Category Archives: blogs

Hong Kong Travel Tips

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Thanks to some advice from Matt at Cutler Investments I’ve started a great list of things to do in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing.     I’m also reading guidebooks and surfing but it’s always best to talk to experience travelers (or better yet, locals) who can clue you in to the “must see” tourist spots as well as the hidden gems.  

For this first trip to Hong Kong I just had him quickly list for me some of the “don’t miss” stuff and I’m fleshing this in as I go with details as I find more things to see – this is as much for my reference as anything else. 

Stanley Market

Fishing Villages via Ferry, where they’ll fix the fish you choose at a local restaurant.   Aberdeen has many places like this plus the monster brightly lit floating restaurant called ?   The food there is not great but OK.

Star Ferry Hong Kong to Kowloon.   This is the one often cited for great views of the Hong Kong skyline.

Nathan Street Night Market

Double Decker bus.   Take it from Wau Chai sp?  over the mountain.   Get the upstairs front seat for the best dramatic views and experience as it whizzes through traffic and over steep cliffsides.    I think we can get on this near our first hotel, the Island Pacific Hotel, right off the main road that forms a crescent around Victoria Harbor.

Trams:  There is one to Victoria Peak and another I’m not yet clear about.

Lei Yu Mun

Temple Street Market

Top 14 Must-See Sights from Oriental Travel:

Victoria Peak

Ocean Park

Ladies Street

Temple Street

Stanley

Star Ferry

Tsing Ma Bridge

Po Lin Monastery & Tai O

Aberdeen

Mai Po Natural Area

Central District

Happy Valley

360 Ngong Ping  Hong Kong Disneyland

Central District (then to Star Ferry)

Star Ferry Small green and white ferries link Central District on Hong Kong Island with Tsim Shs Tsui. 10 minutes.Aberdeen : Hong Kong Tsai – traditional fishing village. Boat-dwellers in the Aberdeen Bay, shuttling with sampan along the Bay. Jumbo Floating Restaurant and the Tai Bak (Tai Bei) Seafood Boat in Aberdeen Habour. Free travel by ferry boat to the restaurants, then to old Hong Kong Tsai Street and to the Hung Shing (God of the South Seas and weather prophet) Temple at the juncture of the sea lane and the land road, and the Tin Hau Temple

Victoria Peak “funicular” Tram.Double Decker Bus Ride

Ding ding rail tram across north side of Island – sit upstairs.Ngong Ping Cable Car: spectacular 5.7km bi-cable. From Tung Chung, cross Tung Chung Bay, angle station on Airport Island, turning in air towards North Lantau.

The Po Lin temple (Big Buddah! & Tai O fishing village:
On Lantau Island – take the Ngong Ping Cable car? Temple Street “men’s street bazaar”. Between Yau Ma Tei and Jordan. Men clothing, watches etc. Chinese opera at end of banyan trees. Bustling like a night club. The Tung Choi Street is also known as Ladies Street and has women’s clothing, handbags, etc for sale.

Yahoo Microsoft: Is the fat lady almost singing at $34?

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Henry Blodget is whining that the Yahoo Microsoft deal is back to where it started, but I think Henry’s wrong … again!     

I’m glad Henry was wrong about the rumor that Yahoo’s Q4 would beat expectations because it was part of the reason I bought YHOO then, and even though the stock dipped due to a bad Q4, it surged on Microsoft’s offer of $31 per share so I’m well in the black.   But now he’s wrong to say the deal is not almost done.  I think this Yahoo Microsoft merger is coming very soon to an internet near you.

Citibank Analyst Maheney upgraded Yahoo this morning, anticipating a boost in the MS bid to $34.   Hey, maybe he read my blog post of about 6 weeks ago where I suggested Microsoft raise their bid to $34?    

Unlike Henry, I think this is not back to where it all started at all!

Yang didn’t want to merge, now he sees it as almost inevitable.  Yahoo board wanted more, now they know anything past initial offer is gravy.  Part of the show was probably the board protecting itself against lawsuits from the unlucky minions who bought their Yahoo at $35+, some at over $100.

Barring a Q1 miracle that would recalibrate Yahoo prices without help of MS bids, I think the fat lady is now almost done singing on this deal.

 Disclosure:  long on YHOO

Blog fight, blog fight!

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Nothing livens up a Saturday like a spirited round of personal insulting and counterbashing all caused by a mild critique on a trivial issue combined with a personal attack response.   TechMeme‘s close to making this the top story, which frankly is a defect as these personal battles will get far more coverage than “real” news.    Same problem with network news – people want the prurient garbage more than the significant stuff, and as a profit entity the peoples get what the peoples want.  

Matt’s got the scoop and the correct analysis.   Duncan’s approach to all this is one of the reasons blogging is both more interesting than traditional journalism but also more suspect. 

Eee PC Review

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Here´s my first blog post using the new Eee PC from ASUS.   My first impressions:

Excellent, easy setup with little configuration.   Navigation UI for the Linux is excellent.

Smaller than I had expected and seems like a feather compared to my 8 pound Dell.

Keyboard is very tiny.   Hard to type and easy to hit wr0ng keys.

Connectivity excellent

 Phew…back on a real keyboard now.   The Eee PC really shines as a good surfing tool with a bright 7″ screen that should be fine for most tasks including mail, but the tiny keyboard concerns me.  Still, much better than having to lug a big laptop all over the place in China and small enough that I can carry it with me everywhere.    After too much time looking at the similarly named options I chose the ASUS Eee PC 4G at $399.   The basic model is $299 with 2G of the flash memory, but mine has 4G memory (there is no hard drive or disk drive on these!).  Also a camera and what appears to be longer battery life – 3.5 vs 2.8 hours for the “surf” models.

Before you buy review the chart at ASUS which covers the different models.  This is the current chart but I’m sure this will change, especially because the larger model should be out soon.   Unless the keyboard is larger – in which case that is probably the one to get  – I’d think that the larger model would not necessarily be a better idea since it will be heavier.  

Specification
Model Name Eee PC 8G Eee PC 4G Eee PC 4G Surf Eee PC 2G Surf
Display 7″ 7″ 7″ 7″
Intel CPU & Chipset ● ● ● ●
Operating System Linux
Windows XP compatible		 Linux
Windows XP compatible		 Linux
Windows XP compatible		 Linux
Windows XP compatible
Color Pure white/ Galaxy black Pure white/Blush pink/Sky blue/Lush green/Galaxy black Pure white/Blush pink/Sky blue/Lush green/Galaxy black Pure white/Blush pink/Sky blue/Lush green/Galaxy black
Ethernet Communication ● ● ● ●
WLAN ● ● ● ●
Memory 1G (DDR2) 512 MB (DDR2) 512 MB (DDR2) 512 MB (DDR2)
S.S.D. Storage (Solid-State Disk) 8G 4G 4G 2G  
Camera ● ● – –
Audio Hi-Definition audio
Stereo speaker
Microphone		 Hi-Definition audio
Stereo speaker
Microphone		 Hi-Definition audio
Stereo speaker
Microphone		 Hi-Definition audio
Stereo speaker
Microphone
Battery 4 Cells, 2.8~3.5hrs* 4 Cells, 2.8~3.5hrs* 4 Cells, 2.8hrs* 4 Cells, 2.8hrs*
Weight 0.92 kg 0.92 kg 0.92 kg 0.92 kg

 http://eeepc.asus.com/global/product.htm

http://eeepc.asus.com/global/

Google’s launches Google Sky

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Over at Webguild I blogged about Google Sky, the new Astronomy mapping tool from Google that has come out before the much anticipated Microsoft World Wide Telescope project which is not available yet.

I’ll be doing most of my technology and business blogging over at Webguild.org from now on, with more personal stuff here at Joe Duck.

Mike Arrington, Chris Anderson on Charlie Rose

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TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington is on my favorite show tonight talking about the future of technology along with Chris Anderson of Wired.   (not to be confused with TED conference coordinator Chris Anderson).

Here are the videos

Ha – just got a Tweet from Mike that he hasn’t even seen himself yet since it’s not on in CA yet.    

Chris Anderson:
On sharing his next book before it is even out:   “Open Source” the idea, leading to a flood of more ideas, which in turn enrich everybody.   “Google doesn’t show up on your credit card bill”. 

Anderson’s provocative points are about how “free” is becoming a key concept in the digital economy, and may trump

Where does the some $360,000,000 that Craigslist saves the economy go?    Back to us, says Chris.   Hey thanks for the fish Craig Newmark!

Commodity information “needs to be free” vs unique information which may need to be expensive.

Radiohead as using digital economics for what it’s good at, and stimulate demand for the scarce thing – seeing the band in person, endorsements, and T shirts.

You cannot erase yourself from the web.    Shifting from privacy to self-promotion. 

Anderson:  Yes, MS will get Yahoo.    

Google as algorithms, Yahoo as a people business.   Google and the “machines first” culture are winning.    Microsoft, a pre-web culture, believes in software.   Their success kept them from being hungry, but now they are.  

Tech Bubble of 2000 was different.   Softer landing this time?

Facebook:  We’ll see narrowing of social networks (a GREAT point!).    NING model may prevail.  e.g. Chris’ own  www.DIYdrones.com    What is the right level of granularity? 

Chris: “Everything I believe is written on the back of an iPhone”: 
Designed in California, Made in China

Mike Arrington
Big issues:
* Net neutrality.
* China.   Sites are filtered and slowed rather than outright deleted from the network.   Companies are not happy with the policies, but reluctant to leave 187,000,000 internet users to the competition.
* Mobile space.   Fundamentals are changing such that USA can compete now with other countries in the mobile space.
* Identity theft.   US has done too little to fight this.  Even Sen John McCain had his ID stolen a few years back.
* Education, computers, and internet access for schools.    Government weak in this area, but also true that computers are often an educational distraction rather than enhancement. 
* Economic implications: TV ads suck (great point Mike!), so internet ad share will increase.  However also we’ll see TV and internet increasingly converge.

Mike’s online “about 100% of the time I’m awake”.     TechCrunch startup database is one key focus.    “We’re not worth 100MM”.   (for more on TC valuation issues see the excellent Yahoo Tech TV interview with Mike).

Microsoft won’t back down and be embarrassed by the Yahoo deal.    MS failed in search and fell off the online map.    All the major search engines are roughly equivalent (great point Mike!).  But Google has lots of publishers and lots of action at their own pages.

Amazon – transitioning to a services model.    Renting services in the cloud is eliminating yet another high cost business barrier by providing high level infrastructure at low cost. 

Startups and entrepreneurs:    Modern day pirates.   Gamblers.  They value risk cf risk averse folks.  YouTube’s 1.65 Billion sale as a surprise.

Can Facebook have their “Google Moment”, which for Google was figuring out pay per click advertising.     Facebook as more innovative than Myspace.   Can they invent something to generate a LOT of revenue?   If yes, another Google is born. 

Facebook’s friend based advertising model may be illegal because it’s implying an endorsement without the consent of the person. 

BBC as a great site to review the condition of the world.   Blogs as taking page views from the ‘big guys’.    Comments as important.    Blogs following Silicon Valley as a “trainwreck”, but blogs in general on the rise.

Is privacy an illusion?   Harder to get email address than SSN (hmmm – I don’t think so…).

Obama fan.   Tech potentially will make our lives much better.  3rd world education as exciting.    Worrying about Virtual Reality.   What happens when people want to spend all their time in VR? 

Compete.com sale a champagne moment? Not at ~8% per year return it’s not.

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Update:  Silicon Valley Insider is reporting that there is an additional 75MM in the deal as an “earnout” over the next several years.   That may make this deal sweeter than it appears at first.

At first glance you’d think the sale of website COMPETE.com, which measures web traffic, for 75MM must have been a big payday for a lot of folks.   However as Venture Beat notes some 43MM of venture capital had been poured into  COMPETE over the past 8 years.  

Assuming most of this came at the beginning of the cycle, and assuming most of the 75MM is going to the VCs, the return on this VC investment would be a very modest 8-10%.    If the founders and workers also had a decent stake in the sale this return could be lower – approaching what the VCs might have realized with long term CDs over the same time period.     Break out the champagne?

I’ve noted before the dirty little secret of many “successful” venture capital deals – they often make a very modest return when time is factored in properly.   In fact it appears that *most* VC deals lose money for the players.    Data is sketchy, and obviously only the winners are happy to share the details making it very difficult to analyze this since many (most) of these deals are not in the public record.  

Sure there are VC winners like Fred Wilson and Jeff Clavier, both very clever VCs who blog some of the details of their failures and successes.    However I think this is not typical, as Jeff even suggested here at the blog some time ago.

CNN’s Anchor Desk blog – a great idea

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Anderson Cooper is one of my favorite reporters because he’s sharp and pays a lot of attention to the critical issues in the developing world. 

He’s also got a great feature at his show AC 360, which is a blog open to comments during CNN’s nightly broadcast of the show.   Although most of the comments I’ve read would not be considered deep or inspired this idea of having viewers check in with the anchors and provide feedback is a step in the right direction of more “Democratic”, news community driven news.     I’m not sure if this will ultimately make the news better or worse, but participation is certainly something they should be experimenting with.   Good for you, CNN and AC!

Adobe Air – offline to online is good

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Adobe is launching an application that will allow people to work offline on forms and other content which will then automatically be posted to websites when they go back online.   This is an excellent “transitional” application because many users still have to “log on” to the internet via slow modems or other cumbersome connections, and this will help them participate more actively in the online ecosystem.

That said, I’m increasingly convinced that the explosion of user content is to some extent…over.   Certainly we’ll continue to see huge volumes of content pour online, but at least in terms of the USA it is fair to say that internet access and publishing are is now so easy and cheap it seems unlikely there are millions waiting in the wings to jump online.    Some studies are suggesting that “most” internet users have little interest in blogging or commenting or participating actively – rather they want to read and socialize but not produce much content.     Another interesting factor is that young women appear to be the top content producers in many social networking environments rather than geeky boys who are more likely to spend online time playing games.   It’s going to be very interesting to watch the new media trends shake out in the coming years.  

WSJ reports

Scoblegate? No – Scobleizer ads are NOT a sellout.

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Mike Arrington, hanging in Davos with the global power elite, has a great title today with “Scoble Sells Out“, a fake jab at his pal Robert Scoble who is finally putting ads on his hugely popular blog (and is also lounging in Davos with the power elite!).

No big deal in my view – Scoble has been good about disclosure and perhaps even more importantly is a basically stand up guy, so I hardly worry that he’s going to start misleading readers in favor of sponsor B.S. 

That said, the blogging community would be well advised to develop disclosure standards if people want to maintain credibility and avoid the huge ethical gray areas that come about when socializing, economics, and blogging come together as they have over the past few years.

My view on corruption in politics (and blogging is similar) is that the challenges don’t come from basic dishonesty or payola – there is some of that, but the key problem is  more subtle.     In systems where economic support flows to those who *already* share the set of opinions with the money folks you don’t need any dishonesty to have a major distortion of the process in favor of those groups that can fund the people who share their ideas.    Often people wrongly suggest that votes are “bought”, when this is rare.  Rather support flows to the candidates who share the views of the supporters.     This system would actually work OK if the contributions were small, but loopholes have allowed certain groups to have hugely disproportionate impact on our system.    

This is why the conversational marketing model is bogus.  Bringing businesses into the conversation is a good general idea.  But if it only involves those businesses who can afford to buy a conversation  it’s just a step away from basic advertising, yet disguised as real dialog.   That isn’t corruption, but it is distortion.