The Future of the Internet (2)

Welcome to part 2 of the discussion of the topic. I encountered some formatting issues with blogger which messed up screen pretty badly when i tried to manually manipulate the HTMLL code.... i guess blogger is still a long way in pre-empting what i want and does not count as a "semantic web" application... haha.

For instance, when you get out of bed every morning, your personal computer would automatically boot up, load windows and automatically connect to the internet with your frequently visited webpages open and ready to go as soon as you step out of the shower. To achieve such a result in the present day is actually possible, however one will need to manipulate the PC extensively before achieving such a result. As such, semantic web (A.K.A. web 3.0) is still in its infancy.

Next in line for the future of the internet is a really cool piece of technology dubbed, "Sixth Sense Technology (SST)"

Words cannot even begin to explain the limitless possibilities of SST, so i shall let the pictures do the talking for now.

Basically what SST is " a mini-projector coupled with a camera and a cellphone—which acts as the computer and your connection to the Cloud, all the information stored on the web" (Diaz 2009)

-source: http://gizmodo.com/5167790/sixth-sense-technology-may-change-how-we-look-at-the-world-forever

Basically it makes day to day tasks such as making phone calls and searching the web for information more revolutionary.

For instance, you could hold up your hands in a "square" action and the SST will realise that gesture as a "photo taking" gesture can capture whatever you have in between your hands literally!!!

Soon you will be able to look at something such as a bar code for instance all relevant information will be projected onto your eye retinas in numerous lines of information a la the matrix.

The Future of the Internet

I robot, a film 6 years ago depicting earth and will smith the near future of what earth very well might become.

"it's 2035 A.D., where robots are everyday objects and are programmed to live alongside humans" - Source IMDB

It may be the year 2035 in the film, however this reality might come very soon for us, perhaps in the the next 10 or 20 years.

The internet nowadays is being used for a variety of day to day activities, from personal usage such as purchasing goods and services online, to synchronising multinational corporations whose businesses span the globe.

As the needs of both businesses and personal users of the internet get increasingly complex, internet is slowly starting to evolve.

One such concept is that of "Semantic Web". According to Berners Lee (1992), the "father" of the internet,

"The Semantic Web is an evolving development of the World Wide Web in which the meaning (semantics) of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to "understand" and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content.^[1][2] It derives from World Wide Web Consortium director Sir Tim Berners-Lee's vision of the Web as a universal medium for data, information, and knowledge exchange.^[3]"

^{- Source http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Longer.html}

COM 125 Entry #3

Apologies for the lack of blog postings as of late, i have been very distracted with outside matters till I realised that i have a back log of 2 undone blog entries from the previous 2 weeks. That being said, let's get one of the two entries out of the way: e-Commerce.

E commerce

This topic actually resonates deeply with me as I had tried to start a business revolving around E-commerce after reading about it 2-3 years back.

In a nutshell, the said business of mine revolved around peddling 2nd hand goods through online channels. i made extensive use of social media portals such as facebook and online forums to move my goods (which were in turn obtained from various other people).

The idea was novel at first; random items available for sale at rock bottom prices using the internet as a marketing tool. Well ideas always look good on paper but differs greatly in practise, as i found out later.

Business was brisk at first, with alot of people buying and selling through me. I had to be present physically for the buying of the 2nd hands good and the selling. I enjoyed it at first running back and forth in locations throughout singapore but I started to face a few problems which never went away. I eventually wound down the business in about a few months after starting it up as my school grades were also taking a beating.

So what went wrong with this E-commerce, or psuedo e-commerce?

A helpful analysis of the sitaution would include "Micheal Porter's 5 forces" [of a business].

The first force would be the supplier bargaining; people would contact me with goods they would want to sell and i would post an advertisement on the said online mediums. Now more often than not people tell me, "i want to sell this item at $XXX, you can mark it up to $YYY and you can earn the rest." Most of the time, their quotes for prices are outrages and ridiculous, and i when i tell them this item can't be sold, they would reluctantly lower it, eating into my $YYY - $XXX profit margin. It came to a point when i only earned $1 or $2 off a sale of an item. That represented the "suppliers" bargaining power. They keep throwing me bones to eat instead of meat.

Next comes customer bargaining power, this does not require much thought. When a customer sees something he or she likes, they would make contact with me to view the product. And when they arrive, and they like the product, they would bargain with me over the price. My margin is already so low, and i deal mostly with friends and family, how can i refuse their request for a lower price? Now even my bone is taken away as i have to sell at cost or at a loss.

The threat of new entrants is very great as the online media allows any net savvy individual to set up shop at virtually (no pun intended) no or low cost (which i did). Hence my business model is not very unique as i am considered to have entered the market rather late.

Better substitutes to my service exist in the form of physical brick and mortar locations such as cash converters and sungei road theives market. Online substitutes also include websites such as e-bay. All these services provide a much better service than my small start up and i find it hard to entrench myself against such major players.

In summary, my e commerce business model was not sustainable in the long run.

However, i have learnt some valuable lessons and made useful contacts during the time spent doing this. I eventually wish to come back to this again at some point of time when i have more time and resources to devote to it. For now, my studies have the first priority.

COM 125 entry #1

Its a new year and a new semester... another COM module with a blog requirement means i get to recycle this address again (Which was in turn recycled from another one of my blogs... haha, save the earth! Recycle bandwith!!)!

So anyway, COM125's title is the "introduction to Internet", and if you must know.... the previous entries were from COM337, Com theory.

Now i consider myself to be quite slow to adopt new technology, i always use my mobile phones for a full 2 years (most of them do not last the 2 years.... they usually break down before that time period due to my rough handling), and i do not feel the need to upgrade to the latest and quickest gaming computers (i used a pentium 4 single processor for a full 5 years before switching to dual core technology only recently last year!) either.

My motto towards technology is, "if it isn't broken.... don't go and fix it!"

The only tech that i am relatively up to date is gaming technology because i am a relatively hardcore gamer myself.

Here's a general list of internet applications that i use everyday in order of most frequently used:

1. Singapore Bike Forums
2. Facebook
3. Online streaming videos (youtube, yousportz)
4. E mail
5. Google search
   

Well that's all for the introductory blog article on the wonderful internet! Next time i shall talk abit more on the applications that i frequently use!