Monday, December 19, 2011

What Lies Ahead for Digital Music Industry in Indonesia

After reading Aulia's post, I felt that I needed to add to it with some more facts and insight, and throw in my own opinion about the much-discussed yet perceived-as-slow-to-develop  state of the music industry's move to the digital medium in Indonesia.

Let's get through some points in the article first:

  • most of the music labels work directly with the telcos to provide music content; and some content providers either aggregate content for smaller music labels, or develop their own artist roster to further capitalize the business potential of RBT.

  • The RBT service itself uses premium SMS to charge customers, because it's the simplest way to do it. But the system itself differs than standard premium SMS services, because where usually premium SMS services have servers that sit at the content providers and route through the telco charging system, RBT systems are installed on the telco side.


Read the rest of the post on Dailysocial.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

This Is All Kinds Of Wrong of the Day (via The Daily What)

Makes you think how some people in Indonesia would react to a Christian-centric TV series.

This Is All Kinds Of Wrong of the Day: At the encouragement o…
http://tumblr.thedailywh.at/post/13992641466/this-is-all-kinds-of-wrong-of-the-day-at-the

(Sent from Flipboard)

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Pilih Sendiri Petualangan [Musik]mu

[ini adalah guest post di aldosianturi.com.]

Saya (ceritanya) anggota band. Sebuah band yang berkat bantuan si Aldo ini, sempet manggung di sebuah acara musik rock internasional yang berlangsung di Jakarta. Band ini juga yang cuma punya sederet kecil prestasi, yang tidak termasuk pernah rilis album. Kenapa? File-file masternya hilang. Klasiklah, masalah-masalahnya.

Konon sih band ini udah malang melintang dari jaman Poster Cafe, ikut festival dan pensi sana-sini, dan seperti banyak band lainnya sempat vakum, gonta-ganti personil. Pernah juga lagunya tembus ke no.1 chart indie sebuah radio Jakarta, dan lagu lain malah nyaris masuk ke kompilasi dari radio tersebut. Yah, banyak nyaris-nyarisnya lah.

Kalau melihat dari sisi profesional gue, yang pernah jadi anak major label, materinya bagus kok. Gak boong. Cuma gak mainstream aja. Dan menurut gue, kalau diaransir sedikit lain dan dinyanyikan orang lain, mungkin bisa jadi lagu pop yang bagus. Nggak akan pernah tau, karena nggak pernah dikerjain.

Baca selanjutnya di aldosianturi.com.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Cloud Computing, Music, And What It Means For Music Discovery

So, cloud computing's all the rage lately; it has seemingly become the latest marketing 'buzzword' that tech-based services need to use to ensure potential customers that their product is relevant with the times. And for a good reason too; the growth of the amount of internet-enabled devices we interact with every day, has made cloud computing a proposition that is become more and more relevant to the consumer public.

If cloud computing, where storage and processing power is relegated to servers "in the sky" instead of only relying on the device you are currently using, has already made inroads to business, then why not entertainment? The importance of the 'cloud computing' jargon for consumers is that they can access all their content, files and services through virtually any internet enabled device. Files are "safe", service preferences are remembered, and almost always, a service with cloud computing capabilities can be accessed through any modern browser.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

The Money-Making Trifecta Of Content + Access + Hardware

More than 2 years ago today, I did rounds to a couple of companies, presenting in what I thought to be the next step in entertainment media - the media ecosystem. The idea itself was not new, and many of the parts of the idea were inspired by real-world businesses, like Nokia's Ovi, RIM's BlackBerry platform and of course, Apple's iTunes. I simply tried to point out that the market is still wide open to create a seamless ecosystem for media products - music, movies, news, sports, and so on - to meet with advertising and brands, to become equally beneficial to all parties involved. This concept was based on 3 principles:

Sunday, November 27, 2011

[REFLECTION] Our Secret Expectations

The cruelty that is Jakarta, is that it never lets us think, reflect, or contemplate. From the moment we wake up early in the morning, usually a good time for reflection and prayer, we're forced to plunge ourselves into our routines of preparation for work or school or whatever; we have not yet made peace with the new day and given it purpose, so we rush into it - because there's no other way, like trying to stuff in a huge hamburger in 2 minutes. We probably haven't made peace with yesterday, either.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

[INSIGHT] High/Low Culture, The Internet And The Perception Of Quality

As I have been rambling on and off about on Twitter, quality seems to be something more of an agreed perception of things, rather than a definite benchmark of something... right?

Let me move back a bit.

Point 1: many people are claiming that 'the end is near', due to the seemingly frequent amount of natural disasters, freak accidents, shootings, murder, war and other terrifying, doomsayer-supporting things. The fact is, since time immemorial, natural disasters do happen on an alarming scale - it's just that now, with internet and social media, every piece of news speeds around the world very quickly, and bad news travels fast. The earthquake in Japan pretty much got global attention in less than an hour, maximum, at least for those people connected to the internet. And with the amount of information going around, it's tempting to connect the dots and reach conclusions that may or may not be true. But thus, the speed that the internet spreads information and delivers it to us, has influenced our perception of the world.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

In Vietnam, 1 Year Later



Exactly 1 year ago, Saskia and I packed our bags - 2 large suitcases, 32 kg each; 1 small suitcase, 10 kg, a large backpack and tote bag - and went to Soekarno-Hatta International airport. Our parents were there, and a few of our friends were kind enough to see us off, to an adventure of a lifetime. We were moving to Vietnam.

After 2 apartments (we moved to an apartment complex in a nicer area in April) and right now in the middle of a move to a new office building, we've had the opportunity to take trips to Phan Thiet and the Mekong Delta, and I've had the opportunity to visit Hanoi.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

[INSIGHT] Balancing Act

Many times, especially when working in large teams, we become so engrossed in discussing the details, arguing on doing things this way or that (with an occasional bout of pride or ego), that we lose sight of the big picture. We lose sight of the mission.

It's very tempting to go into a heated discussion on which time of day would be perfect for a radio ad placement, but if we don't remember the mission, we engross ourselves into an argument of some campaign element that would only give us, say, 10 more customers. We're so focused on perfecting our jump shot when we should be practicing strategies.

It's also very tempting to focus on the big picture so much, you forget how you got there. Dropping revenues must be replaced by new revenue channels, disregarding the need to build it properly to ensure it is sustainable. Like finishing a complicated Lego model, but forgetting how to build it. Shareholder pressure can do that do you.

I'd rather have a team that plays a mediocre game this season and goes on a winning streak next season, rather than have a winning season now and lose all my players next season due to injuries. Good things need to be built with a mission, and built with discipline. And that mission should transcend short-term goals (like money, because money always goes away again).

So, a delicate balance is needed between looking at the big picture and making sure the process is sustainable. That's why you need to make sure you have the right people around you - which might not be people who always agree with you.

So, what's your mission?

Monday, November 7, 2011

What's The Next Step For The Music Industry?

This article originally appeared in Rollingstone Indonesia magazine edition 871 (October 2011) in Indonesian. This is the English translation of that article.

A few months ago there was a rumor that the popular file-sharing site, 4shared, would be blocked in Indonesia, as part of the Ministry of Communication and Informatics to stop digital music piracy through that site. Although the rumor turned out false, it brought the issue of digital music piracy back to the surface. The question is, what is the correct course of action?

At the end of July 2011, a rumor that 20 popular music blogs and websites were to be shut down by the Ministry of Communication and Informatics; when actually, the associations of music industry companies supporting the 'Heal Our Music' had sent an official letter to the Ministry regarding this, which was also spread to the press. At the time of writing, there has been no action from the Ministry towards these sites.

This is a sign of the times, something with an apparent long history.

The recorded music industry that we know today, grew from the commercialization of music products through vinyl records. The music that we enjoy could only be heard through a live performance, or the purchase of a vinyl record (and in turn, cassettes and CDs). The recorded music industry had a stranglehold over music distribution, because access to music was limited to a physical product, in the form of vinyl records, cassettes or CDs. A relatively perfect business pattern was shaped - an industry structure that sold all kinds of music, in relatively equal formats and prices, and could be maintained indefinitely; as long as market conditions did not shift.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

[GEEK POST] 5 Reasons Why I'm Still Using A BlackBerry



RIM has certainly lost a lot of steam these days. With sales dropping like flies across the globe, the future looks uncertain because no one in the world will know exactly how successful - or not - the upcoming QNX-based phones will fare. It certainly didn't do well for the Playbook, which in all accounts is actually a solid hardware product with a mediocre software product. With the trend in computing - mobile or otherwise - is obviously moving towards a focus on software (the OS and apps), we have yet to see how RIM will ride tomorrow's waves behind the giant ships of iOS and Android.

Of course, all this doesn't matter for the average consumer, and I consider myself one. I do keep tabs on tech news and the latest trends in computing, but at the end of the day, I choose what works for me as a consumer. And for me, the BlackBerry works.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

This Music Industry and RBT Thing, It Ain't As Simple As You Think

The past few days, I have seen (well, among other issues filling my timeline) more or less two camps voicing their opinions on the current RBT fiasco.

One camp would be the music labels, the content providers, and such who have a stake in the business and stand to lose customers due to the "system reboot" initiated by the telcos as instructed by the government.

The other camp would be the people who hate the major label domination of music, who hate RBT as a music product, and are generally happy about the state of things, saying that RBT was the harbinger of bad music to Indonesia and it's better off dead.

Well, I am subjective, as I have worked in the music industry before, but it doesn't mean I have my own thoughts and opinions on how the music industry should work these days. I have written frequently on this blog about the music industry, which you can search here.

So to balance things out, allow me to ask tough questions for both camps.

Monday, October 17, 2011

The Current Premium SMS Fiasco, Explained - And How It Relates To The Tech Startup Scene

The past few weeks, Indonesian media headlines have partly been full about the issue of 'theft of phone credits', with the current developing story being, that the Indonesian Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (BRTI) has issued an official letter basically saying that all premium SMS services must be shut down.

To give a bit of background, since 2002, many companies, many of them essentially startups, took advantage of SMS technology and started running premium SMS services, where people who purchased or subscribed to these services would receive the various virtual wares offered by these companies, from ringtones, horoscopes, mobile wallpapers, quizzes to chatting. Due to the limited amount of data that the SMS protocol can carry, they had to be very creative in designing the services. Either the content delivered had to fit 160 characters, or the SMS had to provide a WAP link that would bring users to the content they desire. The industry slowly but surely flourished, with little or no regulation from the government - let alone support - and the premium SMS services have evolved from nice-to-have value added services (VAS) to an industry in its own right.

Jump to 2011. The push for more growth and profits from the premium SMS industry has caused some companies to be, um, too creative in their charging schemes to customers, with many consumers complaining that they could not unregister from certain premium SMS services, causing loss of money - some even not remembering registering for those services. The mounting complaints eventually brought BRTI to send out a letter to all the telecommunication companies to basically stop ALL premium SMS services.

Read the rest of the post on Dailysocial.

The Premium SMS and RBT Industry, What's Up? [Tweet Collection]

These are a number of tweets I collected from a string of tweets I made last Saturday, bookmarked here.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Announcement: Closure Of 'Plis Deh Jakarta!' Blog

Following up the string of tweets I made today about the closure of the 'Plis Deh Jakarta!' blog, I just wanted to write that officially on my blog. The Twitter account will remain active, but the blog will not be updated again, and might eventually be shut down or moved to a free-hosted blog site.

I and Miund made the blog initially to just talk about Jakarta in a funny way, back in 2008, but I had a personal mission to keep bringing the absurd problems of Jakarta to the surface with a comedic/sarcastic angle, to attempt to bring the issues into mainstream discussions. Friends and enemies were gained along the way, but it was never about talking about the negative side of Jakarta. In my honest opinion, back in 2008 people were not really talking publicly about Jakarta's problems as they are now, and not actively discussing solutions as they are now. Complaints were commonplace but the mood was like, 'it's Jakarta, what you gonna do?'.

I will never know if Plis Deh Jakarta! contributed to the recent rise in social activism in social media; questioning, criticizing, discussing and finding solutions for Jakarta, but right now, the mission that Plis Deh Jakarta! begun with has become less relevant, as the discussions do take place. We are not so apathetic anymore, and change, even the small ones, start with identifying problems and discussing them. Solutions are never easy as the problems are often not that simple, but I am glad to say that in Plis Deh Jakarta!'s 3-year history, the mood has changed from "what you gonna do" apathy to "let's frikkin do something about this" energy.

That is what I set out to do and I believe there are more writers, influencers and leaders who are better, more focused and can translate discussions into real actions, making Plis Deh Jakarta!'s mission complete and somewhat irrelevant with the times. It was fun doing it!

Thanks to all who have supported Plis Deh Jakarta!, and those who have been against it also.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Spotify's Asia Expansion: What Really Needs To Be Done

Recently, Spotify announced that they will be expanding into Asia and appointing Dan Brody, an ex-Googler who has also lived and worked in Asia for 10 years, as the General Manager for Asia-Pacific. Dan Brody himself, according to his LinkedIn profile, has held a number of high-level positions in China, the latest being CEO of the Koolanoo Group, which owns and operates several websites in China.

Spotify has enjoyed success in some EU countries, and has had a lot of success with their US launch, especially since integration with Facebook. They enjoy partnerships with all four major labels, which are Universal Music Group International, EMI Music International, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment; and also partner with The Orchard and Merlin Networks, which are essentially aggregators for independent musicians and labels.

While the Facebook integration will surely be a boon for Spotify considering that Asia has 3 of the top 5 Facebook user countries in the world, the tricky thing is the music content itself, especially in Indonesia as the largest Facebook user country in Asia. Referring to the Techcrunch article, Dan Brody is already in Australia to talk to potential recruits, and looking to hire in Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney. I'm just not sure that's enough, especially if they want to capture Indonesia.

read the rest of the post here, on Dailysocial.net.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Bus Schedule: Lotte Mart District 7 - Phu My Hung, HCMC

In District 7, HCMC there's a pretty nice Lotte Mart complex which, other than having a Lotte Mart, has various stores and eateries, and also has a Lotte Cinema branch. Establishments of note are:

  • Best Carings (Electronics)

  • Highlands Coffee

  • Angel-in-us Coffee

  • KFC

  • Vikings Seafood

  • Lotteria


There is also a decent food court, game area and bowling alley.

For Phu My Hung citizens, there is a shuttle bus which takes people to and fro from the apartment and housing complexes to Lotte Mart. You can't miss it; it's a small, red bus with the writing "Lotte Mart" in giant letters on the side. Below is the schedule of the bus, which I have obtained from Hello Saigon's post and adapted it for better viewing.

Music Biz: Industri Musik, Apa Selanjutnya?

Artikel ini juga dimuat di Rollingstone.co.id dan Majalah RollingStone Indonesia edisi 78

Akhir Juli lalu sempat semarak berita bahwa 20 situs atau blog musik ternama akan ditutup oleh Kemenkominfo; tepatnya, para asosiasi pelaku industri musik yang tergabung dalam kampanye ’Heal Our Music’ telah melayangkan sebuah surat kepada Kemenkominfo, yang juga disebar kepada kantor-kantor media berita. Sampai penulisan artikel ini, belum terlihat ada tindakan apapun terhadap situs-situs yang tertera pada surat permintaan tersebut. Ini merupakan sebuah gejala zaman, yang memiliki akar sejarah yang cukup panjang.

Industri musik rekaman yang kita kenal sekarang berawal dari mulainya komersialisasi produk musik lewat piringan hitam. Musik yang ingin kita nikmati hanya bisa kita nikmati lewat pertunjukan langsung, dan pembelian piringan hitam (dan dalam gilirannya, kaset dan CD). Para pelaku industri musik rekaman memiliki kekuasaan cukup ketat terhadap distribusi musik, karena akses ke musik dibatasi pada sebuah produk fisik, berupa piringan hitam, kaset atau CD. Sebuah pola bisnis yang relatif sempurna terbentuk – sebuah struktur industri yang menjual beraneka ragam musik, dalam format dan harga yang relatif sama, yang dapat dipertahankan nyaris secara tak terhingga, selama tidak ada kondisi pasar yang bergeser.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

What Will Usher In The Tablet's Coming Of Age?

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="490" caption="TEMPO/Dasril Roszandi"][/caption]

Echoing Techcrunch's post that was trying to convince HP to make more TouchPads at an approximate $100 price, I totally concur with the fact that a tablet, whatever brand it may be, will be gobbled up by the masses currently not able to buy an iPad. Because something like this has happened before, in Indonesia.

A few years ago, RIM's BlackBerry was the talk of the town in Jakarta - it seemed that the BlackBerry had became the device of choice among the Jakarta elite (and shortly to follow, other cities), and virtually making the BlackBerry a status symbol. As the story goes, BlackBerry's meteoric rise in mindshare (but not really marketshare) was due to the almost viral spread of BlackBerry Messenger usage - despite the existence of Yahoo! Messenger as a cross-platform chat service. The so-called "in crowd" would be chatting via BlackBerry, causing first the flood of grey-market BBs into Indonesia, and a gradual change from the corporate-esque image of BB users, to the "mainstream", and introduction of cheap, prepaid BlackBerry service.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Absurdity Of The Day - Church Cannot Be Built On Street With Islamic Name

So the elected Mr. Diani Budiarto is still defying the constitutional court order to leave GKI Yasmin, Bogor alone, and now saying that churches can't be built on roads with Islamic names. This is the same guy who married a 19-year-old not too long ago, as his 4th wife.

Hey people, ARE WE SERIOUSLY STILL GOING TO PUT UP WITH THIS??

*speechless*

Thursday, August 18, 2011

And Just Like That, The Post-PC Era Is Really Here.

Once again, during the span of the last few hours, the tech scene (kind of) dominates the headlines again. HP, a longtime stalwart of the PC business (and personally, a trusted PC brand) is planning to sell off their PC business. Also most notable, they're killing off WebOS devices (although it will be interesting to see what they will do with it next). I won't even bother to link to the various news sources; all tech blogs are churning out article by article about the news, their analysis and so forth. Check out the newsfeed here.

What is interesting to look at, though, that like IBM 6 years before them, they let go of their hardware PC business. A previously fat-margin area has turned into slimmer pickings, due to advances in technology that brought down manufacturing prices, and enabled more players to enter the market with cheaper products. According to Wikipedia, HP is not a small company - 324,000 employees (in 2010), for instance, so their decision to move away from consumer PC is no small feat, either. And following IBM, they will be maintaining their enterprise businesses.

So the 21st century has seen 2 PC giants letting go of their hardware past, while a notably very 21st century internet company actually bought a hardware company. Interesting, right? Who's to say that Google won't buy HP's PC business as well, however unlikely it is?

But here's what we can see already - the post-PC era is definitely here. Naysayers will be silent from this day on. Perhaps HP has stopped making WebOS devices, but it has not let go of WebOS. No way in hell it would.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Bus Schedule for Phu My Hung - Dong Khoi Shuttle Bus, Ho Chi Minh City

So, there's a shuttle bus that goes around Phu My Hung, District 7, HCMC and drops everyone at Dong Khoi in District 1, HCMC (and vice versa). Currently the ticket price is 15,000 VND, making it a better option than a taxi (which might cost around 120,000 VND one way). I have adapted the map found on the Phu My Hung website so it is slightly more readable. (Click the image for a larger version)



Here's a handy timetable also, if the picture confuses you. The times below are the departure times from each stop.
































































































































Route 1 (Area H) Route 2 (Area H)
Phu My Hung (Sky Garden Cafe)Dong Khoi Phu My Hung (My Khanh)Dong Khoi
07:0007:30 07:0007:45
08:0008:30 08:1509:00
09:0009:30 09:3010:15
10:0010:30 11:3012:15
11:0011:30 14:1515:00
12:0012:30 15:3016:15
13:0013:30 17:0017:40
14:0014:30 18:3019:15
15:0015:30 20:3021:30
16:0016:30   
17:0017:30   
17:3018:00(only on weekdays)

18:0018:30   
19:0019:30   
20:0020:30   
21:0021:30   





Thoughts On Independence Day

Just wanted to say this... I'm glad, that despite the inability of the government, the so-called representatives, and the political elite to talk and think about only themselves, national sentiment is at a high and it's cool again to love your countrynation. We have learned that we ourselves can bring the nation to new heights despite the shameful mess that is Indonesian politics and leadership.

The power, is truly with the people now, to build this nation further. We are Indonesians and we will persevere - we survived hundreds of years of occupation, we fought back invaders after our declaration of independence, and now we are fighting back for independence from corruption and the simple lackluster performance of the executive and legislative.

Merdeka!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The Wars On Intellectual Property Rights - To What End?

In one of the largest acquisitions - ever - in world history, Google buys Motorla Mobility for USD 12,5 billion. Now that's a lot of chilli sauce. I will not get into the details as there are probably already a record number of articles out since the press release until today, reporting, analyzing, cross-analyzing, and so on. You can grab a news feed here.

What Rafe Needleman of CNET says in his article, however, caught my attention:
The accumulation of patent portfolios into a smaller number of bigger players, which themselves are locked in a deadly standoff, has the real potential to slow down the pace of innovation. Which is precisely the opposite reason the patent system was created.

As I have mentioned in a previous blog post, the current pace of technological advances and the multitude of ways one can enjoy music (read: entertainment) is already calling for some sort of reform of copyright and/or copyright enforcement. Instead of limiting the consumer experience to what copyright law dictates is applicable for some sort of revenue calculation to benefit the copyright holder, shouldn't it be more flexible? Perhaps we all should sign up for Creative Commons, instead of locking our copyrighted work to companies who simply need to limit entertainment channels for better control of profits?

The escalation of patent wars in the past few weeks, currently climaxing with the H-Bomb Google decided to drop on their partners (and harried news editors), shows something else is wrong with the current state of IPR. As Mr. Needleman pointed out and going on a tangent on that, IPR was basically set up so credit is where credit is due, whoever creates or invents can benefit from their work, encouraging more innovation, and creators/inventors/innovators everywhere are encouraged to work more with the comfort of knowing that their work will be worthwhile.

Now IPR has become an offensive weapon: RIAA lawsuits; Apple blocking Samsung tablets; the sordid case of Intellectual Ventures and the like. The merit-based system that IPR is based on, basically bit itself in the ass because patents (and copyright) can be bought and sold, enabling those with the most money to get whatever IPR they want. Currently IPR is at a premium, which is a boon to the IPR industry, but at what cost to the average consumer? Do these IPR weapon silos actually push innovation or inhibit it? These large companies are buying up giant stores of patents to protect themselves from litigation - but what about what comes next?

Hey, I don't even know how many patents, belonging to how many parties, are inside the whole package of hardware and software of my smartphone. I assume that all parties are paid with a royalty scheme. Which is good, and the way it should be.

But will these patent wars stop us from getting the best technology we want or need?

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Indonesians Working Abroad - Why or Why Not?

Well, here's another theory why "not many" Indonesians work and stay abroad:

The fact is, there are a lot of Indonesians abroad. A LOT. Working and living abroad. They're just not that visible, because:

  1. Indonesians tend to adapt themselves to the local traditions of wherever they work and live, at least in public.

  2. Indonesians do bring their culture abroad, but usually for their own consumption; i.e. food. Even in Singapore, which arguably has a lot of Indonesians living and visiting, there is only a handful of authentic Indonesian restaurants.

  3. By the numbers, there are not many Indonesians abroad compared to people from other countries, i.e. India, China, and Vietnam.


There's also the real issue of job competition. In a world economy teetering on recession, not many jobs are available - for anyone - in Europe or North America, the usual "dream location" for overseas work. A language barrier stands between many and a job in other Asian countries, because many otherwise qualified people may not have the necessary English-speaking or local-language skills to work effectively. Also, for many, the simple fact that the local culture is totally different from what they are used to, living is often impractical or uncomfortable.

These many factors, compounded by the fact that most Indonesians would be reluctant to leave their extended families behind, has probably prevented many people from trying their luck abroad.

Let me share my experience on living abroad, if I may:

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Video Piracy and Copyright Enforcement Reform

As part of my job, I have been scouring the Internet looking for illegal uploads of movies produced and released by my company. It seems that here in Vietnam at least, there is a dominant video streaming model done by these illegal movie sites:
- register a Vietnamese-market oriented domain on an overseas registrar and hosting;
- upload the movies to YouTube, 4shared, Dailymotion and many other similar sites, sometimes using private accounts with private links;
- make a landing page for the movie with all the links to the clips uploaded to the various video/storage services, sometimes using a proprietary Flash player based on JWPlayer;
- place a disclaimer on every page that the site does not host the content, thus the site is fully legal;
- sell ads on the page.

This is just wrong.

I'm all for the reform of copyright enforcement, but I still support the basic concept that the copyright holder should have some say on any exploitation of their content, and receive a share of any money made from it. A more flexible, liberal concept of copyright and copyright enforcement, should still benefit the creator.

How do we reform copyright law? I don't have any details yet, but perhaps more flexible controls for use, reuse and derivatives; positive enforcement i.e. making it attractive for people/businesses to support copyright... But this is something that needs a lot of thought and discussion, and perhaps needs an enormous reworking of the copyright concept. Perhaps abolishing copyright ownership altogether? Who knows. The shorter-term solution is innovating the business models and the customer experiences, but still, in my opinion, these kinds of websites need to go. File-sharing is one thing, but making money of somebody else's work - without permission and any revenue share - is downright wrong.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Anecdotal: Piracy As An Insight To Consumer Needs

A few years ago I was fulfilling my civic duty and looking at pirated DVDs, when a guy came up to the store and asked, "Hey, is the new season of [something] TV series complete yet?" (I forgot what TV series he was asking about).

The girl at the store replied, "No, we don't have any of the new season yet."

To which the guy replied, "What? WHY? Why is it taking so LONG??"

I may not remember the TV series he was talking about, but I do remember thinking, that the TV series in question was off-season hence did not have any new episodes at all,  so obviously there was no pirate DVD available.

Pirate DVDs in Asia is a fact of life and people buy it not because they want to infringe copyrights, but simply because they want to buy entertainment, and that it is just cheaper to buy a pirate DVD. But the example above shows, that most people simply don't understand the work and process that goes behind creating music, movies or TV series. They just want their entertainment NOW, and CHEAP. The quality of the entertainment (i.e. sound quality, picture quality), though, differs and is more a matter of taste or priority.

So the question is, do we attempt to educate the market about the effort needed to create entertainment products and thus increasing appreciation (and willingness to pay for the real product), or do we shift our businesses to consumer needs?

I think many have answered this question already. Example: Lady Gaga goes to Farmville.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

The Lighter Side Of Nguyễn Tấn Dũng

So it started a few days ago. I was browsing for Vietnamese Twitter users (which was relatively easy as there not so many yet) and I found the Twitter account of the Prime Minister himself, Nguyễn Tấn Dũng. So I followed him. And here's what happened next:



I'll never be sure if it is really him tweeting (so far I think it really is him) but among his tweets, there are rare comedic gems that would be unexpected from a head of state.

Here's a compilation of "greatest hits":

[gallery]

Monday, April 11, 2011

Reflections on Sony Music vs Universal Music Business Strategy

Until up to a year ago, I worked at this little company called Universal Music Group International - not so little; it is to this date arguably the largest music company in the world. UMGI, as the official abbreviation was called, owned the largest catalog of music in the world (this would mean, UMGI owned the rights for commercialization of that music, having a de facto ownership on the recording master). UMGI also owns one of the largest music publishing companies in the world, Universal Music Publishing, and owns - get this - one of the largest merchandising companies in the world, Bravado. UMGI is owned by Vivendi, formerly a utilities company in France, which sold off their utilities business to dabble into media - now owning, among others,  SFR (telco operator in France), Canal+ (cable TV operator), and Activision (of Guitar Hero fame, which I wrote about in another blog post). They also own All The Worlds, which is an event-organizing company which manages F1 Rocks and recent Singfest events. So basically, your basic run-of-the-mill giant multinational corporation. I spent most of my professional life so far at UMGI Indonesia and loved working there, and probably would have still worked there if not for the fact they only needed me in Indonesia, when I wanted to gain some more direct experience working abroad (and thus one of the reasons I am currently working in Vietnam).

Monday, April 4, 2011

What We Should Learn From Guitar Hero's Rise And Fall

I know it's a bit late to write about this, but I thought it's a good time to reflect on it.


It's 2008, and Guitar Hero seemingly saves the day. Activision, partly owned by Universal Music Group International, brought a seemingly niche product to the masses, increasing the amount of songs available to play, and even creating band-specific guitars and packages. In other words, a recording company's dream come true, in the days where piracy is booming and interest in physical music products (CDs, cassettes) have lost interest from many consumers. Guitar Hero brought an enjoyable platform for music for the 21st century, and all the labels needed to do was add up the music library provided in increments.


Come 2011 - Activision shuts down Guitar Hero division due to poor, poor sales. What happened?


Guitar Hero was a stroke of genius product - bringing the 'air guitar' alive for many, and enabling a much more immersive music experience with a gaming twist to be enjoyed by non-musicians, so to speak. It was a complete platform - gaming, accessories, and music, bundled into one. Sadly, this got old. Efforts to bring the Guitar Hero formula to other music, like DJ Hero, met with limited success. Why?


There are probably millions and millions of songs out there that can be 'guitar hero'ed' (formatted to be playable in Guitar Hero), only some made the cut. Some enterprising hackers in Indonesia made Guitar Hero versions of local songs, but that comes to the second problem: there is only so much you can do with 4 buttons on a small, fake guitar.


Gaming platforms make it big as it is possible to play an astoundingly large amount of games with the same interface. Guitar hero made it possible to play, well, a good amount of songs with the same interface. At some point, even the hardcore fans would get bored of the experience, because the experience essentially stayed the same - pressing buttons on a fake guitar following the rhythm and lights on the screen. The songs, as good as they were, became background music.


To prove my point, anybody here still playing Tap Tap Revenge?


On the other hand, Activision thought they had found the next great music sales and promotion platform, and proceeded to add to the music offered on the platform, and offer special packages; I.e. the Metallica edition, and so on. You know what this reminds me of? Selling standard album CDs and selling the special premium box set CDs.
So the same 'music-as-a-commodity' pattern was implemented in Guitar Hero. It spectacularly worked for a couple of years yet the whole package did not innovate. As a comparison, look at Apple - for each small upgrade and innovation they make on either the Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad or Mac OS, people will buy it in droves. After a while, the only thing driving Guitar Hero was new song selections, but no significant upgrade to the experience.


I have nothing against Guitar Hero or Activision, but it's good if we can recognize the fact that it simply had a short shelf life. There was really nothing that could be done to maintain its mainstream success - I can't think of anything, at least. It just wasn't meant to last. When it started to use music as the standalone commodity to sell, it started to fail.


Nothing wrong with music either - but as I have said several times, music as a standalone commodity is doomed, whether or not if it stands on a relevant platform. Sure, iTunes as a platform sells millions of songs every year, but how much more music out there sitting on digital players come from P2P networks, friends or even competing, non-DRM stores? Yet, iTunes survives because it is the iTunes ecosystem that remains attractive (and perhaps addictive) for many.
Music as a standalone commodity will always have demand, but that demand will never be as strong as before. On the other hand, music as part of a service gaining ground - if recorded music businesses can work out an evolving ecosystem with technology partners, which offer up music as part of a total experience - that, I think, will work, as long as they continue to innovate.


Music will remain a strong element for business for entertainment, to drive branding awareness, to measure demographics, and many, many other things; but music sales as we know it, will wither. If the next Guitar Hero comes along, recognize that it will have a short shelf life and plan for it.


So, music business is not dead - it just needs to evolve its revenue streams and recognize its place on the media landscape.

Monday, March 28, 2011

From @aritokyo About Japan's Recovery

From @aritokyo via Gtalk:
There are 25,000 dead and missing, 300,000 homeless survivors of the disaster and everybody outside Japan is fussing about the radiation which has so far killed zero people (and potentially harmful to about, 200). At least we in Japan know which is the priority.

So there you go, ladies and gentleman.

 

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Lemme Outta Here

Sent from my BlackBerry®

New Touch-Friendly UI For Wordpress Blogs

I just noticed this last night; don't know when they started implementing it, but Wordpress blogs (not the self-hosted ones, though) have an automatic touch-friendly layout and UI if you open the blog on a tablet (I used an iPad for this). I think it's pretty cool, although I know some people would hate how this layout would override their original Wordpress theme.

Here are some screenshots:


Opening screen


Posts Overview


Post View


Sharing Options

After some digging, this feature was launched by Wordpress on March 23rd, 2011 - see the announcement here: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/ipad-onswipe-theme/

Friday, March 25, 2011

2 Points On Why I Think #EarthHour Is Important

So, tomorrow, during 8.30-9.30 PM, the participating world will turn off their lights (and other electrical appliances, perhaps) for Earth Hour. If I'm home at that time, I will turn off the lights and the air conditioner (if the heat isn't devastating, I'll admit) and watch Earth Hour coverage on the news (if any).

I'm not privy to any numbers of power consumption anywhere in the world, but logic says that 1 hour out of 365 days of full power consumption isn't much. It's a statistic. We'd be impressed by the numbers announced by the organizers of how much power was saved during Earth Hour in whatever city, but if we compare it to the total yearly power consumption of said city... it most possibly will be a tiny fraction of it. But still, power conservation is a good thing rather than have no power conservation at all.

But here's why it's important.

Point 1: The only people who will participate (or enforce participation from their surroundings) will be the ones who realize it is important. That power conservation is important, and that somehow, some way, we have to learn to live using energy more efficiently. I dare say we don't turn off everything at the master switch on Earth Hour, but we keep the necessities powered. That's being efficient. Power conservation is not just about using less energy, but it's about using energy efficiently enough so that you don't require too much energy to begin with. Therefore, the more people who participate, the more people who are fully aware of the importance of power conservation.

Point 2: the power of collective sacrifice. Even if we're only switching off the lights for an hour, it's a sacrifice. We're probably sacrificing 1 kilowatt-hour. But if a city of 10 million people switch off lights for 1 hour, we're sacrificing 10 million kilowatt-hours. Sacrificing, for a good cause, at the same time, all together. Imagine what we can do if we sacrifice 1 cent a day collectively to donate to those in need, or sacrifice 1 day out of a week to use public transport instead of a private vehicle to go to work/school. Or perhaps, riding a bike 1 day a week to work/school. Imagine the impact.  And when we know what's worth sacrificing for a better world, it will be easier for us to do it together.

If enough people believe that they can make the world better, the world will become better. As long as we act on it - but leave the big gestures to the politicians, and do a small thing first - turn off your lights on Earth Hour tomorrow.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Tabrakan

Selama sekitar 5 bulan tinggal di HCMC, gue sudah mengalami 3 kali kejadian tabrakan kendaraan bermotor, padahal bahkan gue di sini hanya mengendarai taksi atau ojek. Bandingkan dengan 7 tahun gue tinggal di Jakarta, alhamdulillah hanya pernah mengalami kejadian tabrakan 2 kali, itu pun hanya berakibat rusak sedikit pada mobil.

Gue mau cerita kejadian-kejadian tabrakannya.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Good Things Are Never Meant To Come All At Once...

... Like chili chocolate flavored ice cream. There must be some profound philosophy to that, but it's Friday night and I used up my brain today already.

Sent from my BlackBerry®

Canned Wine

Sent from my BlackBerry®

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Terlalu Agresif Tanpa Perhitungan?

Kemarin malam, gue dan Saskia makan malem di sebuah restoran bernama Kep, di jalan Mac Thi Buoi, Distrik 1. Makanannya lumayan, harga agak mahal, dan menurut saya lebih enak restoran sebelahnya yang bernama An Bistro.
Anyway. Saat menunggu makanan, waiternya berusaha mengajak ngobrol dengan bahasa Inggris terpatah-patah dan logat Vietnam kental, menanyakan hal-hal standar yang sering ditanyakan ke orang asing. Biasanya ditanya asal dari negara mana (yang selalu gue jawab "Indonesia!" dengan lantang), di Vietnam berlibur atau bekerja (bekerja, tentunya), dan kadang-kadang bekerja di mana.
Saya jawab BHD, nama kantor gue. Mungkin karena dia kurang mengerti logat orang Indonesia, dia sampai minta dituliskan di kertas - akhirnya gue kasih kartu nama, sambil gue dan Saskia menjelaskan sedikit tentang apa yang dikerjakan BHD.
Nah, setelah itu mulai aneh: mungkin karena melihat jabatan di kartu nama, dia langsung bilang, "can I apply to you? Work with you?"

Gue kaget dong. Nih orang lagi ngelayanin gue di tempat kerjanya, kok malah minta kerjaan? Dia menawarkan diri jadi supir, sampai kasih liat SIMnya segala. Pas gue bilang gue ke mana-mana milih pake xe om (ojek), dia tanya, ya udah, mungkin perlu sekretaris? Gue geleng-geleng kepala aja, sambil masih bingung.

Di satu sisi orang ini bagus, dibandingkan dengan beberapa orang kantor yang bisa tiba-tiba minta berhenti kerja tanpa jelas rencana ke depan apa - dia agresif mencari penghidupan lebih baik. Tapi kok tetep, caranya agak salah ya. Gimana caranya gue mau mempertimbangkan sekalipun mempekerjakan orang, kalau ditodong CV pas makan?

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

[GEEK POST] My Cloud Adventures, and the Holy Grail of In-The-Cloud and Offline Working

I've been yapping about this on and off on Twitter for a few days, so let's get through the basics so we're all on the same page: I have been experimenting with "working in the cloud", so to speak, to figure out what all the fuss is about. So right now, this is my setup:

  • I carry an iPad (wifi only model) anywhere. This is great because it takes at least 3kg off my daily workpack (I used to carry a laptop everywhere) and since you can find wifi virtually anywhere in HCMC, it's not a hassle to go online. For the times there is no wifi and I need to go online, I have Joikuspot Pro running on my Nokia X6.

  • I have an old MacBook at home, which hardly ever leaves the house now.

  • I have a basic Core2Duo desktop tower at the office running Jolicloud (dual boots with Windows, but guess which OS I use more), which more or less is Chrome running on top of Ubuntu Linux.


Monday, March 14, 2011

Vietnamese Movie Festival Days

So BHD Star Cinema is holding a small film festival to commemorate the best and the box-office breaking Vietnamese movies of recent years, most notably Co Dau Dai Chien (which will still screen during the festival but not have the same ticket price). It's a good opportunity to catch up on your Vietnamese movies if you're in town.

Press release and schedule after the break.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Ngayal - Keluar Dari Konsumerisme

Gue pengen.

Gue pengen bisa bikin daerah rumah gue (di Cinere) bisa swasembada listrik, pangan dan air. Daerahnya cukup luas untuk bercocok tanam untuk rumah-rumah satu kompleks, dan pembangkit listrik bertenaga surya akan lebih efisien jika infrastrukturnya disebar ke satu kompleks perumahan kecil (ketimbang hanya dibuat untuk setiap rumah).

Ada sebuah kendaraan bersama, berbentuk bis atau minibus, yang akan mengantarkan para pegawai ke kantor, siswa ke sekolah; paling tidak diantar sampai simpul-simpul kendaraan umum yang cukup praktis (seperti Transjakarta atau stasiun kereta api). Keperluan belanja barang sehari-hari dikumpulkan dari setiap rumah tiap minggu dan dikelola di tingkat kompleks perumahan, sehingga hanya perlu 1-2 mobil berangkat untuk belanja keperluan untuk satu kompleks, tiap minggu. Atau, semua keperluan disediakan oleh koperasi kompleks, yang akan memperbarui stok tiap minggu.

Koneksi internet cepat tersedia untuk yang membutuhkan, untuk memfasilitasi penduduk yang bekerja dari rumah. Untuk hiburan, ada hall khusus yang bisa digunakan untuk acara kecil atau layar tancep.

Apakah mungkin ini terjadi ya? Ini tidak mungkin hanya bermodalkan gerakan satu orang; penduduk satu kompleks harus sadar betapa pentingnya mengefisiensikan penggunaan energi (listrik, bensin untuk kendaraan dll) dan mengupayakan swasembada sumber daya yang mampu dikelola sendiri (misalnya, sumber makanan).

Ini merupakan pergantian gaya hidup yang cukup drastis untuk banyak orang dan membutuhkan pengorbanan... pertanyaannya adalah, apakah keinginan kita untuk berkorban seperti ini cukup?

Gue aja masih ngayal doang, belom tentu mau melakukan. Terjebak dengan gaya hidup dan pola konsumerisme. Tapi gue bertanya juga ke diri sendiri, nanti kalau kita masih berpola hidup konsumtif, tapi tidak ada yang bisa dibeli (karena semua sumber daya habis), lantas apa yang akan dilakukan?

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Is The World Upside Down, In More Ways Than One?

An office colleague pondered:

Even the world's political ideologies are upside down and the wrong way around. The countries that claim they are all about free trade and capitalism, are becoming increasingly somewhat socialist, at least when it comes to welfare of the people. Equal access to education, health care, sponsored by the state; isn't that a socialist utopia?

And here we have Vietnam, an outspokenly Communist state, yet where many things are left for market forces to decide with minimum supervision from the government outside of sensitive areas. Now, wouldn't that be a capitalist utopia?

And of course, we all know the joke that goes, countries with the title 'Democratic Republic' in their official country name, most likely aren't. Ha ha.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Job Opportunity in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam! - Production Director

No, this blog will not become a job site. I am just trying to help out my parent company find a key person for their operations. And mark my words, they have asked specifically if they can have an Indonesian to fill this position.

So the job is titled Production Director, for a local financial news channel called FBNC.

The Production Director is generally in charge of on-air quality, for design, program formats, continuity, and so on, including casting the anchors for the channel. He or she will be in charge of the day-to-day workflow for production, including new programs- especially the English-language programs. Production will also involve the promo items needed for the channel (on-air and off-air), support the ad sales team in selling advertising space and/or sponsored TV programs, and work closely with the Program and Studio departments (which include the journalists). The Production Director reports to the Editor In Chief.

So naturally, we'd want someone who has several years experience for news TV broadcast production and editing, and is used to using English day-to-day for work. An aptitude for new languages would be a plus as you'd have to work with a lot of Vietnamese staff who may or may not be able to speak English.

So if you think you fit perfectly with the requirements above and are interested in working in Vietnam, drop me an email to my Gmail account!

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Revisiting #IndonesiaUnite: What You Can Do

If you look back on Indonesia's headlines of 2010, you'd see natural disasters, political upheaval, corruption, pollution, and so many bad things - and you'd think the country is going down the drain. The government, whether it be the central government, is clueless and corrupt, and it seems the country will burst at the seams.

Yet, Indonesia's economy reached the highest growth in six years. 2010 was also the year that Indonesia's impact on the social web - Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare - was a force to be reckoned with, and foreign investment is starting to pour in. So what does this mean?

Business, mostly the private sector, went ahead and moved on while the government was busy with itself. If this continues, it will become a good trend - the Indonesian economy will be healthy regardless of who sits in office. As long as we keep working properly, with focused goals.

Many people have asked themselves, myself included, on what they can do to alleviate the sad state of affairs in this country. The fact stated previously alone should tell you (and myself) what you want to hear: keep doing what you're good at, wherever you are.

Many of us are not politicians, we're not religious leaders, but many of us are office workers, students, freelancers, housewives, teachers, and so on. We should stop wasting time on unnecessary stuff and progress onwards - and our country will grow. If you are sad or angry about the violence in Cikeusik or Temanggung, focus that anger into your work; to make sure that future generations don't fall into that trap.

To put it into another perspective: Indonesia's economy is growing despite the current turmoil. Let's make sure that the growth spreads evenly and benefits all of us, not just the few.

We cannot rely on the government to get its act together right now, so we might as well do it ourselves. To replace the government would be a revolution with unforeseen consequences, but to work better as we are now, ignoring the government when we can, can probably empower the nation better than the politicians can.

If everybody works diligently with a focus for a better nation and the welfare of all, I think we can get there, and I guarantee things will get better.

So whether or not #indonesiaunite is seen as a movement or not, it should be a reminder to all of us that the future of this nation is in our collective hands. So let's make it!

 

PS: so if you're worrying about what you can do about cases like Alanda Kariza's Mom, voice your support, help increase the awareness, and get back to work! :D

Monday, February 7, 2011

Baolixi

Preparing 'lucky money' envelopes to give out to office colleagues tomorrow, as part of the Lunar New Year tradition.

Sent from my BlackBerry®

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Masquerade

Đàm Sen Waterpark

Here are a few pictures from Đàm Sen Waterpark... cross between TMII and Dufan, I think. Complete with the picnicking families and the family-friendly music. These pictures were taken with my Nokia X6; there are more pictures on the Canon 1000D taken by Saski - I might upload them later.
[gallery]

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Prawn at Ben Thanh Night Market

[gallery]

Some Thoughts About The Music Industry

This morning I was spurned into tweeting a lot about the music industry because of the article below:
Agnes Siap Go International Lewat Perusahaan Michael Jackson... de.tk/jFnjN

I think Agnes has good potential to break international markets; I really think she can. But some details of the article piqued my attention because they seemed incorrect. So I did some digging, and eventually spent the day tweeting about the music industry in general.

The tweets are as follows:

Sunday, January 30, 2011

The Case For The Almost-Extinct Music Album

In the old days which are too recent for us to say they were 'the old days', you could only get your favorite music by listening to the radio, or buying a music product, whether it was a vinyl, cassette or CD). So, either you could wait all day for your favorite song to be played on the radio (or join a song request show), or you could spend some cash to buy a music product.

This music product, in the music industry, is known as a physical music product; as it is music kept and delivered in a physical thing (as opposed to digital music product, which would be basically a computer file).

The music industry - which would be the record labels, the recording companies, the distribution companies, and the music retail companies - exerted almost total control on channels of music consumption. They would plan what would be released on the radio and when, and make sure that by the time that the song is popular, the finished physical product would be ready in music retail stores for people to buy. Needless to say, this method created a lot of wealth for the music industry.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Sky Garden, Phu My Hung

To Be Fair, The Jacket (And Pants) Weren't White

So one day I was at a wedding; a friend came wearing a suit jacket with the sleeves rolled up.

I said, "Hey, what is this, your Sonny Crockett look?"

His friend said, "Oh, is he one of those new pop artists?"

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Ants Stealing Colours

Man Of Faith or Man Of Violence?

When many people who are supposedly more knowledgeable in Islam yell on top of their lungs to get rid of a certain sect, or to get rid of a church from a certain neighborhood, and to provide support to the Palestinian state above support for local needs... the Palestinian government issues condolences to the Egyptian government because of the church bombings; where President Mahmoud Abbas says that the attack's goal was to destabilize the kinship in Egypt and incite hatred between Moslems and Christians.

Maybe these people need to sort our their priorities, like for instance, concentrate in enhancing faith instead of inciting hate. Yelling, pushing, shoving in the name of religion does not make you a holy man.

UPDATE: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad conveys Christmas greetings to the Pope and world leaders who celebrate Christmas through an official letter, and prays for Christians to have a year full of health, success, happiness and prosperity. He also wishes that 2011 becomes a year of peace where increased empathy and understanding will occur between people of different faiths.

 

The Irrelevance Of Widely-Adopted Ideologies When Competing With Greed



Vietnam is, and will remain for probably some time, an outwardly Communist country. But for many of us who were doctrined in school back in the day, we wouldn't recognize it as a Communist country as it somehow does not follow the stereotypical model printed in our brains of what a Communist country is like. But perhaps this is because, it's not really a Communist country any more, only that the ruling - and only - party is Communist.

Supposedly under the Communist doctrine, all land is belongs to the state and thus nobody owns private land. This obviously isn't the case. Private enterprise (and trade) is not allowed under Communism, but this isn't the case either. And the more controversial - yet mistaken - aspect of Communism, its atheism, may be more similar to Western secularism - where the state does not interfere with religious affairs. A minority of Vietnamese still go to church or the mosque, a majority pray at some sort of temple or provide offerings to the gods. And Communism, becomes more like a doctrine or principle for the ruling party.

I can't even find reference to atheism on the Wikipedia entry.

And what has this done for Vietnam? The country is stable, growth is steady, development is planned (albeit slightly chaotically), people have jobs, people have enough to eat, and they're catching up with the rest of South East Asia (and even, I dare say, actually pulling ahead from the pack in some fields).

Does this have anything to do with Communism? Nope, I don't think so. It definitely does not have anything to do with the religions that the Vietnamese believe in, either.

But it has a lot to do with a smart and firm leadership of the country. Whatever principle, doctrine or religion you follow - as perfect or imperfect as they can be - it comes down to the people leading the country to make a difference. Evil and greed can overcome anyone in power, whatever path they claim to follow.

I am not saying what is bad or good, I am just saying that there are more pressing things we need to think about rather than a war of ideology.

 

Flame on!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Why Vietnam needs bigger traffic jams to boost its mobile ‘net

Having lived in Jakarta for most of my career, the legendary commute with the obligatory traffic jams made me turn to mobile internet for many of my personal and work needs, like email, Twitter, news browsing, and traffic info services like Infoll and Lewatmana. This is one of the reasons mobile internet has surged in Jakarta, and is only pushed higher by cheaper data rates, addiction to social networks and location-based services (which are only relevant on mobile-internet enabled devices).

Then, what happens in a city where the commute (and traffic) is not so bad, and you can get a WiFi connection virtually at any coffee shop, restaurant or mall in the city?

read the rest of the post on e27.sg.