:: MIS Insights ::

Slashdot just introduced me to Writely, an online word processing application. Writely is another software from Google designed to create a totally online user experience. Why do it with desktop applications (MS Office or Open Office) when you can do it online (with Writely)?

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is a neologism for the new way of using the internet. O’Reilly Media envisioned a web that allowed users to do everything (well, ideally everything) in the internet. The internet could be a platform where online services would replace local applications. Everything can be customized according to the user’s preferences, wants and needs. Data would be stored online, allowing the user to resume their work anywhere they have a compatible browser and an internet connection.

One of the key players in this endeavor is Google. Assuming that the internet develops as the platform to be in in the future, we can see why Google is investing so much on ventures that are bent on keeping people online longer within the range of their services (or ads, if you will).

Concerns

While many people are excited about the progress and development of the Web platform, there are some concerns with regards to such technology.

• The need for an internet connection that can provide a satisfying user experience. With a more dynamic and richer user experience, we are currently looking at web services that consume a lot of bandwidth where delayed response from the application is more of the rule rather than the exception.
• Data security becomes an issue. Since our data will be stored online, sensitive information become exposed to more vulnerabilities and misuse.

My Way

If there were something that can be done about the above situation, I’d wait until everyone got ultrafast internet connection. A lot of people are still using internet connections below 10Mbps. Performance really takes a lot of beating with such limited bandwidth.

But why is Google doing it now? So that when the internet connection technology becomes available to a lot of people, they’ll have decent working applications and one hell of a barrier entry to late adopters. That, or simply because they can.

In addition to that, I’d also require dedicated IPs for the internet connections of subscribers to such online services. In this way, data need not be saved inside the data centers of the service providers. An interface from the online applications could provide access to the hard drives of the machines. These machines can be located in the internet using the dedicated IPs.

Wouldn’t we run out of IP addresses with such setup? No doubt about it. However, there are many ways to skin a cat. For instance, we could *upgrade* our current IP address setup to accept more addresses. Instead of using IPv4, we could use IPv6 (yes, i know there are a lot of issues to tackle with regards to such change in standards, but that is set for an entirely different article). OR we could set up NAT service providers that can lease IP addresses ala VPN-style. This is something like what Hamachi does.

As much as I’m pleased with such developments, online applications still remain unviable at the moment. Being expensive and impractical, we still has a long way to go before locally-sourced applications (within the intranet, for you nitpickers) are displaced by their online counterparts.

Shock - Chinese domain names net US$160,000 in an auction [cnn.com]. The event was organized by Roger Wang ~ whose umpc.com.cn was sold for US$49,000.

Denial - Looks like China will be the next frontier for Cybersquatters [wikipedia.com].

Cybersquatting is the act of buying (or reserving) domain names to be sold later for a big price tag.

Domain names, simply put, are the names of the websites - ex. google.com, cnn.com, paminta.com are domain names.

Damn, I hate cybersquatting.

Anger - Reasons why I think cybersquatting isn’t that much of an issue in the Philippines (.ph):

• Filipinos would rather get cheaper .orgs, .bizs, .coms, etc. ($9~Php600) than .phs, .com.phs ($35~Php2000)
• Some SMEs don’t want to be known as Filipino Businesses. Foreign companies can be very picky with the people they work with.
• Web Presence is not really part of the Information System Plan (or specfically, the budget) in most business plans of brick-and-mortar SMEs here. Where there’s a budget, there’s usually not enough.

Bargaining - What I’d do to set up a Country-Code Top Level Domain Business right now at China… Hmm… Imagine…

1. Register Terms, Phrases and every Chinese word you can think of under .cn (Cybersquatting + Domain Kiting [wikipedia.com])

2. ???

3. Profit!!!

Depression - With a native population of over one billion and another billion around the globe wanting to do business with them, I think there’ll be plenty more of such extor~ *cough* deals in China. How I wish I could have a slice of such virtual pie. Just one bite…

Testing - However, reservation of .cn domains require physical presence or representation in China. Moreover, there is a need for background information on the culture and the psychological nature of people living there. These will be instrumental in matching the right domain names to the economic opportunities that the Interweb brings.

Both of which I do not have the luxury of.

Acceptance - Different Opportunities for Different People. Let me now go back to advertising my profession as an ICT Mercenary.

If you’re in need of a consultant, analyst or instructor for your business or information systems, it’s rj dot mendi at gmail dot com

Kübler-Ross [changingminds.org]

a lot of my new clients recently have had to rethink their domain names. it seems that the internet is overly populated that decent domain names are hard to find nowadays. or is it?

cybersquatting

as i mentioned in the other day, this is the practice of occupying a domain name in the hopes of reselling it in the future for a bigger price tag. pipboy.com. enough said.

all your identites are belong to us

i really don’t know how to call this variant but i’ve come across this several times already: several dudes out there go out and register domain names based on family names or company names. then, they offer e-mail or sub-domain hosting at a non-marxist price. check out net-identity.com. lolz, i frown upon such practice for now, but i have to admit, i admire their business plan.

typosquatting

this is when people register domain names that are spelled or typed like another domain name. for example, wal-mart and walll-mart

what’s in it for these typosquatters? if they’re not selling the domains for a bigger price, then they’re offering it as a service where pay-per-click advertisers can dump their ads. every time that someone clicks an ad from their typosquatted sites, they earn!

domain kiting

and the most recent form of domain name hogging is what bob parsons, godaddy’s big daddy, calls domain kiting. it seems that some registrars allow a 5-day trial period for domain names. that is, one can register a domain name and return it on the 5th day to get a full refund. over the course of the five days, a simple website full of pay-per-click ads are setup. and like typosquatting, these websites earn when users click on these ads. all for the low and affordable price of zero dollar$.

with all these forms of domain name hogging, it’s getting harder and harder to come up with a cool and easy to remember domain name.

if there’s anything that startups must also consider when formulating their business plans, it’s a stricter brand management regimen. in the end, it’s all about having a name that stands out and is descriptive of your business. not like any domain name that other dudes out there can also think of.

pipboy v3.0 ~ that is this website’s title. v3.0 because this is my third attempt at the documentation of my adventurous mishaps. well, not anymore it is. i’m dropping v3.0 from now on.

you see, the internet can be a very dangerous place if one is not careful with their identity. there will always be people out there who ready to take advantage of one’s identity.

phishing

Wikiwikiwiki-wild-wild-west-pedia says:

In computing, phishing is a form of criminal activity using social engineering techniques. It is characterized by attempts to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business in an apparently official electronic communication.

my mentor william wrote an article about this one a few days ago. he shows how some spoofing bastards out there were trying to fake customers into giving out their personal banking information by sending them to a site that looked like metrobank.

but i’m not saying someone was copying my site. it’s more of a branding issue. for instance, most 80s babies know about street fighter. subsequently, almost everyone who knows street fighter will know that street fighter super mega alpha omega ultimate edition is better than street fighter super mega alpha omega edition sans ultimate. that’s how it also is in the internet. by virtue of the decimal counting system, wouldn’t you agree that v4.0 should be better than v3.0? so, i’d like to protect myself from myself, where i can accidentally imply that my site is good or bad at any given time or another site is better or not. if you’re gunning for a first-page google result based from your site keywords or website title, such branding issue is very important.

having said that, let’s talk about other identity concerns over the internet.

Web Address

Web addresses, Domain Names or URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) are the real estates of the web. Businesses try their best to have their web addresses identical to their company names. Example: Ayala ~ http://ayala.com.ph.

There are cases when a company gets beaten to such web addresses by early birds though. This means settling for a different Domain Name or something similar. For instance, some guy beat PLDT to the PLDT domain name when the internet age began. He owned it for several years, spoofing the philippine telecommunications company until … they decided to reach an $amicable$ settlement.

business idea!

light bulb please with matching *ding*

such real estate hogging is actually a big business over the internet. lots of freaking domain name tycoons out there do nothing but buy and buy domains everyday. after getting hold of such domain names, these companies then sell it at auctions with a fat tag price or sell it with a fatter tag price to interested entities ~ whichever comes first. so if you’ve got a credit card and a few thousand bucks to spare, drop me an e-mail for the whole business plan. we’ll be rich in no time like this guy i read from the internet. just a few months ago, sex.com was sold for 14 million us dollars! these are the times when one would say, “hey, why didn’t i think of that?!”

anyway, from now on, say hello to pipboy and say goodbye to v3.0.

Lag has killed more online game players than any other player or entity on earth. Not even the addicted or professional gamers can outscore the frags that lag has played a part in. Ever since the beginning, people have always found themselves lacking in bandwidth. It doesn’t matter whether you’re surfing the net over dial-up, playing MMORPGs over dsl or ripping ISOs over your fat 6mbps pipes. you will always feel that lag (or delay) that would make you wish that you had more.

however, if you think that there will be a day when you can have more than sufficient bandwidth at cost-effective prices, you’re wrong.

ISPs won’t allow this

in the utopic world that i envision, ISPs would have uber-cool facilities that should be able to serve every household with 15mbps connections. these connections should allow people to copy dvds over the net as if they were on a lan (or close to it). beautiful isn’t it?

but ISPs won’s allow that. not everyone needs a 15mbps pipeline. there is no need to upgrade due to the lack of demand from customers who are willing to pay for such quality / quantity of service. if we have to convince the major ISPs to upgrade their system because it is technically feasible, we would get a big No because it is not economically feasible.

Application Service Providers should work on this

even though online games and file transfer activities have become so popular to make the user net experience suck, there is little pressure on the ISP bigwigs to upgrade. people might want that extra bandwidth for their wonderful net experience, but people do not want to pay for such services. that is why dsl has become so popular in the philippines only recently with the cost-effective (read between the lines) dsl connections.

until online applications are able to max out the supplied bandwidths, upgrading facilities to make the user experience enjoyable sometimes isn’t good for business. if the facilities will be used thoroughly for only half a day (eg daytime), the other half of the day would leave such assets / resources idle and unprofitable. charging the users for the machine idle time drives the costs up and the marketing team nuts.

unfortunately, very few people complain in such a situation. the closest thing one can ever hear as a protest would be the bold and outrageous cost-effective (read between the lines) services of competitors. think dsl (globe and pldt). think mobile (sun and globe/smart).

the politechs can drive you too

oh, and until IPTV, IPphone and IPwhatever-hogs-your-bandwidth becomes widely available, fat and cheap net connections are still wishlists for santa’s next visit. unfortunately, as i read somewhere from the net, such technologies face stiff competition from government-backed brick-and-mortar establishments that stand to lose market share from the same line of service. enough said.

Lag == Money

so if you have to think about it, everytime that you experience lag / delays, think about money. an online game that lags is a happy game because its servers are working double-time (the company is currently profitable, assuming their hardware doesn’t just suck). a surfing experience that sucks means that your isp is happy (their bandwidth is being consumed, realizing their max-bandwidth-consumption-means-max-profit projections). a frag from your friend that was caused by a lag means you blame the lag (everyone knows you’re better than the others, right?).

until then, stay connected.

After finishing (or close to it) several websites after graduation, I can now give my webhosting site much needed attention. After spending most of the morning fixing how the pages look, my next task will be to actually fill out the website content. With this on the works, i hope to have the website uploaded by the end of the week