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Gillmor speaks…

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Usually I get bashed for bashing facebook…

But the rise of the walled-garden, the exportation of one closed social graph and the new “email” – leave me concerned for the future of the internet. Maybe I am paranoid or just getting too old but I just don’t see this as progress – no matter how technical superior the platform may be.

Now someone else, on good authority, says it much better than I could:

We should all be uncomfortable about moving more and more of our cyber-activities into the embrace of a single company — and I don’t care if it’s Google (one reason I rarely use Gmail) or Facebook or anyone else. Facebook has federated its “Like” button all over the Internet, so it’s not trying to entirely capture your browsing and communications, but in the process it’s turning its service into a glue — replete with extremely granular data about what you do online — that should make everyone cautious about putting so much power into a single enterprise’s control. Easy to use, which Facebook certainly is, does not equate with good for you in the end.

enter : http://www.joindiaspora.com/

My 7 minutes…

~ michael_msft ~ 1 Comment

Gotta take it while u can. Today Koprol was on TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/09/southeast-asia-one-thing-yahoo-has-done-well-tctv/

Awesome.

Thanks Sarah!

If you want to see more about SparxUp – go here: http://www.sparxup.com/

More on Indonesia scene: http://dailysocial.net/

My slides from SparxUp: http://www.slideshare.net/dreampipe/sparxup

Podcast on Asia : http://thisweekinasia.net/2010/11/this-week-in-asia-episode-74-the-indonesia-internet-juggernaut/

long live Koprol!

Indo Indo Indo!

~ michael_msft ~ 2 Comments

Been a crazy couple of days and a few more busy ones to go.

Been at the Sparxup event which has been awesome. Just check out Sarah Lacy over at TechCrunch for all the latest coverage.

I presented during the morning session and if you are interested my deck can be found here.

Monday we have a minty launch event and a blogger meet up at night at Loewy. All great stuff.

The volcano action has been a bummer and I hope it clears up soon and the area returns to normal. Lots of people are in a bad sort over this and I feel for them.

I always get asked about Indonesia, since I spend a lot of time here, and people wonder what the biggest issue might be for Indo’s long term success. I have one word for you but as always a picture is worth a thousand words:

traffic

I have been coming here for about 10 years and regularly for the last 18 months or so and the traffic is getting worse and worse.

It is not uncommon to waste an hour or more getting from one part of town to another. Even on the weekends now the traffic is getting bad – for sure the whole snarl has to be a drain on business.

It will take years to fix it but there is not even any signs of anyone doing anything about it. Everyone cuts corners. There are carpool lanes but you can rent someone along the way to make it look like you have a carpool. There are bus lanes with cars in them. There are pillars that were once erected for tollways or overpasses but they were never completed. There is no work being done on a subway or an above ground train.

Jakarta will suffer if something is not done soon but I fear the government will not be able to tackle it and corruption will force more failed attempts. I think immediately they should instigate some sort of central congestion based pricing cause we all know money will be the only way to impede the issue even a slight bit.

I love Indonesia but the traffic is starting to grind on me the wrong way.

more soon!

Much to do!

~ michael_msft ~ 4 Comments

Just wrapped up another TWIA – check this video!

We should have another one this week with some special guests from Indonesia!

This week in Indo and then off to Bkk for Barcamp. This is one of the biggest in the region!

After Barcamp back to Singers and then maybe KL, Indo and possibly China.

So much going on but still having fun.

cya at barcamp!

ps. just back from India – more on that later. Some photos here.

This is how the Asian Companies are Expanding…

~ michael_msft ~ 3 Comments

After the Tech Venture conference I did an interview with a sing based newspaper – should hit soon – the interview was talking about the rise of Asia. More and more people talk about this since the US is in trouble, Europe is in the doldrums and Asia is kicking along. The question is asked when will something from Asia be as popular or move markets like products/sites/inventions from the US.

I can’t speak for all genres but when it comes to consumer internet products/sites I can speak pretty assuredly since this is my space. Not many things from Asia are used by folks outside their own region. Take Agoda, started in Asia and becoming a world-wide product but is part of Priceline. Alibaba and its auction/buyers site is starting to make it WW since it is for global buyers/sellers but it is not really a consumer thing.

There are examples of Asian companies, Indonesia’s Koprol, getting bought by Yahoo! with ambitions to grow their product past the shores of Indonesia. Recent article about that here.

Still though you don’t many stand alone consumer web plays being born from Asia and getting global love. So one of my theories has been that the Asian money will just start buying their way to global domination. In Japan that is exactly what is happening with the DeNa deal. There Plus+ platform play also looks pretty interesting as well.

So stay tuned – Asia is starting to come your way – whether you happen to be in Asia or not.

How to be on the grid less?

~ michael_msft ~ 2 Comments

Just got back from the US for work, Sunnyvale, and catching up with friends and my family. Had a fantastic trip – some photos. I need to post the rest of my photos – just been too busy. I ate too much, slept a little, road close to 1000 miles on a rented BMW and spent countless hours with the 2 most important people in the world – my folks.

When I spend that much time on a bike I am reminded of what I think life is actually for and it is not computers or the internet. It is spending time with people and doing things you enjoy. For me that would be riding a motorcycle in odd places – like say Thailand or Laos. I am getting the bike in fine order with each trip back to the states. This last trip I brought back a new helmet, some PIAA lights, frame set and more boxes. So at this point I am mostly setup but might make some tweaks to suspension, exhaust and so on as I go. Stuff I don’t have to have but might make it more fun. Point is I am almost there for some cross border riding. Slight issues of licensing and registration notwithstanding.

My next trip might be from Bkk to somewhere in Isaan. 🙂

Apart from hanging with friends and family I can think of no other thing more interesting in life. Of course I have to work, to finance these desires, and I am stoked to be working on fun things with amazing people – koprol.com.

Lately I have been watching the Long Way Down and going nuts.

Anyway all this brings me to the personal conflict I deal with all the time – which is working in a hyper competitive online world, not how I was raised, but yet yearning for a non hyper offline world for my personal enjoyment. One thing I love about riding my motorbike is the no phone, no music, no computer mantra but yet being on a machine. Thrills me to no end.

I was listening to one of my fav podcasts, fresh air, and heard another interview about Gary Shteyngart regarding his new book. His very near term view of the world is probably not far off. Scary as fuck really. Almost depresses me but yet I continue to thrive in using online tools for my gain but yet trying to counter them with other items like motorcycle riding, reading books and bucking the establishment. All good fun but somehow I wonder if we are actually making the world a better place or not. I have my doubts.

I can remember growing up in the boonies with no electricity, always reading, taking hikes for enjoyment and just hanging with my family wondering if there was more to life than that. Of course I was on my motorcycle about every day as well but that was just assumed. I continually ask myself if that was the best time in my life ever but yet I know I wouldn’t want to be a kid again.

I guess what I am yearning for is to some way get off the grid more. Not an easy task.

I will be in and out of this conference this week – should be interesting.

Phones…

~ michael_msft ~ 1 Comment

Been too busy to blog. Also did not feel like I had anything to say really but I am really intrigued by what is happening in the mobile ecosystem.

I think a lot of what I said in this post still applies: http://www.nokpis.com/2010/05/08/the-mobile-web/

I was mostly not thinking about this until a few recent articles. It started with this one:

http://eliainsider.com/2010/09/14/fighting-the-wrong-fight/

But this pipe dream is being crushed quickly. The carriers, after giving up ground initially, are fighting back. They are using Android’s openness against the company. The carriers refuse to carry the Nexus. Verizon cuts exclusive deals with Skype. Slowness in “approving” new Android OS releases. AT&T locked devices from side-loading and the removal of the Google Marketplace. Secret (and ridiculous) deals on net neutrality. And now, insult to injury to Google who expected to make most of their money from selling ads like they do on the web, removing Google Search in favor of Microsoft Bing as the only and default search option on certain Android-based smartphones.

My goal here is to re-focus the conversation, put the attention back where it belongs. This is war. And this war will go nothing like Apple v. Microsoft. This is about who controls the experience; who gets to interact with the customer.

The stakes are a lot higher.

What I don’t get is why people don’t see some of these symptoms as being the way it is in America or Europe where carriers are allowed to play with consumers. In Singapore if I buy an iPhone it is unlocked. I plug in any service provider or any SIM and go. The service providers compete on prices, features and speed. As it should be. The reality is the regulatory environment is calling all the shots.

So when you read this you think that Android or Google is trying to save the planet but in my opinion they have moved from do no evil to actually being evil – http://daringfireball.net/2010/09/the_welcome_to_android . Google seems to be doing what MSFT did in the PC days and pretending they are not doing it at the same time. It is nuts – they are protecting their turf by playing hardball – I can get that but when they try to say they are being open or helping the world – who believes that bullshit?

I am not sure where all this is going but the war is real and the consumer is at stake. I am not sure who to side with or who to support. Would love to see HP make a play with Palm – Nokia was so lame for not buying Palm. They needed a real OS and it would have provided that. If Nokia thinks Windoze mobile will help that is well, shocking but maybe they just want MSFT to buy them.

Carriers are going to come out swinging soon – but who can fight them?