Further data on email interpretation (see previous post here).

Link (via Alceste)

It would be interesting to compare with face to face conversation.

There are only a few loose indicators of how good a conference program is. We have the satisfaction of the participants (who by definition get very divided on some presentations like this one), feedback from the speakers, and sometimes there is the pride of seeing something we scheduled one or two years ago become a globally hot topic.

After women in technology (for which I caught a lot of heat back in 2006, now a politically correct discussion), the digital divide at home seems to get a lot of attention after a Pew study that found 49% of Americans have “few tech assets”.

Time to look at our Digital Divide: Bringing it home panel video again, with Sugata Mitra, Lara Srivastava, Pukul Rana, Nathan Eagle and the guy who came up with the idea (you see I actually don’t deserve much credit ;), mister Galipeau.

The main reason behind doing a LIFT conference in South Korea is that we think this country is basically an opportunity for Europeans and Americans to have a preview of what their society might be in a near future. Most of the important technological trends start in Korea five years before they hit us. Think of citizen journalism (started by Ohmynews in 2000), social networking (Cyworld, 1999), or knowledge sharing websites (Naver Knowledge iN who became Yahoo Answers for us).

As Korea is, in the words of an Internet executive I met recently, “good at having ideas, bad at exporting them”, all this was so far a well kept secret. But the buzz is mounting, and at Stream07 almost all Asians were from South Korea. The press is also looking at the country of the morning calm with excitement. The latest article comes from CNN who published a story called “A day in the (digital) life of a South Korean boy“. Extracts:

 This peek into the everyday life of an imaginary South Korean boy named Insoo Kim offers insight into what the life of youths in the rest of the world might be like in the near future. […]

Insoo doesn’t even have to take the phone out of his pocket to send an SMS. He knows how to slide it open, which buttons to push how many times to reach the “Send SMS” menu option, compose the entire text message, and hit the send button — all without even looking at the phone. This is especially handy when he needs to send an SMS during class. […]

Insoo has a difficult math problem as homework. He posts it up on Naver Knowledge iN, a popular online Q&A service with some 70 million entries. Within about 10 minutes of posting, someone chimes in with a good answer, and Insoo awards him with some “Knowledge Power” points — knowledge-based economy in action among 14-year-olds.

Link

Interesting read that previews some of the things that are sure to hit us in the near future. How will you react when you will find ot your kids solve their math problems surfing on the knowledge-based economy? Time to ask yourself that question, anticipating might actually give you a small advantage for the day it will pop up in your life ;)

Here is the talk Bruce Sterling gave at Korea University last week about the Estonian Cyberwar.

In this eye-opening presentation, Bruce explains what happened to Estonia earlier this year when the country’s infrastructures got down following by a massive DDOS attack. He shares his theory that a Russian group of hackers called the Zhelatin gang might be behind the attacks, and were actually only flexing the muscles of the world’s largest and most powerful botnet.

Anybody who is involved in the infrastructure side of a large business should watch this. We’ve been warned.

Taewoo Danny Kim of TechnoKimchi is pointing to a Business 2.0 ranking of the 12 most wired cities in the world. Not surprisingly half of them are in Asia and no Swiss city cracked the list.

Bangalore is first, followed by Barcelona (surprise!) and Helsinki (re-surprise!). Seoul is 6th. No american city is ranked because it is a list for the courageous American white collars willing to risk their life eating live octopus and playing beer dominos abroad.

Dave Winer probably created a slight decrease in the number of participants to the US Green Card Lottery, breaking a few myth about Silicon Valley.

The truth is that the people of Silicon Valley toil to find security in money, never getting there, while avoiding the pleasures of life, including the mythological creativity, spinning on a treadmill, doing nothing but striving to make money, but it’s never enough.

“Here, the top 1 percent chases the top one-tenth of 1 percent, and the top one-tenth of 1 percent chases the top one-one-hundredth of 1 percent.”

Link

My own partial and subjective experience was that the valley itself (Palo Alto, Mountain View, etc..) is a social desert. Buildings separated by long and deprecated roads (it seems the infrastructures haven’t been refreshed since the 60s). But there is still something special, and the concentration of people and companies makes it a must for most young (and ambitious) entrepreneurs.

It is maybe time to move the valley somewhere else, just like the Koreans are moving their capital to a completely new site?

From a recent discussion with a Korean friend:

Me: “So when do you read newspapers?”
Him: “When the plane is taking off or landing”

I always thought that computers would not replace paper. When I was working for big companies (and on a desktop computer), I used to print a digest in the morning for reading at the cafeteria. But now that I have a laptop, I must admit I read 99% of the time on my screen. Is paper dead?

My buddy Ouriel Ohayon of Techcrunch France kindly asked me to write an article about the Swiss web 2.0. Tough task, as the legendary Swiss discretion combined with the fact that this country is indeed three (and a half) distinct cultural regions. But I am a man of challenge and I have a secret weapon: you my dear readers.

So if you know some good hot Swiss web projects who deserve TechCrunch exposure, please let me know using the comments below or by email at laurent@liftlab.com.

You are invited to the first Global JAM on Online Communities for Social Innovation, July 18-19. A JAM is an online discussion that is time limited, asynchronous, moderated, and subsequently analyzed.

The goal of this event is to collectively identify technology requirements for effective online communities to better support those working in social change and innovation. The intention is to share what we learn quickly and broadly.

Link

Interesting concept. I wonder how these online brainstorms will evolve once we start having one hundred per day.

As of today, I am joining the ITU Telecom Forum advisory committee. Telecom is one of the world’s biggest conference. The last edition attracted more than 60’000 people in Hong Kong.

Telecom is a series of events, and the next one we will be working on is Telecom Africa in May 2008.

My role will be to help the organizers prepare the event, both from an editorial and practical stand point. I am looking forward to this exciting new project, and hope I will be able to make it to Africa in 2008!