Thinking Space

Also, Consciousness vs. Memory

2009-06-29T06:29:00.003-04:00

"Real time taps into consciousness, search taps into memory." Erick Schonfeld's recent TechCrunch post is illuminating. Beyond what Erick discussed of the real-time search, however, there is some more subtle distinction between the two that is worth of being thought. Hence here are my two cents.

Memory is the reserved and refined consciousness. Unlike consciousness that is often fuzzy and even pointless, memory generally has its definite theme and well-organized. We remember for a reason. The reason thus forms the backbone of memory. To search a particular piece of memory out of many, it is possible for us to figure out the algorithms disclosing the backbones. This is what the search engines have done and continue to improve.

Since real time message is indeed about the genuine consciousness in contrast to the refined consciousness (i.e., memory), the previous matrix of Web search no longer sustains. The genuine consciousness itself often lacks of reason. Most of the time it simply tells the undigested truth and the unconscious feeling. Therefore, it is impossible to "rank" the genuine consciousness the same way as if we have ranked (successfully?) the refined consciousness.

The thinking we have done points us to a new hint of effective real-time information search. In fact, we might not call it information search, but information refining. In contrast to search the real time messages, what the engine really needs to do is to refine the messages with respect to the pre-defined channels. By squeezing the water out, the refining process can eventually bring the high quality search results back to the information seekers.

The traditional/standard Web search delivers the direct access to the embodied, refined-already human consciousness. The real-time search then should direct the access to the procedures of refining the embodied, genuine human consciousness. This might be the intrinsic distinction between the two.

Innovation: discover the profoundness behind simplicity

2009-06-22T01:59:00.003-04:00

From Google, Facebook, to Twitter, the innovative businesses start with simple idea, but are developed in profound way. A secret of innovation is thus to discover the profoundness behind simplicity.

Above all, every great Internet business begins with a simple idea. The idea must be so simple that it requires less than 30 seconds to explain and the listeners get it and agree to its reality of value.

A sophisticated, profound idea may be a great science but it is unlikely a great business, especially a great Internet business. A great Internet business must engage at least millions of the ordinary Web users, who are often thought to be dumb, lazy, and possibly stupid (indeed, however, they are not, but they do seemly be so when they are not interested in some "smart" thought). If an idea is too complicated to be explained in 30 seconds, it cannot engage the "stupid" majority. Hence the service built up the idea (thought itself could be as great as the theory of relativity) cannot sustain.

But simplicity is far less than enough to assure success. A simple idea is easy to be copied, especially in the cyberspace. Hence simplicity by itself does not bear great business. The real thoughts behind the great innovative Internet services are the ones that can not only be "understood" immediately in 30 seconds by the ordinary listeners, but also be expressed further in another 30 minutes and still not totally understood by the same listeners. This is the profoundness behind simplicity.

Google was created on a simple idea---search information in the Web. Everybody seems "understand" the idea and agree to its reality of value. Indeed, however, few truly understood it before Google. Google discovered that the Web search was not just about finding answers, but more about to enable the information producers to produce the answers to be asked. The best search business is not the one that does the best on finding answers, but the one that allows and helps the information producers to directly produce the answers to be asked. Therefore, it bore the AdSense and AdWords, which directly connect the information consumers and the information producers. This is the profoundness behind simplicity.

Facebook was also based on a simple idea---make friends online. Everybody seems "understand" it and agree to its reality of value. But again, few truly understood it before Facebook. Facebook discovered that friend making was not just about allowing friends writing each other messages, but more about to explore one's self-potential in all of his social extents. The best friend-making service is thus not the one that does the best on communicating friends, but the one that allows a user to display all of his social abilities. Therefore, it bore the open platform, which transformed a friend-making board to a self-extending space. This is again the profoundness behind simplicity.

Twitter is the newest member in this innovative club. The service is based on a simple idea too. Instant messaging! Everybody seems "understand" it and agree to its reality of value. Still, few truly understood it before Twitter. Twitter saw that instant messaging was not just about sending a message from one to another instantly, but more about producing a network of real time information. The best instant messaging is not the one that can deliver messages the quickest, but the one that can weave all the instant messages to leverage their collective power. This is still the profoundness behind simplicity.

Do all these visionary founders pre-know the profoundness from the beginning? Actually, very likely the answer is no. For example, the Twitter founders still have not thought out their business model yet. These founders are not prophets. But what distinguishes them from the others is that they can sense, even it is unconsciously, the crucial profoundness behind the seemly simplicities. And thus they succeed.

Tell an idea to somebody. In 30 seconds he gets it, but in 30 minutes he still does not really know. This is thus an innovative business.

The Internet, a bordered or borderless world?

2009-06-15T01:43:00.000-04:00

I have just finished reading Who controls the Internet?: Illusions of a Borderless World written by Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu. The book addresses a serious question---does the evolution of the Internet make itself be more bordered or more borderless a world? The authors then answered it by leading the readers' attention to a traditionally overlooked side of the Internet, i.e., the physical coercion by the local governments to the Web resource producers. The book is very well written and I recommend it to not only the ordinary readers who are curious on how the Internet grows, but also the entrepreneurs who plan to start up a Web company.

"... physcial coercion by government---the hallmark of a traditional legal system---remains far more important than anyone expected." This is the central point of the book.

The Internet, more precisely the World Wide Web, is not a self-governing society. Without the coercive power by all kinds of the local authorities at the invisible (or watchable) back, the seemly self-organizing Web may actually not sustain any longer. Anybody, especially the Web businessperson, who misses the point will eventually pay for the misconception.

When I was starting to think of the evolutionary model of the Web, I envisioned the Web being an actively growing extension of our real society in contrast to a passively progressive product of human beings. By this mean, the Web naturally must have inherited all the major factors in our real human society instead of being a counter force to fundamentally rebuild the world. The revolution brought by the Web is primarily on how the real world is extended to the virtual worlds. With the virtual extensions, we humans could duplicate the existence of selves in arbitrarily many times and thus might multiply the production of the individuals indefinitely. In spite of the revolution, the Web only gradually evolves in contrast to substantially rewrites the basic structure of human society.

We will continuously live in the bordered world into the foreseeable future of the Web age.

Five Web Trends Into 3.0 (5)

2009-06-12T01:49:00.014-04:00

5) Mind asset, formulating

The evolution into Web 3.0 is in the mean of not only computation, but also economy. That we appreciate Web 2.0 is not only because of the new technologies and the new services. More importantly, it is because What Web 2.0 produces has greatly stimulated the growth of the global economy. If there is an era of Web 3.0, it must show us its comparable impact on the global economy as Web 2.0 did. Hence there must be a trend describing the economic potential of Web 3.0. Such a trend, as I interpret, is the beginning of formulating the formally exchangeable asset of the embodied human mind, or the mind asset.

Web 3.0 is to Web 2.0 will be a marketplace to a social playground.

"Free" and "open" are the keywords of Web 2.0. Free user generated content and open platform/open API compose the foundation of the Web 2.0 business models.

In contrast, "paid" and "protected" will become the main melody of Web 3.0. The Web resource producers will no longer freely contribute their knowledge unconditionally. They will start to think what they contribute as private asset---the mind asset. In consequence, the Web service providers will no longer be able to distribute the user-generated Web resources unconditionally free either. They thus have to protect certain portion of their services, particularly the portion that uses the non-free user-produced resources, by charging the users when they consume it.

A preliminary example of this Web 3.0 style model is Apple's iPhone application store. The third-party iPhone application developers are the resource producers. Although some of them produce for free, many of them do not. As the result, Apple cannot freely distribute all of the user-generated resources since the company has to pay these non-free resource producers. Apple thus must "protect" this portion of the services from free distribution unless their usage is paid properly. By studying this iPhone business model from the view of Web evolution, we can tell that the Web is no longer a free social playground as Web 2.0 advocates. In contrast, the Web is becoming a super marketplace.

I would say that the iPhone model is just the beginning. With the evolution into 3.0, we will see more sophisticated and more profitable models utilizing the mind asset. But this type of business model migration is truly the most fundamental change happening underground. By witnessing more innovation of formulating new types of mind asset, we will eventually admit Web 3.0 being a completely distinct era of the Web in history!

Wrap Up

Very important, it is all of the five instead of any one of the trends that are driving the Web into 3.0. The following short list can thus be used to check whether a service is ready for entering the new era of Web 3.0.

(1) Is the service feasible to support the trend of home space converging?
(2) Is the service producing new type of Web resources and consuming the newest available types of resources at the same time?
(3) Does the data produced by the service machine-understandable?
(4) Has the service been ready to embrace the new data input matrix?
(5) Is the asset produced by the service exchangeable in market?.

If a service may properly answers all of the five questions, unquestionably it must be in Web 3.0.

Previous installment: Five Web Trends Into 3.0 (4)

Five Web Trends Into 3.0 (4)

2009-06-11T06:23:00.030-04:00

4) Voice/touch navigation, prevailing

The mouse/keyboard combination has been the dominant method for navigating the Web. The monopoly is, however, about to be ended. The voice/touch navigation matrix is prevailing to the mainstream.

The touch screen monitors and the touch screen computers have been in the market for a while. Rumor was told that Apple planned to add multitouch-enabled displays to its MacBook Pro laptop computers. Although it has never happened, the value as well as the market demanding of the multitouch-screen computers are unquestionable. Jeff Han had once demonstrated in a TED speech about not only the compelling flexibility but also the amazing computational power the multitouch-screen computers would bring.

When being questioned about the drawbacks of the touch-screen computers, people often mention the screen protection/clean and the price. Many people also believe that the reason the multitouch-screen MacBook Pro does not happen is only due to the price. There is an important issue that also hinders the prevalence of the touch-screen computers but generally overlooked---the input device.

With a touch-screen (especially the multitouch screen) computer, it is awkward to still use the traditional keyboard for input. A straightforward solution is thus to use the on-screen keyboards replacing the physical keyboards. However, this straightforward solution would not work.

The real problem here is that to type on a mobile phone is totally different from to type on a large-screen monitor. The users are supposed to be physically very close to their mobile phones whenever the phones are used. Hence there is no problem for them to use on-screen keyboard. In contrast, the users are supposed NOT to be very close to their large touch-screen computer monitors. By this mean, whether or not to type on screen becomes a very tricky question.

A way to solve the dilemma is to embrace the voice/touch matrix. The users may use the voice input devices for the long-distance data input, while the touch-screen input adds the additional capability for handling the complex input requests. To the best of my knowledge, several companies have already started to implement this matrix and planned to demo the matrix no later than the next year. This is another definite trend that we must not overlook when entering Web 3.0.

Previous installment: Five Web Trends Into 3.0 (3)
Next installment: Five Web Trends Into 3.0 (5)

Five Web Trends Into 3.0 (3)

2009-06-10T01:41:00.030-04:00

3) Semantic Web, emerging

The third Web trends into 3.0 is Semantic Web. Or more precisely, it is the emerging of machine-understandable resources in the Web.

Quite a number of people believe that Web 3.0 is the Semantic Web. Cautiously, however, I doubt it. The Web is evolving towards the Semantic Web. But the evolution is a lasting process. To say Web 3.0 is the Semantic Web is the same as to tell a 6-year-old child that he will be an adult immediately after the seventh birthday.

The center of the Semantic Web is a web of machine-understandable data. By machine-understandable machines knows how to process an arbitrary input data based on the semantic meaning of the data.

After more than a decade in struggling and debating, recently we have seen more and more new services starting to embrace the Semantic Web technology, or something similar. Google declared its support for RDFa, an essential Semantic Web technology. Moreover, the new Google Squared is another evidence that Google is diving deeper and deeper into the realm of semantic search. Although Walfram Alfa claimed not have used the standard Semantic Web technologies in its implementation, its general philosophy is the same as the Semantic Web. Based on the pre-constructed machine-processible knowledge base, Walfram Alfa computes the knowledge systematically and make the results accessible to everyone.

Again, the crucial point here is not on which technologies these new semantic services have embraced. It is on what kind of new data these semantic services are producing! The resources that are produced by these semantic services are indeed more critical to the Web evolution than the services themselves. By using the Semantic Web technologies, the services certainly provide us advanced options to explore the Web. But more importantly, these services are gradually transforming the ordinary Web data to the machine-understandable Semantic Web data when we use them. Hence silently the Web is evolving to the Semantic Web.

Previous installment: Five Web Trends Into 3.0 (2)
Next installment: Five Web Trends Into 3.0 (4)

President Obama's Vision

2009-06-09T23:44:00.002-04:00

In China, Liu Junluo (Chinese: 刘军洛) is well known on his extraordinary analysis on the global and Chinese economics. Several months ago, I posted his prediction on who the winner of the financial crisis would be. With time, more and more likely his prediction is indeed sound, again!

Recently, Junluo had another insightful posts titled President Obama's Vision and Mr. Bernanke's Regional War. The thought in the post is very sharp and farsighted. I cannot help myself from sharing the mind to the Thinking Space readers. However, I only translated the first part of his post. The full article in Chinese can be found here.

President Obama's Vision

The Bogeyman of thinking is to tell that the earth is round when everybody else says it is flat. This is called vision.

If Mr. Obama had agreed to spend 200 billion U.S. dollars on saving the largest U.S. automobile manufacturer, the world might not have thought that the U.S. industry was decaying indefinitely. In fact, the 200 billion U.S. dollars is totally incomparable to the speed of money-burning in Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem is, however, why Mr. Obama chose to let the whole world think that the American industry is dying.

In October 1999, the entire human population global wide exceeded six billion. By 2020 the number will exceed 8 billion. 8 billion, however, is about the maximum number of people our Earth may safely sustain.

In two years, i.e. 2011, in United States the baby boom generation will start to retire. In the next 20 years, this 78 million American baby boomers will retire completely. They are the world's richest generation ever and they are the generation the most willing to spend. What will the world be when all of them are retired?

By 2030 the proportion of the aging population in United States and Germany will rise rapidly to around 26%. In Japan it will reach more than 30%. What will these senior people demand after the retirement? Medical care, nursing, recreation, pets, religion, and blue sky! At the meantime, they will consume less on many of the industrial products including particularly such as automobile, and they will save more money in bank.

Now in United States a senior over 65 is supported by 3.9 members in the young labor force. By 2030 the ratio will become 2.4:1. The same average ratio in all of the world's developed countries at the time will be 2.5:1. In the next five years, the tax burden of the ordinary labor force in all of the developed countries will substantially increase. If the total demand within the emerging countries especially such as China and India could not substantially increase, (i.e., the average wage of their main labor force is not increased substantially), in the next five years, by 2010 at least 50% of the automotive business and the iron and steel manufacturers will be eradicated by the sharp fall of the global demand in general.

Therefore, Mr. Obama chooses to force the largest U.S. automobile manufacturer to enter the age of small batch production. At the same time, the saved labor force will be redistributed to produce America the bluest sky, the clearest water, the best health care system, and the most superior legal system in the world. Since 2010, in every developed country all over the world a greater and greater force of the rich and retried people are looking for the best living environment, the best medical care services, and the best legal protection for their retirement life. This is a trend irresistible.

Now China has exclaimed to invest 900 billion U.S. dollars in the auto industry, boating industry, iron and steel industry, and cement manufacturing industry during the first half of 2009. Moreover, there are ongoing government projects in such as the road, bridge, and railway construction in no less than one trillion U.S. dollars. In southern China, a bridge-construction project leader excitedly announced to the people around that the 10-billion U.S. dollar new bridge will be completed in 2015, and it will shorten the time of cargo transportation in the region from the current 4 hours to about 40 minutes. The same excitement was also among the people surrounding him.

In 2015 the tax burden of the ordinary workforce in all the developed countries will be increased, which inevitably will lead to the substantially reduced rate of consumption among this workforce.

In 2015 a large percentage of the baby boomers in United States have already retired at home; and they will reduce the rate of consumption.

In 2015 the labor cost in India and Vietnam will be more competitive than in China.

In 2020 the most popular job in the world will be pension agents, who restlessly run among the richest generation of the retired people and sell them where the bluest sky is, where the cleanest environment is, where the clearest water is, where the best medical services are, and where the most superior legal protection is.

If an elder couple generates in average five million U.S. dollars in consumption after the retirement, and in the next two decades the United States attracts three million couples global wide to consume its best environment, best medical care, and best legal systems, it is a 15 trillion U.S. dollars business!

In 2010, the poor sells automobile; the rich sells medical care and law protection; and the wealthy sells clean air and water.

Mr. Obama is among the few first ones who know how to act properly when our earth is OLD, and when the 78 million U.S. baby boomers are also OLD.

In summary, the greatness of mind is that the monopoly of wealth stands opposite to the mass thinking.

Five Web Trends Into 3.0 (2)

2009-06-09T02:30:00.053-04:00

2) Web resource, diverging

Divergence is the act of moving away in different direction from a common point. The continuous divergence of the Web resource types is ineluctable when the Web enters 3.0.

One way to evaluate Web resources is to measure their ability of productivity, i.e., how feasible a resource can be manufactured to produce information asset. In essence, any Web resource is a combination of data, service, and link. By divergence it leads to the newer ways of resource representation so that the represented resources become more productive for further information manufacturing. This progress is a consistent process in Web evolution.

A question is, however, that which new types of Web resources emerging would be essential to foster Web 3.0. In the other words, which of them would be the fundamental building blocks of Web 3.0 as if the manual tags and the RSS of Web 2.0.

Although no conclusions yet, there are a few interesting candidates. For example, the mobile data representation formats such as the iPhone data structure. By storing data in these transportation formats, the data becomes universally mobile computable. Though it is still fairly a distance from the real ubiquitous computing, the advancements increase the productivity of the mobile Web data, a particular portion of the Web data.

Another example is Google Wave. Google Wave shows a new type of service resources that can effectively consume many typical Web 2.0 resources by allowing these Web 2.0 resources running on top of it. When we say the revolutionary change Google Wave brings (or will bring), it indeed tells that Google Wave examples what the services in Web 3.0 might be looked like. Its real innovation is not how the service works, but what it consumes!

By Wikipedia, the divergent evolution is the accumulation of differences between groups which can lead to the formation of new species, usually a result of diffusion of the same species adapting to different environments, leading to natural selection defining the success of specific mutations. This definition is indeed also applicable to the ongoing divergent evolution of Web resources into 3.0.

Previous installment: Five Web Trends Into 3.0 (1)
Next installment: Five Web Trends Into 3.0 (3)

Five Web Trends Into 3.0 (1)

2009-06-08T01:59:00.065-04:00

It is said that Web 3.0 is coming. I agree to the point. However, what is Web 3.0 indeed? Few people have the answer. But there are five Web trends that may help us peek into the core of this next generation Web. In a five-post series I am glad to share my thinking of the five trends in this blog.

1) Personal space, converging

From homepage to site profile, the evolution from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 is also a process of the divergence of the personal home spaces. In Web 1.0, a Web user generally uses a homepage to claim his Web existence. In Web 2.0, however, a Web user often have varied profiles in multiple Web sites, while each of the profiles may (nearly identically) claim his Web existence. Intuitively the progress likes that a single, uniform homepage has been transformed respectively to multiple, varied personal accounts, each of which is settled with respect to a particular Web site. The personal home space diverges.

This personal space divergence was necessary for fostering Web 2.0 because it allowed the Web 2.0 entrepreneurs the flexibility of creating the variety of social networking products. Hence it facilitated the growth of Web 2.0.

On the other hand, the divergence also leads to a few problems. With the mature of Web 2.0, Web users are required to remember more pairs of the login/password for their registered sites. In addition, if there are Web 2.0 sites functioning similarly and the users want to use both (a common case in Web 2.0, for example, to use both of Del.icio.us and Twine for bookmarking), it is uneasy for the users to synchronize the same information in the varied sites simultaneously. The barrier becomes especially severe when the users try to update some basic information in the profiles (such as change an address), despite the message is common to all the sites. In short, Web 2.0 has inevitably led to producing a huge amount of duplicated information fragments in the Web and it is very hard to synchronize these fragments.

To solve this problem is thus a major request for Web 3.0. OpenID is such an attempt by unifying the logins in the Web. We can predicate that the adoption of OpenID must prevail continuously in the age of Web 3.0.

But OpenID is not the whole solution. The ideal solution to the problem is to have the diverged home spaces be converged back to a new form of the unified personal spaces as if the Web 1.0 homepages. Yet we still have fairly a distance to implement such a solution, it is the first trend into Web 3.0. Only through this transformation, we may eventually declare Web 3.0, a new stage of the Web that is essentially distinct to Web 2.0.

Continuing the series The Path Towards Next Generation, No. 2
Next installment: Five Web Trends Into 3.0 (2)

It is the free choice that produces the value of mind

2009-06-07T20:00:00.003-04:00

A computer can execute a program and output a result. What does the asset of mind generated by a computer different from the mind asset produced by a human being? The difference is the free choice. A human can make free choices upon a request that are beyond any sophisticated program can make. It is thus this freedom bringing the value. This distinction could be essential when we think of producing the mind asset for the coming next-generation World Wide Web.

Inherent Complexity

2009-06-04T10:29:00.001-04:00

A breathtaking picture, compound intent, inexhaustible extension. Does it tell the beauty of the nature or the beauty of the mind? Or it actually reveals the both. If a tiny simple water drop may disclose facts in such a greater scale, how great may an already big complex being such as a person disclose? It is the compound me that matters.

The picture is from Flickr. At here it is the original link to the photo.

June 4th

2009-06-04T01:17:00.047-04:00

June 4th, 1989, I was in China. It is a date that had changed the history of modern China, in many aspects. In particular, it drew a line between an idealist China and a materialist China.

The picture on the right is a perfect illusion of the distinction. In the middle there stand two Premiers in Chinese history. The one in the front is Zhao Ziyang (Chinese: 赵紫阳), a Pre-June-4th Premier. Behind Zhao it is Wen Jiabao (Chinese: 温家宝), a Post-June-4th Premier (actually Wen is the current Premier of China). The picture was shot at the night of May 19th, 1989, when Zhao was trying to comfort the students in Tiananmen Square. At the meantime, neither of them was the Premier (Li Peng was the Chinese Premier in 1989). But Wen was the director of Zhao's office.

Zhao and Wen had very different personalities. Zhao was more or less an idealist that was similar to Mikhail Gorbachev of Soviet Union. In the mind of Zhao, China might not rise again until Chinese people could gain the political freedom. The thought liberation must be prior to the flourish of economy. In contrast to Zhao, Wen is more a materialist. Wen believes the economic growth be the first and the political freedom be the second. In his mind, it is fine to ask people to temporarily scarify their various freedom to exchange a better life in material satisfaction. The right of living is above all the other human rights, including the freedom to think; a typical philosophy of the extreme materialists.

It is not my duty to judge the correctness between the two thoughts. (The reader might judge it yourself.) Inevitably, however, this philosophical distinction significantly reformed China.

The majority of the youth generation in China before the June 4th were eager in fighting for gaining more freedom in all aspects of the nation. They were interested in national politics and dreamed of China to be an ideal society that might be governed by leveraging the collective voice of its people.

The majority of the youth generation after the June 4th, however, abandoned the former seemly intangible dream. They started to pay the most of their attention to earning money and enjoying the material life. They care less of the national politics but care more on individual interest. China does have achieved breathtaking progress in economy since then, while it has also paid heavily on the loss of morality national wide. On one hand, this period of Chinese history is a legend of economic growth. On the other hand, in the same period the nation had sold its soul. The absolute truth in China disappears. All truth becomes conditionally right.

Is this China what we expect? Is this China the best interest of all the Chinese people? The only thing that I can tell definitely is that China really could have been a totally different nation if there were no June 4th, 1989.

A great discussion about Imindi

2009-06-01T10:31:00.005-04:00

Thanks to François Dongier, who gave a fairly insightful discussion of the pros and cons of Imindi in the current stage. I think that it is definitely worth of being shared to more readers. Here is the link.

In particular, I quote the conclusion section of the article in the following.

"Lost in the ocean of distracting facts and contingent news, thoughts are rare and indeed very precious. There is an important sense in which they are what really matters to us, as an essential aspect of our human nature. They are also important in a more "practical" sense, playing a central role in the economy, as the major source of all the inventions that lead to new products. There are now new web applications like Imindi, Primal Fusion and, maybe to a lesser extent, Twine, that really focus on thoughts and try to isolate them from the stream to make them more visible and reinforce their efficiency. My view is that such applications will have a great impact on how the web evolves.

I personally find extremely attractive the fact that this project is very ambitious. It's got the nice A.I. feel that you also find in projects like Wolfram|Alpha and Twine. It's not just an ordinary web app: it wants to be disruptive and revolutionize the way we communicate and think together. Maybe it will fail, if the problem of efficient thought-modeling and thought-merging turns out to be too complex for the current technology. But it certainly looks worth giving it a try."

UPDATE: here is rancois`s thoughts on Imindi. A graph itself is better than 1000 words.

The newspaper crisis

2009-05-30T16:05:00.002-04:00

Unquestionably, we are not just in a financial crisis, but in a bunch of crisis. Among them, the newspaper crisis is representative for its close relationship to the rise of the Web. In fact, the newspaper crisis is inevitable disregarding the present financial crisis. The financial crisis accelerates and amplifies the newspaper crisis. It is, however, not the reason of the newspaper crisis.

The rise of the Web media causes the newspaper crisis. The young generation news readers are more and more customized to reading news online than on paper-printed media. The online news is not only "free" but also faster in update and more comprehensive in analysis. The financial crisis became the last hay that crushed the old newspaper camel.

I am interested in the lessons we may have learned from this newspaper crisis. A successful business sector must have produced valuable asset for the society. The "valuable" means that the society members may and are willing to consume the produced asset. For many years, the newspaper business executes the goal very well.

In traditional, the newspapers produce three essential types of asset: breaking news, news analysis, and advertisement. In the pre-Web era, it was fairly costly to access the news sources. It was also fairly costly to write an insightful analysis of a news because few eligible news analysts might have enough supporting materials for them to produce the high-quality articles. And there were not many other ways besides newspapers for people to advertise their products or services. All of the facts added compelling values to the information asset produced by the newspapers.

The rise of the Web media, however, significantly decreases the value of the information asset we have just mentioned for the traditional newspapers. The cost to access the news sources becomes much cheaper; hence the newspapers can no longer charge their readers much by claiming unique news resources. All kinds of supporting materials for information analysis become freely accessible; hence the newspaper can no longer charge their readers much by claiming unique analysis. At last, the Web becomes a more popular and cheaper place for people to put advertisement; hence the newspapers can no longer charge their readers as well as the advertiser by claiming unique market. Therefore, the elapse of the glory becomes inevitable to the newspapers since the entire value of their produced asset has been decreases definitely. This newspaper crisis is not about the greediness of human nature, it is not about the poor execution of the business, and it is not about a normal economic cycle. The newspaper crisis is about the unchangeable fact of the value decrease of the asset that the newspapers can produce.

So here are the lessons learned. The cost of the raw information generation is minimized. The cost of static analysis over the raw information has been cheap. The cost of posting advertisement has been cheap. If the Web has decreased the value of nearly all the information asset in the traditional mean, what should we do to produce new type of information asset that can be charged decently in this new Web age? This is thus the real question the newspaper business should consider instead of believing the problem be solved by simply producing online newspapers.

Strategic Alliance, FUJIFILM and GE Healthcare in Life Sciences

2009-05-28T17:24:00.008-04:00

FUJIFILM Corporation announces that it has entered into a Strategic Alliance Agreement with GE Healthcare. The alliance allows Fujifilm to develop, manufacture and supply advanced biomolecular imaging systems for GE Healthcare. The products, however, will be sold worldwide under the GE brand in the life science research and drug discovery markets.

This alliance leverages Fujifilm's strength as a leading device manufacturer and GE's strength as a leading reagent and service provider in the life sciences area. In 1987, Fujifilm was the first company to introduce the revolutionary digital autoradiography device which utilized the Imaging Plate, a radiation detector with sensitivity 100 times greater than X-ray film. In 1923, GE Healthcare introduced the first radio isotope reagents, which initiated the field of biomolecular labeling and detection. FUJIFILM is currently offering scientific imaging systems for chemiluminescent, fluorescent and radioisotopic detection in the life science market. It does not offer reagents/consumables nor applications. The alliance may strengthen Fujifilm's already leading position on medical imaging technologies and device manufacturing.

Never self-excuse with "why"

2009-05-26T18:02:00.010-04:00

Inevitably, one may encounter some problems that are too hard to solve in work. At the moment, the last thing the one should say to his colleagues is "why I fail to solve the issue." Such a "why" statement is neither helpful to the project nor constructive to the other project members.

The right attitude is to tell "what else I could do to solve it, even though I have failed to solve it till now". List more options of resolution and actively invite the colleagues into the discussion. Listen to their suggestions and then execute them.

If, in some case, the original proposal is truly beyond the present ability of resolution (which might happen from time to time and we all understand it), the positive attitude is to tell your colleagues the truth straightforwardly. "No, based on my experiments, I believe the solution of the issue is beyond the ability of our currently available resources." Never try to self-excuse more. If the colleagues do not accept this judgment, it is thus the time to quit and look for another position. But still, never self-excuse with "why".

Imindi private beta, a door towards the next generation Web

2009-05-25T17:43:00.000-04:00

Web 2.0 is passing and a new generation of the Web is emerging. While many of us are curious on the next generation, Imindi finally released its private beta eight months after the TC50 2008 in which it was one of the 50 finalists over more than 1000 applicants. The new beta shows us a few clues of the upcoming future.

Imindi is a service to enable regular Web users to construct their own embodied mind sets and also to connect the individually constructed mind sets together so that a normal Web user can directly explore the tremendous power of the collective human mind.

In person, I have closely involved with Adam Lindemann on the Imindi service design. To readers who are interested in Web technology and artificial intelligence, Imindi can be seen to be another take of what Wolfram Alfa does. While Wolfram Alfa aims to construct a centrally controlled knowledge base to leverage intelligent question answering, Imindi is to gradually produce a decentralized mind network in which answers and questions are seamlessly integrated. Unlike the traditional take that Google and Wolfram Alfa represents, Imindi believes that there is no distinction between questions and answers. Both question and answer are nothing but a type of mind. Hence we may be able to apply mind to look for mind in contrast to employ questions to look for answers through an integrated mind network (called mindex by Imindi). This is one of the several major contributions that Imindi brings to the world.

Another contribution of Imindi is to construct mind asset. Mind asset is a concept that I coined with Adam Lindemann when studying Imindi. In additional to land and capital, we need to figure out a way of monetizing human mind to eventually resolve the conflict between the materialized capitalist world and the new metaphysical virtual world represented by the Web. Step by step, Imindi is trying to implement this scheme by creating the world a new adoption of monetization. If Imindi may grow steadily, users will gradually witness the details of our implementation, and it will foster a truly novel business model beyond Web 2.0.

In short, as Erick Schonfeld has shared today, there is still long way for Imindi to go beyond the present beta. The point is, however, that the potential of the service is truly unimaginable. What Adam and Imindi lack only right now is the investment that can maintain and prompt the progress of implementation. If Imindi is luckily given a chance, it could eventually be the door (in contrast to "a" door) towards the next generation Web.

Readers who are interested in learning more of Imindi could also read my previous discussion of the Imindi service in the last September after the TC50 conference. Certainly, do not forget to apply to be a beta tester!

the risk economy and a gamble society

2009-05-24T20:35:00.000-04:00

An essential reason behind the current financial crisis is the crash of the risk economy. Insurance and the risk economy is supposed to bring more security into our regular life. Many of us, however, forget the other side of the coin---when we valuate safety higher, our society is actually less in secure.

In about 500 B.C., the great Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote the following statements.

大道废，有仁义 ﹔ 智慧出，有大伪 ﹔
六亲不和，有孝慈 ﹔ 国家昏乱，有忠臣。

Raymond Blakney, in 1955, translated the words.

"The mighty Way declined among the folk
And then came kindness and morality.
When wisdom and intelligence appeared,
They brought with them a great hypocrisy.
The six relations were no more at peace,
So codes were made to regulate our homes.
The fatherland grew dark, confused by strife:
Official loyalty became the style."

The translation is fine in expressing the plain meaning. It does not, however, well reveal the deeper thoughts Lao Tzu wanted to tell. By my understanding, I then revised Blakney's translation a little bit.

大道废，有仁义 ﹔
Now you see that in a society everybody tells the greatness of kindness and morality; it is only because that the might Way has declined among the folk.
智慧出，有大伪 ﹔
Now you see that in a society everybody appreciates the true wisdom and intelligence; it is only because that a great hypocrisy has been among them.
六亲不和，有孝慈 ﹔
Now you see that in a society everybody looks for regulation in their homes; it is only because that the six relations have been no more at peace.
国家昏乱，有忠臣。
Now you see that in a society everybody is grateful to official loyalty; it is only because the fatherland has grown dark, confused by strife.

In additional to the four, I, hereby, add another one:

Now you see that in a society everybody demands insurance; it is only because the nation is fond of gambling.

How much does a particular risk really worth? This is a truly hard question. The economics geniuses at Wall Street believed that they had figured out the answer. Based on a few very complex mathematical equations, the geniuses built the foundation for the investment banking. If we pull off all the complicated and intentionally sophisticated layers wrapping the investment banking, the core is indeed surprisingly straightforward: to inject the motion of gambling into the society. The more people are found of earning money through gambling their money, the higher valuation the risks can be; the higher valuation the risks are, more people then join the force of gambling their money through risk investment. The cycle thus forms until one day the valuation of risks becomes truly ridiculous. Therefore, financial crisis comes as we have it now.

The more insurance we implement in our society, the less possible we may avoid this kind of financial crisis in the future. This is what Lao Tzu had told us 2500 years before.

We intelligent because we connected, and unless we connected

2009-05-11T09:29:00.000-04:00

We have thought of developing artificial intelligence for long time. Many Sci-Fi novels and movies have predicted the intelligent robots that may bring us both convenience in life and trouble in society. Nearly all of them, however, are trapped by a tiny little misconception of intelligence. Nobody could be really intelligent until he is connected in intelligence. Therefore, the so-called intelligent robots are impossible to be made until we have already pre-constructed an intelligent society (such as an intelligent web) for them to communicate. Standalone will NEVER lead to true intelligence, even the artificial ones.

Truly this is a point that is easy to be overlooked. Many of us are not aware of the fact that we are intelligent because we are born in an interconnected web of intelligence. This situation is by default to nearly every one of us. If we take a look at the very few who are born outside the normal human society and are not able to connect to the pool of human intelligence (such as the kids adopted by animals), they are instead very well adapted to the respective animal intelligence. And for those who are forced to be isolated to any web of intelligence, they show no intelligence at all in any aspect. People may explain the reason to be the lack of "education". Such an explanation is not totally sound because there are many uneducated ones in our normal human society who are very intelligence. Hence the main point is indeed whether the one is able to connect to a pre-existing web of intelligence. Once connected, the true intelligence follows.

We may derive a few very interesting conclusions by applying the insight back to the study of artificial intelligence and Semantic Web. For example, the construction of the Semantic Web may be the prerequisite of developing the true intelligent robots (i.e., the real artificial intelligence). Deep Blue was smart. But any simpler robot (i.e. with simpler algorithms coded) built upon Semantic Web will be 100 times smarter than the Deep Blue. Moreover, this insight could be a momentum for linking the Semantic Web research to the real world practices because it opens a door of the wild wild west that is full of potential of commercial opportunities. The insight allows us to view the picture of Semantic Web in a fresh new way.

In progress, I will post more articles in this track of new intelligence. By the way, the point is also a derivation of the model of Web evolution I suggested.

A beautiful mind of creativity

2009-05-08T22:22:00.016-04:00

Many times we are amazed by the witnessed creative geniuses. Elizabeth Gilbert is certainly among them. She, however, exclaimed that she is not a who being a genius, but a who accompanied by the intangible (spirit-like) genius.

Very much I appreciate this insight. Despite TED is well-known of its superior-quality talks, Gilbert's talk is exceptionally outstanding. We do not have to train ourselves to be geniuses---a mission that is too hard to be achieved for the majority of us. By contrast, every one of us can "have" genius with him, so long as he believes, and pursues.

The upside down of the traditional thought on user interface

2009-05-01T15:24:00.000-04:00

User interface (UI, or human-computer interface) is a central concept in modern software development. Essentially, UI provides the way how humans may interact with computers. Given the World Wide Web as the background, UI represents how the real world interacts to the virtual world and vice versa.

There is an interesting question about UI on the Web. Should the UI be an external component to its software or be an internal component?

Sound silly? In tradition, an UI is unquestionably an external component with respect to its software. We may envision UI to be the cover wraps its internal executable programs. However, does it mean that UI must be in this form?

Let us turn to a natural phenomenon. We humans live in this world (as well as many other creatures). In fact, every one of us may see ourselves as an independent world that is interacting with the shared external world, which composes of all the natural resources such as air and water. Therefore, there is an interface between the two "worlds". As a matter of fact, however, much (if not all of) the UI is located internally with respect to our own world (i.e., our body) such as lung (exchanging air) or stomach (exchanging water). The external components of our world (such as skin) are essentially for protection and identification besides few supporting on interacting to the external world. Such an analogy leads to an interesting question, could UI on the Web also primarily be an internal component in contrast to an external component to the respective Web applications? Maybe this one is just too silly a question to ask since the non-external ones on the Web cannot be an UI by definition. Then, what is Web UI really? May somebody give a better answer in the philosophical sense but not the technological sense?

From GeoCities to MySpace, another side of Web Evolution

2009-04-24T16:57:00.000-04:00

Recently, there are two news, seemly unrelated but actually told a common story, that have been buzzed over the Web. The first is that Yahoo is shutting GeoCities down. The second is that MySpace is in trouble, if not dead yet. The two news show us the progress of Web evolution on another side.

GeoCities and MySpace are nearly identical to each other according to Web evolution. In fact, MySpace is GeoCities 2.0. GeoCities offered the Web-1.0 generation a free place to set up their homespaces in Web 1.0 as well as MySpace offered the Web-2.0 generation a free place to set up their homespaces in Web 2.0. Despite the superficial difference between the two sites such as their graphic layouts and embedded services, they share a common mission and march on the Web in the identical way. The role GeoCities played in Web 1.0 is exactly the role MySpace plays in Web 2.0. The rise of either of the sites represented the rise of a particular stage of the Web (respectively Web 1.0 and Web 2.0), while the decaying of the sites represented the sunset of the respective stages.

As how GeoCities decays, the problem of MySpace is the same. GeoCities has never figured out a way to enter a new age, especially after it was acquired by Yahoo. Yahoo had proved itself a resistant of Web 2.0 for long time. In similar, MySpace is lost in Web 2.0. After it is acquired by the News Corp., the future of MySpace becomes dim. It is unquestionable that the leaders of News Corp. know how to make money. What these executives do not know is, however, that to a cutting-edge Web service, losing the ability of continuously evolving on the Web equals to be dead. A dead service certainly can make money no longer no matter how superior it is managed. History, again, shows us how repeatable it is disregarding the "smartness" of human beings. We cannot be against to the objective laws! And this is why the research of Web evolution is truly valuable.

Mind, Gene, Spirit

2009-03-31T01:58:00.000-04:00

According to Wired, scientists have started to study how brains are expressed in genes. In the other words, which portion of human genes decides the growth of brain in contrast to controlling the growth of the other part of our bodies such as hand and foot?

Is this project interesting? Certainly. Based on the assumption that most of the human behaviors are controlled and determined by brains, the project, if ever it would succeed, might reveal us the answer of a question in long history---where thinking comes. But, is the assumption as sound as it appears being?

This blog intends to share creative product of human mind. In fact, the name of the blog is about thinking---an unique mind behavior. Philosophically, however, I always believe that mind is not only a product of mass computation but also (and more crucially) a product of spirit inspiration.

I do not lean to the viewpoint that Newton thought of the Universal Law of Gravitation under the apple tree was primarily due to some weird, unusual, but fascinating chemical reaction occasionally occurred in his brain at the moment. If it were the case, why in nowadays we witness much less great discoveries, innovations, and philosophies than a few centuries ago, while we are in an age that not only significantly outnumbers our ancestors, but also is much more knowledgeable in general than our ancestors. If genius thought is primarily due to unusual mass computation in brains and we agree to that the whole set of knowledge unknown is infinite, we certainly should already have many Newton-like scientists in these centuries. In reality obviously we have few. But the number is incomparable to the number if it truly follows a normal random theory, which it should be only if our thinking really is decided by the objective mass-based brain computation.

I believe the existence of spirit and God. The project may lead to great results. But it cannot answer the question we wish to be answered.

"Internet is not for Information, yet!" in China

2009-03-28T10:51:00.022-04:00

Gang Lu has a brilliant post about microblogging in China. In the post, he shared that in China "Internet is not for Information, yet!" The quote is indeed a crucial point that all western Internet businesses must learn to be successful at China. Due to various reasons (especially the political reasons as well as some sort of historical tradition), Internet in China is not about information, it's about entertainment. This insight is a modern interpretation of a long-history idiom in Chinese history---莫谈国事 (do not talk on the affairs of state).

Until now, 莫谈国事 is still an important part of the life of Chinese. The emergence of World Wide Web (supposed to be able to change the custom) has not been able to change it yet. Lu's post tells us that the idiom has only extended its influence from the real world to the virtual world in China.

Xu Jinglei (Chinese: 徐静蕾), one of the most well-known celebrities in China and whose blog is known to be the No.1 personal blog in visiting numbers in China (and probably in the world). She is known to be a belle not only in her appearance, but also in her mind and brain. However, 莫谈国事 is also one of her maxim to ensure the popularity of her blog in China. In fact, the Chinese Characters 莫谈国事, reading from right to left, shown above is written by Miss Xu.

Certainly, however, it is not a duty for western Internet business to try to change the culture. By contrast, they need to learn to be customized for the culture to succeed.

Art and Engineering

2009-03-22T19:19:00.001-04:00

How to be a successful business? How to be a successful Internet business? These questions puzzled many entrepreneurs; and the puzzle continues. Set the puzzle be the background, it makes us better understand the recent declared Google departure by Douglas Bowman.

I am sympathizing Bowman's experiences. However, history tells us that it takes time for business to evolve from engineering-dominating to art-dominating, though such an evolution is nearly certain. The reason is not hard to explain. In the beginning, novel innovation on technology breaks the wall and starts a new sector of business. It is like the Google at present. When time moves forward, technology becomes mature. Thus, art in design becomes a dominant power to determine the fate of business.

Bowman, the future stands beside you.