incub3.org

Aggregating feedback to rank content according to popularity isn’t a new idea. Digg, delicious and reddit are just a few of the most popular ranking websites. It seems only natural that the next step in the evolution of website rankings should be personalized rankings.

If this trend passed you by, don’t fret. Its still early days. The more interesting startups out there that utilize this concept of personalized content ranking are still in beta, or even alpha-testing stages. My6sense is a little iPhone app or Firefox add-on that learns your preferences as you use its RSS reader/aggregator. It then serves you the most relevant snippets from the sea of information that you use daily.

Taking a slightly different tack is Headup. Headup’s Firefox add-on highlights keywords from websites that you view. When you hover over these keywords, the connections that exist between say, your musical tastes and that of your friends is shown, as well as any musicians that you may also like. This allows you to view content that is most interesting to you and to see the connections between yourself and your social circle.

My6sense’s strength lies in its ease of use. Its creators claim that you don’t need to even choose any preferences or settings. All you have to do is surf as you normally would, and the add-on’s algorithm will learn your preferences. Its definitely a great help to those who need a hand dealing with the deluge of information that we are fed daily. Headup on the other hand, helps users make connections where previously there were none. You might learn, through Headup, that your strait-laced, no-nonsense schoolteacher buddy is actually a great fan of Guns&Roses, or you may discover the links between Guns&Roses, Deep Purple and Aerosmith.

I would personally love to see a combination of both services in one package, but that is an entrepreneurial opportunity for another day.

When a new technology that impacts the lives of many is first introduced to the world, it is common that there will be groups that fall through the cracks and miss out on the revolution. Lets call this the fish that got away, after fish that slip through the net.

Everything from the MacBook Air, the ASUS Eee PC, to Coke Light, SUVs, and even Twitter, were made to satisfy the needs of customers who were underserved by the mainstream product offering. There are always fish that fall through the net, when a new innovation is introduced to the world. Let me share 2 examples.

The latest group to illustrate this is the auntie community. In Singapore colloquially referred to as “tai-tais”. The aunt who doted on you as a child, who showered love on you because she didn’t have any of her own. They are now proudly served by Savvyauntie.com. Not usually considered a significant enough group to have dedicated websites, this is  changing.

Everybody has a friend or 2 who only uses their mobile for the most basic purposes. Anything more than calls and text messaging might as well be attaching a GPS unit to a tribesman’s lionskin headdress. Happy provides prepaid calls and sms cheaper than any telco, making it a dream come true for anyone with an aversion to hype and gimmicks.

The times when the only people that mattered on the internet were young, pimply, english-speaking males with a penchant for technology are gone. What other group now underserved, undervalued and under the radar do you think will be the fish that we catch when we cast our nets again?

Questions without answers are puzzling, and answers without questions are just baffling.

What then is one to make of modern search engines, which provide us with the answers to a nearly infinite catalogue of questions, scattered across the vastness of cyberspace?

Stephen Wolfram thinks he has the answer to our confusion. In his company blog, he announces the imminent arrival of the world’s first “answer engine”. Several pundits have given the demo of this world first a thumbs up, even saying it could be as important as google.

I think this is a fascinating development. Wolfram is the brilliant, if somewhat egocentric child prodigy who graduated from Cal Tech and went on to create the phenomenally successful Mathematica software now so common in schools. There is an incredible amount of promise behind Wolfram Alpha, and backed by the brilliance and financial muscle of Wolfram’s team, there is a lot of room for experimentation and error. I’m just cautious about Wolfram Alpha turning out to be another Quantum porn engine.

I read a thought-provoking article today on The Register. There is a school of thought that says you don’t have to be first in anything as being early isn’t the same as being the best. This point was made by Ming at the inaugural Incub3 talk. Andrew Orlowski makes the same point in his piece on Apple, linked above. Apple, by not being the first to the smartphone game, was able to identify and attack weaknesses in the way business was done in this field. These weaknesses are ruthlessly exposed and condemned in satisfying fashion by Brendon McLean in his vicious article.

The most accurate description of the mobile industry’s failings as a whole is that mobile handset manufacturers forgot that they were making phones for consumers, and not corporate executives from monolithic telcos resistant to change and innovation, except where it padded their wallets and bottomline. When you don’t serve your customer, you can and will lose their business, and dollars.

Even with a product as great as the iPhone, it was no foregone conclusion that Apple would make it in the smartphone business. For instance, the first generation iPhone had no 3G, no Wi-Fi, you couldn’t forward messages, and most annoyingly, there was no “copy-paste” function. Yet, even with these glaring omissions, Apple had a glorious winner on its hands. Even with tying itself to selected telcos, Apple managed to outsell many established brands.

I’m not going to join my iPhone-owning buddies in lauding the genius of Apple, I don’t even own one, but I can’t deny that its really instructive to ponder the success that is the Apple iPhone.

Much as I’d hate to admit it, the incessant buzz of the people around me, looking for their first job, has started to get to me.

The most popular job sites in Singapore are Jobstreet and JobsDB. I attended a JobsDB fair over the weekend and I was left feeling very unimpressed. It wasn’t any deficiency with organization or execution. The fair was managed exceptionally well. It was that exhibitors seemed to be from broadly 4 categories, namely insurance agencies, real estate agencies, educational institutions and government institutions, none of which interested me.

I came across Plaxo jobs while cleaning up my bookmarks today. It was well described in this Wired blog article. Imagine if you could leverage on your entire facebook contact list to search for a job, that in essence is the promise of Plaxo. It’s a really neat idea. I think it would help a lot for people to know a little about the social circle of the people they are hiring, or know where a job opportunity is coming from within their social circle. The social nature of the job search could also improve your chances of finding employment as your friends can be expected to help in whatever small way they can to refer you to the right job.

Another interesting site I’ve unearthed is philes. Again, tip to Wired. Wired’s article puts it succinctly. Jobaphiles is an “ebay for jobs” where potential employees can bid (lower) for a job compared to their peers. I think the idea will have limited traction in industries where salary levels aren’t very flexible. For example, most banks will pay standard remuneration packages that aren’t affected much by a candidate’s desired pay. However, in areas where contract work is concerned, this idea is a clear winner. The question of how successful it will be then becomes a question of how many short-term contract jobs are there in a recessionary environment.

Anyway these are interesting questions to ponder, but I’ve got to start submitting my own resumes now, so please excuse me.

Talk about cutthroat competition. Chinese Social networking behemoth and shameless facebook clone Xiaonei.com was accused of attacking direct competitor and equally shameless facebook clone Tongxue.com. Tongxue released a press statement (in Chinese) decrying the cyber attack as irresponsible and urging competitors to exhibit mutual respect.

Its interesting to think about the Chinese Social-Networking-Service (SNS) space. SNS remains very much a college-oriented, and white collar worker space. Also, more than their English-speaking peers, Chinese web users enjoy an integrated SNS. For example, Tongxue offers streaming radio from many terrestial Chinese stations as well as video. The coming showdown between Xiaonei and Tongxue is sure to be a clash of the titans to be watched closely. Which service will be able to move away from its roots as a facebook clone and customize its user experience to suit the preferences of Chinese users more quickly?

In this struggle for supremacy, Xiaonei is the clear leader at present. Xiaonei justifies its previous 550 million USD funding round by having 22 million users from over 3000 Chinese universities and over 1500 foreign universities. Such is the optimism surrounding Xiaonei that there is already talk of going public. Tongxue on the other hand has recently just secured 2.2 million in funding from Tano Capital LLC, in recognition of the vast expansion potential for Chinese SNS.

The insular nature of the Chinese internet sphere, due to language barriers and also the Great Firewall of China, effectively protects Chinese web start-ups from their English language counterparts. Watching the Chinese internet sphere is almost like watching the internet grow anew. Watch this space for more updates.

Social entrepreneurs don’t get enough respect. There’s nothing wrong with running a non-profit halfway house for recovering drug addicts or providing vocational training to ex-convicts to assimilate them back into society. Its just that, among other things, these ventures are neither profitable nor exciting.

Of course, there’s no reason that this should remain true. The Economist has an article in one of its January issues describing a new, promising, fun, AND profitable business model for social entrepreneurship. Too good to be true? Read and find out.

I’m sure Virgance’s website has caught the eye of many an unemployed graduate. Now that I’ve got your attention, Virgance‘s website proudly proclaims its model as “Activism 2.0″. There are some truly amazing ideas coming from the brains of the entrepreneurial activists/activist entrepreneurs at Virgance. Aside from the the groundbreaking 1BOG and Carrotmob ideas already covered in the Economist article, Virgance is also working on a program called Lend Me Some Sugar that will allow muti-national firms to let their customers become involved in their corporate philantropy. Through Lend Me Some Sugar, customers can direct the philantropy efforts of the companies they support, letting customers and companies partner each other in doing good for society.

Virgance is only the tip of the new activism. “IfWeRanTheWorld” takes crowdsourcing (the idea of utilizing the power of crowds to achieve goals) and plunks it down in the middle of many intractable social problems we have today. It is still in the early planning stages (there isn’t even a website yet), but the idea is a remarkable one. Led by marketing veteran Cindy Gallop and software developer and serial entrepreneur Wendell Davi, IfWeRanTheWorld seeks to break down large social projects into small discrete parts that can be picked up by users to complete, and hence a great number of people can contribute to a massive project’s success, which could not have been achieved without massive effort otherwise. Both these ideas could become huge, in large part because they are profit-driven companies. The difference is that they don’t derive profits from the money going towards the project directly. Both expect a large part of revenues to come from advertising. Digital guru Esther Dyson has said that IfWeRanTheWorld could create a “liquidity of goodness”. I certainly can’t argue against that.

Hi everyone, thanks for your patience. Here is the link to our overdue Nuffnang talk webcast! A podcast is also available here.

Here are some photos of the event!