blogging continues to help

blogging is cool!
I love it...
i just wish i could have more time spending on it.
Sometimes, when i got busy, I stopped coming back here for a while. IN fact, I should come here no matter what... this is part of my 2008 resolution!
yes!

check this article out!
"Blogging's Low Cost, High-Return Marketing Tool"

Is is really true?
I agree!

Top 10 Internet Video of 2007

something you might have seen or overlooked. =p
Have a good look back of 2007.

- David


Top 10 Internet Videos of 2007 - Watch more free videos

shocking news: Baidu CFO

my buddie shared a shocking news with me today, on the last day of 2007.
I guess this is one of the most shocking news I have heard toward the end of 2007.

The CFO of Baidu, Shawn Wang (Zhansheng) just passed away in an accident in Hainan. According to a Chinese press, he drowned while swimming in the sea in Hainan while he was on this new year holidays there.

I was really shocked when I heard about it. Was it really the truth? it was really unbelievable, as I just listened to his speech at AAMA Beijing Annual Conference at Ritz Carlton, Beijing. He shared his story about his journey with Baidu, lots of insights. He's only 37 this year. He's smart and is definitely capable to help more companies to become the next Baidu in China. What a loss to the finance, IT and the business network.

There could be so much to be learned from him. He just joined the mentorship program of AAMA Beijing for the startups company to guide them along the IPO journey. Now he has just left us in this world and started his journey in another word.

Without guessing, his parents, his wife and kids must be so sad about their loss of a beloved person in their life. I don't know whether they can receive my condolence on the Internet or not. I just hope that they don't fall ill while sending their beloved one to the other world.
Here I sincerely send my condolence to Shawn Wang's family, his co-workers at Baidu and before Baidu and his friends in his life. I am sure he has impacted and changed many people's life so far. Hope the people who had been influenced b him could take their loss calmly. It is hard, definitely.

To my friends, stay safe and healthy! I do care about all of you!

quotes

“it’s not just about the money. Entrepreneurs want to work at the hottest place on earth and right now it’s Facebook.“

Quicken or Mint?

Quicken is releasing its web version on Jan 8, 2008.

Pls refer to this blog post for more information on Quicken 2.0.

Do I like Mint or Quicken?
the answer to me is very obvious... MINT.
1. I know the people who worked on it.
2. It's just very cool and simple to use. (if Quicken has got it, Mint is not here today)
3. Mint understands what young people want. they are playing the adoption game not the financial expert game.
4. To help a new company become successful is more important than give business to an existing company. =p
5. Personal Finance 2.0 is something new and cool. It's not so much about management. it's more of realization of how the financial is doing.
6. It's best for people who keep using their credit card and no cash! - that is the new generation~ even for a $2.50 purchase or parking.

Will it be any competition between the two? Definitely yes if their targeted audiences overlap.
Maybe Intuit will acquire Mint.com. It may take one or two years down the road. It's too early for Intuit to acquire Mint.com - if it does, it's too early... the market is growing... let it grow... Quicken will continue to have a big piece of that pie... so don't kill the market and take the entire small pie... let it grow!

Conclusion:
Mint is the way to go~!

Meebo & Speeddate

Trip to ZJU

ZheJiang Univeristy is very entrepreneurial...
I'll start looking at how we can work together to exchange experiences to build the culture and ecoc-system in Asia.

cool!

Singapore Taxi Fare

I am in Beijing right now...
the Beijing government has just decreased the public transportation fare for the mass. In fact, it is the government subsidy to help reduce the traffic load using private cars.
for buses, you can take a bus as low as 0.40 RMB which like 0.08 SGD or 0.06 USD for sometimes more than 10 kilometer's journey...

if you do not use the tap card, you might have to pay sometimes 10-15 times more by cash.
of course, it is still much cheaper than the cab fare in Beijing.

As for the subway/MRT metro system, it's 2 RMB entrance fee... you can get in wherever you want and stay inside as long as you want and go to whichever station you need to. that's 0.40 SGD or 0.30 USD for taking the subway... WOW!!!

even you take taxi/cab in Beijing, it is still pretty cheap, compared to you taking buses and MRT in Singapore or the US.
the starting fare is 10 RMB with free 3km travel. within 15 km, it's 2 RMB per km. more than 15 km, it's 3 RMB per km. Every 5 minute waiting time will charge you 1 RMB.

If you travel 10km, it costs you about 30 RMB. that's only about 6 SGD and 4 USD.

GOSH!!! it's relatively cheap here right? yes.... TO YOU!

but it is not really cheap to the lots of locals, they do not earn that much money.
see what you can do with 30 RMB...
by bus, 0.40 RMB per trip ... you can get about 75 bus rides (a months' travel)
if you take train, you can have 15 subway trips - a week's travel (to work and back home)

let us now look at what a person mentioned about the Singapore taxi fare

"Please take note that Comfort taxi will adjust its fares from 17 Dec (Mon)
> > and SMRT taxi will be adjusting its fares from 24 Dec (Mon). The fare
> > hikes is around 10 - 40% Prime taxi will not be adjusting their fares for
> > the next 3 months, so let's just take Prime, else we'll take the train.
> >
> > Currently Comfort is saying that the fare hikes are for the cabbies, blah
> > blah blah, but let's just see, a few more months down the road, they'll
> > definitely increase the rental for cabbies.. bloody blood-sucking
> > soul-less corporations!!
> >
> >
> >
> > A brief breakdown of the fare increase:
> >
> > - Starting fare would increase by $0.30 to $2.80. Please note that $2.80
> > is for normal cabs only, for the premium cabs like Mercedes and such, the
> > starting fare will be adjusted accordingly
> >
> > - City Area Surcharge would increase to $3, and it will be charged from
> > Mon - Sat, 5pm - midnight
> >
> > - Midnight Surcharge would revert back to 50% after midnight instead of
> > the current staggered timing.
> >
> > - Peak Hour Surcharge would be 35% of the fares instead of the current $2.
> > It will be charged from Mon - Fri : 7am - 9.30am; Mon - Sat : 5pm - 8pm
> >
> > - Metre rates would increase also 2 times, every increase would be $0.20
> > cents instead of the current $0.10
> >
> > - Booking fees would be decreased to $3.50 for Prime times and $2.50 for
> > Non-Prime times
> >
> >
> >
> > Just an illustration, the distance from my place to the office is around
> > 15km, currently if I book a cab to get home at 7pm, I would have to pay
> > around $17.80:
> >
> >
> >
> > Booking fees: $4
> >
> > Starting fare : $2.50 (first km)
> >
> > First 10km : $4.80
> >
> > Next 4km : $2.30
> >
> > Waiting time : $1.20 (average 5 min)
> >
> > Peak Hour : $2.00
> >
> > City surcharge : $1
> >
> >
> >
> > Under the new fare structure, for the same distance, I would have to pay
> > around $22.50, that is almost 30% increase over the current fares.
> >
> >
> >
> > Booking fees : $3.50
> >
> > Starting fare : $2.80 (first km)
> >
> > First 10km : $5.20
> >
> > Next 4km : $2.40
> >
> > Waiting time : $1.40 (average 5 min)
> >
> > Peak Hour : $4.20 (35% of $11.80)
> >
> > City surcharge : $3"

Mi-ahn Hamida!

I'll not take taxi when i go back to Singapore from the airport to NUS... I'll take the MRT.. no choice. it looks like it is really killing people now... increased by 30% +
anyway... taxi pool will becomes more popular.. good luck to my friends who are working on it..
great opportunity!

What's HDBI?

HDBI

It seems that lots of corporates do use it for its employees.

Technologies to Enhance UX

I came cross this video while reading a post on my friend's blog.


It's about Interactive Surface Computing. Yes... that definitely and significantly enhanced table experiences.... you can work with your table, play with your table and do all sorts of things with your table. Isn't it cool?

Now you don't have to worried about what to do during your first date with a girl or a boy!
hmm... the only think i have to question is whether it is wather proof? and it's cleaning and maintenance. The cost of it has to be cut a lot before it goes into many many households. I guess eventually it will but it will take quite some time, too!

There are more videos on Youtube!
Surface website is very cool too!

First McDonald's TV Commercial

Saw the title on Digg.com then I clicked it.
Yup! It was pretty cool at that time....

check it out: First McDonald's TV Commercial

What's new on Google.cn Home Page?

Google.cn yesterday quietly put "Videos" on the top-left navigation bar on its search home page.
In the Google.com, link to Videos is never there.

What's interesting about this here is 'localization'. The look and feel is already the same. Why cannot the order of the applications in the default navigation bar vary a little? Right, why not!
Google.cn did it.

Any reaons? I read it from a Chinese article and I'll try here to explain it and make sense.
Due to the IP law in the US, Google cannot provide non-copyrighted "MP3 search" services. Because of such legal constraint, Google cannot compete with Baidu in China in terms of music search on the equal footing. [That's why localization is sometimes so key to the success of a global business.]
To bypass the US IP law on the music search, Goolge once again showcases their competency in video search, bu this time it is here in China. To replace music with videos is a great reaction in facing increasing competition in search in China. You might wonder why videos then? I think you might also have guessed why! After all, lots of videos sites also provide stations to play music online. Such solution not only prevents Google from getting sued due to illegal distribution of copyrighted material (music), but also does help Google to serve the Chinese consumers with their increasing music search demands.

This step is a forward step. Nevertheless, Google is still being challenged with other copyright related issues. One of them is that the Chinese search engines provide search results with links to download but Google cannot do that yet legally.


Besides the localization on the Home Page navigation bar, let us take a close look at what's inside this Video.Google.CN. It seems that Video.Google.CN has done some good jobs in working with content producers to provide good content to the users. What's on the top of the page is actually special topic on Director Xiaogang Feng's 2008 Chinese New Year Greeting Movie - "Ji Jie Hao". [I am not sure what that is yet. It sounded like the name of a ship or a submarine. ] What's following by the special topic is a topic on all Director Feng's recent works, followed by categories of videos. Pretty interesting, eh!

on Windows - Maybe I.E.

on MacBook - Firefox

Where to find the Chinese article? - Here!

Updates

Attended Cleantech Forum by Cleantech Network at Beijing Westin.

Met some friends from Peking U, Renmin U and BFSU.

Now busy working on SWOT analysis.

AIM in Gmail Chat

this is fabulous!

Thanks to Open AIM =)

see how you can use AIM while Gmailing just like Gmail-chatting.

Tips on Startups

something you might want to just take a look at it.
This is not a recommendation.
For startups, there are so many different ways of doing it as every single one is so unique and different.

It 's good to hear more and see more how other people are working in this area of entrepreneurship!

Please share with me your thoughts on it if you'd like to.

Article.

Web 2.0 Brands

Very interesting article I read just now.
Would like to share with you: Brand 2.0: Are Social Applications Brands or Expendable Commodities?

How these Web 2.0 brands are evaluated nowadays?
Should it be different from conventional brands?

I don't know branding that well yet, but it is definitely great liquidity there that business people always wanted.
I talked to some people working in the clothes manufacturing. They said the quality of a branded product and a non-branded product is not really that much... Branded stuff do have its IP and some unique values to offer. That's where the liquid is coming from. (correct me if i am wrong!)

Gosh! My office is so hot right now and I am not feeling very well right now!
I almost feel dizzy.

Video: Here Comes Another Bubble

Mac Ad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRAUlK8_2VE

Give up on Vista!!!
I already did =p

For Singaporean Friends: Upgrade your Passport to Biometric one before your frequent International traveling

Thanks to Ray's kind reminder email to me, I not even a PR to Singapore yet.
Just would like to share this with all my friends, in case they are in so much traveling and overlooked at their passport status.
I experienced so much about my old passport (expiration).

Read this article carefully to avoid any potential problem you might encounter.
You guys are so lucky... take good advantage of it. =)

Sharing rocks: SlideShare.net

Just heard about it ...
check it out... it has lots of cool stuff.
hope you can make good use of it...
remember to cite them yah!!!

Appreciate their work!
http://www.slideshare.net/

Update: found a cool presentation there.

Cool: Singapore Media Development Authority Senior Management Rap Song

Check it out...
the Senior Management at Singapore Media Development Authority (MDA) made a Rap song for MDA.
and the song got to TechCrunch posted by Michael Arrington.(article)
Michale, when you come to visit Singapore, you've gotta meet up with the NUS NOC students...
in fact, they are in SF bay area... =p
Find them at www.nusea.org

alright... here is the video

Firefox 3.0 Beta

after the serious bug filed...
now you can try the new Firefox browser.

Get your version here (20 Languages).

Interesting: VideoDNA

Doesn't this make sense to you?

Brilliant!

VideoDNA... the DNA for video contents...

I like "is" sometimes

Jarod shared this link from Mashable on Facebook removing "is" from the status update.

The immediate thought was "okay, sounds good". However, the more I thought about it... I seemed to like the presence of "is" there. Why not?

it does not bother me at all. Most of people (if not, all people) seldom leave the I-centric world... It would be good that sometimes you can leave the center and visit the orbits and see their angel and perspective about the 'center'. Maybe you can position yourself better after the visits. =)

David is learning Korean again!

Luv Meebo

What's new on Meebo???

Video chat with 5 other friends simultaneously.
So including you, that's SIX people... Only on Meebo powered by TokBox...

WOW... isn't that amazing? cool? hippie?

What's more exciting is that you don't have to install ANYTHING! Yup... nothing! =)

Love Meebo!!!



Article at TechCrunch! (picture linked from TechCrunch)

Hockey Stick for Plaxo

Analytics rock!!!

Look at what it brings to Plaxo... a nice hocky stick... (image from TechCrunch Article on Plaxo)

Hooray to OpenSocial!!!
Good for plaxo...
maybe that why I received more plaxo friends requests more lately. =)

The trend of Hardware is coming again

Maybe in the most of the world (except Japan and Korea), there is coming this hardware revolution again.... many companies not in the hardware business, started releasing their hardware device...
Apple is in the hardware business... so iPhone shall not be discussed... but it is definitely a market expansion from personal computing to mobile computing...

Amazon just released its device.. Kindle.
What is it about? An electronic book reader.

Since I mentioned about Apple just now. I like Erik's way of putting it

The Kindle is essentially an iPod for books, with Amazon’s online book store taking on the role of iTunes.

Rumors about Google going to have its GPhone was already cooled down. Nonetheless, Google is working on the open mobile OS and platform right now...

A lot of other companies working in the IT industries are also looking at bundle their solution with hardware stuff. (heard a lot but not examples right now)

Here is one more.... Bug Labs allowing engineers to create any digital device their minds drive them to, by playing simply around some different modules... (article at TechCrunch) there is a video there. do Check it out. =)

so... maybe with all these cool stuff coming along, the REST of the world will catch up with Japan soon... Perhaps, we are overtaking right now... slowly...

Be ware of iPhone

Has iPhone become a personal tracker already?

I remembered that when I visited Logitech, we learned that Logitech learns the customer's mouse using behaviors via a tracking software which seeks the user's agreement. Thus, they can better design the mouse and come out with new buttons or cool features for mouses using real data collected. That was permitted by the users.

However, iPhone seems did not ask for it directly... Has anybody read iPhone's terms and conditions very thoroughly? maybe it's stated there.

Put the privacy issues aside, the technology behind the tracking part works really smart... that's great...

check out on the post at TechCruch!

Interesting: $85 M from Facebook to Acquire Zhanzuo.com

It's the first time I heard of Zhanzuo.com (Chinese) ever.
It has 7 million users on the sites, excluding overseas Chinese, because they only have the university in the Chinese territory. (why?) More about this news at TechCrunch.

Facebook became interested in this company right now and has made an offer of $85 Million for acquisition.

Even though xiaonei.com has been bought by one of the Chinese company, why they are not interested in showing interests in that? Is it because that they don't believe the xiaonei.com people are talented enough to create their own product but rather copying from them? They did a fair job in the so-called duplication. It also learned some good ideas and made them integrated to the sites. Now a lot of my friends in NUS are using it, esp my CHN friends.

Maybe Zhanzuo looks more innovative because it revealed a very typical university life phenomenon which is reserving seats. "Zhan" means "take it and make it someone's own prossession". "Zuo" means "seats". Thus, Zhanzuo means reserving seats on the first come first serve base, not only for themselves but also their gang. Zhanzuo typically happens at libraries, study rooms and any other public study areas in the universities throughout the country. Some also carried this 'tradition' to Singapore. (there was a Youtube video about the Zhanzuo situation at NTU. )It seemed the uni students are very hard working. A lot are!

Let us see what would come out in this story...

Maybe Facebook is looking at something different than what has been talked about. 7 M Chinese is not a big number in China. =p hmm... worth looking into it...

Updated:
I found the Youtube Video: Hungry Ghost Festival in NTU
& 1st person view Hungry Ghost Festival in NTU
It looked like the busy Beijing Subway interchanges in the rush hours.

Updates:

It seemed that it's a rumor, after all. See what Nick O'Neil said about it. 

For Singles: WooMe

check it out!
http://www.woome.com/

Web 2.0: How about IT Management

Good thoughts on it!
Not so much for consumers... but it looks cool.
Does it concern any privacy issues?
not sure.
IT management gets into 2.0.

security, security & security

so much about security!

Cool: Facebook on Blackberry

This ad popped up and I clicked on it.
It looks really interesting.

Blackberry now bundles Facebook.
Does that mean Facebook has its own hardware distribution channel partners... =p

Nice! I like both companies! That is more key. =)

Check it out here.

OMG! Mozilla Firefox Bug - Serious

Flaw found in Feburary, but ignored until it was deployed in Gmail Hack.

GOSH!!!

More!

So Can I ! =p

This is one of the link on the Google AdSense on this blog!
Entrepreneurship Development Program @ MIT

wow... for a week's course on Entrepreneurship it costs about $7,500.
If the tuition fees are considered as an entrance ticket to enter the entrepreneurship world, the door to the entrepreneurship world might seem to heavy to be pushed open!

I believe with MIT's strong name and strong faculty in this program. it is great that students in this program can learn as much as they can! However, it is just in one WEEK!
I spent a year in Silicon Valley in learning about entrepreneurship! it was live experiences. I have seen a lot of things happening around! Boston is definitely another great area to immerse into it and learn. What's truly inspiring is that I started thinking about "SO CAN I" approach! I can start my small classes teaching entrepreneurship? or rather set up a class to attend all this entrepreneurship program!

yes... indeed i am planning it already. It's the OCEAN. it is a great entrepreneurial journey that I am embarking on. What I really need to work on right now is to have its inaugural session in Beijing! Really looking forward to it! Fantastic!

Disclaimer: I am not saying the MIT program is not great! I think it is indeed very cool! Such programs are showing the attentions people are giving to the entrepreneurial people or people who want to become entrepreneurial. Just that my personal preference on this kind of education is through immersion to the entrepreneurship world. Of courses, not everyone can afford to spend much time on it. Nonetheless, think about it, if you really want to get involved, TIME is never an issue, because you will spend the rest of your life working on it. Yes, at least I am!

OpenSocial, Ops! Here comes OpenSocket

Thanks to Woonzai's sharing on Facebook, here is something really interesting.
Maybe you have heard of tons of news about Google and its 'new' initiative on the social networking sites- yes, it's OpenSocial. It creates a standard for APIs to be universally applicable on many social networking sites, like Ning, Friendster, Hi-5 etc.
Strangely this was announced after Google's unsuccessful bite on the Facebook pie. I have no idea whether it was a defense or an attack move. Anyway, the story about OpenSocial can be GOOGLED and a lot of stories will pop up. What was interesting was that Facebook was not part of the OpenSocial gang. If this is the first time you heard of OpenSocial and you know Facebook pretty well, you might think "why is not Facebook part of it?"

I don't know! There must be stories behind. Hope these stories will be revealed soon!

Nonetheless, what's more interesting here is that OpenSocket is trying to pull OpenSocial in facebook. What they say: it allows you to run OpenSocial gadgets within Facebook!

That was brilliant!

Since OpenSocial is open to all... Facebook can definitely make full use of the great 'platform' and add values to its users on its own platform!

My friend said OpenSocial might backfire itself. In my opinion, if the true intention of OpenSocial was to show colors to FB, then it can be considered backfiring. Or it might possibly reveal the true intention of Google in getting a bite on the FB pie. Yes, right now Facebook is working on OpenSocket to let its users involved in the OpenSocial. In other words, in the Chinese way of thinking: when I made an offer and treated you nicely, you did not appreciate and grab the opportunity. Now I have to show you some colors and let you come to me and 'beg' for it (whatever in the context). that was also a brilliant strategy play!

really cool stuff!
For more information on OpenSoket. You can go to this LINK!

the advent of the NEW Web

It is really interesting to see more Web 3.0 stuff on the web.
Here is a good article about it.
" the advent of web 3.0"

it says that the transition from web 2.0 to web 3.0 is a much shorter one than the transition from web 1.0 to web 2.0.

I guess.. it is so. Web 1.0 concept only came out after web 2.0 was defined.
As more and more people working on Web 2.0 start-ups, the days of Web 3.0 is definitely not far from now. It is definitely much quicker.

Looking forward to the great innovation! I'll work on my own. =)
Get the OCEAN jump started ASAP =)

The OCEAN

I am thinking of a proper name for OCEAN...

I had the Oriental Cape of Entrepreneurs & Altruists Network.
It did not sounds really great when we talk about it... it sounded like a venue or place... not an organization... however, it is definitely cool... specially it involves culture in it... "oriental"

the Organization of Chinese Entrepreneurs, Altruists & Netizens

netizen sounds too broad here... even though today's definition is still pretty narrow..
or
the Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs & Altruists Network (best fit one)
a little like OCBC (Overseas Chinese Bank Corp.)
or
the Open-minded Chinese Entrepreneurs & Altruists Network (start liking it)


let us set it as the last one...
the Chinese name for the organization would be "Entrepreneurial OCEAN" -创业海洋.

I think let me just set it for now...

OCEAN Mission:

The OCEAN was established in Nov 2007 as a non-profit organization with the mission of creating, facilitating and connecting outstanding young entrepreneurs through idea exchange, open discussion, mentorship and networking to better entrepreneurs' mentality, skills and network, empowering them to compete in the global economy.

Objectives:

1. To encourage the entrepreneurial spirit among the open-minded Chinese.
2. To build a strong entrepreneurs & altruists network in Beijing, China and the Globe.
3. To foster mentorship program
4. To expand the Chinese entrepreneurs community adopting globally competitive practices.

Intelligent Nation & Digital City

Have you heard of these two terms?

The first one is from Singapore where the Info-comm Development Authority, a government agency is leading the Intelligent Nation 2015 10-year master-plan.

So you can expect lots of things to happen right now and in the next few years!
It is also a great time to enter the Singaporean market as the entry to the Asian market.
For more information, you can Google "Intelligent Nation 2015".

The other term Digital City is for Shanghai. They have a plan to make Shanghai a digital city by 2010. There was an article about this in 2003 already but I only heard of it the week before. It seemed that I was not so much into this area yet... Yup. I just got myself settled down in Singapore back in 2003. There are some good pieces of information on it, but it is not as direct as the one above. so i need to filter it a little bit for you hope it helps.

2003 China Daily article
A PDF file on ShanghaiGrid in Action

If you happen to come across better links, please let me know about it.

Media:opporutnities in virtual worlds

I was reading about CNN entered Second Life.

Now I have an idea about the media bodies in the virtual worlds. Someone ought to set up some media bodies for the in-world news and events.

They will be the virtual worlds official representatives on media.

That sounds really cool!

They can have newspaper, magazine, advertising in there and all sorts of stuff!

cool... should work on it, shouldn't I?

Rainmakers Live: Framing the Video Effect - Money & Market Trends

Hi Friends,

Our organization is organizing a great event this Friday Nov 16, 2007, 6pm-9pm (San Francisco Time, PDT) at Fenwick & West LLP, Mountain View.

We have very good speakers.

Hunter Walk, Youtube (Keynote)
Gokul Rajaram, Google (Panelist, NUSEA Mentor)
Atul Suklikar, Yahoo! Video (Panelist)
Kris Harikrishnan, Moowee, Inc (Panelist, NUSEA affiliated company)
Scott Lane, SF Bay Ventures (Panel Moderator, NUSEA Friend)

Come and join us for the great session!
For more information, please visit Rainmakers Live website.

Is this the best time for Native Chinese to tour around USA?

currency rate
1 USD = 7.44 RMB

Airfare
1000 USD = 7,440 RMB

Hotel + Food(a week)
800 USD = 5,952 RMB

Shopping ( You can buy so much more good stuff there)
2000 USD= 14,880 RMB

Entrance fees (depending on where you want to go)
500 USD = 3,720 RMB

Others (including visa and tips =p)
500 USD = 3,720 RMB

total:
35,712 RMB

A lot of people can definitely afford it already in China.

if you want to drive around and do a cross-country tour like I did with Derek.
It's even cheaper.

Airfare
1000 USD = 7,440 RMB

Car Rental (San Francisco) including insurance and stuff
900 USD = 6,696 RMB

Food (on the way)
400 USD = 2,976 RMB

Touring around
200 USD = 1,488 RMB

Shopping
2000 USD = 14,880 RMB

Total:
4,500 USD = 33,480 RMB
where you can see so much about USA.

Of course, on the other hand, you can enjoy touring around China, too.

Has social networking become a feature?

Having been away from my office desk, I did not manage to listen to my favorite online music radio station - Pandora.

Now they have introduced new stuff on the site! Really cool!
One of them is the social piece - Friends. You can view your friends stations and check out their interested music and songs.



Has social networking became a feature of Web 2.0 experience?
Nowadays, every website has a blog as part of their official appearance to the public. Blogging is already part of a feature on a typical internet company.

Digg.com has upgraded to its new Digg look a couple months back. They added the social piece. It totaly made sense. Some comments on that move were wondering whether digg was moving to the social networking direction. Nope... not so much on that... it is just a convenient way to knowing what's going on there especially about what your friends are reading and digging.

Have this social piece appeared in many other sites as well?
Gmail integrated with Gtalk such that you can talk to your friends while emailing if the conversation seems to be fired. AND you can read your friends status. Maybe you might want to have a quick chat on it as well...

Definitely there are more: Flickr, Picasa, etc.

Am I right-brained or left-brained or both?

Is this girl turning herself closewise or counter-clockwise?

Here you go! Just for fun!!!

THE Right Brain vs Left Brain test ... do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?

If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses feeling
"big picture" oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can "get it" (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking

More Gmail Beta for me

This came in as a surprise of the day.
My most used Google account was upgraded to the new beta version!
so cool.

I like the "filter messages like this these" a lot because I used labels and filters so much that it reduced a lot of pain points in using these two!

Thanks!

"Is the Web 2.0 leading to a new sense of collectiveness in China?"

I managed to attend the last session of Web 2.0 in China: What's Next in China? by OrangeLabs. Due to my meeting and work on Monday and Tuesday, I could not make it for most of the sessions prior to 51.com's presentation on the topic of "The Typical China Web 2.0 User".

When I arrived, it seemed it just reached the hype of the afternoon sessions as there were so many people attending. It really looked great. Because of the tons of work I finished previously plus the heated venue, foggy weather and dim lighting, it seemed to me a perfect place to fall asleep. However, the interesting topics kept me awake, which was good.

I think the last session, a panel discussion about "Is the Web 2.0 leading to a new sense of collectiveness in China?" was pretty interesting. Although "collectiveness" seemed too broad a word there to discuss in a one-hour panel with 9 panelist, there are still a lot more to think about and talk about. It was just the beginning to look into the concept of changing collectiveness.

Moderator asked about the audience and speakers about their answers to this question:
so about 26 people agreed with the change, 13 disagreed and another few made a point of no conclusion on Yes or No.

Guess what? I was in the disagreed group. Here is my thinking and reasoning.
1. Collectiveness is such a broad topic. Collectiveness means " done by people acting as a group". Thus, it is pretty much an emphasis on 'collaboration'.
It is different from 'collectivism' meaning the practice or principle of giving a group priority over each individual in it. Chinese society is lead by the socialists and their party. Collectivism is definitely the value and principle in managing the society.
Some speakers did mentioned about collectivism v.s. individualism. China is a society that skipped the capitalistic societal structure and jumped to the more futuristic societal structure (in comparison to capitalism where a more individualistic society is common). [Of course this understanding is based on some societal progression theory. ] Let us put the theory aside and look at the collectiveness.

2. Looking at the context: we are talking about the collectiveness in China. What's so special about China? A oriental society with 5000+ years of history, distinct culture, a tough language, a mysterious country to many in the world, a rising dragon in the east, 3rd largest country by landscape in the world, 1/4 of the world population.... ya da ya da ya da ya...
In my view, oriental societies are more collective than western societies. Japan is a very good example that you might want to look into. There are many studies compared the cultural differences among various societies. The stronger collectiveness in oriental societies is a general impression made from those studies.


3. Referencing
Right now, the Web 2.0 is so hyped up in the western societies especially North America and Europe. Has it changed the collectiveness in their society? Maybe not. They bettered the existing offline practices by utilizing the advanced web technology to actualize something can never happen in a WWW-less world. That is removal of the sense of physical constraints, like space, location, surroundings etc. That's the empowerment of the Internet. So, how did Web 2.0 contribute to the betterment of the collaboration? I think it is through organizing information, filtering information and distributing information in a quicker, nicer and more accurate way.

4. Draw conclusion from reference?
so... Web 2.0 is going to do the same thing for the Chinese society for sure - so much to do with information. If allowing me to say that's the nature of the Web 2.0 (better organizing), the people, the content, the channels are just so different!
If we were to just make a exact copy of MySpace, Facebook etc, would it work just as it worked as the original copy of MySpace and Facebook? NO!!! It is a No-No. There are a lot of premises, assumptions and constraints we have to discover and start looking into them, because these made the Chinese version of Facebook distinct even though it is still Facebook (facing the Chines audience). Just sidetrack a little here, who understand the Chinese Internet users? References are good but they cannot help draw any conclusion in such context.

5. How I looked at it?
I made a short comment at the end of the panel discussion.
I said, the web 1.0 maybe a realizing process for us to get to know the power of the Internet. It was the milestone of human beings in understanding the new stuff.
Thus web 2.0 might be the defining stage after we have understood the power. We need to find out what we can do on the web. Thus, in answering the question maybe what Web 2.0 led in the end was a better and clearer definition of collectiveness among the mass Internet users.
what I did not say was the continuation of the definition. It is then the so-called Web 3.0 stuff which we will figure out how eventually the Internet is best utilized in various aspects and domains in the world.

Food (questions) for thought:
1. what are the Chinese natives doing on the web?
2. what are the real niche markets in China which might not exist in other parts of the world?
3. Is the Internet utilization high enough to generate more and more revenue in considering the top internet connection infrastructure?
4. what works here and what does not work
5. what are the great business models that tailored for the Chinese Market?

Will this help Google in China?

Try the new design!

Facebook: more and more

1. Some GUI change in Facebook
I think the search has changed. I was using it a few hours ago and it did not look like this!
I think this is so much better to change the network search in to network filter! Sweet!

2. My Uni is offering Facebook Programming language course starting next semester!
This is definitely an absolutely cool stuff to do right after Stanford started its Facebook course this quarter! Yup, NUS rocks! I do enjoy my experience there. Also many thanks to some friends who worked behind it as catalyst.

3. Facebook brand advertising and music artists.
The picture below is the band 50 cent page on Facebook. Now companies can create their brand page on Facebook for advertising and form online brand awareness and demand generation.
In a similar manner, now Facebook Music allows music artists and bands to set up their own "brand" page and their fans can join and participate. Other than, iLike the likely directly competitor of Facebook Music (nothing similar to Yahoo! Music, except that the goal for music artists to attract their fans and bring up their album sales.)

Don't just look at what they are doing here. Meebo is doing great and generated lots of buzz in the entertainment world as well. You can Google it! Don't forget to Facebook often! =)

By the way, is Digg doing music digg? Would not that be so cool to have? Just an idea... maybe there are too many players in the music industry and the market seems saturated. My view is that if the market is saturated, it is a great opportunity to make a huge impact with disruptive technology & business model. The market is revived then.

Gmail 2.0: I am in the 1%

My friends have started talking about Gmail 2.0 A LOT.

I posted an entry a few days back about it. I really wanted to try the new things. I was a little bit jealous about some of my friends got into the claimed 1% beta users.
I admit that I do have a few accounts. 4 actually to prepare for the soon-finished space for my most used account. Another reason why I set up more than one account was to take the account name as early as possible before Gmail becomes a mainstream product like hotmail or live mail... Up till today, I just use my hotmail/live mail occasionally even though they offered 5 GB space for users.

Now, let us come back to the topic of Gmail 2.0 beta. 2 out of my 4 accounts are in the 1%. I feel that I am lucky enough to reach the 50% chance of getting into the selected 1%. However, I also started pondering how huge is the 1% base? 1 Billion? or 50 Billion? if that number is really huge, then being in the top seemed more likely to happen to the frequent users like us (my friends and me). On the other hand, being in the 1% seemed really exciting and it makes people feel good. I am really sure if the 1% is accurate or it was just a PR tactics to generate some buzz about Gmail again...

The contacts looks really cool. Much better than the text based organization of the Gmail product. The Version 2.0 looks cleaner ( ... ).

By the way, if you use Safari to check your Gmail, you might always get looped out even though you are in the 1% beta users. I tried my account that granted the new version on Safari and it did not work as it works on Firefox on Mac. By the way, I started using Mac since the last day of July this year. This entry was posted via Firefox on my MacBook Pro. I really like it. =)

Alright. Let me take some screen shots of the Gmail 2.0! =)




It is not too far from you already... at least close enough!

In addition, the storage is growth rate has been doubled and now you have more storage... I was concerned about my Gmail storage and my Picasa storage (purchased). Now the storage all upgraded, that's really cool. It was $20 for 6 GB last year. Now it is $20 for 10GB. I guess next year the storage might go up to 25 GB for the same price. The hardware technology is just getting better and cheaper. I think Google has already made tons of money on such small storage business. All the best! I still like Picasa better than Flickr =)

Have a fantastic day! Nov 6 (11-6) 1 sounds like 'want to', 'have', 'get'; "6" means smoothness and ease... hope everything goes well!

Web 3.0: first public product/solution?

As I mentioned in the previous post about Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 stuff, the Web 2.0 wave is just passing through or maybe it is still coming along the way. Web 3.0 has started it blossoming for preparing its own wave.

Twine by Radar Networks is claimed to be the first Web 3.0 product/application/service online. Let us see once I am given an account and test it out.

They participated in the Web 2.0 Summit which was a by-invitation only conference held in San Francisco. They did their first public demo showcasing their innovation and sharing their vision for the Web 3.0 era.

Follow-up: Google & its OpenSocial

1. Stanford class on Facebook apps
class to learn and build facebook apps
2. Facebook: " We have not been briefed on OpenSocial"
what is the truth, after all the smoke? - not clear

CleanTech: Beijing Forum

As CleanTech has become the hot topic in Silicon Valley, it started seeking attention from people all over the world and disseminating its message and belief that the world can become a better place if we do something about it.

China, the third largest country in the world in terms of its landscape and the most (man)powerful country on the earth. China is actively participating in the area of CleanTech. CleanTech Nework founded in 2002 with the mission of "To provide insight, business opportunities and relationships that catalyze the growth of cleantech markets" is organizing a CleanTech gathering in Beijing.

This CleanTech conference will be held in Beijing on December 3&4, 2007 - Beijing Forum. It's going to be held at Westin Beijing Financial Street with the focus on " China - Creating a CleanTech Superpower". Isn't the theme sounding very appealing you any passionate cleantech followers?

Here is a re-print of the brief introduction.

Vast markets for cleantech solutions are being created by China’s huge energy, water and related natural resource challenges. The Middle Kingdom is also becoming a major source of cleantech innovation for export. Be it as a customer, partner or innovator, China is a key actor on the global cleantech stage, with a strategic role in carbon markets. This inaugural China Cleantech Forum will enable top investors, innovators and influencers to build relationships and identify opportunities for profitably integrating China into the world.

for more information please visit: www.cleantech.com

I have already applied for voluntary position to the event. Hope there is good news of it.

Google and its OpenSocial

Facebook platform is great...
but other social sites are not dying... they are surviving and doing pretty well. Though serious and professional social networking users are getting on to Facebook, it seemed that it's primarily knowledge workers' world. What happened to the other people who do not fall into this knowledge worker category. They should and definitely can enjoy their social networking experiences with the rest of the hot social networking sites.

Google and its new initiative towards the OpenSocial API standard is a great move... Personally I think. Even though Facebook has become one of the site that I have to visit every single time I am online. So does Google. There are many partners working with Google this time. This seems that it's going to brilliant strategy for Google to tackle this hot spot on the Internet.

It falls closely with it's mission statement as well to organize the world information. It's right... it helps people to organize some information around their socialgraph!

Looking forward to some cool stuff coming up!
As long as I do not need to register more account, I'm going to test it out!

You might find millions of articles on this topic... I still recommend this one by TechCrunch: Google Opensocial to Launch Thursday.

Google Stock passed USD 700 going toward $800

This is just astonishing...
Google is doing extremely well while many might have shifting their attention to other companies... OMG!

Techcrunch article: Google's share price !

Mac Virus: Trojan horses - Scary?

a friend shared this worrying message that "Mac OS can be hacked by viruses as well"...
I was thinking? Is it really going to affect me? I am not even bothered by the Windows OS viruses... it sounded really interesting to find out about it.

Here goes the article: Trojan Horse targets Mac OS X
It sounded that the virus in Mac is so intelligent to trick the users. Does that mean the viruses are categorized in classes already. This is sort of high-end/class virus. so interesting!

However, this is another piece to respond to that article in its own way:
Why should you be concerned about the virus? It tells you how likely you can get infected. +)
It's about Mac OS X viruses and Trojan horse.

Back to the virus topic, it all started with pornography sites. If you can just control your appetite on the website a little bit while surfing the net. I guess you are not going to get even close to infection!
Take care!

MacBook Pro: the fastest Windows Vista laptop

This is amazing!
I love this sentence the most
"Apple couldn't care less whether you run Windows"
for original article please visit this page.

yup!

We are looking at Leopard now... Don't know what MS is going to learn this time about for their new OS. =p

Cool stuff...

Facebook GUI change: minor

while surfing Facebook, i found this out...
the icon for removing notification has changed. It used to be a small "x".
Now it is a different sign more like "no" something. ha ha...
because it looks like this.



Also there is "received" and "sent by me" on the right panel.

= ) pretty interesting... though I seldom delete the notification, it looks pretty interesting to see the changes. I wonder why there is a need to change that icon?

maybe we can foresee a large roll out of icon changes in a bit. =p

Gmail 2.0

Creating buzz or what?
Google is rolling out Gmail 2.0.

key improvement
1. must faster
2. better contact management
3. small changes here and there

look at these screen shots taken from Google Blogscoped publisher Phillipp Lenssen from his blog post on "Gmail 2.0 Screenshots".

There is also another official blog on Gmail Blog by Dan Pupius.

will this really happen?

This article says that "human race will 'split into two different species' ".

As we all know, we are Homo sapiens - the scientific name for human race. In other words, our 'species' in the biological ecosystem are recognized as Homo sapiens. Or it is the generic name for human race in the ecosystem.

It was said that " the human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist."

What's going on here? What's happening with the globalization in this world right now? Does not that social and societal phenomenon bother that top scientist?

It was also predicted that "the human race will have reached its physical peak by the year 3000".

It really sounded very good. I am 23 this year and there are still 993 years more to reach the next millennium. That really requires guts to make that statement and make it public. I surely respect the evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry from the London School of Economics. There is hardly any evidence to prove that he's wrong. In the meantime, there is no proof to say he's right either. The only way to prove it is the belief and faith people have in him. It really takes guts to do it. Respect!

On the other hand, I would have to question? Who in the world right now will evolve to the elite species and who would end up as the inferior species? What he's right about is the description of the future in terms of social structure where the elite group with knowledge, wealth and power of generating more knowledge, wealth and power. On the other hand, the inferior group would more likely become the parasite of the society: they do not know how to generate knowledge, wealth and they are powerless, so they have to rely on the elite group or be the bad guys to survive.

How frictional are these! These are the extremes to vividly satirize the huge wealth gap in the existing society. But what most people might neglect is the reliance of the elite group on the inferior group. They simply cannot survive without each other. It is a very strong and weak bond between the two species. Just like the food chain concept in the nature, none seemed more important or more trivial than the other. Even though there is elite group in the food chain, they are faster, stronger and 'smarter', they still have to rely on the inferior group to feed themselves to survive.

Let us look at how elite group would be different from now, from Curry
"Men will have symmetrical facial features, deeper voices and bigger penises..."
"Women will all have glossy hair, smooth hairless skin, large eyes and pert breasts..."

How do these physical appearances make huge difference in knowledge, wealth and power generation? It seemed to me that it is more prone to some sexual matters in human race.
All these things do not seem to fall into the same picture of the future...

I do not really believe the drastic changes in human species. If there were, it meant there would anticipate another messy and bloody time in the next few decades...

We as the human race as a whole, are growing more maturely than what he might have expected.

Leopard Finally

On October 26, 2007 evening, finally the new Mac OS named Leopard has been released to the public. I did watch the preview of the how cool Leopard is before its release.

Finally, it can be purchased in the store and can be ordered online now.

Watch this guided tour! Experience the coolness of it...

It that pure Steve Job's vision? or there are a lot more people behind it.

Bio: does a vegetarian diet really help you get through your life?

A friend shared this article/promotion with us, Sophie Monk went nude to promote vegetarianism. I really respect her move as taking off your clothes for good causes. She's a vegetarian.

In the article, the author mentioned that " Eating a diet of vegetarian foods will give you more energy, help you stay trim, and improve blood flow to all of your body's organs."
I guess the interesting part is the italic "all" there in the sentence. Just like what you read above. There was a hyperlink to another article to illustrate on what's so interesting about blood flow to ALL body's organs...

I was not sure what would you have on your mind the moment they emphasized on 'ALL'. As the matter of fact, they are talking about something universally discussed - impotence. Why that? It is because it claims that "a vegetarian diet can get you through your life".
Was that really true?

How does Viagra and other anti-impotence drugs help you to temporarily solve the problem? With some physiology background, such pills just help to complete a chain reaction taken place . The lack of an importance catalyze prevented the chain reaction such that the blood flow was not stimulated to do its job to the organ. With the help of external intake of such catalyze, it can really help complete the reaction, hence the action.

What's misleading about that statement to me was that a vegetarian diet might substitute the purpose of Viagra or any other anti-impotence drugs. I don't think a vegetarian diet can do that yet, at least not scientifically yet. Was there any publication on such topic? still need to find out.

What agreed on was the healthier and more energetic life style...

To me, I am definitely a carnivore. It seemed to me that meat makes me happy and provides me with more energy because of its high protein content. I do take vegetarian diet once in a while for a change to reorganize my body with more fibers and many nutritions from the vegetables. Still I do crave for meat.

In a traditional Chinese lifestyle, a lot of grains and wheats are the major intake of the meals. Dishes of vegetables, meat and seafood are all called "side dishes" in Chinese; whereas the grains and wheats are composed with primarily carbohydrates (which will be broken down to sugars eventually). The high intake of carbohydrates will call for more usage of insulin to counter-react to the high rise of blood sugar level. The conversion of glucose into glycogen (suppress the blood sugar level) will cause the drastic drop in blood sugar level. Thus, you will feel sleepy after a big meal with high content of carbohydrates.

Therefore, the advice to people as the new lifestyle ( lunch siesta has almost been removed from a typical working day) emerges in China, is that you can choose to reduce the intake of carbohydrates during lunch or even breakfast. The best practice is that take some protein-rich breakfast and non-carbohydrate lunch and then light dinner to end the day. If you really crave for carbohydrates, you might want to take them in the evening. Of course, the intake of too much carbohydrates seems not a wise move in the evening if you have reduced calorie burn-rate. Otherwise, all the sugar will be counted towards the next process - weight gaining.

alright... stay healthy...

Online books about Ruby & Rails

"

Here’s a small list of online/ free books about Ruby/ Rails. This is just to keep the references in one place. Hope this helps someone else – it certainly helps me!

The PickAxe Edition 1 (Programming Ruby)

http://www.rubycentral.com/pickaxe/

Why’s Poignant Guide about Ruby

http://poignantguide.net/ruby/

Mr. Neighborly’s Humble Little Ruby Book

http://www.humblelittlerubybook.com/

A Little Ruby, A Lot of Objects

http://www.visibleworkings.com/little-ruby/

"

The article is from this URL.

Meebo: Firefox Add-on

meebo & firefox
christian posted this on October 22, 2007

During the course of the past several weeks, the meebo team has pulled crazy marathon coding sessions to create a fabulous Firefox add-on with visual notifications and sidebar buddylist. As someone on meebo's design team, I felt it fitting to tell the add-on creation story my own way - enjoy! - Christian

This is the true Silicon Vally - leading the technology innovation

Web 2.0 has not fully understood by a lot people in the world yet while Silicon Valley seemed to rap it up and move on to the Web 3.0 age...
What's Web 3.0?
Let us look at what Wikipedia says about it.

Web 3.0 is a term that is used to describe various evolution of Web usage and interaction along several separate paths. These include transforming the Web into a database, a move towards making content accessible by multiple non-browser applications, the leveraging of artificial intelligence technologies, the Semantic web, the Geospatial Web, or the 3D web.

Has the Web 2.0 wave arrived yet? or has it passed already? There are still a lot of questions to ask about the existing Web 2.0 technologies. There are also a lot to ponder about.

But innovation shall not stop its journey. In fact, it never did in the Silicon Valley. Now, following the Web 2.0 naming trend, 3.0 stuff are discussed and people started imagining what the Web 3.0 world is like in 2030. that's 20 years down the road. Will it go really that far? I guess it might come even earlier... Innovators, technologists and geeks are gathered in Silicon Valley and they have enough resources and brain power to work on their dreams. Isn't that cool? Let us really start to think about how the Web will be changed in 20 years.

In this article, Web 3.0 and beyond: the next 20 years of the internet, the author Jonathan Richards talked about what the Web 3.0 feelings are like and what you can sort of expect in the third phase of the evolution of Internet and the World Wild Web - the smarter and more intelligent experience on the Internet.

Here is my view. In the societal evolution, we have already stepped into this information era where you can see knowledge based industries started driving the economy significantly. For example, cars are no longer some simple transportation but equipped with all kinds of technologies. Cars have already become an information carrier for the drivers and for other people.

So you may wonder now, what does the Web 3.0 do with the societal evolution? In my opinion, the Internet, resembling a society, is undergoing its various stages of evolution. The birth of the Internet provided the vast virtual environment just like the birth of the earth-our only living environment. The living organisms on the Internet are the pieces of information. Whereas, the concept of Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 are the various stages of the Internet involved its residents - information.

The success of Web 1.0 can be benchmarked as the success of Amazon and eBay. They successfully built the virtual market place for suppliers, resellers and buyers in the commerce online, where the e-commerce was born. The information on the Internet can be exchanged and traded in an organized manner. The economy was sort of formed on the Internet. Exchange and trade took place helped the Internet grow and expand its users. The users are more like the land on the earth. As more and more users online, the better we know the land on the earth. On the Internet, the more users there, the more the Internet knows its land and then evolution will continue in a faster pace.

With the successful built of the virtual market place on the internet, the first stage also involved the generation of information on the Web. As more and more information available online, the second stage naturally came in to organize and filter the information. Yahoo, Google and many other Internet company participate in this stage of evolution. However, Web 2.0 was not defined as this stage coming to the end of it, with the emerging of the social media, like Digg, Meebo, Facebook and MySpace. These branded Web 2.0 companies are taking the role of completing the second stage with better information distribution and filtration. As one of the social structure was added to the Internet just like the real world. Information is overloading; system is getting more complex; structures are getting more complicated. Seemingly, more importantly, the participation of the users, as the utilization of the land, became more and more significant in contributing to the environment - the Internet. Right now, what we are experiencing everyday is the changes in the late Web 2.0 stage. It seems that everyday the Internet looks different than the day before. Of course, at this time, users started to welcome and get ready to embrace the advent of the next stage - the Web 3.0 era. Before entering the 3.0 world, the information are better organized and good distribution and filtration are created;however, there is one fundamental issue was still causing pain to the users- that is the information overloading. The overloading has also changed in term of order of magnitude. It's in the Tera-byte age. I think that's what the 3.0 is offering. Information started to gain intelligence and understand what the user is looking for, and then feedback to the user with relevant result. In other words, it is the transformation into the semantic time.
More interactions happen between the information and the users (the organisms and the lands), to ultimately form the unbeatable ecosystem.

- David

There are so many news on Facebook this week!

OMG!
I have been swamped with work these few days to prepare a project review.
Just now I had a little time to catch up with the tech news. Then I found out that on TechCrunch alone there are at least five pieces of news on Facebook. They are
1. Facebook Taps Into Hedge Funds for $500 Million More?
2. Perspective: Facebook Is Now 5th Most Valuable U.S. Internet Company
3. Facebook Takes the Microsoft Money And Runs.
4. Facebook Platform Cozies Up To Mobile Phones.
5. Live Blogging The Facebook Press Conference .
(in the order that I found out.)

I'll do some comments later on.
I guess I'll need to add another RSS News reader on the keyword Facebook already.

Facebook Developer Garage

I don't necessarily need to admit that I am an advocate of Facebook, an active user on Facebook and an follower of what's going on with Facebook! Because I AM one...

I have received a lot of invitation from Facebook Developer Garage Singapore. Unfortunately, I was not in Singapore all this while. There is actually a series of Garages, which can be found on Facebook Developer wiki.

I fact I feel that I am so outdated on the developer community on Facebook since I have been dedicated myself in the community as the user... maybe it is time to look at the development community and see if there is any cool and fun stuff there.

In fact, one guy from Facebook participate in the Garage via video conferencing. He is Dave Morin, Senior Platform Manager at Facebook from Palo Alto, California.

Other speakers include
Trey Philips -- Winner of F8 Hackathon in Palo Alto
Leonard Lim -- Developer of Battle Stations
Justin Lee -- Senior Technologist and Head Strategist, Duration Inc
Dr Shaun Martin -- CEO of Mindwasabi

Then after the talk they went on breakout sessions for further discussion on the three topics: technology, business and social topics. You can find more on the inaugural Facebook Developer Garage in Singapore from this live blog post.

Rock on! Facebook is great!

how to link Virtual world with Real world?

A R2VR2 model?
the real-to-virtual-to-real model?

how does the R2V2R work?
I think it is a "thin-slicing" feeling that I learn from this book called Blink, which is a fantastic book in my own view. I did not finish reading it for the first round but I've started reading again.

Alright back to his R2V2R model.

Basically I think the virtual world will play the ultimate medium in linking the real world can really diminishing the concept of location and boundaries. Even though it claims that Internet has not boundaries. It is only partially correct. The Internet itself does not limit boundaries for us. However, it seems that the day-to-day practices are more paramount that what the Internet brings to us. I cannot use Pandora outside U.S.A.. Wordpress and Blogger are blocked by the Chinese Internet firewall. there are many many instances on this matter. So i want to ask here again: does Internet really not have any boundary?
My answer to the question is still no. But I can refine the question a little bit and make it does Internet usage have any boundary? yes, there is... a lot actually... as mentioned above, it is closely related to what the real world is "designed" to operate.

Hence, I saw the possibility that the 3D Internet jump-started by virtual world will eventually make the Internet border-less. Existing practices and norms in the first world are really hard to change... it might take centuries to correct something. What 3D Internet can do is just to accelerate the correction process and make it almost instant. The premise of such possibility is just about the true freedom of the Internet... let everything get born naturally and grow organically. leave the regulations born on its own, too. (principles and values hold) Only then, the free 3D Internet can play the medium to reduce or diminish the physically boundaries in the real world.

For example, a son of a sick mom is located in the other side of the globe. He can make use of the 3D Internet to realize the wish of being accompanying his mom everyday, not only via videos, pictures, voices but also some other true feelings and emotions. The exact possible ways of implementations will not be discussed here because I think the belief of the big picture is more important than questioning how it is realized. Back to the example, the son is at one physical location and the mom is at the other. There is no way that they can physically meet everyday without one's compromising. It is the 3D Internet that plays as the medium to enable such feelings of company.

The example above might just exemplify a very small scenario of the versatile 3D Internet.

Imagine you set up stores everywhere in the world selling your product without having to meet your local representative physically via virtual world. There is definitely Amazon and eBay in the virtual worlds. However, here comes another question: How does Amazon and eBay in the virtual worlds work? or who would be the Amazon and eBay in the virtual world? themselves? or it is the virtual world itself.

I think the hypothetical model proposed is still at its early brainstorming stage... things are not clear enough to sort out a well defined model...
hope looking forward to more cool stuff coming out....

Why is company culture so important?

when we talk about company culture... what are the companies first pop out on your mind within two seconds?
Google?
Meebo?
I think these are the two I most got in touch with.
Sandy posted a blog entry on the Meebo kitchen.
Read it and see whether you understand a little bit more about what company culture really means!
My personal understanding of company culture is that it is not so much about what you tell people but rather what people actually practice and exercise the culture daily... ^^ More importantly, it is the values commonly shared that count!

the kitchen
sandy posted this on October 19, 2007

The first things to go in our kitchen are the bagels. I like to eat a light lunch and sometimes a toasted bagel with some lunch meat sounds pretty tasty. My cravings are rarely met because when the meebo team comes in in the morning, poof! the bagels are all eaten =p.

The meebo kitchen has become a pretty important place at the company: a gathering area, morning hang-out, nap room, and code review central. Since the company has become quite a bit larger than when we first moved in, the dynamics of where people relax has changed as well. Instead of one futon, we've got three. Instead of a few mugs, there are now many more hanging from the hooks on the wall. (Not to mention the morning race for those bagels!)

We've had to re-arrange desks a bit, shuffle people into places where they'll be most productive, and at the same time consider things like increased chatter, background noise, and general activity around a very open office. I wrote an entry a while back when we were moving from Palo Alto, and the office has evolved a lot.

I guess part of "growing up" in a company's life cycle is adapting the environment. Our office is a really fun place, but also a really productive place. Part of that is maintaining the balance between work and goofing off. The kitchen, for example, remains a really important factor in that balance; we can all buckle down and concentrate on the latest and greatest code review... while snacking on a handful of grapes, lounging on the couch, and kicking off our shoes.

cheers,
sandy

check out on how company culture is defined on Wikipedia.org.

cross-country: breaking rules and record

they just make use of all the technology possible to get away from getting caught by the police....
it can never happen in China.. lol
here is the article

Want to start something in Beijing

I met Leilynne, AAMA from US going to Mongolia for business. She transited in Beijing last night. We met for some snacks. It was great to meet some friends in the "new" environment.

We talked a lot about what's happening. Just to share with you, I had this goal in mind before I came to Beijing: to start some small organizations to meet more young entrepreneurs in Beijing. The idea was from inspiration my mentor at Google. Thanks to the motivation booster from Leilynne now I started putting more serious thoughts into it.

I thought a lot last night on the way back to where I temporarily stay in the International Trade Center area, a definitely a great area to live in. (unfortunately, it is only temporary for me as I bunk in at my friend's office/staff residence.) That sounds very entrepreneurial, doesn't it?=p

I have been thinking of what are the objectives of the organization that I am brainstorming. Hope there can be some suggestions and recommendations from some great people.

0. meet great people, make friends and HAVE FUN
1. meet entrepreneurs
2. meet multi-nationals in the organization
3. talk about high-tech (IT, Bio-Tech, CleanTech, Green Energy... latest and most frontier etc)
4. talk about the market (what's happened, what are the changes and what's going on and what would happen)
5. talk about business (whether they can help each other in one way or another)
6. search mentors for local entrepreneurs
7. foster mentorship program
8. help Chinese entrepreneurs with their Oral English

I also have thought of the names... ChinaConnect, CNConnect, Y.E.A (Young Entrepreneurs Association), eConnect (Entrepreneur Connect - Connect Entrepreneurs)
Out of these ideas, I prefer the last two... YEA sounds very cool and happening. eConnect looks more professional.

The next step is to jump start it. Oriented Happy Hour is this coming Thursday. I'll be volunteering for Alex and Steve. They are the founder of Oriented Beijing Chapter. I got to know Oriented through its very own founder Christine Hsu. I really liked the concept and I saw great values for the members.

looking for some feedback. =) please email me your feedback... thanks! d a v i d . d i n g [at] n u s e a . o r g ! Appreciate it!

Another conferece: Metaverse Summit 2007

Yes... another conference on Virtual Worlds and 3D Internet is coming at the end of the year in December, but this time it is in Europe (Germany, to be exact). The conference is Metaverse Summit 2007.
According the featured speakers, it seemed the crowd is more drawn from the European side in the virtual worlds. There are many unfamiliar names listed compared to the one just held in San Jose. It was the Virtual Worlds Conference & Expo, by the way.

What's metaverse? You may ask. I also just came across this word lately, when I started following on Virtual worlds. My guess was it was originated from uni-verse... the nature of the virtual worlds and 3D Internet is the meta data existence. Thus, the universe of the meta-data is then metaverse. That was my personal understanding.

After my own opinion, I checked with Wikipedia on what metaverse is about. The word was invented in 1992, actually. It used to describe the world about virtual reality. Now it is widely used as the vision for the virtual world & 3D Internet.

Looking forward to more speakers participating in this summit and of course great new initiatives on virtual worlds and its applications!

- David

the Web 2.0 Summit Hype

Web 2.0 Summit is being held in San Francisco.
This is an invitation-only conference. Lots of Web 2.0 companies are invited to the conference to talk about the hot topic and what they are doing. The invitation would definitely go to social networks, social media companies, like Facebook, Myspace, Digg, Meebo and many other ones.

I found a live blogging site here and check it out for more updates:
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/10/web_20_summit_l.html

Mark Zuckerburg was the keynote after opening speech by Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle.

Looking forward to more news from his summit!

Are you Skypy enough?

When did you first start using Skype?
I think i first started about less than 2 years... While I was exploring a cheap way online to call my parents in China from Singapore. Skype of course caught my attention. However, I only bought skype-out in Aug 2007 after my purchase of my MacBook Pro... Yahoo Voice does not work on Mac yet... i still have credits with Yahoo! =) so I really started using skype to call phones. it's been a long time. Skype monetized its services differently. This is this connection fee for each call made and it's a fixed amount - ¢3.9.

Alright! Enough about Skype credits and its charges.
There are two pieces of news on Skype from TechCrunch in two days (yesterday and today).

1. MySpace users can make free calls on MySpace IM empowered by Skype. (TechCrunch article)This service is not started yet. In 2 weeks time, myspacers can enjoy free calls among them.
It is said that this was the first time that Skype allowed its technology to be integrated into a third-party application, thereby disassociating the Skype service from the Skype client.
Does this mean Skype is also trying to open up and become a platform-like player in the voice spaces online? I think Skype service looks like a licensing model. It can increase its penetration in the market further to occupy a larger market share. By then, the opening up of its third party thingie will be fantastic... imagine you are on your Skype and you received a message from a friend sent via Facebook messages or other APIs there.. or it can be some kind of alert or notification...

2. Skype hits 10M simultaneous users mark... (wow...)
Congratulations!
What interests me more is when Meebo is hitting the 10M simultaneous users mark... it took a few years for skype to do it.... Meebo does not require a client which somewhat prevent some non-tech-savvy people participating... Meebo is different. Just log in and use it... Isn't that simple? Having mentioned Meebo, there is a good news for Meebo and Firefox users. An add-on to Firefox has been developed and launched ... check this out!

how much do you want to comment?

do you share stuff with your friends on Facebook via "Share on Facebook" browser plug-in?
I do.
I share a lot of stuff with friends on Facebook to post items there so that some of the items can be picked up by my friends who are simply interested.

this is pretty cool... it seemed that it was done by a friend of mine...
At least his photo was part of the demo picture.
alright... what it is? it's CommentAnywhere.

the tool bar is just floating on this page right now. Here is the picture.


There are really more interesting web apps and services linking up with other web services.. =)
cool...
Thanks to the platform!

- David