Wall Street & Pirates of the Caribbean

Nah, it's no longer Caribbean but Somali & Pirate Bay!

Quest blogs about them being jailed in Sweden, I mean those 4 men from Pirate Bay, that is.

As for the Somalis, well, we'll have to wait for the soldiers to do their work, I'm afraid.

Greed, the backbone of the movie Wall Street has now come full circle after 20 years post showing of the movie. We have the collapse of the credit market in Wall Street, we have the pirates along the coast of Somali & we also have piracy in the internet world.

I'm not so much interested in Wall Street or the Somali's pirates. This is something which is beyond most ordinary citizens' control or say. The internet offers another angle though. Collaborated effort is the essence of the internet. Well, at least the spirit of collaboration is what the internet is all about. YouTube is one good example of how much more life can be with it. Once in awhile though, when YouTube gets a BIG hit, embedding is being turned off. As with the case of Susan Boyle on Britains Got Talent. This however, is something everyone got to watch. I've seen it 3x today & every single time, I'm truly inspired! As of this writing, there has been over 25 million hits!

Today's Read: Pirate Bay Verdict (BBC), 'Talent' star keeps singing, raves keep coming (CNN)

Today's Video: Susan Boyle - Britains Got Talent [The video which got everyone talking & raving around the world!] (YouTube), Burst bubble (CNN)

Alibaba, Facebook, Twitter ... C2B

Alibaba, Facebook & Twitter are some of the successful stories of the internet age. These are companies which may or may not be public companies, yet they all have a large following. Who are behind these successful companies amid the world recessionary environment?

I found some answers from Business Week. 













Today's Read: Twitter, from poor man's email to innovation leader (Reuters)

About IP (Intellectual Property)

When I was in Shanghai, I attended James' law course on IP at Fudan University.

It's a hot topic in China now, including a case last year where Microsoft had computers of users of pirated Windows software experiencing blackouts (for chinese speakers, an indepth discussion on this matter can be found in Brainstorm sessions with experts from the IT field).

I'm not against IP at all, in fact, I'm all for it since I build websites of my own.

What is interesting though is that the benefits from an open platform is being hampered in the western medias more so than in the chinese medias (in the name of profitablity, I'm sure). It is a surprise to me, to say the least! I'm not merely referring to hollywood productions or the entertainment field. I'm referring to productions by CNBC, CNN, Reuters instead. These are all commercial entities. Granted, it has its shareholders to account to, wherein some or most of the Chinese medias are government funded, a case in point is CCTV or CBN. For educational purposes though, I learn a great deal out of these medias which have many of its programs streamed onto the web on a daily basis. I've a lot more (free, as in not paid, which in turn becomes FREE, as in dissemination of ) information streamed out of China than I've about the West (main stream media, I mean). WE may be living in a free society, but we are definitely all made to pay for them!!! This is especially true of CNBC, CNN & Reuters! That essentially means (at least to me, it means) having unequal disadvantage when it comes to information processing. Information & the timely acquisition of information for investment's decision making means a lot of difference when it comes to the finance arena! This goes against fair competition, I believe. In some ways, I do feel that there is more fairness among the common people in Shanghai than there is among the New Yorkers. I might be wrong, but that's how I've been feeling & it bothers me that I feel so!


Getaway to Austria, a foreign language (ie. English in this case) travel program by ICS (International Channel Shanghai) broadcasted on Apr. 11, 2009

Today's Video: Gone with the wind (Quacor)