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 the total 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 an article contradicting people's then assertion that computers and the Internet were going to make us all anti-social.

Having started what was considered the first online matrimonial sites, at http://imran.com, 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 realize how social networking would grow. Lesson learnt, something that you consider merely a social observation, or the earliest makings of a trend, must be pursued zealously even as the trend changes shapes and directions from market forces. If you are riding, even shaping, it along the way, your opportunities to start something huge are....well, huge.

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. So, my advice is to never lose your idealism - as that is what will help you achieve the impossible. But, temper that idealism with pragmatism.

Wanting something to be a commercial success does not necessarily mean you "sold out" your dream. Take an alternate view. If you work hard and make Project X a huge money-making success, even if you have to sell the company to investors or venture capitalists, you did not sell out.

All you did was leverage Project X to give you the freedom to freely experiment and play with your many other some-crazy some-great ideas without being worried about getting funding for them. That can take you from being a "serial entrepreneur" to a "parallel serial entrepreneur", capable of trying multiple new ideas and businesses and achieving success far beyond what Project X alone would have given you.

In my own case, idealism was a strength, but it was also definitely a huge liability. 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 many years after I had launched the first matrimonials database.

When I started Internet email for my native country of Pakistan, I also became "co-owner and co-founder" of the .PK top level domain with my friend and neighbor, the technical genius Ashar Nisar, who went on to establish PKNIC to manage the ccTLD.

Besides getting a kick out of being called "father of the Internet" (at least in Pakistan), I even gave many people free email addresses on imran.pk (the country's first email provider and ISP) 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.com did a few years later. Oh, well. Live and learn.

Today, FREE is a valid business model. If you grow a business large enough, no matter how much money it is losing, as long as you have enough users, someone will buy you out for millions of Dollars.

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.

Once again, despite having an MBA and thinking of myself as a savvy entrepreneur, I missed the boat. So, look around you - some of the very ordinary problems you are solving daily without thinking twice may hold within them huge business opportunities. First, recognize them. Then, go for them with everything you've got.

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

Fortunately, EverTrac and my team survived the dot-com bust, but only because we were gobbled by a Fortune 50 level company - which did nothing with what they bought. Lesson learnt. It's important to survive, but if you sell out to a big company, try not to feel heartache when they don't make any use of the technology.

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. But, so what? The sheer joy of starting something new, taking something from an idea that everyone says is dumb, or will never work, and making it at least take shape, get launched, and become popular is, in itself, a huge reward.

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 (or not smart enough :-) ) to make money from!

Good luck and God Speed, fellow entrepreneurs.

Can "Atom" Bomb? Imran's Law of Expectations

Sharon Gaudlin's article in ComputerWorld April 3, 2008 begins: "With Intel Corp. betting so heavily on the mobile Internet device market exploding in the next several years, industry analysts are wondering if the fledgling business can live up to the expectations."

Intel has named the technology/chips in question ATOM. So, I guess, the question is, will Atom bomb in the marketplace?

I think some of the comments from analysts like Charles King suggest that might be the case. "For a market now in its infancy to grow that fast in just five to 10 years would be an enormous growth curve - one that may not be realistic, especially with so many people satisfied with today's iPhones and other smart phones, said Charles King, an analyst at Pund-IT Inc. in Hayward, Calif."

I think King's comments are an example of Imran's Law of Expectations: "Any technology can be sufficiently overhyped to be perceived as failing to meet expectations, even if it is commercially successful in the market."

Yes, Intel (and others) will overhype this chip, this technology and this market demand. But the market 5 years from now will be far different from current form factors, so using those as benchmarks is surely a silly way to analyze the potential for this technology. The market may be smaller than Intel's hype, it may be bigger than analysts guesses, but it will be BIG. Big enough to be commercially successful.

Five years ago people using handheld PDAs could not have foreseen millions of iPhones in people's pockets today. As Apple readies its iPhone 2 device for release shortly, with even more functionality, it will be even more likely to hit its target of number of units sold.

I can only imagine what general magic Apple, and its many copy-cat product designers will do when Intel's Atom and others' even more exciting technologies become available to them to design the next generation of cool new products.

(Update: April 23, 2008: As I was writing these lines, Steve Jobs was busy negotiating the purchase of PA Semi, a StrongARM design-based chip-designer firm. It will mean far more incredible machines from Apple. Will it be a blow to intel's Atom? Yes. Will Atom bomb? Probably not, as there will be plenty of Apple-copycats out there needing chips.)

What do you think?

The Last Mile, The Shortest Delay - Will The Internet Slowdown?

According to a recent article by Shamus McGillicuddy, News Writer at SearchSMB.com, titled 'Internet not growing fast enough, researchers say, "according to new research, demand for Internet usage will start to outpace the capacity of the Internet's access points. This potential crunch could spell trouble for CIOs."

I am flabbergasted by the conclusions drawn by this team of researchers that the writer is reporting about.

They seem to be unfamiliar with the rapid pace of change in technology in general, and in Internet related innovation in particular, when making their semi-dire predictions.

Yes, there is a huge growth in Internet traffic. And, yes, some slowdowns can happen. But, the last mile to the home or business is, most often, NOT the bottleneck. As a matter of fact, I have 1.5 Mbps DSL in NY and 6 Mbps DSL in Miami, and some web sites can respond equally slowly regardless of where I access them from.

"Slowdown" is NOT a generic problem that afflicts the entire Internet, as the 'research' would suggest. The problem can be specific to certain sites, domains, news events of the day, and, much like the highways analogy the news article referred to, it is nearly impossible to build broadband pipes that people and applications will not find ways to clog.

What is needed is intelligent research on where the clogging is likely to be, rather than generic predictions, based on weak logic and an apparent disdain for the reality of the rapid pace of technology innovation.

In summary, the last mile is NOT the problem, and even 6 Mbps DSL lines can find some web sites as slow as 768 Kbps lines. 'Slowdown' is NOT a generic problem across the entire Internet, but is, and will be, a more and more site/domain specific issue. The rapid pace of technology innovation with more reasonable pricing mechanisms will ensure the Internet remains an efficient and effective platform.

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.

====
© 2005, Imran Anwar
IMRAN.TV