Interest rates: The only way is up
By CECILIA KOK
IT has been a year of “free money”. Well, almost, especially so in developed countries such as the United States and Japan, where interest rates have sunk to near zero levels over the past one year.
In most other countries, including Malaysia, interest rates are nowhere near zero, but they have been hovering at their historical lows. So, in general, money in these countries has been generally “cheaper” than ever as well.
Now, let’s think of interest rates as the price of money and liquidity as the lifeblood of the economy.
From the time governments worldwide began slashing interest rates towards the end of 2008 and early 2009, they have essentially opened the tap for cheap money to flood the economy. They call it a loose monetary policy, and the strategy is to encourage businesses to borrow more to boost investments and households to save less and consume more to help bring life back to an economy seen then to be at risk of sliding down into an unprecedented, deep and prolonged recession.
To a certain extent, the strategy of a loose monetary policy has worked pretty well for most economies. But of course, the strategy wouldn’t have worked as effectively if not for the massive government spending on public projects and various other incentive programmes to stimulate their economies.
Rising stakes
But the stakes are rising, as the global economy gradually returns to a growth path.
For one, the low interest rates are seen to be fuelling the emergence of new asset bubbles, particularly in Asian economies such as China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore, where property and equity prices have surged beyond what their fundamentals would justify.
There is also money chasing commodities, such as gold and crude oil, as investors seek to invest in assets that promise higher returns. And that has resulted in the prices of major commodities rising sharply.
The other concern pertains to the rise of inflationary pressure. The general price level of goods and services could accelerate as total demand in an economy continues to grow with the improving economy or as the rise of commodity and raw material prices continue to push up costs.
While the consensus view is that inflation is still a subdued risk for most economies at this stage, the next few months can present a different story. Already, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation warned that global food prices had bounced back to a 14-month high last November. This could be just one of the signs of rising inflation risk.
The risk of inflation cannot be left unchecked, as it could result in the value of money being significantly eroded, and hence, the purchasing power of consumers diminished. So, amid the rising risk of new asset bubbles and inflation in a more stabilised and improved economy this year, the next sensible move expected of policymakers is to turn off the tap of super-cheap money by raising interest rates before their economies get overheated with other problems.
So far, Australia has been leading the world in raising interest rates. Since October last year, the country’s central bank has raised its benchmark interest rates three times by 25 basis points each to the present level of 3.75%. Local economists are now saying that the next meeting of policymakers at the Reserve Bank of Australia in February could result in a fourth consecutive rise in interest rates.
Most policymakers in other countries, including Malaysia, are still assessing the appropriate time to raise rates by weighing the risks of tightening too soon with remaining loose for too long.
Malaysia’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) at Bank Negara will meet at the end of this month to determine the level of the country’s benchmark interest rate, that is, the overnight policy rate (OPR), for the next two months. No change in the OPR is expected out this first meeting of the year.
In general, the MPC meets six times each year to decide on the direction of the OPR based on its outlook of the local economy and inflation expectations for the country. It is noteworthy that while one of the key priorities of the central bank is to ensure general price stability, policymakers do not actually have a targeted rate of inflation to determine the movement of the country’s key interest rates, unlike some other leading economies such as Britain, which has an inflation target of 2%.
The reason for this is that Bank Negara wants to be flexible in terms of providing ample support for economic activities in the country to expand.
One thing is clear at this moment – the pace of Malaysia’s economic recovery is already gaining momentum. Key economic indicators such as industrial output and trade have been showing consistent improvements over the past few months, and the country’s economy is seen to have broken out of recession in the fourth quarter of last year.
(For the first quarter of last year, Malaysia’s gross domestic product, or GDP, contracted 6.9%. The subsequent two quarters also saw a contraction respectively of 3.9% and 1.2%.)
But gauging the risks of rising inflation causing price instability is tougher as various factors come into play. Economists are cautious over the rising pressure of commodity prices as well as the Government’s restructuring of its subsidy schemes this year as part of its economic transformation plans.
Thus far the signal that Bank Negara has been sending out is that the current monetary policy stance is appropriate for the country, as it still believes the risk of inflation this year is modest. And while policymakers have not hinted at any rate change as yet, most private economists hold the view that the OPR is most likely to be maintained at 2% only until the middle of the year before the rate rise sets in in the latter part of the year.
Exactly when and at what rate, that’s anyone’s guess. But when the inevitable happens, the cost of obtaining credit will no longer be that cheap, although the incentive to save money in private banks will improve. For instance, mortgage and hire-purchase rates would rise, and so would savings rates as the fixed deposit rates.
And the uptrend of interest rates could also slow the rise of equity prices – which could be a good thing to prevent equity prices from overshooting beyond their fundamentals.
Certainly, the change in interest rates has a broader implication on the economy as a whole, but as in any case, if any change is necessary, a gradual one is vital to prevent any shock from happening.
Saturday, 2 January 2010
The year that will be - We are sunk if we don't transform
The year that will be
A QUESTION OF BUSINESS
By P. GUNASEGARAM
WHILE a lot of us anticipate the New Year with hope, thinking in terms of new, fresh starts and such, there is often much trepidation too – the fear of what 2010 will have in store for us.
This week we have a special pullout with the theme “What lies ahead”. No, we have not quite turned forecasters as such, but we thought it would be useful for readers to have some idea as to what to expect this year and the key issues which are likely to crop up.
I hope you have some fun reading those pieces by our columnists and writers as well as the exclusive articles we have sourced from the world’s leading commentators. This should whet your appetite for information throughout the year, which no doubt you will process to find your way through the year.
Some things seem to be quite obvious at first look. Despite all that talk about a double-dip recession, growth is almost certainly likely to be better this year than last year’s dismal showing.
But that’s probably more than reflected in share prices, and if you think the share market will achieve new peaks, I don’t share your opinion. One of our writers (see the centre pages in the pullout) actually thinks we will reach new heights on the stock market but I prefer to be cautious.
The world will avoid a recession this year for sure, but it is what happens after that which is of greater concern. Further out, in 2011 and 2012, there are likely to be serious concerns about inflation and a readjustment process required to bring some semblance of order and regulation to markets.
With all that money pumped into the system, there is likely to be some inflationary threats sooner or later that will have to be tackled by restricting the supply of money into economies, especially the US economy. What that would do to nascent growth will be a matter of some conjecture. One can only make educated guesses.
For us in Malaysia, unless we can find quickly some sources of good growth, put the resources in to tap them quickly and make moves to sort out a myriad of long-term problems, including corruption and education, we will be pretty much stuck in the so-called middle-income trap.
If we stagnate there for too long while others make huge strides towards increasing their economic growth, which simultaneously increases incomes too, we may well slide downwards in our middle-income rankings.
Much depends on two things that we have embarked on and how successful they will be. They are the government transformation plan (GTP) to improve substantially the way we do things and a New Economic Model (NEM) to expand the economy more rapidly.
Key elements of the GTP have already been unveiled and later this month we should see the book which will reveal the plan in far greater detail. This plan will drive a change in the way we do things and bring results. If we achieve too little here, we are in deep trouble.
The NEM is expected to be released next month and a lot of us are waiting with bated breath to see what is on the cards that will provide a quantum leap for our economy and propel it into a high-income orbit.
Plans are one thing, execution is another. Which is why we need the GTP even if we have the NEM. The government needs to transform and quickly if it is to implement plans. Otherwise, we are all sunk.
In more ways than one, 2010 is a year of reckoning not just for the world but Malaysia as well.
Managing editor P Gunasegaram takes this opportunity to wish readers a very happy and prosperous New Year.
A QUESTION OF BUSINESS
By P. GUNASEGARAM
WHILE a lot of us anticipate the New Year with hope, thinking in terms of new, fresh starts and such, there is often much trepidation too – the fear of what 2010 will have in store for us.
This week we have a special pullout with the theme “What lies ahead”. No, we have not quite turned forecasters as such, but we thought it would be useful for readers to have some idea as to what to expect this year and the key issues which are likely to crop up.
I hope you have some fun reading those pieces by our columnists and writers as well as the exclusive articles we have sourced from the world’s leading commentators. This should whet your appetite for information throughout the year, which no doubt you will process to find your way through the year.
Some things seem to be quite obvious at first look. Despite all that talk about a double-dip recession, growth is almost certainly likely to be better this year than last year’s dismal showing.
But that’s probably more than reflected in share prices, and if you think the share market will achieve new peaks, I don’t share your opinion. One of our writers (see the centre pages in the pullout) actually thinks we will reach new heights on the stock market but I prefer to be cautious.
The world will avoid a recession this year for sure, but it is what happens after that which is of greater concern. Further out, in 2011 and 2012, there are likely to be serious concerns about inflation and a readjustment process required to bring some semblance of order and regulation to markets.
With all that money pumped into the system, there is likely to be some inflationary threats sooner or later that will have to be tackled by restricting the supply of money into economies, especially the US economy. What that would do to nascent growth will be a matter of some conjecture. One can only make educated guesses.
For us in Malaysia, unless we can find quickly some sources of good growth, put the resources in to tap them quickly and make moves to sort out a myriad of long-term problems, including corruption and education, we will be pretty much stuck in the so-called middle-income trap.
If we stagnate there for too long while others make huge strides towards increasing their economic growth, which simultaneously increases incomes too, we may well slide downwards in our middle-income rankings.
Much depends on two things that we have embarked on and how successful they will be. They are the government transformation plan (GTP) to improve substantially the way we do things and a New Economic Model (NEM) to expand the economy more rapidly.
Key elements of the GTP have already been unveiled and later this month we should see the book which will reveal the plan in far greater detail. This plan will drive a change in the way we do things and bring results. If we achieve too little here, we are in deep trouble.
The NEM is expected to be released next month and a lot of us are waiting with bated breath to see what is on the cards that will provide a quantum leap for our economy and propel it into a high-income orbit.
Plans are one thing, execution is another. Which is why we need the GTP even if we have the NEM. The government needs to transform and quickly if it is to implement plans. Otherwise, we are all sunk.
In more ways than one, 2010 is a year of reckoning not just for the world but Malaysia as well.
Managing editor P Gunasegaram takes this opportunity to wish readers a very happy and prosperous New Year.
Friday, 1 January 2010
ASEAN chief warns FTA gov'ts against protectionism
ASEAN chief warns FTA gov'ts against protectionism
www.chinaview.cn 2010-01-01 12:13:54
By Cundoko Aprilianto
JAKARTA, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Governments in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should resist temptation of protectionist measures by imposing non tariff barriers as the free trade area (FTA) between the region and China takes effect on Friday, the head of the association told Xinhua in an exclusive interview recently.
"Avoid that, in every forum that I have attended on behalf of ASEAN, we talked about the problem of protectionism, protective measures and it was all agreed that it's not going to be good for economic recovery, not good for economic health of any country of any region. Therefore every government will have to resist temptation of protectionist measures," Secretary General of ASEAN Surin Pitsuwan said.
Surin said that indeed the implementation would be a negative impact for people on some industrial and business sectors.
"But over all, protective measures are not going to help in the long run because they are going to do damage than help," he said.
According to Surin, the implementation of the FTA will be gradual so that livelihood and jobs would not be affected.
"We just have to make adjustment. We cannot just complain and not moving, not accommodating, not adjusting. That's not the way of future. The way of future is to be competitive, to be prepared, to open up and to benefit from the open space and open market out there," he said.
Surin said that since the comprehensive economic cooperation agreement was signed in 2002, the economy and trade cooperation between China and ASEAN has improved tremendously.
"In terms of trade alone, it was from about 60 billion U.S. dollars to 192 billion dollars in 2008. That's in five years. And the growth rate is almost 30 percent, which makes China a very quick and fast trading partner with ASEAN, up to number three now and I'm sure it will take over Japan and the European Union soon," he said.
Surin said that aside of goods and services, there would be investment liberalization between both sides.
"So, we hope that there will be more direct foreign investment from China to ASEAN. Together, we have attracted a great deal of investment already from around the world," he said.
Surin said that with a balanced growth, both sides would like to have an inclusive and equitable growth.
"People of China and ASEAN in general will benefit from this growth, rather than the fruit of the growth is being capped among small group of people," he said.
He also said that a closer economic cooperation, bilateral ties between both sides will increase.
"Middle class of China is expanding, which will be good for ASEAN products. Middle class of ASEAN is growing, expanding, which will be good for Chinese export and Chinese services," he said.
He said that East Asia is being expected to be a foremost locomotive for world economic recovery.
"With the coordination, we will make sure that our region will increase its influence around the world, will expand its profile and heighten its contribution to the global economic recovery," he said, adding that the center of growth will be very much anchored in East Asia.
The region is emerging very quick out of the crisis while China's growth in the midst of the crisis have been impressive of more than 8 percent and in 2010, it is expected to be almost 9 percent, said the secretary general.
"Countries of South East Asia are also emerging even though not at the same rate, but 3.4-3.5 percent. That's also very impressive in the midst of global slowdown," he said.
Surin also said that the relationship between China and ASEAN has been comprehensive, not only on economy, politics and security but also on people's health, climate, environment, culture, sport, drugs and other non traditional security issues.
www.chinaview.cn 2010-01-01 12:13:54
By Cundoko Aprilianto
JAKARTA, Jan. 1 (Xinhua) -- Governments in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should resist temptation of protectionist measures by imposing non tariff barriers as the free trade area (FTA) between the region and China takes effect on Friday, the head of the association told Xinhua in an exclusive interview recently.
"Avoid that, in every forum that I have attended on behalf of ASEAN, we talked about the problem of protectionism, protective measures and it was all agreed that it's not going to be good for economic recovery, not good for economic health of any country of any region. Therefore every government will have to resist temptation of protectionist measures," Secretary General of ASEAN Surin Pitsuwan said.
Surin said that indeed the implementation would be a negative impact for people on some industrial and business sectors.
"But over all, protective measures are not going to help in the long run because they are going to do damage than help," he said.
According to Surin, the implementation of the FTA will be gradual so that livelihood and jobs would not be affected.
"We just have to make adjustment. We cannot just complain and not moving, not accommodating, not adjusting. That's not the way of future. The way of future is to be competitive, to be prepared, to open up and to benefit from the open space and open market out there," he said.
Surin said that since the comprehensive economic cooperation agreement was signed in 2002, the economy and trade cooperation between China and ASEAN has improved tremendously.
"In terms of trade alone, it was from about 60 billion U.S. dollars to 192 billion dollars in 2008. That's in five years. And the growth rate is almost 30 percent, which makes China a very quick and fast trading partner with ASEAN, up to number three now and I'm sure it will take over Japan and the European Union soon," he said.
Surin said that aside of goods and services, there would be investment liberalization between both sides.
"So, we hope that there will be more direct foreign investment from China to ASEAN. Together, we have attracted a great deal of investment already from around the world," he said.
Surin said that with a balanced growth, both sides would like to have an inclusive and equitable growth.
"People of China and ASEAN in general will benefit from this growth, rather than the fruit of the growth is being capped among small group of people," he said.
He also said that a closer economic cooperation, bilateral ties between both sides will increase.
"Middle class of China is expanding, which will be good for ASEAN products. Middle class of ASEAN is growing, expanding, which will be good for Chinese export and Chinese services," he said.
He said that East Asia is being expected to be a foremost locomotive for world economic recovery.
"With the coordination, we will make sure that our region will increase its influence around the world, will expand its profile and heighten its contribution to the global economic recovery," he said, adding that the center of growth will be very much anchored in East Asia.
The region is emerging very quick out of the crisis while China's growth in the midst of the crisis have been impressive of more than 8 percent and in 2010, it is expected to be almost 9 percent, said the secretary general.
"Countries of South East Asia are also emerging even though not at the same rate, but 3.4-3.5 percent. That's also very impressive in the midst of global slowdown," he said.
Surin also said that the relationship between China and ASEAN has been comprehensive, not only on economy, politics and security but also on people's health, climate, environment, culture, sport, drugs and other non traditional security issues.
For Depressed Workers, Stress on Job Lowers Productivity
For Depressed Workers, Stress on Job Lowers Productivity
Released: 12/15/2009 4:20 PM EST
Embargo expired: 12/31/2009 12:00 AM EST
Source: Health Behavior News Service http://newscri.be/link/978053
Newswise — A new study shines a light on depression in the workplace, suggesting that psychological stress at the office — or wherever people earn their paychecks — can make it more difficult for depressed workers to perform their jobs and be productive.
“There is a large economic cost and a human cost,” said study lead author Debra Lerner, Ph.D., director, Program on Health, Work and Productivity, Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts Medical Center.
“We need to develop and test programs that directly try to address the employment of people with depression.”
The researchers screened 14,268 adult employees and ultimately compared 286 depressed workers to 193 who were not depressed. They recruited participants between 2001 and 2003 from doctors’ offices.
The study findings appear in the January/February issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion.
In many cases, the depressed employees had problems at work, Lerner said. “They’re often very fatigued and have motivational issues. They also may have difficulty handling the pacing of work, managing a routine, performing physical job tasks and managing their usual workload.”
The findings suggest that there is a link between productivity and an employee’s ability to control his or her work. “The workplace does play an important part,” Lerner said.
Ronald Kessler, a professor in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, said the study findings “are consistent with a growing body of evidence that depression has important adverse effects on work performance, both absenteeism and on-the-job performance.”
Depression has a greater effect on attendance and productivity than the “vast majority” of other health conditions with the exception of musculoskeletal problems and insomnia, he said.
“This evidence has led to the development of several workplace depression screening and treatment programs,” he added. “Evaluations are beginning to show that these programs can be cost-effective when implemented carefully in reducing the indirect workplace costs of depression.”
What to do? When it comes to depressed workers, “we are going to need more ways to help those who want to continue working to be able to do so and sustain their productivity,” Lerner said.
American Journal of Health Promotion: Call (248) 682-0707 or visit www.healthpromotionjournal.com.
Lerner D, et al. Work performance of employees with depression: the impact of work stressors. Am J Health Promotion 24(3), 2010.
Released: 12/15/2009 4:20 PM EST
Embargo expired: 12/31/2009 12:00 AM EST
Source: Health Behavior News Service http://newscri.be/link/978053
Newswise — A new study shines a light on depression in the workplace, suggesting that psychological stress at the office — or wherever people earn their paychecks — can make it more difficult for depressed workers to perform their jobs and be productive.
“There is a large economic cost and a human cost,” said study lead author Debra Lerner, Ph.D., director, Program on Health, Work and Productivity, Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts Medical Center.
“We need to develop and test programs that directly try to address the employment of people with depression.”
The researchers screened 14,268 adult employees and ultimately compared 286 depressed workers to 193 who were not depressed. They recruited participants between 2001 and 2003 from doctors’ offices.
The study findings appear in the January/February issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion.
In many cases, the depressed employees had problems at work, Lerner said. “They’re often very fatigued and have motivational issues. They also may have difficulty handling the pacing of work, managing a routine, performing physical job tasks and managing their usual workload.”
The findings suggest that there is a link between productivity and an employee’s ability to control his or her work. “The workplace does play an important part,” Lerner said.
Ronald Kessler, a professor in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, said the study findings “are consistent with a growing body of evidence that depression has important adverse effects on work performance, both absenteeism and on-the-job performance.”
Depression has a greater effect on attendance and productivity than the “vast majority” of other health conditions with the exception of musculoskeletal problems and insomnia, he said.
“This evidence has led to the development of several workplace depression screening and treatment programs,” he added. “Evaluations are beginning to show that these programs can be cost-effective when implemented carefully in reducing the indirect workplace costs of depression.”
What to do? When it comes to depressed workers, “we are going to need more ways to help those who want to continue working to be able to do so and sustain their productivity,” Lerner said.
American Journal of Health Promotion: Call (248) 682-0707 or visit www.healthpromotionjournal.com.
Lerner D, et al. Work performance of employees with depression: the impact of work stressors. Am J Health Promotion 24(3), 2010.
Thursday, 31 December 2009
This Year in Web Videos, Four Different Ways
This Year in Web Videos, Four Different Ways
BY Kit EatonWed Dec 16, 2009 at 6:35 PM
year in web videos
Ah, digital photography and videos--my old, er, new friends. And powerful tools too: Good for capturing the passing moment. Or for documenting the passing year. Here are four videos that do just that, in very very different ways.
YouTube's Most Popular Clips of 2009
This was a big year for YouTube, with some innovations and a rising audience. But the most surprising thing about its most popular videos of 2009 was that the list was so music act-heavy that YouTube had to break it into two lists--one for music, one for everything else. As noted over at AllThingsD it's because otherwise "people like you and me, who have only a vague idea who Pitbull and Keri Hilson are, would have been totally baffled."
The music top ten crown went to Pitbull with I know you want me raking in over 88 million views, beating Miley Cyrus's The Climb into second place with just 64 million peeps. But the non-music list is topped by the winner of UK TV show "Britain's Got Talent" Susan Boyle...somewhat making a mockery of Google's list-splitting tactics. To that end, here's YouTube's third most popular non-music clip globally (which does have music in, but it's sweet and at least trying to raise money for charity.)
China's 2009 WebClips
Over at Shanghaiist, Elaine Chow has done a fab job of rounding up a slew of Internet videos and pics that you mightn't have seen. Unless you're a Chinese Netizen, that is. Among the gems are Obama Girl (an attractive student sitting behind President Obama at a speech, who paid to become a minor net celeb), Michael Jackson Face Boy (youngster doing amusing lip synchs to MJ songs) and Long Legs Girl (a volunteer at the Olympics opening ceremony, famous after people noticed her astonishingly long legs.)
Check out the list--it'll remind you that the Internet is not exclusively a U.S. phenomenon, or even one belonging to us here in what we deem the Western half of the globe. China too has its net crazies, and bad reality/talent TV shows: Here's a clip of Zeng Ki Ye. She was a contestant in the Happy Girls show, and though she didn't win, her mind-bogglingly bad singing somehow got her 15 minutes of fame.
Gawker's Top 100 Web Videos of 2009
The always lateral-thinking, nose-thumbing publication Gawker has crafted it's own slant on the webclips that helped defined this year online. And by webclips, I really do mean webclips: Funny dogs, cats, freakouts, fat kids, giant seagulls. Yes, it's what some might deem the dregs of this year's Internet video, while others (between snorts of laughter) will argue they're a perfect way to cheer up a boring day of work with some lunchtime *ahem* clip-viewing.
Gawker's list is topped by "The Amazing Beat Box Kid" and proceeds through "Kick to the Face #1," "Jesus Pwn3d U" and 96 others before arriving at "Keyboard cat." Check it out below. It's less than three minutes, and I guarantee you'll laugh, sob and snigger at least once each, before crashing into a blue funk and worrying about the state of the world you're living in.
Terrapin Gardens Farm
No idea what that sub-headline is going to lead to? Good. Watch this: It's long, at around 16 minutes, but it's the antidote to the clips above. And it's just calmly beautiful.
Something of a labor of love by editor/director Rick Scully, this is a time lapse masterpiece of snaps taken every two minutes for 365 days--ending on May 11th this year--of Terrapin Gardens Farm in Tunbridge, Vermont. Look closely and you'll see weather, the seasons, and the comings and goings of people, vehicles, animals and vegetation.
And aside from the fascination offered by that, the way Scully made the thing is novel all by itself: This was no super-expensive high tech deal. He hacked a very old JVC analog video camera together with a $75 video-capture card hooked up over USB 1.1 to an aging eMac that could only snag low-res (320 by 240 pixels) images, which he then compiled in iMove'09. This low-tech setup is a big part of the charm of the video. "A year goes by fast enough" as Scully notes, and technology presses ever forwards--in 2010 there will be a whole bunch more. And that makes it satisfying that there's still a place for low-fi solutions to artistic problems.
Read more Tech News on our Technology Channel
BY Kit EatonWed Dec 16, 2009 at 6:35 PM
year in web videos
Ah, digital photography and videos--my old, er, new friends. And powerful tools too: Good for capturing the passing moment. Or for documenting the passing year. Here are four videos that do just that, in very very different ways.
YouTube's Most Popular Clips of 2009
This was a big year for YouTube, with some innovations and a rising audience. But the most surprising thing about its most popular videos of 2009 was that the list was so music act-heavy that YouTube had to break it into two lists--one for music, one for everything else. As noted over at AllThingsD it's because otherwise "people like you and me, who have only a vague idea who Pitbull and Keri Hilson are, would have been totally baffled."
The music top ten crown went to Pitbull with I know you want me raking in over 88 million views, beating Miley Cyrus's The Climb into second place with just 64 million peeps. But the non-music list is topped by the winner of UK TV show "Britain's Got Talent" Susan Boyle...somewhat making a mockery of Google's list-splitting tactics. To that end, here's YouTube's third most popular non-music clip globally (which does have music in, but it's sweet and at least trying to raise money for charity.)
China's 2009 WebClips
Over at Shanghaiist, Elaine Chow has done a fab job of rounding up a slew of Internet videos and pics that you mightn't have seen. Unless you're a Chinese Netizen, that is. Among the gems are Obama Girl (an attractive student sitting behind President Obama at a speech, who paid to become a minor net celeb), Michael Jackson Face Boy (youngster doing amusing lip synchs to MJ songs) and Long Legs Girl (a volunteer at the Olympics opening ceremony, famous after people noticed her astonishingly long legs.)
Check out the list--it'll remind you that the Internet is not exclusively a U.S. phenomenon, or even one belonging to us here in what we deem the Western half of the globe. China too has its net crazies, and bad reality/talent TV shows: Here's a clip of Zeng Ki Ye. She was a contestant in the Happy Girls show, and though she didn't win, her mind-bogglingly bad singing somehow got her 15 minutes of fame.
Gawker's Top 100 Web Videos of 2009
The always lateral-thinking, nose-thumbing publication Gawker has crafted it's own slant on the webclips that helped defined this year online. And by webclips, I really do mean webclips: Funny dogs, cats, freakouts, fat kids, giant seagulls. Yes, it's what some might deem the dregs of this year's Internet video, while others (between snorts of laughter) will argue they're a perfect way to cheer up a boring day of work with some lunchtime *ahem* clip-viewing.
Gawker's list is topped by "The Amazing Beat Box Kid" and proceeds through "Kick to the Face #1," "Jesus Pwn3d U" and 96 others before arriving at "Keyboard cat." Check it out below. It's less than three minutes, and I guarantee you'll laugh, sob and snigger at least once each, before crashing into a blue funk and worrying about the state of the world you're living in.
Terrapin Gardens Farm
No idea what that sub-headline is going to lead to? Good. Watch this: It's long, at around 16 minutes, but it's the antidote to the clips above. And it's just calmly beautiful.
Something of a labor of love by editor/director Rick Scully, this is a time lapse masterpiece of snaps taken every two minutes for 365 days--ending on May 11th this year--of Terrapin Gardens Farm in Tunbridge, Vermont. Look closely and you'll see weather, the seasons, and the comings and goings of people, vehicles, animals and vegetation.
And aside from the fascination offered by that, the way Scully made the thing is novel all by itself: This was no super-expensive high tech deal. He hacked a very old JVC analog video camera together with a $75 video-capture card hooked up over USB 1.1 to an aging eMac that could only snag low-res (320 by 240 pixels) images, which he then compiled in iMove'09. This low-tech setup is a big part of the charm of the video. "A year goes by fast enough" as Scully notes, and technology presses ever forwards--in 2010 there will be a whole bunch more. And that makes it satisfying that there's still a place for low-fi solutions to artistic problems.
Read more Tech News on our Technology Channel
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Websites that died in 2009
Websites that died in 2009
11:41, December 30, 2009
While some websites have flourished in 2009, most notably Facebook and Twitter, others have fallen by the wayside. Many sites that died were relatively small enterprises. But even the big Internet giants, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo ditched once popular services and websites.
January saw Google''s changes to Jaiku and Dodgeball. Jaiku, a social networking, micro-blogging and lifestreaming service comparable to Twitter, was not shut but will be left to flounder. On January 14, 2009 it was announced that Google would be open-sourcing the product but would "no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase" leaving development to a "passionate volunteer team of Googlers". Dodgeball was a location-based social networking software provider for mobile devices. Users would text their location to the service, which then notified them of crushes, friends, friends'' friends and interesting venues nearby. Dodgeball was shut down by Google in March 2009 and replaced with Google Latitude. Google Notebook was also shutdown for new users as cloud services like Google Docs increased in popularity. Another cloud service owned by Yahoo also announced its closure in January. Yahoo''s Briefcase had been deemed somewhat useless by many observers. The site offered 30MB of online storage, a number that was quite useful when it was launched in 1999. However this was quickly eclipsed by other Web storage providers and Web mail services. Users were given two months to download any files before it was shutdown.
February saw the demise of Jubii, an online communication utility. It included e-mail, text chat, VoIP, and file hosting--all in one tool. However it was seen as being incomplete with tools that did not tie into other existing services. The Jubii brand was actually an attempt to repackage the Lycos brand to U.S. users, however it, along with the European versions of Lycos Mail and Tripod Internet hosting, were shelved in mid-February. HP''s Upline was an online backup solution built off of Titanize, a product it had absorbed as a result of acquiring makers Opelin in 2007. Upline let users back up their home and work computers to the cloud for a yearly fee. Unlike some of the other storage providers, Upline''s paid plans offered unlimited storage. But in late February Upline announced it was to shutdown the service at the end of March, giving users a little more than a month to grab their files from HP''s servers.
Microsoft''s Encarta began as a software encyclopedia and later moved to the Web. Microsoft ran it as a subscription service, but in order to compete with free services like Wikipedia, the company provided portions of it that were supplemented with advertisements to non-subscribers. But in late March, the software giant announced that it would be discontinuing both the online and software-based versions of the site. The service was finally shelved in October though the company continues to use Encarta''s namesake for its free, online dictionary service. Japan''s Encarta site remains online but is due to close on December 31, 2009.
Wikia Search launched in January of 2008 with the idea that it let users control the rankings of search results. The hope was to let people constantly vote up more relevant pages, while letting the less-relevant pages move down. Wikia and Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales hoped the system would spread across the Web, as it was made open-source, but it failed to do so. At its peak the site drew around 10,000 users a month. But with competition from Google''s own similar solution, called Search Wiki, Wales called it quits on Wikia Search in March.
SpiralFrog, a music download service based in New York, collapsed in late March under a mountain of debt. The site, launched in the United States and Canada in September 2007, offered free and legal music downloads, all supported by advertising. But on March 19, 2009, SpiralFrog terminated operations due to loan recalls. Unnamed sources say that the music provider supposedly tried to borrow at least 9 million U.S. dollars last year to stay in business. Its shut down came on the heels of another ad-supported music provider, Ruckus, which was geared toward college students. Users who had downloaded music from the site were also left with unplayable tracks due to strict DRM conditions (Digital Rights Management) that required logging into the site every 60 days.
Yahoo closed another of its services in June. Jumpcut.com was a website that provided free video editing and hosting services. Launched in January 2006, it was was purchased by Yahoo in October of the same year. But due to corporate prioritizing and the on-going financial problems at Yahoo, the upload service was terminated in December 2008 and the site was closed on June 15, 2009. Then came another Yahoo coffin. Geocites, one of the oldest web hosting services, shut down confining to history some of the earliest existing online content. Yahoo picked up personal Web site maker Geocities in January 1999 for a staggering 3.65 billion dollars in stock. Many of its most fervent users moved to other hosting providers partly due to poor, post-purchase choices from Yahoo that changed the site''s terms of service as well as core functionality. The rise of easy blogging tools and social networks, which for many was a simpler way to publish personal information, also helped bring the death-knell for Geocities. Yahoo announced its decision in April and finally shut the site down in late October.
It was not a good year for Yahoo users who then saw Yahoo! 360° consigned to the dustbin. Yahoo! 360° was a personal communication portal similar to other social networking sites. The site included social networking, blogging, and photo sharing services. Users could create personal web sites, share photos from Yahoo! Photos, maintain blogs, lists of local reviews, supply profile information, and see which friends are currently online. In May 2009 Yahoo! announced that the Yahoo! 360° service would close on July 13, 2009 as Yahoo! developers aimed to "focus their efforts on the new profile on Yahoo". The site wasn't killed off entirely though. Despite its lack of popularity at large, it was remains popular in Vietnam where it is still available.
As well as its Encarta service, Microsoft also shutdown Windows Live Events which had been an effort to replace services like Evite, Facebook events, MyPunchbowl, etc. It was launched as part of the Windows Live rebranding back in late 2007, and let users create events that could be shared publicly. More importantly, it was a smooth move to get users friendly with other Microsoft services like Live Spaces and Live Messenger. But in August, Microsoft announced that it would be closing up Windows Live Events in favor of building some of its functionality into Windows Live Calendar. In September, the company disabled the capability to create new events. Come April 2010 the site will be taken offline entirely.
Facial recognition was big in 2009, but not for face-finding tech Riya. It shuttered its doors in late August. It had come close to being snatched up by Google just four years prior, but the search giant instead went with competitor Neven Vision. Riya was simply overshadowed by tech giants who had time to catch up with their own facial recognition products. This included Google with its Picasa Web albums and photo library software, both of which were offered free of charge. Even Apple, has introduced its own facial recognition features as a part of its latest iLife release.
Google's telecommunications service GrandCentral will shut shop at the end of the year. The voice service was acquired in 2007 but has been left dormant for more than a year. However, it has effectively been reborn in the form of Google Voice and old GrandCentral users will be switched to the new service.
Source:Xinhua/Agencies
11:41, December 30, 2009
While some websites have flourished in 2009, most notably Facebook and Twitter, others have fallen by the wayside. Many sites that died were relatively small enterprises. But even the big Internet giants, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo ditched once popular services and websites.
January saw Google''s changes to Jaiku and Dodgeball. Jaiku, a social networking, micro-blogging and lifestreaming service comparable to Twitter, was not shut but will be left to flounder. On January 14, 2009 it was announced that Google would be open-sourcing the product but would "no longer actively develop the Jaiku codebase" leaving development to a "passionate volunteer team of Googlers". Dodgeball was a location-based social networking software provider for mobile devices. Users would text their location to the service, which then notified them of crushes, friends, friends'' friends and interesting venues nearby. Dodgeball was shut down by Google in March 2009 and replaced with Google Latitude. Google Notebook was also shutdown for new users as cloud services like Google Docs increased in popularity. Another cloud service owned by Yahoo also announced its closure in January. Yahoo''s Briefcase had been deemed somewhat useless by many observers. The site offered 30MB of online storage, a number that was quite useful when it was launched in 1999. However this was quickly eclipsed by other Web storage providers and Web mail services. Users were given two months to download any files before it was shutdown.
February saw the demise of Jubii, an online communication utility. It included e-mail, text chat, VoIP, and file hosting--all in one tool. However it was seen as being incomplete with tools that did not tie into other existing services. The Jubii brand was actually an attempt to repackage the Lycos brand to U.S. users, however it, along with the European versions of Lycos Mail and Tripod Internet hosting, were shelved in mid-February. HP''s Upline was an online backup solution built off of Titanize, a product it had absorbed as a result of acquiring makers Opelin in 2007. Upline let users back up their home and work computers to the cloud for a yearly fee. Unlike some of the other storage providers, Upline''s paid plans offered unlimited storage. But in late February Upline announced it was to shutdown the service at the end of March, giving users a little more than a month to grab their files from HP''s servers.
Microsoft''s Encarta began as a software encyclopedia and later moved to the Web. Microsoft ran it as a subscription service, but in order to compete with free services like Wikipedia, the company provided portions of it that were supplemented with advertisements to non-subscribers. But in late March, the software giant announced that it would be discontinuing both the online and software-based versions of the site. The service was finally shelved in October though the company continues to use Encarta''s namesake for its free, online dictionary service. Japan''s Encarta site remains online but is due to close on December 31, 2009.
Wikia Search launched in January of 2008 with the idea that it let users control the rankings of search results. The hope was to let people constantly vote up more relevant pages, while letting the less-relevant pages move down. Wikia and Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales hoped the system would spread across the Web, as it was made open-source, but it failed to do so. At its peak the site drew around 10,000 users a month. But with competition from Google''s own similar solution, called Search Wiki, Wales called it quits on Wikia Search in March.
SpiralFrog, a music download service based in New York, collapsed in late March under a mountain of debt. The site, launched in the United States and Canada in September 2007, offered free and legal music downloads, all supported by advertising. But on March 19, 2009, SpiralFrog terminated operations due to loan recalls. Unnamed sources say that the music provider supposedly tried to borrow at least 9 million U.S. dollars last year to stay in business. Its shut down came on the heels of another ad-supported music provider, Ruckus, which was geared toward college students. Users who had downloaded music from the site were also left with unplayable tracks due to strict DRM conditions (Digital Rights Management) that required logging into the site every 60 days.
Yahoo closed another of its services in June. Jumpcut.com was a website that provided free video editing and hosting services. Launched in January 2006, it was was purchased by Yahoo in October of the same year. But due to corporate prioritizing and the on-going financial problems at Yahoo, the upload service was terminated in December 2008 and the site was closed on June 15, 2009. Then came another Yahoo coffin. Geocites, one of the oldest web hosting services, shut down confining to history some of the earliest existing online content. Yahoo picked up personal Web site maker Geocities in January 1999 for a staggering 3.65 billion dollars in stock. Many of its most fervent users moved to other hosting providers partly due to poor, post-purchase choices from Yahoo that changed the site''s terms of service as well as core functionality. The rise of easy blogging tools and social networks, which for many was a simpler way to publish personal information, also helped bring the death-knell for Geocities. Yahoo announced its decision in April and finally shut the site down in late October.
It was not a good year for Yahoo users who then saw Yahoo! 360° consigned to the dustbin. Yahoo! 360° was a personal communication portal similar to other social networking sites. The site included social networking, blogging, and photo sharing services. Users could create personal web sites, share photos from Yahoo! Photos, maintain blogs, lists of local reviews, supply profile information, and see which friends are currently online. In May 2009 Yahoo! announced that the Yahoo! 360° service would close on July 13, 2009 as Yahoo! developers aimed to "focus their efforts on the new profile on Yahoo". The site wasn't killed off entirely though. Despite its lack of popularity at large, it was remains popular in Vietnam where it is still available.
As well as its Encarta service, Microsoft also shutdown Windows Live Events which had been an effort to replace services like Evite, Facebook events, MyPunchbowl, etc. It was launched as part of the Windows Live rebranding back in late 2007, and let users create events that could be shared publicly. More importantly, it was a smooth move to get users friendly with other Microsoft services like Live Spaces and Live Messenger. But in August, Microsoft announced that it would be closing up Windows Live Events in favor of building some of its functionality into Windows Live Calendar. In September, the company disabled the capability to create new events. Come April 2010 the site will be taken offline entirely.
Facial recognition was big in 2009, but not for face-finding tech Riya. It shuttered its doors in late August. It had come close to being snatched up by Google just four years prior, but the search giant instead went with competitor Neven Vision. Riya was simply overshadowed by tech giants who had time to catch up with their own facial recognition products. This included Google with its Picasa Web albums and photo library software, both of which were offered free of charge. Even Apple, has introduced its own facial recognition features as a part of its latest iLife release.
Google's telecommunications service GrandCentral will shut shop at the end of the year. The voice service was acquired in 2007 but has been left dormant for more than a year. However, it has effectively been reborn in the form of Google Voice and old GrandCentral users will be switched to the new service.
Source:Xinhua/Agencies
Using The Cloud Computing For Business
Using The Cloud For Business
Dan Woods, 12.29.09, 06:00 PM EST
Why the cloud is much more than a technology phenomenon.
Jan Baan, founder of Baan Corp., was present at the creation of enterprise resource planning. While leading the ERP software company from 1978–98, Baan observed what worked well and what failed as companies automated their business processes using a datacentric approach. For the past 10 years, Baan has spent his time and more than
250 million euros ($360 million) of his money on Cordys, a software company that creates what Baan calls a business operations platform. In this Q&A, Baan examines what the cloud means for business, what went wrong with ERP, and how a business operations platform delivers flexible automation of business processes that can be optimized through cloud computing.
Forbes: Why are companies getting the cloud wrong?
Baan: If you want to get the cloud right, put away the slide decks on virtualization and infrastructure and start thinking about who you should be working with and how to work with them, and then think about how you can support that better than ever before. Too many people look at the cloud as a technology phenomenon when they should look at it as a business opportunity and an accelerator for collaboration. The cloud is an environment for creating ways of doing business that are radically different from monolithic ERP-based processes. The age of command-and-control in business technology is over. You empower the knowledge worker through collaboration.
What does the cloud really mean for business?
Business processes should be the core element in the cloud, not Word documents or e-mail. Everything in the cloud should grow out of an inherently collaborative business process. You have to think beyond the business processes in your company to linking your customers' customers to your suppliers' suppliers, and draw them all together in a common end-to-end business process. You can create those relationships much faster now, but people aren't taking advantage of it. They are still very much in the ERP paradigm, which can be limiting. The cloud allows everyone to focus on their own processes, share them with others, and add some individual elements to their own processes and optimize them.
Some of these same promises about end-to-end business processes were made about ERP when it was new. What went wrong?
In the ERP world, everything is data-centric. Data is king, and business processes became embedded in data silos. Many big companies have created stovepipes that are isolated from each other, with business processes stored in the data. The vendor's best practices are then overlaid on the processes. Those stovepipes are still isolated, trapped on premise. That inhibits innovation.
What is your vision of making the cloud work for business?
I don't want to imply that everything has to be on the cloud. The optimal situation is a combination--a kind of composition between legacy systems and the optimized business process from the business and its partners, and it lives in the cloud.
I call it a business operations platform, a bridge between traditional service-oriented architecture and some of the heavy-duty infrastructure and standard components from ERP. Business components are decoupled from underlying technology. The concept of "programming," in which a businessperson conceives of an idea and technologists program something that achieves it, gives way to describing a business process, and the IT landscape responds in kind. There is much more of a "what you model is what you get" feeling to this new paradigm.
What is the role of ERP in this scenario?
Your ERP system, along with a product life-cycle management system, logistics systems and others, can be integrated and used as vanilla components, while being further enhanced by best practices or best processes, achieving a state of operational effectiveness. Take what you have learned through years of experience with ERP and apply it to the cloud.
What are the benefits of getting this right?
Dramatic improvements in business processes, reduction in IT costs, and a radical expansion of partners to help you run your business. Applications in the cloud cost less than 10% of an on-premises application. That means double-digit-percentage cost savings, and, more importantly, a boost to the value stream. Lead time for product creation can be reduced from 60 days to one or two hours. It's already happening. Instead of building a car in six weeks, we can do it in a day.
What stands in the way of this transformation?
First of all, the role of CIO sometimes seems afraid of its own shadow. The CIO should become more of a business leader. Maybe we should change the title Chief Information Officer to Chief Process Officer (CPO).
CIOs with guts are crucial to change. The CEO is too isolated and unaware of the development of these trends, but now the CIO, in the new role of a CPO, could be a tremendous asset to the CEO, providing leadership for changing the company and improving business processes. The value is in aligning IT and business, and the CPO is much more on the business side, not just on the IT side.
Too much attention is focused on technology innovation and not enough on business innovation. When that happens, we add functionality, but also complexity. The technology innovations with real impact are those that reduce complexity.
IT should be democratized in the same way Henry Ford democratized the car. Currently, fully functional IT is only for Fortune 1000 companies with a big budget. In the future, the benefits of IT will be available for everyone. Small and medium-size enterprises are, with the new technology wave of a business operations platform, able to connect their supply chain much faster than Fortune 1000 companies can. Agility is the mantra for today's smart companies.
Social media and cloud computing are exciting because they foreshadow this future.
Dan Woods is chief technology officer and editor of Evolved Technologist, a research firm focused on the needs of CTOs and CIOs. He consults for many of the other companies he writes about. For more information, go to evolvedtechnologist.com.
Dan Woods, 12.29.09, 06:00 PM EST
Why the cloud is much more than a technology phenomenon.
Jan Baan, founder of Baan Corp., was present at the creation of enterprise resource planning. While leading the ERP software company from 1978–98, Baan observed what worked well and what failed as companies automated their business processes using a datacentric approach. For the past 10 years, Baan has spent his time and more than
250 million euros ($360 million) of his money on Cordys, a software company that creates what Baan calls a business operations platform. In this Q&A, Baan examines what the cloud means for business, what went wrong with ERP, and how a business operations platform delivers flexible automation of business processes that can be optimized through cloud computing.
Forbes: Why are companies getting the cloud wrong?
Baan: If you want to get the cloud right, put away the slide decks on virtualization and infrastructure and start thinking about who you should be working with and how to work with them, and then think about how you can support that better than ever before. Too many people look at the cloud as a technology phenomenon when they should look at it as a business opportunity and an accelerator for collaboration. The cloud is an environment for creating ways of doing business that are radically different from monolithic ERP-based processes. The age of command-and-control in business technology is over. You empower the knowledge worker through collaboration.
What does the cloud really mean for business?
Business processes should be the core element in the cloud, not Word documents or e-mail. Everything in the cloud should grow out of an inherently collaborative business process. You have to think beyond the business processes in your company to linking your customers' customers to your suppliers' suppliers, and draw them all together in a common end-to-end business process. You can create those relationships much faster now, but people aren't taking advantage of it. They are still very much in the ERP paradigm, which can be limiting. The cloud allows everyone to focus on their own processes, share them with others, and add some individual elements to their own processes and optimize them.
Some of these same promises about end-to-end business processes were made about ERP when it was new. What went wrong?
In the ERP world, everything is data-centric. Data is king, and business processes became embedded in data silos. Many big companies have created stovepipes that are isolated from each other, with business processes stored in the data. The vendor's best practices are then overlaid on the processes. Those stovepipes are still isolated, trapped on premise. That inhibits innovation.
What is your vision of making the cloud work for business?
I don't want to imply that everything has to be on the cloud. The optimal situation is a combination--a kind of composition between legacy systems and the optimized business process from the business and its partners, and it lives in the cloud.
I call it a business operations platform, a bridge between traditional service-oriented architecture and some of the heavy-duty infrastructure and standard components from ERP. Business components are decoupled from underlying technology. The concept of "programming," in which a businessperson conceives of an idea and technologists program something that achieves it, gives way to describing a business process, and the IT landscape responds in kind. There is much more of a "what you model is what you get" feeling to this new paradigm.
What is the role of ERP in this scenario?
Your ERP system, along with a product life-cycle management system, logistics systems and others, can be integrated and used as vanilla components, while being further enhanced by best practices or best processes, achieving a state of operational effectiveness. Take what you have learned through years of experience with ERP and apply it to the cloud.
What are the benefits of getting this right?
Dramatic improvements in business processes, reduction in IT costs, and a radical expansion of partners to help you run your business. Applications in the cloud cost less than 10% of an on-premises application. That means double-digit-percentage cost savings, and, more importantly, a boost to the value stream. Lead time for product creation can be reduced from 60 days to one or two hours. It's already happening. Instead of building a car in six weeks, we can do it in a day.
What stands in the way of this transformation?
First of all, the role of CIO sometimes seems afraid of its own shadow. The CIO should become more of a business leader. Maybe we should change the title Chief Information Officer to Chief Process Officer (CPO).
CIOs with guts are crucial to change. The CEO is too isolated and unaware of the development of these trends, but now the CIO, in the new role of a CPO, could be a tremendous asset to the CEO, providing leadership for changing the company and improving business processes. The value is in aligning IT and business, and the CPO is much more on the business side, not just on the IT side.
Too much attention is focused on technology innovation and not enough on business innovation. When that happens, we add functionality, but also complexity. The technology innovations with real impact are those that reduce complexity.
IT should be democratized in the same way Henry Ford democratized the car. Currently, fully functional IT is only for Fortune 1000 companies with a big budget. In the future, the benefits of IT will be available for everyone. Small and medium-size enterprises are, with the new technology wave of a business operations platform, able to connect their supply chain much faster than Fortune 1000 companies can. Agility is the mantra for today's smart companies.
Social media and cloud computing are exciting because they foreshadow this future.
Dan Woods is chief technology officer and editor of Evolved Technologist, a research firm focused on the needs of CTOs and CIOs. He consults for many of the other companies he writes about. For more information, go to evolvedtechnologist.com.
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