Netizen

Friday, May 01, 2009

New York City: Transformed Forever?

9/11 happened here. But that was the work of the Al Qaeda. America and the world were transformed forever. The financial 9/11 happened. But that was not the work of the Al Qaeda. The bungee jump phase has already lasted nine months. I think we are about to hit the plateau phase. (That Plateau Feeling) How long will that last? When will we see the take off phase? How soon?

The pain of the bungee jump has been very real. It has been across the board, it has been across the country, it has been across the globe.

There's death to disease, there's death to accident, and there's death to crime. They don't fall in the same category. Children dying to diarrhoea do not fall in the same category as people dying to genocide. Two investment banks falling to the global financial crisis does not fall in the same category to the two buildings falling to 9/11.

This city has lost tens of thousands of jobs that will never come back. The challenge is to create tens of thousands of new jobs. The challenge is to create new jobs, companies, and industries. The basic greatness of this city has not changed. This city still attracts the top graduates of the top schools in the country. This city still attracts people from every town on earth. This city still has money, and people, and the infrastructure. This city has the capacity to create.

This city has the option to reimagine itself, and claim an even more central place in the planet's imagination. (Silicon City)

Reimagining The Office
Stream 2.0: The Next Big Thing?
Microfinance, Nanotech, Biotech, Software/Hardware/Connectivity
Define Social Media
Peter Thiel: Primitive Mind In The Tech Sector
The Stream, The Lifestream, The Mindstream
David Gelernter: Manifesto
The Human Is The Center Of Gravity In Computing
Visionary Entrepreneurs Will Recreate The World
The Search Results, The Links, The Inbox, The Stream
Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
Web 5.0 Is Da Bomb

Reimagining The Office

Image via Wikipedia

Technology will never substitute face time. (Web 5.0: Face Time) But is the cubicle the best way to respect that fact? And if you have to stare at the screen for several hours each day, does that screen have to be in a cubicle?

And if people become so central to the knowledge economy ways, don't sexism and racism and other isms become unbearably intolerable? I mean, if you are trying to get the very best out of each member of your team. You want each person on your team to give the very best they can.

And if it is the knowledge economy and knowledge workers we are talking about, what does it mean to be committed to lifelong education? Education never stops. What does that mean?

Stream 2.0: The Next Big Thing?
Microfinance, Nanotech, Biotech, Software/Hardware/Connectivity
Define Social Media
Peter Thiel: Primitive Mind In The Tech Sector

If the best idea could come from anywhere on the team, what does that do to the traditional hierarchy? Is there a hierarchy? Has the pyramid become a cloud? The best ideas might come from outside the team. What does that do to the team? Could the team be learning?

What would it mean to take a company through one paradigm shift after another, every few years? How long can you keep that startup feeling before you are big but no longer on the bleeding edge?

People will leave. You will ask some people to leave. You will outsource some of your work, you will crowdsource some of your work. What does it mean to have a core team in that sea of volatility? What does it mean to build and enrichen and deepen relationships?

What would it mean to have a company completely at peace with social media?

But there's a flip side to the face time concept. What if geography is irrelevant, as it is, and I can attempt face time with you still? There's emailing, chatting, audio, video, there's facebooking, tweetering. That changes things. You can feel India's presence right here in New York City.

But the new office can't just be a fashion statement. The new office has to make more money than the old office. The new office should get rid of discredited, old paradigms, but it should also breathe new life into timeless values. Profits still matter. Innovation matters. Hard work matters. Playing by the rules matters. Breaking rules matters. Teamwork matters. Out of the box thinking matters. Leadership matters more than ever. Customer service matters. The market is the goddess we worship. Market forces matter. Democracy is the goddess we pay homage to. Doing good matters.

Some things change fundamentally. Some things never change.

Feedburner Jump: 6 To 31
Facebook's Ad Space Is Different
Netizen Is No Spam Blog
Best Way To Increase Traffic To Your Blog
The Android Architecture
Android Netbook
Donut Android: Android 2.0
Android
Google: Tweet Me Baby One More Time
Real Time Search: Twitter Is Not Doing It
Google's Newest Venture: Google Ventures
Distributed Search
Wolfram Apha Is Cool
The Plateau Will Last Less Than Nine Months
Google Falling Behind Twitter?
Taking The Number 2 Spot On Google Search For Donut Android
Hitting Number 4 For Google Search Results on Cupcake Android
Donut Android: Windows 95, Android 2009?
Cupcake Android Delay Reason: Donut Android
Eminem: The Relapse: Twitter
Bad Time To Start A Company?
The Big Money Is Not In Blogging
Cisco's Big Dreams: A Clash Of Titans?
Google Analytics Says I Am Paul Krugman Friend, Cupcake Android Expert
What Does Your Resume Look Like Today?
What Just Happened?
Content Is Queen, Marketing Is Princess
Google Is Working On Search
What If The Plateau Lasts Nine Months?
Mideast Peace: Tech Industry Style
Job Hunting And 2.0
Brands Will Still Matter
Facebook Faceoff Firefox
Ggoats
Stand Up Comedy: Thinking On Your Feet: 2.0
Is Reading Socializing?
New York City: Transformed Forever?
Reimagining The Office
Stream 2.0: The Next Big Thing?
Microfinance, Nanotech, Biotech, Software/Hardware/Connectivity
Define Social Media
Peter Thiel: Primitive Mind In The Tech Sector
May 5 NY Tech MeetUp
The Stream, The Lifestream, The Mindstream
David Gelernter: Manifesto
Blogging: Monkey Business?
Content Is Queen
Cyber Security: Growing Challenges
Converting To The Mass Follow Formula On Twitter
Stephen Hawking Has Taken Sick
NewsDesk: China, Twitter, Hawking, Obama
Blogging = Learning + Teaching + Churning + Entertaining
The United States Of Entrepreneurs
Spamming Om Malik
Digg Button, Twitter Button For Your Blog Posts
My Relationship With Ashton Kutcher
The Human Is The Center Of Gravity In Computing
Blogging Several Times A Day
Visionary Entrepreneurs Will Recreate The World
That Plateau Feeling
Blogging Tips
0 Tweets, 30,000 Followers: Could That Be Oprah?
That StartUp Mentality (2)
That StartUp Mentality
A Blogger Is Also An Editor
Blog Daily
Where Have You Placed Your Ads?
Twitter Is Not Micro
Cupcake: Android 1.5
Skype: Hub
The Depth Of Your Friendships At Twitter
Goal: A Billion People On Twitter
Search Come Full Circle: That Human Element
Sites That Pay You To Blog
Five Years Of Gmail: What Would Gsus Do?
The Search Results, The Links, The Inbox, The Stream
Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
I Talked To Google Through Twitter And It Worked Like Magic
Cisco Unified Computing System: To Tidy Up Data Centers
NYTM 03/09/09: Fashion Institute of Technology
Jeff Jarvis: Bold Restructuring
Twitter And The Time Dimension
What Should Facebook Do
TweetDeck, Power Twitter, Twitter Globe, Better Than Facebook
NYTM Mailing List Continued Controversy
TCC: Twitter Community College
Twitter Tips: It's A Bird, It's A Bird
NY Tech MeetUp Mailing List Web 5.0 Controversy
Web 5.0 Is Da Bomb
Competing For the Web 3.0 Definition
NY Tech MeetUp: 02/03/09
Conceptually Diligent: Web 5.0 Is Repackaging Hello
Onto Digital Publishing
Mitch Kapor Now Following Me On Twitter
Plenty Of Fish: Online Dating King
Defining Web 4.0
I Get Twitter
Indra Nooyi: Power Woman
Yahoo: The Original Dot Com
Craig Silverstein
Apple's Mobile Space: Sizzling

Vint Cerf, Abdul Kalam, Larry Ellison
Mind Blowing
Diller Country, Month 2
Microsoft, Google, Facebook: NY Tech MeetUp Has Arrived
Silicon City
Nic Is Back
Open Coffee MeetUp: New Location
The Unfacebook
Money For Yahoo And Money For Google
Dell Memo
Entrepreneurs: Spikes
Bear Stearns: An Investment Bank
Web 5.0: Face Time
Search: Much Is Lacking
Enter The Titans: AMD Smacked By Intel
A Web 3.0 Manifesto
Nic Butterworth's Open Coffee MeetUp
Scott 2.0, MeetUp.com 2.0
Dell, HP, Apple
Michael Dell
Larry Ellison
Google Books: Primitive
PC
Carly Fiorina: The Academy Awards Of Business: Photos
Carly Fiorina: "The Academy Awards Of Business"
Early Stage Venture Capital
Google Audio, Google Office
The Next Search Engine
Google Video
Google: Free, Wireless Internet Access, Pay Per View Video
Yahoo Phone, Google Office, Google Finance
Are You A Fonero?
Kosmix: Desi Pride
Email, Search, News
Memo To Bill Gates
xMax
Free Wireless Broadband, Reenergized Microsoft
Google's To Do List Keeps Growing
China, India And The World
In Defense Of Google Digitizing Books
Google's Corporate Transparency
Google And Languages
Vonage And WiMax
Social Networking: Where The Internet Comes Down From The Clouds
Wi-Mesh
Superfast Cable Broadband And The Rest Of The Daily Soup
Into the Nitty Gritty Of WiMax
The WiMax Appeal
Google Again
The $100 Computer
Google Video Has Hit The Docks
Internet Phones, Video Blogging, Nano
Google And Browsers And More
Not Hardware, Not Software, But Connectivity
Google: Poised To Be The Number One Software Company In The World

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Stream 2.0: The Next Big Thing?

Image by

The Economist

via CrunchBase

Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter

You could argue FriendFeed is doing it, but maybe not. Hotmail had an Inbox. Gmail has an Inbox. Before Hotmail Outlook had an Inbox.

Twitter beat Facebook to the punch on the stream concept. Facebook has all the traffic, but Twitter has all the buzz.

The buzz moved from Microsoft to Google and Bill Gates offered to buy Google, "at any price." The buzz moved from Google to Facebook, and Google wanted to buy Facebook. Facebook wanted to buy Twitter.

"Is my credit good enough to buy you out?"

I came across UnHub when this TechCrunch article got emailed to me recently: UnHub Offers A Simple Way To Showcase The Online You. UnHub smells of possibilities, although the tough economy has many of us on the tizzy. It is a crack at the stream concept. Many took a crack at the Inbox. Many will take a crack at the Stream. Several will survive.

If you think about it, it is ridiculous that I have to go to this one place on the web to update my status. The stream should be able to zap up my status on its own from my many different online presences.

Evan Williams has talked recently of revolutionizing email. Perhaps the next level email will attempt a fusion, a fusion between the Inbox and the Stream.

The Stream, The Lifestream, The Mindstream
Microfinance, Nanotech, Biotech, Software/Hardware/Connectivity

David Gelernter: Manifesto
The Human Is The Center Of Gravity In Computing
Visionary Entrepreneurs Will Recreate The World
The Search Results, The Links, The Inbox, The Stream
Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
Web 5.0 Is Da Bomb

Microfinance, Nanotech, Biotech, Software/Hardware/Connectivity

Maybe Jack McCambridge - never met - is not the microfinance messiah, but a visit to his blog yesterday helped me gel a thought. I must have a soft spot for white guys who end up in India: I am half Indian. I found his blog at the blogroll of Slice Of Grice a few days back.

Reveling, In India

I think of microfinance the way I think of software/hardware/connectivity, biotech, nanotech. I fantasize of a day when the world pours a trillion dollars into microfinance instead of pouring trillions into housing bubbles in rich countries like just happened.

Top tech entrepreneurs expect to make billions. People who will help the world pour a trillion dollars into microfinance should fall into that same category. The return from microfinance is twice as that from US treasury bonds, more. But China gave an American president almost a trillion to fight a wrong war instead.

The near transparency at all levels that IT will make possible will help that goal of major league microfinance. But ultimately it is for individuals to step up to the plate.

Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
Dell, HP, Apple
The WiMax Appeal
Internet Phones, Video Blogging, Nano
Not Hardware, Not Software, But Connectivity

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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Define Social Media

Image by luc legay via Flickr

My childhood best friend - the only person I have "tagged" as such - is on Facebook, but we don't do Facebook, Twitter, Gchat, we do very little Gmail. He only comes alive on the phone: I wish we talked more often. And I'd love to get him to move to New York. He is in Georgia, the state. He is an engineer who went to engineering school in India, and came to America after winning the diversity lottery. He has a green card, a wife, a daughter. We grew up in Nepal.

The most prolific litterers of my Facebook stream are not people I know best in person. One I have met only once, or maybe twice, but I doubt he will recognize if he were to meet me again: Baratunde Thurston. I tried to get his attention a few days back. Your profile photo is scary, I said. He did not notice, he did not respond. He is one of those for whom Facebook is a broadcast medium. He updates his status every other minute. He is speaking, he is not listening.

8 - yes, that is her middle name - is also very prolific. I met her on Plenty Of Fish, we have never met. But she was not one of my Plenty Of Fish horror stories. (Plenty Of Fish: Online Dating King) She was impressed I had managed to track down her Gmail address. We exchanged a few emails, became Facebook friends. She said she was dating Craig Silverstein. Which Einstein? Is he googleable like you? I asked. I ended up exchanging one email with Craig: Craig Silverstein. Recently 8 made me do this: http://twitter.com/paramendra/statuses/1643658620

I decided to use Twitter as a broadcast medium myself. (Converting To The Mass Follow Formula On Twitter) But on Facebook I have opted for something else. After all, this is my second Facebook account. The first one Facebook deleted afer I had acquired about 1500 Facebook "friends." I have about 50 pending friend requests. I am open to online only friendships. But some of these who send friend requests are not up for exchanging even emails.

Define Social Media

In trying to figure out social media I think a lot of us start at the wrong end. Instead of starting with people, we start with old media. And so new media looks fancy and intimidating. All new media is saying is anyone who can come online can broadcast. All new media is saying is people now have the option to talk to each other in a big way. It is weird that was never possible before. Because the concept is so very simple.

Meeting new people, finding new information, establishing new connections, enriching existing ones, social media makes all that possible. People are all the rage on the web.

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