Pssst, Want To Make Money Monetizing Social Networking Instead Of Time-Wasting Social NOT Working?

FaceBook, MySpace, linkedin, and so many other social networking sites offer great ways to connect with people - and lose touch with reality (and time spent on a computer). That is even before location-aware GPS and RFID devices, married to addictive platforms like FaceBook, Twitter and MySpaceTime.net (more on that later) make social networking mean even more being social and not working even during working hours.

It is so ironic that just about 16 years I wrote a piece contradicting people's then assertion that computers and the Internet were going to make us all anti-social.

Having started probably one of the first online matrimonial sites, I dared to disagree.

I felt that though we may spend more time on our computers, the Internet would actually help us find that one in a million connection from places around the world we could never have gone or known or met that person.

Little did I know how social networking would grow.

Of course, as is my forte, I have a knack for starting new things. But, in the past I also had a "rebel without a cause" habit of not sticking around in such businesses long enough to become a millionaire off them. Usually, I sat back and a few years later watched someone else do the same thing, with funding instead of personal funds, and grow rich/er. I saw the same thing as online dating grow into a huge business with the likes of match.com and others.

When I started/founded Internet email for my native country of Pakistan, I also became co-owner and co-founder of the .PK top level domain. Besides the kick of being called "father of the Internet" (at least in Pakistan), I even gave people free email addresses to promote email. But, never could I have imagined that sticking around giving something for free I could later have sold it to a giant corporation as hotmail did a few years later. Oh, well, live and learn.

When I started writing an online journal and political opinions (Occasionally Obnoxious, Obviously Outspoken Opinions) at http://imran.com in 1995-96, little did I know that I could have built some sort of "blogging" empire on that.

In 1995 I became a heavy GPS user in boating and later in aviation. In 1998-2000 I became CEO of EverTrac, among the first out the gate pitching RFID and GPS based solutions. Alas, as usual, like Panasonic's slogan, I was just slightly ahead of my time.

But, this current new momentum of GPS based devices we are seeing will prove I was on the right.... umm.. EverTrac?

Hopefully, this time, with my current projects, covering GPS, social networking and mobile-monetization - I'll actually make some real money if I can sell something to a Google or Yahoo or, some even smarter business!

If that does not happen, I guess the pattern (or call it the Corporate Culture of an Entrepreneur) here is that I love to start new things, just before their time, that others make billions off later.

So, feel free to call me about what I an doing now. Surely I can help you become a Web 2.0 multi-millionaire doing whatever I am too lazy to make money from!

If Bill Gates Had Gone Into The Food Business

A magazine I otherwise respect, CIO, did a piece recently asking:

What If Bill Gates had Become a Restaurateur Instead of Making Software?
Imagine if Bill Gates had studied food science instead of computer science. A world without the Empire That DOS Built would be a very different world...

On these blog pages I have written plenty about Bill Gates supposed contribution to computing. (e.g. http://www.imran.com/media/blog/2005/05/stolen-content-from-bill-gates-new.html )

Most people with knowledge of computing will agree that Bill's 'vision' usually consists of speeches about technologies available on Apple 2-3 years prior, or already commercially known. His biggest "visions" have been that people do not need more than 640KB of memory on their PCs, the Internet is a fad, etc.

Quite frankly, if Bill Gates had gone into the food business, most people buying his food would have diarrhea or food poisoning most of the time - and they would just get used to it.

Gates would still get rich, by selling repackaged versions of the same food based on promises of less diarrhea and less pain.

How Traditional Publications Can Become The Future Of Publishing

How Traditional Publications Can Become The Future Of Publishing
--- The Shape Of Prints To Come ---

Comment By Imran Anwar

People often ask me "Is there a future for traditional newspapers and magazines, and will digital devices not make these "traditional" publications obsolete?"

Well, the answer depends on how "traditional" publishers respond to the threats from digital devices - as their doom, or as new opportunities for them to expand the horizons of publishing.

What we call traditional publications may likely not be around in 25 years, much less in 50. However, I still see a bright future for magazines and newspapers, if we look at them from just two of several possible new angles I can imagine.

One, is a magazine or newspaper considered that only if it is printed on paper? Won't it still be a "traditional" newspaper 50 years from now if I, or more likely my children, are sitting at the beach, flipping the pages of a silicon film digital ink based publication that can be refilled with tomorrow's newspaper wirelessly every night or every few hours even?

Two, even if almost all of the content we seek becomes available in various colorful, handheld devices, traditional magazines can still make a niche for themselves.... by being non-traditional.

The digital devices most people envision replacing paper publications have their own limitations..... e.g. the need to have a one-size fits all device, regardless of whether I am reading the NY Times' news or MacWorld's reviews.

But, "traditional" publications can be printed in almost any size or shape, and, thanks to modern printing technology, on almost any material.

Thus, content design for these new shapes, textures, materials and sizes will allow publication designers huge opportunities of expression that no "all purpose" digital reader can match.

I do not see any reason why imaginative publishers will not create and design their publications in varying paper sizes (poster size or pocket) or with irregular shapes (triangle, continuous scroll, 100-fold single sheet) or having unique textures (cotton, holographic paper, parchment, aluminum, suede) or have different pages filled with aromas (for recipe pages for example) and who knows what else.

Their imagination is the limit. With so much creative freedom in "paper" publications, digital devices may then seem to be limited and limiting of the "reader experience"!

Imagine people wondering, in 2025 perhaps, if "traditional electronic reading devices" will be around in 20 years and if the "real" and "sensory" (i.e. including touch, feel, smell....) magazines and newspapers will replace them. Never say Never.

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© 2005, Imran Anwar
IMRAN.TV