We do what we do mostly with good intentions and the limited knowledge we possess. If one were to sit back and think about the course of events it would be fun to see how seemingly random decision form an intricate and well connect story of our life.
Had it not been for the Commodore 64 and my generous friend Alok (Balwin’s, in a past life), I would have not every though of programming. Had it not been for the interest in programming I would not being in Computer Science…and eventually writing this blog post. Could I see it back then? Of course not! Will I be able to see it from this point forward? I want to say yes, but the truth is no.
If one looks beyond himself, the same applies to things at a much grander scale. Take our planet for example. Today we do what we do knowing very well that we are pushing the planet to the edge. Had we known this, would our course of action been any different? Knowing this are we doing anything different? Are we not like kids with match sticks, not knowing the consequences…
By no means am I the person qualified to answer this question. But I can still ask it and I can make some observations. I was reading about Prepme.com. A very entrepreneurial team started it to offer a way to prepare for your SAT. Well if I were to take an outsiders view, I would think with heavyweights like Kaplan and Princeton Review, why would one want to get into this market?
But that did not stop Karan Goel and Avichal Garg from making a business plan out of it and to top that will the Edward L. Kaplan New Venture Challenge award. Now that being said four key observation I could make quickly were:
- They were very close to the problem and understood the pain. This understanding of the problem, most likely (only guessing), made them passionate about solving it.
- They had a very focus problem to solve. Not trying everything to save the world, but just one problem which they seemed to have addressed very well.
- Technology that enabled them to leap frog into the already established market. Luck for them they did not have to create the market.
- Market timing – The number of people taking SAT and other exams like these is growing at a significant rate. More people, different needs and there is never a one size fit all.
Technology applied in a clever way to solve everyday problem and at the same time make good business sense is essential my aphrodisiac.
Best of luck to www.Prepme.com
I have often wondered if we as a specie can sustain ourselves with our current rate of consumption. In some ways we are parasitic and seem take a lot from nature and our environment with no end in sight. For quite some time the question – “When will our consumption exceed our production capabilities?” had been on my mind. One of the first things that I think of is commodities – Oil, natural gas, food grain etc. At the rate we are growing – in population and consumption patterns, we will soon be at a point where we will surpass production. What happens then? Can’t we see it coming and change our behavior?
Interestingly NPR’s Science Friday (definitely my favorite radio show), had a discussion on this topic recently and many of my observations are in fact real concerns. The study discussed in the program was focused on China. If Chinese start consuming at the rate which Americans consume, we will have a huge short fall in less than 20 years. One of the examples was of oil. Current world production is 83-85 mil barrels/day. By 2020 China alone will need 90 mil + barrels/day and production of oil will not get any higher that current levels. This is just one commodity. If China starts consuming paper like the US, we will have to wipe out the forests of the world. Not ideal for our sustenance to say the least.
So what can we do? I think the answer is two fold. On one end of the spectrum we have to implement global policies, which needs bold leadership (no were in sight!) and at the grass root level each individual will have to become more environment friendly. It means more than separating recyclable stuff from regular thrash; it has to be imbued into our everyday life. Don’t leave the tap running while shaving. Don’t print anything that is not necessary. Don’t drive if you can walk or use a bicycle. Use energy efficient cars…So many thing and there very little things can have a huge impact.
But we are so reluctant. Why?
I enjoy music. But there are other who seem very passionate about it. When I stumbled across this news, it made me wonder – Yahoo is really good at finding good talent. Flicker and now this.
At first it(WebJay) is like ok no big deal, it is a webbased playlist editor – convenient at the most. But that ends there. I love the simplicity and the focus on solving “one problem” as I had mentioned earlier. I may not be the target audience, but I can see how I could create my playlists and share them with friends, not to mention REST base open API.
Best of luck to you Lucas.
Video on demand was an old term but without the bandwidth and the storage technologies to enable it was just that – “a neat idea”. But its time has come. First with Apple (there were a few before, but they made it popular) and now with Google VideoStore. I have been visiting video.google.com com and as always like their simplicity of design. Design is best when you cannot take away anymore… (as some wise guy whose name I conveniently forgot).
So is Google that innovative? When it come to originality they really are not. Their main source of revenue come from Ads, that was Overture’s idea. But when it comes to doing something well, they are focused and inventive, like the Japanese car makers. They take something that is ordinary and perfect it till it stands out to be the best way to do things. I think some of it has to do with the organizational structure. Smaller groups and smaller project are easier to execute them some grandiose ERP solution.
So how do all these video download services make money. They pry on our insatiable appetite for entertainment, which I feel is some desperate attempt to fill some spiritual void with materialistic band aids.
In an ideal world people would respect intellectual property and pay the dues to the rightful inventors. Since that not the case we have Patents to protect them…
We know, all to well, that patent, while in principle are a good thing, they really are implemented in a antiquated way. It is hard enough to work on your ideas, then just to find out that someone has patented the binary system, so you cannot distribute your cool innovative software as binaries! That is how ridiculous the whole intellectual property protection laws have become. They have just become tools to hinder innovation more than abet it.
Among all the patents the one I dislike the most is Software patents. Amazon’s “One Click”, what was that about? Why does’t Google patent “AJAX” or the GeoCoder (no comments).
While the idea of Patents is good, the implementation and enforcement is just a business of making lawyers rich, which is energy spend doing counter productive things.
So we need to fix this system, which is an easy conclusion. The tough question is how?
In one of the famous Networking books, the author compares transferring information with a wagon full of data tapes being hauled from one location to another. Surprisingly the bandwidth of the wagon comes out to be much higher.
Clearly, it is not convenient but it is done today in the Movie Rental business. We have Netflix and Block Buster Online, both of which are equivalent to the wagon. While they make it easier to rent, they are not very convenient to use. I have tried them first hand and have ended up with “Long Delay” as the status of the movies.
We all know it makes sense to just “download” the movie and watch it instantaneously, but bandwidth and technology has been a major problem, not to mention the paranoid movie industry with their copyrights.
Today www.vongo.com caught my eyes. Really cool, at least from what they claim. What it does is allows you to download up to 1000 movies for just 9.95/month and start watching them in under 30 seconds. That is instant gratification and one more step towards the power of the Network and its creative use.
Using the network to transfer data (songs, movies, text, etc) is so much more effecient once the infrastructure is in place. Loose copyright can open up such huge market and not to mention revenues, that can lead to the Interent becoming the one stop shop for all your information and communication needs. It is so close..