Our technology plan is due! We wrote comparatively little, but we hope we achieve what we set out to do - to be clear and concise. With the AmaSingRace, we implemented only entry-level technology as we want to appeal to a mass audience that might not be as up to date as most technophiles. All you need, is a mobile phone with internet access. And all we need, is a web server that houses our database and maintains our website, which is our interactive interface.
We talked quite a bit on scenario planning. "Plan for the worst, but expect the best." An overused cliche that is grossly misleading. Many a times we are tempted to speak of extremes, when what actually happens is something that lies within the grey spectrum in between best and worst. For practice, we were given a case to discuss - Pacific Internet providing free wireless hotspots. My group first discussed how PacNet would generate revenue from this, to better understand such a venture. We then discussed the various factors and motiations surrounding this business model Once we had a clearer picture, we came up with the possible scenarios and the various factors of our scenario matrix. Resources (both capital and labour) and knowledge/technology seem to always come up in most scenarios. We discussed briefly with the class on this before we were driven out of the special applications lab due to some error in booking the venue.
We ended up in SR6, where we were given Presentation 101: How to impress in 2 hours. I thought this was really helpful! I've always thought a presentation should be widely understandable, but actually you only ahe to target important individuals who will influence the opinions of his peers. With such new perspective, it's not just easier to create a presentation, one is also able to be more specific in areas that will interest this particular target. It would also naturally become more personal, like reaching out to a person rather than orating to multitudes. (One still has to be eloquent, but the approach would be slightly different.) This 2 hour solution is really useful and I took home quite a number of great and very applicable tips.
Next up, is our final business prospectus. Oh, and the wiki! I guess one of the reasons why the wiki hasn't be updated a lot is because the entire concept of the wiki is slightly flawed. We are told that the wiki is our textbook. Textbooks are something people fall back on when they don't understand the lecture notes. It's like the last resort, the ultimatum, the final solution. And our assignment here, is the rewrite and add new content to something so revered. I think the idea of rewriting the textbook puts a lot of people off and seems like a rather daunting and wholly intimidating task. That's one of the reasons why the wiki hasn't been as hot as it supposed to be. Perhaps, in future, one could say this wiki is some random text, and then ask the students enrolled in this module to go 'correct it' and make 'appropriate changes' so it's more 'accurate'. This way, to the student, it would be like 'Spot the mistake" or 'find out what's wrong' instead of 'rewrite the holy book'.
Well, I believe that would solve another Education 2.0 problem. One step closer to revamping the system! (I think currently, this course is somewhere at Education 1.762, but soon enough, if the school administration allows, this would probably be THE module the be in.) Cheers. (:
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Friday, March 9, 2007
tic tac toe
Edventure is down! But fret not, we can still do things the old fashion way. (: This week my group got to present our proof-of-concept, essentially a working demo of the interface of our game. (Apparently, we were the ONLY group which did this assignment) Anyways, Prof Gilbert and Co. gave some advice on how we could improve on the user interface. One thing that I sorely overlooked was the reference ID, which was utterly redundant since we already have the user's mobile phone and user ID noted. But it was all good advice! Thanks class!
This week we discussed user interface design. We played this seemingly complex number game and came up with various hypothesis on how to solve it, only to have our bubble burst when Prof Gilbert drew Tic-Tac-Toe on the white board. The design of the user interface is of utmost importance. Even if you've got an excellent product, everything will be for nought if the user cannot use it! We analysed user interface design in various industries and realised that not all industries have common standards. This is mainly due to a lack of motivation to create standards. (If I were Sony, why should I make a remote that can control a Samsung DVD player? I'd rather they just buy my products anyway.)
Again, we touched on convergence, or mash ups. This is not just an isolated phenomenon, but convergence of technology is happening across the board in all industries. Why do I need a console, a dvd recorder and a dvd player when I can have just one Xbox that will settle everything? This is just one example of convergence, and more will come.
Back to our project, the technology plan is due next week! I'm really not sure how I can submit a few pages for my technology plan as the AmaSingRace requires only the bare minimum. I guess I'll have to figure this one out soon.
This week we discussed user interface design. We played this seemingly complex number game and came up with various hypothesis on how to solve it, only to have our bubble burst when Prof Gilbert drew Tic-Tac-Toe on the white board. The design of the user interface is of utmost importance. Even if you've got an excellent product, everything will be for nought if the user cannot use it! We analysed user interface design in various industries and realised that not all industries have common standards. This is mainly due to a lack of motivation to create standards. (If I were Sony, why should I make a remote that can control a Samsung DVD player? I'd rather they just buy my products anyway.)
Again, we touched on convergence, or mash ups. This is not just an isolated phenomenon, but convergence of technology is happening across the board in all industries. Why do I need a console, a dvd recorder and a dvd player when I can have just one Xbox that will settle everything? This is just one example of convergence, and more will come.
Back to our project, the technology plan is due next week! I'm really not sure how I can submit a few pages for my technology plan as the AmaSingRace requires only the bare minimum. I guess I'll have to figure this one out soon.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
the mr james show
Got our elevator pitch up on youtube!
So far feedback has been good and people love the idea! I guess it's cos' its a game (thus, element of fun/play), and futhermore, my target demographic is the exact one my friends and I belong to. So I totally understand what they are looking for and can thus think from both sides of the table. Either way, everything looks like it's going good and this idea is truly feasible. The startup costs are also low, which helps a lot.
Anyways, the last session we had was about podcasting. Podcasting, popularised by the ipod, is basically like a recording of your favourite radio show. Video killed the radio star? Looks like radio is back, albeit reinvented. The onset of podcasting has caused paradigm shifts in many facets of society. On the corporate side, this has become a way to market or showcase one's products, hold meetings, spread propaganda (-ahem-) amongst a myriad other things. Having a personal car salesman (even a prerecorded one) sure beats reading a prolix catalogue. On the consumer side, there are now many sites that allows users to post podcasts and thus share their views and commentary on new products, sports or anything under the sun.
So.. do I podcast? No. But do I listen to podcasts? Hell yea! I love comedy, especially the stand-up or witty-banter sort. But I can't always listen to my favourite radio shows all the time. Well, podcasts have solved this problem of mine. I especially like the Mr Brown Show, and Ask A Ninja. Podcasting provided a great avenue for these previously lesser known comedians to publicise themselves, and now the AskANinja crew has even landed some roles in bigtime commercials and TV shows.
Another great thing about podcasting is that it allows multi-tasking. You can receive information aurally, while doing your own work at your own time. This is great in a corporate environment where you want to know what's going on in the organisation but don't have time to go thru the minutes or sit through a meeting. Why not hear it while completing the assignments that are piling up?
Actually, podcasting could be integrated into the AmaSingRace. Perhaps we could include some short commentary when the player reaches his destination to talk briefly about the highlight of the attraction they are visiting. This could be optional, as we wouldn't want our users to be spending too much on their phone bills either! This could possibly add value to our game. Just an idea for now!
So far feedback has been good and people love the idea! I guess it's cos' its a game (thus, element of fun/play), and futhermore, my target demographic is the exact one my friends and I belong to. So I totally understand what they are looking for and can thus think from both sides of the table. Either way, everything looks like it's going good and this idea is truly feasible. The startup costs are also low, which helps a lot.
Anyways, the last session we had was about podcasting. Podcasting, popularised by the ipod, is basically like a recording of your favourite radio show. Video killed the radio star? Looks like radio is back, albeit reinvented. The onset of podcasting has caused paradigm shifts in many facets of society. On the corporate side, this has become a way to market or showcase one's products, hold meetings, spread propaganda (-ahem-) amongst a myriad other things. Having a personal car salesman (even a prerecorded one) sure beats reading a prolix catalogue. On the consumer side, there are now many sites that allows users to post podcasts and thus share their views and commentary on new products, sports or anything under the sun.
So.. do I podcast? No. But do I listen to podcasts? Hell yea! I love comedy, especially the stand-up or witty-banter sort. But I can't always listen to my favourite radio shows all the time. Well, podcasts have solved this problem of mine. I especially like the Mr Brown Show, and Ask A Ninja. Podcasting provided a great avenue for these previously lesser known comedians to publicise themselves, and now the AskANinja crew has even landed some roles in bigtime commercials and TV shows.
Another great thing about podcasting is that it allows multi-tasking. You can receive information aurally, while doing your own work at your own time. This is great in a corporate environment where you want to know what's going on in the organisation but don't have time to go thru the minutes or sit through a meeting. Why not hear it while completing the assignments that are piling up?
Actually, podcasting could be integrated into the AmaSingRace. Perhaps we could include some short commentary when the player reaches his destination to talk briefly about the highlight of the attraction they are visiting. This could be optional, as we wouldn't want our users to be spending too much on their phone bills either! This could possibly add value to our game. Just an idea for now!
Thursday, February 22, 2007
i rest my case
This week we were introduced to Case Analysis. I feel this is a more hands on approach, tantamount to a pragmatic application of the knowledge we have acquired. We were given a case, the ASEAN Food Safety Initiative (AFSI), and were told to apply the Web 2.0 concept to solving the problem. This is what my group came up with:
I guess this pretty much covers what we wanted to say. We applied as much of Web 2.0 as we possibly could. We used the Web as our user interface, thus this allows it to be accessible on multiple platforms and mediums, eg. pc, laptop, PDA, or mobile phone. It also allows end user interactivity as each person involved in the life cycle events can make changes to the database in their various areas of speciality. Also, all the processing is centralised and done on the server side, and requires very little power on the client side. The system is intelligent and can compute graphs, charts and other graphical representations of statistical data, and also cross reference the data and make smart relationships and hence track sources of contamination.
These time constrained case analysis are very helpful as it helps us better understand the concepts involved as a solid grasp of the material is required to be able to properly apply it to real world situations and adapt it to varying circumstances. It also helps us to be quick-witted, which will definitely go a long way when solving similar problems in future. Cases are really simulations of real world situations and provides us with an avenue to gaining experience without losing too much when we fail.
Prof Gilbert encouraged us to join the Citibank Case Challenge, which I have taken a keen interest in but alas, I'm not a final year or penultimate year student and so I don't meet the prerequisite for admission. Oh well. There will always be more opportunities. Anyway, Prof Gilbert was really helpful when I asked him about resume writing. Got me to think in the right direction. I should be crafting my curriculum vitae soon, and maybe I'll decide to upload it to the digital dropbox and face the firing squad that is the MB362 class. =P
Friday, February 16, 2007
the elevator pitch
Elevator pitch week! Unfortunately, my group did not expect the elevator pitch to solely consist of the video, so we did not present this session. We expected the video to be followed by a short speech or Q&A, so we didn't include a lot of details. We redid the presentation and added a voice-over. I got some of my friends to view it and feedback was varied. Many people caught many different things from the video. Some could clearly tell me the concept of our business. Some could even tell me the revenue model for our business, our target audience and which segment of the market are we trying to reach. Yet there were others unclear even of the medium we were using. There is definitely room for improvement, but so far feedback is not bad and most people understood our idea, so I'll save any changes until after the pitch is given next session. I can't wait to show it to the rest of the class and hear what they think of it!
Our idea is to replace the conventional tour package with a game played entirely on the mobile phone. Our target audience are families or younger travellers, ie. backpackers. I'll wait until after the next session before I blog more about it.
We saw the elevator pitches of the various groups and it was good that none of the groups came up with similar ideas. All their ideas were different, again showing how diverse the students taking this modules are. However, none of the ideas caused my heart to skip a beat. I might be overly critical but everyone is entitled to his own opinion and this is nothing personal. I feel the idea of a website that gives tourism information is nothing new! People have already been doing it, and it's probably no different from carrying around a copy of Lonely Planet. The next idea on the traveller's card requires the installation of the card reader all over the nation. This means everyone has to buy this idea in order for the idea to even work. This comes up to a rather high startup cost. The great thing about this idea is the reusability of the cards everytime the tourist comes back to Singapore. However, how many casual tourist visit the same place twice? The last group's idea was basically a personal chaffeur, whose car has a laptop placed in it. I think one thing all of these groups missed is the element of play and the idea of fun. There are plenty of means where information can be provided that are already in place, so the only way one can be different is how this information is actually provided. That is why I quite like my own idea on the mobile phone game. An important concept in Web 2.0 is interactivity on the part of the end user. He must feel like he can contribute to the community.
The most important point the elevator pitch must bring across is the value proposition and the revenue model. This is probably the biggest take home of the day. From our analysis of various elevator pitches, we can clearly see that one doesn't need a technically excellent and aesthetically astounding video to bring across the 2 points. One of the groups did a rather archaic one-man-talking-to-a-video-cam pitch but it was interesting and presented his ideas in a clear and concise manner. After this, we proceeded on with the lecture proper.
This week's topic was on Freedom. As mentioned earlier, a big part of Web 2.0 is end user interactivity. This immediately allows the user to feel like he has a certain degree of freedom, that is, freedom of speech. He can blog, podcast or upload content of his choice via any of the 'sharesites' such as flickr, blogger and youtube, all of which are household names now. The onset of such technology is a dual-edged sword. On one side of the balance, there is freedom and there is choice; yet on the other side, comes the removal of privacy. Previously, privacy infringement was a widely debated issue. Now, the disappearance of privacy is almost as sure as the popping up of the next tissue from the box of Kleenex. I guess this is another case of 'Who moved my cheese?". In the book of the same name by Dr. Spencer Johnson, a story of 2 pairs of mice is told. They were eating cheese from a cheese station. One day, the cheese ran out, so the first pair left their cheesestation in search of a new cheesestation. However, the second pair got furious and immediately belted out the now famous line, 'Who moved my cheese?". It speaks of being able to accept changes, adapt to them and move on. As e-commerce and m-commerce continually play a larger role in today's society, we must learn to accept and adapt to the changes that this force brings about. The cheese in the cheesestation will not magically grow back, just like technology doesn't move backwards. Web 2.0 is here to stay. We may move on to Web 3.0 and with it comes a new set of rules, but we will never move back to Web 1.0.
Anyway, another session was concluded and its more work yet again as we work to improve our elevator pitch. We just found out that part of our project evaluation would be the performance of our pitch on YouTube. Now that was something no one expected. Yet another MB362 surprise. ;P
Our idea is to replace the conventional tour package with a game played entirely on the mobile phone. Our target audience are families or younger travellers, ie. backpackers. I'll wait until after the next session before I blog more about it.
We saw the elevator pitches of the various groups and it was good that none of the groups came up with similar ideas. All their ideas were different, again showing how diverse the students taking this modules are. However, none of the ideas caused my heart to skip a beat. I might be overly critical but everyone is entitled to his own opinion and this is nothing personal. I feel the idea of a website that gives tourism information is nothing new! People have already been doing it, and it's probably no different from carrying around a copy of Lonely Planet. The next idea on the traveller's card requires the installation of the card reader all over the nation. This means everyone has to buy this idea in order for the idea to even work. This comes up to a rather high startup cost. The great thing about this idea is the reusability of the cards everytime the tourist comes back to Singapore. However, how many casual tourist visit the same place twice? The last group's idea was basically a personal chaffeur, whose car has a laptop placed in it. I think one thing all of these groups missed is the element of play and the idea of fun. There are plenty of means where information can be provided that are already in place, so the only way one can be different is how this information is actually provided. That is why I quite like my own idea on the mobile phone game. An important concept in Web 2.0 is interactivity on the part of the end user. He must feel like he can contribute to the community.
The most important point the elevator pitch must bring across is the value proposition and the revenue model. This is probably the biggest take home of the day. From our analysis of various elevator pitches, we can clearly see that one doesn't need a technically excellent and aesthetically astounding video to bring across the 2 points. One of the groups did a rather archaic one-man-talking-to-a-video-cam pitch but it was interesting and presented his ideas in a clear and concise manner. After this, we proceeded on with the lecture proper.
This week's topic was on Freedom. As mentioned earlier, a big part of Web 2.0 is end user interactivity. This immediately allows the user to feel like he has a certain degree of freedom, that is, freedom of speech. He can blog, podcast or upload content of his choice via any of the 'sharesites' such as flickr, blogger and youtube, all of which are household names now. The onset of such technology is a dual-edged sword. On one side of the balance, there is freedom and there is choice; yet on the other side, comes the removal of privacy. Previously, privacy infringement was a widely debated issue. Now, the disappearance of privacy is almost as sure as the popping up of the next tissue from the box of Kleenex. I guess this is another case of 'Who moved my cheese?". In the book of the same name by Dr. Spencer Johnson, a story of 2 pairs of mice is told. They were eating cheese from a cheese station. One day, the cheese ran out, so the first pair left their cheesestation in search of a new cheesestation. However, the second pair got furious and immediately belted out the now famous line, 'Who moved my cheese?". It speaks of being able to accept changes, adapt to them and move on. As e-commerce and m-commerce continually play a larger role in today's society, we must learn to accept and adapt to the changes that this force brings about. The cheese in the cheesestation will not magically grow back, just like technology doesn't move backwards. Web 2.0 is here to stay. We may move on to Web 3.0 and with it comes a new set of rules, but we will never move back to Web 1.0.
Anyway, another session was concluded and its more work yet again as we work to improve our elevator pitch. We just found out that part of our project evaluation would be the performance of our pitch on YouTube. Now that was something no one expected. Yet another MB362 surprise. ;P
Thursday, February 15, 2007
jurong bird park and the 4 stages
Jurong Bird Park (JBP) is one of the premier attractions in Singapore. One of their main demographic, the overseas visitor, experiences a language barrier problem. Each group came up with an idea to overcome this and took turns to present it. I was glad that each group managed to have different selling points, and that there was little overlap between each group's ideas. Perhaps this does show that people from different backgrounds do see things from different angles. We then aggregated our ideas, which just consolidates what we learnt the previous week from 'Wisdom of the Crowd'.
Well I guess the underlying concept on my business idea for JBP was to keep startup cost low by using the existing mobile infrastructure around the JBP. Why reinvent the wheel, right? Most of the other groups required the purchasing of a product, such as the bird-buddy, or the installation of bluetooth transceivers amongst other devices. Technology should not be implemented for implementation's sake, but to aid the application of the business idea. High technology does not necessarily translate to high quality, so it is important not to get carried away with new technology. The biggest selling point of my idea was the guided tour. This provides a service that definitely has a market, and reduces the number of personnel needed to fulfil this niche. It allows every visitor to have a quality experience at JBP with their very own tour guide, at a fixed cost to JBP.
Subsequently, we talked about business models. Besides the quality of the people involved, the next most important thing is probably the business model. Good people mixed with good ideas usually results in success. When we aggregated all our ideas for JBP, we divided them into 4 stages - Initiate, Enter, Complete, Retirement. Initiate is how the user begins the service. Enter is when the user begins using the service. Complete is when the user finishes using the service. Retirement is what happens after the user terminates the service. Thinking along this track allows us to track the value-addedness of a particular model, and thus pinpoint the pros and cons of different models.
The project topic was finally revealed to us - "Tourism On the Go". Seems like this module focuses on the tourism industry, and the application of e-commerce and m-commerce to enchance the tourists' experience. We are to present our elevator pitch next session in the form of a video.
Well I guess the underlying concept on my business idea for JBP was to keep startup cost low by using the existing mobile infrastructure around the JBP. Why reinvent the wheel, right? Most of the other groups required the purchasing of a product, such as the bird-buddy, or the installation of bluetooth transceivers amongst other devices. Technology should not be implemented for implementation's sake, but to aid the application of the business idea. High technology does not necessarily translate to high quality, so it is important not to get carried away with new technology. The biggest selling point of my idea was the guided tour. This provides a service that definitely has a market, and reduces the number of personnel needed to fulfil this niche. It allows every visitor to have a quality experience at JBP with their very own tour guide, at a fixed cost to JBP.
Subsequently, we talked about business models. Besides the quality of the people involved, the next most important thing is probably the business model. Good people mixed with good ideas usually results in success. When we aggregated all our ideas for JBP, we divided them into 4 stages - Initiate, Enter, Complete, Retirement. Initiate is how the user begins the service. Enter is when the user begins using the service. Complete is when the user finishes using the service. Retirement is what happens after the user terminates the service. Thinking along this track allows us to track the value-addedness of a particular model, and thus pinpoint the pros and cons of different models.
The project topic was finally revealed to us - "Tourism On the Go". Seems like this module focuses on the tourism industry, and the application of e-commerce and m-commerce to enchance the tourists' experience. We are to present our elevator pitch next session in the form of a video.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
of crowds, stupidity and the expert opinion
Is the group better or worst off than the individual? That was the prevalent question in today's session. We examined the common notion that the group exhibits retarded behaviour, and also the alternative perspective that James Surowiecki asserts - that the group is smarter than even its smartest individual, under the right circumstances. The circumstances are as follows:
Diversity
The group must be composed of people with differring backgrounds, thus they bring different perspective and angles at resolving particular issues.
Decentralised
Everyone in the group must carry the same weight. If someone is more important than the other, then this would tilt the bias.
Collective Verdict
It is not enough to have many different opinions. One needs a method or system to aggregate all these opinions.
Independant
Each individual within the group must not be influenced by the other. Short selling was mentioned and one name immediately came to mind - George Soros. One of the theories on the causes of the East Asian Economic Crisis in '97 was that George Soros brought about the collapse of the thai baht. He saw that the administration was floating the currency and it was grossly inflated. So he bought a lot of thai baht, and others, seeing that the investment guru made a big move, followed suit. This caused the thai baht to sky rocket and at its peak, Soros decided to sell his entire lot. When this happened, many of the other big players followed suit and this caused the thai baht to crash, and led to the crashing of the economies in the surrounding regions. Of course, this is but a theory, and the actual collapse was due to a confluence of various factors and events. But this definitely illustrates how non-independant thinking could result in bad outcomes.
The reason for the success of Web 2.0 is the acceptance of the above notion and thus creating tools or services that allows the group to come up with better solutions. A very simple concept that is successfully implemented in Google.
Mobile Commerce Infrastructure
After the discussion on crowds, we moved on to the infrastructure of mobile or m-commerce. I believe most of us have a lot of differring views to voice out but there was no opportunity to do so and we moved from topic to topic really fast. Perhaps we could slow down the transition between topics so we have more time to 'interrupt' Prof Gilbert. =P We talked about a variety of possible m-commerce applications, and here are some of them:
Movie Booking
Currently, the moviehouses allow bookings via WAP or phone, but require you to pay immediately via debit/credit card. They also charge $1 more. I can clearly understand why this is so. Firstly, why only allow payment via credit card instead of allowing consumers to just tab it to their phone bill? Probably the mobile subscription operators were taking a huge cut of it, and the moviehouses like Shaw and Golden Village were not willing to share their revenue. And why the extra buck for advanced booking? Why do they discourage such online bookings? Shouldn't they be happy that they are getting a confirmed customer? No, in fact, they are possibly reducing they're revenue. Let me paint a scenario. I would like the catch the movie Babel. If I were to book it by WAP, it would probably mean I am not at the cinema, and am either at home or elsewhere. I place my booking, go to the theatre, enjoy the film, and go home. After all, I am guaranteed a seat at the cinema. However, since it caused more to book, I decide to head down to the cinema and buy my tickets at the booth. Now, there is the possibility that I am unable to get a ticket for Babel, and Blood Diamond is showing at the same time, and since I have already made the effort of going to the cinema, I might as well just catch Blood Diamond. But I really want to watch Babel, so I come back another day to view it. So instead of watching 1 movie, I end up watching 2, doubling their revenue. This is why moviehouses prefer the traditional way of purchasing movie tickets.
Carpark Tracking
Great idea! I've never thought of it but this just shows the endless possibilities for m-commerce applications. An important thing to note is that in implementing this application, we make use of existing infrastructure so the startup cost of this model is very low. All the information we require can be gathered by existing means. Keeping startup cost really low is an important issue to me as the lower the startup cost the lighter your fall will be should you fail. I do this this carpark idea will take off as I believe one will save money from using this service. I've experienced similar scenarios where I end up driving around to various carparks for half an hour just to find a lot. Paying a small nominal fee for such a service would save me a lot of money, that is, the fuel cost, the maintenance of the vehicle (wear and tear), depreciation due to usage etc.
After discussing a few applications of m-commerce, we were given our assignment, which is the solve the language problem in Jurong Bird Park for tourist via the implementation of a mobile network. We briefly examined the infrastructure of the former and current mobile networks and how the different components interact with each other.
Definitely yet another eye opening session. A lot of new ideas this week and fodder for loads of discussion! A pity time is a constraint and we couldn't delve deeper in some of the great ideas and perspectives mentioned in class. May next week's session be a better one!
Diversity
The group must be composed of people with differring backgrounds, thus they bring different perspective and angles at resolving particular issues.
Decentralised
Everyone in the group must carry the same weight. If someone is more important than the other, then this would tilt the bias.
Collective Verdict
It is not enough to have many different opinions. One needs a method or system to aggregate all these opinions.
Independant
Each individual within the group must not be influenced by the other. Short selling was mentioned and one name immediately came to mind - George Soros. One of the theories on the causes of the East Asian Economic Crisis in '97 was that George Soros brought about the collapse of the thai baht. He saw that the administration was floating the currency and it was grossly inflated. So he bought a lot of thai baht, and others, seeing that the investment guru made a big move, followed suit. This caused the thai baht to sky rocket and at its peak, Soros decided to sell his entire lot. When this happened, many of the other big players followed suit and this caused the thai baht to crash, and led to the crashing of the economies in the surrounding regions. Of course, this is but a theory, and the actual collapse was due to a confluence of various factors and events. But this definitely illustrates how non-independant thinking could result in bad outcomes.
The reason for the success of Web 2.0 is the acceptance of the above notion and thus creating tools or services that allows the group to come up with better solutions. A very simple concept that is successfully implemented in Google.
Mobile Commerce Infrastructure
After the discussion on crowds, we moved on to the infrastructure of mobile or m-commerce. I believe most of us have a lot of differring views to voice out but there was no opportunity to do so and we moved from topic to topic really fast. Perhaps we could slow down the transition between topics so we have more time to 'interrupt' Prof Gilbert. =P We talked about a variety of possible m-commerce applications, and here are some of them:
Movie Booking
Currently, the moviehouses allow bookings via WAP or phone, but require you to pay immediately via debit/credit card. They also charge $1 more. I can clearly understand why this is so. Firstly, why only allow payment via credit card instead of allowing consumers to just tab it to their phone bill? Probably the mobile subscription operators were taking a huge cut of it, and the moviehouses like Shaw and Golden Village were not willing to share their revenue. And why the extra buck for advanced booking? Why do they discourage such online bookings? Shouldn't they be happy that they are getting a confirmed customer? No, in fact, they are possibly reducing they're revenue. Let me paint a scenario. I would like the catch the movie Babel. If I were to book it by WAP, it would probably mean I am not at the cinema, and am either at home or elsewhere. I place my booking, go to the theatre, enjoy the film, and go home. After all, I am guaranteed a seat at the cinema. However, since it caused more to book, I decide to head down to the cinema and buy my tickets at the booth. Now, there is the possibility that I am unable to get a ticket for Babel, and Blood Diamond is showing at the same time, and since I have already made the effort of going to the cinema, I might as well just catch Blood Diamond. But I really want to watch Babel, so I come back another day to view it. So instead of watching 1 movie, I end up watching 2, doubling their revenue. This is why moviehouses prefer the traditional way of purchasing movie tickets.
Carpark Tracking
Great idea! I've never thought of it but this just shows the endless possibilities for m-commerce applications. An important thing to note is that in implementing this application, we make use of existing infrastructure so the startup cost of this model is very low. All the information we require can be gathered by existing means. Keeping startup cost really low is an important issue to me as the lower the startup cost the lighter your fall will be should you fail. I do this this carpark idea will take off as I believe one will save money from using this service. I've experienced similar scenarios where I end up driving around to various carparks for half an hour just to find a lot. Paying a small nominal fee for such a service would save me a lot of money, that is, the fuel cost, the maintenance of the vehicle (wear and tear), depreciation due to usage etc.
After discussing a few applications of m-commerce, we were given our assignment, which is the solve the language problem in Jurong Bird Park for tourist via the implementation of a mobile network. We briefly examined the infrastructure of the former and current mobile networks and how the different components interact with each other.
Definitely yet another eye opening session. A lot of new ideas this week and fodder for loads of discussion! A pity time is a constraint and we couldn't delve deeper in some of the great ideas and perspectives mentioned in class. May next week's session be a better one!
Monday, January 22, 2007
starhub and the mystery that is the internet
Week 2 already and it seems the class is still shrinking! Anyway, this week we discussed the case study of StarHub. Being a confluence of the various media services, they have achieved a much stronger presence in our country than what was previously thought possible for an upstart in a playing field ruled by a monopoly.
Previously, SingTel had the edge as its services encompasses fixed lines and mobile services. It had a high exposure rate as there is a telephone line in every household in this nation. This makes their services readily available and accessible to the whole population. However, after the strategic acquisition of Singapore Cable Vision, StarHub gained the upperhand. Besides gaining a direct line (the cable service) with nearly every household in the country, this pipeline they have to each household possess greater capabilities compared to it's archaic copper wire counterpart. Also, them packaging all their services together in a bundle was a very smart move that SingTel has only just picked up. By doing so, they can increase their market share. For example, AhSeng might have been a SingTel mobile user, and got his internet access from Pacific Internet. He decides to get cable TV, and StarHub offers a package which bundles cable TV, cable internet access, and a mobile subscriber line. He signs up as the overall savings is hard to miss. StarHub has now gained an additional consumer, at SingTel and Pacific Internet's expense. Of course, there are exceptions and not everyone is willing to switch due to the 'legacy' effect. I am still a SingTel Mobile subscriber, although I do have cable TV at home.
We also discussed about the internet - its origins and how it works. The architecture of the internet is a surprisingly simple concept that turns out to be very hardy and versatile. It is 'robust'. TCP/IP technology is the basis for the internet. It routes packets around the internet rather smartly, so if any one of these 'pathways' go down, it automatically travels down alternative 'pathways'. This gives us a resilient medium that allows the exchange of information and communication across large distances almost immediately. With the onset of the internet came E-mail and Usenet (news groups). Before E-mail, the main forms of communication are the telegraph, telephone and snail mail. E-mail is a form of communication that is loosely coupled; that is, it does not require the other party to be present to 'receive' one's message. In a telephone call, for example, the other party must be beside a phone if not he will not be able to receive the message one wants to verbally convey to him. If he is not there, he will not receive your call and therefore not hear your message. Whereas in e-mail, his mailbox will always be there, and he can check it anytime he wishes. This is particularly useful when the information in question requires transmission but need not be immediate. I can't comment much on Usenet, as I've never used or subscribed to any of those alt.binaries before, but I guess it was a good way to bring people with common interests together to discuss relevant topics. It's similar to the message forums or bulletin boards present all over the internet these days.
We were also introduced to standards and the IEEE. This is definitely very important as the presence of a standard would clearly illustrate the boundaries and capabilities that a developer has when designing a new product. We also looked into, albeit, briefly the differences between the different standards, such as the 3 standards for wireless technology, and IPv4 and IPv6. IPv4 allows greater flexibility when rerouting, whereas IPv6 offers greater speeds. A tradeoff as usual, but as technology develops, the next version of IP would probably encompass the best of both worlds, such as what 802.11g is doing for wireless local area network now.
Lastly, we touched a little on HTML. I did some freelance web design work for various companies back in '98-'01 during my secondary school days (I charged below the prevailing market rate due to my inherent age back then, but it doesn't mean I provided a below average service =P ) , so this was nothing new to me, but it was definitely a good refresher as I've not touched HTML in years! Looks like it might be useful if I dig out my old portfolio and look through the code again and hopefully all that lost knowledge slowly trickles back into my head. JavaScript, DHTML, CSS, SSI... Flash! Am looking forward to next week's Intro to Flash. It would be another good refresher, if not slightly nostalgic.
Previously, SingTel had the edge as its services encompasses fixed lines and mobile services. It had a high exposure rate as there is a telephone line in every household in this nation. This makes their services readily available and accessible to the whole population. However, after the strategic acquisition of Singapore Cable Vision, StarHub gained the upperhand. Besides gaining a direct line (the cable service) with nearly every household in the country, this pipeline they have to each household possess greater capabilities compared to it's archaic copper wire counterpart. Also, them packaging all their services together in a bundle was a very smart move that SingTel has only just picked up. By doing so, they can increase their market share. For example, AhSeng might have been a SingTel mobile user, and got his internet access from Pacific Internet. He decides to get cable TV, and StarHub offers a package which bundles cable TV, cable internet access, and a mobile subscriber line. He signs up as the overall savings is hard to miss. StarHub has now gained an additional consumer, at SingTel and Pacific Internet's expense. Of course, there are exceptions and not everyone is willing to switch due to the 'legacy' effect. I am still a SingTel Mobile subscriber, although I do have cable TV at home.
We also discussed about the internet - its origins and how it works. The architecture of the internet is a surprisingly simple concept that turns out to be very hardy and versatile. It is 'robust'. TCP/IP technology is the basis for the internet. It routes packets around the internet rather smartly, so if any one of these 'pathways' go down, it automatically travels down alternative 'pathways'. This gives us a resilient medium that allows the exchange of information and communication across large distances almost immediately. With the onset of the internet came E-mail and Usenet (news groups). Before E-mail, the main forms of communication are the telegraph, telephone and snail mail. E-mail is a form of communication that is loosely coupled; that is, it does not require the other party to be present to 'receive' one's message. In a telephone call, for example, the other party must be beside a phone if not he will not be able to receive the message one wants to verbally convey to him. If he is not there, he will not receive your call and therefore not hear your message. Whereas in e-mail, his mailbox will always be there, and he can check it anytime he wishes. This is particularly useful when the information in question requires transmission but need not be immediate. I can't comment much on Usenet, as I've never used or subscribed to any of those alt.binaries before, but I guess it was a good way to bring people with common interests together to discuss relevant topics. It's similar to the message forums or bulletin boards present all over the internet these days.
We were also introduced to standards and the IEEE. This is definitely very important as the presence of a standard would clearly illustrate the boundaries and capabilities that a developer has when designing a new product. We also looked into, albeit, briefly the differences between the different standards, such as the 3 standards for wireless technology, and IPv4 and IPv6. IPv4 allows greater flexibility when rerouting, whereas IPv6 offers greater speeds. A tradeoff as usual, but as technology develops, the next version of IP would probably encompass the best of both worlds, such as what 802.11g is doing for wireless local area network now.
Lastly, we touched a little on HTML. I did some freelance web design work for various companies back in '98-'01 during my secondary school days (I charged below the prevailing market rate due to my inherent age back then, but it doesn't mean I provided a below average service =P ) , so this was nothing new to me, but it was definitely a good refresher as I've not touched HTML in years! Looks like it might be useful if I dig out my old portfolio and look through the code again and hopefully all that lost knowledge slowly trickles back into my head. JavaScript, DHTML, CSS, SSI... Flash! Am looking forward to next week's Intro to Flash. It would be another good refresher, if not slightly nostalgic.
Friday, January 12, 2007
the maiden session
We had our first session this morning at SR4. Albeit the many latecomers, the session was still beyond my expectations. Perhaps I'm too used to the rigidity of science classes that I have forgotten the joy of interactive discussions. That aside, today we talked about disruptive technologies.
Disruptive technologies refer to those that are new, seemingly impractical, but often have a great impact on the consumer population. These technologies are able to displace the existing technologies, which is why they are 'disruptive'. Large corporations are designed to work with existing sustaining technologies; that is, those that can be incrementally improved and is established. This is why they experience a problem when faced with the onset of new and possibly cost-saving disruptive technology, as they have a 'legacy system' in place and thus are unable to swiftly adopt such new technologies. It is quite common for a large company to dismiss the feasibility of the above mentioned disruptive technologies.
Prior to this discussion, I've always known that such disruptive technologies have a great effect on the structure of the industry, but I never knew the full extent of it. It has gotten me to think about such changes in alternative perspectives and was an eye opener on the implications of the discussed technologies. Perhaps these same ideas can be applied to various other relevant innovations. In the near future, I hope I'd get the opportunity to come up with a disruptive technology. Maybe it'll be my big break.
Looks like this is an interesting module after all. (:
Disruptive technologies refer to those that are new, seemingly impractical, but often have a great impact on the consumer population. These technologies are able to displace the existing technologies, which is why they are 'disruptive'. Large corporations are designed to work with existing sustaining technologies; that is, those that can be incrementally improved and is established. This is why they experience a problem when faced with the onset of new and possibly cost-saving disruptive technology, as they have a 'legacy system' in place and thus are unable to swiftly adopt such new technologies. It is quite common for a large company to dismiss the feasibility of the above mentioned disruptive technologies.
Prior to this discussion, I've always known that such disruptive technologies have a great effect on the structure of the industry, but I never knew the full extent of it. It has gotten me to think about such changes in alternative perspectives and was an eye opener on the implications of the discussed technologies. Perhaps these same ideas can be applied to various other relevant innovations. In the near future, I hope I'd get the opportunity to come up with a disruptive technology. Maybe it'll be my big break.
Looks like this is an interesting module after all. (:
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