June 29, 2005 – Emergic

Kaaza and Skype

There are few people in the world who can claim to have invented something that captured the imagination of hundreds of millions of people.

But Niklas Zennstrm has done it twice.

Skype makes money because a small fraction of users is buying additional services, such as the capability to call from Skype to the telephone network or vice versa.

Not having to make money from every user is not a new idea, Zennstrm emphasises.

“It is very similar to companies like Google and other internet companies. When you go and search on Google you don’t pay for that. But sometimes you click on an advert and Google makes money on that.

“It’s the same thing with Skype. Some users are paying for services, but not everyone.”

Zennstrm believes the losers out of this new structure will be the telcos who do not understand that there is a change going on.

“This is a disruptive technology that shifts the industry”, he says.

“We have just started, and if you compare the number of people using Skype to the number using a telephone network around the world, we’re still just starting.

“And now we’re also very much focussing on moving away from the computer into mobile devices, so you can use Skype for free wirelessly.”

China Mobile Market

Dan Farber posts some numbers provided by a China Mobile general manager:

* Mobile phone subscriptions in 2004: 340 million (15 percent growth year over year, 26 percent of the population in China)

* Total number of wired and wireless subscriptions in China: 650 million

* Mobile phone subscriptions by 2007: 500 million, 35 percent of the population

* China Mobile Communications profit: 20 percent on revenue for 2004

* Subscribers who use 300 minutes every month: 200 million (costs about 100 yuan renminbi$12 US)

* SMS messages sent in 2004: 220 billion

* SMS messages sent during Chinese New Year holiday this year: 11 billion (three times normal usage)

* China telecom industry annual growth rate: 10-percent-per-year for wired, 15-percent-per-year for mobile

Ways to Order Food in a Restaurant

Jason Kottke has a nice post that offers a comparison of ideas from some recent books:

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Glance quickly at the menu and order whatever catches your eye first. Spend no more than 2-3 seconds deciding or the quality of your choice (and your meal) will decline.

Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
The key to ordering a good meal in a restaurant is understanding the economic incentives involved. Ask the server what they recommend and order something else…they are probably trying to get you to order something with a high profit margin or a dish that the restaurant needs to get rid of before the chicken goes bad or something. Never order the second least expensive bottle of wine; it’s typically the one with the highest mark-up on the list (i.e. the worst deal).

The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
Take the menu and rip it into 4 or 5 pieces. Order from only one of the pieces, ignoring the choices on the rest of the menu. You will be happier with your meal.

The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki
Poll the other patrons at the restaurant about what they’re having and order the most popular choices for yourself.

Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson
Order anything made with lots of butter, sugar, etc. Avoid salad or anything organic. A meal of all desserts may be appropriate. Or see if you can get the chef to make you a special dish like foie gras and bacon covered with butterscotch and hot fudge. Ideally, you will have brought a Super Sized McDonald’s Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese Meal into the restaurant with you. Smoke and drink liberally.

Personal Fabrication

IEEE Spectrum writes:

Fabbersmachines that rapidly create useful items on demand from computer-generated design specificationshave been fantasy fodder for decades. And for good reason: a machine that could make a huge variety of reasonably complicated objects, and yet was attainable by ordinary people, would transform human society to a degree that few creations ever have.

Compact and yet capable fabbers point the way toward a future where the term “online shopping” takes on a whole new meaning. Imagine purchasing a piece of software that encodes detailed specifications of something and then seeing that object emerge from a box on your desk no bigger than a microwave oven. Like your desktop printer today, this desktop fabber would use some sort of cartridges. And just as desktop-printer cartridges contain the inks that can produce a limitless variety of images, the fabber cartridges would contain the necessary raw materials to create a profusion of desired items.

Neil Gershenfeld’s book “Fab” explores this in greater depth.

Mobile Games Bubble?

Russell Beattie writes:

First, even with the billions of people who are going to be playing these games, the amount of same-ol same-ol games that are flooding the market is going to kill it. To me supply is quickly out pacing demand, and it’s going to be 1983 again.

Secondly, these are just the games that are available for a Series 60 phone which I found available for free online at a cracks site. Do a search. The files are so small – none more than 200k, that they’re psychotically easy to store hundreds on your phone (my phone has 256MB of storage, soon to be much more).

Yes, we’re going to be moving to 3D games and online multiplayer games soon which could save those companies that make the transition quickly, but I think there’s going to be serious problems to all but the big game producers, if there isn’t already.

Finally, like I’ve said before, I think that mobile media is going to start sucking up a lot of the time that people are now spending playing games on their mobile. Professional content, amateur content and your PVR’s content are going to be available on the go.

People only have a finite amount of time which they spend on their mobiles and I can see the options for filling that time are quickly reaching a saturation point.

TECH TALK: Letter to a 2005 Baby: Advice for Life (Part 3)

Dear Abhishek,

Understand the Power of Passion

There are two attributes that I have found which can make a big difference passion and discipline. Passion is about the energy that we bring to what we are doing. Discipline is the process we follow to getting things done. Lets talk a little about both of these.

Think of passion as infectious enthusiasm. It is about the force that we bring in the work we do and how we can positively impact those around us. I learnt the power of this during my first year at IIT. I was contesting for the hostel elections standing for the post of Literary Secretary. My opponent was one of the most well-liked seniors. No one gave me a chance to win I was after all a freshie. But having made the decision to contest, I was determined not to end up with the same result as when I had stood for School Captain a few years ago. (I had then lost by a narrow margin after I forgot my speech.)

So, this time around, I decided to campaign hard. I was the underdog, so big deal. I had little to lose. I met with almost every single hostelite, explaining my plans for what Id do if I were elected. I only had my passion working for me. It was a big change for me. I was until that point of me an introvert content to live in my own small world. But having decided to fight, I knew that unless I changed, I stood no chance. It was one evening that one of my seniors in the hostel told me You know, Rajesh, what we really like about you is your infectious enthusiasm. That is a statement I have not forgotten to this day.

As it turns out, I did win the elections by a couple votes. That was the only election I had to fight in IIT as I went on to become General Secretary (Cultural), one of the highest posts in the student government. When I look back, it was that election which turned the tide for me. It changed me for the better. It also showed me the power of passion.

It was the same passion that I had going for me when I started IndiaWorld in 1994 and had to go out and source content from various publishers. I had to make them see a world built around the Internet that did not exist. I had to make them believe me. That is where Passion comes in. It is one of the greatest assets we can possess especially when we are trying to persuade others.

Passion comes from an inner belief you have to let your inner feelings reflect on the outside, and like a virus, infect others around you. Passion is one of the key dimensions of leadership and you will have to demonstrate plenty of it as you make no little plans.

Tomorrow: Advice for Life (continued)

Continue reading TECH TALK: Letter to a 2005 Baby: Advice for Life (Part 3)