The Next Organization

Web 2.0 Summit 2007 - High Order Bit Presentation from Morgan Stanley

Web 2.0 Summit is often a very important event to discuss new developments and trends in the area. One of the most interesting sessions of the event this year is the presentation from Mary Meeker of Morgan Stanley. The presentation addresses technology trends in general and is very interesting, except that it cites quite a few Cisco's info (which is a clever company, but still biased, though).

The slides and video however was not included in the official site. I found them so included here.

Tim O'Reilly on Web 2.0

I have been quite busy with my job and family works, so posting was a bit light recently. This is the first comeback with a light version of an excellent session by Tim O'Reilly at SAP TechEd this year.

The video is available here but is quite big, so I also include below a summary courtesy of SAPInfo.

"Invention has to make sense in the world in which it is finished, not in the world it is started," Tim O'Reilly quoted at SAP Tech '07, being held in Las Vegas, Nevada from October 1 - 5. The founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media is convinced that, despite past pitfalls and bloated hype, the Web is the crucible (still) producing the greatest inventions of tomorrow. These inventions often carry the descriptor Web 2.0, a term he coined in 2004 and which has permeated technology copy around the world ever since. And Web 2.0 was the focus of his keynote.

O'Reilly commanded the stage nearly as well as he commanded the subject - and exuberantly ran off his six rules of Web 2.0 to an immersed audience:

Most interesting stuffs I found last week - August 14, 2007

DarwinSuzsoft Closes $48 Million in Financing to Fuel in IT Outsourcing to China Market
An interesting move in IT outsourcing to China. Motivation? Neil Garfinkel, a founding partner of Francisco Partners, said China’s large pool of technical talent, its modern infrastructure and its tremendous cost position make China a compelling choice as a technology outsourcing destination for US and multinational companies. The full press release is here.

Virgin America: Like a Multimillion-Dollar IPod. That Flies.

Most interesting stuffs I found last week - July 28, 2007

The Psychology of Social Computing: What Best Explains the Success of Facebook?
This interesting article on Social Computing Magazine points out the motivations that create attract young generation to Facebook, one of the hottest social networking sites now. This also serves as a list of good features of the site:

1. Collecting. Members collect friends, or "relationships between people", similar to collecting Pokemon and stamp, in that it taps into the basic psyche of collecting things.
2. Not invited to the party. Facebook also digs away at the insecurities in people... This may be amplified by the lie-awake-at-night worry that your peers can see your profile on Facebook, and while they may have 50, 100, 200 friends they will mockingly see that you have a pathetically small number.
3. Twitching curtains - Curiosity. Facebook is up-front about letting you keep an eye on what your friends are up to. There's a status box. You type in – if you want – what you are doing. There's another page where the most recent updated status of your friends are listed.
4. People like us. Facebook users are of wide range of age groups, making members feel comfortable with "peers who are very roughly within my age range".

Most interesting stuffs I found last week - July 10, 2007

1. Vietnam is likely to control blog contents

I wrote on my Web 2.0 presentation posted on this blog a few weeks back about government control can be one of the challenges for the development of Web 2.0 in Vietnam. Just a few days after, a piece of news on VietnamNet confirmed this. Vietnam is likely to control blog contents.

Controlling contents will cost Web 2.0 service providers human resource to review all contents. Registration data is not effective since there is no way to verify the real identify. On the other hand, controlling media contents is currently not technically possible. This means strict moderation will slow down time to post to Web 2.0 sites, and foreign sites that don't comply with this regulation (I see no reason why they will) will be banned.

After all, openness to new forms of media will undermine the power of the "official" ones, something that institutions may not like. Though I knew this would happen, I still feel sad.

Most interesting stuffs I found last week - July 02, 2007

Red Herring's report: Half of the Globe on Cells

Another example of technology is everywhere:

"Global mobile phone use will top 3.25 billion—equivalent to about half the world's population—in 2007 as cell phone demand booms in China,  India , and  Africa, according to a survey released Wednesday.

From African farmers to Chinese factory workers, mobile phone subscriptions will pass the 3 billion mark in July and exceed 3.25 billion by the end of the year, according to a report by U.K.-based telecoms analysis company The Mobile World."

Being the most popular technology access point, cell phone will become increasing important platform for content distribution and consumption. Believe advertising on cell phone will be more and more popular, as well.

The full article can be found here.

Google gives money to developers to create gadgets

Google is giving $5K grants for developers who have already had more 250,000 weekly page views to improve their gadget. More interestingly, they offer seeds investment of $100,000 to developers based on their proposal. It is another example of the business model I summarized in my recent post about Web 2.0. Detail of Google announcement is here.

What Sequoia is looking for in companies and good business plans

Probably the most respected Silicon valley Venture Capital company, Sequoia considers a few key success factors of companies they want to invest in and a couple of things people should include into the business plan. Detail is here.