Just a quick update, I promise!
InsideFacebook.com has done an interview with Ben Leong, lecturer of CS3216, otherwise known as “the NUS Facebook Course”.
Check out the interview to find out more about the aims and motivations behind the setting up of CS3216.
As we near the mid-term break this semester, the students of the NUS “Facebook course”, CS3216, have already gone through two rounds of application development.
Drawing inspiration from Randy Pausch of CMU’s course, Building Virtual Worlds, NUS’ Software Development on Evolving Platforms encourages students to get to know each other by getting them to work with different people for each project. The benefit lies in not having to face the same old people project after project, allowing for differing ideas and opinions to clash, rebound, and then maybe combine again in unexpected ways.
Here’s a little sampling from the second project submissions:
Prosperity Garden by Kent Nguyen, Ngo Minh Duc, Chin Su Yuen and Ahmed Wali Aqeel
From the group’s description of their application
Prosperity Garden adds a unique dimension to the Chinese New Year. Your Prosperity Garden allows you to Greet your friends with cute auspicious gifts they can cherish, animate and play around with in their garden. And to add to the fun, you can show off what you’ve received by decorating your gifts the way you desire to show them on your profile! Start spreading prosperity and joy spirit by giving your friends cute gifts to beautify their gardens,be generous and have fun!
Fridge Mayhem by Lu Hai Loc, Quek Dingfeng, Peter Jihoon Kim and Munir Hussin
The Fridge Mayhem introduces a new kind of social interaction never before seen in Facebook. Going beyond the conventional text-based communication, our application allows you to creatively express your thoughts by manipulating colorful magnets on a fridge. Play a game of tic-tac-toe even!
My Music by Stephan Goh, Mei Gangwen, Vu Viet Quynh and Joshua Koo
This application allows you to play and create your own music using an interactive 3d keyboard. The music can be saved, played back, sent to friends, shared in our gallery and downloaded (perhaps to be used as a mobile phone ringtone)!
If you want more, checkout the course website.
If you just want to check out the apps, follow the links for Assignment 1 and Assignment 2.
Blogging live from the company pitching session during CS3216, NUS’ very on course on Software Development on Evolving Platforms, otherwise known as “the NUS Facebook Module”.
Now this is interesting because the lecturer, Professor Ben Leong, has invited people from various companies to come pitch their ideas to the students of the Facebook class. I’m not sure if other modules have had external parties come in to suggest ideas for the students to work on, but this is certainly a first for me =)
Starting off, we have..
Dr Calvin Xu, Assistant Professor
NUS School of Computing, Information Systems Dept.
He’s suggesting Facebook applications that will be able to draw information from a variety of sources. He lists Eopinion.com and Bizrate as two examples.
The idea is to enable users to “input products or events and watch for offers in the local marketplace or events in the social network”
Maybe it’s just me, but the way he’s proposing it sounds like a Honours Year Project.
The professor can provide the necessary resources like guidance and project hosting space, so if you like a project like this, Dr Xu is the man to look for.
ScanScout : Steven Lee
ScanScout is up next.
They’re based in the US though, so CTO Steven Lee has decided to present via a voice recording embedded in a Powerpoint presentation.
ScanScout is into online video advertising. Simply put, they analyse the content of videos online and then overlay an advertisement the video in various different formats. Steve says, overlay advertising is the way to go and prerolls have gone the way of the dodo.
Advertising in the online video market is booming. Up comes a graph with a steeply rising curve showing online video ad spending. The graph indicates that by 2010, online ad spending will reach a whopping USD 2.9 billion.
ScanScout’s technology looks pretty cool. They’ve developed a way to analyse videos using a “multi-dimensional approach”, extracting relevant information from various areas,
And now, the the ideas:
Idea One: Video Syndication Widget
The app will allow users to embed a video from ScanScout’s library onto their Facebook profile. Choose your favourite video clip or movie trailer, and send it to your friends!
Users will also be able to embed ads from the ScanScout advertising network.
Now, I’m not sure whether the embedding of ads by anyone but Facebook is within the ToS of the site.. but I’m sure they’ve done more research than me in this area =)
Idea Two: Video Recommendation Widget
Similar to above, but the widget will be able to recommend videos to users based on their preferences instead. Naturally, users will be able to send their favourite clips to their friends as well.
Oh, and here’s the juicy bait:
ScanScout is willing to award up to $10k in return for the IP to the projects that best make use of their technology.
Facebook Funding Competition : Mak Kien Hui
Up next, a competition for Facebook applications for the local scene!
Budding IT entrepreneurs, TCP Sim and KH Mak are looking for developers to create applications that cater to the Singaporean market. They say that the first wave of over 12000 “pure interaction” apps are now over, and that more specialised and targetted apps are the way to go. Singapore-centric apps are an untapped market.
And with all competitions, there are terms of course:
There are 2 paths students can take:
Path No. 1: The no-further-involvement path
Basically, you develop your app, get recognised as the “Best Class Project” for this course, and they give you $1000. Plain and simple.
Path No. 2: The develop-first-see-if-we-can-commercialise path
If you take this path, you get $2000 in funding for business development. In addition, when the company is formed around the application, you’ll get up to a 20% stake in the company.
One of the best offers out there, we hear.
Next, a slide with various options for Singapore-centric applications.
Singapore Queues, anyone?
Match Making 2.0 : Marc Goh
Marc Goh from Design Prodigy is pitching Matching Making 2.0. Apparently the horrible worldwide statistics are that it’s harder and harder to find a match (1 in 10 won’t find their life mate, and the ladies fare slightly worse at 3 in 10).
The proposal (in my own words): A Facebook dating application based on [a] “basic collaborative filtering alogithm”.
Looks like it’s pretty big. The course is only about 3 months long, but he’s mentioned that plans actually stretch much longer than that. He’s of course hoping for as much student interest and participation as possible, “for the good of mankind” =P
Genometri
Next up, Dr Sivam Krish from Genometri
A lot of design is happening in the virtual world says Sivam. It’s an entire paradigm shift. And a lot of the focus is on customisation. “Whatever can be customised, will be customised.” People, young ones, especially, customise their shirts, their homes, their lives.. their faces even =P He lists companies like Zazzle and Cafepress as examples of the customisation boom.
Genometri has developed a genetic operating system for design. The apparent intention is to change the game. “DIY Design” looks like the way to go. Design is the basis of transactions in the business of the future.
Ok, so where does the Facebook bit come in?
Here’s a thought: Products themselves, like watches, tshirts.. are social applications. Why? If they’re good? They go viral.. everyone starts using the product. Heh, just that in the ‘real world’ we call it “fashion”.
And then there’s a plug for JuJups.com. It looks like a site that does some sort of design prototyping. Will really need to go check it out a little more later. Didn’t really catch the pitch that well.
MTV Networks Asia : Vincent Low
Whoo. MTV Asia’s here as well. Big names =)
Interesting stats.. MTV’s viewers rangefrom 15 to 45 years, split evenly between the sexes. Nevertheless, MTV is a “youth-oriented” channel.
More stats:
72% agree that MTV provides as entertaining and relaxing environment..
.. MTV users like sports.. like drinking.. and are likely to be early adopters..
Quite a bit of stats.. but 5 minutes into the presentation, it still looks like an MTV promotional pitch..lists of products, associations and brands..
Ok he’s just shown a roadmap for various media angles MTV Asia is trying to cover.. ranging from mobile media to widgets. They’re not new to Facebook he says.. they already have applications in the scene.
So why are they here? They want people who think innovatively.
Idea One:
Young Travelers to Southeast Asia
The goal is to “increase interactivity between MTV and target audience, and position MTV Asia as a source for info on the hippest places around Asia”. Basically, if you want to visit the hippest places in the Asian region, they want you to use MTV Asia’s applications.
Idea Two:
Contest prizes and Trip Giveaways
Extend MTV Asia’s contest into Facebook.
In the form of a game perhaps, something users can add in exchange for chances to win prizes, trips and such.
Hey, why not? Add an app and get a chance to win a free trip? Why not? That’s a pretty excellent way to make sure people rush to add the application to their profile though =)
Rate My Turban: Ash Singh
First slide up: Looks like a Hot or Not, but for turbans.
I absolutely love the tagline: Turbanize yourself.
The story of the site’s birth? Social responsibility. Plain and simple.
Apparently after 9/11, many people mistook the turban-wearing Sikhs for terrorists. (Bad, bad, stereotypes!) So as part of his education campaign, the Canadian-born Ash Singh created RateMyTurban.com to tell people that there’s really nothing to worry about Sikhs.
And the results?
- Over 2 million ratings
- Thousands of turban uploads
- Over 400,000 visitors a year from 110 countries.
- Featured on BBC, Yahoo! Picks and the New York Post
Impressive.
Haha and he does admit it’s HotOrNot for turbans =)
Bring on the Turbanizer. It’s a Flash-based tool that allows you to drag and drop turban templates onto your own photos..you know.. just to see how you look like in a turban.
And now, the Turbanizer is heading to Facebook. Turbanize yourself, take a snapshot, post it on your Facebook profile, send it to Cafepress.. for the memories =) Not only that, the creator of the successful RateMyTurban app gets to tap Ash’s experience with web development, television show creation and other really fun stuff.
So what are you waiting for? Turbanize yourself!
Immanuel Beauty School : Hazel Menon
Social enterprise takes the stage.
“We do free charitable work for a certain group of people, and charge another group for the work.”
Hazel is appealing to students in the course to step up and create a Facebook application to benefit the social enterprise. Help the people she says. It’s really quite difficult to get people to commit to the social enterprise, and it’s hard to get people to study beauty in the School.
The prize? Hazel’s the guru in the beauty world. She’s so well connected, she can get into all sorts of spas. Facials, body scrubs, toe scubs, massages.. you name it.
Definitely a worthwhile project, to help the social enterprise. But what to do?
GAT: Give and Take : Lance
Social Enterprise has NOT left the building.
Their “Soul Mission”?
“..to market products handcrafted by the disabled, disadvantaged and impoverished in this world.”
Talk about “socially conscious” products. They get the most underprivileged that they can find and commission them to create more products to sell, ensuring that the disadvantaged actually end up with a livelihood.
The “GAT Pitch”
“If you need to buy a Gift and are unsure of what to buy, do buy something practical, beautiful, but most importantly, something socially conscious.”
The Facebook angle?
Facebook Collaborative Learning System: The Co-Wiki
Elizabeth Koh : diskre [at] nus.edu.sg
Organising events is troublesome, says Elizabeth. People don’t respond to calls, emails, SMSs.. it’s really not easy to get things done quickly.
What if you’re in an international project team? How will you collaborate amongst the members? The usual suspects are various wiki software, Google docs, email threads and such.
The solution? A co-wiki.
“A collaborative learning system that integrates a wiki, and an instant messanger all within the Facebook environment”
Now users can collaborative on their projects, network with their Facebook friends and chat all at the same time! Within Facebook!
She’s plugging the first mover advantage of the co-wiki now. It’s also unique, practical and easy to use.
Pretty cool idea.. but to be honest, if there was such a system, I’d rather do this outside of Facebook. Yes, I know you can embed Facebook apps outside of Facebook now, but that’s really not the issue.
Thymos Capital
And wow, a surprise! Gwen, from Thymos Capital is here!
They’re helping manage the MDA Interactive Digital Media fund and are looking for startups to fund in the IDM scene. So if anyone has a great idea they’d like funded, Gwen is free to help =)
The Singapore Shawl: Shelley Siu
The Singapore Shawl was born out of the economic crash of 2003. People were getting retrenched left, right and center. Men lost their jobs at 47, and women at 37. It was a bad time.
The Singapore Shawl is meant to be a national costume of sorts, to show of the flora and fauna in Singapore through designs on the Shawl. “Uniquely Singapore” goes the tagline.
Check out their existing shops at CK Tangs, The Ritz Carlton and Singapore Botanic Gardens. Apparently the Singapore Eye has also contacted them as part of the promotional efforts too.
There’s a social mission to this too - Singapore Shawl has raised funds for the Society for the Physically Disabled too.
The ideas!
That’s what I have for now. I have some photos that I’ll try to add to the post later on.
[Update: This post was supposed to make it out before the end of 2007, but it looks like I'm too late.. so.. let's have a review-2007 post as my first post of 2008!]
Hey, we’ve come to the end of 2007. So before we move on into a brand new year, full of expectation and promise, let’s take a little look back on the year gone by. Some thoughts, some comments on the bits of tech news that have surfaced in 2007.. and hey, 2007 review posts are all the rage anyway. =)
And.. in no particular order…
I like to start off with this topic here because we’ve seen this battle rage on the past years, with enthusiasts from all three camps (yes people, Linux can be considered a ‘major’ OS now) arguing till the cows come home that “My OS is better!”. 2007 was a good year for all arguments since we’ve seen major releases from all three sides (well ok, the Linux camp has had ‘major’ releases for various distros almost every year, but the release of Vista and Leopard in 2007 just managed to put it all in context.).
Starting off the year, we saw Vista launch to the public on Jan 30, after an initial business-only launch in November 2006. Compared to the launch of XP more than 6 years ago, the Vista launch seemed rather lacklustre. Sporting the brand new Aero GUI, Microsoft’s tag line for the new release was “The WOW starts Now!“. But it would seem to Chris Pirillo, founder of Lockergnome and tech conference Gnomedex, that the line was probably closer to “The WOW starts How?“. And it would seem that Chris was not the only one facing problems with Vista, as many blogs started claiming that performance in XP was actually better than that of Vista, even prompting Microsoft to offer free downgrades to XP for Vista Ultimate and Vista Business users (let’s not even talk about the irony of getting a free downgrade to a ‘lesser’ version of Windows after you purchase the most expensive version of Vista as being a plus point here). Opinions of XP-vs-Vista and related benchmarks can be found aplenty of the great Web, so I’ll be lazy leave it as an exercise for the reader to go seek those out on your own =)
From the Apple camp, we saw the next release of the next big cat, Leopard. This release of OSX heralded the arrival of a great number of new features, including Spaces, TimeMachine, and the Zettabyte Filesystem. The use of multiple workspaces, introduced as Spaces in Leopard, has of course been a familiar concept amongst Linux users for quite a while before the release of Leopard, but hey, anything that improves productivity like multiple workspaces definitely does deserve a pat on the back! Unfortunately, what was to be the the big cat’s glorious release, was soon marred by reports of users having problems either upgrading from Tiger, and even on a cleanly installed system. Despite this though, Leopard users still seem to be happy with the new release and there doesn’t seem to be quite an uproar about its performace as compared to its cousin from Redmond.
While 2007 was not so much an outstanding year for the Linux and Open Source community (and not to say that they haven’t been doing good though, it’s just that it’s been just good all along =), we had a chance to compare newly released versions of 
Ubuntu and Fedora with that eye-candy suite Compiz-Fusion built right in, in a head-to-head fight with Microsoft’s Aero and Apple’s consistent GUI yumminess. If anything, I’d say Linux desktop-bling was given a tremendous boost by the merging of the Compiz and Beryl projects into Compiz-Fusion. Not only did the merge make the effort a lot more consolidated, it was easier for distros to package the Fusion packages and make them available through their repositories, which in turn made the bling more accessible to end-users. Furthermore, distros that included the Compiz-Fusion packages by default, like Ubuntu’s Gutsy Gibbon definitely took a right step in making Linux more palatable to the masses. Also, do check out the Rants section of Episode 65 of the Linux Action Show podcast (Thanks Ram for introducing me to the podcast!) to hear why feature lists like “GNOME 2.20, X.Org 7.3 etc etc” seen in Linux distro release notes DO NOT turn people on as much as “Brand new transparency effect!”. [So now, Linux users, while you spin your 3D desktop-cubes, wobble your windows and switch between multiple desktops and windows with Exposé-/Coverflow-/Flip3d-like ease, do remember not to smirk as you attract stares of envy =p.]
2007 has definitely been a great year for the OS, with great improvements made in all three camps (yes, I said all three). But as performance issues with Vista, bugs with Leopard, and the neverending stream of “How do I do X with Linux??” questions, it just shows how far we are from a system that truly does, Just Work.
The ‘other’ great product from the great (what used to be) technicolour fruit-based company in 2007 is the iPhone. Known to some as the ‘Jesusphone’, the iPhone promised to be “a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device” as introduced by Steve Jobs at the MacWorld Expo in Jan 2007. The Apple iPhone was the first in the world to introduce a multitouch interface, enabling users to navigate the phone’s functions with just their fingers. [Check out the iPhone demo videos on Apple.com] The almost unbearable sleekness of the iPhone, combined with its über-cool touch 
interface simply rocked the world when the it was first announced.
However, the hype ended up having a huge barrel of ice-cold water poured down its pants when it was noted that although the iPhone was announced at the Expo in January, the iPhone itself wouldn’t be shipping at least until the second half of the year (which it did, on 29 June). Unfortunately, this also meant that competitors had about 6 whole months to come up with a device to challenge the iPhone. True, the pretenders could not expect to sway the true believers of the Jobsian Cult, but other pundits were certain that Steve Jobs had blown his January keynote. And just to be sure that things were nice and chilly, Apple further announced that the iPhones were only to be sold with a 2-year (voice and data) contract with AT&T. Later in the year, further exclusive carriers for the iPhone in the EU were also announced.
So, while Asia awaits the iPhone (due in 2008), what’s the reaction been like? Here’s mrbrown’s take on it. Check out some other more enterprising ’solutions’. Speculation has already started in the local forums as to which telco will get to carry the iPhone when it arrives in Singapore, so the fever looks like it’s building up nicely here as well.
So is the iPhone truly the ‘Jesusphone’? I’d tend to disagree, even though TIME Magazine has declared the iPhone the Invention of the Year. Personally, I’d like a device with a slightly more open development platform, like Maemo of the Nokia Internet Tablets. Not that I wouldn’t use an iPhone if you gave me one ;), but I wouldn’t go out of my way to get one, that’s all. [Oh, and check out the iPhone Musical by David Pogue]
Facebook was about the only company that was constantly in the news in tech circles (and beyond) for most of 2007. From the launching of the Facebook Developer Platform, to their rejection of Yahoo!’s $1.4 billion offer, to their acceptance of Microsoft’s 1.6%, $240 million offer (at a valuation of $15 billion), to the Beacon privacy fiasco, this definitely has been a busy year for the young company and its young founders.
After the launch of the Facebook platform and absolute explosion of entertaining, but seriously useless applications, we began to see the first signs of Facebook application fatigue. Bloggers like Jason Calacanis and Fred Wilson began complaining of the supreme multitude of Facebook application clamouring incessantly for their attention. People began adding stuff to their profiles that simply clogged it up. I even remember a post on my friend’s wall that said “Dude, I took over a minute to find your wall!”. As a result, it seemed that Facebook had lost some of its original charm and simplicity, and had wandered drunkenly close to MySpace’s wantonness. [Check out this profile with 200 apps, created courtesy of Mashable]
Apart from being a media darling, Facebook was an investment darling too. With Microsoft’s investment placing the privately-owned company at a $15 bn valuation (seriously, wtf?). I’m no savvy investor, and I’m no great fan of Facebook either, so I don’t really grok the magnitude of the valuation. Yeah sure, I use Facebook. I poke my friends and I throw sheep with the best of them. But hey, I don’t need a website to keep in touch with my friends. Call me old fashioned perhaps, but when I want to catch up with my friends, I give them a call and we go for a coffee or lunch. Which would you rather? Munch on some real livestock with a friend or throw virtual ones at them? Sure, Facebook is fun, but it’s not going to change the world. There’s no new tech behind the company, and all that ties it together are its users. Take the users away, then ask, where’s the value?
And speaking of users, Facebook learnt that trying too hard to capitalise on its user base wasn’t too good an idea. With the Beacon system displaying traces of users’ online activities outside of Facebook on their newsfeeds, Facebook started to seriously creep people out. Facebook’s Beacon received loads of backlash, tarnishing the gleaming sheen the company had painstakingly polished over the past months with its developer platform. Security researchers even analysed Beacon’s behaviour, finding that the system still sent details of users’ activities back to Facebook even though they were logged out of the social network. Sites like Consumerist even posted tips on how to counter Beacon. However, despite the uproar, reports emerged that the protests against Beacon came only from a small, but very vocal portion of the online community instead of the majority. Well, after calls from the blogosphere to repent, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg finally did post an apology on the company’s corporate blog apologising for the Beacon fiasco. However, even that was not enough for bloggers like Om Malik, who claimed that the apology (and related changes to the Beacon system) did not sufficiently deal with certain concerns, namely the transmission of data to Facebook itself.
When it comes to privacy issues, I think it’s not so much what the company does, but how transparent it is with its users, and how much perceived control users have over their data. For example, in the case of Beacon, had Facebook announced the system to users in the first place, allowing them to opt out (and I mean really opt out, not a don’t-notify-me-when-my-data-is-sent kind of ‘opt-out’) of the system, or at least control which Beacon items got published, my guess is that quite a number of users would have left the system to do its work. After all, the News Feed was already a common concept, and Beacon would just appear to be another source for News Feed items, instead of a perceived privacy breach.
In the world of blogging/tumblelogging/microblogging, I especially liked the Twitter/Jaiku competition this year. Though both services are pretty similar, I personally feel that Jaiku does have an edge over the competition, summed up in a previous post. Google’s eventual acquisition of the Finnish-based Jaiku, led to 
widespread speculation in the blogosphere as to why the seemingly less popular (in terms of users) service was chosen by the Big G. I tried contributing my 2 cents
on the issue as well.
And with the other players in the sub-blogging (Hey! New term!) arena, Pownce and Tumblr encountered slightly different fates. Tumblr managed to raise $750k in Series A funding, while the unfortunate Pownce has all but dropped off the radar, even having to suffer being dug at (pun, sort of, not entirely, intended) by uncov.com.
Still, apart from getting people to answer (and answer, and answer, and answer) the question of what they are currently doing, microblogging services (especially Jaiku’s channels), found themselves used as backchannels for conferences such as Reboot in Denmark and Hej! 2007 and Hubbub 07 in Stockholm.
And of course, which year would be complete without some news from Big G itself? After losing the Facebook partnership deal to rival, Microsoft, Google quietly let exuberance work itself for a few days before announcing that it, too, was doing the API thing. The only thing is, Google was going this alone. OpenSocial turned out to be a general set of APIs that partner sites would implement in order to allow OpenSocial applications (similar to Facebook applications) to be embedded in profiles across said partner sites. As it turned out, Google had already lined up a series of partners before the announcement, including Ning, friendster, LinkedIn, salesforce.com, Hi5 and orkut, among others, leaving Microsoft and Facebook pretty much sitting along on the ‘other side’.
Initial reactions included those saying that despite all the partners Google had lined up, their combined traffic still couldn’t top that of Facebook’s. However, with the announcement that social networking giant (in network-traffic terms) MySpace was joining the OpenSocial coalition, the situation was now reversed. And while many hailed the OpenSocial coalition as a “Facebook-killer”, others were just not convinced that Facebook was caught dead in the water.
However, despite the initial hype, it would appear that Google’s OpenSocial hasn’t taken off the ground yet. And its partners are getting impatient. In the past month, two members of the initial OpenSocial alliance, Bebo and LinkedIn, have announced plans to release their own API platforms ahead of OpenSocial, with Bebo even partnering with OpenSocial rival-apparent, Facebook. If anything, I’d say this is a sign that Google had better start cracking on OpenSocial to get it off the ground. True, it’s a coalition, but that doesn’t mean Google can sit idly by and wait for developers to flock to OpenSocial on their own. Surely, there has to be a push from Google itself to get things going? Coalition members are standing by. Wait any longer, and OpenSocial might end up being just another might-have-been in the grand scheme of things. I’m eager to see how things play out with this. Will OpenSocial eventually become the social application platform of choice, or will Facebook retain it’s popularity?
The other big piece of news from Google in 2007, was that after taking on the social networking sphere, it was slowing easing itself into the mobile arena. Just shortly after the announcement of the OpenSocial platform, Google released yet another piece 
of news that rocked the world. The fabled gPhone was here. Only it wasn’t a gPhone at all. Analysts at the New York Times speculated that Google was in fact working on a reference implementation of software for a mobile platform, which would then compete with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile. As it turned out, they were right.
Google’s mobile platform, Android, was based on Andy Rubin’s work at the company of the same name, acquired by Google in 2005. Similar to OpenSocial though, the Android scene has been pretty quiet in the weeks after the announcement, though the Google Blog post announcing Android did mention that some partners in Google’s Open Handset Alliance were aiming to ship Android-based phones in the second half of 2008. At this time though, pictures of Android prototypes have begun to appear online.
What will the first Android-based mobile look like? I’m sure that’s a question we’re all asking ourselves. But more importantly, what impact will a mobile phone linked to Google have? Will it be the cause for privacy concerns all over again? Will we begin to see contextual ads on our gPhones in relation to where we physically are? We shall see.
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2007 has been a year of great news and great develops, in almost all sectors of the internet industry. From new OS releases, to new developer platforms, strategic alliances and entire new industries (RockYou, I’m looking at you) have been created. At the same time, we’ve also begun to catch glimpses of a potential Bubble 2.0, with people jumping aboard the ‘Web 2.0′ bandwagon without quite understanding what it meant.
2007 has been cool and we’re hoping 2008 will hold many more exciting surprises. But lest we begin feeling bubbly again, I leave you with this amusing, yet rather poignant post.
To paraphrase, if you create a group on Facebook and no one knows about it, how long does it take for it to become popular does anyone know about it?
Well let’s try that out.
I’ve created a group on Facebook that (I think) might be of interest to quite a number of people. No names now of course.. otherwise that would spoil it =) I’m just curious to see how long it would take for new of the existence of this group to spread.
How long will it take to reach 10 people? 20? 30? 100?
We shall see. I’ll post updates as the group hits round numbers =)
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Join log:
13 Mar 2049 hrs : 12 members
