Finger Food (6) but…It is holiday time, for real!!!!

There we are!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is holiday time, at least for me…The last year has been quite strange, hectic sometimes, some days has been boring to death… However, since the launch (launch??? Isn’t a bit too much??) of this blog I have seen a little community gathering around, and it has been marvelous to see it growing, and it has been surprisingly great to try and write for others, instead of taking notes for my sake only… lots of you already passed this stage, I believe, so you do know what I am telling you now.. still, I felt honored and, why not, pleased to see the interest in 88days..

I will have my 40th birthday tomorrow, then will leave to Japan, where I will spent the next three weeks… it all sounds exciting, and I would like to write about it and keep news rolling, do not know at this stage whether that will be feasible or not, but believe me, you will read about my Japanese adventure pretty soon!!!

In the meanwhile, there are some jewels I may like to share with you:

• You all (male samples..) experienced a quite upset girlfriend claiming your sixpack was transforming into a barrel because of hours spent in front of a gaming session?? Now it is time to put things straight!!! Wii goes to the gym, for the fun and happiness of our entire body!!.. should we say “wow”???
• As it seems here, Vista is doing kind of fine… mind you, those are the results sent by browsers to web servers.. you do the math, here..
• Gosh.. you hit the “send” button a second too early and disaster stroke: boss pissed off by the scorny comments, girlfriend saw those photo you thought you sent to your mates.. and on, and on… Mate, you have been saved by the bell, here!!!! OK, it is not a brand new stuff, but you never know, holidays are such a busy and silly time… it may come handy…
• Africa, the very nest of mankind, is left aside to the evolution we are experiencing today. Internet is little more than a miracle… On the other hand, this situation has little importance when millions are starving.. there is a massive need for real advances, nevermind the Web.. And, please, do not pledge technology will help in sorting out the problem, we may open up a discussion here, but starving to death and having Web potential are not easily liked together, despite the idea of helping poor countries with a “knowledge economy”… dreams are not always what we need to keep going..
• Just get ready first as, quoting a (in)famous saying, s@#t happens!! This should not happen to companies leveraging their Web presence as the main business driver..never too old to learn!!
• And finally.. time to go!!!!

Have some great holidays, or at the very least enjoy yourselves during these weeks!! Thanks to all of you, and to all the special and faraway friends gravitating around this space!!!

Mind the Gap!! The Web, a map, and you…

I believe that, some time ago, we discussed about the role and importance of “shepherds” within the new Web 2.0 environment… that concept has been extended to create the Web 200 Trend map!!

It is funny, tough, that is made upon the intricacies of the Tokyo underground, since I will be there in a matter of days and that assumption does not make me any happier, but is great nonetheless!!!

iA, the Japanese Information Architects group, created the map according to trend lines, and main themes such as Sharing, Main Sites, News, Tools… some biases in putting Baidu and Orkut on the Main Sites line??? SecondLife is farther down the Community line than Hi5, partially cloudy vs. full sunshine…

On top of that, iA stretched itself to forecast the future for each site.. MSN is in a rainy spot, WordPress is shining bright (ehi, there, cheer up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), plus there is also a “usability” ranking, from 0.5 (awful????) to 2.5 (a dream came true???)…

Websurfers are at the center spot….again, the Web is us!!!

Right.. it may be a nice exercise, it may have no scientific value whatsoever, you may disagree with it, but, heck, is a hell of a desktop picture!!!!!!!!!

The Web is us.. damn!!!!

This was nice to read.. For once, there is a massive attack to the social aspect of the Web 2.0, dubbing the whole phenomenon and the new actors as a cyberswamp, which is despite the meaning a tremendous image of the current Internet!!!! ….writers…

However, the whole debate seems to head to the unprofessional status of most Web contributors, bloggers et alia, and Andrew Keen claims

the intellectual quality of what the crowd produces is very low.

I may concede this could also be true… on the other hand, media as a whole (considering that Keen reasoning is about Internet as a “Whole”) are quite arguably producing high value inputs and analysis, cultural advances and critical agoras. I have to stress the proliferation of TV shows for “peepers” such as Big Brother and sons, talk shows the highest point of which is whether someone’s big boobs are a fake or whether someone’s neighbor did such an baaaad thing to sleep with the gardener, I hear every single day politicians demolishing every possible rule of grammar and common sense, newspapers are quite often guided by the nearest interest (political turnaround), critics do critic about something they have never ever experienced (SecondLife is an example a friend is pinpointing here).

So, let’s not trail on that, the official holders of knowledge, the Druids of XXI Century are not really the “professional” I dare say… and “Amateurs”, as he seems to like calling most of Web 2.0 contributors, may actually be exactly that, simple people interested in a subject and willing to write down opinions, BUT:

• you are not obliged to read that stuff;
• if you do and you don’t like it you may want to say something, to the author and to your community (“beware of b@&&@cks…”), thus limiting the news viral spreading;
• you may want also to respond with your immense knowledge and scorn the poor chap;
• if you read it, and it is all utter rubbish, and “since it is on the Web it must be true” is your first thought, then you need serious help and lots of tender loving care (try “rehab from Web pollution” kind of therapy!!)

In a few words, people are left with a brain and some critical attitude as well, we deserve what we get and we may want to trust and believe what is more comfortable with our current train of life events and the environment we live in, however we are always free to challenge, refuse and debate.

And, who knows, should you being not totally “naif” yourself, you may put together so called “experts” vision and the “amateurs” one and come up with your own conclusions… it may be nice, have a go… and we may also want to pay for contents, but who says those very contents are worthwhile? As of today, most often the community, your peers, your trusted acquaintances… the main asset of Web 2.0 is the “power of referral”… have a thought on that.. what is “true” is no longer what someone unknown and lost in a far, far away editorial unit says it is, but what the people I believe in say it may be..

Thus, what is intrinsically interesting about the Web itself and the “social” aspect of Web 2.0 is the potential to gather “another person’s version of the truth” (a selected one, mind you!!! Selected by you, incidentally..) as Keen said, simply to challenge ours, and see whether we are comfortable where we are or else…fair enough, we cannot consider every whiff the forerunner of a massive hurricane.. but to keep steady in your belief you may want to challenge them every now and then, and who knows, maybe there is someone out there able to put us against ourselves…

Despite all wishes and desires, nobody’s got the Holy Grail in his hands, questioning about all aspects in life actually drove evolution and, as it seems, if we have always believed what the establishment told us, we could still trust the Sun was circling the Earth.. it doesn’t, does it?????

Finger Food (5)

There we are.. Friday… Milan is not hot, is actually boiling! Last eve I went to the gym, out at around 9:30pm, temperature was around 34°.. same thing this morning!!! Will then hit the beach once again, diving is on the agenda and have to get ready for the Japan trip, hoping that there are not bad news coming from the East…

In the meanwhile… some nibbly bits!!!!

• China is fighting back!!! Internet is there.. and Chinese surfers surpass the US , so will China system resist??? As it seems, there is only the government’s firewall and controlling practices to stop China to fully mingle with the rest of the Internet world… which is good, to mingle, I mean, isn’t it?
• To keep close with the above… for the third time in its “cavalcata” Google is missing analysts expectations!! And is all about spending money for those bunch of smart engineers… Google hiring frenzy may halt, or we will see the Mountain View behemoth leveraging crowdsourcing someway??? In the meanwhile, GooglePlex may come back on Earth and become a simple corporate HQ rather than an holiday resort for geeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! On the other hand, 58% revenue growth may buy some goodies…
• Ok, the Fox is really running fast!!! And Europe is welcoming it.. what about UK?? (ehehehe.. bad Friday Joke.. just bear with me..)
• Do you need anything else to see a freakin’ TV show??? I did set my mind over buying a large 42″ display for next winter, and now this.. isn’t so hard to be a tech hipster??
• Ok, there is an Ocean between US and EU, but what the heck, RIM could also trust we do business in Europe, and we may need 3G (or better still HSDPA) on a so-called business device… nice tough the new BlackBerry..
• To top that up, it seems that we may have wireless Gigabit transmission in a matter of years.. provided that you, your pc, the wireless card and the whatever-is-called-access-point are all in sight.. right, nice, yep….
• Anyone for a coffeeeeeee???? Italians still do it better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The coffee, I mean.. thks God it’s Friday, isn’t it???
• OK, since I am going swimming this weekend, this would be a marvelous opportunity… SecondLife Recruitment on the beach (real one…)!!! Ok, sea in Brighton was freezing cold in August, when I first went there in ‘96, never been back but considering global warming situation may have changed…. you know, life is not perfect.. or the Second one is??!??!?!?!? In this case, it seems that SL is not only hype, sex and silly things, as we were lately discussing with a friend!!
• And to finish that off, how about this??? Le Cirque is looking for people, not to bounce up and down the ionosphere, but rather to get hold of the technology behind the “magic”…. Geeks, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, do your stuff and get some fun too!!!!!!

The week has also been pestered by the madness about the latest Harry Potter book release (mind you, isn’t so nice to believe in fairies??), BusinessWeek online was thumping about the magic of widgets in Web pages (what????), and YouTube has closed down anything related to young video stars… plus silly things such as spaghetti are heading to a 20% increase in pricing since lots of “durum wheat” cultivations in Italy are transformed into corn fields to support biofuel.. aren’t we a great country??!??!!??!

Have a nice week end you all!! Back on Monday!

Catch me if you can, Redmond!!!!

They said that it nicely uses “context data” from my hard drive to pester me with ad hoc advertising…. huh??? what???? Have you come down stuck in a bad trip????

This is, seemingly, the new patent filed by Microsoft to basically create a powerful ad-machine that deeply interacts (intrudes??) with your PC to collate infos and deliver relevant ads.. so, if I download a chess game and I am quite awful at it, I will nicely receive a communication about chess classes in my area???? And, since I am trying to organise my trip over to Japan (if there is still Japan in a fortnight…) I would be “tsunamied” by ads over sushi bar in Tokyo, fake cheap flight offers, geishas in Kyoto (that may come handy, tough…) and loooots of Hello Kitty gatgets???? Wow.. that’s life…

The app would inspect (quote)

user document files, user e-mail files, user music files, downloaded podcasts, computer settings, computer status messages (e.g., a low memory status or low printer ink)…

So… it will be nice to know that every single step of your online life is closely monitored, “bigbrothered” for the sake of selling you stuff… I trust that there is very little consideration for privacy, freedom of choice, boundaries et alia… also, I am actually wandering, ad to spouse the closing line of the article, how this could possibly become a reality, and if so, how long will it take for customers to find and pay a tech geek to hack the pc, disembowel it all and get rid of that “alien” thing inside…

And, above and beyond that, it seems to me that the present success of the entire “internet” and technology thing comes also from the (false???) idea that if not in real life you could be kind of free in cyberspace (ok, little or no difference between the two, as a brand new friend of mine actually pointed out in this thread) and now what? Are we really sure that “information overload” is not an issue? Ads overload is not an issue?? Buy, buy, buy, buy.. someone may get bored after all.. I haven’t bought a single item at Summer sales, since thanks Whatever God I do not need things, I do not get interested in useless things (useless to me, at least), and most of all I feel urged to run the race to sales, you “have” to go for it…. do come along, folks!!!!!!!!!

Are we really thinking about Matrix like scenarios? My needs are, strangely enough, mine, and I trust I want to deal with those when I feel the need to, without someone (someone??? something….) else suggestions…

Is it really so necessary to have everything, immediately, at your doorstep, as to save time (do you remember that thing about the fridge connected to the Web and ordering for you..) … save time… time is the new luxury item, just control your own and use it as you like, also to run down to the nearest pc shop to buy cartridges for your printer, if you really must, and have a chat with the people there… there is a life outside silicium, you know… And it’s mine to play with!

Life is about a long (longish…) journey, the unexpected is its salt, the icing on the cake, and how you deal with it may contribute to determine how good a human being you are, you cannot control everything’s happening and, more so, you should not allow anyone else to do it for you.. ok, getting over weird territories here, still… CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE: speaking of ads, guess you should be aware of this.. you never know, sometimes ads may get in the way, results to advertisers could not be the expected ones…….

(text in Italian, but images are worth thousands of words, aren’t they??)

Alexandria lives in wires..

Some of you already know about the meaning of “88days”.. and thus you know how significant is the entire idea of “library” in my life..

The inception of the Open Library project (demo here) quite clearly opens up a storm of debates, ideas, opinions… Someone is already concerned that this will add to information complexity (links, links, more links???) as it sort of duplicates other efforts, such as GoogleBooks (oh, please…) or Project Gutenberg, others are pointing out the ambition of the Open Library, that is to collate all books and publications in the World (put it in simplistic terms..) plus user generated infos/data.. Users will also be able to download eCopies of books, find bookstores to buy the physical copy, compare pricing and so forth..

Metadata will be handled via futurelib standard (interested?? Here!! you geeks…) and wiki structures will be also used to “manipulate” them..

OK.. it is all a huge tech environment, a massive cooperative work, a super-wiki effort, but you know what?? I love the idea to have the entire (if ever..) production of human intellect (genius and not-so-exceptional..) in a place, is just tremendous..

Now, if you could ever “mashup” that with a metaverse platform, that would be an amazing experience, Alexandria back to life (fine, above and beyond the real one.. ah, joke, that’s Google amazing algorithm playing tricks..get over here…).. or we rather stick to SL virtual topless bar????

You are better than this, aren’t you?????

SecondLife: now that’s silly…

My latest post was about SL being slightly trashed by media since its tech structure is no longer an experience but a pain, that the entire thing is loosing business momentum and so forth..

Now this is .. what?? Silly?!?!?!?!?! Your immense virtual world shrinking the size of a say 3-inches screen (or about..)?? To do what??? A mobile SL experience???

Mind you, if this is pretty much along the line of something I read some time ago, pointing out that metaverses, including SL, are avatar-based substitutes of email and instant messaging, now that would make a lot of sense… maybe “a lot” is rather strong, it makes some sense..

So, the entire thing would somewhat turn from being the future of us all into a massive, glittery communication platform, quite interactive indeed?? An immense client base???

That’s a thought..

SecondLife, the awakening?

I will go back and drag out some older posts (such as this, and this, also) … there is a weird little elf wandering around the world, and particularly in the IT and “innovation” (bleah….) environments, called Hype.

Hype is seldom nice, more often is quite annoying, since it goes jumping around and playing with unwary people, teasing them, luring them, to end up twirling away in a laugh, leaving behind a bunch of bewildered spectators.

Hype played quite recently and hard with a streetcar called SecondLife, convincing the entire world that SL was the Arcadia, a newly born Atlantis, the Mountains of the Moon and the Kublai Kahn palace all in one go… and party-goers, adventurers, smart (ahahaha!!!) business men and a plethora of curious and most diverse people embarked in a long journey to the new holy land of endless possibilities..

The “endless” quickly became “numerous”, to mutate into “quite a lot” and shift over the “some” realm … and Hype was already laughing…

Then, as it seems, it came the dawn of all this. Lights over the shadow, clearness over the murky fog Hype casted all over the place.. SL is not the next world, it is not the place to be to make your business flowing with money, it is a great idea that made some people filthy rich and others quite sleepy ’cause of “white” nights spent in sorting out how to fly or what to wear or how big “that” should have been…

To cut it short, an Italian online magazine is quoting the Los Angeles Times (of which I am not a subscribers, therefore no data…) in saying that SecondLife is loosing business appeal, some ventures are selling their empty virtual spaces (a new specimen of “Void” seems to have found SL a nice place to inhabit) and going back to “business as usual”.. lindendollars exchanged are dropping a bit, users or “residents” are not as much as thought or boasted and, most of all, it seems that the awareness of SecondLife being a huge fairground is back into full swing!! Data or further links will possibly follow..

Rightly said, SL is a fantasy world, and users/resident want to mainly do fantasy things.. which is fair, since the very first definition of all this was belonging to the Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG… what the heck…cannot even say that, nevermind playing it..) kingdom!! And, incidentally, it seems that there are a plethora of new places to be (almost like those happy hours bars in Milan..) such as There, Entropia Universe, and even a spectacular (who said that???) Barbie Girls!! Plus guests…

It is also fair to assume that, given the work and good job Hype did nonetheless, the business environment but even more the social space and interaction may have a boost from the First SecondLife (are we going mad here??) and transform some experiences into an even more interesting mashup of things (e.g. Google Earth and the possibility to mash it up with SL features so to dive into a place/city/museum/park/whatever and enjoy it..) and thus end users experience.

But, please, leave our wallets to rest in peace and let us fly over the Grand Canyon, much appreciated, thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE. Incidentally, this came with the mail.. Time is not liking SL at all.. pathetic seems harsh, as the final comments about “CEO trying too hard to be hip..” but guess it may be kind of true.. no names…

China…bloated, blasted or booming?? Or controlled…??

In a recent BusinessWeek article, China has been finger pointed as …what, indeed? A bloated economy, a blasted opportunity already or, yet, a booming system?

I believe it is about a mix of all three, for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, you may teach me that “economy” is not a one-man band show, but it is a systemic condition and a set of actions, distributed evenly across the social system and the resources portfolio, to foster balanced and sustainable growth and wealth. Now, as it seems, the fast forward mode the Chinese economy has taken since a few years has completely forgot about the above, leaving behind significant parts of the system, both physical (e.g. the inner mainland, the quality control system, the financial canvass….) and cultural (aka laws and regulations, some sort of ethics.. as Westerners could say something about it, but nevermind..) to make the growth a systemic condition, thus a de facto and furthermore sustainable overtime.

What you see is not what you get, in case of China, it is rather what you believe you see is what you always wanted to get…

Secondly, it is important to notice that the surge of such an economic powerhouse, or whatever it is considering the above statements, has a massive impact over the geopolitical balances of the influenced area. Now this is interesting, since that bit of Far East has always been one of the most interesting counterparts of the US global power display, leveraging masses of people, a rather effective cultural approach to any given challenge, pretty much able to respond to the Calvinist US approach to life in general, since the respect and worship of a “higher” something (emperor, the party, the hierarchy, the company…) moved masses of energy and people in one coordinated direction. Now, that power is somewhat challenged by “modernity”, and I believe that Internet (May the Google be with you!!!! No, thanks anyway…) is playing a massive role as a “propaganda” machine that undermines the oneness of such societies, thus minimising their inertia. US may somewhat rejoice???? Open to arguments, here.

Loosing inertia, loosing momentum does favor a weaker geopolitical influence and strategy effectiveness, since the other leverage, economy, is linked to the above, and war is (thanks Whatever God) no longer a viable option (at least not in such a format that can impact the entire Far East area…).

Still, China may have been overrated or badly analysed in a systemic fashion not to preclude the “new kid on the block” kind of effect, and it may have not entirely exploited its geopolitical role (yet), but it definitely remains a factor and an opportunity. A factor because its very existence causes an interesting turmoil on a plethora of different subjects, from energy global strategy (what will keep the Chinese engine work? Middle East oil?? Boff, although Iraqis may need some cash to exploit their seemingly spectacular oil fields, but what about the Marines???…African and other bad-boys countries one??? Maybe so…Gas from the Asian plains?? Not considering the infrastructure plans apt to move gas from east westward.. Nuclear??? What to see that at UN council…Coal??? What about the entire planet getting pissed off???) to financial equilibrium (Chinese cash is still financing a good quarter of the US debt, isn’t it??? And Western financial institutions are buying shares of Chinese banks, right?) to cultural standpoints for the next millennium (that 1.6-whatever billion people may have a saying on culture, poetry, literature, science or not????).

I am thus curious to see the evolution of all this, and although we kept it to a small-scale bar (pub, for some of the AngloSaxons amongst you) chat, thus inaccurate in its details, yet there is a lethal weapon the “rest of the world” may use to hinder and guide the evolution into a giant with feet of clay: well distributed amount of power and a dollar rain in the right pockets.

That will stop every evolution.

Fullstop.

UPDATE. About the opportunity thing,  guess it is all down to the fact that, to be part of a club, you need the most appropriate outfit and gear… that the club itself does produce… you make the math and get over the details….

Green is the next black????

Ok, we saw Al making movies, we heard nice music for 24hrs in a row, from all over the planet, we start thinking about all those plastic bottles in our waste, we care.

These guys, and lots others, are actually using the Power of Web 2.0 and social networking to raise the point, or the bar, whatever they want to raise…

As usual, I tend to be slightly argumentative: I haven’t read anything about how do they make the site eco-friendly, how “green” is the IT behind the show, whether they thought about it or not, whether this all brand new net-world we are all creating, travelling, surfing we believe comes for free or, rather, has got a price in IT polluting potential and we know it… just consider all facets, before trumpeting around pointlessly, simply washing up consciences here and there ..

Ah, btw, welcome back to work.. 38° outside..

Finger food (4)

 There we are, time is passing at warp-speed and Friday is again flashing on your agenda, so let’s keep up with the Joneses and there it is, Friday Finger Food!!!!

• It is not even on and iPhone has already got its nice helping of security troubles!!! How lovely is this???
• Using SecondLife to put in good shape the FirstLife?? wow… everyone’s care about the Planet today, regardless the fact that up until yesterday most of the green-people were thinking about something else driving a SUV…
• Google helps Arsenio Lupin!!! This is absolutely fantastic!! I love creativity, and these guys should be hired as “crisis managers”!!!
• Me, myself and I.. nevermind the social networks, it is all about the individual.. Guess we already spoke about the Net being a huge mashup of 1.3 billion pieces..
• And, whilst I play with myself, Google plays with the entire social ecosystem, trying another hyper-controller/aggregator/disassembler/reassembler/whatever you may call it.. (sorry, link in Italian but, if you are interested, just Google about Google.. it may cause a crack in Web time-space, who knows!!!)
• OK, some of us may be getting slightly oldish, for others this does not ring any bell, however Commodore is back!! There have been rumors for ages.. pretty good step up from those 64k…
• Happy birthday to youuuu, happy birthday dear Virus, happy birthday toooooooo youuuuuuuu!!!! Our beloved friend, the PC virus, is growing into adulthood, turning its 25!!!!

That’s all for today.. plenty of other silly news, from ISPs pledging innocence on the contents flying over their wires, to a likely WiFi capability on Zune and iPod, Pamela Anderson on SL supporting PETA, and other absurdities …

Milan is back on the 30° spot, sun is shining and I will hit the beach once again in a matter of hours, despite the horrendous traffic in  and out the city, and will start planning for my gift-list, my birthday is getting closer… and are not 25!!!!!

Have fun, back on Monday!!

The Instanbul Declaration: measuring progress..

This is really interesting..

In Instanbul the OECD and a number of international organisation have gathered and came out with some directions on how to foster and support the progress of societies leveraging data and information..

Broadly speaking, the Declaration should improve amongst countries the data sharing of a range of indicators, from wealth to healthcare to climate changes, as to improve knowledge and cater for better and more efficient policy making procedures. Also, some ideas and suggestions point into the usage of Web 2.0 tools such as wikis as to improve and enlarge citizens participation into the whole process.

So, the actual digital divide is the issue to tackle now, otherwise the above scenario is a nice bunch of lovely ideas.. OK, for once I do not want to play the devil’s advocate, so kudos to the above initiative, pretty cool if some “information ivory towers” come tumbling down…

Let’s see.. an ancient rule is about rich being richer and poor poorer overtime, but who knows, things may change…

Urban Indiana Jones anyone???

I trust that all of us at some stage in childhood had really believed that there was a map, an ancient piece of paper, discolored by aging, with hints and riddles and tortuous winding paths leading you to a treasure… that was so beautifully romantic, those children believing there was adventure ahead of everyday life, just waiting..

As it seems, the treasure today is the closest retailer/bar/restaurant/rubbish seller nearby your one-square-meter spot in an unspecified city somewhere around the world (if you are a lucky traveler..), and the only aging you are dealing with is about your mobile phone that may not be able to make the most out of the new Google Map mashups!!!!!!!

What about the marvelous  feeling you have inside when you are in a brand new place, completely at your disposal to discover.. and you start wandering around, you meet people,and  mutter some words in a strange language you have learned the basics of, just to see whether you are able to find the nearest loo or you rather go and hit the park… I love being lost, and see what happens…

However, quite understandably the evolution of G-Maps into a super powerful mashup leaves open a wealth of opportunities and creative ideas..

I wonder… do you reckon that map thing will show you all the lampposts in the street you are walking about with your nose stuck down over the screen of your latest, tremendously expensive smart phone??

Or you just “turn left” and smash your head so badly into that infamous and technologically invisible lamppost  you desperately need the nearest hospital??!?!?! And, eureka, you start patting yourself on the back, since you bought that phone, installed the maps mashup and the rest, or otherwise, how could you possibly know the whereabouts of an hospital in an unknown city???

Gosh, how lucky you are…

Nanotech will free us!!

At least nanotech may actually free us from that plethora of overpaid, illiterate and always-complaining-and-moaning human beings called “football players”, in the name of which we commit the most atrocious and quite often hilarious silliness.

At Georgia Tech campus the first World Tournament of NanoSoccer (or whatever you may call it..), played by “footballers” six times smaller than an amoeba. For those of you that have never mastered a science class ’till the end of high school, an amoeba is tiny, real small, above and beyond midgets, a living fraction!!!!! The Tournament clarified that, after Alinghi in the America’s Cup and Federer at Wimbledon, this is the Swiss time (ehehehehe, time, swiss… ok, stupid joke..). There is a nice video here, and for the very interested and highly numerate amongst us, here some details!!

Beside the obvious jokes, of which I will not give you any hints, here we have a massive breathrough in terms of possibility and applications in manufacturing industry and biotech.. which incidentally seems to be the industry of the future to look at. A little twitch in this idyllic scenario is the Doctor Strangelove attitude of some human beings that make me think we may actually not go at all to the realm of the “creation” or anything as such… however, should the human being behave properly, this is a tremendous opportunity to solve few issues:

1. someone said nanotech would make an ally over curing some distruptive diseases (almost like you manipulate an army at your will to destroy “bad cells” and “enemies” most horrid);
2. secondly, we may have a decent TV programming on a Sunday evening since all those stupid football commenters should not be able to utter a word about nanotech..

Above and beyond that, this all amazes me, mankind is such an interesting bunch of creativity and genius is a shame it should all end up thanks to a self inflicted 6° Earth overheating ….

A game is a game…

You do remember the hype generated by the announcement regarding the launch of the new PlayStation 3??

The sleek, ultra powerful gaming machine attracted everyone’s attention, tons of lines of blogging and ePress were spent in chanting the praise of the Japanese miracle drug for gamers. It could do everything, and someone said even Starbucks was kind of worried PS3 could have prepared a better Frappuccino (which, to an Italian, is a nonsense..frappuccino…what the heck…). (This is a Joke, btw….) (Just in case you were wandering how did happen you missed the news about “starbucks and the PS3″..).

On a day in early July 2007, in a far far away galaxy, Sony decided to cut down its hefty PS3 starting price by a nice 17% (which, again to an Italian, is not such a lucky number to choose, thus we expect a worse turnaround of Sony’s gaming consolle fate…), for anything else but a competitive move to counterattack the Nintendo Wii.

Now, this is a HUGE lesson to learn.

Nintendo Wii, you all know, is not the most powerful, the fastest, the anything -est in the gaming consolle market, is just simple, almost basic graphics compared to PS3 and Xbox, but utterly simple fun to enjoy!!

Simple, fun. Not powerful, fast. Simple, fun. That’s it.

Wii also boasts that sort of harrypotterish magic wand to play tricks with, so you can master whatever game without being a Indu goddess with eight arms and hands and an incredible number of fingers… you don’t have to master lots of different controls, you just play, and possibly enjoy. End. Period.

Now, that sounds to me very much like the answer of the marketplace to a “gaming overload”. Lesson to be learned: bigger is not always better, nor it is an automatic market success. Translate that into the Web 2.0 kingdom, and you may find yourself with some nice answers to questions that were puzzling you ever since you first heard “secondlife” or “myspace”… (where you really all that puzzled?? Sad, too sad mate, get out, sun is shining!!!). Being a Critical User (as in an older posting of mine) means to be able to make informed choices, and most of all it means you will not be carried away by hypes..

It is not all set, people are smarter than 2.0 gurus, and life is still made by emotions, people, fun and laughter, not by bytes only!!! Beware!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE: reading through the article, and still they don’t get it.. it is not a matter of pricing, the guy playing Wii IS NOT the guy playing PS3, those are two different user experiences!!

Walls are tumbling down.. and someone doesn’t like it!!!

We all know that the innovation, no, better still, the evolution of the Web environment (innovation is boring..) towards the 2.0 ecosystem is basically referring to the “socialisation” of the Web and the enabling of content/info creation/sharing and distribution by users. Also, lots and lots of the power clustering that currently make up the economy canvass may actually be challenged by the empowerment of individuals.. that is simplistically put, but there we are..

Enterprise are also scared, as it seems in this article, by the loss of power centrality the 2.0 ecosystem may actually causes. That would have been normal should the comment refers to, say, less Web-developed countries, but not the US!! Still, it allows for some after-thoughts, first of all that we all live surrounded by an old oligarchic system that is desperately trying to put back all the stones coming down from tumbling walls. Question is: are we going to allow them to exhaust in the effort and thus simply disappear or are we helping them out instead???

I rather go for the second option, since the first may take quite a longer time (survival instinct may do a great deal, here..), that meaning that the unstoppable growth of a different ecosystem should be also supported by a much higher awareness level of the inappropriateness of walled gardens and closed circuit efforts, in favor of a more “communal” approach to market growth and best practice sharing.

It is rather common knowledge the fact that the usual markets are kind of stressed out, and we are all in dire needs of new territories to explore.. and in these New Worlds the 2.0 concepts are more easily accepted (green field approach), thus setting the entry pace: either you accept it or you are out. Since there are options, since there is no such a thing as a monopoly offering, since the World is unarguably ONE. Market, place to live, place to share. Take it or leave it.

Finger Food (3)

Friday!!! Finally…. Milan is steaming with around 30° and is barely passed 10am, the weekend ahead looks promising, weather reports are solidly on the “fair” and, hopefully, I should be able to hit the coast, go swimming and do some trail running over some hills in Liguria…

Nevermind that, it is also about time for your weekly helping of “finger food”, so there we are:

• The fox hit Seattle!! Firefox has overtaken IE .. OK, over the O’Reilly site accesses, still, it is nice to know and, as Tim said in his post (see down the line..) quite often O’Reilly readers are “good predictors..”.. we will see, still kudos to Mozilla!!!
• What about my hut on the beach??? As it seems, hi tech homes are on the boom side.. hope there won’t be issues with electromagnetic fields at the end of the road.. nevertheless, I rather have my hut on a South Asian beach, maybe with Internet access as to have early tsunami warnings.. nothing’s perfect on Earth, you know…
• Europeans want it bigger??? Nanotech in Europe is as floppy as a potato souffleé when you open up the oven to check whether it grows properly… problem is the usual one, we want to play with the big guys and we are not as fit as they are (read: venture capital..).. right, let’s stick with the use of nanoparticles for hairconditioning, that’s a mankind advance we can’t really overlook, can we???
• Social networks are different… that’s something we needed to know badly!! So MySpace and FaceBook are hitting different user clusters and may actually survive in cyberspace nicely together… so what?????? My guess is they are both “old”, you cannot do anything meaningful on either but trying to be the next Whomever kind of famous.. like playing at the Lottery every Saturday.. unless you have a couple of nice boobs.. ok, unfair and politically awful comment.. still… not very far from the target, isn’t it???
• A clear message to the car industry.. how to cut down CO2 emission.. have you seen the mess happening yesterday for the actual launch of the new FIAT 500??? 7 (some insiders say 12…) million spent for an event looking like the opening of the Olympics, and you believe they care??? Nice one, mate, nice one…
• First European Virtual World conference, to be held in London next October.. tremendously good location, down in some of Soho’s back streets there are pretty nice virtual worlds already.. still, that sounds like a not-to-be-missed event.. will see..
• Love this one!! Egosurfing!!! Mind you, it is weird the guy gets so surprised about that.. employers do google you before any hiring attempts, I have been headhunted for a job post in Dubai because of (or thanks to..) Google, so what’s the story??? It is nonetheless a nice one.. have you ever googlefighted against your boss??? EHEHEHEHEH, do it.. EgoBrushing, EgoPampering, call it whatever you may like!!!!
• And this is just nice to look at!! Ol’ times.. beware MacBook!!! …joking.. buying one sparkling white MacBook next week, mind you…

Right.. time to work the next couple of hours off and hit the road to the nearest beach!!

Have a great weekend, all of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

iPhone Uncovered…

This is the iPhone Uncovered…

Mossberg from Wall Street Journal had the thingy for a couple of weeks..

Now, I want to have UMTS on it or, better still, HSDPA connectivity, and a all-inclusive flat tariff from whomever is going to lock in a long term contract with Apple.. after all, the iPhone has got everything in it, can do everything, why putting the hassle of thinking about the amount of money you spend whilst browsing, interacting, blogging and doing all the other silly stuff you can do with over 100 grams of plastic, aluminum and silicon put together quite nicely indeed?!?!?!?!

IT, eGovernment and how easy it is to be ridiculous!

Supposedly, Italy is amongst the most advanced countries on Earth. Despite this is a quite debatable argument, there we are.

I believe that, also given the example of some Nordic countries and AngloSaxon dependencies across the world, a well developed country also boasts a superior Public Administration system. This is such a “needless to say” statement that I feel ashamed in writing it down, yet it is fundamental since Italy hasn’t got such a basic feature!

Nevertheless, we have a strong Information Technology system in place, or at least a humongous one, fairly expensive and cumbersome, according to new information coming directly from the “IT arm” of the government. Or whatever CNIPA does for a living..

For all non-Italian speakers, it seems that we have a server armory as large as 10 football pitches, that is 1.033 data centers, 31 mainframes, 9.600 application servers and 7.300 IT professionals serving it, and this also accounts for a yearly expenditure of 450 million Euros. Quite a bit.

Whereas it could be referred at as a truly ridiculous amount of money, energy and efforts if you also consider that the entire ecosystem has been dubbed as “insecure” (I bet..), in dare need of rationalisation (really????) and personnel qualification. That is. ALSO, it is very interesting to notice that all those servers are actually gathering very sensitive information about citizens and public infrastructure, and all those information are not secure in terms of privacy, are easily printable and distributable, and as an old journalist research made in the Rome Public Court offices and premises, infos are scattered to the millions all over the place (literally, in boxes…), and you can easily read about court judgments, personal files, bank accounts, divorce causes and whatever else.. (Google for a “la Repubblica”journalist inquiry in the Rome Court of Justice..)

That is also because we tend to skip the use of electronic communication highways (with all that stuff in place?????? gosh..), and we do print a ridiculous amount of paper, most definitely rubbish that goes into the bin in the first hour of its life on this planet. It has been calculated that, putting together public and private offices, Italians produce something like 50 billion printed pages a year that go down the drain, as said, in the first 60′ from printing, that equals to almost one billion Euro lost (€1bn.. ) and 1 million trees disintegrated to print out a huge stack of droppings.. Say that, roughly, that also accounts for a 3 to 5-6% of a standard “Financial Law” in Italy.. that amount on wasted paper that could be avoided to withdraw from anywhere else, this including my wage, to put public accounts in good shape..

Now, we are not talking here about a “digital divide” but rather “cultural chasm” that needs to be addressed at lightning speed, at least to defend ourselves from being totally ridiculous when we boast conferences about INNOVATION, about eGOVERNMENT, and we go hours and hours delirating about SecondLife and Web 2.0.. we haven’t even sorted out properly, as a country, the First Life, and Web 1.0, please do come along…

Also, that is a huge waste of public money, a disintegration of private profits, this without considering the massive wound inflicted to the planet, nevermind Kyoto….

Control freak!!!!!!!!!

Google goes shopping!

Altogether, this sounds like another move of the Fantastic Duo to increase the impact of the company over critical areas of corporate and customer lives. Control is everything, mankind has been obsessed with control since … ever, to come to that, and thus here we are!!

Google organises everything, like an obsessed butler, from news to images to email in nice threads, to anything that can be boxed and restored at will. Now is about time of all your communication numbers, as if all of us had plenty of numbers and such busy and important lives as not to miss a call, or a conversation or whatever else..

I remember to have read that something like three quarters of calls are actually about the Big Nothing, useless blurbs, meaningless use of words, and above and beyond that timing was not really an issue for those calls.. so, what’s all this fuss about???

And, furthermore, why on earth all this control-freak stuff???? Are we really liking the fact that we are always connected, always available, always ready, always always always…

What about my time?

Do you remember a very recent adv from BMW? Are you still able to loose yourself?

Nice thought, isn’t it??

And, by the way, we are NOT able to control everything, and efforts in this directions are fruitless.. but we know that already, don’t we??!?!?

Ol’ days finally ended, time to move on…

You all know you cannot follow everything and everyone… so it didn’t strike me until today and by utter chance that mid May my old employer Datamonitor was bought by Informa..

Do you believe me that this is a very emotional news altogether? Datamonitor was my first step in the market research and consulting industry, it was my first real job in London and it is about the very starting point of all I do represent today, for myself and for a bunch of very, very important people (important to me at least).

It is something like the final curtain over a time that is no longer, over my favorite bits of life, over a lots of things that are set deep into myself.. that was the place I used to go back when reality was somewhat unpleasant, when you had to dig for a little sparkle of energy, that was the place of my most precious treasures.

So, that is finally closed, at least in real terms, that London is no longer there, time to move on. But I will have another bit of stuff to carry on. Bag is a little bit heavier, today.

Am I allowed to say that I am sad?

Ease and beauty

Finally… I must say that I haven’t slept nicely for quite a while, but now my nights will be heavenly again…

Apple launched, shops received, people bought the fab iPhone, and as it seems in pretty good numbers!

My question is: so what? I mean, it is a sleek piece of tech, a nice device, pretty cool features, nice software and the usual Apple fashion inside out, yet it may not change anyone’s life.. is a bloody phone after all!!

Now, seriously, this will help the overall industry in any way? Maybe yes. Will it become the new success Stevie may have under his belt, aka brand new iPod big bro? Maybe not. Will it speed some services adoption? Possibly. Thing is operators should pretty much understand the ease of a flat tariff, the beauty of hassle-free navigation, the impact of a worriless Mobile Internet experience.

The actual Apple lesson may be summarised into one, single word: ease. It does not exclude, but actually is composed by, genius, intuition, skill, envisioning and lots of other nice words.

But, for the argument’s sake, let’s got with that one, no others, just those four letters. Why on Earth all the rest of the industry cannot follow suit is beyond me. The faith of the Cupertino giant was revamped and added with bells and whistles thanks to a superior “ease” of buying and listening to music, ease of buying and setting up a notebook or desktop computer, ease, ease, ease.

And, as some of the fashion designers teach us, something simple may actually be stunningly gorgeous. Ease and beauty.

It is not all that difficult, isn’t it??

OK.. it is, nevertheless it is nice to know it may happen!