Seth Godin’s challenge: bandwidth and latency

Seth Godin’s has a thought-provoking post that looks at the different types of media based on the bandwidth it can support and the immediacy of the exchange.

The bandwidth-sync correlation that's worth thinking about

Check this out. Every once in a while a cool graph pops into my head.

Source: Seth's Blog: The bandwidth-sync correlation that's worth thinking about

Human civilisation started at the top right hand corner on this graph: one-on-one coaching, which is both immediate and high bandwidth.

Since then other forms of communication have been invented. They have been limited on one or both dimensions, although that has often been an advantage. Talented and creative individuals have created profitable enterprises in any quadrant and with any medium.

Hugh MacLeod of http://www.gapingvoid.com/ has discovered how to effectively use even the scrap heap, as Seth calls the bottom left corner.

Seth goes on to challenge:

If you had seen this chart three years ago, you obviously would have invented Twitter. Now that you see it today, what will you create?

Well, it does appear that successful businesses have generally exploited the top-left to bottom-right axis, the one that has been highlighted on the graph. Whereas, individuals are more successful on the axis perpendicular to it.

To answer Seth’s challenge, I think there’s opportunity for people on the axis that is less crowded. For instance, as bandwidth increases and latency drops, there could be money in offering piano lessons over the internet.

It’s size that changes the experience

We know that in the government, possibly because of the size, the right hand often doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.

Are are the rest of us better?

Do large, profitable and professionally-run organisations offer a smoother experience than the silos of a bureaucracy. 

Here’s my experience of the Airtel web site that makes me wonder.

 

Retrieving an MMS from the web

It started with the following message from AirTel:

There is an MMS message for you. at http://www.airtel.in/mms/ Your Passcode is: c6s8**

Okay, I knew these were pictures sent by a friend, so I followed the url.

Oops:

The requested URL /mms/ was not found on this server.

---

IBM_HTTP_Server Server at www.airtel.in Port 80

 

Activating MMS on the phone

Maybe the url had changed. We know it happens.  So I look around and find this:

Getting Started
You'll need a compatible mobile phone to send and receive picture messages. To Activate MMS, send "MMS ACTIVE" to 121. Requires MMS enabled handsets. If your friends don't have a picture messaging phone, you can still send them a picture message. They'll receive a text message asking them to go to a web address where they'll be able to enjoy your message online.

:: Airtel :: Postpaid Mobile - Mail & Messaging Services.

 

All right, I send the SMS to 121 requesting activation of MMS, but get this response:

Welcome to My Airtel. Make a selection
1-For Billing
2-For Payments
3-For Bill Plan
4-For Do Not Disturb
5-For Help

Great!

 

Trying something else

 

So I give up on MMS, but continue to look around and discover something different but useful:

Access via PC

Access Airtel Msgr via your PC or Laptop:Instant chat with friends with any mobile number in India. Airtel Messenger on your PC offers many reasons for you to get hooked on. Foremost, it lets you send messages to any Airtel mobile number in India , for free. GET CRACKING, MAN!

Download NOW!
Click here to download AirTel Msgr.

:: Airtel :: Postpaid Mobile - Mail & Messaging Services.

 

OH, but “download AirTel Msgr” link brought in a completely useless zipped folder called mysites! :-(

 

 

Technorati tags: government, organisation size, AirTel, website, service

Are you a winner in the Blogosphere?

Before a story becomes news, it must be distinguished from other stories in the feedstock. 

Digg or Reddit do this separation of news from noise with machines worked by user communities; Google News or TechMeme, with algorithms.

"A" list bloggers, like Scoble, do much the same by hand. Like sifting through gravel for diamonds, it is hard work, but could be profitable.

I like the noise. Why? Because I can see patterns before anyone else. I saw the Chinese earthquake happening 45 minutes before Google News reported it. Why? Because I was watching the noise, not the news.

Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger » Blog Archive Why Google News has no noise «

However, what is news for Scoble is noise for many others. That's why all his stories don't hit the Digg front page. And, perhaps, the Digg front page itself is noise for most net users.

In this ecosystem where bloggers pick each other's stories, book mark them or share them, everyone is a linked as both a producer and a consumer.

Who are the winners in this ecosystem?

Don't know. For now, I'm thinking whether the question itself makes sense.

 

Technorati tags: Noise, news, ecosystem, algorithm

Why does your conversation with mom end this way?

In last 9 months it's been watched more than half a million times! Most of the over 2000 comments are like:

ParfaitTic (5 days ago)

OMG! your observations about life are so ... so.. REAL :D ! LOVE ALL YOUR VIDEOS

Why do moms (and sometimes dad) behave like this?

 

Mom doesn't want you to eat Tuna against your wishes. This conversation isn't about fish, nutrition, mercury poisoning or anything.

It's a little drama fuelled by loneliness and guilt.

There are attempts to end the conversation: Mom, I don't like fish! (Please, can we stop talking ... er about fish and such other stuff?)

And attempts to keep it going: Fish doesn't have as much mercury anymore. (Yes, you don't like fish for some reason. But I want to talk to you, and fish is about the only thing I can think of at the moment. Besides, I can't discuss your career or your children or your love life, without feeling so much like an outsider.)

Sometimes an emotional scene over fish is better than emotionless silence between individuals.

 

Technorati tags: Life, drama, conversations, love, Levni, Yilmaz, AgentXPQ

The One reason to trust Google

Tad Chef gives 12 reasons to distrust Google.

Do you use Google? Do you think they are nice and friendly? Do you assume that what is good for Google is good for humanity as a whole? I don’t. Here is why: The top 12 reasons to distrust Google.

1. Google supports and implements censorship measures in nondemocratic countries like China
2. Google search is almost a monopoly in some countries, it already is one in others (in Germany more than 90% market share)
3. ...

Top 12 Reasons to Distrust Google | Collective Thoughts

I get to read his post because, based on my reading list, Google recommends his feed! That's the one reason why I like Google. They know best how to make the technology work for you.

Tad's reasons are worth thinking about. And you should heed his advice if you are the sort who believes the newspapers, or the UN Secretary General, or the Pope.

But for those who have a healthy distrust of everything, Google is the least untrustworthy of all authoritative sources.

And a whole lot more useful too!

 

Technorati tags: Google Reader, Google, trust, authoritative, information

Nature's way: Does he snore for you?

Source: ninjapoodles, who relates an interesting story about the picture. She also blogs at Ninja Poodle.

 

Does it constitute an explanation that snoring is caused by the vibration of soft tissue at the back of the throat?

That's like saying that the coqui frog produces ear-splitting calls because of the vibrations from a sac near its mouth. Of course, but why?

Click here to learn about frog communication. For a theory about snoring read on.

Such a theory must explain:

1. Why does it affect men far more than women?
2. Why does it seem to switch on in middle age?

It must also explain why evolution hasn't worked to eliminate it when:

1. Women don't consider snoring attractive and
2. It could cause a serious disorder called sleep apnea in the snorer.

Could it be that snoring offers (or once offered) a survival advantage? 

Quite likely, when you consider:

• It isn't a health problem, unless it becomes excessive and occurs in conjunction with other conditions, such as obesity. Well , what is not a health problem in its more severe or excessive form?
• The snorer can sleep undisturbed. Actually, so can his companion in bed, unless there is some other underlying reason for her disturbed sleep.

But what could be its survival advantage? Perhaps, the fact that snoring loudly can scare away animals that may attack a sleeping family.

Plus, an adult male would be the best choice for tackling an animal that comes snooping:

• He would be strong, and skilled, enough to take on a wild animal that may be reasonably repulsed
• The one to sacrifice, should this become necessary. He would have already passed on his genes to the next generation.

Oh, btw, animals also snore. It would make sense for them to snore too, isn't it?

 

Technorati tags: snore, snoring, survival advantage, survival value, evolution

When all information might reside on your iPod?

To the prediction that all content in the world would easily fit inside an iPod by 2020, Amit Agarwal asks a relevant question:

Interesting but if these Google-iPod predictions happen to come true, we would definitely need something like a Google Mini Search Appliance for our Apple iPods.

Source: Google: All Content In This World Will Soon Be in Your iPod | Digital Inspiration Technology Guide

But wait a second. Are we taking of all content of the year 2020? Can we even estimate how much content that might be?

Yes, cost of storage has dropped dramatically, but many other technologies have seen similar improvements that could cause a content explosion. Network speed, for instance.

Or take cameras and video recorders in cell phones. What might be the impact of streaming high-definition video produced continually by every cell phone? And the impact of inexpensive bandwidth to store all of it online?

Yes, much of the content so produced may be pointless, but would that deter us?

We may actually never need much storage on an iPod, no matter how many functions we can think of fitting into it today. The memory required may be no more than what's needed to operate a cache for the ever connected iPod of 2020.

 

Technorati tags: iPod, storage, prediction, future, technology, advancement, content

If you change nothing, expect more of the same!

In yet another incident, a Blueline bus crushes a motorcyclist to death in Noida.

The High Court calls the death of seven person in an earlier incident as shocking. The police have impounded 100 buses and a former Union Minister drives a Blueline bus to the Chief Ministers home!

Everyone is clearly agitated and surprised that nothing seems to work.

Now consider this:

A large number of Blueline buses ply whole day in Delhi, they take small risks all the time (because it pays), and the chance of a mishap is small (in any individual incident of risky behaviour). But on an average we have an accident every two days.

The situation may be modelled using the Poisson Distribution. Without going into the mathematics of it, we can expect:

1. A few accident-free days. 
   
   It won't be the result of the so-called crackdown, but rather due to Poisson Noise.
   
2. A spate of accidents. 
   
   For the same reason as above, not because things may go completely out of hand. (Mathematically, the situation seems to be stable for last three years!)

The accidents would reduce when the distribution characteristic change: either reduce the number of these buses or adjust the incentives that cause the behaviour.

But that seems to be difficult to do.

 

Technorati tags: Poisson distribution, accidents, Blueline, incentive

Why do Blueline buses continue to kill?

In July the Times of India reported that Delhi State's Transport Minister, Haroon Yusuf, would pray at Ajmer for respite from deaths caused by Blueline buses.

Either the visit didn't happen or the Spirit at the Dargah wasn't mollified because deaths from Blueline buses have continued.

Seven people, including five women, were killed in Badarpur area on Sunday morning when an overspeeding Blueline bus rammed into people crossing a road, triggering protests by angry onlookers who indulged in stone pelting and tried to set the bus afire.

Blueline bus kills seven in Delhi-Delhi-Cities-The Times of India

Not only the prayers, nothing else seems to work either:

1. Speed governors. (Easily tampered with. Or, maybe with some difficulty.)
2. A crackdown on the buses. (Whatever that means.)
3. Action against errant drivers. (Not much it seems, because it hasn't made a difference to their behaviour.)

"Technology is the only way out of this mess," according to Mr Yusuf. And some technology solutions are being thought up.

But my question is: Who or what created the mess in the first place? It should be obvious that the answer is incorrectly aligned incentives!

It pays to speed. And the returns aren't offset by penalties, whether you are caught speeding or arrested after the accident.

What would fix the problem then? Adjusting the incentives, of course. But that seems to be difficult to do for some reason.

 

Technorati tags: incentive, penalty, behaviour, solution, Blueline

The menace of chain mail

Did you receive the warning that:

• Some erasers contain formaldehyde?
• Most major brands of lipstick contain dangerous levels of lead?

No?

Surely somebody tipped you off about Microsoft and AOL coming together to give away thousands of dollars?

How do you deal with these forwards?

I've tried pointing out obvious errors in the story with a link to snopes.com, or other sites debunking urban legends. Mostly it doesn't help. Some cheerfully say oops, and send another forward within the next hour. Others remonstrate that they were only trying to he helpful.

It doesn't occur to the decent, and otherwise intelligent folks, that they jeopardize their own and their friends' email addresses, while wasting everyone's time, attention and patience.

I wish Google--because they are the best, but also other email providers--would add the following functionality to their email:

1. Trap email with dozens of addresses in the body or the headers at the sender's end, warn him or her of the danger and offer to strip out the addresses. (Facility to strip out email addresses from forwards would be useful otherwise too.)
2. Block suspicious messages (like they do with attachments) at the source,inform the sender that the story could be a hoax, provide links to verify the facts, and suggest that the message could embarrass the sender.
3. Let people elect to have their email address removed from suspect chain mail messages, before these are sent out. Of course, this can work only if the sending and receiving address are with the same email provider, or across co-operating providers.

Meanwhile, please, somebody suggest what to do.

 

Technorati tags: chain mail, urban legends, wish list

No Robert, small publishers needn't worry

Robert Niles argues that if service providers are allowed to offer premium access to corporate clients, it threatens net neutrality.

He would like to see legislation to prevent the such a move.

The industry's plan ... would charge individual publishers different rates for bandwidth based on negotiated deals. AT&T, for example, could cut a deal with Fox News, serving its content to subscribers at a faster rate than that of the New York Times. And people-powered sites from DailyKos to Free Republic would be left with the digital scraps, their readers waiting while AT&T gives higher priority to requests for webpages from its corporate partners.

Source: It's up to Congress now to protect Net Neutrality

Bandwidth cost is hardly the dominant factor in distributing content. It is zero for millions of bloggers. Who pays their bandwidth cost?

Answer: Those who derive economic profit from their outpourings.

Technology has made the Long Tail of publishers economically viable for hosting services that find a way to make a profit from them.

For a healthy tail, it is necessary that its economic viability be preserved, but that's not a task for legislation or government policy.

I don't worry about Fox News, they have to worry about blogger.com.

 

Technorati tags: market, net neutrality, The Long Tail, people power

Happy fallout of Keystroke loggers

Amit Varma writes about an initiative of the Mumbai police that would cause such distress in the population that the terrorists may be popping champagne:

A few days ago, Mumbai’s police revealed their plans to install keystroke loggers in Mumbai’s cyber cafes, besides imposing licensing requirements on them.

This is done ostensibly to fight terrorism, and here are the implications for you and me. Whenever we surf from a Mumbai cyber café, everything we type will automatically be captured on record. Our email passwords, every message we type, the sites we visit, the pictures we download: everything will be stored in police records, rendering us, effectively, naked in their eyes.

India’s Cops Get Orwellian - The India Uncut Blog

However, things might actually turn out a lot happier for everybody, if you carefully consider the implications.

If the police enforce it aggressively, it might popularize:

1. OpenID, thus avoiding login at individual sites. I shall provide a low cost OpenID service with a mouse activated onscreen keyboard. :-) Yes, with randomized layouts, in case mouse trails are also logged.
2. Skype and other voice and video services.
3. The sign language over Skype. Thus making communication easier for the hearing impaired in the non-virtual world, with wider benefits to society.
4. Touch screens, light pens and other types of digitizers.

Cyber cafes might vertically separate into two business lines:

     (a)  WiFi service providers,  and

     (b)  laptop renting services.

This is to be welcomed. Internet cafes forcing you to rent their outdated PC's, or regular cafes renting their expensive WiFi are both unholy economic alliances.

The credit card companies would have to smarten up and improve security, if they wish to survive. No citizen groups could have forced them to do it, without this initiative by the police.

With so many things to look forward to, we really need to worry about any rearguard action to derail the scheme.

Two likely groups of spoilsports are:

1. The policemen, who'd refuse order to scan the cyber logs. And I don't blame them because it would be the most extreme form of torture. How many million lines of "hi, wassup?" can anybody endure?
2. The lawyers, who might have it declared against the law.

Whatever, there's sure to be fun in days to come.

 

Technorati tags: terrorist, cyber crime, keylogger, Mumbai police, police, cyber cafe

Neutralizing the terrorists

In the wake of recent bomb explosions in Hyderabad, the Times of India has run a series editorials evaluating the adequacy of our response to terrorist actions.

Apart from its practical aspects, targeting terrorism through special laws is a declaration of intent and signals the political and societal resolve to take on an enemy. It's a call to arms and tells those on the frontline that the authorities recognise the nature of beast and are prepared to confront it. That there will be no half-measures in a war against opponents who do not believe in dialogue, rather are convinced that their cause will be served by killing innocents.

Source: 'What other nations are doing to curb terror'-India-The Times of India

Elsewhere too, there is discussion--in media, blogs and around water coolers--about how we ought to protect the ourselves from future risk.

Exactly one year ago, Bruce Schneier wrote on Wired.com about the nature of the beast and how to confront it. It's a must read in its entirety for anybody thinking about ways to tackle terror, and what NOT to do.

Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat. And if we're terrified, and we share that fear, we help. All of these actions intensify and repeat the terrorists' actions, and increase the effects of their terror.

Source: Refuse to be Terrorized

The 24 hour news channels are especially given to sensationalism, because such reporting apparently attracts audience. 

However, playing on the fears of the public, in the case of terrorist acts, is equivalent to playing into the hands of the terrorists.

 

Technorati tags: terror, terrorist, terror response, blast, Hyderabad, sensationalism

Can an agnostic be canonised?

It appears that Mother Teresa's crisis of faith won't affect her chances of achieving sainthood:

Mother Teresa has already been beatified, said Monsignor Robert Sarno, who is in charge of her case at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. For her canonisation as a saint, she now requires one more verified miracle. Mgr Sarno said it was not surprising that Mother Teresa had, at times, turned away from God.

Mother Teresa's canonisation not at risk - Telegraph

Apparently she wasn't an agnostic, but a devout believer who didn't find evidence of God in her life.

 

Technorati tags: crisis of faith, canonization, canonisation, Mother Teresa, agnostic

Will there be hell to pay for?

This post on Overcoming Bias makes me wonder how the relentless onslaught of K-soaps on Indian television may be creating biases and thus shaping relationships!!

Fiction is not only not real, it differs from reality in systematic ways. For example, characters in novels, plays, TV tend to be more attractive, articulate, expressive, and principled than real people. Now we also like to tell stories about ourselves and the events we see around us. These stories are more constrained by the facts we see than fictional stories, but I suspect they suffer from similar biases. That is, I suggest we have a fiction bias...

Overcoming Bias: Tell Your Anti-Story

Picture from: http://starplus.indya.com/serials/kyunki/index.html

 

Technorati tags: soap opera, drama, bias, society, Ekta Kapoor

Can blogging bring about long term change?

Robin Hanson writes:

The joy of blogging for me is taking just an hour to pen and distribute an apparently powerful insight.  But this joy is illusory if my insights never join a process of accumulation where others build on my insights and integrate them effectively into a larger body of thought.  If I'm mainly the equivalent of a newspaper columnist, rather than a part of a community of modular thinkers, this is to me a waste. 

Overcoming Bias: Blogging Doubts

Blogging can be a part of the "process of accumulation" in several ways:

1. Bloggers document history in making which can be invaluable for researchers who later try to make sense of an happening or a period of time. Please see: They help the most, who collaborate about the 2004 Tsunami.
2. Insights from blogosphere, at least in some areas, coalesce into an accepted body of wisdom fairly quickly. For example, the debate about desirability of DRM. Such debates could influence outcomes.
3. Debates about emotional topics, like existence of God or abortion rights, would likely make people veer to rational viewpoints, as progressively younger population see viewpoints otherwise disapproved by their religion or family.
4. More nuanced understanding of phenomena like terrorism, that affect large populations whose opinions drive the way their governments or other institutions act.

Together with easily accessible and constantly evolving wiki content or social booking marking, it could well be the most powerful process of accumulation ever seen in the history of mankind.

 

Technorati tags: blogging, social bookmarking, wiki, collaboration, society, development

Predicting Success

Scott Adams says he didn't foresee that Dilbert would be successful as a workplace strip.

When Dilbert launched in newspapers, the response was underwhelming. In the early years, it wasn't a workplace strip. It was about Dilbert's life in general. He just happened to have a job. I was surprised to learn, via my e-mail, that readers loved the relatively rare comics featuring Dilbert in the office. Personally, I didn't think those were my best work. My ego told me to do it my way. My readers told me I was wrong.

The Dilbert Blog: The Loser Decision

However, while discussing hypnosis not too long ago, Scott had told us:

... Dilbert is designed using tricks I learned from hypnosis. The reason Dilbert has no last name, and the boss has no name, and the company has no name, and the town has no name is because of my hypnosis training. I remove all the obvious obstacles to imagining Dilbert works at your company.

Were Dilbert comics carefully designed for a target audience. Or did Scott realize, with help from his audience, that a comic featuring Dilbert at the workplace is the way to go?

Could it be both?

Bloggers, some very successful ones, often admit that they aren't good at predicting their successful posts.

I guess it's the same with songwriters, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, and managers that plan the displays at departmental stores. They must try different things and adopt what seems to work.

In other words, you don't create a successful strategy, but rather discover it.

A lot of intelligence lies in being quick to learn.

 

Related: Conversation in the digital world

Technorati tags: Dilbert, predicting success, attention, natural selection, intelligent design, Darwin

Astrology and religion in everyday life

Yesterday, Amit Varma blogged about Pratibha Patil's qualifications to be the President of India in a delightful tongue-in-cheek post:

Consider, first, her spirituality. We are a spiritual nation, and Pratibha Tai actually converses with spirits.

Source: Celebrating Pratibha Patil - The India Uncut Blog

His piece opened my eyes to very interesting stories that seem to regularly appear in the media. Take two recent examples:

1. The Times of India reports today that Delhi State's Transport Minister, Haroon Yusuf, is going to Ajmer to pray for respite from deaths caused by Blueline buses.
   
   If we are clueless about how to handle the errant buses, perhaps, it's appropriate to seek the intervention of gods. But what if the spirit at the Dargah got unhappy with the Minister? Will that mean more deaths?
   
   
2. The current issue of Business Today has an item ,"Three out of four", examining an astrologer's success in predicting the movement of bullion and commodities prices.
   
   Ah! I always knew that astrology isn't so different from Technical Analysis in its methods and beliefs. At least you now have a choice.

Technorati tags: astrology, technical analysis, religion, prayer, gods

Is it the Taj or the Indians?

In a last minute rally, Indians voted massively to propel the Taj Mahal into the list of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

Indians voted overwhelmingly in the polls cast by over a million people. The polling picked up drastically over the last one month, to see the ''monument of love'' through to the final seven.

Source: NDTV.com: Taj on list of world's seven wonders

Taj is undoubtedly magnificent. But isn't it on the list largely because the Indian diaspora asserted it voting power?

A community asserts itself when it's politically strong--when it is confident of dealing with the visibility, which inevitably leads to some unwanted attention too.

What does support for the Taj indicate more of:

1. Taj is truly magnificent.
2. Indians are now a confident community.

I think, more of 2.

 

Technorati tags: India, Indians, Taj Mahal, politics, seven wonders

Your Citizenship Provider

Denis Bider reflects upon the founding of the United States 200 years ago as an "experimentation with systems of government".

He blogs about the dilemma of the founding fathers:

You know that there must be some good system of government, but you don't know what it is. So what do you do?

And answers:

You do the reasonable thing: create competiton. Instead of creating one country and enshrining a certain system into law, you create dozens of separate states; you say little about the organization of their internal governments; but you pit them to compete against each other to attract citizens.

That was 200 hundred years ago. Perhaps, it is time for another experiment?

Citizenship brings certain privileges and government provided services to people in defined geographic area.

But people are now beginning to relocate outside their country of birth for extended periods, if not permanently. Also restrictions on foreign nationals acquiring property are reducing the world over.

Then why should citizenship (or nationality) be closely based on a geographical territory?

Rather it should be more like membership to a club, that comes at a price and provides services to its members.

The Citizenship Provider would negotiate with large territory owners (nations, which may themselves be citizenship providers through their state) for residency rights for its members.

In time a market for citizenship, much like for insurance or credit cards should develop.

And the territory owners would have interest in developing their property in the hope of attracting more residents and charging appropriate rents.

Would it be too difficult to make this market work? If not, we have an alternative to expensive elections and the consequences of living with other people's choices.

 

Technorati tags: citizenship, governance, government, nationality, markets, democary, property