Geekonomics

Online retail store making 600million euros in revenue for 2008 and Michael Arrington of TechCrunch hasn’t heard of it, and doesn’t want to either. I guess he’d rather focus on startups that can raise lotsa money but no revenues to show for it. Now, who has an invite for this geek to join Vente-privee.com?

There’s been arguments on this for both sides for a while. Generally, the idea is that when times are bad, people stay home and play more video games - which can provide hours of entertainment for not a lot of money. I think it’s supposed to be fairly recession-proof, except that in Asia it’s more of an online video gaming market still and there’s been a lot of ‘free-to-play’ games rolling out. EA gave a scare earlier on but industry insiders would know it’s mainly just EA’s problem. Sony doesn’t look too good at the moment though.

Well, this was the top ten Google global searches of 2008 according to the Google zeitgeist.

I found this study hard to believe until I read the report myself… still quite mind-boogling, I’d say. Well, the youth mind is always difficult to understand.

Just put up an exclusive interview with the founder of Match.com and Interwoven. Read it at my CNET Asia blog here.

Being quite a Blackberry diehard, many have asked me on my opinion on the first ever touch-screen based Blackberry, the Storm. Especially after I’ve used other touch-screen based devices like the iPhone, Samsung F480, and many other touchscreen offerings on the Windows Mobile platform. It’s a pity I was just about to start on a 50,000-word thesis on my take on the Storm when I chanced upon this review that mirrored my sentiments almost exactly. Just read it instead - except for those bits on the iPhone coz I think the iPhone sucks as a phone and I sold it on day one. I use the iPod Touch 2nd Gen instead.

I was just reviewing my blogs recently and I think this is the most worthless of the blogs that I maintain.

You see, according to ://URLfan recommended by Pat Law, this blog is not even listed.

At least my highway blog is listed on ://URLfan though I don’t write on it much. And even though I don’t write on my highway blog much, it still has pretty decent traffic.

Geekonomics @ CNET Asia of course is the most high traffic of the 3 blogs I painfully maintain amidst my busy schedule. And I do make time to blog there regularly 2-3 times a week - for contractual reasons. And it’s has to be all original content, I can’t just sticky something up there - a big Juniper (tree) will probably crush and kill me.

But look at this blog. Although it has a pagerank of 4 and just crossed the 100k pageviews mark (since it’s inception around June according to stats counter ‘wassup’), it is not even listed on urlfan and I don’t spend half as much effort on it as I do on my CNET Asia blog. And at least the highway of life has been recognised with a blog of the day award before.

Briefly scrolling through my posts on this blog, most of them are either press releases or just stickies of what I’ve read. I haven’t made enough effort to create better content. (And I have to login regularly to delete the spam that chalks up to 3 figures on akismet weekly)

It’s junk, even to me. I don’t even know why you even bother to read it.

I think I should either close it down or revamp it.

Thinking.

Someone sent me this story on today’s Straits Times news :

Internet addiction in Singapore on the increase
SINGAPORE, Dec 5 — Doctors in Singapore are warning of a sharp rise in
the number of young people addicted to the Internet, with the most
severe cases needing hospitalisation to wean them off the Web.

Psychiatrists in the Institute of Mental Health and the National
University Hospital treat a new addict every month and expect the
numbers to go up.

A similar trend was noted by five psychologists in private practice
reporting a 30 per cent increase from five years ago. Although the
numbers seem small, the experts see cause for concern.

Dr Munidasa Winslow of NUH’s psychological health department, who saw
only one Internet addict in 2002, said: “We need to be aware that with
time, compulsive Internet use might become the new heroin of addictive
disorders with vulnerable young adults falling into the trap of the
Web.”

Internet addicts tend to be boys and young men aged between 10 and 20.
They stay glued to the computer for hours, skipping school and
forgoing food and sleep.

Though not physically ravaging like heroin, addiction to the Internet
leads to emotional and mental distress. It can have a physical impact
if it leads to exhaustion and dehydration. It is more akin to gambling
or alcohol addiction, said psychologists.

…(see full story)…

One reason for the rise: the emergence of social networking groups and
more interesting online games have combined to keep young people
riveted to their screens.

For example, psychologists say many young patients stay on social
networks like Facebook all day because they want to keep connected
with their network of friends, through updates on the site.

Dr Goh said: “In the past, the Internet wasn’t as entertaining as it
is now. For some people, it offers them more than what real life
itself can offer.”

IMH’s Dr Fung said it does not help that some parents think having
their children on the Internet keeps them out of trouble outside.

Consultant psychiatrist Brian Yeo of Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre
said young people are also encouraged when events such as the World
Cyber Games are heavily promoted and online gaming is classified as a
sport.

Take 19-year-old Mohamed Phirkan. The student got into a tussle with
his school, Nanyang Polytechnic, early this year because he wanted to
game competitively, and was cutting classes to play.

He said: “I would rather sacrifice my studies if I’m forced to
choose.” He has since quit the school.

…(see full story)… — The Straits Times

The full story can be found here, here and here.

This means that us bloggers, facebookers, and gamers i.e. digital natives might need to go to the medical doctors for treatment sooner or later? This story really puzzles me in more ways than one. First of all, they cited Mohd Phirkhan, and their story is about internet addiction. But Phirkhan’s game is not even an online game? So how is Phirkhan connected to internet addiction when his game doesn’t even depend on the internet?

And from what I know he quit school because he was offered a USD30k per year contract to compete professionally. Now what does that have to do with internet addiction again?

And cybersports has nothing to do with online gaming like WoW. It’s two different animals the former being games which are competed like sports like FIFA and Counterstrike and the later being games that are played online like WoW and Maplestory.

According to stats I’ve seen, more than 1/4 of gamers now are female and the adults have overtaken the kids in terms of numbers. So how come ‘Internet addicts tend to be boys and young men aged between 10 and 20′ only? Seriously, the story is biased and I’m quite appalled at the standard of professional journalism at the Straits Times.

If what they are implying is even true, then MDA needs to stop it’s US$500million investment into digital media, people need to stop blogging, stop facebooking, and stop gaming.

Now, does that sound right to you? Oh, there was this boy who committed suicide cause the parents didn’t allow him to do track and field. Think they have to stop track and field too.