the cap on salaries is US$500K, this would effectively mean that CEOs of companies whose turnovers are larger than the GDPs of some countries, will be paid less than even some heads of states.

With our Singapore Government salaries being the highest in the world, wouldn’t it make sense to bring some of these exceptional talents into our own upper echelons? Wouldn’t a Jamie Dimon make a better Finance Minister than anyone we could produce? Or a Jeffrey Immelt as Minister of Trade and Industry? What a coup it could be for Singapore! With the salaries our Ministers are paid, compensating these ultimate foreign talents above what they could get in the US will be easy! Heck, most of our Ministers are paid at least double what Obama’s cap is on executive salaries!

Tong Hsien-Hui