Key Performance Indicators

http://www.e27.sg/2010/06/10/highest-ios-penetration-found-in-singapore-indonesia-among-the-lowest/:

Singapore with it’s tiny 4 million population has 402,992 iPhones, 76575 iPod Touch and 1,453 iPad’s  totaling  480,950 iOS devices. Contrast that to its counterpart, Android devices total up to 32,918. While considering the fact that, iPhone had a head-start in the Singapore market for a year before the first Android device was released, the sheer ratio of iPhone to Android is among the highest across countries.

http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/06/18/guest-post-location-based-services-its-game-on/:

As a parting shot dear reader, if you are thinking about being the next Gowalla or Foursquare, think outside the box. The world is a very large, and spherical place, mapped by a long/lat address.

What about developing countries, where the penetration of mobile data usage far outstrips that of broadband, or even dial up modems?

99% of all location services I have seen are targeted squarely at Early Adopters. If you are looking for the next big thing in location, one that attracts people in the millions, look at the developing markets, because connecting people in disparate locations, and giving those people a way to share information is a great start.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127370598:

Carr admits he’s something of a fatalist when it comes to technology. He views the advent of the Internet as “not just technological progress but a form of human regress.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html?pagewanted=1:

While he managed to salvage the $1.3 million deal after apologizing to his suitor, Mr. Campbell continues to struggle with the effects of the deluge of data. Even after he unplugs, he craves the stimulation he gets from his electronic gadgets. He forgets things like dinner plans, and he has trouble focusing on his family.

His wife, Brenda, complains, “It seems like he can no longer be fully in the moment.”

This is your brain on computers.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5e37eb34-74e0-11df-aed7-00144feabdc0.html:

Though other headphones can compete on quality, what sets these ones apart is that they are gaining mass market appeal, reaching beyond audio geeks, thanks in part to the heavyweight talent behind them.

Since I am in Singapore I figured it was time to respond to the Koprol community and facilitate a meetup (kopup).

I talked to Meng Wong over at hackerspaceSG and they were happy to let us use the space.

You can see the details on upcoming.org.

This is non-structured and just a chance to put faces to names (koprol IDs).

Feel free to bring some snacks or drinks to share – nothing too serious.

cya there!

I love daring fireball – I can’t lie but it is for his little comments more than anything.

It started with this:

Yesterday Apple and its carrier partners took pre-orders for more than 600,000 of Apple’s new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions. Many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration. We apologize to everyone who encountered difficulties, and hope that they will try again or visit an Apple or carrier store once the iPhone 4 is in stock.

Then gruber says this:

According to AT&T, that’s 10 times higher than the first-day pre-orders for the iPhone 3GS last year.

This is very good news for Android, because Vic Gundotra told us at I/O that Android is ahead of the iPhone in U.S. sales.

he kills me and I am not even a fanboy – I don’t have an iPhone.

I have been so busy I have not had a time to re-cap my experience at Echelon. First off let me say thanks to Mohan and the team at E27 – nice work – awesome event! I wrote up something for the YDN blog and our slides are also there.

By any measurement the event was a smash. Great attendance, almost 700, good vibe, lots of locals, lots of non-locals, some heavy hitters and a sense that the region is happening with Singapore being a big part of it. I personally met so many new people and got to meet in person the people I have chatted with, admired or wished I knew. My personal network got a huge bump at the event.

This week in asia also did another live show which went over real well. That podcast is starting to take off and I am honored to be involved.

The world is slowly waking up to Asia and to Southeast Asia – it will be interesting to see how things go the rest of the year but I suspect more activity and lots of interesting startups.

see u at openWEBasia!

peace…

ps. also wanted to give a shout out to my buddy terence p – u da man:

Insync was one of the participating startups that exhibited at the recent Echelon 2010 web technology event in Singapore. Michael Smith of Yahoo!, better known as Smitty, had introduced him to the e27 folks, the organizers of Echelon 2010, and got him interested in the event. Terence says he met many ’smart and interesting folks’ there, and got plenty of feedback for Insync. Other participating startups had many good things to say about Insync. Serkan Toto of U.S.-based technology blog TechCrunch, who was at Echelon 2010, even called the Philippines-based startup as one of those who stood out from the crowd.

I love hearing stuff like this story – selling it all...

I am always fascinated when I meet people and they seem to fear not working, taking a long sabbatical or doing something  nuts like traveling America in a Lambo. My take is you only live one time and you better make the best of it since in my opinion having the most stories to tell is a sign of a life well lived.

get moving!

Sometimes I just don’t get how Scoble deduces things.

Start with this – http://scobleizer.com/2010/06/07/things-steve-jobs-didnt-say/ :

1. I didn’t remember him talking about the Macintosh. I might have missed it, but I don’t think so.
2. I didn’t remember him talking about tethering.
3. I didn’t remember him talking about Apple TV.
4. I didn’t remember him talking about other carriers other than AT&T.

There is a new OS coming Robert. How about we talk about the mac then?
Tethering. Works all over the world with iPhones. This is a stupid ATT issue but yes – an issue.
Apple TV – maybe there is something new coming. Big deal.
Cause for now Apple is going with ATT – who knows. Maybe that will change?

Then – http://scobleizer.com/2010/06/07/the-bottom-line-iphone-4-vs-androids-best-does-nokia-microsoft-rim-have-a-chance-in-getting-into-the-game/

What all I am always wondering is why all of Robert’s angles are purely north america and maybe europe. Nokia still crushing it in the emerging markets. Sure it is under threat but come to Indonesia where you won’t see very many Nexus One’s or iPhones. In Thailand you see a bunch of iPhones but RIM on the rise as well. Point is that around the world this is all changing. RIM is still alive and so is Nokia. The bigger question is around MSFT – are they just out of the mobile space? I think so. They could have bought Palm and jumped back in but HP will pretty much kill Palm.

Sometimes Robert I just wonder where u come up with all this nonsense?

Back in Jakarta – got a product to get cranking on!

Seems Indonesia is getting tons of press – some warranted and some not. There is a lot of action here but time to deliver.

In other news I will be joining TWIA as a full timer. Awesome – I am totally stoked about this. Check out the Echelon show – awesome stuff with an all star cast.

Anyway – back to the grind…

As America turns more and more into a nanny state I hope americans and their government representatives start to realize that government is suppose to provide a safe environment for people to live – live as they please without breaking the law. It seems the government has spent way too much time telling us HOW to live while they let big finance clean out the coffers, making a lot of people rich, and now they have let big oil destroy the gulf.

Government should be regulating business more than regulating our lives. Clearly we missed it on wall street and now it is clear that those watching over big oil were more interested in profit than the environment. Disgusting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/opinion/28fri1.html?ref=global:

Mr. Obama said he would need Congress’s help on some changes. But there is much he can do administratively, and rapidly, including requiring more rigorous inspections of rigs by the Coast Guard and other agencies. One big problem, as he noted, is that government officials (he included himself in this indictment) have too easily accepted industry assurances that it could deal with a worst-case scenario.

They clearly should not have been so trusting. This is an industry that can no longer safely be left to its own devices.

Well – this is what I have been working on for the past few months with my good friend and co-worker Shanan. My first M&A deal at Yahoo! but also the first of its kind in places like Indonesia. Pretty sure this is the first time one of the big internet companies has bought an Indonesian startup. This is great for Indonesia and the emerging markets as a region – showing that good products have an exit strategy.

I will be blogging more as I work on the Yahoo! integration and the plans for Koprol in the future. Stay tuned.

Just some of the coverage -

http://www.e27.sg/2010/05/25/yahoo-acquires-koprol-foursquare-of-indonesia/

http://www.pcworld.com/article/197064/yahoo_buys_indonesian_mobile_internet_company.html

http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/24/yahoo-koprol/

http://kara.allthingsd.com/20100524/yahoo-acquires-indonesian-geo-location-service-called-koprol/

I was reading this post today by Arrington and was LMAO – it is so spot on.

For the years I lived in Thailand I was generally running around with a cheap Nokia phone – something like this. I think I paid like 40 USD for it – brand new. Slapped my SIM card in it and I off I went. I was always able to get any of the cheap phones to sync using Bluetooth to my MAC so I was always up and running with my full address book quickly. Battery life is killer on these phones and call quality is amazing with the ability to make calls in elevators most of the time.

It is amazing how smart phones add in all the whiz-bang stuff but seem to fall down on the normal stuff – like making calls.

This is the good stuff though:

And really, for certain social situations, like dinners, all this phone activity needs to stop anyway. If you can’t check into Foursquare or Gowalla with your phone, you definitely won’t be. I found I was having actual conversations with people instead. While my tiny prepaid phone sat lightly in my pocket, humming on a full battery charge.

When all your phone is for is making calls – then you tend to use it less and actually interact with the real world. Nice!

My prediction is having “dumb” phones will be the new cool thing!