Why The Internet Is Leading To Increased General Knowledge

I believe that the Internet is going to lead to a much greater general knowledge amongst the population. Knowledge serendipity is a powerful force – unknowingly stumbling onto chains of relevant, and useful information. And the Internet is allowing everyone to experience it, daily.

Let me explain. You open your browser, and need to do a search for something. Let’s say you Google “General Mola, Spanish Civil War” (because that’s what I was searching when I began thinking about this). You view the Wikipedia page first for some background information. Then you click on a link within Wikipedia, to something else that seems interesting. You read that for a bit. Then you click on one of the footnotes that takes you to a website outside of Wikipedia. The website you’ve been taken to is a general history website with a lot of great information on lots of topics. So you browse around for a while on a lot of different topics. Then the same thing happens, you find a link to another website that’s got interesting information on a different topic.

Sorry for the lengthy explanation, but I wanted to emphasize the point. I’m sure most of you got it. From searching for one thing, you’re opened up to an endless stream of relevant, and useful information, all stemming from that original topic. Where has the world ever seen something like this before? I would argue never. A library isn’t the same because it doesn’t let you stumble on interesting, and relevant information, in a quick manner. Books are sorted by author and subtopic, and so it doesn’t allow you to find things on other topics entirely. Plus you have to physically walk around and find books. It isn’t the same.

The other day, after I began thinking about this topic, we had a history lesson just doing some research on computers for our assignments. I looked around at other people’s screens, and tried to follow the paths that they were going through to discover new information. Watching this for about 30 minutes was simply fascinating. Most of us started with a similar search, but from there we all went off in different tangents. After a while we were all looking at information on entirely different topics, on different websites.

I believe that because the Internet allows this “extreme-serendipity”, people are greatly increasing their general knowledge daily. Just think about all the links you click from one initial website, or something your friend has posted on Facebook. We all get led through complex information paths daily, and pick up many facts along the way.

This is another of those effects that stems from the Internet that we won’t see the benefits to society from for a while. But they are definitely benefits – and it’s happening to every one of us.

Creating Tech Hubs

This is a post I’m writing because I really want to get other people’s opinions and thoughts on the topic. I’ve been thinking about what makes a “tech hub”. Silicon Valley is the obvious hub, and has been for a while. New York is the up-and-coming second US tech hub. In South East Asia? Singapore arguably is, and Hong Kong to a lesser extent.

But how are they made? Is it simply from a successful technology company coming from that place, and then others starting up there? Is it actually something about the geographic location? Is it to do with the infrastructure? Laws? Amount of capital available?

The answer is probably most of the above, and a huge number of different factors. But in the interests of determining how a tech hub could be created, and accelerated to success, let’s look for a few common factors.

New York is probably a good example right now because it’s tech scene has really only developed over the past few years, with startups such as Foursquare and Tumblr. The issue I’m having trouble with working out is likely a chicken-and-egg problem; was New York a tech hub and that is why Foursquare and Tumblr started up there, or was New York turned into a tech hub from their success?

In New York, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, and other tech hubs there are a few common themes. I’m going to talk about the things that are missing in Wellington (my city in New Zealand), and what factors from these tech hubs would need to be added to Wellington to turn it into one.

Wellington has a lot of innovation, and in the past couple of years there has been a few tech companies making it big internationally (Xero and Ponoko come to mind immediately). But I believe there are three areas that other tech hubs have, which we would need to have added in Wellington in order to truly create a tech hub.

• Infrastructure
• Capital
• Media

The infrastructure Wellington is missing is fibre broadband connection. Our connections speeds are pitifully slow, with single-person Skype video chats regularly having degraded quality. How can we be a tech hub without this basic infrastructure? Luckily for us, Pacific Fibre should be implementing this infrastructure within the next couple of years.

Wellington doesn’t have enough forms of capital to properly provide the growing number of startups. There are some angel investors, a couple of VC firms, and some government-funded investment initiatives, but if you compare this to other established tech hubs worldwide it’s not enough. We need more rich individuals funding early-stage ventures, and many options of VC firms to provide late-stage funding. And where is Wellington’s incubator!? Increased capital options is essential.

Finally, I believe the media is crucially important in turning a city into a tech hub. And this could be the hardest part for Wellington, which suffers from a complete media monopoly (and one which is low-quality and not viewed internationally). The media is how startups doing good will actually be seen and recognised internationally, and it takes an innovative media to actually write stories on new technologies. Ponoko, for example, has been doing great for over a year and yet they just received their first proper write-up a couple of weeks ago. That’s a problem. We need, at the very least, an increased technology section in our newspapers, and a larger online offering (a Wellington startup focussed blog, perhaps?).

I believe Wellington is doing great things to increase innovation and entrepreneurship, such as the Bright Ideas Challenge, but the above three things will need to be fixed before we have any chance of truly turning it into a tech hub. Physical distance no longer matters, but a forward-looking and entrepreneurial culture is crucial.

Have I missed a crucial aspect to creating a tech hub? Any other thoughts? Please do leave a comment or email me – like I said, I wrote this post to start a discussion and to learn.

MyCube Digital Life Academy 2011

One of the most popular posts that I’ve ever written on this blog was titled “The Future of Social Networks: Societal Structure“. In it, I discussed how I believe in the future social networks will be networks that mimic structure of our societies in real life. That is, our very close friends and family, then our connections, and then wider society who we do not actually know.

The post created quite a lot of discussion, and I loved the input that people gave about why it would or wouldn’t work. But last week I received a very exciting piece of news regarding this blog post.

MyCube is a social network that has just started up in Singapore. Founded by well-known Swedish serial entrepreneur Johan Stael von Holstein, MyCube aims to create a social network with values and a “charter”, to ensure that people’s privacy and data are respected. It’s a company whose principles I completely believe in, and I am confident that MyCube will disrupt this space.

This summer, MyCube is running the “Digital Life Academy” in Singapore. Essentially they’re paying for thirty people aged 16-25, from twenty countries, to come to Singapore and spend six weeks learning all about MyCube and what’s involved in starting up a similar company. There honestly could not be an opportunity that excites me more since I truly believe in MyCube, am so passionate about entrepreneurship as a means of solving global problems – AND Singapore just happens to be my favourite country.

I’ve been accepted to the Digital Life Academy this year, and will be flying to Singapore from the 4th of July until the 14th of August. I’m incredibly excited about it.

If you’re interested in learning more about MyCube, Fast Company ran a great article on them a few days ago. I urge you all to request a beta invitation to MyCube and try it out – there are bugs, as with all early-stage products, but you’ll see how simple the privacy settings are right from the beginning.

Economics & History Posts?

I’m regularly asked about things I’m learning in school, and it seems as though some you guys reading this blog may want to hear about the most interesting stuff I’m learning day-to-day. So I’ve decided to intermittently post about this kind of stuff, whether it be economics or history. I’m going to do this for two reasons:

1. Some of what you learned in high school may still be useful, and I can perhaps help to remind you of it.

2. You truly understand something when you can explain it to others, so in a sense my posts on school subjects will be a form of study to me – they’ll help me work out what I understand and what I need to study more on in order to tell others about it.

And don’t worry – this isn’t going to become a blog on what it’s like in high school. I’ll only be posting on subjects I’m interested in (mainly just economics and history, perhaps a bit of English) and believe me, some of what we are learning in economics is relevant every day when you read the news.

Let me know your thoughts on this though. Good idea? Bad idea? Should I be doing something else? Just flick me an email or leave a comment.

On Reid Hoffman As a Role Model

Sarah Lacy from TechCrunch has written an incredibly thought provoking piece on why Reid Hoffman is a role model, and not Mark Zuckerberg. She bases the article on entrepreneurs overseas looking in on the US and trying to imitate the wrong people. Zuckerberg was the once-in-ten-years lucky success story. But who else is like him? He’s a genius, yes, but he’s perhaps not the ideal entrepreneur. The controversy about whether the idea for Facebook was his or not is the right place to look for a start. Sarah Lacy says it’s entrepreneurs like Reid Hoffman who international entrepreneurs should be looking up to -

“Hoffman should be the role model for entrepreneurs star-struck by the seeming glamour and ease of Silicon Valley’s consumer Internet world. He’s the living incarnation of the reality of the Valley: It may be easier than ever to start a product, but building a company is just as hard as its ever been.”

I could not agree more with her article. Every point she made runs completely true with what I believe. However I’d like to expand a bit on what she has talked about, and specifically discuss the effects on young entrepreneurs of looking up to people like Zuckerberg.

People like Reid Hoffman have worked tirelessly on their products for at least a decade because they completely believe in it, and know that it can help people. They just keep going, and work every day to get their product to a success. These are the people we should be imitating, not Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg has almost sold Facebook a few times because he thought it couldn’t be more successful. He’s hardly invested any of his own money. On the contrary, Hoffman owns about a quarter of LinkedIn because it’s his own money he’s invested, and this demonstrates his steadfast belief in the product and what it can do for people all over the world.

Zuckerberg is a genius, and he’s created an absolutely incredible website that is helping people worldwide. But we shouldn’t imitate him or look up to him as a role model because he’s not a traditional entrepreneur. If young people can follow entrepreneurs like Reid Hoffman, and be looking up to them instead, then I strongly believe we will see more successful businesses in the long-run. It’s not healthy looking up to someone and hoping your product will be an instant hit that will turn into a billion-dollar company before you know it.

Read Sarah Lacy’s article here, and please do share your thoughts in the comments. I’m especially interested to hear people’s thoughts on how we could get young people more aware of entrepreneurs like Hoffman.

Why Facebook Should Go Freemium

Advertising-centric business models are boring. They’re un-innovative, and provide incredibly low returns per viewer. On large scales they obviously can provide huge revenue, but even then the alternatives must be considered. I’ve been thinking a lot about business models of tech startups. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about Facebook’s business model. I’ve come to the conclusion that the right thing for Facebook to do is implement a freemium model. Just hear me out, because there’s more to it than solely the possible revenue increase.

The great thing about a freemium model is that users have choice. Those who like Facebook just the way it is and are happy being served ads can keep using it exactly how they currently are. I don’t propose that Facebook remove features from normal users in order to charge paying users for them. But a freemium model allows those who are willing to pay more for certain features the ability to do so, while continuing to offer the masses the basic service for free. I’m sure you already know this, but I thought I’d run through it in case.

How would a freemium model work in Facebook’s case? The free version of Facebook will remain 100% as it currently is. Absolutely no changes made. But to the minority who are willing to pay, they can add features and remove ads. Features could include some like LinkedIn offers, such as job-finding abilities. They could add “super-fast photo uploading” functionality that simply increases the speed of uploads for paying users by pushing them to the front of the line. They could simply add a “premium” badge for paying users, which would act as a status incentive. There are lots of things they could do to add value for paying members. What would they charge for it? Who knows, but for the sake of putting a number on it let’s say US$5 a month.

Let me just run through the benefits of a freemium model for Facebook. Firstly, there is the increase in revenue. (And yes, I am completely confident there would be an increase in revenue). Facebook has nothing to lose, because those who aren’t willing to pay will remain with the existing free version of Facebook and continue to be served ads. Those who are willing to pay will cough up a small, yet viable amount for some extra functionality and increased status in their social circles. Facebook would price the premium features to ensure they are making extra revenue over free members, and therefore it’s completely foolproof. It’s either an increase in revenue or no change in revenue.

Secondly, the extra status given by premium membership is very important. Facebook is a social network. And it’s obvious that in most social circles status is a very important thing. What better a tech startup to focus on giving people extra status than the biggest social network in the world? Having a gold “premium” badge next to your name would alone be reason enough to get people paying for the premium membership. It’s displayed to all their friends. But there are many long-term benefits to Facebook from offering this feature. If people feel like they’re “in” on something, and a part of something, they’ll be inclined to stay passionate about that service for a longer period of time. In Facebook’s case, the “premium badge” will keep people hooked on Facebook because they are given extra status displayed to their entire social circle.

Think about that last sentence again. “… will keep people hooked on Facebook”. That’s exactly what Facebook needs, because the biggest threat to them is that people get bored of what they offer and that something else comes along. If Facebook has people paying, they’ll be more willing to remain with Facebook for a longer period because they’ve been giving them actual money. This is one of those extra benefits that comes out of a freemium model that could greatly work to Facebook’s advantage.

There are a lot of people who think anything that displays tacky ads to them is inferior. And it’s true – when I’m shown ads for stuff that I really don’t care about, with silly pictures, I like Facebook just a little bit less. It makes it seem like a blog whose user is simply writing to make a bit of money from awful Google ads. A huge number of people would be completely willing to pay a few dollars a month in order to have no adverts displayed. And again, this allows paying members to feel superior and therefore be more inclined to stay with Facebook for longer.

This last point may not seem especially strong for why Facebook should go freemium, but think about it in a wider context. Too much information being displayed to us is a common discussion, and rightly so – we are constantly inundated with abundant information on websites, and are then displayed ads beside everything as if we didn’t have enough to think about. Wouldn’t giving paying members a “safe-haven” from information overload create a special feeling that would keep people using Facebook for longer and longer? People would feel as though Facebook was the one place on the Internet where they could be ad-free, and would pay for the privilege.

Each of these points, in case you haven’t picked it up already, is about how people perceive Facebook. And to me, a freemium model is a way for Facebook to be perceived in a new light, as a company that cares about its users and wants to offer them options to use the service in different ways and differentiate themselves from the masses. Perception of companies is an important topic, and changing its business model to something more exciting and more useful to the user is probably one of the best things Facebook can do to aid this.

Now, if it so obviously seems like a good idea as it does to me, why isn’t Facebook doing it? If I’m missing something blatantly obvious, please do point it out to me – but I really can’t see how it could harm Facebook in any way from going freemium. I only see benefits, and they are long-term benefits that would help Facebook to retain its users for years.

How I Go Paperless In School

This year I’ve managed to avoid carrying around books in school, both textbooks and notebooks. The only things I carry to school each day are my Macbook Air and iPad. Together with a few apps, they’re basically a student’s dream, and have made my life completely paperless and accessible from anywhere. I’ve had quite a few people asking me how I do it and what apps I use, so I thought I’d take a few paragraphs to explain.

Firstly, how did I get rid of physical textbooks? Each of my textbooks came with a CD that included a PDF version of the textbook. I uploaded these to my computer, and then attached them all to an email which I sent to myself. I then opened that email on the iPad, and downloaded the PDF’s into the iBooks app. They work seamlessly. I can browse the table of contents and tap on a chapter and be taken instantly to it, and I can save bookmarks of the pages I need to do for homework. It’s just simply brilliant, and not having to carry around five or so heavy textbooks each day has really changed being a student.

I also wanted to avoid carrying around notebooks with me, so that I could have everything digital and accessible from either Macbook or iPad. Evernote is the perfect solution. In case you don’t know about Evernote, it’s an application available on almost any platform that allows you to store digital notes of text and images in the cloud. I’ve been using it for a couple of years and I am a paying premium user because I love it so much. I have an Evernote notebook for each of my classes, and then each different sub-topic we do in class I’ll create a new individual note for. For example, in Economics, I have an overall Economics notebook, and then in the Elasticities unit I have different sub-notes such as “Price Elasticity of Demand”, “Income Elasticity of Demand”, and “Price Elasticity of Supply”. This means it’s incredibly easy for me to scroll through my notes in each subject and study, or simply search for exactly what I’m looking for.

In class I write notes on my Macbook because I find it easier to type on a physical keyboard, and I usually study on the bus home using the iPad. If we’re ever given a handout sheet in class I’ll take a photo of it on either my iPhone or iPad, and then put this into Evernote too so that I literally have EVERYTHING to do with school stored inside it. As a Premium Evernote user I have the ability to create “shared notebooks” – quite a few of my friends in class are now using Evernote too, and shared notebooks give us the ability to create collaborated notes to ensure none of us have missed anything.

Another advantage of using Evernote for note taking is that you can easily add images to text notes to make studying later even better. For example, in Biology we were recently studying cells and I would take notes on Eukaryotic cells and then find images of the cells from Google and copy them into the note in Evernote. Saves having to meticulously draw diagrams in notebooks with coloured pencils.

The last part to my “school setup” is my to-do list. I use an app called Things, which is made by a great company called Cultured Code. Their apps are a little bit more expensive than other alternative to-do lists (Mac app is over NZD$60, iPhone app is NZD$15), but its simplicity and functionality makes it completely worth it. I have Things on Mac, iPad, and iPhone and it has the ability to wirelessly sync any new notes between the three devices. I create new notes for anything I have to do for school throughout the day (homework, assignments, things to remember) and they all go into the “Inbox”. Then at night on the Mac I’ll sort each to-do into the subject I have to do it for. Each morning when I wake up I’ll then go into all my notes and scroll through and click “Today” on anything that I have to get done that day. I can then view solely these to-do’s in one place throughout the day and get them done first before starting on others. It’s a brilliant system, and in all honesty has meant that I haven’t had to use “I forgot we had that homework” as an excuse once this year.

I completely recommend Evernote and Things to anyone wanting to digitize their school or work lives. I also use them for everything to do with TDTYTIS.

Let me know what you think, and if you know any other apps which you think are even better please do tell me about them!