Just do it, says Yahoo's teen app millionaire

Just do it, says Yahoo's teen app millionaire

LONDON (REUTERS) - Got a tech idea and want to make a fortune before you're out of your teens? Just do it, is the advice of the London schoolboy who has just sold his smartphone news app to Yahoo for a reported US$30 million (S$37.4 million).

The money is there, just waiting for clever new moves, said 17-year-old Nick D'Aloisio, who can point to a roster of early backers for his Summly app that includes Yoko Ono and Rupert Murdoch.

"If you have a good idea, or you think there's a gap in the market, just go out and launch it because there are investors across the world right now looking for companies to invest in," he told Reuters in a telephone interview late on Monday.

The terms of the sale, four months after Summly was launched for the iPhone, have not been disclosed and Mr D'Aloisio, who is still studying for school exams while joining Yahoo as its youngest employee, was not saying. But technology blog AllThingsD said Yahoo paid roughly US$30 million.

Yahoo buys app from British teen

Yahoo buys app from British teen

SAN FRANCISCO: Yahoo! announced plans Monday to buy mobile news reader app Summly from the London teenager who invented it, likely transforming him into one of the world's youngest self-made multimillionaires.

The company did not disclose the terms of the deal it struck with 17-year-old Nick D'Aloisio, but the London Evening Standard said Yahoo! would pay between 20-million pounds and 40-million pounds (US$30 to US$60 million).

"We're excited to share that we're acquiring Summly, a mobile product company founded with a vision to simplify the way we get information, making it faster, easier and more concise," Yahoo! said in a statement.
"At the age of 15, Nick D'Aloisio created the Summly app at his home in London. It started with an insight -- that we live in a world of constant information and need new ways to simplify how we find the stories that are important to us, at a glance."

Yahoo! said most articles and web pages were formatted for browsing with mouse clicks and that "the ability to skim them on a phone or a tablet can be a real challenge -- we want easier ways to identify what's important to us."

The California firm said that "Nick and the Summly team are joining Yahoo! in the coming weeks."

D'Aloisio said in a tweet: "@Summly has signed an agreement to be acquired by Yahoo!! Excited for the next chapter of Summly! Thanks to all who have supported me."

The Evening Standard said the Wimbledon youth, who would become one of the world's youngest technology millionaires, claims to have created the app as a hobby."I didn't realise it was possible to make money out of it," he was quoted as saying.

About the new inflow of cash, the youth said: "I like shoes, I will buy a new pair of Nike trainers and I'll probably get a new computer, but at the moment I just want to save and bank it. I don't have many living expenses."

Former Google executive Marissa Mayer took over at Yahoo! in July 2012 as part of efforts by the struggling Internet search pioneer to reinvent itself.----AFP/fl

British teenage whiz strikes deal with Yahoo

LONDON: One of Britain’s youngest Internet entrepreneurs has hit the jackpot after selling his top-selling mobile application Summly to search giant Yahoo.

Seventeen-year-old Nick d’Aloisio, who dreamed up the idea for the content-shortening program when he was studying for his exams, said he was surprised by the deal. As with its other recent acquisitions, Yahoo didn’t disclose how much it is paying for Summly, although British newspapers suggested the deal’s value at several million dollars.

“I would have never imagined being in this position so suddenly,” he wrote on his website, before thanking his family, his school — and his venture capitalist backer Li Ka-Shing — for supporting him.

Summly works by condensing content so readers can scroll through more information more quickly — useful for the small screens of smartphones.

The deal announced Monday is Yahoo’s fifth small acquisition in the past five months. All of them have been part of CEO Marissa Mayer’s effort to attract more engineers with expertise in building services for smartphones and tablet computers, an increasingly important area of technology that she believes the Internet company had been neglecting.

Although the Yahoo acquisition won’t close until later this spring, D’Aloisio said the Summly will no longer be available. Summly’s technology will return in other Yahoo products, he said.

D’Aloisio will work for Yahoo in its London office — in part so that he can complete his high school exams. Two other Summly workers will join Yahoo at its Sunnyvale, California, headquarters.

D’Aloisio is younger than Yahoo, which was incorporated in March 1995.
---- AP

Online shopping boom in Asia

Online shopping boom in Asia

Thu, Dec 13, 2012

The Straits Times

 

Online shopping boom in Asia

by Lee Seok Hwai

 

TAIPEI - One consumer ordered a year's supply of sanitary napkins. Another, who was not happy with a newly purchased notebook computer, returned it after more than a week.

And if that mail-order dress does not fit, the courier who delivered it will take it back to the store, free of charge.

This is the world of online shopping for millions of increasingly wired but also increasingly time-starved consumers in Asia's biggest and most developed economies. It is instant gratification at the click of a button, with after-sales service as a bonus.

Last year, online merchants rang up sales totalling $344.6 billion in China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. All five economies saw significant growth compared to the year before, ranging from 8 per cent in the relatively mature market of Japan, to 67.8 per cent in China, which has the lowest Internet penetration rate of just 40 per cent.

In Singapore, consumers spent $1.4 billion, or 33 per cent more than in 2010, according to online payment firm PayPal and research company Nielsen.

A case in point: China's largest online shopping portal Taobao reported record one-day sales of 19 billion yuan (S$3.7 billion) on Nov11, when the country marked "Singles' Day".

Bank executive Guan Xin was one of the more than 200 million Chinese - attached or otherwise - who marked that day with some virtual retail therapy. She spent about 3,000 yuan in total on a pair of running shoes, an MP4 player, a mobile phone charger, and even a mop and pail, whose prices were heavily marked down.

"It's faster to buy online. I already knew what I wanted," said Ms Guan, 27.

So did one of her friends, who bought a year's supply of sanitary napkins.

Ms Guan is archetypal of the region's online shopper, according to analysts: Aged between late teens and 30s, willing and able to spend, as well as tech-savvy enough to search for the best bargains with just a few clicks.

And the types of products they buy are expanding beyond long-time favourites clothes and accessories, electronic gadgets and air tickets, to daily necessities and food.

The Japanese now make 20 per cent of their daily purchases at online stores, according to a recent survey by Nikkei business daily.

In Taiwan, top online retailer PChome sold a million packs of toilet paper rolls last year.
The item was ranked the second most popular - after consumer electronics - among NT$12.3 billion (S$516 million) worth of goods the company sold.

The trend presumably owes itself to good service.

Free delivery, sometimes with no minimum spending required, has become de rigueur and is a big plus for grocery purchases.

Many retailers also offer free returns and refunds - no questions asked - for faulty items or goods still in saleable condition.

Web services engineer Lee Yi-chiun, 37, once returned a notebook computer with a faulty screen to the online retailing arm of Yahoo Taiwan after using it for over a week.

"I got a full refund promptly, no problem," said Mr Lee, who is one of the company's "platinum" members, having racked up more than NT$1 million worth of purchases, including a washing machine and a refrigerator.

"I don't think a bricks-and- mortar shop would have been as generous," he said.

In China, shoppers at clothing retailer Vancl do not need to pay a cent until after the item is delivered to their door and they are happy with the size and fit. Those who are not satisfied with the garment - or are stricken with buyer's remorse - can send it back.

And lest shopping from the comfort of one's desk is not convenient enough, the prevalence of smartphones these days promises to bring the mall to consumers, wherever they may be.

In South Korea - home of Samsung - 10 million out of 37 million online shoppers last year made purchases on their mobile devices, according to the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

In Japan, purchases using smartphones make up 30 per cent of all online sales, while Hong Kong saw 13 per cent of online purchases carried out on mobile phones and 11 per cent on tablets, according to the findings of a Visa survey of 8,000 Internet users from Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Russia, the Philippines and South Africa this year.

Still, the online retail industry lags far behind its bricks-and-mortar counterparts.

Online retail sales in Japan, for instance, reached 8.5 trillion yen (S$125 billion) last year, but the figure accounted for just 2.8 per cent of total personal consumption in Japan.

The potential for the industry is thus immense, even though growth is showing signs of slowing years in the mature economies of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

But a MasterCard survey of online shopping attitudes in 25 economies early this year found a bigger increase in the number of consumers in the emerging markets of Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia who access the Internet to do their shopping or have bought something online in the past three months, compared to the developed economies.

Singaporeans signing up for online courses

 

 

By Melissa Sim
The Straits Times
Tuesday, Nov 20, 2012

     

Every Sunday, Ms Tan Yan Ling, 24, attends two hours of design lectures conducted by a professor from an Ivy League university.

But she did not have to to fill in application forms to get into the course or university, and she did not have to leave the comfort of her home in Singapore.

All she did was sign up for an account with online learning site Coursera and register for the University of Pennsylvania course.

What's more, the course is completely free.

Sites offering mass open online courses such as Coursera, edX and Udacity are partnering top universities and industry professionals, and leading the way in providing free world-class online education.

At the moment, Coursera offers 204 courses, while edX has nine courses and Udacity has 18.

These courses span an array of subjects from music and history to science and computing.

So anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can take Introduction To Computer Science from Harvard or Introduction To Astronomy from Stanford just by signing up.

Udacity, launched in January this year, has 800,000 enrolments, while Coursera, officially launched in April, has more than a million students. EdX was unable to respond by press time.

The Coursera spokesman told SundayLife! that as of August this year, about 9,000 of their students are from Singapore.

Associate Professor Manu Kapur, who heads the Learning Sciences Lab which researches learning and teaching at the National Institute of Education, says mass open online courses are catching on because of increasing competition among universities, the higher costs of tertiary education, and "a real hunger and enthusiasm for learning specialised skills and knowledge around the world".

Ms Tan, a design consultant, spends two hours a week watching video lectures, and two to three hours on her assignments, which include drawing a chair from different perspectives, and solving design problems and submitting them for peer grading, which she says has been very constructive and helpful.

Most courses are structured this way, with lectures, quizzes, peer-graded assignments and optional online forum discussions.

Udacity's head of business strategy and planning Clarissa Shen says the platform is "not just about streaming a physical classroom and putting what works in the classroom online".

Students also learn by "doing and not by listening", as is the case in a regular distance learning course, she says.

Courses usually last from four to 15 weeks and require anything from two to 15 hours of commitment each week.

Ms Tan says it was difficult having to juggle work, social commitments and the course.

She and a friend, Ms Samantha Yuen, 34, tried sharing notes and ideas to help each other through a course offered by the University of Pennsylvania on Gamification - applying game scenarios to solve real-life problems - but both were unable to complete the final assignment in time, and were not given a completion certificate.

Certificates of completion are offered for some courses, at the discretion of the university and instructor, and can be a real motivating factor for students.

Ms Erin Jeong, 24, an account executive, managed to complete an Introduction to Computer Science offered by Stanford University and received a completion certificate for her work.

"This particular course was for beginners like me and I managed to finish each week's worth of work way ahead of the deadline."

She says the certificate was a big motivator because it is "physical proof to show others, and yourself even, that you studied a particular course".

For Ms Yuen, a digital content manager, taking a Coursera course in Human-Computer Interaction, meant being able to take a course not usually offered in Singapore.

The hospitality graduate says she picked up most of her IT skills on the job and could not find "much digital training in Singapore".

Previous attempts to look for such courses were unsuccessful as the ones she found were held in Australia and cost between $2,000 and $4,000, which she felt was too expensive.

So when Coursera offered a Human-Computer Interaction course taught by Stanford University, she immediately signed up.

"It's definitely an opportunity to learn something not typically offered as a structure course in Singapore, and for free."

National University of Singapore computer engineering undergraduate Goh Eng Wei, 24, says the quality of the course he is getting at Coursera is "comparable if not better than what he is getting at university", in terms of teaching and content.

He is currently taking two courses: Cryptography from Stanford University and Neural Networks for Machine Learning from the University of Toronto.

But how is it possible that quality education is being dished out for free?

Coursera says it has secured US$22 million (S$27 million) in funding, while Udacity says it has a Series A investment, which in Silicon Valley speak usually means between US$2 million and US$10 million in venture capital investment.

EdX did not respond to press queries, but reports show that its founding partners Massachusetts Instutute of Technology and Harvard have committed a combined US$60 million in institutional support, grants and philanthropy.

The platforms are also exploring revenue streams such as opt-in job placement programmes and the possibility of paid certification.

But not all are convinced of the efficacy of such courses. Associate Professor Cho Hichang, from the department of communications and new media at the National University of Singapore, points out that "online learning can be a one way transfer where the teacher talks to the students. There are no group projects and the personal touch is missing".

He adds that findings on e-learning are "mixed".

"Some studies show it is almost comparable but not better than traditional classroom learning (although others have found the opposite). Some studies have found that students are less satisfied with online learning," he says.

While Prof Cho acknowledges that online learning is convenient and cost effective as one video can reach out to people all over the world, he feels that a combination of online and traditional learning is probably the best approach.

Ms Joyce Huang, who founded a group called SG Geek Girls, which teaches computer skills to women at minimal cost, says she often sends her students online videos to watch and then holds weekend tutorials for those who need extra help.

The 25-year-old marketing executive, who takes only a $10 administrative fee from students, is very much in favour of "democratising education and making it available to everybody".

Undergraduate Goh also thinks the concept of free online courses is "an amazing idea". "Education should not be restricted to only those who are rich, but those who want to do something good with their lives."

So perhaps mass open online courses are not just another passing Internet fad.

Nanyang Technological University Professor Kam Chan Hin, associate provost for undergraduate education, says the university has developed an e-learning platform for its own students but is "exploring partnerships with leading players of the e-learning consortia such as Coursera, edX, and Udacity".

NIE's Prof Kapur says: "Given that there are now efforts to look into designing accreditation systems for such courses, they have the potential to become even more popular because they allow learning no matter where you are, as long as you have an Internet connection."

Three timeless investment tips

September 24, 2012

          

Avoid predicting the future. You will get it wrong more often than you think. Nobody has a crystal ball.

 

FEATURE

By Lee Ching Wei
1. Pay attention to the cost of investingCost matters.

It is one of the few things in investment that is predictable and controllable. Every dollar paid in cost is a dollar less in potential profit. And it all adds up over the long term.

The obvious costs of investing include administration/processing fee, entry fee, transaction fee, brokerage, commission, stamp duty and taxes.

The less obvious ones are opportunity cost (what you give up for taking a specific action), personal flexibility (e.g. obligation to service your mortgage for the next 20 years), and stress (e.g. losing sleep over an investment).

2. You know less than you thinkAvoid predicting the future. You will get it wrong more often than you think. Nobody has a crystal ball.

Yet, people do it all the time. Investment analysts/stock brokers compile lists of stocks with Buy/Sell recommendations based on their predictions of future company performance. Economists make calls on whether interest rates would rise or fall ahead of reserve bank meetings. Real estate agents produce charts showing the price paths of property prices for the next 20 years.

It’s ok to say “I don’t know”. Really.

Because the sooner you realise what you don’t know, the sooner you can direct your energy and effort to the things you do know.

3. Keep it simple and focus on the things that matter
There are a million ways to make a million dollars, and you don’t need to learn them all to be a millionaire. You just need to know a few really, really well.

The same goes for investing. Tens of thousands of different investment products and strategies exist, and more are being “invented” every day. Yet, only a few really matter. Focus on the things that matter, and understand them really, really well.

The writer is the founder of www.iMoney.my, a price comparison website in Malaysia. They can be contacted at hello@imoney.my.

Why diversification in investment is important

September 10, 2012

          

Here's some guidelines why you should never "put all your eggs in one basket".

 

By Lee Ching Wei

Diversification is by far the most underrated and least understood concept in investing. Intuitively, it should make sense. You shouldn’t “put all your eggs in one basket”.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission provides an excellent example of this concept on its website:

“Have you ever noticed that street vendors often sell seemingly unrelated products – such as umbrellas and sunglasses? Initially, that may seem odd. After all, when would a person buy both items at the same time? Probably never – and that’s the point. Street vendors know that when it’s raining, it’s easier to sell umbrellas but harder to sell sunglasses. And when it’s sunny, the reverse is true. By selling both items – in other words, by diversifying the product line – the vendor can reduce the risk of losing money on any given day” Source: www.sec.gov

The key takeaway is in the last sentence. When we diversify, we reduce the risk of losing money. Many investors claim to understand this, but their actions suggest otherwise.

Think having a 50 stock portfolio provides you with enough diversification? Not if all 50 companies operate in the same country and are susceptible to the same economic forces.

Think having all your money in the local bank gives you virtually no chance of losing money? Not if the currency depreciates sharply (yes, you may not “lose” money when the currency depreciates but the purchasing power of your money decreases. We are living in a “global economy” after all).

Think having a few investment properties protects you from a weak property market? Not if all your properties are of similar type (e.g. residential apartments) and are located in the same geography.

In fact, multiple mortgages often increase the risk, as any gains or losses are amplified.
So what constitutes a well diversified portfolio?

Generally, a well diversified portfolio has little exposure to any particular factor or event. These factors or events could be as broad as the economic conditions of a country, or as specific as the location of a property.

The difficulty is in identifying and reducing your exposure to as many of these factors or events. As a rule of thumb, there are two ways you could improve the diversification of your investment portfolio:

• Increase the number of investments, or

• Increase the type of investments.

A portfolio of 50 stocks is almost always less diversified than a portfolio of 5,000 stocks, and the latter is almost always less diversified than a portfolio of 5,000 stocks with some allocations to bonds and cash.

People often think you need a large pool of money to have a diversified portfolio. After all, how else can you own a portfolio of 5,000 companies if you only have a few thousand ringgit to invest?

The good news is – this is a myth. Today, with as little as a couple of thousand ringgit, it is possible to own thousands of companies and hundreds of residential apartments, office buildings or shopping malls from all around the world – through exchange trade funds (ETFs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).

The best part is – it often does not cost much to do this.

The writer is the founder of iMoney.my, a price comparison website in Malaysia. They can be contacted at hello@imoney.my.