Apple and auth

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

I wrote this yesterday and realized I left something out.

In trying out that stupid taxi app that only offered a botched Facebook login or 7 fields, I was reminded of why didn’t Apple do something about auth for apps? The iTunes ID has to be used by anyone getting an app and it would seem to me if Apple got behind something simple for iOS apps that is tied to the iTunes ID – it would simplify things a bit.

Furthermore it is time to Apple to combine this with dropping the commission from 30% to 20% to fuel more use of payments. They make enough money – they don’t need to make it on the backs of this charge.

Last post from Samui. Back home and on to the next thing.

Fixing Samui – life as a product guy…

~ michael_msft ~ 1 Comment

Closing out my holiday. Bummed but also miss my kids, but my wife is back and I am ready for my new journey.

I realize that in many ways I am my father. My dad is a mechanic – he fixes cars, build houses and generally tinkers. I wish I was half the man he was when it comes to fixing things. His ability to diagnose a problem and solve it never ceases to amaze me. He helped me build my first car as a way to teach me self reliance and to have my own wheels. 

Loved that ride.

Anytime I am on holiday, I never really shut down, I am constantly thinking about how to make my life better – how to be happier. How to enjoy myself more. Problem is that I can’t control my surroundings.

After my wife finished her Yoga School, we decided to spend a few nights in Koh Samui chilling out before heading home. I found a nice rate on Agoda for The Kala Samui. It’s always hard to pick a place but I like to stay away from the riff-raff and enjoy a bout of good service. The Kala looked like it might work for that.

The main problem I have with the Kala has nothing to do with the the Kala apart from breakfast. I never understand why these places always think everyone wants a breakfast buffett that costs an arm and a leg. We don’t. I would rather be able to order some eggs, some toast and a decent filter coffee. That would be awesome. But no, The Kala only offers a buffet. No thanks.

The other issue is the ridiculous transportation situation on the island. It sucks. Taxis that essentially charge form 300-600 baht to go anywhere. The songthaews are not any better – tryin to charge the same for sitting in the back of a bouncy vehicle pretending that the mere act of offering you a ride at exorbitant rates is costing them the school fees for their kids. So much angst.

It reminds me of Kuala Lumpur, prior to Uber, where getting around town just sucked. The last few trips to KL were awesome though. I never dealt with a taxi driver one time. Not once. Uber was there for me. Say what you will about Uber but taxis in KL suck. They are the worst.

Taxis in Samui are just as bad. Ruining your stay by never offering to us the meter and walking away when you do ask. Many folks might say just rent a motorcycle but as an experienced motorcycle rider we all know that going down is going down. When you wake up in the hospital trying to remember how you got there you won’t be concerned about how you went down or that it wasn’t your fault. You will just be worried about your busted leg or your missing skin. Renting a motorcycle is not a option for me in accident prone Thailand.

Samui would be just perfect with Uber.

I perked up a little when I say some signs for NaviGo Samui. Downloaded it and after the Facebook connect login failed I have given up since it presented me with like 7 fields to fill in. Let’s be honest. It only needs about two so after Facebook connect failed I bailed. So much for that.

Folks – if you want people to use your app during an impulse, for fuck’s sake make the login easy. 

Back to enjoying Samui. There were are at 8pm trying to get to our hotel. Starting from 500 baht and working our way down to 300. Kind of puts a damper on the holiday.

Anyways. Fuck taxis. Roll on Uber.

Yes, I know this is SEA and we have Grab but frankly their support sucks. Still does.

Maybe I can influence Linda to fix it.
 

Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus

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Finished the book off – Amazon link here

Tough one to write a review off or at least a short one. 

Before I try to post some thoughts on it – I will share this link from the buffet event since it fits a bit with the book:

“There’s been far, far, far more money made by people in Wall Street through salesmanship abilities than through investment abilities,” Buffett said, citing a simple Vanguard Group index fund that tracks the S&P 500 index of large American companies. He said that fund has beat a group of costlier hedge funds over time.

That quote fits well with one of the key premises of the book. Lots of folks making money on little more than trading but not really increasing the value of anything or making a difference in the world.

The root thesis of the book is that modern capitalism, technology, and the monetary systems are mostly making the rich, richer and creating platforms that tend to foster a winner take most or all strategy. That Uber, for example, is worse that say a taxi system. Or that Amazon and Walmart tend to ruin local markets and that the peer to peer notion of ecommerce is nothing more that a centralized system with Amazon making most of the money.

This is the first book I have read by Rushkoff and I will give him props for his thinking and his ability to craft a book of such notions but I also think like anyone trying to make a dramatic point he is also being a little over dramatic. When I talk to most Uber drivers in Singapore I find part time students paying for school, property agents using a rental car to make money while having a vehicle to take prospective buyers and tenants around, or I have seen people just driving enough Uber to pay for the monthly rental on the car so they have a car. None of it seems as bad as Rushkoff explains and I for one enjoy the cheaper mode of transportation in Singapore. Of course Uber is controversial and I don’t agree with all of their tactics but I have enjoyed the ability to travel to almost any city and summon an Uber versus deal with the local taxis. Especially in places like SEA region where Uber has made places like Kuala Lumpur actually enjoyable to visit again.

80% of the book is questioning the current grow and get rich mantra as being more important than anything else. Unified prosperity, the environment, health and any sort of long term capital appreciation takes a back seat to getting rich. I can’t argue with this premise but I don’t think the author did much to answer how it might be fixed. One sees this grow at all costs mantra with the current quarter of Apple and their stock drop off when they announced the iPhone sales dipped. The growth cannot go on forever and even so the company is incredibly popular and making huge strides in many other product areas. The stock markets are not rationale and tend to favor trading versus investing. It is a troublesome trend but not sure it is a new problem or not.

Fixing the monetary system, using local currencies, barter systems, co-ops, non profit companies and even alternative means of financing were mentioned as solutions but at an individual level – these are not easy to act upon. They are no doubt valid ideas and something to ponder but not sure how I can act upon them. I am thinking about it though.

There is also a damning section on tech, venture capital and how it is contributing to the demise of general prosperity versus enabling world changing tech. I am not sure that I entirely agree with it but again I think in any situation there are examples of both sides of any extreme. As an apprentice VC I think a lot about how one balances the desire to fund companies that have a positive effect on the world versus just creating an exit. I am not saying I have any answers to this but I do think about it.

The world has monetary issues, human health problems and massive environmental damage – I am encouraged by the tech and venture capital industry as a means to have a positive effect on these global issues.

The book is also somewhat plagued by out of date examples, sidecar versus Uber. Sidecar is toast. Not sure if this supports his thesis or not. There were a few other examples of companies that are gone or where a company was used as an example I just don’t agree with. 

Regardless, I am happy I read the book. It has me thinking about these issues more. That was probably the author’s intention since there are no easy answers to the problems in the book but bringing them to the forefront as a global discussion is valuable.

Here we go …

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

It’s holiday time.

Short break between gigs.

To all the folks at HOOQ – kick some ass. I will be watching and cheering. 

To the NWA crew – u know who you are, I love you guys/girls. Make me proud.

To everyone else. I will be doing something new. Starting over. Back to learning.

Formal announcements soon.

Peace. Out.

Let the bloodbath begin!

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Banged this out yesterday – http://www.nokpis.com/2016/04/18/the-actual-state-of-ott-in-emerging-markets/

The idea being that the expansion of OTT across the planet will be a full scale war and that it won’t simply be handed over to Netflix on a silver platter.

Now we have Netflix with the okay quarter but with a shady forecast: http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/18/netflix-posts-a-mixed-q1-but-adds-6-74m-new-subscribers/

Don’t get me wrong here. Netflix is huge and growing but the cost of building out tech and a library for the globe won’t be cheap. They are also losing paid subscribers who can no longer VPN to get the good content. I am in Singapore and the size of the library sucks here. I can’t even get the latest season of many of the Netflix shows. Thankfully I still use my mom’s account so not like I am sweating the subscription.

However on top of dealing with all the regional players, Netflix has to now contend with Amazon.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/04/amazon-starts-offering-prime-video-as-a-8-99-monthly-subscription/

I always assumed Amazon would do this at some point but didn’t expect it this soon. To be frank I had Prime for a bit so I could play with the video service but didn’t keep it due to not having enough content. With the service now being split out I may try it again but I have always found their tech and apps to suck in comparison to HBO and Netflix. Amazon always does just enough to get by versus build the best app ever. It shows with their video apps but maybe this breakout will force them to compete more. Time will tell.

One thing we do know is video is growing like mad – even in Asia. http://variety.com/2016/digital/asia/online-video-further-growth-in-asia-report-1201755475/

I think the market will split off into a few groups and that there will never be one dominant player for the globe or for the Asian regions.

But who the hell knows.

The actual state of OTT in emerging markets

~ michael_msft ~ 2 Comments

Wrote this recently about the Quartz article, http://www.nokpis.com/2016/04/15/finally-met-up-with-josh/ .

One of the discussions that always comes up is how the players like us or iFlix compete with Netflix or how these services in general will survive.

I always remind people that the fight is not about HOOQ versus the competition but actually it is the notion of getting people to pay in the first place versus steal.

This tweet sums that up perfectly:

https://twitter.com/BRLP97/status/721899648449818624

Finally met up with Josh

~ michael_msft ~ 1 Comment

I didn’t get to attend the TIA conference but was able to catch up with lots of folks who were in town and went to a nice event by Sequoia.

Say what you will about our current times but Singapore is absolutely hopping right now and is the center of the startup universe for SEA region and India. Love it. So fortunate to be here at this time.

I have many Twitter friends that I sometimes get to meet and Josh would be one of those. We finally got to hang out and chat a bit.

As a writer, he of course decided to spring this on the Internet after we chatted.

Good stuff. As I always tell people – OTT in emerging markets is really just kicking off and has a long ways to go. I wouldn’t profess to know where it all might land, but it’s a crazy hot space regardless.

One comment – that last little quote by iFlix – we all know 1 million is just registered users. Paying subs will be some marginal single digit percentage point of that total number. As I always say – release real stats or none at all.

Good chatting with you Josh – I guess we will keep up the Twitter DM dialogue going till we meet again.

My day with Ratan Tata

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I’ll start with this write up from TIA.

A day with Ratan Tata//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

Yesterday, Jungle Ventures, hosted a morning with Ratan Tata and the founders of their portfolio companies – then later in the day an event with their LP’s.

I was allowed to tag along and spend some time hanging with the crew.

This is the second time in my life I have met him but this time I was offered a whole day and a chance to speak with him directly for a bit while we had lunch.

First off, I am just stunned by how humble he was and extremely gracious with his time and thoughts.

The article highlighted his frequent response of “I don’t know”, but it was usually his response to an unclear or unconcise question. Or a question he just didn’t have an answer to.

That being said he always had advice or thoughts but just did not always give a specific answer. He was more into the theory or lesson to be learned in discovering your own answer and any advice he could offer to enhance your discovery.

I could go on and on with what I learned and the stories around Nano, Land Rover, Jaguar, and just running a huge org were priceless.

I was further stunned to catch him in the lobby, alone, carrying his hotel reciept after checking himself out. 

Just a man of the people. Which is sometimes hard to grasp given his stature.

It further cements his advice about ethics, empathy and solving real problems of the world.

I am still in awe.

Google copied my playbook ;)

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It’s funny how much a lead Yahoo threw away. First there is the global rise of messaging as a platform – remember Yahoo messenger?

Then there is the need to chase the emerging markets opportunity but rather than do it from Silicon Valley – you place the problem with people from the market.

Now google goes and acquires Pie.co to help them with emerging markets software talent. Great move.

Amazes me at times to see how bad Yahoo is blowing it and how they had so many of the pieces needed to compete.

Oh well…