Twitter an awkward child as it turns 10

SAN FRANCISCO: As Twitter marks its 10th birthday Monday, it is somewhat of an awkward child – having become a powerful communication tool but still struggling to win users and reach profitability.

Since making a star-quality entrance a decade ago, Twitter has become a must-have tool for journalists, activists and celebrities but has struggled to show it can expand beyond its devoted "twitterati" to become a mainstream hit.

While Internet lovers might have trouble envisioning life without Twitter, the San Francisco-based company has seen its stock tank, a chief executive leave, and its staff cut.

Twitter's woes include a slump in its stock price to all-time lows this year – down nearly half from its 2013 stock market debut – and ongoing losses, even as its revenue grows.

Twitter's base of monthly active users remained stuck at 320 million at the end of 2015. While that is a big accomplishment, Twitter has failed to keep pace with fast-growing rivals and to expand beyond its base.

The troubles have forced Twitter to bring back co-founder Jack Dorsey as chief executive, but that has not stemmed rumours about a possible buyout or merger.

"It's not dead yet," independent analyst Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group said of Twitter.

"Watching all the metrics, you see they are not getting a lot worse but they don't seem to be getting better either."

Some analysts believe Twitter's true value is being demonstrated in the US presidential race, especially by the Republican frontrunner, Donald Trump.

"Eight weeks ago I would have said the days of Twitter are over; I don't say that anymore," Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry told AFP.

Twitter has 'legs'

The analyst said Trump has shown how potent Twitter can be for those who embrace it.

"I think that probably the worst for Twitter is over," Chowdhry said. "This platform has legs."

Chowdhry said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also used Twitter effectively to win his campaign and Tesla founder Elon Musk has been shaking up the auto sector with the help of the messaging platform.

Twitter and other social media have been important tools in movements such as the Arab Spring, and in protests in Turkey, where the government has sought to ban it.

An advantage of Twitter is that it lets users "amplify" messages with tweets that echo on the Internet, and assess public sentiment in real-time by getting quick feedback.

Trump has boosted the number of his followers to nearly seven million, and has managed to beat rivals with a campaign largely based around Twitter.

"I am pretty sure most of his followers are not on Twitter, but they know what he is saying on Twitter," analyst Omar Akhtar of the technology research firm Altimeter Group, said of Trump.

"The Twitter effect cannot be ignored. Twitter has a life beyond its platform, the trouble is it doesn't know how to monetise that part."

The research firm eMarketer lowered its revenue estimates for Twitter this month, saying its "monetisation" efforts – the selling of advertising or "promoted tweets" for those who use the platform without logging in – are falling short.

"Events like the US election and Summer Olympics this year may prove pivotal to the success of this strategy," said eMarketer's Martin Utreras.

Change brings risk

Twitter bears the weight of being measured against Internet titans such as Facebook, which is only a few years older but has eclipsed the billion-user mark.

Flight VC partner Lou Kerner, whose investor group watches emerging companies, said Twitter has done "an amazing job" creating a new communication medium but appears to have leveled off instead of becoming ubiquitous.

"Like any other company, Twitter is judged on growth," Kerner said. "They have stagnated."

Even more troubling, Kerner noted, is that engagement at Twitter has been ebbing in an indication that "people have tired of it".

While Facebook has evolved with new features, Twitter has changed little since it began, according to Kerner.

"In order to reignite engagement, they would have to make profound changes to what they do," he said.

"The problem is, you can't make a make a massive change without a massive risk."

Some say Twitter has become a victim of its own success – it has become so cluttered with information that it becomes hard to navigate.

"Twitter is still incredibly relevant when it comes to major cultural events, major news events, the kinds of things people are discussing around the world," said Debra Aho Williamson of eMarketer.

"But anyone who follows just a couple of hundred people can easily be overwhelmed by the amount of information. It becomes work rather than fun."

Dorsey currently is managing two firms, Twitter and mobile payments startup Square – both multibillion dollar companies struggling to achieve profitability.

Dorsey said Twitter priorities for this year include making it more intuitive to use; live-streaming video, and making it safer for people to freely express themselves on the platform.

Twitter recently revamped its timeline, allowing the "best" tweets to rise to the top, despite warnings of a revolt from members loyal to the real-time flow of the messaging platform.

"If you look at the 10 years as a whole, you will see that Twitter really has revolutionised the way we communicate," Akhtar said.

"To me, it is a utility like electricity or the phone – it is really part of everyday life."

— AFP      18 March 2016

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Study: Almost 30 per cent of 'super wealthy' Malaysians considering migrating abroad

Study: Almost 30 per cent of 'super wealthy' Malaysians considering migrating abroad




KUALA LUMPUR: Approximately 26 per cent of Malaysia's existing ultra-high-net-worth-individuals (UHNWIs) are considering migrating in the next decade, in comparison to the regional average of 16 per cent, according to independent global property consultancy, Knight Frank. 

"This is particularly interesting given that we do a study of the region, and Malaysia's UHNWIs shows the highest propensity to find other domiciles," said its Asia Pacific Head of Research, Nicholas Holt. 

Knight Frank Malaysia managing director, Sarkunan Subramaniam said that there multiple push and pull factors contributing to this. 

"This desire to domicile elsewhere is not unique given that Malaysians are becoming more international. 

In fact 26 per cent versus the regional 16 per cent is not that significant, when you look at the grander scope of things." 

The firm had earlier shared that Malaysia's UHNWIs, which is defined as those who have US$30 million of investable assets, excluding their current residential, had been impacted hard by the challenging economic climate brought upon by the fall in global oil price and ringgit devaluation. 

"Malaysia has a 1,168 of UHNWIs in 2014, but that number dropped to 993 by end of 2015," said Holt. 

Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had yesterday said that a total of 54,406 Malaysians have renounced their citizenship from 2010 until Jan 31 this year. 

“The reason given for their surrender (of citizenship) is because they have chosen not to retain their Malaysian citizenship, and have obtained citizenship in other countries,” said Zahid in a parliamentary session yesterday. 

In January this year alone, 1,102 Malaysians had renounced their citizenship. 

A total of 11,080 Malaysians had renounced their citizenship in 2011, while another 10,644 chose not to retain their citizenship the year before. 

Since then, the number of Malaysians renouncing their citizenship has reduced. Zahid said 8,983 people gave up their Malaysian citizenship in 2012, followed by 6,678 in 2013, 7,843 in 2014 and 8,076 last year.

----- The New Straits Times ( Malaysia )     15 March 2016

Using failure to your advantage

Using failure to your advantage

By DR TRAVIS BRADBERRY editor@leaderonomics.com 

One of the biggest roadblocks to success is the fear of failure. Fear of failure is worse than failure itself because it condemns you to a life of unrealised potential.

A successful response to failure is all in the approach. In a study recently published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, researchers found that success in the face of failure comes from focusing on results (what you hope to achieve), rather than trying not to fail.

While it’s tempting to try and avoid failure, people who do this fail far more often than those who optimistically focus on their goals.

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” ­­­—Winston Churchill

This sounds rather easy and intuitive, but it’s very hard to do when the consequences of failure are severe. Researchers also found that positive feedback increased people’s chances of success because it fuelled the same optimism you experienced when focusing solely on your goals.

Attitude is key

The people who make history—true innovators—take things a step further and see failure as a mere stepping stone to success.

Thomas Edison is a great example. It took him 1,000 tries to develop a light bulb that actually worked. When someone asked him how it felt to fail 1,000 times, he said, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

This attitude is what separates the successes from the failures. Edison wasn’t the only one. J. K. Rowling’s manuscript for Harry Potter was only accepted after 12 publishers denied it, and even then, she was only paid a nominal advance.

Oprah Winfrey lost her job as a Baltimore news anchor for becoming too emotionally involved in her stories, a quality that became her trademark. Henry Ford lost his financial backers twice before he was able to produce a workable prototype of an automobile. The list goes on and on.

“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.” —Henry Ford

So, what separates the people who let their failures derail them from those who use failure to their advantage? Some of it comes down to what you do, and the rest comes down to what you think.

The actions you take in the face of failure are critical to your ability to recover from it, and they have huge implications for how others view you and your mistakes.

There are five actions you must take when you fail. This will enable you to succeed in the future and allow others to see you positively in spite of your failure.

1 Break the bad news yourself

If you’ve made a mistake, don’t cross your fingers and hope that no one will notice, because someone is going to—it’s inevitable.

When someone else points out your failure, that one failure turns into two. If you stay quiet, people are going to wonder why you didn’t say something, and they’re likely to attribute this to either cowardice or ignorance.

2 Offer an explanation, but don’t make excuses

Owning your mistakes can actually enhance your image. It shows confidence, accountability, and integrity. Just be sure to stick to the facts.

“We lost the account because I missed the deadline” is a reason. “We lost the account because my dog was sick all weekend and that made me miss the deadline” is an excuse.

3 Have a plan for fixing things

Owning up to a mistake is one thing, but you can’t end it there. What you do next is critical. Instead of standing there, waiting for someone else to clean up your mess, offer your own solutions.

It’s even better if you can tell your boss (or whomever) the specific steps that you’ve already taken to get things back on track.

4 Have a plan for prevention

In addition to having a plan for fixing things, you should also have a plan for how you’ll avoid making the same mistakes in the future. That’s the best way to reassure people that good things will come out of your failure.

5 Get back on the horse

It’s important that you don’t let failure make you timid. That’s a mindset that sucks you in and handicaps you every time you slip up.

Make enough time to absorb the lessons of your failure, and as soon as you’ve done that, get right back out there and try again. Waiting only prolongs bad feelings and increases the chance that you’ll lose your nerve.

Your attitude when facing failure is just as important as the actions you take. Using failure to your advantage requires resilience and mental strength, both of which are hallmarks of emotional intelligence.

When you fail, there are three attitudes you want to maintain:

Perspective

It is the most important factor in handling failure. People who are skilled at rebounding after failure are more likely to blame the failure on something that they did—the wrong course of action or a specific oversight—rather than something that they are.

People who are bad at handling failure tend to blame failure on their laziness, lack of intelligence, or some other personal quality, which implies that they had no control over the situation. That makes them more likely to avoid future risk-taking.

Optimism

It is another characteristic of people who bounce back from failure. One British study of 576 serial entrepreneurs found that they were much more likely to expect success than entrepreneurs who gave up after their first failure.

That sense of optimism is what keeps people from feeling like failure is a permanent condition. Instead, they tend to see each failure as a building block to their ultimate success because of the learning it provides.

Persistence

Optimism is a feeling of positivity; persistence is what you do with it. Persistence is thus, optimism in action. When everybody else says “enough is enough” and decides to quit and go home, persistent people shake off those failures and keep going.

Persistent people are special because their optimism never dies. This makes them great at rising from failure.

Bringing it all together

Failure is a product of your perspective. What one person considers as a crushing defeat, another sees as a minor setback. The beauty is that you can change how you see failure so that you can use it to better yourself.

How do you handle failure?

Dr Travis Bradberry is an award-winning co-author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and co-founder of the world’s leading provider of emotional intelligence tests and training. His bestselling books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. To learn how to work with emotional intelligence in your organisation, write in to training@leaderonomics.com.

27  February  2016

    

Email inventor Ray Tomlinson dies at 74

Email inventor Ray Tomlinson dies at 74


US programmer Ray Tomlinson , pictured on October 22, 2009 invented the user@host standard for email addresses

RAY Tomlinson, the American programmer widely credited with inventing email, has died. He was 74.

Before Tomlinson invented direct electronic messages between users on different machines on a certain network in 1971. Before then, users could only write messages to others using the same computer.

"A true technology pioneer, Ray was the man who brought us email in the early days of networked computers," his employer, Raytheon, said in a statement.

"His work changed the way the world communicates and yet, for all his accomplishments, he remained humble, kind and generous with his time and talents, He will be missed by one and all."

A company spokesman said Tomlinson passed away on Saturday, and the cause of death was not yet confirmed.

Tributes poured in from the online world.

"Thank you, Ray Tomlinson, for inventing email and putting the @ sign on the map. #RIP," Google's Gmail team tweeted.

Vint Cerf, considered one of the fathers of the Internet who was once a manager of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), lamented the "very sad news" of Tomlinson's passing.

When Tomlinson invented the user@host standard for email addresses, it was applied at Darpa's ARPANET, the Internet's precursor. He was the first to use the @ symbol in this way, to distinguish a user from its host.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate detailed his creation on his blog, in an attempt to prevent legend from overtaking the facts.

"The first message was sent between two machines that were literally side by side" connected only through ARPANET, he wrote on his blog.

" I sent a number of test messages to myself from one machine to the other. The test messages were entirely forgettable and I have, therefore, forgotten them.

"Most likely the first message was QWERTYUIOP or something similar," he added, referring to the first letters on the traditional English-language keyboard.

"When I was satisfied that the program seemed to work, I sent a message to the rest of my group explaining how to send messages over the network. The first use of network email announced its own existence." 

– AFP   7 March 2016

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South Korea and S’pore nab top spot in world’s best airport ranking

March 4, 2016

Asia can claim bragging rights to being home to the world's best airports, with South Korea, Singapore, and China taking the top three spots in a new airport ranking.

Results of the 2015 Airport Service Quality Awards suggest that flyers passing through the major hubs in Asia are more likely to be satisfied with their airport experience than other parts of the world.

In the category of airports with more than 40 million passengers, Korea’s Incheon Airport and Singapore Changi tied for first place; Shanghai Pudong and Beijing tied for second; and Guangzhou Baiyun placed third.

Flyers were asked to rate airports in categories such as access, check-in, security, facilities, food and beverage and dining.

The Airport Service Quality awards is organized by the Airports Council International — and is hardly the only one of its kind.

Lists ranking the world’s best airports are also released by groups like Skytrax and Sleeping in Airports, which compile the results based on surveys.

The ASQ awards, however, is touted as the only global airport survey that polls passengers while they’re at the airport. For the 2015 edition of the awards, about 500,000 passengers were interviewed prior to boarding their flight at over 300 airports in 80 countries last year.

New in 2015, the results have been expanded to break down winners by size and region.

Here are some of the winners:

Best airports over 40 million passengers a year
First place (tie): Seoul Incheon; Singapore
Second place (tie): Beijing; Shanghai Pudong
Third place: Guangzhou Baiyun

Best Airport by Region (over 2 million passengers per year):

North America
First place: Indianapolis
Second place (tie): Dallas Love Field; Grand Rapids; Jacksonville; Ottawa; Tampa
Third place (tie): Austin; Detroit; Sacramento; San Antonio; Toronto Billy Bishop

Africa
First place: Mauritius
Second place (tie): Cape Town; Durban
Third place: Johannesburg

Asia-Pacific
First place (tie): Seoul Incheon; Singapore
Second place (tie): Beijing; Mumbai; New Delhi; Sanya Phoenix; Shanghai Pudong
Third place (tie): Guangzhou Baiyun; Taiwan Taoyuan; Tianjin Binhai

Europe
First place (tie): Moscow Sheremetyevo; Pulkovo; Sochi
Second place (tie): Dublin; Malta; Prague; Zurich
Third place (tie): Copenhagen; Keflavik; London Heathrow; Porto; Vienna

Middle East
First place: Amman
Second place (tie): Abu Dhabi; Doha
Third place (tie): Dammam; Dubai; Tel Aviv

Latin America-Caribbean
First place: Guayaquil
Second place: Quito
Third place: Punta Cana

– AFP Relaxnews