Nexus 2007

Like-minded techies and Google-Apple-OpenSource oriented geeks together, got funding and asked a bunch of famous internet gurus, technology experts and inspiring technopreneurs people from around the world to come visit lala-land. They came to enlighten us and find out what we thought. The Digital Movement organised the first ever Nexus event in Singapore last Saturday.

Here's my rundown on the interesting bits from the whole day event:
1. Web 2.0 (did you know there were versions of the web?)
- applications are going on the net. No more CDs to install.
- richer interfaces are coming
- everything will connect to the Net
- everyone's data is going on the Net
- open source work is important because young entrepreneurs have no money
- the Internet population will grow according to Moore's Law, the same law that Intel and AMD apply to predict how small chips will get to achieve the same computing power
- Nathan Torkington is very funny, extremely perceptive and is from New Zealand. Baaa!

2. What's happening on the mobile scene
- the phone networks fall behind the technology that inventors want to put onto phones
- the next big thing is convergence of enterprise and consumer applications on phones
- one day you'll be able to jump phone networks seamlessly, from home, outdoors and office, with your numbers changing automatically but routed to the same device
- location-based services might take off
- location-based sensing of your buddies is the next big thing too

3. The long tail (of the Internet business animal)
- Amazon.com makes most of its money from the long tail phenomenon. That’s why Tower Records is out of business.
- people use the Net to maintain contacts and discover new ones
- people love to contribute and eventually become important when they build credibility with their contributions. The 'egosystem'.
- metadata is important
- the currency of revenge is a driver e.g. bad restaurant experiences can have devastating consequences if many people in a shared network learned about it
- the first few reviewers are important. They set the tone for the type of contributions to a site.
- the masses have implicit power or can gain that power from information on the Net e.g. www.theyworkforyou.com
- the world is not flat. It is spiky, with people on the same spike level sharing similar interests.
- it's ok to have multiple personalities on the Net.
- in the future, online services will come together like Amazon and FedEx did; broadband mobile is gonna be big; and location-based services will become important too.

4. Being an entrepreneur
- do not be afraid to try
- ensure your T&Cs match your product
- don't let your investors interfere with your vision
- be ready to attack problems with no solutions
- passion married with incompetence leads to funny
- think about your market
- stick together as a team
- keep to your grand plan. Don't bail out on your vision when something unexpected happens, good or bad.
- if Plan A doesn't work, think about a Plan B
- you need to keep learning, else you die
- to keep your people happy, don't hire bad people
- if someone works more than 45hrs a week for more than a few weeks, he/she becomes less productive
- businesses are in a marathon, not a sprint
- entrepreneurship is an attitude. Cory from Linden Labs interviewed 100 people in SG and took 3 because they had the right entrepreneurial attitude. The one who impressed him was a girl from Nanyang Poly.
- one person no matter how smart can make bad decisions
- intuition is important. You won't have all the information you need to make the best decision.
- think about how your idea can turn into a viable business before you go too far
- surround yourself with like-minded people
- you need 3 types of people to succeed - the tech guy, the business guy and the human interface design guy
- Cory from Linden Labs which made Second life is funny too.

The words 'ecosystem' and 'traction' were used many times by many speakers.

The food was ok. You had to fill out a form to get espresso coffee. Hmmm. I met Todd, Van Tan and Pedal Ubin Siva there. We had lunch at Han's at the Arcade - the best fish & chips for $5! They had beer at the end - I had some and left. That was Nexus, an enjoyable hotchpotch of tech and tidbits.