Questions have been asked of whether twitter could scale if it really hits the mainstream, when, say, top celebrities joined and are followed by their fans, and twitter has to serve all these updates from these celebrities to all their fans.  Could that day be the end of twitter ?

In any case, perhaps it will be a good thing…. For once perhaps people, including myself, would stop tinkering with their mobile phones… then again there are lots of other social network types of apps to keep us busy on our mobile phones..

Information Technology, ofcourse, has been at the forefront of giving us innovations that better our lives overall. This area hasn’t gotten old yet. In fact, it keeps coming up with new and breakthrough things for years to come. Just look at all the sites covering the topics of new technology: web 2.0 social networks, location based services, mobile technologies. The list goes on and on and on, and it’s always refreshing to discover them:

Biotech is another one that really fascinates me, especially the rapid advancements of genetic science and engineering. The concept that we are now studying how living being work at its most fundamental level, and discovering how to manipulate and harness its powers is just mind blowing. This will have really big impact in the future on how we view nutrition, as well as how we live our lives.

Finally we come to clean alternative energy. Several factors affecting the growth in this area are: Awareness of global environmental destruction, increasing awareness of people about our own responsibility to our planet, as well as the increasing cost of fuel. There are breakthroughs left and right here. There is the research into nanotechnology for solar panels, which increases the efficiency of solar panels by multiple factors, there is also research being done to use/turn water into fuel, as well as the recent news about Tata’s automobile using compressed air.

Fascinating…!

I just recently found out through our corporate grapevine, that WowTV is now available in Indonesia. It is a partnership between M2B World Asia Pacific with PT. Wow Television Indonesia (a subsidiary of PT. Agis, Tbk).

They offer programming through the web, or to your television through what they call WowTv media box, as well as through your handphone using WowTv Mobile.

There are several pricing tiers available to consumers, including a free one.

What’s so special about this ? Presumably it’s the ability to watch programming at any time 24 hours a day and on demand, unlike regular broadcast television, where you have to follow their programming schedule if you don’t want to miss your favorite show.

How good is it ? I really can’t tell you right now. I signed up for the free account and was able to browse through their free collections (which, by the way, seems to be really old programs that’s not bad if you just want to try out WowTv, but really can’t sustain you for more than several days). However, clicking on the programs, all I got was a “back to video listing” button in the middle of the screen.

I’m running it using Firefox on an iMac running Tiger. Perhaps there is some plug-ins or something that I’m missing ?

Do you hate traffic jams as much as I do ? Do you feel helpless not being able to do anything about it ?

Well, I and a friend of mine recently started a social network whose mission is to help all of us cope with the traffic jam in Jakarta today and to discuss and better yet implement solutions. This site facilitates the discussion, exchange of ideas, experiences, tips and tricks, and more revolving around the topic of driving in Jakarta and traffic jam.

Perhaps something good for all of us can come out of this, and we hope that this site can be a resource for all.

All of us would love to hear your thoughts, ideas, and insights around this topic, so why not join us by clicking here.

See all of you at the bebasmacet.ning.com site !

Would you believe it ? Jakarta has its own Traffic Management Center and it’s not half bad either.

Located within the compound of Polda Metro jaya, the TMC is the center for all traffic tracking and information for the city of Jakarta. It is also where they man the 1717 sms for traffic reporting and information.

The inside of the TMC reminds me somewhat of the houston command center where they control the launch of the space shuttles..:) There is one giant screen in the middle with about 4-6 other smaller screens on its sides.
Information from the different stations can be quickly pulled up to all of the screens, including the giant one, upon request, much like in the scenes of Star Trek, when Captain Kirk or Picard says “On Screen”.

There are about 6 different stations if I’m not mistaken, in the middle of the room, each with about 3 screens, and manned by police officers. The different stations have different purposes, including: sms monitoring, web monitoring, Police GPS locations, Traffic conditions.

Just behind the stations is a section which looks somewhat like a small auditorium. I believe this is where reporters or visitors can come and watch what is going on.

There are tons of information being recorded: traffic cameras, traffic conditions reported on different roads, accident reports, demonstration reports, police locations, traffic light conditions across the city, etc., etc. There is definitely no shortage of data.
They currently have about 38 traffic cameras all over the city. Some are looking over highways and some are pointed at major roads.
The cool thing is the cameras can be zoomed and panned remotely. Wow! Zoom in on that speeding car’s license plate ! (Zooming in to that level may not be possible in reality, though)

With all this information, the TMC can quickly know if there is a traffic condition that needs to be attended to, and can dispatch the closest police officer to the scene (If he/she is not in traffic herself, ofcourse).

A youtube video, which gives a glimpse of what the police officers are monitoring daily inside the TMC can be found in the videos section of the bebasmacet.ning.com site.

Are you aware of the existence of TMC in Jakarta ?

It was about noon time on a Monday, several days ago. We had just finished watching our kids perform at school and wanted to grab some lunch. After strolling Cilandak Town Square (Citos) for a while, we decided to have lunch at Mango. We were seated inside, near the drinks counter. We completed our orders and soon after the waiter brought us our drinks.

All of a sudden, two people who were sitting right next to my kids started lighting up their cigarettes. Concern about my kids, I called the waiter and asked to be moved somewhere else that’s a non smoking area. The waiter replied “This is a smoking restaurant. In fact the whole ground level of Citos is designated a smoking area. The only non-smoking area is on the upper floor.“

The whole ground level of Citos is designated as smoking area ? Since when ? Not wanting to prolong the arguments, I got up to the cashier’s area and told them that we’re leaving and paid for the drinks that have been served. (To their credit, they also didn’t make a big fuss about us canceling the orders we have placed). As I was paying, I asked the lady at the cash register about when Mango turned into a smoking restaurant. “We used to have a smoking section and a non smoking section, but we decided to make them all smoking now” was her reply. She didn’t elaborate further and I just wanted to get out of that place as soon as possible.

We left the place and went to the second floor and finally had our lunch there.

Have I missed something ? Is there really a special license for certain public areas to be designated smoking and not considered a violation of Peraturan Daerah Provinsi Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta, Nomor 2 tahun 2005, pasal 13 which says the following:

Pasal 13
(1) Tempat umum, sarana kesehatan, tempat kerja dan tempat yang secara spesifik sebagai tempat proses belajar mengajar, arena kegiatan anak, tempat ibadah dan
angkutan umum dinyatakan sebagai kawasan dilarang merokok.
(2) Pimpinan atau penanggungjawab tempat umum dan tempat kerja harus menyediakan tempat khusus untuk merokok serta menyediakan alat penghisap
udara sehingga tidak mengganggu kesehatan bagi yang tidak merokok.
(3) Dalam angkutan umum dapat disediakan tempat khusus untuk merokok dengan
ketentuan:
a. lokasi tempat khusus untuk merokok terpisah secara fisik/tidak bercampur
dengan kawasan tanpa rokok pada angkutan umum yang sama;
b. dalam tempat khusus untuk merokok harus dilengkapi alat penghisap udara atau memiliki sistem sirkulasi udara yang memenuhi persyaratan yang ditetapkan Peraturan Perundang-undangan yang berlaku.

Discipline and the will to enforce laws are lacking badly in this country and I suppose it’s not going to be fixed soon. Smoking in public areas is not that big of an issue compared to other more serious violation of the law, but it is nevertheless another indication of laws being broken and nobody doing anything about it.

By the way, if you look at the whole Peraturan Daerah, it contains other laws that are basically unenforceable. They are all good laws and if we were to follow through with it we will have much cleaner air. Perhaps in 20 to 30 years it will become a reality ?

Entrepreneurs better do it the old fashion way, where they focus on a niche segment of the market, generate break-even cash as soon as possible, and only grow as necessary, thus minimizing the need for huge sums of capital.  It takes longer and requires more patience, wits, and creativity, but you retain control, freedom, and can run below the radar under much less pressure.

It seems like good old fashion advice.  However, looking at the way startups are started today, it seems like people are doing it as if they will be crushed by faster competitors if you don’t grow big fast.  You either grow fast and dominate your market, or you’ll die. Is it really true ?

Anyways, some good advice for startups from the article:

1. Get Operational quickly
   Just jump in and do it, if necessary copy other people’s business first.  Don’t wait for the big breakthrough idea.  Opportunities will come once you jump in.
2. Look for quick break-even cash generating projects
   bootstrapping startups need to get cash to cover expenses as soon as possible.  Think of ways to generate this and don’t consider it as distraction to your core idea. This is how a startup can survive.
3. Offer high value products or services that can sustain direct personal selling
   Use your personal passion and salesmanship and willingness to go the extra mile as a substitute for big marketing budget to convince consumers to buy your product/service.
4. Forget about the crack team
   Strong core team is needed for VC to fund you.  If you don’t need VCs then you can manage without having that strong core team initially.
5. Keep growth in check
   Grow only at a pace which you can sustain with your current resources.
6. Focus on cash, not on profit, market share, or anything else
   In startup mode, cash, more than anything else is king. It’s even beyond profit and other strategic goals.
7. Cultivate banks before your company becomes credit worthy
   Maintain good relationships with banks so that you will be able to get loans from them when you need them later.

There are several factors that come into consideration when he says they are qualified, including, among other things:

1. Technical Competencies
2. Passion for the job
3. Work ethics and attitude.

After grueling screenings, about 99% of the applicants fail and only about 1 % “diamonds” are found. Most of them fail in the passion and work ethics area.

This is a very sad statistic. Just when other countries are gearing up for information economy, we are only producing a measly 1% qualified IT professionals.

How is your experience in this area ? Is it just as bad ?