Office Tools in the Web 2.0 Age

Online answer to Microsoft Office?

http://online.thinkfree.com/index.jsp

Something against Excel:

http://www.irows.com/

“Powerpoint on Steroids”:

http://www.thumbstacks.com/

My Personal Favourite against MS Word:

http://www.writely.com/

TammyGate and how the world discovered Singapore

If there’s one good thing coming out of the whole Tammy porn video fiasco, it is the fact that web users all around the world has discovered how web-savvy and voyeuristic Singaporeans are. Web savvy because as of this time, Tammy-related keywords dominate the Top 6 searches on Technorati, “Tammy NYP” was No. 9 on Yahoo Buzz Log yesterday, proving that Singaporeans had turned to the Internet in overwhelming droves for alternative information.

I also like to think we made the rest of the world interested in us, further driving up the search numbers, because I cannot imagine how a country of 4 million in Singapore, even with 80-90% internet penetration numbers, can form such a formidable force and influence on the global search engines. But I could be wrong, apparently, this new blog of mine is on Page 3-5 of Google search results and I still manged to get 300+++ hits yesterday. Maybe, Tammy-searchers are really information junkies and they do anything to get that extra morsel of info, even scouring that long tail of web searches.

With the high visibility of blogs and the establishment of this medium as an alternative information source, how can Singapore, or the world, leverage on this consumer trend? Web-based service innovation is thoroughly lacking in Singapore, with a few exceptions. Many Singapore-based website interfaces are antiquated, highly un-navigable, slow to load, reflecting an abject lack of user-orientedness. On the business side, internet advertising growth is crawling with slow adoption rates. I wonder if this is due to the hesitancy and fear of media buyers or lack of advertiser awareness. We are still stuck in the doldrums of the dotcom bust as evident in the droves of graduating computing students diving into the investment banking and consulting whirlpools while idiotic business students like me dream of conquering the internet industry. While programmers in Silicon Valley and other Web 2.0 hubs around the world are caught up in cloning what I call the “Digg-MySpace” phenom, a lack of non-public sector nurturing factors is forcing the Singapore web industry to “Digg-OurGrave”.

We might need to start churning out copycats, even if that isn’t being seen as being innovative, because we are so far behind the curve comparatively that mimickry might just be the shortcut to success. There is so much public sector support in the form of hardware infrastructure and money and political support Granted that the latter might not be a critical variable of the entrepreneurship equation, I believe that the impetus to move beyond our current inertia in web-based entrepreneurship has to come from the private sector. The public sector has done all it can and has reached saturation point, thank you though, but lets get our act in the private sector together and start bringing in experts, VCs, mentors into Singapore or send them overseas to kickstart web (and web-based media) innovation.

Blogs are one of many good ways to start off. While Mr Brown, Tomorrow, Miyagi, Rockson leads the vanguard, we should be looking towards the next wave who understands the value of blogging and its disruptive potential as a publishing medium. Bloggers have to think big and understand that a part-time hobby, if strategically planned, could develop into a source of passive income with the right content and right target audience (global!). Singlish might be cute for local readers, but its a laughing stock or “xiaxue”/ (hokkien translation for the word “shameful”) when it hits the mainstream web audience.

For those interested in what I had to ramble about, and want to commit to some entrepreneurial action, check out this site.

Berkeley lectures as podcasts

Almost as good as actually attending Berkeley…?

read more | digg story

The 911 Lie: How much do you trust the official story from the Bush Administration?

Pretty much, since most of us read the 911 news without suspicious minds and took it at face value. With deeper thought by the “Loose Change” video producers and choice evidence showcased in this clip, I have reason to believe there’s a deeper story that’s hidden from the world. So ugly this story might be that, maybe that’s one reason so many people choose to shy away from reality. (Are you feeling too comfortable in your sanitized, pre-fabricated world?)
No observable evidence of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon? A Flight 93 that smashed into Philadelphia with no detection of bodies by coroners? What about the collapse of the World Trade Towers that went down like detonated demolition projects? Not to mention the evidence of pre-collapse explosions within the World Trade Towers from eyewitness accounts, visual evidence? What about the mysterious put options placed on the stocks of the airlines involved in these terrorist attacks? How did flight passengers even text message or send calls from planes flying in the skies to their families?

So many questions, so few answers. I am not saying I totally believe this video clip. What I do believe is that we have to keep searching for the truth because it ain’t coming from the current Bush Administration. A War on Terror? I am sceptical. The real terror we should be afraid of is deceit from one’s own political leaders.

Watch the video here.

State of The Blogosphere Address — By Dave Sifry

Dave, co-founder of Technorati, gives a “State of the Union”-esque address comparing incumbent mainstream media against the upstart punks of blogs. I think what he means to say can be summarized rather well, at the end of the post.

Just to rehash a few points, Dave used the Wayback machine to compare the blog rankings for several timelines from 2002 till today and arrives at the conclusion that the dynamic change in rankings of certain blogs proves top blogers have low network effects over time and that it is still possible for new blogs today to rise to the top of the curve and become an A-list blog, given good content and the right links. A-list bloggers , as with Z-list bloggers, were covered by Robert Scoble recently as part of a fellow blogger’s queries on how difficult it was to scale to the top of this blog hierarchy.A lot of bloggers, including myself, harbor dreams of scaling this ladder as we all hear the same spiel on how advertising dollars are shifting from old to new media on the web and how the Next COming will enrich us all when the shift is complete. As we scramble to post new articles and hope for the right link, frantically emailing everyone we can to read our blogs, cajol them to cross-link from their blogs to you, it is important to note that some of these blogs will never scale the top of this mountain.

I thought this blogger summed it up pretty good, and reasonated, to some extent, with what Dave had to say about how not all bloggers will be rich but rather , they enrich the web with a diverse range of content that cater to the topical niches and micro-communities of web users.

Why do i blog now? I guess besides the distant dream of riches, it was also the fact that I know i reach out to some friends, share insights with some stranger halfway across the globe, on my views and opinions on issues of mutual interest to us. For those few minutes, there is interaction of ideas. And on a blog, essentially a virtual canvas of our thoughts, comments help to enable conversation and perform the role of a trading exchange of ideas. I derive satisfaction from knowing my traffic goes up, more when i get a comment because that feedback loop tells me i manage to strike the right chord with someone who will bother to type back on this canvas. In some way, its actually quite fun. Little nuggets of real human thoughts, wants, desires explicity laid bare hoping for recognition and acknowledgement. THis makes me think of a parallel, how NASA places platinum plaques inside their Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft that are now crusing through the outer reaches of our solar system, hoping that one day, someone out there will reach back to us.

I think blogging is another extension of the innate human need to socialize. And PostSecret cannot express this need more succinctly than its current web traffic.

Calling E.T. and his Alien Family: From Singapore with Love

Jealousy (that Dubai was going to have their own spaceport) turned to incredulity,disbelief and finally excitement when I read that Singapore was going to have our own Spaceport!

And it will be ready by 2009!

I never thought space travel and Singapore could ever be mentioned in the same sentence. I thought wrong, all thanks to Burt Rutan, SpaceShipOne, Paul Allen. (Maybe Microsoft ain’t that evil after all, or maybe Paul Allen was never evil anyway)

Space Adventures, a US company based out of Arlington, VA has chosen Singapore to be the natural choice destination for space travellers in Asia. Apparently, they think the same reasons Singapore became a sea and air hub for Asia positions it to be a potential high-payoff space hub too! Ignoring the economic benefits from tourism aside, this will be a major coup for Singapore if it really happens. We finally have something cool other than an exotic arts theatre designed based on the shape a local spiky fruit. Finally, I am beginning to really believe all the government spiel on us becoming a “global city”. Wtf, we will go one up and become a “galactic city” man. I can see this spaceport becoming very compatible with ournewly designed Supreme Court building (the one with the huge UFO disk left over from the Independence Day movie set).

This brings me to another exciting and relevant news article.

There might really be life outside of earth. And someone has told us specifically where to look.
Margaret Turnbull of the Carnegie Institution of Washington has announced the top 10 list of star systems where life could possibly exist. This is based on a stringent list of parameters, based on current human knowledge of our universe, such as the size and lifespan of the stars, the iron composition of these stars etc. The nearest star system is only about 10.5 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus (the River). Thats only 10 friggin’ years! (assuming we figure out a way to travel at light speed)Now, lets indulge in some fantasy for a while, assuming:

1. we invent warp speed (from Star Trek) or have a significant breakthrough in energy research (either nuclear fusion or antimatter) in the next 20-30 years,
2. apply the computer industry’s rate of innovation to the energy R&D and commercialization product development life cycle,
3. I get fucking rich,

On my 50th birthday, I will be able to step outside my mansion in Singapore, drive my flying car to Spaceport Singapore, board a White Knight-clone that will take the cargo load (containing me) to 14km above sea level, and let me blast off to epsilon Eridani. for a 20-year return space flight. (modus operandi of SpaceShip One launch )

Now, thats a good dream to have. Back to reality…

Tracking Web 2.0 in Southeast Asia

Digg/ reddit clone found! Check out MySpy

According to the description:

SpyMy is an aggregator of news and stories you want to read, created specially for the South East Asia region. SpyMy allows users to decide what to and what not to publish. Take charge now, Spy your favourite story or submit a story that you’ve Spyed.
The interface is identical to Digg althought the color scheme is terrible. Thats a damn easy fix though. It will be curious to find out how long the “self-confessed” geek-creator took to build this and when he actually launched it. Its suffering from a chronic lack of users currently probably due to lack of marketing awareness but we shuld at least applaud the guy for making an effort at advancing the current poor state of web-based service innovation in Southeast Asia. I will be glad if he is actually from Singapore as well as he will further shatter my theory (i gladly oblige!) of atrocious Web 2.0 innovation in my home country.