Interesting statistics about Students and Facebook

Thanks for the sharing from facebook, Justin!
Here is the link to the eMarketer article.
Basically, Facebook has become the site that most of the students have to visit or have an account with nowadays... It's like the five 'C's in singapore.... it symbolizes that you are on facebook if you are a student... not necessarily the other way round...

Youtube video bar added

I also added Youtube video bar on the right sidebar.
the keywords are:
web 2.0
Internet,
Virtual Worlds,
Social Media,
Cleantech,
Green Energy

hopefully there can be good content displayed there.

Beijing Olympics Countdown Gadget

Flickr badge added

Flickr badge has been added below Meebo Chat.
I wonder if there is any picasaweb album badge or widgets.
There is one on Facebook already and iGoogle has picasa ablum gadget.
I'll do a quick search and hopefully can find it out.

The flash flickr looks pretty nice, right?
=p

New Widgets Added to this Blog

I was playing around with some cool widgets and I liked addthis.com a lot.
I got to know it via TechCrunch.com. I remember that it used to have more and more button at the end of each post and it started to take too much space on the web site.

AddThis helps you to bookmark and share a blog or blog post, and subscribe the RSS feed of a blog just via one button. (unfortunately, it is not on click. =p)

If you look at the end of this post, you can see a button that was not there before. that is the addthis button helps you to social bookmark and share the post the way you want it to work. =)
I enjoyed it.
it has so many sites that i can work with. That's great!!!
It is like the one-stop center to navigate among your various social bookmarking applications in use.

I also put the "subscribe" and "share" in the side bar under widgets. It helps you to subscribe the RSS feed to your online RSS aggregators (unfortunately, there are fewer aggregators than social bookmarkers). Nice! Nowadays, more widgets can be added to blogger.com easily!!!

I do enjoy it a lot!

the Chinese High-tech news site & personal planning

i only discovered it today while a friend of mine on Jiwai.de was seeking help from cnbeta.com friends.

It's good for bilingual people who read both Chinese and English to keep update to what's going on in the world and get connected via the same message via two different languages.
Of course, it is user-generated content sites where the articles are posted from the community. It is collective intelligence and it helps to do things.

If you don't really have time to read all the tech news everyday, you can read it every other day or twice a week. I bet probably you will get pretty up-to-date with what's going on in the IT industry...

great stuff!!! =)

I think what I need to do right after this week is to work out an updated weekly schedule to manage all the things that I need to do on the hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly basis. It is very key. I only have about four months left in total in China to work on things that i like, after which I'll be back in Singapore to continue what I have stopped in Singapore one and half years ago.

Things to consider:
1. What are the actions I perform usually?
2. What are the event I attend on a regular basis, like Oriented.
3. What is the goal by the end of May?
4. What 's traveling plan like in June?
5. What are the websites I should visit and determine on what are the frequency of the visits...
6. How to make use of Google Calendar to assist me in acting upon those action items.

Basically, I want to organize my day-to-day living in Beijing in an orderly manner and a meaningful way. =)

Friends feed almost became an web 2.0 application

Gosh!
i think Friends feed should become a standalone web 2.0 application...
I think it became very popular on Facebook after it's news feed launch.
Before that, many people were very skeptical about it and made lots of noises about its improper use. It seems that everything works just fine.
In fact, people like it more than hate it... of course, if you want to hide something and don't want other people to know it you can always change the settings. After all, it's up to you to decide how it is shown to your friends or random people. As a platform, it should provide as much as capabilities for you to play around and dig more values out of it.
=)

then.. many other web 2.0 sites started having such feed features as well. however, there is a problem after all the different sites to offer different feeds. There is lack of a central station to monitor all of them at once....

anyway... i think Facebook's opening up will help consolidate some of the feeds and make the site after-all the central station for social feeds. for others, it can go to some other avenue.

Related article

Google's Health Record Initiative

Just came across this article on CNN.
Having heard so much about Google Health before, not knowing what exactly they were going to do, right now, the piece of news shed some light on one of the initiative that they have.
- Health Records

of course, privacy issues seems to be the eternal topic on this one.
What the hack! right?
Go ahead and see what are the values of it to the mass.
It is on the voluntary basis, which means people are aware of the potential dangers or intrusive actions. Nevertheless, it seems that the pros are much more than the cons.
the pros are wide-ranged but the cons are from a drilled-down list from almost a single entry.

Google Stores Patients' Health Records

Jiwai.de works with Facebook, IMs and Cells

Jiwai.de is the Chinese twitter as the web 2.0 applications for the Chinese Internet users.
It's been there for quite a while. I found it out accidentally some time last month. I felt that I knew it for a long time!

It is very similar to twitter and it has exceed what twitter is offering.
I used twitter more often because it has a Facebook application for me to keep posting...
also because I have lots of friends who use twitter so often in the English world.

you can link your jiwai.de account with your mobile phones, IMs (Gtalk, MSN, AIM, Skype, Yahoo!, FlyingMessage (from China Mobile), Shui Mu BBS) and of course websites Facebook and twitter. Yes, jiwai.de can post messages directly to twitter.

twitxr.com does the same to post Facebook status and twitter update.

Jiwai.de also offers jiwai.de widgets via picture, flash, various codes to build up the gadget for you to embed, attach, display.

a friend has shared with me almost 5 weeks ago that there are two more twitter like Chinese websites:
fanfou.com
zuosa.com

A picture is really worth a thousand words

Check out twitxr...

it is a micro-photo-blog... MPlog?
=）
It's really nice and you can post updates via twitxr to both twitter and facebook (status).
I've got my account set up.
according to TechCrunch, twitxr is launched by FON labs...
FON... i know it... I am part of the community.
I got its wireless router to share the internet with everyone. Unfortunately, i have not been active after I left US...
Once I get my Internet Connection, I'll share it with anybody who's using it =)

iPhones: repeating Apple story again?

I shared some time last month that more than a quarter iPhones sold in 2007 have been unlocked and in fact, many of those came to China.
I have been one of the people who really want to have it... however, I did not get one because i am really pretty bad at keeping a phone in good shape. i drop phones pretty often and I am so afraid of getting one and damaging it... anyway, it's all excuse... maybe what's really true about me not getting one is that I don't like touch-pad for phones. it's so irritating to me. I used to have an O2 PAD phone and it was touch screen and i did not really enjoy using it.
Which is very different from why I did not buy Wii - a. i did not have enough energy (time and cash) to get one last year b. the stock went out too fast for me to respond...
Fortunately, I have played a lot times already... I really enjoy it and want to have one...

okay. back to the Apple story.
my friend commented that
" nothing new here for us about the rampant black mkt for iphones..

but its a sign of history repeating.. apple still has not learnt from the PC vs MAC wars of the last century and is repeating their closed-wall approach for their phone project.."

Apple did not die from the personal computer war... it survived and fought its own niche in the market. Like what I learned from John's class, Apple is branding it very much... it gives people the cool and prestigious emotional connection. Using Mac is cool - the experience is great!
using iPod is young and cool - it is just so simple and usable... look at its peripheral accessories around iPod... people made entire business value chain around it....
now iPhone.... it is another one... in China it is really fast. People are already making business out of it... this is far greater than letting iPhone unlocked and let Apple drive the next generation of iPhones...
You've gotta think of the market adoption... how long does a cool technology come out of the same company? it takes at least 2 years... 1 year to develop and 1 year to perfect it. Personally, I think if Apple did let iPhone go unlocked and break the entire US wireless market rule, everyone could afford to buy one and have fun with it.... where would the buzz come ?

I could believe that the buzz generated would not be as great as what it is today. I think Apple knows consumer psychology and behaviors very well. The less the quantity, the more valuable.

is the success only determined by the market share and total profits for a product... maybe for very money-minded people... if Mac story in the last century was indeed a failure to Steve, I don't think he would be stupid enough to repeat if over and over again. Just because the pattern for many Apple product, if not all, that really makes me think what's the true values of such actions taken... it is not only to have a cook and breakthrough technology, but also to let such technology to change the world and make its impact... maybe what Steve sees is the big big picture that drives him and makes Apple. maybe you and I have not figured it out or understood it.

Nevertheless, I believe that Changing the world is not an easy job and it takes a long time... Steve Jobs has been doing it... what makes him really great about it is not only what he has done but also his ability to pace things!

Thanks to his excellence and brilliance!

Good read: Smugglers Return iPhones to China

Facebook is going International

I just went to Facebook home page this morning as one of the daily routine. 

I found that there is some modification to the home page on the top  right corner. 

if you look at it carefully, 

you will find 

The available languages are English and Spanish... it at least opens Mexico and many Spanish speaking South American countries and European countries. 

As it is the start, we can expect more to come! Then, I won't have to juggle between Facebook and Xiaonei... hopefully, xiaonei people can get on to Facebook eventually. =) I have been promoting Facebook. =p 

Follow-up: OCEAN TWENTIES

I have created two groups: one on Facebook and the other one on Xiaonei.
Due to the book is written in Chinese, I believe that having one on the Xiaonei might help the growth of the group!

OCEAN TWENTIES on Facebook:
http://stanford.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9888811501

OCEAN TWENTIES on Xiaonei (二十几岁）
http://group.xiaonei.com/GetTribe.do?id=239994925

I have posted and forwarded more Chinese content on the Xiaonei group.

If you are interested, please feel free to join the group and start your planning

OCEAN Twenties

OCEAN is the organization I wanted to started back in November 2007. I have not updated on that since then. It was not because I have abandoned it already. NO! Of course not! It is more of I was trying to look for its positioning and its core values to people who might join... Who are the targeted audience of the organization!

I have created a Facebook group for OCEAN Twenties.

Why OCEAN Twenties?

If you have watched movies Ocean's 11, 12 & 13, you might be very impressed with the Ocean team! so that's where OCEAN + numbers for the name of the organization came.

Why Twenties?

I have just read this book telling young people who are in their twenties how they should look at things differently and make some change in their twenties to have a successful and bright future. "everything about men's life can be changed in their twenties". I found lots of resonance with what the author has talked about and I believe that lots of young people are indeed doing those and looking for directions. Thus, the organization is for people who are in their twenties and finding & building their paths to their success.

Why OCEAN?

I think it is still a lot related with what I have talked about in my previous post about the OCEAN org. it is something really cool and it can definitely add lots of values to the young entrepreneurs... Instead of just have a networking organization and providing potential mentorship programs. I believe having a more narrowed positioning can help attract the right people with similar beliefs. Most people who are right now in their twenties are born after 80s. Ocean is considered as broad, brave, open, endless and full of energy and potential and it is akin to the characteristics of the people in their twenties... full of energy and full of opportunities and possibilities.

Here comes OCEAN Twenties...

Everyone in his/her life have only 10 years in their twenties. All of us can only experience it once. The 10 years to all of us are full of energy, opportunities, possibilities and excitement. Not only we really want to take good advantage of our prime time to have fun, party more, make more friends, date more girls/boys and gain more exposure, but also do the 10 years shape us toward our future... In other words, it can determine what we are going to be like in our thirties, then forties, fifties, sixties....

Besides having enough fun and getting a fond memories, we else shall we do to help us find the right path toward our individual success to gain our own position in this world and add values to the society...

Yes, we want to get the most out of the 10 years to build a steeper and steeper learning curve and career path; we want to meet as many valuable contacts as possible to get to know each other well and better, hopefully, you can do something together in the future; we want to get enlightened and guided along the journey with great mentors and friends... there are lots we can do to make the 10 years just as the start of the wonderful and fantastic life with successes and happiness...

But how? Let us get together and talk about it... You might find somebody you have very good chemistry with and make life long friends!

Values & Principles:

0. Integrity
1. Open
2. Trust
3. Sincere
4. Respect
5. Attitude
6. Responsibilities...

Please request to join the Facebook if you have started thinking about your life in your twenties, yes... you are already on the journey....

Aggregator is Getting Really Hot

Thanks to my friend's sharing on Movable Type's latest plugin - Action Streaming, it seems that the wave of the aggregation is already here. (Really? or it is coming?)

If I look back on my experience with the aggregation thingie. I guess it was started fro Yahoo. My Yahoo's home page was there long time ago. It used to be a dashboard kind of page for Yahoo users for easy navigation within Yahoo and some outside Yahoo. I did not really use it very often as I did not really have the need for an aggregator yet. I only got in touch with Internet after I entered secondary school and then became a frequent user since 2000 (beginning of High school days).

Then I moved on using some Chinese website like Sina, Sohu, 163 etc. They did not really have something similar or close to an aggregator. Nonetheless, I started using the Internet more frequently than ever. My high school already had Education LAN to access Internet. We often hooked around the one computer in our classroom and tried surfing the web.

I got in touch with NetVibes sometimes back in late 2006 or early 2007. I got an account but seldom use it because still then my online presence was not very strong... slowly... I became so active on Facebook, Linkedin and many communities... big tent... and others. My online presence became stronger and stronger and I started to rely on Internet for information and disseminate information, too!

RSS feeds are going haywire. It's every and anywhere now on the Web 2.0 sites... even the web 1.0 sites are getting RSS feeds out of their sites. To a person, an individual user, things are going a little bit out of control - information overloaded and there is no central location to manage all that stuff.

People started using RSS reader to help solve the problem but the problem still exits. many feed readers do not help you "consolidate" information as the amount keeps increasing endlessly.

There is definitely a need for some information aggregator... I looked at NetVibes again lately... it has evolved a lot lately... gosh!

I recalled that my Canadian buddie shared with me his idea of a one central location to link all the existing social networking sites... he was pretty sharp... if he really has worked on it, probably he could have received funding and made it pretty big... it's just about a year from our conversation...

Things move really fast in SV... there is no waiting time... if you gut feeling about something is very strong and you are sure you want to do it... better get started... even you fail, it's a great learning experience. I am going to post another post about something I really want to work on right now!

WOW: BIG NEWS In 2008

Microsoft is going to acquire Yahoo!
this is really shocking to me!
It further assures me that nothing is impossible... gosh!
this is really big news in the IT industry... and of course in the financial world... who gets to work on the acquisition and transaction... they can definitely take a slice of the pie!

What's the true value of this competition?
I believe MS has long been planning to defeat Google in the very strong competition.
Facebook gave green light to MS for its shares as well as advertising services...

There are definitely more things coming along the way... It's going to be very interesting to look at it... Bill has left MS Corp and he did not do it... Steve just stepped up and this acquisition is right here... The MS story is going to more exciting after this chapter...

It's 44.6 Billion dollars...

Here is the letter from MS to Yahoo.

January 31, 2008

Board of Directors
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089
Attention: Roy Bostock, Chairman
Attention: Jerry Yang, Chief Executive Officer

Dear Members of the Board:

I am writing on behalf of the Board of Directors of Microsoft to make a proposal for a business combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!. Under our proposal, Microsoft would acquire all of the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31 based on Microsoft’s closing share price on January 31, 2008, payable in the form of $31 in cash or 0.9509 of a share of Microsoft common stock. Microsoft would provide each Yahoo! shareholder with the ability to choose whether to receive the consideration in cash or Microsoft common stock, subject to pro-ration so that in the aggregate one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be exchanged for shares of Microsoft common stock and one-half of the Yahoo! common shares will be converted into the right to receive cash. Our proposal is not subject to any financing condition.

Our proposal represents a 62% premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock of $19.18 on January 31, 2008. The implied premium for the operating assets of the company clearly is considerably greater when adjusted for the minority, non-controlled assets and cash. By whatever financial measure you use - EBITDA, free cash flow, operating cash flow, net income, or analyst target prices - this proposal represents a compelling value realization event for your shareholders.

We believe that Microsoft common stock represents a very attractive investment opportunity for Yahoo!’s shareholders. Microsoft has generated revenue growth of 15%, earnings growth of 26%, and a return on equity of 35% on average for the last three years. Microsoft’s share price has generated shareholder returns of 8% during the last one year period and 28% during the last three year period, significantly outperforming the S&P 500. It is our view that Microsoft has significant potential upside given the continued solid growth in our core businesses, the recent launch of Windows Vista, and other strategic initiatives.

Microsoft’s consistent belief has been that the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! clearly represents the best way to deliver maximum value to our respective shareholders, as well as create a more efficient and competitive company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. In late 2006 and early 2007, we jointly explored a broad range of ways in which our two companies might work together. These discussions were based on a vision that the online businesses of Microsoft and Yahoo! should be aligned in some way to create a more effective competitor in the online marketplace. We discussed a number of alternatives ranging from commercial partnerships to a merger proposal, which you rejected. While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! that we are proposing.

In February 2007, I received a letter from your Chairman indicating the view of the Yahoo! Board that “now is not the right time from the perspective of our shareholders to enter into discussions regarding an acquisition transaction.” According to that letter, the principal reason for this view was the Yahoo! Board’s confidence in the “potential upside” if management successfully executed on a reformulated strategy based on certain operational initiatives, such as Project Panama, and a significant organizational realignment. A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved.

While online advertising growth continues, there are significant benefits of scale in advertising platform economics, in capital costs for search index build-out, and in research and development, making this a time of industry consolidation and convergence. Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers, and publishers. Synergies of this combination fall into four areas:

Scale economics: This combination enables synergies related to scale economics of the advertising platform where today there is only one competitor at scale. This includes synergies across both search and non-search related advertising that will strengthen the value proposition to both advertisers and publishers. Additionally, the combination allows us to consolidate capital spending.

Expanded R&D capacity: The combined talent of our engineering resources can be focused on R&D priorities such as a single search index and single advertising platform. Together we can unleash new levels of innovation, delivering enhanced user experiences, breakthroughs in search, and new advertising platform capabilities. Many of these breakthroughs are a function of an engineering scale that today neither of our companies has on its own.

Operational efficiencies: Eliminating redundant infrastructure and duplicative operating costs will improve the financial performance of the combined entity.

Emerging user experiences: Our combined ability to focus engineering resources that drive innovation in emerging scenarios such as video, mobile services, online commerce, social media, and social platforms is greatly enhanced.

We would value the opportunity to further discuss with you how to optimize the integration of our respective businesses to create a leading global technology company with exceptional display and search advertising capabilities. You should also be aware that we intend to offer significant retention packages to your engineers, key leaders and employees across all disciplines.

We have dedicated considerable time and resources to an analysis of a potential transaction and are confident that the combination will receive all necessary regulatory approvals. We look forward to discussing this with you, and both our internal legal team and outside counsel are available to meet with your counsel at their earliest convenience.

Our proposal is subject to the negotiation of a definitive merger agreement and our having the opportunity to conduct certain limited and confirmatory due diligence. In addition, because a portion of the aggregate merger consideration would consist of Microsoft common stock, we would provide Yahoo! the opportunity to conduct appropriate limited due diligence with respect to Microsoft. We are prepared to deliver a draft merger agreement to you and begin discussions immediately.

In light of the significance of this proposal to your shareholders and ours, as well as the potential for selective disclosures, our intention is to publicly release the text of this letter tomorrow morning.

Due to the importance of these discussions and the value represented by our proposal, we expect the Yahoo! Board to engage in a full review of our proposal. My leadership team and I would be happy to make ourselves available to meet with you and your Board at your earliest convenience. Depending on the nature of your response, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.

We believe this proposal represents a unique opportunity to create significant value for Yahoo!’s shareholders and employees, and the combined company will be better positioned to provide an enhanced value proposition to users and advertisers. We hope that you and your Board share our enthusiasm, and we look forward to a prompt and favorable reply.

Sincerely yours,

/s/ Steven A. Ballmer

Steven A. Ballmer

Chief Executive Officer

Microsoft Corporation

(Letter was take fro TechCrunch aritle: WOW. Microsoft Offers $44.6 Billion To Acquire Yahoo )

Chinese Cities are going digitized really fast!

I think Google Map Street View was launched sometimes back last year before I came back from the US. If not mistake, around June, July...

Lately, I read a posted item from Facebook ,which my friend shared there.
It's about a 3D digital map of shanghai. Then I checked out the website that there are more cities available... for Beijing, it's the area within the 2nd ring is digitized on that site.
I did not check for the rest of the cities because it takes quite some memories and connection bandwidth to do it. If I had the High Speed Internet connection in China, I would definitely check that out...

Thinking about the High Speed Internet, I kinda want to start another company to do the High Speed ISP for the metropolitan cities in China... Gosh... as the increasing demand of the Internet connection, ADSL speed is too slow for offices...

I remember my junior who just went back to Singapore told me that they installed Gigabytes LAN for some big companies already... Imagine... how important that is for local companies to have that kind of infrastructure to speed things up and increase their efficiencies... gosh!!! this is another start-up idea I have... I have been thinking about starting things all the time and identify feasible opportunities and potential collaborators/co-founders to do things. Of course, Internet connect stability and security are two others aspects to look at.

Sorry for the bit of sidetrack, let us come back to the "digital cities"... one thing good about being a developing place is that you can always learn and borrow some already existing cool stuff to leverage on and build on top of it. You can also innovate from there. It's like the starting point is higher than some even developed countries... Of course, there are various issues associated with that model for sure. Significant amount of engineers need to be trained to learn those established and emerging technologies to catch up and at the same to develop new things at the same time! It's difficult... maybe that's why there are so many business opportunities in China...

I need to see and explore more this huge market to find a niche and great potential market...
wow... feel really excited about it...

okay... let us come back to the digitization of Chinese cities:
Here are the websites:
1. e-Metropolitan: www.edushi.com
2. City Bar: www.city8.com

to check the online maps in China there are a few websites you can use to do so for both public transportation as well as driving directions. (recommendation: you cannot rely on only on site because of the always-changing cities and road conditions... sometimes it is not reflected on the web promptly)
1. Map Bar: www.mapbar.com
2. Baidu Map: ditu.baidu.com
3. Google Map: ditu.google.com

(the above links are all in Chinese...)