STD: Socially Transmitted Decline

It's been a quiet week for South East Asia, considering all the political noise last week about South China Sea. The bright spot is the markets, which continue to climb. Malaysia hit its all time top this week. But you know what happens, when you hit the top?

The global economy is still going sideways, but the drama will heat up as the Americans go into election. The latest political football is the Federal Reserve. In reality, they are under heavy influence of the very same banks they are supposed to regulate, since its birth in 1913. Regional federal reserve board of directors are elected by banks themselves. Recently, congress passed a bill to allow them to audit the Fed, thanks to Ron Paul. But its unlikely the Senate will pass it. Pity.

It has not been good news for social networks. Twitter's been offline, facebook was punished in the market. Its umbilically attached gaming co, Zynga, slowed from limping to crawling. Drawsomething, is now yesterday's news, and has become an expensive anvil around their neck. Paypal finally admitted its still stuck in the past (ie net 1.0), but its plan is vague. Oh well, they are not alone. The unasked question is: what's going to happen to Groupon?


But hey, its only part of hype curve, as explained by Gartner. There continues to be heavy VC investments in everything social including: social tickets, social hotel finding, social marketing / targeting, social learning, social "word of mouth", white-label social CRM, social video. That's over $160M in just seven days.

Google is not the only company that's got glasses. Canon and Oculus have developed their own respective, cool versions. Canon have developed a solution called mixed reality. Its similar to augmented reality except it includes fully 3D rendered objects, intended for training engineers. Actually, I think it will be more fun, and lucrative, to give it to the people who develop Call of Duty or Battlefield. Oculus, born from Stanford and Berkeley (where else) are building a holodeck ala Star Trek! I guess, they still have some more work to do. But its promising.

The last words in social: the world's first fully digital sexually transmitted disease, developed thanks (I think) to Stanford and Venter labs who succesfully modelled the disease called "Mycoplasma genitalium". They have also included the link with full source code. Download it  http://bit.ly/MPJp8i , if you dare! Maybe the Indonesians may help stem the tide of digi-sex. They have just blocked over 1 million smut sites, just for the month of Ramadan. I guess when the following month Syawwal arrives, the porn is back on?

The meek shall inherit the world

Studies have shown there are as many women graduating as men. In fact, there are more women getting university, college degrees than men. So the future is going to be very different. But for now, the technology sector is very much testosterone filled. 


But change is afoot. Yahoo! has a new CEO! A femme. They have brought in a tech person, but the problem is clearly in content and media. Having said that, their display ad engine needs a spruce up. Will it go the way of its search? ie 100% outsource. You would think they have enough smart people to build it or buy it (ala google, facebook).



On the venture side, there is plenty of seed and round A money in the usual portfolios (cloud mobile social). Deals for B is less. C and onwards continue to be a scare commodity, and rightly so. Few acquisitions announced. Dell having bought a few late stage storage Cos, are now offering $ to storage startups.


The global economy is still flat and has limited prospects of lifting. This includes China. But that's not a bad thing either, considering that everyone really needs to hunker down and work and spend, not just spend. However, the shadow of QE3 and stimulus looms. More money for banks, big brother and their familiars.


Talking about big brother: Both Russia and USA have recently legislated their respective forms of internet control. Yes, USA too.


On the regional front, South East Asia continues as the rare jewel in the great recession. But IMF has recently cooled its forecast, only by a bit. Meantime, the Malaysian capital market has reached an all-time peak. The regional political interplay and plot thickens. It seems Cambodia is China's knight in its South East Asian chessboard. It is coincidental that the Scarborough Shoal issue is peaking at a time when Cambodia is chairing ASEAN? 



Finally, on the scientific front: its all about mind reading thanks to Northwest Uni and Vere, Israel. One machine can determine if you are friend or foe. This will be useful for married men. The other can remote control a robot via pure thoughts alone. This will be a useful tool for married women.