I've successfully migrated over to Tumblr. I think it just suits me so much better in terms of what I want to share and my believe to deliver information in a way that makes it easier for busy people to stay in the loop.
http://allisontsui.tumblr.com
Monday, August 9, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Temporarily Closed
I'm temporarily away working on a better and improved blog that is almost ready to go. Hang in there and I'll be right back!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
How Mobile Will Change The Way We Shop
Last night, I found myself playing with a relatively new app I installed on my iPhone called RedLaser. I’m determined that apps like these will impact the way we shop. You ‘scan’ the barcode with RedLaser with the camera's phone and through local and online retailers it’s able to bring back a list of places selling the same product with all the prices, making it extremely easy to compare.
What does this mean for me and you?
The biggest advantage with this barcode scanning for consumers is the accuracy. You cannot go wrong with searching the product name or brand name because it's uniquely identified by a series of numbers or a Universal Price Code (UPC). Now, consumers have a walking scanner in their hands. Going down that path, apps like RedLaser enables us to bargain hunt much quicker and faster, making price comparison almost effortless. There's no more need to open a browser to search. There's no more need to type in the product you're trying to look up unless you want to type in the Universal Price Code (UPC) manually. Some people didn’t bother with comparing prices before but this might change, especially with the shift in consumer purchasing behaviour following the recent recession. (Check out this report by PwC about changing shopping behaviours.)
One of my favourite features of the app is that it helps you record down products you scan so you can spend more time looking it up later. For added convenience, you can also e-mail yourself the items you've scanned. Another favourite is its capability to search food items against allergens and returns a mini report. If you live in the US, a book scan will also tell you which library it's available at.
What a great app! I can only see it get better.
Website: http://www.redlaser.com/
What does this mean for me and you?
The biggest advantage with this barcode scanning for consumers is the accuracy. You cannot go wrong with searching the product name or brand name because it's uniquely identified by a series of numbers or a Universal Price Code (UPC). Now, consumers have a walking scanner in their hands. Going down that path, apps like RedLaser enables us to bargain hunt much quicker and faster, making price comparison almost effortless. There's no more need to open a browser to search. There's no more need to type in the product you're trying to look up unless you want to type in the Universal Price Code (UPC) manually. Some people didn’t bother with comparing prices before but this might change, especially with the shift in consumer purchasing behaviour following the recent recession. (Check out this report by PwC about changing shopping behaviours.)
One of my favourite features of the app is that it helps you record down products you scan so you can spend more time looking it up later. For added convenience, you can also e-mail yourself the items you've scanned. Another favourite is its capability to search food items against allergens and returns a mini report. If you live in the US, a book scan will also tell you which library it's available at.
What a great app! I can only see it get better.
Website: http://www.redlaser.com/
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Inside Facebook by ABC News
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, recently sat down with Diane Sawyer of ABC for an interview. I've always been curious about how he is like and how he thinks. Afterall, Facebook has been a huge influence on the social movement we're all currently experiencing.
Source: ABC News
At the moment, ABC's website still has a few more video clips from the interview.
http://bit.ly/9fFxnw
Source: ABC News
At the moment, ABC's website still has a few more video clips from the interview.
http://bit.ly/9fFxnw
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
My Whitepaper Frustration
Like many out there, my inbox is flooded with social media whitepapers desperately waiting for me to open. To be honest, having read a lot of them over the past year or two, a lot of these whitepapers say very similar things to me. Today, I was somewhat interested in taking a look at one that talks about how to improve service through social media.
Is it just me or are these companies making it way too inconvenient to download these whitepapers? I clicked on ‘Download’ and it brought me to a page requesting for my info. “Just 3 Easy Steps” it claims. Unfortunately, I think it’s “3 Steps” too many. Don’t they already have my email? Why are they asking for it again? If another company’s whitepaper is featured, perhaps it’s time for a re-examination of the privacy policy and allow us an option to transfer our permission to third parties to access our information. I’ve gone through this process too many times and today I decided to go against it. I closed the email and deleted it. I didn’t feel it was worth my time to do it all again, to read information I most likely have read already or can get easily elsewhere.
Now they’ve lost the opportunity for me to share information with the rest of the team. I’ll tolerate signing in with existing information to view the information. I’m also willing to sign up from scratch where I haven’t before. That’s fair game. Making me sign up again and making me answer the same questions from the same place? Not acceptable.
Is it just me or are these companies making it way too inconvenient to download these whitepapers? I clicked on ‘Download’ and it brought me to a page requesting for my info. “Just 3 Easy Steps” it claims. Unfortunately, I think it’s “3 Steps” too many. Don’t they already have my email? Why are they asking for it again? If another company’s whitepaper is featured, perhaps it’s time for a re-examination of the privacy policy and allow us an option to transfer our permission to third parties to access our information. I’ve gone through this process too many times and today I decided to go against it. I closed the email and deleted it. I didn’t feel it was worth my time to do it all again, to read information I most likely have read already or can get easily elsewhere.
Now they’ve lost the opportunity for me to share information with the rest of the team. I’ll tolerate signing in with existing information to view the information. I’m also willing to sign up from scratch where I haven’t before. That’s fair game. Making me sign up again and making me answer the same questions from the same place? Not acceptable.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Just Watch This. Metaweb and How It's Going to Change Searching Online.
Google recently acquired Metaweb, a semantic web and real world database company that believes it can help improve search and make for a richer web experience. For more than four years, Metaweb has built an open database called Freebase which has a collection of structured data of over 12 million "entities." Each entity can be anything that's a person, place or thing and can be connected with other entities to derive meaning.
Have you noticed that when you do a search in Google a word can have multiple meanings. What Metaweb and Google hope to do is to better distinguish between all the definitions a word may have and deliver better search results.
A very interesting, but complex topic. I find the way they are set up very similar to linguistics. Perhaps, this could be the birth of a new topic, social linguistics?
The video explains this whole idea very well.
Have you noticed that when you do a search in Google a word can have multiple meanings. What Metaweb and Google hope to do is to better distinguish between all the definitions a word may have and deliver better search results.
A very interesting, but complex topic. I find the way they are set up very similar to linguistics. Perhaps, this could be the birth of a new topic, social linguistics?
The video explains this whole idea very well.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Global Social Media Insights Tool
Trend Stream has released a lite version of its Global Web Index, a syndicated market research service of behavior on the web and social media. Although only a lite version, it is an interactive tool that will give insights to what drives the audience, their activities online, and their feelings toward brands in social media.
The data in this lite version was extracted from their "Wave 2" dataset from January 2010. A newer data set, Wave 3, from July 2010 is available but is only accessible to current clients. Still, a very neat tool. Best of all, the data is displayed in a very infographic-like manner.
Due to the width limitations with my current template, I suggest hopping on over to site to check the tool out. http://www.globalwebindex.net/widget/index.html
Source: http://globalwebindex.net/thinking/lite/
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
New YouTube Mobile Website
http://m.youtube.com/ is where all mobile users can now go for YouTube.
With a redesigned and friendlier user-interface, the YouTube experience on mobile devices will finally be a much better one! More importantly, high quality (HQ) video streams for mobile on YouTube has arrived. To best honest, I can't quite understand why it took so long for this to happen...
With a redesigned and friendlier user-interface, the YouTube experience on mobile devices will finally be a much better one! More importantly, high quality (HQ) video streams for mobile on YouTube has arrived. To best honest, I can't quite understand why it took so long for this to happen...
Monday, June 28, 2010
Seth is Right. Validation IS Overrated.
"Validation is overrated... If you have a book to write, write it. If you want to record an album, record it. No need to wait for someone in a cubicle halfway across the country to decide if you're worthy." - Seth Godin
I read a blog post by Seth Godin over the weekend and it couldn't be more true. Why wait for somebody to tell you you're good enough to do something. That's not to say things should be done blindly though. In the past, we wait for someone to tell us we're worthy of recording an album or writing a book because they have the skills and marketing to help push it further. At a mental level, by them saying that and willing to provide resources also gives a big shot of confidence to the author.
The thing is though, why? Is it because we've been taught at a very young age to get approval from those above us before we can continue moving ahead? I understand there are rules and there should be rules to help keep society in working order.
However, it doesn't have to be this way. Most of us are now equipped with a decent desktop computer with recording and writing capabilities. Digital cameras have never been cheaper than before. If you don't have internet at home, there's always the library for that connection to push your work out. The only thing missing is the mentality to believe that you can do it. You don't need to wait for someone to validate your thinking. "Believe" just like Melanie Oudin did when the 17 year old defeated a three-time tennis grand slam player at the US Open last year.
I think I finally understand what Nike's slogan truely means. JUST DO IT!
I read a blog post by Seth Godin over the weekend and it couldn't be more true. Why wait for somebody to tell you you're good enough to do something. That's not to say things should be done blindly though. In the past, we wait for someone to tell us we're worthy of recording an album or writing a book because they have the skills and marketing to help push it further. At a mental level, by them saying that and willing to provide resources also gives a big shot of confidence to the author.
The thing is though, why? Is it because we've been taught at a very young age to get approval from those above us before we can continue moving ahead? I understand there are rules and there should be rules to help keep society in working order.
However, it doesn't have to be this way. Most of us are now equipped with a decent desktop computer with recording and writing capabilities. Digital cameras have never been cheaper than before. If you don't have internet at home, there's always the library for that connection to push your work out. The only thing missing is the mentality to believe that you can do it. You don't need to wait for someone to validate your thinking. "Believe" just like Melanie Oudin did when the 17 year old defeated a three-time tennis grand slam player at the US Open last year.
I think I finally understand what Nike's slogan truely means. JUST DO IT!
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
How Long It Takes to Earn USA Mininum Wage Around the World
A visualization of how long it would take to earn the annual U.S. Minimum Wage from different countries around the world. Quite interesting. I guess one is better off flipping burgers for the Queen than for Obama or Harper at McDonalds. This, of course, does not put into consideration purchasing power or the different costs of associated with living in different countries.
Click the image to enlarge
Source: Fixr
Click the image to enlarge
Source: Fixr
Saturday, June 19, 2010
NXNEi (North by Northeast Interactive) 2010
North by Northeast Interactive (NXNEi) successfully unfolded itself in Toronto at the beginning of this week where a series of presentations were made about the newest cutting edge tools available to us today for music production and distribution. A series of panelist and presenters covered off everything related to technology, social media and other trends important to the music industry.
This was actually the first year the interactive component was put into NXNE (something I got to be a part of, as a NXNE Conference Volunteer this year) up here in Toronto, which replicates the interactive component of South by Southwest (SXSWi) held every March down south in Austin, Texas.
As luck shall have it, I found a link to the unofficial SXSW presentations channel. It's a place to share and find presentations from SXSW. Not only does it include 2010, but also previous years.
http://www.slideshare.net/sxsw2010
This was actually the first year the interactive component was put into NXNE (something I got to be a part of, as a NXNE Conference Volunteer this year) up here in Toronto, which replicates the interactive component of South by Southwest (SXSWi) held every March down south in Austin, Texas.
As luck shall have it, I found a link to the unofficial SXSW presentations channel. It's a place to share and find presentations from SXSW. Not only does it include 2010, but also previous years.
http://www.slideshare.net/sxsw2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
TED Talks: What Adults Can Learn From Kids
Child prodigy Adora Svitak talks about what adults can learn from kids. It quickly reminded me of the book "The LIttle Prince/ Le Petit Prince." Kids are often ignored and discredited because of their age and the resulting lack of trust. What we adults fail to acknowledge is that kids can bring a lot of value to this world too and have qualities and thinking this world needs to progress.
I liked this talk. Very impressed with Adora's thinking.
I liked this talk. Very impressed with Adora's thinking.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Google TV Explained
There's been quite some buzz around Google TV since March but what is it that Google intends to do with TV? No one explains it better than Google themselves in this video. The question is - What do you think? Do you want one?