Don’t Buy This Movie

Don’t Buy This Movie

November 20th, 2008 by admin

China’s DVD pirates have gained marketing sophistication in recent years — instead of packaging their wares with nonsense descriptions or blurbs for a different movie, they copy and paste movie reviews from the Internet to help their buyers make an informed decision. Sometimes this strategy goes awry, however. For instance, in Shanghai this past weekend TT bought a copy of the French movie “Cash” (purely for the purpose of writing this blog entry, of course). The blurb on the box (original here) described the film thus: “‘Cash’ is a sad case of Paris playing Hollywood, and failing. The plot is a total ‘Ocean’s Twelve’ knock-off, with bits of ‘Heist’ and ‘After the Sunset’ tossed in. Also, Catherine Zeta-Jones was about a zillion times hotter as Europol power bitch Isabel Lahiri (than Valeria Golino in the near-identical part of a struggling international forgery investigator). Everyone else is even more forgettable, with the possible exception of Ciaran Hinds in the part of Julia’s hard-headed boss. Jean Reno, who appears in the small part of the big counterfeit kahuna, must have owed someone a favor. Don’t waste your time with this.”
Is this kind of mistake a competitive disadvantage for the DVD sellers? Probably not, given that each disc costs just a few yuan. Even a bad review may prove a selling point for those in search of a bit of mindless entertainment.

Researcher Claims “Attention Spirals” Hold Key To Predicting Success Of YouTube Videos

by Serkan Toto on November 18, 2008

Why do certain videos on YouTube become mass phenomena while the vast majority of videos just get a handful of views, if any?

Riley Crane, an American post doctoral fellow currently researching at the Chair of Entrepreneurial Risks at ETH university in Zurich/Switzerland, says he has the answer: According to him, the success of online videos can be explained with physics.

Crane claims every time a YouTube video turns into a hit, the development takes the form of an “attention spiral”, a geometric pattern that partly follows physical laws. He discovered that a decrease of popularity with certain videos, for example, can be explained through methods usually utilized in modeling the aftershocks of earthquakes. He believes social systems on the web follow the rules of physics and can therefore be analyzed mathematically.

The popularity of YouTube videos can be characterized through curves visualizing increases and decreases in the number of viewers and the amount of attention they pay to each video. For example, the following graph shows two different attention spirals (top left: level of search activity following the Tsunami that hit part of Asia in December 2004; top right: the volume of search queries for Harry Potter between April and October 2007, bottom left:views of Harry Potter videos on YouTube; bottom right: views of tsunami videos on Youtube):

After researching the usage of about 5 million YouTube videos over 8 months, Crane found out that only 10 percent are viewed more than 100 times a day. According to Crane, the popularity of these videos can be measured through distinguishing whether a burst of activity was observed after a large-scale “exogenous” (external) shock or whether it’s the result of a number of smaller “endogeneous” (internal) factors that had a cumulative effect. Also, it seems to be important to take into account the extent to which web users can influence others to take action (what he calls “critical” vs. “subcritical,” where the latter term means exerting influence is impossible).

Crane categorizes especially popular videos into three different classes:

• “junk” (exogenous subcritical type, videos that quickly pick up and lose viewers / see the green diagram at the bottom left in the picture below)
• “viral” (endogenous critical type, videos spreading through the site through word of mouth / see the red diagram at the top right in the picture below)
• “quality” (exogenous critical type, videos that attract attention quickly and only slowly lose their appeal over time because of their high quality / see the blue diagram at the bottom right in the picture below)

Junk videos are characterized by a significant peak that contains the vast majority of views and fail to spread through the site. In contrast to quality videos, viral videos show precursory growth before peaking out and decaying slowly (see the Harry Potter example above, diagram A): It takes time for the endogenous phenomenon to build up and spread within the network. Quality videos, however, reach the peak much faster as a reaction to an external “shock” but also decay slowly (see the Tsunami video example above, diagram B).

Crane claims that viral and quality videos show very characteristic patterns over a specific period of time, supposedly making it possible (through the analysis of tendencies) to predict if a video has the potential to become a super hit.

The final goal is the development of an encompassing and science-based online trend monitoring system. The university newsletter writes (German only) Amazon is currently in negotiations with Crane to integrate his model into its site, hoping to predict the potential of newly listed products at an early stage.

The critical factor here (and one of the long-term objectives) is to correctly determine the tipping point, the point in time at which the viral effect kicks in and sales or (in the case of YouTube) views of videos take off. Details of the Crane model (presented with fellow researcher Didier Sornette) can be found in the October issue of PNAS magazine (available online here).

Google Ad Planner Opens Up To Everyone With Fresh Features

by Robin Wauters on November 11, 2008

Last June, Google introduced a new research and media measurement tool dubbed Ad Planner which we suspected uses the Google Toolbar to collect data. Today, the company is opening up Ad Planner for anyone with a Google account and adding a bunch of features.

Google Ad Planner now support search queries (surprise!) and geo-targeting, which means you can drill-down to specific states or metros (region or cities in geographies outside the US). You can also choose among three new ranking methods to display results from the sites you’re considering running your campaigns on, and there’s also a new interactive ‘bubble chart’ which should help you compare demographics, frequency, traffic, and unique visitors visually.

Google has also expanded demographic audience data to include France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK.

To use the service, go to the Ad Planner Homepage and login with your Google account.

Morgan Stanley Outlook on Mobile Web Technology

http://www.morganstanley.com/institutional/techresearch/pdfs/TechTrendsWeb2_110508.pdf

Bộ trưởng Nông nghiệp: 'Hà Nội chậm chạp trong giúp dân'

http://vnexpress.net/GL/Xa-hoi/2008/11/3BA080CE/

"Đáng lẽ Hà Nội phải đưa xe cao cầu ra chỗ ngập lụt, chở người dân hoặc xe cứu thương cần đi qua. Vừa qua, nếu ai đó chẳng may nhồi máu cơ tim, chắc là chết", Bộ trưởng Nông nghiệp Cao Đức Phát bày tỏ quan điểm, chiều 3/11.> Chủ tịch Hà Nội: 'Hệ thống thoát nước cải tạo xong vẫn ngập'
> Toàn cảnh ngập lụt ở Hà NộiTại buổi giao ban chiều 3/11, Ban chỉ đạo Phòng chống lụt bão Trung ương cho biết, đợt mưa lũ vừa qua ảnh hưởng đến 11 tỉnh thành, làm 49 người chết, 7 người mất tích, 250.000 ha hoa màu bị ngập, hơn 100.000 nhà hư hại, chìm trong nước... Tổng thiệt hại lên tới 5.300 tỷ đồng.
Theo người đứng đầu ngành Nông nghiệp, việc tiêu úng cho Hà Nội là vấn đề cấp bách. Bộ trưởng cho biết, trên đường đi họp Chính phủ hồi cuối tháng, ông cũng bị mắc kẹt mất 2 tiếng đồng hồ. "Hà Nội tính thiệt hại 3.000 tỷ đồng, nhưng mới chỉ là cây, cá... Hình dung, một thành phố thủ đô, dừng hoạt động một ngày, thiệt hại biết bao tiền?".
"Hà Nội phải bố trí lực lượng canh phòng, hướng dẫn cho dân, hỗ trợ dân qua lại, chứ không chỉ thông báo trên TV rằng chỗ ấy ngập không nên đi qua. Đáng lẽ Hà Nội phải đưa xe cao cầu ra đó, để nếu người dân hoặc xe cứu thương cần đi qua thì phải chở, nếu không, ai đó chẳng may nhồi máu cơ tim, chắc là chết", Trưởng ban Phòng chống lụt bão Trung ương nói.
Là địa phương chịu tổn thất nặng nhất, Hà Nội có 20 người chết, thiệt hại về hoa màu đã lên tới 3.000 tỷ đồng (Hưng Yên 1.300 tỷ đồng, Hà Nam gần 900 tỷ đồng). Và để khắc phục hậu quả mưa lũ, các địa phương này đã xin Chính phủ hỗ trợ hơn 500 tỷ đồng, 5.000 tấn gạo cùng 800 tấn lúa giống.
Dù đã trút xuống Hà Nội và nhiều địa phương khác một lượng mưa kỷ lục nhưng theo Trung tâm Dự báo Khí tượng thủy văn, 8 ngày tới, trời sẽ tiếp tục mưa 100-200 mm và các tỉnh Bắc Bộ, Bắc Trung Bộ sẽ trở rét.
Sau trận lũ kỷ lục này, người ta lại biết thêm một công dụng mới của bình ga. Ảnh: Gia Hân (chụp tại khu vực Nam Đồng).
Trước thực trạng Hà Nội chỉ có 2 trục tiêu nước là sông Nhuệ và sông Tô Lịch, trong đó riêng sông Tô Lịch làm nhiệm vụ tiêu thoát nước cho toàn bộ Hà Nội cũ, Thứ trưởng NN&PTNT Đào Xuân Học cho rằng, cần phải đánh giá lại năng lực tiêu nước của sông Tô Lịch cũng như quy hoạch các trạm bơm tiêu lũ.
"Hôm trước, tôi có nói, Sở Xây dựng Hà Nội cần trả lời câu hỏi: 'Đô thị hóa toàn bộ phía Tây Hà Nội thì tiêu đi đâu?' nhưng Sở không trả lời. Vậy là nghiễm nhiên, sông Nhuệ trở thành trục tiêu cho toàn bộ phía Tây Hà Nội. Còn sông Tô Lịch phải tiêu cho cả thành phố. Việc Tô Lịch có đủ năng lực hay không cũng phải đặt ra", Thứ trưởng Học đặt vấn đề.
Cũng theo ông Học, trước đây, sông Nhuệ làm nhiệm vụ tiêu thoát nước cho lúa với tiêu chí mưa 3 ngày tiêu 5 ngày nhưng nay, do đô thị hóa phía Tây, lưu lượng tiêu tăng gấp đôi trong khi tiêu chí phải là mưa đến đâu tiêu hết đến đó. Bởi vậy, việc quá tải đã gây ra ngập úng.
Lý giải về vấn đề này, Thứ trưởng Học cho biết, trong khi Chính phủ đồng ý đưa vào sử dụng trạm bơm tiêu Liên Nghĩa ở TP Hà Đông để đổ nước ra sông Đáy, với lưu lượng 100 m3 mỗi giây thì trong quy hoạch trạm bơm tiêu của Hà Nội lại không xét tới vị trí này.
"Vừa qua, khi nhận quyết định của Thủ tướng phê duyệt quy hoạch tiêu cho Hà Nội 3 trạm bơm, tôi rất ngạc nhiên bởi Hà Nội không xét tới vị trí trạm bơm này, dù chúng tôi đánh giá không chỗ nào hơn được vị trí đó", ông Học nói.
Dịch vụ chuyên chở bằng xe gầm cao với giá 30.000 đồng một người trên đường Giải Phóng. Ảnh: Tiến Dũng.
Nhận định khu vực tiêu của trạm bơm Yên Sở là gần 8.000 ha, lượng mưa bình quân là 500 mm, Bộ trưởng Cao Đức Phát cho rằng, riêng Hà Nội cũ đã hứng 40 triệu m3 nước, và do "số phận" của Hà Nội chỉ chờ vào trạm bơm này nên việc thoát nước của thủ đô rất căng thẳng.
"Trạm bơm Yên Sở với công suất 45 m3 một giây, dù chạy suốt ngày đêm cũng chỉ tiêu được 5 triệu m3 nên nếu muốn rút kiệt lượng nước này ra thì phải mất 8 ngày. Nếu mưa thêm 100 mm thì có thêm 8 triệu m3 nữa và phải mất thêm 2 ngày bơm", Bộ trưởng Cao Đức Phát phân tích.
Bên cạnh việc cảnh báo về tình hình dịch bệnh cũng như giá cả leo thang, Bộ trưởng Phát cũng lưu ý Hà Nội việc chủ động liên hệ với các địa phương để cung cấp rau xanh bởi ít nhất hơn tháng nữa mới có thể thu hoạch sản phẩm này.
Kết thúc buổi làm việc, Phó thủ tướng Hoàng Trung Hải nhận định, do Hà Nội còn nhiều vùng chia cắt, nhiều điểm úng ngập nên trước hết cần phải tiêu nước và giải quyết vấn đề giao thông. Ngoài việc đảm bảo các điều kiện y tế, thực phẩm và đặc biệt là nước uống cho người dân, cần tập trung hỗ trợ gia đình có người chết, bị thương, mất nhà cửa, người già, trẻ em và phụ nữ.
"Mỗi lần như thế này là ta có một bài học. Giờ đây có tác động của biến đổi khí hậu chứ không phải chỉ là mưa lũ bình thường. Do vậy, bắt buộc chúng ta phải có xem xét, quy hoạch lại", Phó thủ tướng nhấn mạnh.
Bốn khu vực mưa lớn:
- Khu vực 1: Hà Nội, Hòa Bình, Hưng Yên, Ninh Bình mưa phổ biến 400-600 mm, trong đó, Thanh Oai 988 mm, Hà Đông 830 mm, Chương Mỹ 727 mm...- Khu vực 2: Phú Thọ, Vĩnh Phúc mưa phổ biến 200-400 mm, trong đó, Vĩnh Yên 508 mm, Tam Đảo 463 mm, Phúc Yên 405 mm...- Khu vực 3: Lạng Sơn, Thái Nguyên, Bắc Giang, Bắc Ninh mưa phổ biến 150-300 mm, trong đó, Đình Lập 615 mm, Việt Yên 419 mm, Yên Thế 383 mm...- Khu vực 4: Thanh Hóa, Nghệ An mưa phổ biến 100-200 mm.

Slide Show, Floods in Ha Noi - Noah's Ark o dau?

Pretty interesting slides on a massive city flood this past week.

http://slide.legono.com/?tag=Hanoi&uid=tester

Google Now Indexes Scanned Documents

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/30/google-now-indexes-scanned-documents/

by Jason Kincaid on October 30, 2008

Google has announced that it will now begin including scanned documents in its search results - a feat that requires an immense amount of processing power and advanced image recognition technology. Unlike standard text documents, scanned files don’t contain any text data that Google’s spiders can index. Instead, Google has employed Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, converting photos of words into digital text files.

In the past Google would attempt to index these image files as well as possible, but could typically search only file titles and nearby metadata - not the contents of the documents. From now on Google searches will include the text within these scanned images in normal search results. When you encounter a scanned document you’ll be able to view it in its original form as a PDF, or as a converted text file (click “View As HTML”).

Such technology has existed for quite a while, but accuracy has always been an issue - and the fact that Google is doing it on such massive scale makes it a very impressive accomplishment. It also opens the doors to much more thorough searching, especially for content that is often found in printed documents (like academic papers).

Here’s an example (the first result is a scanned document): Repairing Aluminum Wiring

For more, check out the announcement here.

Facebook Widens The Gap With MySpace Internationally

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/29/facebook-widens-the-gap-with-myspace-internationally/

by Erick Schonfeld on October 29, 2008

Facebook blew past MySpace in visitors from across the world back in April, but the global gap continues to widen. According to the latest figures from comScore, Facebook attracted 161.1 million unique visitors worldwide in September, compared 117.9 million for MySpace. For Facebook, that number was up from 4.7 percent from the 153.9 million people who visited the social network in August. Visitors to MySpace declined 1.6 percent globally from 119.8 million.

The global gap between the two is now 43.2 million visitors. To put that in perspective that is a tad more than the number of people who visit Facebook in the U.S. alone, which in September was 41.4 million. MySpace still dominates in the U.S., with 73.0 million visitors in September.

MySpace argues that it is more interested in winning globally in the top ad markets, and in general it is winning in countries such as the U.S., Germany, and Japan. But Facebook is leading in France and the UK. Those are the top five markets.

VCs Speak On The Economic Downturn: Batten Down the Hatches

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/29/vcs-speak-on-the-economic-downturn-batten-down-the-hatches/

by Jason Kincaid on October 29, 2008

This is part one of our coverage on today’s Downturn RoundTable hosted by VentureBeat. For Part Two, which details the Entrepreneur panel, click here.

Today at VentureBeat’s Downturn RoundTable, two panels of Silicon Valley’s elite - one made up of Venture Capitalists, the other of experienced entrepreneurs - offered a roomful of startup CEOs their advice for weathering the economic crisis. And while the two panels differed in some respects (with the VCs saying that they’re open for business and the startup veterans calling this a falsehood) the general consensus was at least in part optimistic: Money will be tight and many companies will endure painful cost cutting, but it’s cheaper than ever to run a startup and innovation will continue to thrive.

The VCs

In a panel moderated by VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall, John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers led off by agreeing with the themes in Sequoia Capital’s 56 Slide Presentation of Doom, expressing his concern that we are just entering an economic crisis of confidence, and that startups must enact swift and effective cost cutting - a sentiment that was echoed throughout the panel. Kittu Kolluri of New Enterprise Associates emphasized the need to cut burn rates, and to figure out how to generate revenues as quickly as possible. Early Google investor Ram Shriram said that we would likely be seeing company valuations shrink and expressed that it would become very difficult to get money. Benchmark Capital’s Matt Cohler (formerly at LinkedIn and Facebook) agreed that it is essential to be conservative with spending, but emphasized that an important part of being conservative is to refrain from panicking.

Of all of the investors the most optimistic was prolific angel investor Ron Conway, who said that we are in much better shape than we were during the last bubble. He recalled that during the dot com bubble 70% of the startups his angel funds had invested in during 1998/1999 went out of business within a year. In contrast, only 13% of Conway’s current portfolio is facing shutdown. He attributed this in part to the burn rates for companies, which have gone from an average monthly rate of $750k in the first bubble to around $200k now. He went on to say that if a company does need to raise money, it should turn to its original investors, who are the most likely to support them.

Kolluri showed some optimism as well, saying that some of his firm’s best investments came during the last downturn, and that it continues to invest at a regular pace. It may be more selective, but he believes there will certainly be innovation to be found.

After broadly expressing their thoughts, the panel gave some more practical advice. Before the roundtable John Doerr polled executives from Kleiner Perkins’ portfolio companies for some tips, and compiled the following list:

1. Act now. Act with speed, and raise more money if possible.
2. Protect the vital core of the business. Use a scalpel instead of an axe.
3. Get 18 months or more of cash in the businesses, against conservative revenue forecasts.
4. Defer Facilities expansions. Instead of buying more PCs or more software, use webbased stuff.
5. Negotiate. Negotiate with all your supplies and vendors, get more favorable payment terms.
6. Everybody in your organization should be selling. You need everyone to be selling the ideas and the organization. This is about increasing revenues.
7. For people with bonuses, offer equity instead of cash. Doerr noted that he once had a voluntary salary deduction program for people who remained during the downturn - Investors will be on board with this idea.
8. Pay attention to where your cash is, and keep it secure, in a place fully backed by the government. Doerr said that he’s been putting money into treasuries.
9. Make sure that for the revenues you plan, you have leading indicators that tell you 90 days in advance whether you’ll be getting revenues or not.
10. Overcommunicate with your employees, investors, and customers. Let them know your resolve. Don’t sugarcoat it.

The other panelists chimed in with their own tips:
Ron Conway - Stay open minded to M&A and move fast on M&A. Also, your biggest non variable cost is your rent. But your lease isn’t set.. In 2000 I spent many hours in front of landlords, negotiating, saying we’d give them more equity and that we’d leave afterward. About half the time it worked.

Ram Shriram- At this point, money may be worth more than equity. Use your equity rather than cash to pay if you have to.

Matt Cohler - Avoid long term spending commitments. None of us know how long this will last. Given that, operate under the mentality of uncertainty, and be careful. For example, be careful about facilities commitments. Unlike lots of types of spending, these are really contracts. Another example is IT spending in general. One of the things different in this downturn is that there are lots of tools and services and marketplaces that are free/low cost and flexible. You can turn them off, dialing up and down spending.

To close, Cohler also affirmed that despite some belt tightening, Benchmark and other VCs are still open for business.

Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs: Make Cuts, Stay Stingy, But Never Forget The Dream

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/29/silicon-valley-entrepreneurs-make-cuts-stay-stingy-but-never-forget-the-dream/

by Jason Kincaid on October 29, 2008

This is part two of our coverage on today’s Downturn RoundTable hosted by VentureBeat. For Part One, which details the Venture Capitalist panel, click here.

The Entrepreneurs

In a panel moderated by Kara Swisher, Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic (the company behind WordPress), led off by saying that he wished this kind of “panicky” advice had been around for the last bubble, explaining that his startup at the time didn’t react quickly enough to stay afloat. Nirav Tolia, co-founder of epinions, added that his company had fallen prey to similar mistakes in the last bubble by investing in growth (in terms of employees and office space) before it was necessary.

Mahalo’s Jason Calacanis detailed his experience with laying off employees, saying that it should be done in one fell swoop rather than in incremental steps, which only serve to increase fear and uncertainty. He expressed how difficult it is lay people off, and urged executives to do all they can for their past employees (vesting stock whenever possible, writing letters of recommendation, etc.). He said that while CEOs may not be able to predict economic shifts, they are ultimately the ones at fault if a company has to lay off workers.

Tolia also related the cost cutting measures epinions had to undertake in the first bubble, emphasizing the importance of having someone who had “been through this sort of thing before” for advice and calling Bill Campbell (who had weathered past downturns) “a godsend”. He likened cutting costs to dieting, explaining that companies should be making “lifestyle changes” so that these problems don’t arise again instead of making cuts and then falling back into the same costly habits, only to have to downsize again in the future.

Slide CEO Max Levchin said that he has never been forced to lay off his workers, but emphasized the importance of being stingy. He attributed his frugality to his “immigrant ethic”, which he says is a great trait to have in a startup co-founder.

Paul Sieben of O’Melveny and Myers agreed with Ron Conway’s statements earlier that companies should more readily consider M&As. He also said that startups should be nimble, able to change underlying goals and start the M&A process early by forming business relationships.

When asked how helpful venture capitalists are when their portfolio companies face economic hardships, the panel had some varied (and not always positive) comments. Levchin related his experience with BlueRun Ventures (which has invested in both PayPal and Slide), saying that the VCs there have been very supportive, even when he has had to change business plans.

Toni Schnier said that Levchin has been dealing with ideal VCs, but that there are unhelpful investors who will constantly give advice (often about ideas you’ve already thought of), and that thsese are the ones who will get on your case as soon as things start looking shaky. Calacanis said that entrepreneurs tend to ask VCs for too much advice, which is a mistake, going on to say “VCs are VCs for a reason” and likening them to bankers. Calacanis also said that while the VC panel claimed it would stay open for business, they will instead form a “circle of wagons”, focusing on their winners and shutting down losers.

And while they spent a great deal of time talking about the hardships many entrepreneurs will be facing, the panel emphasized the importance of remembering why they had come to Silicon Valley in the first place: to build their dream.

Each panelist also offered some specific tips for success:

Max Levchin - Don’t listen to anyone, nobody really knows what’s going to happen next. It’s better to be contrarian in times like this than not. Just hunker down and build a company. Silicon Valley is about leveraging crazy hopes and occasionally winning.

Paul Sieben - Have backup plans.

Toni Schneider - Consider open source. It’s a great way in slow times to keep your project going - people who have time on their hands to keep your dream going.

Nirav Tolia - Over communicate.

Jason Calacanis - Focus on the product. If you’re in a plane and it’s going into a death spiral, look at your instruments (page views, members, etc.). Don’t look out the window.

Details Revealed: Google OpenSocial To Launch Thursday

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/10/30/details-revealed-google-opensocial-to-be-common-apis-for-building-social-apps/

by Michael Arrington on October 30, 2007

Details emerged today on Google’s broad social networking ambitions, first reported here in late September, with a follow up earlier this week. The new project, called OpenSocial (URL will go live on Thursday), goes well beyond what we’ve previously reported. It is a set of common APIs that application developers can use to create applications that work on any social networks (called “hosts”) that choose to participate.

What they haven’t done is launch yet another social network platform. As more and more of these platforms launch, developers have difficult choices to make. There are costs associated with writing and maintaining applications for these social networks. Most developers will choose one or two platforms and ignore the rest, based on a simple cost/benefit analysis.

Google wants to create an easy way for developers to create an application that works on all social networks. And if they pull it off, they’ll be in the center, controlling the network.

What They’re Launching

OpenSocial is a set of three common APIs, defined by Google with input from partners, that allow developers to access core functions and information at social networks:

• Profile Information (user data)
• Friends Information (social graph)
• Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff)

Hosts agree to accept the API calls and return appropriate data. Google won’t try to provide universal API coverage for special use cases, instead focusing on the most common uses. Specialized functions/data can be accessed from the hosts directly via their own APIs.

Unlike Facebook, OpenSocial does not have its own markup language (Facebook requires use of FBML for security reasons, but it also makes code unusable outside of Facebook). Instead, developers use normal javascript and html (and can embed Flash elements). The benefit of the Google approach is that developers can use much of their existing front end code and simply tailor it slightly for OpenSocial, so creating applications is even easier than on Facebook.

Applications can have full functionality on profile and/or canvas pages, subject to the specific rules of each host. Facebook, by contrast, limits most functionality to the canvas page, allowing a widget on the profile page with limited features.

OpenSocial is silent when it comes to specific rules and policies of the hosts, like whether or not advertising is accepted or whether any developer can get in without applying first (the Facebook approach). Hosts set and enforce their own policies. The APIs are created with maximum flexibility.

Launch Partner

artners are in two categories: hosts and developers. Hosts are the participating social networks, and include Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle.

Developers include Flixster, iLike, RockYou and Slide.

What This Means

The timing of OpenSocial couldn’t be better. Developers have been complaining non stop about the costs of learning yet another markup launguage for every new social network platform, and taking developer time in creating and maintaining the code. Someone had to build a system to streamline this (as we said in the last few sentences in this post). And Facebook-fear has clearly driven good partners to side with Google. Developers will immediately start building on these APIs to get distribution across the impressive list of hosts above.

And they’ll do it soon, too. It’s clear that the developers who arrived early to the Facebook Platform party won easy customers. Those that came later had to fight much harder. Developers found their new gold strike, and they will soon all be there, mining away.

The New Yahoo: Sticky, Viral, And Most Of All, Friendly

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/24/the-new-yahoo-sticky-viral-and-most-of-all-friendly/

by Michael Arrington on April 24, 2008

Yahoo’s CTO Ari Balogh and Chief Architect (Platforms) Neal Sample filled in a few more details today around their new Yahoo Open Strategy (called YOS internally).

Background

Yahoo wants to turn itself into one big social network-driven site, and simultaneously open many of its core services to get users and developers thinking of Yahoo as their Internet hub. They’ve been talking about parts of this since last November. First were details about how webmail will serve as the social networking hub, followed by more tidbits in January. In March they joined the Google-led Open Social initiative. And they’ve made a series of announcements around Search Monkey which will allow third parties to enhance Yahoo search with structured data.

Yahoo Open Strategy

Yahoo mashes the social stuff and the open stuff under the same banner of YOS. There are three components to the additional news announced today - platformization, opening services, and portability. It’s important to note that nothing has launched, and there’s no public timetable for the launch of any particular part of YOS. Sample said in a briefing today that the pieces will be released over the coming months.

Below is Balogh’s presentation at the web 2.0 Expo:

Platformization: Users will notice this most, as the overall Yahoo experience becomes social. This is driven by (1) the reduction of the dozens of profiles (for each service) they have today to a single, unified Yahoo user profile, and (2) the promotion of the email inbox as the center of the Yahoo experience. Once the profile is centralized they will begin to socialize the services. Think friends lists, activity streams, etc.

Clearly Yahoo isn’t bolting yet another social network onto their existing services. They keep saying that, of course. But even the fact that they refer to this part of it as “platformization” internally shows how they are thinking of this. They’re moving Yahoo to a massive new social network platform, and rewriting large parts of the core functionality.

Open Yahoo: This encompasses a few different things. First, they are now deeply involved in OpenSocial and will allow developers to get access via those common APIs. But they are layering their many existing (and planned) APIs on top of OpenSocial to allow deeper integration with Yahoo services. Users will be able to add these third party applications, built on Open Social and the Yahoo APIs, into Yahoo.

The other piece of this is Yahoo Application Platform (YAP) - which will be a direct competitor to Google App Engine. Users can host their independent applications on Yahoo’s bandwidth, storage, database and CPU resources. At first they’ll support SecurePHP applications only, but they’ll expand to additional languages over time. The model will be very similar to Google’s - free usage up to a point, metered after that. They’ll also offer various developer tools as well.

Portability. Yahoo is also going to promote the spread of Yahoo around the web to third party apps and services. This isn’t just widgets - they’ll also let user data out of the ecosystem. For example, Sample said in the briefing, they’ll facilitate the synchronization of the Yahoo address book with Plaxo (Facebook hated the idea of users doing this, by the way).

Yahoo: Sticky, Viral, Friendly

Yahoo continues to compete in search marketing, the big driver of revenue. But they realize they’ll always be second to Google in that game. So the win for them is to make Yahoo as sticky, friendly, and viral as possible. They have 500 million worldwide visitors per month - nearly 60% of the total Internet audience visits a Yahoo property every month (Google has 72%) (Comscore). That audience can clearly be leveraged, and this is a war that, unlike search marketing, Yahoo thinks they can win.

They still, of course, have to actually launch this massive project - for now it’s all ideas and vaporware. And no one knows what Microsoft thinks of all this, or what happens to YOS if that deal is done.

Double Bubble Trouble

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/opinion/05roach.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

AMID increasingly turbulent credit markets and ever-weaker reports on the economy, the Federal Reserve has been unusually swift and determined in its lowering of the overnight lending rate. The White House and Congress have moved quickly as well, approving rebates for families and tax breaks for businesses. And more monetary easing from the Fed could well be on the way.

The central question for the economy is this: Will this medicine work? The same question was asked repeatedly in Japan during its “lost decade” of the 1990s. Unfortunately, as was the case in Japan, the answer may be no.

If the American economy were entering a standard cyclical downturn, there would be good reason to believe that a timely countercyclical stimulus like that devised by Washington would be effective. But this is not a standard cyclical downturn. It is a post-bubble recession.

The United States is now going through its second post-bubble downturn in seven years. Yet this one stands in sharp contrast to the post-bubble shakeout in the stock market during 2000 and 2001. Back then, there was a collapse in business capital spending, a sector that peaked at only 13 percent of real gross domestic product.

The current recession has been set off by the simultaneous bursting of property and credit bubbles. The unwinding of these excesses is likely to exact a lasting toll on both homebuilders and American consumers. Those two economic sectors collectively peaked at 78 percent of gross domestic product, or fully six times the share of the sector that pushed the country into recession seven years ago.

For asset-dependent, bubble-prone economies, a cyclical recovery — even when assisted by aggressive monetary and fiscal accommodation — isn’t a given. Over the past six years, income-short consumers made up for the weak increases in their paychecks by extracting equity from the housing bubble through cut-rate borrowing that was subsidized by the credit bubble. That game is now over.

Washington policymakers may not be able to arrest this post-bubble downturn. Interest rate cuts are unlikely to halt the decline in nationwide home prices. Given the outsize imbalance between supply and demand for new homes, housing prices may need to fall an additional 20 percent to clear the market.

Aggressive interest rate cuts have not done much to contain the lethal contagion spreading in credit and capital markets. Now that their houses are worth less and loans are harder to come by, hard-pressed consumers are unlikely to be helped by lower interest rates.

Japan’s experience demonstrates how difficult it may be for traditional policies to ignite recovery after a bubble. In the early 1990s, Japan’s property and stock market bubbles burst. That implosion was worsened by a banking crisis and excess corporate debt. Nearly 20 years later, Japan is still struggling.

There are eerie similarities between the United States now and Japan then. The Bank of Japan ran an excessively accommodative monetary policy for most of the 1980s. In the United States, the Federal Reserve did the same thing beginning in the late 1990s. In both cases, loose money fueled liquidity booms that led to major bubbles.

Moreover, Japan’s central bank initially denied the perils caused by the bubbles. Similarly, it’s hard to forget the Fed’s blasé approach to the asset bubbles of the past decade, especially as the subprime mortgage crisis exploded last August.

In Japan, a banking crisis constricted lending for years. In the United States, a full-blown credit crisis could do the same.

The unwinding of excessive corporate indebtedness in Japan and a “keiretsu” culture of companies buying one another’s equity shares put extraordinary pressures on business spending. In America, an excess of household indebtedness could put equally serious and lasting restrictions on consumer spending.

Like their counterparts in Japan in the 1990s, American authorities may be deluding themselves into believing they can forestall the endgame of post-bubble adjustments. Government aid is being aimed, mistakenly, at maintaining unsustainably high rates of personal consumption. Yet that’s precisely what got the United States into this mess in the first place — pushing down the savings rate, fostering a huge trade deficit and stretching consumers to take on an untenable amount of debt.

A more effective strategy would be to try to tilt the economy away from consumption and toward exports and long-needed investments in infrastructure.

That won’t be easy to achieve. Such a shift in the mix of the economy will require export-friendly measures like a weaker dollar and increased consumption by the rest of the world, which would strengthen demand for American-made goods. Fiscal initiatives should be directed at laying the groundwork for future growth, especially by upgrading the nation’s antiquated highways, bridges and ports.

That’s not to say Washington shouldn’t help the innocent victims of the bubble’s aftermath — especially lower- and middle-income families. But the emphasis should be on providing income support for those who have been blindsided by this credit crisis rather than on rekindling excess spending by overextended consumers.

By focusing on exports and on infrastructure spending, we might be able to limit the recession. Such an approach might also set the stage for a more balanced and sustainable economic upturn in the next cycle. A stimulus package aimed at exports and infrastructure investment would be an important step in that direction.

The toughest, and potentially most relevant, lesson to take from Japan’s economy in the 1990s was that the interplay between financial and real economic bubbles causes serious damage. An equally lethal interplay between the bursting of housing and credit bubbles is now at work in the United States.

American authorities, especially Federal Reserve officials, harbor the mistaken belief that swift action can forestall a Japan-like collapse. The greater imperative is to avoid toxic asset bubbles in the first place. Steeped in denial and engulfed by election-year myopia, Washington remains oblivious of the dangers ahead.

Stephen S. Roach is the chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia.

Tainted Eggs From China Discovered in Hong Kong

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/world/asia/27china.html

By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: October 26, 2008

SHANGHAI — Hong Kong food inspectors have found eggs imported from northeast China to be contaminated with high levels of melamine, the toxic industrial additive at the heart of an adulteration scandal in Chinese milk products.

The findings, reported over the weekend, have raised new concerns that a far wider array of China-produced foods than previously believed could be contaminated with melamine, which has already sickened more than 50,000 children in China and led to at least four deaths.
Scientists in China worry that in addition to being used to adulterate dairy supplies, melamine may have been intentionally added to animal feed in China, according to a report published on Sunday in South China Morning Post. Tainted chicken and possibly fish and hog feed could result in poisonous meat and seafood, it said.

China is struggling to cope with a milk scandal that has devastated its fast-growing dairy industry and led to a global recall of foods that were made using Chinese dairy products, including pizza, biscuits, yogurt and other goods.

The Chinese government, which first reported melamine-tainted dairy products in mid-September, has vowed to strengthen food safety measures and severely punish those involved in adulterating food.

The government accused rogue dairy producers and middlemen of intentionally spiking dairy supplies with melamine to save money, using the chemical as a cheap filler that can artificially inflate protein readings.

In September, Beijing ordered a huge recall of dairy products and arrested dozens of people suspected of illegally adulterating food with melamine, which is used to produce plastic and fertilizer. But the government has not been clear about whether it has been testing a wider variety of food products for contamination by melamine, which can cause kidney stones and other ailments.

There were also indications over the weekend that the contamination may have reached far more children in China than reported. Health officials said Sunday that a broad survey of homes in Beijing had found that nearly a quarter of the 300,000 families with children younger than 3, about 74,000 families, had a child who had been fed melamine-tainted milk.
The government said it was a door-to-door survey conducted between late September and late October but did not say how many of those children had fallen ill.

At a news conference after an Asian-European summit meeting in Beijing on Saturday, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao pledged to strengthen food safety to meet international standards.
He also said the government was partly to blame for the scandal because of “lax supervision.”
The milk scandal surfaced in September, slightly more than a year after tainted pet food was exported to the United States, sickening cats and dogs and touching off global criticism of China’s food safety controls.

Beijing responded defiantly to some critics of its record, but late last year it also announced a crackdown on shoddy and unsafe food producers and ordered the closing of thousands of slaughterhouses and food factories.

During that time, several Chinese melamine suppliers admitted in newspaper interviews to selling melamine to animal feed operations and fish feed providers in China. The government, however, never reported finding melamine-tainted fish or animal feed in China’s food supply.
The discovery of contaminated eggs in Hong Kong was announced Saturday by the Center for Food Safety, a Hong Kong government agency, which said the eggs had been imported from a farm in the city of Dalian, in northeastern China. The center reported that the melamine level was almost double the legal limit for food sold in Hong Kong.

Credit Crisis Slows Economy in Once-Hot Poland

By NICHOLAS KULISH
Published: October 26, 2008
WARSAW — Poles were jolted last week by the sudden discovery that they were not immune to the financial crisis contagion rippling across the globe. The plunging stock market here and the drastic weakening of the Polish currency proved, as in so many corners of the fast-growing developing world, how wrong they were.

Piotr Malecki for The New York Times

An advertisement for 10.5 percent interest rates for savings accounts loomed over a Warsaw street on Friday. Polish banks have raised rates to lure more capital.

An electronics store in Warsaw, where the Polish currency’s decline has shocked many.
The go-go atmosphere in Poland has abruptly stilled to a cautious wait-and-see. Developers across the country have halted building projects for thousands of apartments as banks have grown stingy with lending. The boomtown energy here has been replaced by nervous eyeing of the once powerful zloty, as it retreats in value against the dollar and the euro.
The daily newspaper Dziennik summed up the mood on Friday with a front-page headline, “Welcome to the Tough Times.” In a country that seemed to be on the fast track to full membership in the Western club, the question on everyone’s lips is, “Why us?”
Emerging markets that seemed healthy, even thriving, barely a month ago, are beginning to find themselves caught in the worldwide panic. This sharp turn has caught even the local financial guardians and experts by surprise, as they have clung to their indicators of fundamental economic soundness, while forgetting that capital stampedes rarely tarry for fine distinctions.
From Europe’s former Communist bloc to South America, fear and disbelief mingled with frustration that a breakdown in the mortgage market in the United States — one that most investors and institutions in emerging markets had avoided — was beginning to lead once again to their punishment at the indiscriminate hands of the capital markets.
“Everything is going down,” said Lukasz Tync, 28, an information technology consultant in Warsaw, who said he owned shares in 10 companies and several mutual funds and had been hit hard by five consecutive days of falling stocks at the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The country’s leading index was down 12.6 percent for the week and more than 50 percent for the year. “The thing is that there is no fundamental basis for such moves. It’s just panic.”

Adding to the pain, the zloty has fallen around 17 percent against the dollar over the past week, and more than 10 percent against the euro. The currency has fallen roughly 30 percent against the dollar in October. Economic experts are cutting growth forecasts.
Poland is still considered relatively healthy compared with Hungary and Ukraine, which have been among the hardest hit. On Sunday, the two reached tentative agreements with the International Monetary Fund for loans and other assistance aimed at preventing their financial systems from collapsing. Ukraine will get a loan of at least $16.5 billion, while the value of Hungary’s rescue package has not been specified. Still, alarm about Hungary and Ukraine has infected Poland.

“A week ago, people would have told you that this is an oasis of calm and stability,” said Marek Matraszek, founding partner and managing director at CEC Government Relations in Warsaw, a political consultant for foreign investors. “They didn’t expect that the lack of confidence in Central Europe would bleed over from Hungary and Ukraine,” he said.
The bleeding has extended much farther. In South Africa, the price of platinum, a major earner of foreign exchange, has cratered, from more than $2,000 an ounce in June to less than $800 now, contributing to a sharp depreciation in that country’s currency, the rand. Brazil’s currency, the real, has fallen by more than 40 percent against the dollar since August. With a stomach-churning lurch, the Turkish lira has fallen by more than 30 percent against the dollar in recent weeks and almost 20 percent against the euro.

Fuat Karatas, 41, a dental technician in Istanbul, said he buys imported teeth-cleaning and cavity-repair materials priced in euros, but he cannot pass the rising price to customers, who pay in lira. “Now with the euro going crazy, I have no idea how things are going to work out for me,” he said. “I just want to be able to keep my lab open, nothing more.”
During more prosperous times the risks in emerging market countries were strongly underestimated, said Marek Dabrowski, president of the Center for Social and Economic Research in Warsaw. “Naturally, the global credit crunch and economic slowdown caused overshooting in the opposite direction,” he said.

Emerging-market countries are hardly a homogenous group, but they face similar challenges. The outflows of investor capital driving down their stock markets and pressuring their currencies have occurred just as the demand abroad for their products, whether commodities like oil or manufactured goods like automobiles, has begun to weaken. But the crisis has not hit the streets right away, buttressing the confidence of many in affected countries that the problems are temporary and can be weathered. Some argue that the declining value of local currencies is even a plus, because it will help these countries sell more goods abroad by making them more affordable.
“When the zloty was so strong, my import was profitable. Just now, I hope my exports will be improving,” said Krzysztof Izydorczyk, 52, owner of Comexpol, an importer and exporter of stainless steel products based in Katowice.
In South Africa, Finance Minister Trevor A. Manuel gave a budget speech to Parliament last week, saying he had seen the warning signs of trouble and had taken appropriate action.
“We can say to our people: Liduduma lidlule! The thunder will pass,” he announced.
But South Africa is not just facing unpredictable economic pressures. It is also at a perilous political moment, with a likely split in the governing African National Congress and a strong possibility that the unemployment rate, already high, will worsen. The economy had been weakening before the global crisis, according to Pieter Laubscher, chief economist at the Bureau for Economic Research at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University.
The commodities boom had drawn investment into the country and had helped drive economic growth, Mr. Laubscher said, but that boom has now fallen victim to the worldwide slowdown.
In Brazil, leaders took pains to save wisely during the commodity boom, reform the country’s banking sector after a financial crisis in the late 1990s and diversify its trade partners. “This country has never been so prepared to face up to adversity as it is now, economically, politically and, I’d say, ideologically,” Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, said last week.
But last Wednesday the government empowered state-controlled banks to buy stakes in private financial institutions. Although officials denied any private banks were in danger, the announcement fueled jitters that some could fail, helping send Brazil’s stock market down more than 10 percent that day.
Poles had good reason to believe that they had avoided the stigma that causes investors in emerging markets to flee at the first hint of financial panic. Poland had joined the European Union and NATO, it was a close ally of the United States, it was growing robustly and enjoying swiftly rising living standards unimaginable under Communism.
Experts say there was a consensus locally that Poland would not be affected by the crisis, and that membership in the European Union would buffer it from the worst of the shocks. That consensus has begun to break down.
When the Central Bank of Hungary surprised markets last week by raising interest rates three percentage points to defend its currency, the vulnerability of Central and Eastern Europe received harsher scrutiny.
Poland illustrates the illogic but also the relentless pressure this crisis has exerted, because in many ways it was in good shape. Compared with Hungary, Poland has higher growth, lower inflation, lower interest rates, less public debt compared with the size of its economy and a smaller share of foreign loans. Poland has stronger domestic demand than Hungary to prop up the economy as consumers among its Western trading partners cut spending.
But Poland, has not adopted the euro, which might have helped insulate it somewhat. Now the prime minister, Donald Tusk, has said Poland hopes to by 2012.
Government officials in Warsaw, including the prime minister, the central banker and the finance minister, have been saying that the Polish economy remains strong and that they expect markets to stabilize. Indeed, the latest economic news out of Poland has been largely positive. Retail sales rose 11.6 percent in September, compared with the previous year, and the unemployment rate, which exceeded 20 percent just five years ago, fell 0.2 percentage points last month to 8.9 percent.
At Miedzy Nami, a restaurant in downtown Warsaw, the owner, Ewa Moisan, said she had not seen a slowdown. Yet some customers said they were beginning to feel the pinch.
The monthly payment for the apartment mortgage of one customer, Jarek Wiewiorski, has gone up by a fifth, to 1,800 zloty, about $600. “It’s not catastrophic, but it’s painful,” said Mr. Wiewiorski, 40. “One minute it’s America, the next it’s Hungary, and then suddenly, it’s here.”

Moody's Sees Credit Card Stress through 2009

Credit card charge-off rates in the U.S. continued to rise in August and are expected to surpass the peak rate of charge-offs following previous recessions, according to Moody's Investor Services.

The charge-off rate, which measures credit card balances written off as uncollectible as an annualized percent of loans outstanding, rose 48 percent in August to 6.82 percent, compared with 4.61 percent a year ago, said Moody's in a special report.

Moody's said it expects the industry to remain under pressure through the end of 2009 as a result of the worldwide economic crisis and worsening underlying collateral performance as the credit card asset-backed securities market shows signs of increasing stress.

Although the balance sheet strength and liquidity of the sector’s largest credit card issuers remains quite strong, the uncertainty and tempo of the turmoil will test even the stalwarts’ ability to adapt.

In its mid-year report released last month, Moody's forecasted the sharp deterioration in credit card delinquency and charge-off rates. Earlier this month, Standard and Poor?'s highlighted the worsening performance in August of credit card ABS.

Hungry for success

Hungry for success

Honors students attend a graduation ceremony in Ho Chi Minh City last month.
Many among Vietnam’s young workforce say they’re eager to begin rewarding careers but are stymied by poor working conditions and low wages in the public sector. After graduating with top marks from the Hanoi University of Technology’s information technology department, Tuyen’s teacher recommended him for a job at a government-level agency. Accepting the prestigious position was viewed as a good career move by Tuyen’s family and friends. For the first three months, Tuyen had to work as an unpaid apprentice and relied on his parents for financial support. He was then put on a three-month probation at a salary of VND1.2 million (US$73.25). Like many new graduates, Tuyen accepted the low wages viewing it as a temporary hardship on the way to gaining more experience and a brighter future. But the financial struggle was harder than Tuyen had anticipated. Rent, food and petrol cost him nearly VND2 million ($122) per month. Not wanting to ask for more money from his parents, the young graduate took a second job as a part-time tutor. After two years, Tuyen’s monthly salary was increased to a mere VND1.8 million (around $110), despite the fact that he was considered a model employee and an asset to the department. It was at that point Tuyen finally decided to quit, knowing he simply couldn’t afford to live on his wages. He applied for work at a foreign information technology company and was offered a starting wage of VND9.93 million ($600) a month.
In Vietnam’s newly flourishing economy, many domestic and foreign enterprises are willing to pay tens ofmillions of dong to keep good staff. Vietnam’s governmental agencies, however, are seemingly unable to retain good talent due to a pay scale that doesn’t allow for the basic necessities of life.

Quantity over quality

After graduating with honors from Hanoi’s Institute for International Relations (now the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam), Quynh, who speaks two foreign languages, applied to a ministry-level office. In the beginning, she was paid VND1.2 million ($73.25) per month. Like Tuyen, Quynh said the salary was not as important as the experience she thought she would gain. But Quynh’s expectations of improving her skill set and advancing her knowledge in a professional environment were soon dashed, she said. In the morning, most staff would arrive on time to avoid being entered into the latecomer list, Quynh said. But they would then gather around and chat idly instead of beginning their daily tasks. Most employees would work from 9:30 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. and then break for a two-and-a-half-hour lunch and nap. After returning, most would not begin working again until 3 p.m. and would leave promptly at 5 p.m., Quynh said. The sluggish work environment led Quynh to feel she wasn’t learning or growing and moreover, the low pay wasn’t enough to justify staying in the position. Eventually, Quynh quit the job she had initially been so eager to start. “If governmental agencies don’t change their unproductive and bureaucratic working method, and continue to appraise staff by length of service rather than by their ability and achievements, they will not be able to attract talented individuals and will also lose youths’ faith in the state sector," Quynh said.

Work ethic and nepotism

Thanh, another recent university graduate with dreams of developing a rewarding career, applied to a local research institute. The interview process was intense, she said.
Thanh was made to take several tests in English and had to demonstrate proficiency in translating and essay-writing. Despite the stress of the testing, the rigorous process led Thanh to believe the institute highly valued skills and ability from its employees – a work environment she wanted to be a part of. But when Thanh began working at the agency, she soon realized that she seemed to be the only one made to conform to its high standards. According to Thanh, the institute’s director had appointed several positions to family members, whether they were qualified or not. People’s work ethic was poor and many staff members in high-ranking positions didn’t even speak English, she said.

"It’s not that Vietnamese youth have no spirit of sacrifice but they have [nothing to show] for their contribution," said a former employee of a governmental agency.

Reported by Lan Tuong*

*The writer is a consultant for the Hanoi-based Consultancy on Development Institute, which works to enhance cooperation between public and civil sectors through lobbying policies.

The Great Iceland Meltdown

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/opinion/19friedman.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: October 18, 2008

Who knew? Who knew that Iceland was just a hedge fund with glaciers? Who knew?

If you’re looking for a single example of how the globalization of finance helped get us into this mess and how it will help get us out, you need look no further than British newspapers last week and their front-page articles about the number of British citizens, municipalities and universities — including Cambridge — that are in a tizzy today because they had savings parked in Icelandic banks, through online banking services like Icesave.co.uk.

As Dave Barry would say, I’m not makin’ this up.

When I went to the Icesave Web site to see what it was all about, the headline read: “Simple, transparent and consistently high-rate online savings accounts from Icesave.” But then, underneath in blue letters, I found the following note appended: “We are not currently processing any deposits or any withdrawal requests through our Icesave Internet accounts. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause our customers.”

Any “inconvenience?” When you can’t withdraw savings from an online bank in Iceland, that is more than an inconvenience! That’s a reason for total panic.

So what’s the story? Around 2002, Iceland began to free its banks from state ownership. According to The Wall Street Journal, the three banks that make up almost the entire banking system in Iceland “grew quickly on easy credit” and “their combined assets rose tenfold in five years.” The Icelandic banks, while not invested in U.S. subprime mortgages, had gone on their own borrowing and lending binges, wooing savers from across Europe with 5.45 percent interest savings accounts.

In a flat world, money can easily seek out the highest returns, and when word got around about Iceland, deposits poured in from Britain — some $1.8 billion. Unfortunately, though, when global credit markets closed up, and the krona fell, “the Icelandic banks were unable to finance their debts, many of which were denominated in foreign currencies,” The Times reported. When depositors rushed to get their money out, the Icelandic banking system had too little reserves to cover withdrawals, so all three banks melted down and were nationalized.

It turns out that more than 120 British municipal governments, as well as universities, hospitals and charities had deposits stranded in blocked Icelandic bank accounts. Cambridge alone had about $20 million, while 15 British police forces — from towns like Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Lancashire — had roughly $170 million frozen in Iceland, The Telegraph reported. Even the bobbies were banking in Iceland!

So think about it: Some mortgage broker in Los Angeles gives subprime “liar loans” to people who have no credit ratings so they can buy homes in Southern California. Those flimsy mortgages get globalized through the global banking system and, when they go sour, they eventually prompt banks to stop lending, fearful that every other bank’s assets are toxic, too. The credit crunch hits Iceland, which went on its own binge. Meanwhile, the police department of Northumbria, England, had invested some of its extra cash in Iceland, and, now that those accounts are frozen, it may have to reduce street patrols this weekend.

And therein lies the central truth of globalization today: We’re all connected and nobody is in charge.

Globalization giveth — it was this democratization of finance that helped to power the global growth that lifted so many in India, China and Brazil out of poverty in recent decades. Globalization now taketh away — it was this democratization of finance that enabled the U.S. to infect the rest of the world with its toxic mortgages. And now, we have to hope, that globalization will saveth.

The real and sustained bailout from the crisis will happen when the strong companies buy the weak ones — on a global basis. It’s starting. Last week, Credit Suisse declined a Swiss government bailout and instead raised fresh capital from Qatar, the Olayan family of Saudi Arabia and Israel’s Koor Industries. Japan’s Mitsubishi bank bought a stake in Morgan Stanley, possibly rescuing it from bankruptcy and preventing an even steeper decline in the Dow. And Spain’s Banco Santander, which was spared from the worst of this credit crisis by Spain’s conservative banking regulations, is purchasing America’s Sovereign Bankcorp.

I suspect we will soon see the same happening in industry. And, once the smoke clears, I suspect we will find ourselves living in a world of globalization on steroids — a world in which key global economies are more intimately tied together than ever before.

It will be a world in which America will not be able to scratch its ear, let alone roll over in bed, without thinking about the impact on other countries and economies. And it will be a world in which multilateral diplomacy and regulation will no longer be a choice. It will be a reality and a necessity. We are all partners now.

YouTube Founder Compares Online Video To Nascent TV Market

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/16/youtube-founder-compares-online-video-to-nascent-tv-market/

by Michael Arrington on October 16, 2008

YouTube Cofounder Chad Hurley spoke at the MIPCOM Conference in Cannes, France yesterday.

In the talk, which is transcribed below, Hurley compares the current state of online video to the nascent years of television. In 1941, he says, “CBS has just launched its new television network amidst cries that it means the death of radio.” Advertisers were hard to come by. Content owners were afraid of alienating their existing audiences. etc.

A Brave New World - The Future of Managing Content

I would like to share with you a quick story that many of you may already know.

A small group of innovators introduce a new technology that has the ability to entertain and engage people on a massive scale. Advertisers willing to risk money on this untested platform are hard to come by. Content owners are reluctant to embrace it for fear of alienating their existing audiences. And experts hail this new platform as signaling the demise of another.

As some of you may have guessed, this is not only the story of YouTube. The year is 1941, nearly 70 years ago, and CBS has just launched its new television network amidst cries that it means the death of radio.

From the printing press to the blog, from the record player to the iPod, and from the stage to the home theater, the way content has been produced, distributed and consumed in the world is constantly evolving.

The challenges we face today are not new. Today, my keynote kicks off the digital portion of this conference. I would argue that the difference between this part and the part that preceded it is semantics. We are all - digital or otherwise - confronting the same challenges and we should all be searching together for common solutions. We must embrace this new chapter, as those that came before us embraced theirs 67 years ago.

The digital age has brought with it great change and great challenges; to some it brings the goal of global content distribution closer. For others it represents a loss of control and maybe the loss of a business model. As this era accelerates – as content moves from controlled to distributed, as we migrate from a single platform delivery model to multi-platform delivery, as the world changes around us – we need to ask ourselves: can and will we adapt to this new paradigm? Are we the drivers of change, or will change drive us?

I am here to say that we want to continue to be your partner. We want to continue to work with you – the content owner – to make smarter, more informed decisions about managing and distributing your content. Many of you have already recognized the power of online digital distribution. Companies like CBS, the BBC, HBO, Sony BMG, North One and AFP just to name a few, have already joined us. In fact, yesterday we announced a major partnership with RAI, one of Europe’s biggest broadcasters. Italians have been passionately embracing our platform, discussing current affairs and enjoying performances from local talent. With RAI on board, users will be able to watch some of the most popular professional Italian content on their computer screens. And today, we are happy to announce a partnership with European powerhouse Panini. We look forward to working with both companies to provide the online content their audiences are demanding.

For those of you wary of this new, decentralized distribution model, understand that the technology exists to give you the control you need. And by opening your content to digital distribution, as so many content providers have already done, you gain unprecedented reach and scope to touch new audiences around the world, anywhere and anytime. If you embrace this opportunity, you will evolve your business model and find new channels and opportunities to deepen engagement, discover new viewers and find new, substantial revenue opportunities.

Ultimately, we all need to embark on this journey together. We cannot retreat from technological advances. Even if YouTube didn’t exist, other platforms would surely be driving this change.

There was a time when a centralized distribution model was relevant and effective. But if you listen to your audience; if you hear what they are telling you; you will understand that the days of the centralized distribution hub are ending. Your audience – today’s consumers – want access to content on PCs, TVs, mobile phones and social networking pages. And contrary to what some believe, the internet doesn’t take viewers away from traditional broadcast. As the President of NBC Research told the New York Times a few months back: “The Internet hardly cannibalizes; it actually fuels interest.” In fact, reacting to a recent Forrester study focused on engaged viewers of online video, executives from ABC, CBS and MTV all agreed that online video was adding to their total viewership rather than taking away from it. So the question before you today is: do you circle ranks and push back against the surge of change? Or, do you open yourselves to the promise and possibilities of globalized content everywhere at anytime on any device?

This world may appear chaotic, but it can be harnessed to your advantage if you’re willing to think outside the single platform delivery model. We need to continue to work together and find ways to open your content to the world, and do so with the standards, protections and strategy in place that gives you control and satisfies your audiences. Opening your distribution will give you a greater presence than ever before. And you will be able to manage your content in a way that generates new channels of revenue and taps into emerging and explosive markets, in the same way that companies like CBS and RCA, under the leadership of visionaries like David Sarnoff, did so many decades ago.

This new world is not without its challenges. The concerns that some of you have are very real. Does digital distribution mean that you lose control? What about the quality of online content?

Does the digital distribution model make sense? These are all valid and familiar questions.

The truth is that the long-anticipated convergence of TV and the computer is happening faster than anybody predicted. It’s happening now. Let’s look at just a few data points on this:

- Around 10 billion videos are viewed monthly online in the U.S. alone
- On YouTube 13 hours of content are uploaded every minute
- The number of people consuming video on their PCs is higher than ever before
- In France over 120 million hours of video content is watched per month while over 3 million mobile phone subscribers use their phone to view a video

So online video is here to stay and evolving faster and in more dynamic ways than anyone imagined, even a few years ago. As for the business questions: the market potential of online video distribution may be in its early stages, but it’s here and growing fast.

- The online video advertising market is set to be worth over a billion dollars by 2010, will reach over $3 billion by 2012, and over $5 billion by 2013

People want solutions for searching, discovering, watching, and interacting with video. And you, as content providers, are looking for new audiences and new revenue channels. Given these demands, how can we take advantage of this massive market opportunity?

Let’s recognize that video captures the visceral, dynamic quality in life and shares it with the world. This has driven YouTube’s exponential growth in the last two years. Again, 13 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. That’s the equivalent of Hollywood releasing more than 57,000 full-length movies every week. Hundreds of millions of people come to YouTube every month to search, discover and share this content with their friends.

For you, the content owners, online video provides big opportunities across the 4 Rs: Reach, Research, Revenue, and Rights Management

First, online video provides massive and targeted reach to hundreds of millions of viewers. And we’re making those videos and communities even easier to discover. Online video also provides content owners with an opportunity to extend their brand, reach new consumers, and tap new revenue opportunities, which I’ll discuss later. For this group, online video provides the benefit of longer viewer engagement with greater frequency across multiple channels.

In August of this year the International Olympic Committee launched nine Channels on YouTube. Through our platform, the IOC offered this year’s Summer Olympic Games to a truly global audience across 78 territories in Asia, Africa and the Middle East for the first time in Olympic history. Hundreds of millions of people around the world were able to engage and experience the Olympics online, many of whom never had never had the opportunity to see the Games on their televisions. All of this took place while NBC, the broadcaster that owned the rights to the Olympics in the US, effectively used our Video ID technology to monitor and quickly block copyrighted Olympic content uploaded to the site.

Second, research provides a new breed of analytic tools that dive into who, why and where your content is being watched.

The products and features being developed by online video providers continue to evolve. For example, the American rock bank Weezer launched their music video “Pork and Beans” on YouTube resulting in over 4 million views in just two days. Using our sophisticated analytics tool, the band was able to then get an in-depth look at the video’s views. This data provided an online focus group of sorts, enabling them to prepare more effective and powerful marketing campaigns. It even helped Weezer understand where their videos were being watched and then plan their upcoming tour.

And third, global distribution and analytics tools give advertisers and content owners fresh channels of revenue on new and existing forms of content. Advertisers want simplicity with reach. Online video does this by combining reach beyond TV, with the targeting, reporting and accountability of sophisticated online advertising tools and analytics. Online video began as a playground for advertisers where they could test ideas, drive brand awareness and create consumer engagement through clever viral video campaigns. In the current economic climate, this platform also provides advertisers with an affordable distribution channel and metrics to help gauge the success of a campaign and drive engagement numbers up.

As some of you may have heard, last week we announced a groundbreaking deal with CBS to test full-length feature programming on YouTube. We also designed a new video player to provide the best possible user experience when watching this long-form content. With nearly 80,000 subscribers in their Channel and 250 million views, CBS has received a strong, positive response from the YouTube community around the quality of its programming. Under the terms of this latest deal, CBS has added more than 80 full-length shows to their Channel, complementing the more than 9,000 short-form videos already available. CBS will be selling its own advertising inventory on YouTube. This arrangement allows CBS to aggregate their ad inventory across the web to increase their reach and levergae the strength of their sales force.

An then there’s the fourth “R”. And I wouldn’t want you to think I’ve forgotten that one. Of course, I’m talking about rights and rights management. From the very beginning, we’ve been committed to working with content owners to make sure YouTube remains a platform for distribution, not unauthorized uploads. In fact, over 300 media companies, including NBC, RAI, Formula One, the Olympics and Lionsgate are using innovative products like YouTube’s Video Identification tool to better manage their presence on our site. Along with the other tools in our Content management system, Video ID helps content owners decide whether to block, promote, or even generate revenue from their content.

The European Commissioner for information, society and media, Vivian Reding, recently hailed YouTube as a great example of how content producers and service providers can work to benefit each other through our Video Identification technology, saying: “The Youtube platform tells the rights owner if his content has been uploaded to Youtube. He then has a choice: leave it up as it is, add advertising - thus monetizing the content- or requesting that the content be taken down.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. And we will remain committed to introducing these types of protections tools in the future.

Ultimately, the online video experience is about empowerment. Consumers of online video are empowered to be their own content programmers, consuming the relevant mix of mass, niche and personal media they demand. Advertisers are empowered through data to better understand and engage with their audiences. And content owners are empowered, through sophisticated identification tools, to control their content and make smart business decisions with their content.

The proliferation of content will continue exponentially. And as methods for uploading, aggregating, personalizing and distributing digital content develop, content owners will find new challenges and business opportunities. Spurred by technological innovation, people are already looking beyond their laptops to upload, customize and distribute content from and to any device.

Video content delivered to mobile devices will open consumers, advertisers and content creators to a world of opportunity. Everything from movie watching and sharing to hyper-targeting and dynamic, interactive, location-relevant ads are emerging within the mobile market. As the Web grows, so will videos’ presence in it. Accelerated by the power of embeddable video, developers will find new, innovative ways to push the boundaries of how ads are served and watched online. And the jump from the desktop to the TV, or the phone to the TV, or the camera to the TV, will all become seamless.

Gaining control of online video content and discovering effective business models are vital not only for our growth, but for our common survival. Online video is already fully integrated into the fabric of the Web – its presence is universal, inspiring and empowering to all that embrace it. In the very near future, the distribution of online video will soon cease to be seen as a threat, but rather as a fundamental distribution solution that can be personalized on desktops, phones and tv’s alike.

Where we are today is not the YouTube era. It is not the digital content era, or the multi-platform era. Where we are today is an extension of the work you have all done, built on the shoulders of CBS, RCA and the other innovators who came before us. There is no old media. There is no new media. There is one media with one common purpose: to inform, move and inspire the world through information, art and entertainment. Together, we can find a solution that will benefit everyone in this ecosystem, from consumers to advertisers to the content owners alike.

Thank you very much.