Jawad Shuaib | Self-proclaimed Web 2.0 Expert

Facebook vs. OpenSocial

2008-02-20T11:29:00.000-08:00

I gave a talk on Facebook vs. OpenSocial at the FacebookCampToronto 3. My general conclusion was that as an entrepreneur or developer it doesn't really matter which platform suits you better - the platform you decide to use is fundamentally dependent on the demographic and geographic market you're targetting. For instance, Facebook development platform isn't going to be of much help if your target market is someone in India or Japan. So as a developer, you've hard limits. Anyway, the following is the slide show of my presentation:

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Why are geeks often atheist?

2007-03-25T23:58:00.000-07:00

An interesting discussion on Shuzak social network led us to question the premise behind geeks and atheism. A statistical analysis of the various religions on Shuzak yielded atheism as the most popular belief by a large margin. Atheism, as our observations indicated, almost seemed synonymous with geeks. This led us to further investigate the question, why are so many geeks atheists? Click here to read rest of the article.

Disclaimer: I am not an atheist but the other authors of the article are. My interest in writing the article is simply in understanding this fascinating trend :)

6 Startup Lessons For The Year 2007

2007-03-25T23:44:00.000-07:00

Year 2007 is going to be a terrible time for existing and upcoming startups aiming for the generic markets. Users have grown tired of the vast and generic theme of mainstream startups. Between the year 2007 and 2008, the mainstream startups and social networks are likely to lose ground to the niche markets.

From my observations, all categories will inevitably diverge. They always have and they always will. It's this divergence that creates opportunities for new startups. A business might start with a single category. But over time, it explodes into many different categories and many different markets. The best way to build a company is not by going after an existing category, but by creating a new category you can be first in. Startups must, therefore, focus on creating new markets over serving existing markets.
Click here to read rest of the article.

Anatomy of a Successful Social Network

2006-12-18T07:26:00.000-08:00

Year 2007 is going to be a terrible time for existing and upcoming startups aiming for the generic markets. Users are already tired of the vast and generic theme of mainstream social networks - On the other hand, endorsements for the vertical social networks that serve their passions and specific interests are inevitable. Between the year 2007 and 2008, the mainstream social networks are likely to lose ground to the niche social networks.

Contrary to what many people believe, social networks are still in their infancy. Many niches remain unexplored, and a business model for social networks is still undiscovered. After investigating, many successful, less successful, and unsuccessful web 2.0 startups, I've developed a model to investigate the invisible forces driving social networks to success. Click here for the article.

9 Inventions Edison Did Not Make

2006-12-18T07:24:00.000-08:00

9 Inventions Edison Did Not Make. Click on the title to view the full article :)

How to Fix Google

2006-11-27T00:46:00.000-08:00

The statistics are all over the Internet; products created by Google quickly lose steam after the initial burst of buzz. GTalk, the MSN messenger killer, for example, has only 50k active users! In a previous article, I concluded that Google must continue its rapid innovation but also put a tap on its uncontrolled product releases. In this article, I will give more reasons why.

The idea is simple. All great products deserve great marketing. Google's only marketing tool, though, is its awesome brand; the success of any other product created by Google depends on the buzz generated by this brand. However, for Google's other products to be truly successful, they must be marketed aggressively. Moreover, for a brand to be successful, it must avoid creating "other" products in the first place!

Well, Google does neither and that kills me. Read the full article here.

Coincidences that made Google successful

2006-11-19T16:04:00.000-08:00

Over 25 years ago, IBM's *accidental* visit to Microsoft ultimately ended up making Bill Gates the richest person in the world [1]. Was luck the only reason attributed to his success? No way. Though without it, Bill Gates might have been working for Apple today. I have a theory; for something to be successful a large series of coincidences must sum up exactly right...at least, such was the case with companies such as Microsoft and Google. In that regard, the difference between Microsoft and Google is that Microsoft's luck ran out while Google's luck continued to flourish. Indeed, God worked in mysterious ways for Google; ever since its emergence in 1998, Google has repeatedly scored high on luck [2]. That is not to say that Google didn't deserve its dramatic rise to success; on the contrary, a successful company seeks out opportunities. Taking advantage of an opportunity means recognizing that there is an opportunity to take advantage of. For the purpose of this article, I will reveal a few unpredictable events that led Google on its road to riches but were, more or less, a coincidence.

Great time to sue GooTube

2006-10-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

"Only a moron would buy YouTube", wrote Mark Cuban. A week later, Google confirmed it was negotiating a $1.6 billion acquisition deal with the online video giant. Since then, bloggers have been fussing over whether such a deal poses legal threats to Google. It obviously does; why else would anyone talk about it? $1.65 billion is too much to pay for a company that is losing money. Unlike popular myth, Google does not make bundles off YouTube by displaying obscure ads on the site that have little relevance to the video being displayed. People come on YouTube to watch the daily show, or rant over rap star Diddy's self-promotion videos. What people don't use YouTube for is reading textual content. Google makes money only when there is content, and YouTube has very little of it. If YouTube were making these bundles of cash, as some analysts believe, they wouldn't need venture capitalists for friends.

The first, second and third company to sue Google will make headlines across the web and on print. This is a great opportunity for the media moguls to claim some spot light. It is a marketing opportunity. If NOVA sued GooTube; everyone will rant over it for about three weeks, and then forget it ever happened. Early adopters of news have a small attention span. What it will do, though, is create a lot of free publicity regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit. Negative publicity is not as good as positive publicity, but it is still better than no publicity at all.

Lonelygirl5, for example, turned out to be a fake. Her ex-fans hate her. She certainly wasted my precious time. But she is more famous now than ever before. The point here is that some publicity is almost always better than no publicity at all, especially in an overcrowded market.

It is true Google did not have the traffic that YouTube did, but Google has all the resources in the world to channel in the masses. If you look at Google Videos, it seems to be a half hearted attempt by any standard. I would be all for this deal if Google at least tried its best to make it out on their own. But they didn't. I love Google, but this is one crazy deal. 1600 million dollars? like, come on. YouTube does not add any brand value to Google either. Furthermore, unlike the case with Yahoo!, Google was under no pressure to buy out a large company like this. Google has some of the smartest hackers in the world who could, undoubtedly, code a much better video site given a few months. Such a radical buy out is simply not the Google way. Maybe they know something we don't. Google has been tinkering with video ads for a while now and it is obvious that this serves some grand strategy for the next three or so years.

While Google goes ahead and dumps some stock into Chen and Hurley's pockets, it opens up the room for a media company to come along and sue Google. Every web 2.0 blogger has their eyes and ears on just such a lawsuit, and a carefully planned publicity stunt is just waiting to happen. As Seth Godin is fond of saying; 'being safe is risky'. It is true. So go ahead, do something outrageous, sue Google.

Notes:
1. I will be among the crowd that rants against whichever company that sues Google <3
2. Interestingly enough, YouTube is among Bill Gates favorite sites. I wonder how he feels about this deal.

Digg Analytics

2006-08-08T20:14:00.000-07:00

Digg users are primarily tech savvy; they define the web trend just as cheer leaders define school fashion. Hence, analysis of average screen resolutions, browser types, operating systems, connection speeds, etc. provide a good stream of statistics for extrapolating data on Internet usage by tomorrow's mainstream users.

The article that follows introduces several interesting observations made on web traffic originating from Digg.

Fascinating Mathematics from NUMB3RS

2006-08-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

"We all use math everyday; to predict weather, to tell time, to handle money. Math is more than formulas and equations...it is logic, it is rationality. It is using your mind to solve the biggest mysteries we know." [Click Here]

What intimidates me the most about mathematicians is their ability to discover objects theoretically on a piece of paper and then observe them a billion light years away.

Napoleonic Lessons for Google & Microsoft

2006-07-30T00:38:00.000-07:00

Napoleon Bonaparte was arguably the most strategic mind set to war. As this analysis shows, his strategic brilliance, however, is equally applicable to the competitive world of Business; and in this case, Microsoft's rivalry with Google.
Click Here

Funny/Interesting Math Problems

2006-07-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

It's about time I post something on mathematics. I will start off with something that I found quite interesting on Numb3rs:

Here are a couple of extracts from tests and exams:

The following is from my own calculus homework. I like to add "The solution is too obvious" when I get stuck in the problem. It actually works sometimes!

My Daily Maxim #2 | Corporate Ethics

2006-07-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

Private companies take public tap water, package it in bottles and sell it dollar a piece. - Jawad Shuaib

Bottled Water Isn't Healthier Than Tap, Report Reveals

My Daily Maxim #1 | On War

2006-07-19T22:03:00.000-07:00

An army or government driven by emotions is dangerous for both, the enemy and itself - Jawad Shuaib

The Middle East Crisis

Digg effect on Website's Google PageRank

2006-07-03T01:14:00.000-07:00

There was a time in our history when a website owner’s worst fear was a DDOS attack on their servers. Five years into the future, today, many of us mistake DDOS for Disk Operating System (or even worse, ~~Command Prompt~~). In this age of web 2.0, servers are posed by even greater threat; that of 20, 000 + hits per day by unique visitors. The term “dugg” comes to mind when one thinks of these crashed websites. If you haven’t guessed it already, which I am sure you have but I will mention it anyway, I am talking about Digg.com.

Websites appearing on the front page of digg.com experience thousands of hits in a very short interval of time, often so many that websites temporarily become inaccessible or annoyingly slow. This phenomenon has come to be known as the “Digg effect”.

That is all good and dandy, but have you ever wondered how Digg.com affects a website's Google PageRank? After all, when the Digg effect has subsided, it is the site's search engine listing that actually makes a difference in the long term. While there are many that have analyzed Digg's effect on web traffic, no one has yet, to my knowledge, investigated Digg's effect on a website's actual PageRank. So out of curiosity, I registered this domain name with an initial PageRank of zero. The purpose of this experiment is to determine how the PageRank increases relative to the number of Diggs it receives.

Website traffic alone does not increase the PageRank, in fact it is commonly believed that it has no affect on it at all. The PageRank of a website is determined by inbound links rather than website traffic. However, the accumulated affect that Digg brings to websites through external sources linking (i.e. del.icio.us) to the digged story should substantially increase the PageRank. To carry out this experiment, I have made the subdomain digg.shuzak.com available for linking. The increase in PageRank will be available to everyone who visits this page.

As of July 03, 2006 the PageRank of this page is zero. Watch it grow as it is dugg:

*Note: PageRank updates only when Google re indexes the website on its servers; therefore, it might take a few days (or even weeks) to witness a considerable change.

This experiment will be a model for estimating the rise in a website's PageRank whenever it is Dugg up to Digg.com's frontpage.

Trust me, CO2 is good for you!

2006-06-25T12:14:00.000-07:00

As some of us might already know, Greenhouse gases (i.e. CO2) create a blanket over the atmosphere; consequently, trapping incoming heat, from the sun, that were supposed to bounce back to space. The alarming rate at which these gases are being expelled into the atmosphere is increasing rapidly, thanks to humans. In about 60 more years, the world population is estimated to double, I can only imagine what is going to happen then...knowing that I will be dead by then is the only optimisitic view I can take.

Here, one of the world's largest oil corporation, Exxon is actually promoting Greenhouse gases:

Watch the video. These corporations often hire scientists to reach self fulfilling conclusions. The next time you read a newspaper article that cites a corporate source on a subject like global warming, remember this: Corporations dont care what happens to you or your grandchildren. What they care about are the short term profits (aka quarterly profits).

Consumers don't stand up for action when the issue seems debatable. That's exactly what these corporations are trying to do; keeping us confused so that our minds stay numb. With an army of lawyers, lobbyists and billions in cash, they are wining so far.

'Best consumers and workers from a corporate point of view are mindless consumers and mindless workers. Any corporate power is excessive. Corporations shouldn't have power; people - all of us - should have power.'

The worth of ideas

2006-06-23T21:01:00.000-07:00

Most programmers design while they code, in doing so, they engage themselves in a brainstorming session developing theoretical solutions to problems itching their brain cells. Random ideas generate in my head while I am focused coding. The geek_entrepreneur's conventional approach to these random ideas is that they are essentially useless. It is easier said than learned; but yes, ideas are worthless. Unless, steps are taken to put them at work..

When I started programming my first commercial application, I kept adding countless potential features and turned it into a never ending coding story. Along the way, another idea struct me and I changed my course towards it instead. By now, I am almost finished coding its main functions.

Here's how I approach this issue: Don't be hesitant to make sharp turns along the way. If you have a better more marketable and practical idea, by all means pursue it. Keep the scope of the project limited initially. Make the decision to add more features only after primary work has been finished. Don't add Save As to menu before coding Save. This seems common sense, but is rarely practiced. Plan ahead, but keep the end in mind when you do so. Note to self: when an idea pops up, don't shove it under the carpet, explore it.

Ideas are not wortless. Failing to implement them makes them so.

Every minute spent angry is sixty seconds of happiness wasted

2006-06-23T20:55:00.000-07:00

For me, it is something more in the lines of 'every minute spent watching T.V is sixty seconds of coding wasted'. I eat, code, sleep, code, eat, code, sleep, and code. My mind is enclosed within curly braces, anything outside is a waste of my byte memory. I started coding my small application from its design phase to the finished product. I was 80% done within a matter of two weeks :)

Meanwhile, I got an occasional dose of neural activity on the right. I started jotting down ideas on Internet based advertisements. I learned PHP, SQL and VB Database programming in order to understand the practicality of my new found ideas. I have observed that learning new languages is a breeze once you are familiar with the basic C programming syntax. It is difficult, however, to adopt a new language; especially when you are making the jump from desktop to web based applications, and that is what I am doing at the moment. Web 2.0 might just be a fad, but so were personal computers when they first came along. Sooner or later, web applications will dominate the programming world. Good bye Microsoft, Hello Google!

The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in war.

2006-06-23T20:53:00.000-07:00

I mentioned earlier that long projects tend to demotivate people. For instance, I am sure many of us would have dropped out of kindergarten if we knew it would take 18 years to achieve a friggin piece of paper. If you can read this, you probably didn't take that path. Winning one battle at a time won us that war.

While I still have your attention, I will explain how I have decided to enter the micro-ISV market. Instead of working my ass off on a project that would take forever (> 6 months) to finish, I will instead start small. I will keep the long term goal to develop the larger product in perspective while I develop a small scaled product. By small, I mean releasing a product that has a smaller market but faster to actually develop. I am done the actual designing phase and predict it will take about a week to finish coding it. I hope that I can put a presentable product out for the world wide web by New Year's eve.

My profits off this product will be low, but there are far more valuable lessons I hope to learn off it. These lessons would make my ride to success smoother and more predictable the next time I develop a product. Here's a list of things I expect to learn:

-Web Analytics
-Marketing strategies
-Public Relations
-Blog exposure
-Pay Per Click advertisements
-E-Commerce store - paypal account
-Webdesigning
-Web Hosting/Domain Registration
-Autoupdates
-Installation Package
-Documentation
-Customer Service
-Pricing

Hopefully, releasing a smaller product first will prepare me for greater battles ahead.

80% of success is showing up - Woody Allen

2006-06-23T16:19:00.000-07:00

Two months into coding my product, it became clear that it would never finish. All of a sudden, the expression "80% of success is just showing up" began to make sense. Most programmers give up before they finish. I had reached about 2000 lines of fairly complex code before realizing it isn't a one man's job. I have noticed that most programmers begin to lose faith in their product's worth as it approaches the finish line. This is what happened to me. I consider my product, a collaborative software editor, to be extremely useful for software companies that require team of programmers to work together. I originally designed it to facilitate my own need for efficiently offshoring software development to Pakistan. There is a fair deal of competition out there for this sort of product, so running low on pizzazz is expected. Besides, competition is a positive sign for a healthy market for the product: so I should focus more on providing a viable product than potential market for it.

Most programmers design as they code. As it turned out, this became a problem. I began to add too many extra 'goodies' to the product; as a result, it not only became more complex but also extremely difficult to finish. Billionaire Jim Clark's advised on a similar matter: 'don't incorporate everything into the product, this is something engineer's never understand'. It just so happens, I am an Engineer. The product, as it stands right now, is 30% finished. I plan to get some outside help to code a few components, this will not only relieve tension off my back but also give me much needed time to research the products place in the market.

For now, I just want to get my butt into the market. Once I am there, I will find my way to the top.

The clock's ticking; 28% of my life has passed already.

2006-06-10T23:08:00.000-07:00

[(Your Age)/(Average Life Expectancy)] x 100

I am 21 years old. Assuming I fit the average Canadian male life expectancy of 75.2 years, I feel a sudden rush of discomfort knowing that 27.9% of my life has already passed without making much strides.

As sad as it may sound, I rather take this pessimistic approach to life to help motivate myself to act. I am not afraid of death as much as I am of reaching 60. In business, a small positive return in revenues is considered progress. In life, as minisicule as it may be, a positive step forward is a change in the right direction. That is what I intend on doing: as long as I work towards my goals, I am making progress, however small it may be.

Lesson from Yoda: Consider yourself dead for as long as you breath but no one recognizes you.

"If you dont live for something, you'll die for nothing."

To see things in the seed, that is genius - Lao Tzu

2006-06-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

When you work under someone else, you are making about a fraction of the amount that your employer is. This is necessary for any profitable business to work or no one would go about starting a venture in the first place. Working at a minimum wage of $7 is likely to return your employer thrice as much in revenues. So in reality, you are actually losing $14 (7 x 3 - 7) an hour for the time you spend flipping burgers. Tired of watching my family's typical 9 to 5 job, around September 11th 2005, when Nadii left for Dubai, I began working on my first commercial product.

I figured that this is probably the best age to take risks. I have nothing to lose but time, which of course, we teenagers care little about anyway. So if you can work 8 hours at McDonalds to make your boss some $$$, why not work on something you love, build it, sell it and watch the money pour in. If you fail, try again.

So I began my journey with $0 savings. Did some software consultancy work, saved some cash to cushion my losses and began preparing to code, market and sell. My goal is to have a primary product out by March 2006.

This blog will, hopefully, crystalize my thoughts as the journey continues.