2BL.org: Ted Chan's Blog for Business and Social Impact

Bike tour reviews site is up!

2012-12-02T22:32:00.003-05:00

I've been working on the second leg of my bike tour information site, specifically a section for reviews of bike tour operators. I've gotten it up and now we're working on some reviews. We have a bunch for companies like DuVine and Meridien Ten. Check it out if you have the chance, I'd love your feedback.

Updated force rank of restaurants in Sydney

2012-11-05T10:03:00.006-05:00

Having spent six months out of the past year in Sydney on expense budget, I force ranked every restaurant I ate at. Just one person's thoughts!

Superstars

Medusa Greek Taverna
Tetsuya
Din Tai Fung
Fish at the Rocks
Bambini Trust
Pendolino
Longrain
Malaya
Golden Century
Madang

Very Good

Universal
Pony
Chinta Ria
Mure’s (Hobart)
Altitude at the Shangri-La
Jaime’s
Rockpool Bar and Grill
Billy Kwong’s
Chat Thai
Coolangatta Winery Restaurant (Shoalhaven)
Shiki
Garfish Manly
Cut
Meat & Wine Company
De Vine
Lord Nelson Brewery
Xage Surrey Hills
Mamak
Marigold
Sake Rocks
Yee King Noodles

Good / Fine

Selah
Doyle’s Waterfront – Watson Bay
Fusion Café Marsfield
Mad Cow / Ivy
Rockpool on George (A bit hit or miss for exorbitant price point)
Sailor Thai
Bistro Fax
La Cita King’s Wharf
Christie’s at the Fish Market
Zaaffran BBQ & Fine Indian
Delima Indonesian
Peace Harmony Thai
Emperor’s Choice CBD
Ventuno
Sambal
Conservation Hut – Wentworth Falls
Glenmore
Phillip’s Foote
Menya Noodle Bar
Shiyi
Nicholas’ Seafoods at the Fish Market
Malaysian Laksa House QVB
Goshu Ramen Tei
Vintage Cafe

Below My Bar

Pancakes on the Rocks
Smolt (Hobart)
Zozo Korean BBQ
Condor Japanese Restaurant
SwissHotel High Tea
Miga Korean BBQ
Giovanni’s Restaurant and Pizzeria
Doyle’s at the Fish Market
Wok on Inn Darling Harbour
Adria’s Darling Harbour
Xic Lo Vietnamese (Chatswood)
Treis-Elies (Katoomba)
Katselis (Katoomba)
The Winery at Culpitt Vineyard (Ulladulla)

Is Chitika a worthy alternative to Google Adsense?

2012-09-20T08:58:00.002-04:00

One question I've been getting recently from my business is whether Chitika is worth trying out as an alternative to Google Adsense. I tried out Chitika on PracticeQuiz.com to find out.

All of the numbers are well below Google Adsense, unfortunately. Granted, I don't have the Chitika units placed on a great place on the page, which limits the CTR. The CPC is what's disturbing. That isn't that affected by placement on a page typically. I'll be removing these and seeing what alternatives I can try out. So far I haven't had much success with Amazon Omakase either (116,000 impressions, one sale).

Maybe there are some contexts where Chitika works better, but it didn't for me because of the low CPCs. Anyone have any thoughts on other alternatives?

Update on a few of my projects

2012-09-20T08:06:00.003-04:00

Haven't posted much but it's a been busy and year.

I've launched three major initiatives:

A bike tour information and reviews site that's part of a larger experiential travel network I'm working on
Online courseware for EMT training
The rapidly scaling PracticeQuiz.com, a free test prep review site with a simulated test engine, something most of the other sites in this space don't have. I've been able to seed it with a lot of content and we're on track to do close to 4 million ad impression on an annualized basis

Check 'em out and let me know what you think.

Rock Salt Cheese

2012-09-20T07:55:00.000-04:00

This place Happy Lemon I stopped by today had something on top of their drinks called Rock Salt Cheese. It's some type of frothy foam they put on top of their disgustingly sweet teas (took one sip and threw it in the garbage can). I guess it's some type of fragrant cheese with rock salt.

2011 Best of Boston Mobile Scene on Boston.com

2012-01-17T11:13:00.005-05:00

See my 2011 Best of Boston Mobile, and 8 Boston Startups to watch in 2012:

For those of you who read this blog, I've been a bit busy, and I've also agreed to do some blog posts on Boston.com and VentureFizz. I'll be sure to be more diligent about posting them back here.

The new PracticeQuiz.com

2011-12-11T20:55:00.003-05:00

I've been working on a new site, PracticeQuiz.com, a site that provides free exam practice.

There are a number of free practice test sites out there. I've learned through my work with Upward Mobility the sources of a lot of content, contributed some myself, and then, loaded them into a testing engine we've program.

The list of exams will grow, but there are already a number of good ones for academic, medical and business subjects out there already.

Let's stop with the Silicon Valley diversity BS

2011-11-09T23:52:00.006-05:00

I just felt compelled to respond to the ridiculous use of data by some of the recent articles arguing about diversity in Silicon Valley. The problem of racial diversity in tech companies is systemic American problem, not a Silicon Valley specific one. We need to address the root cause of the problem, which is that not enough non-Asian minorities are going into Engineering related fields.

This chart on the left is from a CNNFN/Forbes article by Julie Pepitone. It accuses Silicon Valley of trying to hide a diversity secret.

It makes the workforce imbalance seem terrible skewed and that there's some type of severe discrimination problem going on in the valley.

Well, how about we compare this data to how specific racial demographics go into engineering according to 2008 NSF data?

% Engineers Enrolling in Undergraduate Programs (Data here)

Wait, so in Silicon Valley, a engineering centric business center has the exact same percentages of Whites, Blacks and Hispanics who go into the Engineering fields? And while Asians have double representation, California has 2.5x more Asians on percentage basis than the rest of the country.

Can we please stop wasting our time with this debate, and focus on building systems that get underrepresented minorities into math, science and engineering careers? Creating a false maelstrom over SV hiring practices is just going to help the problem.

42 meals in Sydney

2011-08-12T16:44:00.002-04:00

I did some serious dining during my time in Sydney - a truly amazing culinary city. I basically tried to do some exploring, and also went down the TripAdvisor rankings to find the very best.

I forced ranked all of the restaurants I ate at - it's not definitive, since at most places, I only got to try a couple of dishes in a single visit. I did make two trips to Medusa (6x!), Longrain, Golden Century and Madang, so I'm confident of my strong ranking for those.

Superstars

Medusa Greek Taverna
Tetsuya
Longrain
Fish at the Rocks
Golden Century
Madang

Very Good

Pony
Chinta Ria
Mure’s (Hobart)
Altitude at the Shangri-La
Billy Kwong’s
Garfish Manly
Cut
Lord Nelson Brewery
Xage Surrey Hills
Yee King Noodles

Good

Fusion Café Marsfield
Mad Cow / Ivy
Sailor Thai
Christie’s at the Fish Market
Zaaffran BBQ & Fine Indian
Delima Indonesian
Peace Harmony Thai
Emperor’s Choice CBD
Ventuno
Sambal
Chat Thai
Conservation Hut – Wentworth Falls
Glenmore
Phillip’s Foote
Menya Noodle Bar
Nicholas’ Seafoods at the Fish Market
Malaysian Laksa House QVB

Below My Bar

Smolt (Hobart)
Zozo Korean BBQ
Giovanni’s Restaurant and Pizzeria
Doyle’s at the Fish Market
Wok on Inn Darling Harbour
Adria’s Darling Harbour
Xic Lo Vietnamese (Chatswood)
Treis-Elies (Katoomba)
Katselis (Katoomba)

The Future of the American City

2011-06-24T21:19:00.001-04:00

My friend Bob Barancik sent along the following link, which I think hit home at a time where I've been thinking about topics like this. Few civilizations have been able to sustain a leading level of reinvestment into their cities, infrastructure, etc. That is true throughout history and will be true for America. Just as other great civilizations decayed, so will ours...it's just a matter of whether it happens in 100 or 400 years. I imagine our level of angst is something like Rome 375 AD....

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/audio-video/item/james_howard_kunstler_discusses_the_future_of_the_american_city/

Bob's Summary: Orion managing editor Andrew Blechman interviews author James Howard Kunstler about the future of cities in an age of peak oil and obligatory contraction. According to Kunstler, Phoenix and Las Vegas will be "toast," skyscrapers will become massive liabilities, suburbs will turn into salvage yards, and commerce will look very different. Kunstler is quite certain that civilization will remain intact, albeit retrofitted with slow trains, sailing ships, and other blasts from the past.

Economics of Mobile Apps Talk

2011-03-10T22:10:00.001-05:00

Here's the link to my presentation and talk on The Economics of Mobile Apps at MIT Sloan.

Brookline Price Segmentation for Boston Red Sox Tickets

2011-01-19T20:13:00.002-05:00

I think this is a brilliant little segmentation scheme that helps the City of Brookline maximize parking revenues. I'm pretty sure they've installed smart wireless meters that make this easy, which is a hot M2M topic I've been working on a lot at CSMG.

There's no way a Sox fan would leave in less than two hours to print a new ticket as a wireless meter would require. However, I suspect many will just pay the $22, which will still leave businesses without much parking. Either way, it's a better situation for the city than before.

From The Boston Globe:

Brookline will raise parking meter rates just in time to charge Red Sox fans $22 to park along a stretch of Beacon Street during the home-opening series against the New York Yankees in April.
Selectmen unanimously approved the special rates during Red Sox games near the St. Mary’s MBTA stop tonight, as well as other meter rate increases around the town that are expected to raise an additional $1 million a year in revenue.
The hikes approved by the board will charge motorists parking along the Beacon Street median from St. Mary’s to Hawes streets $1 per hour for the first two hours in a metered spot, and $10 per hour for an additional two hours, bringing the four-hour total to $22 on game nights. Motorists will also have to pay to park at the spots until 10 p.m.
The parking spots are a short walk from Fenway Park, and Brookline is making the move because merchants have complained that Red Sox fans take up all of the parking spots on game nights, leaving no where for other customers to park.
Selectmen also voted Tuesday to increase parking meter fees from 75 cents to $1 per hour in Brookline’s biggest commercial areas. The fee increases take effect April 1.
The special rates during the Red Sox games are expected to raise $35,000 a year for the town.

Some links to check out

2011-01-11T22:44:00.005-05:00

A couple links to check out:

An viewpoint I wrote on an out there, but real opportunity in advertising ringbacks. I know it sounds like it'd be the most annoying thing, but in some environments, it's a legitimate revenue or branding opportunity.

My brother Eric has a new blog on using lean in the Aerospace environment.

A couple friends of mine, Inaki and Andres, from MIT Sloan launched a cool new Facebook photosharing product at their startup Pixable.

Geek-dom

2010-12-07T19:26:00.001-05:00

According to this Venn Diagram, I am a geek. I think this is quite a good description of the difference between these words actually. I wear the badge proudly.

Social Media Primer

2010-09-19T14:44:00.002-04:00

My friend Areg wrote an award that won the Pepperdine MBA paper contest. He gave me permission to share it here. It's a useful primer/101 document for those who are new to social media and want to leverage it for there business.

GSBM - Social Media Paper - Bagdasarian - Tamehiro - Final Draft

Thought of the Day (on the iPad)

2010-04-11T21:11:00.003-04:00

If you say something is a giant version of one of the most innovative products of the past century, is that really an insult?

With that in mind, I bought an iPad today. I'm not really sold on it as anything other than a media consumption device, but, when you think about it, media consumption is pretty much what this world is about now...

I think we'll port our Upward Mobility apps over to it. I do think that we have something to offer i our format over content that can be found on the open web.

White paper on mobile health care

2010-03-21T01:46:00.003-04:00

It's been a ridiculously busy few months. One of the things I've been working on is a white paper on mobile health care. I contributed a lot in the early thought process and ideation, though my CSMG colleague Aaron Nutt gets credit for actually writing it. I think there's a lot of interesting insights, so check out.

Moca releases source code

2010-02-25T21:19:00.002-05:00

One of the projects I've been working on for the past two years, Moca released its source code.

Telemedicine in the Making: Moca Source Code Released

Moca, an MIT-based student organization, is pleased to announce the official release of the Moca source code, a set of foundational building blocks for telemedicine applications. This solution allows healthcare workers to digitally capture patient information using Google Android-based smartphones and transmit files via the cellular network to solicit feedback from urban-area specialists. Fully integrated into the OpenMRS electronic medical record system platform, the release of the Moca source code represents an important contribution to the nascent health care open source movement.

The components of the Moca end-to-end solution are now available for download by the public on the Moca website (www.mocamobile.org) and include:

Google Android Client Application: The interface with which a health care worker can document patient information and upload the medical data to OpenMRS. This application permits users to document information through text, images, and GPS location. Any user is welcome to demo the application on their own Android smartphone and upload their patient case to Moca's OpenMRS server for viewing.

Moca Dispatch Server: The intermediary layer between Moca's Android client and the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system. The Moca Dispatch Server also provides flexibility to extend Moca to other cell phone platform devices and medical record system back-ends.

OpenMRS Moca Module: An OpenMRS plug-in that allows urban-area specialists to receive patient cases uploaded from the smartphone to the Moca Dispatch Server. The Moca Module creates a queue of patient cases in need of review and allows for SMS or e-mail messaging for specialists to send further instructions to healthcare workers.

OpenMRS Flash Media Viewer Module: Moca's open source contribution to the OpenMRS platform. The Media Viewer allows healthcare providers to view and manipulate patient images with contrast, zoom, brightness, and sharpness, in addition to playing audio and video media files. The Media Viewer is modular in design and can be used outside of Moca's remote medical diagnostics applications.

Documentation: Step-by-step instructions on how to demo the system and setup a development environment.

Sample Questionnaires: The application includes disease-targeted patient assessment questionnaires developed by ClickDiagnostics in collaboration with a network of doctors through extensive pilots in Africa and Asia. These assessment questionnaires showcase the potential impact of Moca for field health professionals.

The Moca team approaches this project mindful that a strong telemedicine solution needs to be made publically available and customizable. The Moca client application was written for the Google Android operating system, an open source operating system for smartphones, and is hardware agnostic to allow for flexible adoption and compatibility with current technological infrastructures.

The Moca team encourages health organizations to work with this platform and to customize the solution for their own development projects. As IT integrations into healthcare present immense challenges such as workflow re-design and worker acceptance, Moca provides assistance for deployment implementation and assessment. Developers are encouraged to contact Moca at questions@mocamobile.org to discuss potential collaborations. Technical questions about the software can be directed to the online forum: moca-users@googlegroups.com.

The team is currently in discussion to deploy the Moca solution in the Philippines, U.S., India, and Mexico. Future plans for the solution include the creation of an improved customization platform and the expansion of data input functionality to include video and audio. Moca also hopes to expand compatibility with plug-in medical devices for ultrasound and electrocardiographic review.

The release of the source code represents a major milestone in Moca's development. Moca began as a NextLab student project at MIT, and has since grown to a group within MIT's Center for Transportation and Logistics. Group members include student volunteers from MIT, HarvardSchool of Public Health and Harvard Business School. Further, the maturity of the current source code was made possible through the advisory of field experts from a wide array of partners, both commercial corporations and NGOs.

To contact the Moca team, please write to questions@mocamobile.org.

Moca would like to acknowledge Asia Pacific College, ClickDiagnostics, Dimagi, Google SOC, IEEE, MIT Corporate Relations, MIT Industrial Liaison Program, MIT Public Service Center, National Telehealth Center of the University of the Philippines, Nokia, OpenMRS, Partners in Health, Regenstreif Institute & Telmex for their support.

Moca Mission Statement:

To revolutionize healthcare delivery in remote areas through innovative mobile information services that improve patient access to medical specialists for faster, higher quality, and more cost-effective diagnosis and intervention.

Based on the work and contributions of students, volunteers, partner organizations, and sponsors, to build and be recognized as a leading open source data collection and collaboration platforms for clinical research and best practice health care delivery for the underserved.

Thoughts on Google's Nexus One

2010-01-06T20:18:00.001-05:00

It’s not a game changer, neither from my perspective as a mobile apps developer, a social entrepreneur who needs cheaper smartphones in the marketplace to scale some of our models, or as a wireless industry consultant.

It’s a minor upgrade from the hardware perspective on the Motorola Droid. It’s on a 2^nd tier carrier, and there will be comparable Android devices released later in the year. It’s essentially another G1, a “type 1” device running on T-Mobile. The $500+ unlocked price point isn’t going to do much for anyone – you can get an unlocked anything at that price. By the time it gets into the supported, subsidized lines for major carriers, there will be better devices up there.

So while I’m expecting some uptake because it’s Android 2.1 and a high end processor, it’s essentially a high-end phone. I’m expecting Sony to release an Android Xperia that will blow this out of the water at some point soon, so patience may be a virtue here.

On Tech Art

2010-01-03T12:32:00.002-05:00

Recommendations on tech art from my Swarthmore classmate Branen Salmon...some pretty neat stuff here for those who are interested in how technology and art intersect.

Well, broadly, tech art appropriates technologies and applies them towards aesthetic or critical ends--often both. It's a wildly broad space, and Seattle's tech art community has people working all throughout it. There are a few "full-time" artists [1], but most of the folks in the scene are either software developers, engineers, or musicians by trade. (Or self-fashioned mad scientists [2] with academic day jobs.) I don't have a good feel for the market--I'm sure that some people collect tech art, but I get the impression that most of the people making it aren't expecting to sell anything. That could just be my bias, though--my favorites have this odd tendency to be big, fragile, dangerous, environmental, mobile, social, or otherwise unruly.

But yeah! Seattle's tech art community is big and full of quality. If you'd like to catch something closer to home, Philly has (had? I'm speaking circa 2004/5, here) some truly kickass artists. New York's got a lot of stuff going on (though it's less cohesive than Philly), and I'd be shocked if Boston didn't have something, too. Good places to start include the Slought Foundation [3] and Klein Gallery [4] in Philly, Eyebeam [5] in NYC, AXIOM in Boston [6], and Dorkbot [7] in all three cities.

[1] http://www.washington.edu/dxarts/profile_research.php?who=brixey&project=vault
[2] http://amasci.com/art/pondmach/pond3.html
[3] http://slought.org/
[4] http://www.kleinartgallery.org/current_exhibition.htm
[5] http://eyebeam.org/
[6] http://www.axiomart.org/
[7] http://dorkbot.org/

Avoiding wire transfer fees from iTunes Connect

2009-12-25T09:54:00.003-05:00

One of the big problems I had with iTunes Connect is that they charge me a wire fee every time I got an international transfer. This meant charges of $13 every month, times four or five for each international zone that hit the minimum.

Snooping around, wire-in charges seems to be pretty standard at banks. That actually seems insane to me, especially if it's a highly automated process, as I suspect the ones iTunes is sending is. While Apple could solve the problem by repatriating all earnings and just doing an EFT, I suspect there are some legal issues with this.

Until then, I have the iTunes payments flowing to my Fidelity MySmartCash account. I talked to them and they do not charge for wire transfers in. I also set up check-writing, so I suppose I will be using that as my account to pay our costs as well.

Happy Holidays

2009-12-20T08:44:00.002-05:00

Apologies for the light posting of late, I've been epically tied up with my full-time job, Moca and Upward Mobility.

My friend Crystal forwarded me this video, and I thought there'd be no better way to wish all the readers here a happy holiday season.

Experience Mobile Mobile from James Théophane Jnr on Vimeo.

I chose AppViz for app store analytics

2009-12-07T22:03:00.003-05:00

I posted a couple weeks ago about over-the-top app store analytics players for iTunes Connect. After careful consideration of all the options, I picked AppViz.

I tried AppFigures because I would prefer a SaaS model given all the different terminals I use. It has a lot of potential, but I found it to be someone quirky and buggy. It also doesn't support the monthly financial reports, which I absolutely need.

AppViz only works for the Mac and runs as Desktop software. But I found its reporting to be robust, and at $29.99, there is no limit on apps. Heartbeat and AppFigures essentially charge per app, and when you're like me and have 20+ apps, that gets expensive quickly.

What you missed at Mobile Monday

2009-11-21T10:38:00.003-05:00

Last Mobile Monday that I MCed:

http://www.isayusay.net/perl/icuOpen.pl?id=bbykacgyaabkbhb&refer=twitter

Matt Gross will post the presentations and the winner of Mr. Mobile Monday Social Impact shortly on the Momoboston.com website. I was really impressed by all of the social entrepreneurs that presented. These were really some amazing ideas.

Mobile Monday - Mobile Phones for Social Impact

2009-11-15T17:54:00.001-05:00

I'm MCing tomorrow's event (November 16th) on Mobile Phones for Social Impact at MIT Sloan tomorrow. If you can make it, stop by and say hi.

You can register here:

http://www.momoboston.com/