Frequent thinker, occasional writer, constant smart-arse

Tag: observations

Don’t cry for me, Argentina!

Hola!

Apologies for the lack of activity, as in December I was preparing for an exam, and a day later, I flew to South America for a month – with these last few weeks my freetime has been eaten by creating some order at DataPortability. Despite the fact I knew one month wasn’t enough, and I visited too many countries that the travel was tiring and expensive, it still has been an amazing experience and I figure I might as well share my experience, as this blog did start as a travel blog.

From Tango in Buenos Airies to anaconda hunting in Bolivia, partying in Cuzco to experiencing the misunderstood Columbia – its been an amazing trip, where the people I’ve met on the way have made it just as rewarding as the places I visited. But if you have read my travel writing before, I am not going to bore you with “and then I did this and then I did that and oh my god, we then did that and it was so cool…”. Just some quick observations that may help you see what I saw.

“Self service toilets” – as oppossed to?….

The cities
First stop was Buenos Aires, where I spent close to week doing, um, not quite sure what I did. Buenos Aires is one of the stand out cities in the world, as I was told, but what I wasn’t told was why it’s a stand out city. And the answer is, is because it’s a cultural city. Meaning, there is sweet FA to do there as a tourist. But it’s a funky city to live in: densely urbanised with the town layout following the grid layout that is common across all the Spanish colonial cities, helping structure the urban jungle.

Coming into BA from the airport, I felt like I was driving into Athens: the heat, the run down buildings, and most of all the dirty roads which leave cars with a constant dirt on their sides and belly. Yet that was only the beginning of my comparisons with other cities, as BA’s 48 neighbourhoods each have a unique character and identity – from the slums of La Boca home of the famous Boca Juniors stadium, to the upmarket Riccoletta which had me thinking I was in Greenwich Village New York (the New York you see when watching sitcoms like Friends). Finally, two Melbournians pointed out to me that the city reminds them of Melbourne. One said the harbour is why, whilst my own observation was the grid-like structure of the city found in other great cities like New York, Thessaloniki and Melbourne was more the cause. (Yes, alright, I love the grid layout.)

Bogota (Columbia)

I lost my photos for Argentina so you are going to have to settle with the urban sprawl of Bogota.

The consequence of a grid layout however is a cramped urban look, which I love about in cities, and which is what I believe is a common characteristic of cities with high culture. Whilst Argentina’s population density is 14 inhabitants per square kilometre, the city of Buenos Aires has a population density of over 14,000 inhab./km¬?. With so many people on the one area, no wonder this is a city that radiates culture. It is also no surprise why walking and getting lost in the neighbourhoods is one of the most enjoyable things to do.

Contrast that with La Paz in Bolivia, where I flew to next. Cities of the world tend to be compared to – for example, Buenos Aires, is called the “Paris of the South”, drawing comparison to one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. However with La Paz, I believe comparisons do not do it justice: it deserves to be a pin-up city that other cities can be compared to. And so therefore, whenever I say a city is the “La Paz of the …”, take that to mean, that that city is a shit hole that comes close to the biggest shit hole in the world.

Having said that though, I like shit holes. From the airport looking down, the city built on a mountains crest, certainly is spectacular – a geography it shares with Sarajevo, except about 4,000 metres above sea level and without any Serbs snipers. But whatever it is that makes it special, it certainly isn’t the ridiculous car pollution that I can’t help but claim is one of the landmarks of this third world country. I met a couple saying it’s been two weeks and they were still recovering from the altitude sickness which most people tend to get (including me): they didn’t realise those cars with engines from the 1930s probably are the cause. Getting out of the city was better than any pill you could take.

This is typical: the exhaust fumes are ridiculous on some cars

See that exhaust fume? Now times that by about 1000 and you get the idea what La Paz is like

The poverty is astounding, which is evident in the public works (or lack of). But one thing that strikes me, is that it just works. The overflowing markets in the city centre’s streets (I don’t use the word overflow lightly either) and the crazy amount of cars, give a chaotic feel – but like I said, it just works. It’s kind of cool (in the parts that don’t stink at least).

The other major cities I visited where Cusco in Peru, which is a pretty colonial city ruined by American package tourists, although to be fair, I was barely sober so didn’t get to see much as I was partying with some friends. I also went to Bogota in Columbia, a pleasant city, as well as Cali in the south which is one of the largest cities and centre of the cocaine industry. They also claim it is the salsa capital of Columbia (and the world) as well as having the most beautiful women. They do ok on both counts – going to a Salsa club, although expensive for a tourist, is certainly an experience; as for the latter, the reason why the guidebooks claim this as an attraction (other than because there is no much else to do in Cali but party and watch the homeless on crack cocaine) is because when you get a Latin Woman in a skimpy outfit due to the tropical weather (and that’s skimpy for all ages), no doubt men are going to rate this city highly. Sex will always beat high culture!

How to make cocaine stage 2

Coke, anyone?

The people
Argentineans and Columbians are some of the friendliest people I have ever come across. For example, standing on the Buenos Airies metro with my camera out like a stupid tourist – a lady approached me, urging me to hide my camera, due to theft which is so common in the city. (A big bloke from Sao Paolo who has never been robbed in his home city, an unusual occurrence, managed to get rolled here.) Other incidents and just the way people talk to you, is how I am basing my opinion of the friendliness of people. It’s the little things, but it shocked me particularly in Buenos Airies and Bogota as they are a big cities, which typically means everyone is a prick.

Bolivians I would have to say, whilst not exactly the least friendly, I was just shocked at how sloppy they were. The concept of hospitality is all but lost in Bolivia, it’s so ridiculous I couldn’t help but laugh. For example, at a restaurant on the way to Rubbenareque (where I did my Amazon trip), the way the waiter cleaned the food scraps on the table, was by wiping it to the floor, which was then cleaned by the resident dog.

Lake Tititaca

Lake Tititaca – it’s big

Their attitude to the environment is a conservationists nightmare. I remember asking a lady where the bin was for my chips packet which I had finished, and she just pointed on the ground. I was confused, thinking what did she mean by that, and she just laughed and took the packet off me, throwing it to the ground. As you can imagine, our Amazon trip was very scenic later that week – monkeys, dolphins, and floating garbage.

An interesting thing about South America was the policing presence. For example in Bolivia, there seemed to be a military officer or at least a police officer at every store. Columbia’s roads are full of checkpoints, although then again, with a civil war in that country, don’t think I’m complaining. Unfortunately, I’ve lost my pictures of Argentina, but one of the funniest pictures I took was just off the city centre. You had the presidents palace – an ugly pink building, flanked by the Mayor’s building, the Cathedral, and on the same street as the courts and legislature. However directly behind the Presidents house, about 100 metres south-west, is the Ministry of Defence – a towering building many times bigger. Given the history of the region, the fact that there is a much grander defence building watching the presidents house, is not to be lost as a metaphor.

Another thing that shocked me was how much of a presence the indigenous people have. Whilst it would vary across the countries, with Argentina predominantly European and Columbia European and African; Peru and Bolivia were very much dominated by the dark skinned, sometimes Asiatic looking indigenous people, who draw from a variety of ethnic groups, and who all are descendants of sorts of the Incan empire that ruled the continent just before the Spanish. The colourful dresses of the Amyran women in the streets of La Paz is certainly a sight.

The politics
Unlike my previous nine-month trip in Europe, where I thought I was some traveling journalist reporting to the world, I got over I am not writing a guidebook, and realised this was a holiday to fix me up from getting burnt out after two years of fulltime study and work. However despite a monthy of literally switching off, I couldn’t help myself and went into reporter mode, questioning any South American I came across.

World's most dangerous road

Doing our tour along the worlds most dangerous road

The over-arching theme that I took, was that this was a continent with amazing wealth, but overwhelming poverty and terrible government. Poverty is something that stares in your face – and I am told it is even more pronounced in Brazil. Whilst Brazil is the richest country because of its size, Argentina is regarded as the only developed country. Developed in that there is a stable government and economy, with a key difference being they have a vibrant middle class. Every other country, you notice there are the rich – who spend money in clubs like rich westerners – and there are the poor, which at times would distress me.

Our flight from Rubbeneraque to return to La Paz was delayed, which is an interesting example. The problem with Bolivia is that it has no infrastructure: something like 20-30% of the country’s roads are paved (I would love to be a tyre manufacturer there). The regional airports, like this one we were flying out from, was literally a grass field – with customs like some abandoned bus shelter. Actually, the plane couldn’t land due to the rain, and so they transported us to a neighbouring neglected military airport/grassfield about 40 minutes away, because the pilots managed to land it there. However as it rained, we had to wait for the water to drain as the plane couldn’t take off. This experience was an interesting insight into the poverty of Bolivia in particular, as it spurred a long discussion with a Austrian-born pilot now living in Bolivia.

Electrical wires in La Paz, Bolivia

Health and safety is clearly an issue in Bolivia

This man was one of the 70 pilots of the airline company Amaszonas, who was also one of the 23 owners and the National Operations manager of the company. There are four main airlines in Bolivia – three of them have struck an agreement to work together starting March 2008, with AeroSur doing internal flights, Amazonas doing domestic (going forward), and Aerocon doing the regional jobs like our flight today. The fourth airline, is TAM – a military transportation company, and one which our pilot friend claims is the governments attempt to kill local industry. He explain the Left-wing government has got a nationalistic, almost communist, drive. Rather than encouraging local industry, they are competing against it, trying to drive out these business so the government can have a state monopoly.

La Paz, Bolivia

The streets of La Paz – worlds biggest shit-hole

He was moaning how it took 23 minutes to get into radio contact of the guy that was on duty at this neglected airport, which is a lot of burnt fuel and a good example of how there isn’t a supporting infrastructure for business to do things efficiently. On the point of getting the airport paved, which would mean these planes could land in any weather, at 120metres by 60 it would cost 12million USD – a price the industry could not subsidise, and one the government is not willing. And that’s why 37% of the December flights – and December is on the start of rainy season – had been cancelled. Our flight from La Paz got cancelled as we were checking in, which is why we opted for a jeep ride (and that was an experience). If it wasn’t for this landing at the neighbouring airport, and the last minute response from the on-duty airport controller, the flight would have had to have turned back to La Paz. The economic cost of this infrastructure problem, as you can see, is massive.

Talking to this pilot you have to be careful on his views, as he was in the top echelon of society – married to a Channel Nine newsreader with strong connections to politicians, and the owner of an airline – his bashings of the government is a very different perspective of the poor. But as he talked, it made me realise how much of a no hope the Bolivian’s have despite his optimism when President Morales was out. For example, despite rich in natural resources, the government has forbidden foreign corporations from extracting it. Arguably, these corporations abused the country and its population, hence this stance, but as our right wing friend claims, it’s because the government wants to do it itself to capture all the profits. The problem with that approach however, is you need foreign investment to build the infrastructure & transfer expertise that can’t be done by the Bolivians. And so you have this nasty poverty trap – where the government refuses to support foreign investment despite a clear need for it, and investors can’t invest because of the unstable political situation, which on the inside, isn’t really that unstable (according to him), but which to the outside, looks like another South American bananas republic about to collapse again.

With the poor, and this was especially evident in La Paz, you would see women and children sitting by the streets begging for money. However as I was told later by the pilot, you shouldn’t feel sorry for these people because they deliberately do this. He shared a story how he offered a woman a job as a cleaner in his house, but she turned it down, because apparently she would make more money begging. I don’t buy that as an explanation for all the beggers, but certainly an interesting insight.

Bolivian Amazon tour

The resident crocodile on our Amazon tour

And the rest

  • Apparently, Venezuelan military planes fly in Bolivia! Hugo Chavez of Venezuela appears to be developing a confederate of allied nations, that look like another bloc of defiance against North America, taking on the leading role now that Cuba has its aged leader out of action.
  • I lost my ATM card a few days into my trip! I found this out when I had about two dollars on me, and without another credit card, you can pretty much understand the situation I was in…along with my counterfeit money issue in Iran, I think the only travelers worst nightmare I haven’t experienced, is losing my passport! I managed to get an emergency visa sent to my employers Bolivia office, but turns out that didn’t work – so I was reliant on about $2000 in wire transfers from family via the god send Western Union (thank God South America is cheap). Western Union is literally available anywhere – there are branches within post offices in Argentina, chemists in Peru, as well as banks and their own banks. At a $70 transfer fee, this is one of the travellers best resources when they are in trouble. On the flip side, I HATE YOU ST GEORGE BANK. It took me 20 minutes to try and call an after hours emergency number, and I ended up having to get my folks at home to call directory assistance, because their website is full of marketing crap. Don’t get me started on the rest.
  • I did a three day Amazon tour on the pampas, and I feel like I need to share my research with the other poor travellers trying to prepare.
    • Bolivia has apparently the cheapest Amazon tours with the most to see. All the tour agencies pretty much have cabins off the same river, and cost the same. Indigena has the cheapest; Inca tours the most expensive with mine middle of the range (Fluvial tours) – and for the same product
    • Flights to Rubbenareque can get cancelled at the last minute, which is the best way to travel and takes an hour (about 70USD); a 4×4 “jeep” takes 12 hours (about 55USD if you can get five people to share the ride); and the bus 20 hours (something like 10USD). Although the bus is cheaper – I’ve seen and heard from others why you shouldn’t; the jeep is a good experience to see the countryside but the bumpy roads can get very tiring, and make sure you leave early in the morning, because our driver post 12am starting getting very tired and was just trying to get there ASAP – which made the ride even more uncomfortable (at around 3 am, I felt he was purposely trying to hit the holes in the road, to keep himself awake!). The entire road to Rubbenareque can best be described as a wide goat track alongside a mountain cliff that drops 100 metres at times. The fact you have industrial trucks and buses traveling on a road that a car barely fits on, adds to the problem – if you are on the bus, to make way for other cars, there is a constant reversing and adjusting ON CLIFFS!! So that’s the reason the bus takes so much longer, and passengers fear for their lives. Actually, just ahead of us we witnessed a truck that fell off the road and crashed to the bottom – accidents are common.
    • As for contacting tour agencies, they all have websites that suck – it’s best to just turn up to La Paz or Rubbenareque and book there – they have tours running every day (we had one over Christmas).
      • The details for Indigena tours in La Paz, which you won’t find anywhere on the net, is the following:

      SAGARNAGA STREET (which is on the main tourist street filled with tours, at the very top of the road) NEAR TO ILLAMPU STREET N?Ǭ? 380 PHONE NUMBER 2110749. E-mail is indigenabolivia at hotmail dot com

      • They are the best because they are the cheapest, and the lady in La Paz is very helpful

And that’s all! Plenty more to say, but message me if I can help anyone trying to plan a trip; as for the wisdom I have acquired, lets do that over a beer 🙂

Bolivian Amazon tour

5 observations of how social networking (online) has changed social networking (offline)

Just then, I had an image get shattered. A well respected blogger, whose online persona had me think they were a very cool person offline, is infact, a fat geek with an annoying voice. I can pretty much cross off the list that he can relate to experiences of how Facebook is mentioned in trendy nightclubs on the dancefloor.

Another thing I have noticed: all the major commentators & players of the Internet economy, are usually married, in their 30s or 40s, and almost all come from an IT background.

Don’t get me wrong – the industry has a lot of people that are a goldmine with what they say. They challenge my thinking, and they are genuinely intelligent. But although they are users of web services like Facebook or MySpace – just like the rest of society – they are people experiencing these technologies in the bubble of the technology community. Their view of the world, is not aligned with what’s actually happening in the mainstream. No surprises there – they are the early adopters, the innovators and the pioneers. It’s funny however, that comparable to other services (like Twitter) the adoption amongst the tech community for Facebook has been slow: it was only when the developer network launched that it started getting the attention.

What I want to highlight is that most commentators have no way in the world of understanding the social impact of these technologies in the demograghic where the growth occurs. We all know for example, Facebook is exploding with users – but do we know why it’s exploding? A married man in his 40s with a degree in computer science, isn’t going to be able to answer that, because most of the growth comes from single 20 year olds with an history major.

So what I am about to recount is my personal experience. I am not dressing it up as a thought-piece; I am just purely sharing how I have seen the world take to social networking sites and how it has transformed the lives of my own and the people around me. I’m 23 years old, the people in my life generally fall into the computer clueless category, and I have about 500 Facebook friends that I know through school, university, work, or just life (about ten are in the tech industry).

1) Social networking sites as a pre-screening tool
Observation: I randomly was approached by a chick one night and during the course of our conversation she insisted I knew a certain person. Ten minutes, and 20 more “I swear…you know xxx” – I finally realised she was right and that I did know that person. For her to be so persistent in her claim, she had to be sure of herself. But how can someone be sure of themselves with that piece of information, when I had only met her 30 seconds earlier?

I then realised this chick had already seen me before – via facebook. I know this is the case, because I myself have wandered on a persons profile and realised we have a lot of mutual friends. In those times I would note it is bound to happen that I would meet them.

Implication: People are meeting people and know who they are before they even talk. They say most couples meet through friends. Well now you can explore your friends’s friends – and then start hanging around that friend when you know they know someone you like!

2) Social networking sites getting you more dates
Observation: I met a chick and had a lengthy chat with her, and although she was nice, I left that party thinking I would probably never see her again as I didn’t give out any contact details. That next day, she added me as a friend on Facebook. In another scenario, there was a girl I met from a long time ago and I hadn’t seen her since. We randomly found each other on Facebook, and I’ve actually got to know the girl – picking up from where we left off.

Implication: Social networking sites help you further pursue someone, even though you didn’t get their number. In fact, it’s a lot less akward. Facebook has become a aprt of the courtship process – flirtation is a big aspect of the sites activity.

3) Social networking sites helping me decide
Observation: There was a big party, but I wasn’t sure if I would go because I didn’t know who would go with me. I looked at the event RSVP, and I to my surprise found out a whole stack of people I knew were going.

Implication: Facebook added valuable information that helped me decide. Not knowing what people were going, I probably wouldn’t have gone. Think about this on another level: imagine you were were interested in buying a camera, and you had access to the camera makes of your friends (because the digital photos they upload contain the camera model – as seen with Flickr). Knowing what your friends buy is a great piece of advice on what you want to buy.

4) Social networking sites increasing my understanding of people I know
Observation: I found out when a friend added me on myspace, that she was bisexual – something I never would have realised. Being bi is no big deal – but it’s information that people don’t usually give up about themselves. Likewise, I have since found out about people I went to school with are now gay. Again – no big deal – but discreet information like that increases your depth of understanding about someone (ie, not making gay jokes around them). I know what courses my contacts have studied since I last saw them, and what they are doing with their lives. I also know of someone that will be at one of my travel destinations when I go on holiday.

Implication: You are in the loop about the lives of everyone you’ve met. It’s nothing bad, because these people control what you can see, but it’s great because there are things you know, things you know you don’t know, but now you can find out things you didn’t know that you didn’t know.

5) Social networking sites as a shared calendar
Observation: My little sister is currently going through 21st season – back to back parties of her friends. One of the gripes of 21sts when organising them, is overlap with other peoples. Not only that – but also the physical process of contacting people and getting them to actually RSVP – it’s a pain. However unlike my 21st season experience from a few years ago, my sister has none of these issues. This is because Facebook is like one big shared calender. Another example is how I send my congratulations to birthday friends a lot more than I have in the past because I actually know its their birthday- due to fact our calendars are effectively pooled as a shared calendar.

Implication: Facebook has become an indispensable tool to peoples social lives.

6) Bonus observation – explaining the viral adoption of Facebook
I have a few friends that don’t have Facebook. You can almost count them on the one hand. And when you bring it up, they explode with a “I’m sick of Facebook!” and usually get defensive because so many people hassle them. In most cases, they make an admission that one day, they will join. The lesson here is that Facebook is growing because of peer pressure. The more people in someone’s network, the more valuable facebook becomes to them. When they say 40 million users, it’s actually 40 million sales people.

God bless the network effect.

Understanding the Facebook poll feature

A little while ago, I was lucky to catch a Facebook poll, as a way of advertising its new poll feature. As a follow up from that experience, I thought I might purchase my own poll to validate its effectiveness. Here are a few of my observations:

1) Answers appear to be clustered

One of the interesting things about the poll feature, is that it is real time. You are getting answers as people vote. You select what type of people you want to target, and Facebook will then quiz users of that criteria by putting the poll on their homescreen. Something I noticed however, was that answers seemed to come in together followed by a gap. I also noticed that these answers that come in groups, usually have similar responses.
clustered yes

I appears that users are highly responsive to a poll. If it appears on their survey, a lot of people appear to answer it. I know this because I specifically targeted my poll to Australians, in the middle of the day when I wouldn’t expect people to be using facebook.
The placing of the options seems to affect the results. I suppose anyone that has studied polling before, would probably know the order of a ballot heavily influences the poll. This appears evident here. Usefully however, Facebook allows you to randomise the poll so that different users see a different order. However as is demonstrated above, with this clustering, its groups of users that see a different order, not individuals

2) Facebook users appear to be more male, and younger
Something I noticed in my previous blog posting on the poll feature, was that there appeared to be more males answering. This seems to have happened occur with this poll as well, and indicates to me that Facebook’s population of users have a higher male base – which is unusual given that women generally outnumber men in society.

fcfb2

It should also be noted that there is no age groups option for people above 50 years old.

3) Takers of the poll appear to be a genuinely random population
The reason I picked 200 people, was that that is the minimum amount a poll needs to be before it can statistically be considered accurate to represent a population. However as I was able to obtain data as the poll was running, it gave me insight into how random (and representative) the population that took the test was.

Below is a screenshot half way through, as well as the final result

results half wayb

fcfb1b

The results for the poll are almost identical. Without reading too much into it, that tells me the conditions of the test were genuinely random.

There are a few other things I noticed, but this isn’t me trying to promote a Facebook service, and will leave to make your own analysis in combination with the other Facebook poll I blogged about. I just want to highlight that for absolutely nothing, you can get an insight into a market in literally hours.

IBM recently released a report saying that the Internet has overtaken TV, changing the dynamics of the advertising industry, and that they see the role of advertising agencies in the future to go “beyond traditional creative roles to become brokers of consumer insight

Facebook is an amazing company because of the amount of data it holds about the population in various societies. And for a fee – the rest of the world can take advantage of this as well. Welcome Facebook – the world’s most competitive agency for consumer insight.

Tangler

This is the second post in a series – wizards of oz – which is to highlight the innovation we have down under, and how the business community needs to wake up and realise the opportunities. I review Tangler, a Sydney-based start-up that has recently released their application to the world as a public beta.

Tangler is a web-service that enables discussions over a network. Think of discussions with the immediacy of Instant Messaging (it’s easy), but with the persistency of a forum (messages are permanently stored). Discussions are arranged into communities of interest (groups), which are further broken down into topic areas. Click here to see a video overview.

Value

1) It’s a network application. Although it’s got a great design, and looks like a funky website, the real power of this web service is what it’s working towards: discussions over a network. Imagine a little widget with the topic “What do you think of Elias Bizannes?” placed on my (external) personal blog, my internal work blog, my myspace/facebook/social networking page, as well as it’s own dedicated forum on the Tangler site. A centralised discussion, in a decentralised manner. That’s big.

2) It’s community has great DNA. Communities are not easy things to build – my own experience on a getting-bigger-by-the-day internal project has shown that it is a complex science, touching everything from understand motivational theory to encouraging the right kind of behaviours (policing without policing). My usage on the site has shown to me that the active community building currently occuring, is on the right track. Anyone can hire a code monkey, wack on some flashy front-end, and say they have a great product. But not anyone can build a strong community – even Google struggles on this (the acquisition of YouTube happened largely because of community, because the YouTube community beat Google’s own service). Tangler’s community is already turning into a powerful asset – the DNA is there – now it just needs exposure, and the law of cumulative advantage will kick in.

3) The founder and staff are responsive to its community. I posted a question on the feedback forum, to prove this point: I got a response in an hour, on a Saturday. The staff at Tangler are super responsive – which in part, is due to the real-time discussion ability of the software – but also because of their commitment. As I state above – the value of Tangler is the community of users it builds – this type of responsiveness is crucial to keep its users satisfied to come back, because it makes them feel valued. Additionally, the community is driving the evolution of the application, and that’s the most powerful way to create something (adapting to where there is a need by the people that use it)

4) It’s a platform. What makes Tangler powerful, is that it encourages discussions around niche content areas. Make that niche content, being created for free. Low cost to produce + highly targeted content = an advertisers dream. Link it with a distributed network across the entire Internet (see 1 above), and you’ve got something special.

Conclusion

Social networks, which is what Tangler is, are characterised by:
1) the existence of a repository of user-generated content and
2) the need of members to communicate.

Tangler’s user-generated content and communications web make them an interesting fit for both media conglomerates and telecommunication companies (but for different reasons). I see a Tangler acquisition as a no-brainer for the big Telco’s. Integrating a social network like Tangler into Telstra, builds on the synergy between the communication needs of social network users and the communications expertise and service infrastructure of the communication companies. Unlike voice calls that are a commodity now, the Telco’s need to take advantage of their network infrastructure and accommodate for text-based discussions, which can be monetised for as long as the content exists (with advertising).

The challenge for Tangler however – as with any other Internet property – is that the scale of the audience of social networks determines the nature of the relationship with a communications company. Micro-sized social networks are not interesting to communication companies. Massive social networks are, but history has shown they would rather be partners than be acquired. To be attractive to the big end of town, Tangler needs to show to have a scale large enough to grow as a business but not too large to dictate the terms of the business.

My observations conclude me to think that they will be a hit once they open up their application to external developers, which will relieve the development bottleneck faced by their resource and time constrained team. However they shouldn’t rush this, as I still think their performance issues are not completely ironed out yet. An open API would be taken up by its enthusiastic community who are technologically orientated. Not too mention the strong relationships the CEO and CMO have forged with the local web entrepreneurial and development community in Australia.

My boss is currently doing a secondment as acting Finance Director at Sensis, Telstra’s media arm. Maybe I need to organise a catch-up with him, before these guys get snatched up by some US conglomerate!

Gallipoli

Humanity. Identity. And youth. Those were the three unspoken themes that permeated the atmosphere at Gallipoli, the site at which 90 years earlier, soldiers from Australia, New Zealand, France, Britain and Turkey fought in a battle that lasted nine months but would forever haunt the site. Militarily, this battle brought bloodshed on all sides. Culturally, however, it would come to define the modern Australian and Turkish states ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú creating a legend that would affect us to this day.

Background

Even in ancient times, Byzantium was a very influential city. It controlled trade and shipping that would pass from the Black Sea and Anatolia, to the Mediterranean ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú the junction that connected Europe to the Silk Road. So strategically important was its position, that the Roman emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire there in 325 AD ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú where it ruled the world supreme for a thousand years. In 1453, the Ottoman?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s finally invaded the impregnable city with a new technology ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú canon fire ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú and made the since renamed city ?¢‚ǨÀúConstantinople?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ the capital of her vast empire.

In 1914, the Ottoman Empire ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú now on its last legs ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú had joined the Germans in the First World War. Constantinople, like it has always been, was a strategically important city. To capture it meant that the Allied armies could eliminate the Ottoman?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s from the war, as well as control the key black sea trading route ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú ensuring a starved Russia could get supplies and support, as the Western side of her belly was cut off by the Germans. The Gallipoli peninsula led into Constantinople, and if the Allies could capture the Peninsula, they could make their way up to Constantinople and achieve their objective. The outcome of this battle had huge ramifications for all the sides fighting, as it could have broken the stalemate on the western front.

Kamal Attaturk was the commander in charge of the Ottoman army at the Gallipoli peninsula. His success in defending his homeland, made him a national hero, and no doubt played an important factor in him becoming Turkey?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s first President in 1927 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú whereby he oversaw the remnants of the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia modernised and completely revitalised into the powerful country we see today.

Of the Australian and New Zealand forces fighting there, the battle has became a symbol that defined two young nations, as up until then, their colonial past was the only identity that they had. They were known as the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, and the acronym to those words has come to represent a commemoration for fallen heroes; and for Australia, the uniqueness of her culture and people.

Ninety years later ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú the memorial ceremonies
The memorial consisted of three parts. The first part was the Dawn Service, which started at 4am. Later in the morning, the Lone Pine Service was held, to commemorate the Australian troops ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú as five of the seven Victorian crosses awarded were due to acts performed at this site. And afterwards, the New Zealander?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s held their service at Chanuuk Bar, which was the highest ground reached by the Anzac?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s.

The Dawn Service was held in an area called North Beach, which was just above Anzac cove. The area was held in a space the equivalent of a football field. The crude estimate that 14,000 people were there was based on the assumption two people could fit in each square metre. A lady who was handing out programmes, said that of the 19,000 printed, 17,000 had already been handed out at 12am ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú when not even three-quarters of the attendants had arrived. Add to the fact that there were literally thousands of young Turkish people swarming in the masses – it would not be unreasonable to say that 20-25,000 attended this year?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s service.

A local Turkish girl teased me, because she had one layer of clothing and was fine. I on the other hand had three layers, and was numb, shaking and could only concentrate on breathing and keeping warm from the winds, which made the five-degree Celsius climate feel like minus five. As someone who had only recently come from Australia?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s March climate, to experience Turkey?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s April chill, I stood perplexed at how men my age and younger – a military historian claims to have discovered a soldier aged 14 and nine-months – had to jump out of boats into the water and onto these fields. And then dig a hole, where they had to eat, shit and fight out of for the nine-months that followed.

The ceremony itself was nice. It probably would have been more enjoyable had we not been in the cold for so long. Nevertheless the light show, which was to simulate the sun-rise as the Anzac?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s landed on the shore, was quite spectacular. The rugged and steep hill behind us and which was 100 metres from the shore – simultaneously lit up in portions, as a flashing multi-coloured light projected from a corner near the water on our front left. It was dark, but there was also a full-moon which gave the shore an eerie feel. The lightshow against a backdrop of darkness was surreal; and the deathly quiet during the show, with the speaker system booming the voice of the narrator, definitely made an impression to those there.

After the Dawn Service, most people climbed the hills to Lone Pine. It was here that everyone who attended would agree was the highlight of the experience. Sitting in what was like a mini stadium ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú the 4,000 seats were full, and the ground was covered with people. John Howard, the Prime Minister, made an early arrival and did his rounds through the crowds. He was greeted with a standing ovation and cheering ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú which he lapped up every moment off. However when the same treatment was bestowed on Kim Beazley ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú the opposition leader ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú he may had realised that it was more larrikinism than respect when he heard those cheers.

After five false starts, a Mexican wave did a complete loop, including the armed service band, whom dropped there instruments to give a very precise and uniform wave. However what had me startled was that it would not stop. Every few minutes, I would notice the stand directly opposite me stand up, again, and after the wave had passed me six times, I started to wonder if it would ever end. It did, but that?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s only because we were busy asking all the dignitaries to give us a wave, which would have a stand erupt in cheering and laughter when they did

Dignitaries were plenty. From Australia, we had the Prime Minister, Opposition leader and quite a few members of the Federal Cabinet. Victoria?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s and Tasmania?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s premiers were present, and Prince ?¢‚Ǩ?ìChucky?¢‚Ǩ? Charles was in attendance (but no Camilla). Top military brass from Australia, New Zealand, Germany, the UK, Turkey, France and I am sure a few more filled the official chairs. In fact, some many ?¢‚ǨÀúdignitaries?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ came, that they ran out of official chairs ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú much like how the entire day panned out ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú a gross underestimation of the amount of people that would come.

An interesting observation was how Australian democracy was being represented overseas. When the Prime Minister gave the speech at the Dawn Service, it was the opposition leader that was to lay the wreath for Australia. Our ?¢‚ǨÀúhead of state?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢, represented by chucky, had no role of importance other than a token prayer (and only at the Dawn Service). The Australian head of state ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú the Governor-General, with the current holder of the office also a former military officer ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú was nowhere to be seen.

It became evident that the things Howard spoke about, and by the way the ceremony was organised, that he was doing more than just a memorial service ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú but was trying to shape an Australian psyche. He laboured to have us acknowledge sacrifice, mateship and courage as Australian virtues?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú but he had no trouble having us understand larrikinism, as was evident with the master of ceremonies repeatedly having trouble controlling the crowd.

The Service at Chanuuk Bar was a long walk up, which was a sobering experience to see how the New Zealand troops were able to get so far. Whilst I did not attend the service, people reflected that it was not as good. The noise generated by the Turkish children passing by to their buses, as nearby they were celebrating their own ?¢‚Ǩ?ìVictory?¢‚Ǩ? of the battle, made it apparently difficult to enjoy the moment

Overall Observations
The thing that struck everyone who attended, were the amount of young people present. Most of the crowds were Australians based in London on working holidays or GAP-year students working somewhere in Europe. An older contingent of retirees made their presence felt, and it seemed that for all except the tour-guides, it was a first-time experience. Nearly all that I spoke to wouldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t have come to Turkey had it not been for the 90th celebration. Although everyone also said, they would definitely be back again.

Another thing that struck us as strange were the amount of Turkish people there. In recent years, the battle has raised in national importance in Turkey ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú and questions are being raised by the younger generation as to the amount that died (there is no Turkish burial site). There were boys and girls there from all over Turkey. Some where there just to see what the fuss was about. Pretty much all of the young Turkish men there, came because they think Australian women are easy to pick up. Whilst it annoyed me and I am sure other people how the Turks in attendance didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t show much respect by keeping quiet and stationary during the Dawn Service, it was startling to see so many other young Turkish children on the walk up to Chanuuk Bar. Even nicer was the warmth both nations showed each other in their interactions, a thing confirmed to me in Istanbul where all the shopkeepers who realised I was Australian, would tell me how much they liked Australians. Sure they were trying to sell me something, but they seemed genuinely respectful.

Australian poets and songwriters have long lamented that when the last ANZAC would die, the importance of the day would be lost in history. The last Australian ANZAC has died, however I wish that some of those artists could have been there, as they would realise a fresh generation of young Australians would carry the tradition on ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú although for different reasons. Being surrounded by so many Australians, in a foreign continent where some had not heard an Aussie accent since they were in Australia, gave everyone a warmth. However being in a crowd of Aussies, laughing and cheering together, and nodding our heads at things that the Turkish tour guides didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t understand, did something else. It made you feel like an Australian. And it made you feel glad you were one.