Microsoft ReMIX 2007 Afternoon

This was the screen saver they used to attracted my attention, and it was awesome:

You can down load the screensaver here

In the afternoon I went over to the business track titled THE POWER OF DIGITAL MEDIA. The speech was based on the idea that with the invention of technology that enables people to digest information electronically, the advertising scheme of personalization and the underlying software platform will emerge to become main revenue generator for business.

The speaker is Chris Schaumann. He is Country Sales Manager in Singapore of Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions. And I think that’s the reason I never find his talk boring comparing to some pure technical track I attended later.

I jotted down a few things he talked about and with my reviews of them following right after them.

Consumers are taking control, being more sophisticated, they choose what they want to see.

Starhub is doing trail on TiVO in Singapore, the result? We skip the Ads. and watch the program encored. This reminds me of the commercial I watched at the end of TED talk, produced by BWM. That’s awesome.

Blogs have changed people’s ideas of New Information.

Only 2% of 30% of the people in Singapore spends time on advertising.

We need to utilize the radical change brought by Internet to work on the information feeding to us.

Take a look at bringtheloveback.com where Microsoft wants to change the image of New online Advertising.

Steve Ballmer has talked about Windows Before, Developer followed. And a year ago, Steve Ballmer talks about Advertising, Advertising and Advertising!

- Find the Video on Youtube -

The market of software and advertising are converging, the overlap of these two markets are producing a huge market for software platform. Windows is claiming to be a window platform and services provider.

XBox360 Server enables cross platform game: XBOX360 vs PC

Massive InGame advertising: Streaming Ads according to your profile and put in the game – Oh, well we know who you are! That’s really nice ads.

25 Year Old Adults are the main target of these Ads. I think more vibrant ads would attract people’s attention: example I see a wine ads, and estee see a diet coke.

5 Years down the road, WCG with games when virtual reality become true, we see the trend converging of real and virtual advertising.

Microsoft in Concert: Streaming live/archives of the concert.

On 07/07/07 Live Earth Concert -> You can watch the concert live through MSN

Al Gore is coming to Singapore this August, Microsoft is supporting that.

Encarta Bot is something interesting add this encarta@botmetro.net, thanks to Jiin Joo

Nike is cool! Nike Kimewaza

Wedding Vows 2.0

I could still remember the day when we made our wedding vow:

And when she got first her first child:

As technology evolves, people’s mind set changes slowly with it.

Sapir Whorf Hypothesis states that the language one uses influence his actions.

The more we use the language that involves the technology, the more we incline to think that way. Since Google has entered Oxford English Dictionary as a verb, the world is open to all the possibilities of letting the trend shape the thoughts.

Do you have a Mind Set 2.0?
Mind Set 2.0 is an open-sourced, non-priority thinking methodology that is licensed under creative commons, with VCs and investors in mind, always prepared to blog, podcast or ustream interesting or value added information to the global community through Facebook, YouTube and Blogs at any time, which is to achieve two way conversations, clicks and click-throughs, therefore $$ from Adwords that are generated from the various technorati tags you put in your post, or the trust and authority people put in you which is linked to the products you sell through viral marketing: word of mouth – always remember the tipping point and Google at the back of their mind along with IPO.

iX 2007 Live Chat Transcript

There were many of us chatting live during the iX conference and the iX-TDM forum. I have attached the cleaned up version of the transcript in the attachment, if you want to the original version of the chat log, you can drop me an email or SMS with your email address. And I will send it to you.

First Day Main Conference (PDF 144KB)

Second Day Main Conference (PDF 263KB)

iX-TDM Forum (PDF 439KB)

–plug –
If you would like to see a SMS chatting system in your conference, you can contact me for future discussion.
–unplug–

New Media Contigent in Singapore

This post is cross-posted on The Digital Movement Blog

To us, new media is the convergence of new technological trends and the new marketing paradigms.

With that in mind, during the iX Conference, we have set up a New Media Booth for the purpose of introducing to you the people in Singaporean Community who are are caring for the development in media around the world. They are constantly seeking, forming and sharing in various communities – They are the people making great stuff happen in New Media landscape of Singapore!

We compiled a list of people within the communities that we reach out to and with profiles attached to each of them, and here it is:

New Media Contigent PDF(255KB)

Page 1 Page 2

Working Less is More

The awesome writer Tim Ferris wrote a book called “The 4-Hour Workweek“, which talks how about how to cut down your time wasters in every day’s life.

Here is not-that-short interview by Robert Scoble.

[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/06/PID_011485/Podtech_TimFerris_EditorsChoice.flv&postURL=http://www.podtech.net&totalTime=500000&breadcrumb=1b4d844c1bea46afbf1e5d6083aa9dec]

There is a nice book excerpt on Life Hacker here.

I have read the book once this Month, and I am going to read the book again in one month’s time. Once thing I learnt from the book is the 20/80 percent rule. And one application of that is to find the 20% people which brings 80% of your happiness in your life. And talk to them more often.

Working less brings more opportunities for you to broaden your thinking and expand your vision, for the product of being effective in working is an improvement in amount of free time you have.

However, that does not mean you are able to get away with less effort. “Working Less” sounds deceptive enough as “Working fewer hours with same effort”

The secret of getting more productive through less time of work is to put in more efforts, not less. Why? I think you know the answer

Google – Enterprise 2.0

During the iX2007 Conference, Google’s VP of Engineering and Chief Information Officer Douglas Merrill explained Enterprise 2.0 from a Googler’s perspective.

Here is the audio content:
[odeo=http://odeo.com/audio/13325393/view]

I love his animated presence on the stage and wonderfully crafted words. I was to conclude that what he talked about was really the vision before I discovered this great video on Youtube through PodTech – Eric Schmidt and Douglas Merrill on Google Apps:

GDP of Singapore = South Carolina

I came across the picture depicting the GDP levels in U.S. in different states [via strangemaps] by using the GDP of different countries. I am happy to learn the GDP of Singapore is equal to South Carolina. Looking at different states that is represented by other countries, which are several time larger than Singapore, I am really impressed by the leadership of this country.

In the iX Academic Forum today, I had a chance to talk with Jennifer Lewis and
Mike Downey on topics like Premium Education and Free Products. Mike told us that private schools are getting more and more popular these days, it cost people an arm and a leg to put their kids in the school to give them a pair of golden wings.

Not surprisingly, the premium education is stuffing more and more knowledge into the kid’s, which I do not agree. Kids should have a childhood playing, not being locked up in a room to learn things!

However, despite the disagreement on whether to put kids in this education system, I agree with Mike that the hunger for something better is there.

Jennifer then mentioned how Singapore Government wanted to give each house a computer, but they thought that action might not bring the maximum benefits to the citizens without letting them having the hunger for the products.

Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore has this plan for iN2015, which intends to provide a fast and stable Internet Infrastructure (Wired and Wireless) for everyone in Singapore. One main purpose of think is to make people want to use the structure, creating the hunger for device that leverage the infrastructure. By then giving each family a computer could come naturally.

Brilliant Government and Interesting Statergy.

Headless Man Jogging in Tokyo

And he finally transformed to a flying saucer?

(this is a purely fun post, if you are looking for something more useful, read on)

I don’t want to see that day coming yet, even When Singularity is Near. I am totally not prepared to do that. On a side note, if you are looking for some cheer generator or tatoo generator, here are some fun you can have

Teaser for Nexus 2008

I know, deep down your heart, you desparetely want an iPhone.

Someone was putting three pints of beer one each other. That really takes time and practise to master. To me, it sounds like I have to learn to play Guitar and Piano well from ground zero.

Do you want to paint your street more colorful so that the lanes could be easily identified and the road could be less boring?

Someone did it

and again

I am wondering how cool it is to drive on a pink road?

If that’s not interesting enough, this one should do:

If you don’t know where the public toilet it, whatshould you do? Take your laptopand search Google Map? or Use an iPhone with the predictive keyboard? No!

You send a SMS to 415-350-2290. From MizPee Beta

This is the trend of web lead by the Web 2.0 Conference?

Enjoy the Kevin’s Talk this coming Tuesday, it should be really fun!

When
Tuesday, 19 Jun 2007
7:00PM – 8.30PM
(I’ll be there at 6pm for the early birds!)

Where
Multi-purpose Room, Central Lending Library
(Basement of National Library, Victoria Street)

Details could be found on his site.

Singapore is a darn expensive place to live in

SINGAPORE, ranked 17th most expensive place to live in the world last year, took a huge leap in year 2007. Ranking the 14th, Singapore is slightly less expensive to live in comparing to Paris and more expensive to New York. [via Mercer]

According to the survey by the same company, the quality of living in Singapore is ranked 34th this year, maintaining the same level. (Thanks to the increase in GST)

I did a simple cross-referencing of these two tables and the conclusion i have is here:

Places you want to go to live and do something else

• Russia (more expensive with less quality)
• London (ditto)
• Tokyo, Osaka (ditto)
• Hong Kong (ditto)
• Paris (similar expense and quality)

Places you want to go to live

• Zurich (more expensive, much better quality)
• Copenhagen (ditto)
• Geneva (ditto)
• Oslo (ditto)
• Vancouver (less expensive, better quality)
• Sydney (ditto)
• Toronto (ditto)

Satisfied living in Singapore? According the statistics and research, I am happy, though I will occasionally miss seasons and especially winter. The living expense here is moderately higher than that in the last I last lived in China. And comparing Singapore with all the cities on acres of land, amount of natural resources, I think I am more than happy to be around this place.

Are you satisfied?

Soon: Drive a BMW on water

This photo caught my attention when I was reading posts through my feeds.

The boat design is really unique and awesome, for it has the following quality:

1. It dares to cross copy the idea and improve on it to show the uniqueness
2. It resembles people’s dream in their life – how cool it is to drive a convertible on water!

I really hope innovation costs little. In reality it cost a lot, especially when you are in America. One recent law suit again Apple shows the point: even a slightest ignorance of patent costs.