Thinking and Working in Singapore and other more Virtual Places

Speed Test

Gotta be pretty happy with that....

iPhone remote app and Apple TV

Last night I got the iPhone Remote App working with my Apple TV properly.  Previously I had only 'paired' it with iTunes and so had not got all the gesture control stuff working.  But now it is apired properly and it does work and it's simply one of the best bits of tech I have ever seen.  Awesome - really awesome.

More here

Singapore Tweetup Update

Come and meet fellow Singaporean and Singapore-based Tweeters at Singapore's first ever Tweetup. Ever wondered who really lies behind that @name ? - well, come and find out! A great networking opportunity and chance to make new friends.

There will be some free food and a great one-for-one drinks deal.

My thanks to Andrew Peters and to Geek terminal for helping organize and being so generous with their hosting.

See you all there!

All Are Welcome!!!!!

Date:	14 May 2009
Time:	19:00 - 21:00
Location:	Geek Terminal (Raffles Place MRT / Golden Shoe Car Park)
Street:	55 Market Street #01-01

So, I have decided to organize a Singapore 'tweetup' -well, I say organize....

So, I have decided to organize a Singapore 'tweetup' -well, I say organize - I will sort out a venue and date and time and do my best to see that it's well-publicized.

Why am I doing this? Well, the lovely @belindaang encouraged me (unsuccessfully I should say - my own laziness) to attend a recent event she was going to saying it would be nice to put a face to the tweets.  I agree with Belinda and I'd like to put her face to her tweets too.  I was also one of three people (@aplink and (the wonderfully named) @popmycherry being the other two) who briefly tried to get the Singapore twestival up and running a few months ago. We were beaten back by the Singapore Government requiring several weeks' notice to grant permits for events that involve fundraising.

I muted this idea of an informal tweetup at the end of last week and got some positive responses from several people so I think there are enough people who'd enjoy it.  I'm not sure if we should have any specific objectives for the event other than it generally providing an opportunity for Singapore based Twitterers to meet each other.  I am also very conscious that a 'physical' meet up isn't necessarily what Twitter is all about for some people and I'm half expecting some ardent local Twitterers not to be interested in attending.  That's fine of course.  (I'm actually quite disappointing in real life but I will be there!)

                                                                                                                                                                                                   But, I would love to hear from anyone who has some ideas on what we could or should do - maybe for future events if not this one.  I for one am looking forward to meeting (if they are able to come) the wonderfully Web 2.0 @belindaang, the very bright and informed @Nisha_Lakshmi, the very funny @roycheong1, the ever-popular  @AngMoGirl, my new good friend @callumlinden, some of the Twitterers with the best profile pictures @applelovesshoes and @deliciatan, the @StephenFry loving @laure_f  amongst others and all the other Singapore based Twitterers that brighten and inform my day.

Am I too soft, naive and romantic when it comes to Twitter?

The other day I went to meet someone to talk to them about supporting them in organizing an event here in Singapore.  We’d spoken briefly about this on the phone before and he seemed pleased at my offer to help. 

Practically his first question to me when we met was, however, ‘how many friends do you have on Facebook and how many followers on Twitter?’   Clearly a good part of my perceived worth in helping organize this event was how large my networks were – and not my real world network or ‘sphere of influence’, but my virtual friends and followers numbers.  At least I was able to give him an actual number which I don’t suppose I would have been able to do had he asked me a more pertinent question about what my influencing power was. (That's where the really interesting bit is I think)  He seemed slightly disappointed when I told him and then revealed that he had about twice as many people following him on Twitter and considerably more friends on Facebook.  It should also be noted I think that in both worlds we are very small players when it comes to numbers of followers and friends.

I should not have been that surprised at his question I suppose.  This guy - who is a friend of mine - had recently been involved with an event in Singapore that had been a big success - certainly in terms of the number of visitors.  As a friend of his on Facebook I had received a lot of emails on the run up to the event giving me the latest information and news.  There was an event ‘group’ too of course.   So I suppose if he wanted to adopt the same social media ‘strategy’ in promoting this next event, then having an organizing partner with lots of friends and followers would be a good starting point to a repeat strategy.  But isn’t this a tiny bit like looking for a mailing list?  I say ‘tiny bit’ because clearly there are some big differences – I know or at least have some sort of relationship with my virtual contacts whereas a mailing list may be cobbled together in any which way. 

It still irks me a little that I should be valued by this criterion (at least in some part).  Needless to say the strategy would have involved me being asked to email (within Facebook) all my friends but this is a bit like spamming isn’t it? And it begs the bigger question of course - is social media just a numbers game?

I really really hope it isn’t.  I’m aware that I might be kind of a bit naïve and maybe, in some ways, romantic when it comes to what goes on with Twitter.  My friend, whom I was having the meeting with, sees social media simply (I think) as a marketing gig.   Indeed - almost all (if not all) of his tweets are links to web pages often promoting an event or promoting social media as a marketing tool in itself.  Hey , there’s nothing wrong with this and I think he knows that I think that, but I have, shall we say, a ‘softer’ approach and I love Twitter because I get to, for example,  follow Stephen Fry, someone who  sees and uses Twitter from a position a million miles away from my friend.  I can’t help be reminded of the ‘marketing at’ position and strategy adopted by some companies in Second Life bombed.  Isn’t seeing a bunch of tweets from someone you follow that just point to websites that advertise an event or advertise the marketing medium itself a bit too much like getting direct text (SMS) messages?

I don’t know where Twitter will go when it gets monetized in the future but if it simply becomes a place full of social media marketers then I’ll probably bail – for me, whilst I am happy to see all sorts of people doing and experimenting with all sorts of things, the magic remains seeing what people like Stephen Fry are up to, having a laugh with Will Carling and being part of topics and conversations with some really cool and imaginative people.

Chumby Update

I was reading Stephen Fry's latest Guardian piece  where he was talking about being able to order products normally only available to those with a US address.  It was particularly interesting to me as the 'Chumby' is something I have wanted for a while and it's the example he uses so, "thanks, Stephen"

I can thoroughly recommended Mr Fry''s podcasts too or 'podgrams' as he calls them.  All available on his website.

Not everything brilliant is British, however. Ever been annoyed about desirable products that are available only in the US? I recommend international-orders.com which ships American goods around the globe. For us there's VAT and import duty, plus the website's handling surcharge, but the dollar still being relatively weak, transactions can work out cheaper as well as making available droolworthy gizmos and doodads that can't be found here. I had a Chumby delivered to my door (chumby.com won't deliver outside the US): it's a soft, squashy Wi-Fi internet device that loads customisable widget or gadget style programs. Through international-orders.com it will cost about £120, plus whatever Revenue & Customs adds on

Posting from iPod touch

So. Just downloaded the Typepad app for my iPod Touch. Let's see what this looks like.

Getting those Stockbridge Boys on Google - well, my post about them on Google

Typing "stockbridge consultants" alone and my entry is nowhere - adding Singapore to the end of the search string and I come in sixth..... it's a start

Taking the A380

On my recent trip to Europe for work and a visit to some of my family I deliberately booked on the Airbus A380 - Singapore Airlines had just acquired its second or third addition to its A380 fleet and started flying the Singapore Heathrow route.  In fact I thought I was going on the inaugural flight but it turned out I was on the second ever A380 flight from Singapore to London.

I'm a geek when it comes to flying and was really looking forward to the flight.  I had booked on the upper deck (just because there was one I suppose) and that feeling of being 'on top' was quite noticeable when the air bridge from the gate to the door of the plane sloped upwards and especially noticeable when, during taxi, I looked out of my window down on a 747 next to us.

The interior looked good with quite a radically new color scheme compared to most of the SQ fleet.  Large widescreen TV's dominated the backs of the seats and, after sitting for a while in my seat and having the person in front of me recline, I felt that there was more room that I'd usually get in an SQ economy seat. 

Although the new in-flight system has been on the newer planes in the 777 fleet for some months now, this was my first experience of the new and comparatively huge seat back (wide) screen and the new controller and UI.  It was, as expected, a joy to use and to watch.  Although the huge choice of content - over 100 on-demand movies - is the same as the older system, the on screen menus and navigation are significantly improved and watching on the bigger screen is, of course, great! 

For you really geeky guys and my colleagues interested in UI there's a video of it in action below.

For my trip back I had used airmiles to upgrade to business class.  Although I took a couple of pictures you should really check here to see it in its full glory.  The amount of room was fantastic and the level of service and quality of food very high.  (Although my experience was spoiled a little by screaming children sat near me!)

I am not going to dwell to much on the business class part of the trip.  I'm just going to remember it fondly as one of those privileges one has now and again.

It's better than TV

I was listening to Radio  Five Live on the BBC this morning.

There was a story about AOL buying Bebo for USD850m.  The story focussed however on Balderton Capital - the only institutional investor in Bebo.  Balderton provided first-round financing of USD15m to acquire a 15.7% stake in May 2006.  They will now make a return of 9 times that on their investment.


The story carried an interview with Barry Maloney, one of the partners of Balderton and a director of Bebo since the investment in May 2006.  When the interviewer asked him what led him to think about investing in Bebo he recounted how his daughters had stopped fighting with him for the TV remote control and he went to see what they were doing instead.  What a great story!  I wonder if they'll be getting some pretty damn nice ponies on birthdays to come.