After some shameless act of self-promotion for twitter names owned/co-owned by facilitators i.e. @cerventus,@myentrepreneurs, @worldisastage, @pieartboy, @michaelteoh, @elevyn_official etc., the not-so-newbies and newbies altogether sent well over 200 tweets with #ideashare tag over the course of over two hours, by which "ideashare" was already trending clearly on Twitter.com and on tag cloud at sites like Twitscoop etc, as observed by below graph, sparking curiosity among twitizens:
There were negative side effects though: The room was so packed with people, that those in the room were suffering internet surfing slowness frustration syndrome (as 20-30 ppl cramping wirelessly the small pipe of 1.5Mbps temporary/dedicated DSL installation at any one time), and to make things worse, the aircond couldn't stand the heat emitted by after-lunch human crowd and broke down, sending the room into the state of microwave and fried most of these brainiacs turning them into crappy tweeters, irritating everyone else in the twitterverse including @kamal, @lukejsmith and @bytebot, among others!
Guess, most of the people in the room hasn't heard about @kevinrose's latest gift to the web 2.0 crowd: @wefollow, ie. http://wefollow.com/tag/ideashare - you don't need to blatantly self-promote your twitter name. Instead, just tag, and you're it!
Need more tag ideas? Try "penang" (or the state you're from, which you can change at a later time) and "malaysia" (we're all Malaysians right? and there's no rooms in twitterspace!)
I'm also surprise why the facilitators were showcasing twitterfall and twitpic websites, when tweetdeck clearly has all of those small gimmicks with growing features like group, search and twitpic. (note: twitpic.com was down at the time of demo!)
More information is available at the event-centric/local networking site developed by folks at Eureka Labs, http://ideashare.my
Surprisingly(?), not many people, despite having a horde of 60+ participants at the venue yesterday, are following @netbash or @ideashare (ownership questionable), with just thirteen and four followers respectively as of 7 am on the next day.
And folks @ MDEC neither owns @mdec nor @tedd twitter names, which are both registered by others as early as nearly a year ago (30mar08 for "mdec") -- Should I reveal more brandjackable twitter names??
About Twitscoop:
Twitter was built to help thousands of people answer a very simple question: "What are you doing ?"
Twitscoop was built to help you stay on top of twitter's hot topics or discussions.
Through an automated algorithm, twitscoop crawls hundreds of tweets every minute and extracts the words which are mentionned more often than usual. The result is displayed in a Tag Cloud, using the following rule: the hotter, the bigger (no joke here).
Thanks to twitscoop and the continuously growing twitter user base, you will soon realise that "What are you doing ?" can have very different answers, from "I'm standing in a queue of 500 to buy Gta4", to "Was that just an Earthquake ?", through to "Hey, Microsoft just acquired Yahoo" (no this didn't actually happen yet).
As a result, twitscoop enables you to stay on top of things in a matter of seconds, often way before the news actually hits the mainstream information channels !
Despite the many impressing/marketing efforts by various local government and private bodies to show the world that Malaysia is on the verge of fast-paced development on Information & Communication Technology (ICT), up to the conclusion of the 16th World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT 2008) just recently in Kuala Lumpur [proclaimed by its organizers as the "biggest ever" congregation for the Congress' 30-year history], for many Malaysians to-date, there are still much to be hoped for in terms of actual IT infrastructure, specifically with regards to the broadband speed and coverage throughout the relatively small nation (slightly larger than the state of US New Mexico - CIA, 2008) and general IT culture/adoption among Malaysians. [1 (2005)], [2 (2007)] [3 (2006-2007)]
Heck, while newsprints, local media and many independent bloggers (many of whom are locals as Malaysia is growing to become a 'blogging nation') may have sung praises for WCIT as a major world's event [1] [2] [3], elsewhere in the world, many people may have never heard of the event or the organizing body itself, the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA). Both the official website for WITSA and WCIT 2008 command very small web traffic with global ranking average exceeding 1.5M and 400K respectively [smaller numbers signify better ranking] for the past three months (according to Alexa with a third of the traffic to WITSA website comes from the United States and more than half to WCIT2008 website comes from Malaysia, its host nation) despite the big events held for at least three days and attended by at least 3000 "delegates" and perhaps over 50,000 exposition visitors.
Not so popular the event was, WITSA only gets a rather short article in the Wikipedia and there also lacks any dedicated article on "WCIT" -- A search on Wikipedia for "WCIT" only pulls a result of sixteen articles, many of which are unrelated, and the only related ones are MSC Malaysia (an "Multimedia Super Corridor" initiative by the local government, and marketed as one of the major organizer/sponsor for WCIT 2008) and Hannah Tan, a beautiful and talented personality who however failed to pull a significantly large bid for a set of dates with her during a WCIT Gala Dinner held on the second day of the 3-day event.
Even searching for related media on today's popular sharing sites like YouTube, Yahoo! Flickrand Google PicasaWeb would only return a handful of amateur collections from various individuals instead of major organizations.
Have there not been many facts to be permanently recorded for world's civilized history? Or was it because local journalists or international ones who attended the event are still not to comfortable with public crowdsourcing into world's major Web 2.0 productions?
After all, only Dato' Dr. Craig Barrett, Chairmen of Intel can be considered a major IT leader who made a presence at the event, while the over-hyped appearance by Mr. Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft, was only in a not-that-entertaining holographic form -- After all, Intel has a major presence/investment in Malaysia while Microsoft has yet to make a significant base except a decent office at KLCC tower (although there has been an announcement during the WCIT week from Microsoft Malaysia for a sizable investment to establish Microsoft Innovation Centre).
[Another key personality, a popular author and Venture Capitalist Mr. Guy Kawasaki was in Kuala Lumpur too during WCIT week, but he was at a separate event called NetBash, organized by among others, the New Entrepreneur Forum (NEF) and MCA ICT Resource Centre (MIRC), but also attended by key officials from the WCIT2008 organizing body, MDEC.]
In comparison, try googling for events like COMDEX/InterOp, CeBIT, CES 2008, Apple WWDC (June 9-13, 2008 - San Francisco) or Web2Expo (upcoming in New York, Berlin and Tokyo)! While the number of delegates who attended each of these events were smaller, they obviously commanded much bigger coverage in the "new media" platform and respective official websites tend to gain higher visits. After all, these events usually pull in much bigger sponsorships, higher delegation fees and more key personalities from the IT industry. Oh well, we can't compete with the US or Europe, can we? ;)
[Author has attended COMDEX (twice, before the show was discontinued in 2003), Web2Expo (the less exciting Tokyo instead of Berlin or SF) and WCIT and look forward to check out CeBIT, CES and WWDC in the near future now that he writes using a Mac Book Pro instead of a Windows laptop, and tune more to Apple TV/iTunes and MIRO instead of Astro TV, i.e. he's fan of latest digital gadgets and software!]
Still, the fact that our Prime Minister, Dato Seri Abdullah Haji Ahmad Badawi has been so upbeat on WCIT and the outlook for Malaysia's IT future, having joined a big delegation to WCIT 2006 (Austin) and later graced the entire WCIT 2008, despite a minor distraction in his own political party during its second day of running in Malaysia, do give us Malaysian folks some hope. Bravo also to MSC Malaysia crews along with folks from PIKOM etc. Or perhaps, to the Ministry of Tourism Malaysia instead, in conjunction with its Visit Malaysia 2007 campaign that somehow is supposed to run until Merdeka Day 2008, celebrating the country's 50 years of nationhood ;)
Anyway, we've been hearing and seeing some dramatic changes, and more are to come over the next few years in Malaysia:-
A day before the weekends when WCIT 2008 delegates were due to arrive, Malaysia's largest and government-linked company, Telekom Malaysia Berhad made a big announcement on Malaysia's Broadband Plan: RM15.2B (about US$5B) for a 10-year two-phases, three-zones infrastructure project to roll-out high-speed broadband (HSBB), powering about 1.3-million premises throughout the country [1][2], with metros like Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru and Penang (group under Zone 1) will get HSBB as fast as 1Gbps -- Half (50%) of the nation's six million households will get high-speed Internet in less than three years from now, from 18% or less penetration rate today. Impressive plan! One can argue though: wasn't this 50% penetration target already drafted/promised in the "National Broadband Plan (NBP - pdf)", approved nearly five years ago in 2004? OK... perhaps, we're just on (revised) target...
TM Bhd of course now also enjoys MSC Malaysia status for its headquarters tower building, renaming it from "Menara TM" to "TM CyberCentre Complex" - sounds like a huge hypermarket-size cybercafe ;) The same status was also award to RM2B-worth I-City development project in Shah Alam, which is one to watch, along with other ready MSC-status regional zones like those in Penang, Ipoh (Meru Raya CyberCentre - hmm, is there a dedicated website for this?) and Johor Bharu (Cyberport).
And as WCIT 2008 concluded, TM announced appointment of Jeremy Kung as the new CEO for its highly-watched Internet/Broadband-centric subsidiary, TM Net Sdn Bhd, replacing previous acting CEO, Pn Zainab Hashim -- the top-post of this company seems to follow Chief Minister of Sabah rotational scheme: Datuk Baharum Salleh (2002), Michael Lai (2005, later resigned), Zainab Hashim (acting CEO, late 2006) and now Jeremy Kung (2008). Fresh leadership, fresh spirit I suppose...
Satellite broadband technologies are quite ready. Introducing AIDAAS, one of the stars of WCIT 2008 (which also sponsored the Gala Dinner BTW!)...
[Author has met the young and ambitious CEO, and based on an email from her, you can find her on Facebook, soon, hopefully...]
The technology won't likely be deployed in Malaysia immediately though, perhaps due to an exclusive license awarded to satellite tv operator, Astro Plc/MEASAT ("ASTRO’s subsidiary, MEASAT Broadcast Network Systems, enjoys an exclusive licence till 2017 for satellite DTH transmission in Malaysia.", Astro website). But we'll be watching a Malaysian company boldly venturing everywhere else including in the Philippines in the near future.
Author however prefers to wait for Apple iPhone to arrive in Malaysia though, by late 2008 (as promised?), and hopefully to come with 3G (as rumored) and camera with higher resolution - is 5MP too much to ask?
And more speedtest results here after a major upgrade at a local higher learning institution (post WCIT 2008):
Thanks to an upgrade/switch to OCE (PenangFon), the downstream speed has doubled for this particular Wi-Fi connection, which previously utilizes TM Net Streamyx connectivity.
The wired LAN which serves the greater campus of about 20,000 students and staff also seem to have doubled in speed both downstream and upstream directions. For uploading to a Penang-based server (outside USM) instead of uploading to a US city (some 15,000km away), a speed exceeding 20Mbps was recorded. Words from the school's officials is that they'll soon get a 1Gbps upgrade. Patient, patient, my good college boys and girls! No words however on whether the school will relax its ban on YouTube or other high-bandwidth traffic like via P2P software etc. on the campus network.
How big of a difference on 'going fibre' instead of sticking with mainstream DSL service? Consider that a 4 Mbps (maximum for TM Net Streamyx today) would take about 40-minute for Mac users to update their OS X Leopard 10.5.2 to 10.5.3 (released this week). With a 60Mbps downstream connection on the other hand, took less than 2 minute for a CD-size 400+ MB download!
Proud owner of the latest OS on the latest hardware but in 2-minute or 40-minute?
Now consider that you are to download a ~25/50 GB BluRay quality movie or a 4.4GB compressed version (legal version, of course, via iTunes/AppleTV etc) now that this HD format has become mainstream and adopted by practically all major movie studios today (except in countries like Malaysia which will be about five or more years late judging on its past migration from VCD to DVD), how many days/weeks would you have to turn your PC/Mac on, connected to a 4 Mbps or slower DSL line?
And would you be happy to wait for minutes to view those HD-quality movie trailers/teasers or fun clips like those on AppleiTunes etc, or prefer to view them immediately on mouse-click?
Until we get mega broadband to homes and offices for streaming HD movies, for now, enjoy the following low-res slideshow of snaps from WCIT 2008 (Community photos on Flickr, including several that were captured by author using his decent N95 camera phone):
Phew! Time flew really fast, and it's already mid-may: time for international events again now that it's closing in to summer season for northern hemisphere -- the few months when folks from North America and European countries just love to travel for fun (college lads!) and casual business networking... (corporate and SMB guys)
And it starts with a BANG here in Malaysia, heating up with news feeds on prime time TV and prints, and the so-called new media, ie. blogs too... And this photo adds to the fresh sighting:
NEWSFLASH: Over 3000 delegates from all over the world will congregate in Kuala Lumpur this week for during the 16th World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT 2008)... And the exposition booths are expecting some 50,000 visitors!
And I get to be one of them, as usual... ;)
This is to confirm that we have received your registration details on WCIT 2008 Online Registration 18/05/2008 Account Information Username : NASIR.SOBRI Salutation : Mr. First Name : NASIR Middle Name : Last Name / Surname : SOBRI Name On Badge : Nasir Sobri
BTW, the big crowd at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC) will not be just for WCIT forums. There are thirteen WCIT-related events too. For instance, the United Nations GAID Annual Meeting & Global Forum on 19 & 20 MAY 2008 -- quite a sequel to the GK3 event last December 2007 (also at the same venue):
OK, time to start driving to KL, some 300-km away... More updates to follow!
Our first major activity in creating awareness on Web 2.0 (for business) and promoting technopreurship here in Penang was a blast. Over 100 people showed up at the Penang Technopreneurship Dialogue & Web 2.0 Sharing Session 2008, held on last Friday, 1st of February at Level 4, Bayview Hotel, Georgetown. Thank you to MDeC for graciously stepping up with the effort of bringing the movers and shakers from the local scenes, flying them all the way from Kuala Lumpur, and sponsoring the entire event venue and food - good breakfast, lunch buffet and afternoon tea. And USM & PDC for hosting and making sure the event went through smoothly, particularly for the registration and making the guests (& speakers) all comfortable.
We were worried earlier that not many people would show up for an event so focussed on a single technological perspective, instead of the all-in-one ones (with sizable marketing budget) like earlier Penang i-Land 2004, Global Technopreneur Forum 2005 and Penang Technopreneur Forum 2007. But in a prior meeting, so convinced and upbeat I was, I bragged to folks from PDC, MDeC and USM how we'll be able to get the crowd quickly - "No worries - run, and they will follow!" Well, it took us much less than a full week, with the online registration opened to public from the Friday earlier, and the final three days of emailing, calling, and blogging about it from Monday to Wednesday to get people to sign up by ~30s per day -- A good exercise on the power of Web 2.0 I suppose... Now imagine if we had marketed it longer and wider, we'd definitely get hundreds of people to come and talk about the buzzy topic! (but then, the concern would be where would we squeeze these people and how to feed them ;)).
Is Malaysia ready? Is Malaysian businesses ready? Are Penangites ready to take advantage of Web 2.0 and positive trends in technopreneurial ventures to crunch in the numbers - the products and new companies? Take a look at the numbers... I started the sharing with my observation and hyping up the crowd. And I just had to showcase the "Bubble 2.0" video to the audience (amid some technical hickups - no ways to synchronize the play in three laptops at once):
Azrul Hasni from Bill Adam (and formerly from Sun Jtrend) then explored the technicals and explained the buzzes surround Web 2.0, plus shared some of his experience on serving a CTO for a Web 2.0/Mobile 2.0-centric company which markets it products in the UK. Then came Kamal Fariz from Malaysian Ruby Brigade evangelizing the fresh platform which he sort of claimedwould take over the world including the local development scenes by storm. Kamal's presentation was a very light walkthrough on programming using Ruby, but still the crowd looks a bit dazed and fearful when codes start to pop up on the screen - codes that produced great looking photo albums. Khailee finally moved the eyes around as he explored his wild ride in technopreneurial ventures from joining a fast-moving startup post university days up to playing with ideas that bear fruits for his future ventures, perhaps independently (own company) as he had hinted. [though, he might actually end up sticking for a while with Mind Valley]
After a good lunch, (and Jumaat prayer for Muslims), we continued with a dialogue session with distinguished panelists - Colin Wong (Prosperati), Ashran Ghazi (New Entrepreneur Forum), Lilyana (Asia Stream Group), Rizal Alwani (Cradle) and Azrul Madisa. Many questions were thrown in, some were serious, some were downright entertaining, and some were the bits for further discussions. In all, the event was a good chance for the locals to network among themselves, as well as to network with folks coming all the way north from Sintok & Kangar, and south from Klang Valley.
I'll let Azrul & Kamal release their own presentation materials should you desire them - Ask them via email etc. For Khailee's stuff, hmm, did somebody videotaped the whole thing? Or just ask him to pop up at your future events, and he'll do the mumbo jumbo stuff all over again... ;)
And here are the snaps:-
Plus me with other speakers and dialog panelists:
And me with Colin:
BTW, if you've been to the event, but have yet to join in the crowdvine, it's never to late to share with us your profile and network with the rest of the crowd. The address for our dedicated crowdvine is: http://penang20-08.crowdvine.com
We'll keep you updated on subsequent events, information, materials upload etc. at that site.
p.s. The 1Mbps "broadband" from TM Streamyx is getting me under 300Kbps download today, during Chinese New Year holiday! No wonder, it's taking me ages to complete this single blog post... Big wonder how this "broadband provider" keep winning awards locally and overseas as the best this and that provider/telco....
The dialog on the state of broadband, and sharing of experience between participants and attendees is about to start this morning at Nikko Hotel, with guests from various countries especially Japan to enlighten us with their exciting progress in this unchartering of digital territories. The following is the complete agenda for the day (photo below shows early birds registering at arrival counter as early as 8am):
Asia-Pacific Wireless Broadband Forum 2008
(AP-WBF ‘08)
Objective: To promote the sharing and dissemination of the most up-to-date wireless communication technology, service, market and business information and trend among various stakeholders and industry.
Theme:
Broadband Communications: The Enabler of Knowledge Society
Friday, 25 January 2008
Junior Ball Room, Level 2, Nikko Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Programme
Morning
Registration
8.00am – 9.00am
Keynote Session
Session Chair: Dr. Ewe Hong Tat (MMU)
9.00am – 9.25am
Keynote address 1
“"Moving a Major Broadband Agenda
- Implementing High Speed Broadband and Broadband to the General Population”
Mr. Zamani bin Zakariah
Senior Director,MyICMS886, Technology and Standards Division,
Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission
9.25am – 9.50am
Keynote address 2
“Current Status of Mobile Communications in Japan”
Mr. KATAGIRI Koichi, Director for Promotion of ITS
Land Mobile Communications Division
Radio Department, Telecommunications Bureau
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
Opening Ceremony
Opening – Broadband Communications: The Enabler of Knowledge Society
Time
Events
Speakers
9.50am – 10.50am
Opening ceremony
Welcome speech by Prof. Dr. Zaharin Yusoff, President of MMU
Dr. Hiroyo Ogawa, Executive Director
New Generation Wireless Communications Research Center, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Japan
Officiating speech by Minister of Energy, Water and Communications, Malaysia.
10.50am – 11.20am
Tea break & Press Conference
Session 1
Session Chair: Dr. TOKUDA Kiyohito, Oki Electric Industry, Japan
Time
Events
Speakers
11.20am – 11.40pm
Invited Speech (Session 1 – 1)
“Monetizing WiMAX in Malaysia”
Mr. Michael Lai
CEO of Packet One Networks (M) Sdn Bhd (Subsidary of GreenPacket)
Green Packet, Malaysia
11.40pm – 12.00pm
Invited Speech (Session 1 – 2)
“ARIB’s Activities on Systems beyond IMT-2000 and Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) Systems”
Mr. WACHI Yasuhiko
Director, Land Mobile Communications Group, Research & Development Headquarters
for Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB), Japan
12.00pm – 12.20pm
Invited speech (Session 1 – 3)
“Research and Standardization Activity for IEEE802.15.3c mmW WPAN”
Dr. KOJIMA Fumihide
National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Japan
12.20pm – 12.40pm
Invited speech (Session 1 – 4)
“Current Mobile and Wireless R&D Activities in KDDI R&D Laboratories”
Dr. SHINONAGA Hideyuki
Executive Director, Strategic Planning Division
KDDI R&D Laboratories Inc., Japan
12.40pm – 2.30pm
Lunch Break
Afternoon
Session 2
Session Chair: Dr. SHINONAGA Hideyuki, KDDI R&D Laboratories Inc., Japan
Time
Events
Speakers
2.30pm – 2.50pm
Invited Speech (Session 2 – 1)
"Next Generation Mobile Access Network - Super 3G and beyond -"
Dr. MURASE Atsushi
Managing Director, Research Laboratories
NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan
2.50pm – 3.10pm
Invited Speech (Session 2 – 2)
“Emerging Wireless Technologies : What is the horizon?”
Ms. Y. Fern Ko, Technical Insights,
Frost and Sullivan, Malaysia.
3.10pm – 3.30pm
Invited Speech (Session 2 – 3)
“Broadband Wireless Access Technologies”
Mr. NIIMI Kenji
Chief Manager, Mobile Network Solutions Division
NEC Corporation, Japan
3.30pm – 3.50pm
Refreshment
Session 3
Session Chair: Dr. Lee Sze Wei (MMU)
3.50pm – 4.10pm
Invited Speech (Session 3 – 1)
“Next Generation PHS with Micro-cell Technology”
Mr. KAMIMURA Osamu
Project Manager / Senior Coordinator
Spectrum Planning Dept.
WILLCOM, Inc./ PHS-MOU Group, Japan
4.10pm – 4.30pm
Invited Speech (Session 3 – 2)
“3G and its Evolution Trend”
Mr. Yeow Ooh Sheng
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Malaysia
4.30pm – 4.50pm
Invited Speech (Session 3 – 3)
“Safety Driving Support System with DSRC”
Dr. TOKUDA Kiyohito
General Manager, Wireless Technology R&D Division
Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd., Japan
Strap your seat beat, and prepare to be blazed by high speed surfing.... (or at least examine how our Japanese counterparts do their thang!)
UPDATE: News report: "KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 25 (Bernama) -- The government will concentrate on 2.3 gigahertz (GHz) world interoperability for microwave access (WiMax) and at the same time monitor the development of 2.5 Ghz spectrum, said Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik. Read the entire news article...
That's the main theme for the upcoming Asia Pacific Wireless Broadband Forum 2008 that is to be held at Nikko Hotel, Kuala Lumpur on Friday 25 JAN 2008.
My good ol' friend, Dr Yusoff with MMU is co-promoting this event which will welcome guests from our local ministries, various govervment agencies, and delegations & speakers from Japan.
[I've had the opportunity to experience Japan's broadband just recently, and it's something like 30 Mbps today to homes -- need I say more?)
Come February, Penangites can check out a Technopreneur Forum to be co-organized by MDEC and USM, and I'll likely be one of the speakers... Details coming up soon.
It sure will be fun to have good business, and I.T. can just do that: promote commerce, hence fun! At least that's what MiRC is advocating through its full-week of ICT events in Penang until tomorrow, Tuesday 18 DEC 2007.
Here's the promo/informational poster from MCA ICT Resource Centre for the event later this morning:
, Prime Minister of Malaysia, will deliver the opening keynote address at the Third Global Knowledge Conference, GK3. A GKP Event on the Future themed "Emerging People, Emerging Markets, Emerging Technologies", GK3 will take place on 11 to 13 December 2007 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.
Over 200 international champions of development have confirmed their participation as speakers. They will lead interactivedebates about the latest trends, innovations and future perspectivesaround the interplay of emerging people, markets and technologies in over 40 expert panels.
2,000 policy makers, leaders, innovators, visionaries, knowledge management specialists, broadcasters, practitioners and futurists are expected to join the debates and also discussions on latest lessons, effective methods and approaches in over 20 hands-on Emerging Solutions workshops.
GKP Event on the Future -GK3, Third Global Knowledge Conference "Emerging People, Emerging Markets, Emerging Technologies" 11-13 December, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Find out how to participate @ www.GKPEventsOnTheFuture.org
A rough check on participants of a local exposition of micro enterprises in Penang in 2004 showed that about only 10% of the companies or micropreneurs have listed an email address as one of their contact methods. This year, in 2007,more than 50% of these micro enterprises are listed with respective email address, specifically for the companies that are going to participate at an upcoming Gerak Usahawan Pulau Pinang 2007 exhibition that's to be held at Dewan Milenium, Kepala Batas on 4 & 5 AUG 2007.
That's more than five-fold of growth in just three years - a good sign that micro enterprises are getting more ready for IT to spice up their business marketing and operation. Of course this positive growth reflects present Internet usage penetration reaching 50% of the population and a decent growth in the number of Internet usage during the 27-month (Jan 2005-Mar 2007) period: 13.4 to 13.9-million dialup users and 500,000+ to 990,000+ broadband users -- according to Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC). Or according to Aneki.com, Malaysia is listed as top 16th in the world in terms of the number of Internet users, ahead of its neighbors including Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. According to Aneki which bases its data on figures provided by US CIA, Malaysia has experienced 265% in growth in terms of number of Internet users between 2000 and 2007 -- Back in 2000, based on Nielsen Netratings or Computer Industry Almanac data which InternetWorldStats relied on for its world-ranking figures, Malaysia did not even make it in the top-20 lists for Internet users, penetration, and broadband subscribers, but now we obviously are (at no less than 1% of world's usage)!
Or simply because micro entrepreneurs in Penang are getting more and more exposed to IT over several related events like Penang i-Land (2004), Launching of Penang MSC-status cyber city and Global Technopreneur Forum (2005), Penang Technopreneur Blueprint (2006) and an upcoming MSC-related event in Penang in October 2007.
Still, only about 10% of these micro enterprises have their own domain name or website to showcase their products and services. And a quick validation on the email addresses supplied by these micropreneurs shows that about 10% of them are invalid -- either honest mistakes or simply means that they don't really use those email accounts anyway.
It's time for us to embark on a mission to advocate more use of Internet and e-commerce among the micro enterprises in Malaysia... starting with Gerak Usahawan Pulau Pinang -- we'll be at Booth #107. FREE Web.com/WAP.mobi Development service worth RM600+! (LIMITED TO 20 PATRONS -- Contact us for details). BONUS: FREE domain name worth RM28+ with paid hosting. See you there!
Guess, most of the people in the room hasn't heard about @kevinrose's latest gift to the web 2.0 crowd: @wefollow, ie. http://wefollow.com/tag/ideashare - you don't need to blatantly self-promote your twitter name. Instead, just tag, and you're it!
