Simple is the Reason of My Heart

3 Reasons Why Google is launching the Chrome OS

The news is finally out: Google is to launch an operating system named as the Chrome OS (bearing the same name with the browser. As stated from the official Google blog: "The Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks.... will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010." Note also that the OS will run on both X86 and ARM chips and the operating system is running on top of a Linux kernel. Here are the three reasons why Google has decided to launch an operating system in the midst of a crowded space of competitors of not just Windows but Mac OS X and Linux as well (from a business perspective): 

3 lessons on Innovation & Experimental Marketing in Asia

I have recently contributed an article entitled "3 Lessons on Innovation & Experimental Marketing" to iMediaConnection Asia on digital marketing. The article is based on the panel discussion I have moderated during the Ad-Tech Singapore 2009. The question which the article I hope to answer is the following one: How do media buyers, agencies and platform owners engage in creating new and effective campaigns in the challenging financial climate? With the evolution of social media practices and digital marketing, there is a considerable amount of inertia from media buyers, PR agencies and brand marketers to adopt new technologies for experimental marketing in Asia. I broke the three lessons into the following:  (1) The emergence and adoption of new digital marketing technologies and social practices for media buyers, brand marketers and PR agencies that come in the form of rich media content sharing, online social networks and virtual worlds, (2) The nature of advertising has changed for both corporations, publishers and consumers and finally, (3) As a consequence, a change in mindset and expectations is required. I have included some case studies in the article and will urge you to check it out there.

Facebook has almost conquered Southeast Asia and why

Two months back, I broke the story regarding Facebook overtaking Friendster in Malaysia and predicted that the surrounding countries in the region will also fall after. After looking at an updated world map of leading social networks in the globe (by Vincenzo Cosenza - translator of Facebook Marketing Bible in Italian), the domino effect is continuing across the whole of Southeast Asia. Facebook has now overtaken Friendster in Southeast except Thailand and Phillipines. Note that Hi5 is still the most dominant social network in Thailand, and Phillipines remains to be the last bastion for Friendster with their recent introduction of calling cards and mobile payments. How did that really happen given that Friendster received a fresh injection of funds from IDG Ventures SEA?

An Afternoon with Scott Goodstein in Ad-Tech Singapore 2009

The online machinery behind Barack Obama's Presidential Campaign was a successful case study in the integration of internet technologies with political campaigns, particularly in the role of fundraising, organizing supporters and vote canvassing. Scott Goodstein, the External Online Director in Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, is currently in Singapore and has deliver a keynote address in the Ad-Tech Singapore 2009 conference. Together with a group of social media practitioners from all walks of life, the organizers of the event arranged a special interview with Scott this afternoon. We have a discussion about the lessons learnt in deploying the internet technologies to the Obama Campaign and here is a summary on the points of discussion that ensued:

Nokia N97 Event @ Kuala Lumpur

Last Friday, I was invited (sponsored by Nokia - thanks to David Lian and Felicia from Text100) to attend the Nokia N97 event held at the Mandarin Oriental in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Along with some known bloggers (Claudia, DK, Aaron and Nicholas Aaron Khoo) and members of the mainstream media (Mariel, Ian, David, Chris, Kong Ling, Damien, Chong Yaw), we were exposed to a web-themed launch party where most of us will get a look at the Nokia N97 (which I have provided glimpses of a prototype two months back during the Nokia Developer Summit 2009 in Monte Carlo, Monaco). It was also a good time to catch up and interact with our friends from Malaysia (Yung-Hui and his spouse May, Colin, Jason and Yoon Kit - where I met some of them thru the TEDxKL event two days back) during the event. Here are some of the highlights about the event:

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

After listening to Dan Ariely's TED talk on our buggy moral code, I become interested in his research on behavioral economics. During a transit flight in Frankfurt airport back to Singapore after my trip to Monte Carlo, I managed to bought myself a copy of his book "Predictably Irrational" (and you can hear the story what prompted him to write the book in another TED talk entitled "Are we in control of our own decisions?"). Upon reading the book, I found that he was basically reiterating the examples from the book during the TED talk. It's a fascinating book providing a different perspective on how we make decisions using the combined discipline of psychology and economics. In fact, you will be convinced by his reasoning why there is hidden rationale behind people performing the acts of cheating and dishonest behaviour. So, I thought I might just summarize two interesting concepts that popped up in this book:

"Self-Organization, Economics & Football" @ TEDxKL

Yesterday, I am at the TEDx Kuala Lumpur, checking out what they are doing in their events. Organized by my counterpart, Daniel Cerventus (owner of Malaysian Entrepreneurs) and his TEDx team (kudos to them for the hard work and effort), the event is held in a very conducive and cosy environment in Plug and Play centre, 7 Floor in Mid-Valley. At the same time, I also managed to catch up with some old friends in KL: Yung-Hui (Grey-Review), Colin Charles (Bytebot), Daniel SY Tan, Michael Teoh, Arief Aziz (TEDx Jarkata) and many other new friends I have met yesterday. Of course, Meng Weng Wong was there and have covered the event with his camera (though I think that he should speak at some point). In any case, in the aftermath, during the wrap party at Delicious in Mid-Valley, both Cerventus and I agreed on one thing. We both thought that even the others thought we did alright with the presentation, we felt that we did not hit our maximum potential. Surely, for myself, I never thought that delivering an idea to be spread around within 18 minutes can be that exciting but I know that I have to improve much more. So, I will just place an abstract, links to the twitter comments of the talk and also the slides I have presented here, and hope that you can find the idea of "self-organized criticality", a concept from physics that found many applications in economics, biology, chemistry, computer and even football managers (or CEOs) worth spreading. There is a sequel to this story too that I have some new thoughts to pursue this idea further and I will work on it when I returned to Cambridge for a visit next month :)

A Mathematical Solution to Eddington's Controversy Problem

Sometime back, while reading Fazlollah M. Reza's "An Introduction to Information Theory", I revisited a solution that I have sketched out years back on the Eddington's controvery problem. This problem is interesting to me because it exemplifies the type of confusion that existed in probability prior to the introduction of set theory considerations. Eddington is the same astrophysicist who did the solar eclipse experiment to demonstrate the prediction of light bending using Einstein's general relativity. I thought I should share the solution which I co-solved with Yen Lee, an old friend from Cambridge who's now a postdoc in Purdue University. To quote the problem, "If A, B, C, D each speaks the truth 1 in 3 times (independently), and A affirms that B denies that C delcares that D is a liar, what's the probability that D was speaking the truth?" Historically, this problem was examined by M. Gardner in an article entitled "Brain Teasers that involve Formal Logic" and to everyone's surprise, some theoretical physicists and mathematicians are embroiled in getting the correct the number of the solution. So, I will discuss the problem in detail, giving my solution to the problem and explain why Eddington's answer of 25/71 was greeted with so much protests from the thinkers of the time. (Warning: If you are not a theoretical physicist or mathematician, you will be inundated by a plethora of mathematical symbols, hence you are warned before proceeding to the interesting parts).