I particularly enjoy participating in startup environment – since I ran one myself since 2007. I love the enthusiasm, excitement, and the fresh ideas that people generate in these events.

Startup hong kong is a grass root event. I happened to have participated in the same event last year about the same time, so I am really HK startup veteran (haha…)

This year the big feature was Dave Mclure with his Geeks on the Plane crew. While Dave’s keynote speaking was entertaining, I don’t think he realized that he was speaking at a church – so he just let the F-bomb go. I respect his style but this is just not right.

The panels about HK startup was just so-so. Simply because it is the same people who had pitched their business last year. While there seemed to be very little progress with their work, there was also no new investment injected in any of those projects.

The highlight for me though, was the founder from AirBnB, who make a surprise visit and delivered a heck of a great story to the audience.

The name AirBnB started when Brian and his cofounder started renting out part of the apartment by inflating their air mattress (hence the name). He had a humble beginning, and there was a time when he was forced to sell cereals to make money (Obama O’s vs Captain McCain). While the property rental idea seemed simple, it is actually quite risky. who would have wanted to stay in some stranger’s home? Better yet, who want to rent them out to strangers?.

Apparently, some people did. With a fresh $10+ million of funding, over 100 hosted cities, and projected to exceed Hyatt hotel chain by number of rooms available, the AirBnB guys are on to something.

The idea is simple, people renting out their room or apartment, and other people who visit pay. AirBnB is the platform that facilitate the transaction.

I met up with 1 of the 20 hosts (people who rented out their place) and he is very happy with the service. Despite a 10% of people who he thinks are “not very pleasant”, who are just rude and was expecting a 5 star hotel service, he is generally happy with his clients so far.

He mentioned that his room makes $700HKD per night (about $90USD), and over the past 6 months he had made over $100,000HKD from the supposedly empty room. What did AirBnB make from this property? 3% of what the owner made, or $3000 over 6 months.

The risk for AirBnB is quite high too, first they will need to send out a professional photographer to “inspect” the property and take some nice photos.

Then there is the risk of the incident that happened over the summer – when a visitor completely trashed over the rental home. At first, AirBnB was trying to use their disclaimer to make it as the property owner’s problem, however, after a complete PR nightmare, they decided to pay up the money to fix up the damage. The problem is, there is no good way to avoid this problem again.

Despite all the potential problems, AirBnB is still making quite a buzz. At the WebInTravel conference in Singapore, AirBnB was one of the most discussed topic in the hotel discussions. While it may not affect greatly with high end hotel chains, it certainly will affect lower end accommodation choices in traditionally expensive cities such as Manhattan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. AirBnB also seem to have changed the way budget travellers travel. In a recent survey, a typical tourist visiting Manhattan, who pays upward to $250USD per night, will only stay for 3 nights. Whereas the typical tourist visiting Manhattan and stay with a AirBnB property, will pay around $100 for a room or $150 for a loft, will stay for average of 7 days.

I kind of see their business very similar to Groupon – even their expansion plans and strategy seem to have formulated the same way. With a relatively low barrier of entry, let’s see when the other copy caters come in. (9-flats? Gone away?)

Related posts:

1. How the emergence of mobile had changed my travel
2. What Would Steve Jobs do If He Wants to Recreate the Travel Industry?

This is not a blog post about how good what the latest technology is. In fact, most of us (at least the ones who are reading my blog) already are using a smart phone, iPad, 3G, etc everyday.

It is interesting to see how with current gadgets and technologies are changing the way I travel.

I set out to a 10 day trip to Singapore and Hong Kong, half of the trip is for work (attending a conference), and the second half is personal. I made a decision of NOT bringing my laptop, just my iPad and my trusty Nokia N8. I packed my chargers and adapter cables (camera connector, hdmi cable for phone). I also brought along my Canon G12, and a pair of great headphones.

My equipment list

Before departure

I took my cross pacific segment with Eva Air, which I am quite happy with the in-flight entertainment. Just before I got on the plane though, I just recalled that I should at least get some maps and tourist info on my devices. So, using my iPad, I found a few apps (they actually turned out to be pretty awful apps). On my Nokia, I downloaded a 25mb map of Singapore so I can navigate around without Internet connection, just in case.

Just arrival

Things are pretty smooth, and I checked into my hotel successfully.
The first thing I asked, is there any free Internet? The response was, yes wireless, but only in the lobby. Room broadband Internet (I.e. wired) costs $8 per day. With the iPad solution, obviously it doesn’t work. So I went out and got myself a $15 prepaid 3G phone SIM card from Starhub, a popular Singapore operator. It is a phone-based SIM, but they have an option of getting 1GB of data within 7 days, for $7. Bingo! This is exactly what I want.

During my days in Singapore

The apps I used everyday on my iPad are:

The apps I used on my Nokia N8 are:

The two device setup worked quite well, because iPad cannot really do multiple things at the same time. I am able to take notes at one hand, chat on msn on my phone,etc.

Problems

Surprisingly, there wasn’t much.

The mobile hotspot is great when I have a charger, because it drains battery quite quickly with the wifi and 3G connecting simultaneously. I typically get 500kbps or up to 1 Mbps speed on the network, so in my hotel room, I was able to watch video streams (hockey highlights), do some Skype video chat (only 1 way video because I only have an iPad 1).

There are occasions when I needed a printer, but with the screen capture function of the iPad, I was able to simply save the receipt as a photo, and present it to the registration. I noticed I got a lot of smiling nods too, for saving a tree.

I tried to download another video just before I take my low cost carrier flights to Hong Kong, but it was a bit too big (600mb video), so I decided to download the audio podcast instead. In the 4 hour flight, I am very happily entertained, with podcasts and musics, reading some book, and also, typing out this blog post on the iPad.

In Summary

With my 5 days in Singapore, I used only about 500MB of data, sent a few SMSs, and made 0 phone call. I am very happy with my trip without laptop, I am confident to say that this will be the future of travel.

For my Hong Kong segment, I got a card from Bridge, which is a Mobile data provider that allows unlimited 3G data and can use the same card to roam across several Asian cities. I am looking forward to test this out.

Related posts:

1. Startup HK, 2011
2. What Would Steve Jobs do If He Wants to Recreate the Travel Industry?
3. The State of Online Travel Industry (Part 1 of 3): The Typical Booking Experience

In tribute to my long time hero, Steve Jobs, I would like to dedicate this blog post to him.

One of the greatest feat that Steve Jobs had achieved was how he recreated the entire ecosystem for the music industry.  While there are some striking similarity between the Music industry with the Travel industry (that they are both old, distribution channel controls most power), there are of course many differences to keep in mind.  So, what would Steve Jobs do, if he was to put his mind into reinventing the travel industry?

What would Steve Jobs have done if he were to recreate the travel industry?

iPod – the End User Device

The music industry change began with the Apple iPod, the first hard-drive based mp3 player that had people asking, “Why do I need to have 6 GB, when 512 MB is enough?”  At that time, the iPod was certainly NOT the first mp3 player – in fact, Apple was quite a late player into the MP3 device manufacturer.  However, their biggest selling point, 6 GB of space, won out many of the hard core music fans who at that time would at most half filled their iPod.

This provided room to grow.

The Travel Industry:

For the travel industry, the current iOS platform (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) provides a hand held device that is very capable of performing any travel-related activities.  From travel booking, researching, to taking photos, to sharing the travel memories, these devices are used.

iTunes - the End User Experience

Along with iPod came iTunes.  It started off as a program that transfers songs from ones’ computer to the iPod.  While it was a buggy program (it still is), it does allow easy synchronization and a way to reliably transfer the contents.  With this device distribution methods ready, people are free to rip out their own CD, as well as download (em hem, Napster) music and put them onto the iPod.

The Travel Industry:

This may be the most crucial piece that is currently missing from Apple’s pipeline, if they do intend to go into travel.  In fact, back in 2010, there was a news story broke out about the iTravel patent.  While it never really made into public eyes, it was nonetheless a very interesting report.

As the app is completely designed in Apple’s hands, designers can make it very user friendly, with performance and data efficiency, as well as practicality in mind.

iTunes Store – The Distribution Channel

The biggest game changer, however, is when Steve Jobs went to each major record label, and ask them to sell their musics PER TRACK and FOR 99 cents.  Both are radical concepts.  A CD typically has 12-18 tracks of songs, and costs around $20.  On a per track cost, it does work out to be about the same price.  The music industry, used to “bundle” a bunch of songs, hit titles, non-hit songs into ONE CD.  Regardless of whether the consumer likes the song or not, he or she will have to buy the entire CD for $20.

The $.99 per track model turned this paradigm upside down.  The hit songs are sold very well, and they are typically charged $0.99.  The not-so-hit songs, however, can even charge higher, some go as high as $1.29.  This caters to “the long tail” and hard core fans of the artists, who would collect every music that has been created by the artist.  By 2010, there were more than 10 Billion tracks available on iTunes, making it the largest single music source, and forever changing not just the music industry, but also media distribution industry such as books, and video shows.

The Travel Industry:

Much like the music industry, the biggest obstacle to recreate the travel industry is to change the mindsets of the distribution channels.  While music industry was entirely consumer focused and hence the mental shift can be purely made from consumer electronics, the travel industry involved a lot more hard cost.

For example, the cost involved to create a music track can range from very little (using a laptop, microphone) to very much (state-of-the-art studio, famous artists, etc) while most of the costs are soft costs.  By contrast, the cost to provide a plane ride is at least the maintenance for the plane, the flight crew, and the fuel.  That’s why for air travel, it is difficult to control.

The opportunity for cheap deals is when the flight / hotel room is almost full, and that the few remaining seats can generate many buzz or to help extract more revenue.

While booking is still mostly done with intermediary (GDS, wholesalers, travel agents, OTAs), or referral sites (Kayak, Google Flights), suppliers are now marketing aggressively to the direct consumers.

The intermediary, at this point, can offer consumers something that direct suppliers can not – the ability to change and modify their itineraries.

Genius – The advisor

Perhaps not many people are familiar with the Genius playlist.  But it really is what a Travel Agent/Advisor do for travel planning.  Genius starts with, “what do you have on your playlist”?  and then go on to suggest songs that are similar in taste.

An experience travel agent/advisor should do just that.

I must also note, that this “advisor” role maybe the weakest of Apple’s offerings in music.  Guessing what people want is never easy, and hence companies like Google build their entire business out of this.  With the reach of reading your email (gmail offering ads), browsing behaviours (google search record will be kept if you are logged in), social interactions (google +), Google has a very good idea of what YOU WANT.

And that’s why Google Flights/Hotel, and the concept of Google Travel is a very scary but potentially lucrative piece of the puzzle.

Related posts:

1. The State of Online Travel Industry (Part 1 of 3): The Typical Booking Experience
2. How the emergence of mobile had changed my travel

This is the first of 3 parts of a series, that I researched for the Online Travel Industry.

The Typical Booking Experience

The typical process of travel booking: then and now

Over the past 10 years, the Internet and other telecommunications technology are proving to be quite disruptive in the above process of booking a travel: dream, research, book, experience, and share.

Dream

Dream is always said to be the subconscious of the human mind.  While there is not much technology advancements in the actual dreaming (You still get that from sleeping at night, or dozing from work), there are lots of technological advancement in affecting the subconscious.

One of the most obvious one is getting inspirations – with HD TV, high resolution phones, people can share their travel stories in a very impressive, and quick way.  Of course, the media such as TV, movies, continue to provide great travel inspirations.

Research

Dream and Research are actually hand-in-hand activities.  While before, we rely on friends, newspaper articles, travel magazines, or even strolling through guidebooks in a book store to prepare our trips.  Nowadays, in addition to these great pools of information, there are many great travel bloggers who like to tell their travel stories.

Social platforms like Facebook, is getting ready to jump into the social aspect of reviews, recommendations, and eventually booking.  Facebook is already the most popular online photo-sharing site, where it houses lots of our friends’ travel memories.

After getting the inspirations, we can compare prices, read reviews on websites such as Trip Advisors.  To get a quick quotation, we can go to Kayak or Google Flights to search for what our budget can buy.

Book

Because this is the single, most obvious, revenue-generating part of the business, most of the innovation is build upon this stage.

Currently, the industry is in a crapshoot.  We can look from both the online travel agency (OTA) perspective, as well as the supplier’s perspective.

OTA

The first online booking engines are Expedia and Travelocity.  They are originally software companies who gathered data from airlines and hotels, and allow Internet users to purchase online or via a call center.  These OTAs still tend to operate the same way now, with recent advances of providing more selection of products (more destinations, airlines, hotels, packages).

Priceline is a deviation of the online booking model.  At conception it was touted as a service for consumers to “name your own price”, getting price matches from suppliers.  However, more recently it has moved to become more similar to Expedia / Travelocity type of booking process.

Supplier

With popularity of social media, Airlines and Hotels are big adopters to promote their products directly to consumers.

There are two reasons why this supplier-directed purchasing has become more popular.  First it is now easy to access recommendations, reviews, and information about the supplier at the destination.  Before, when we need to research, we often rely on a travel agent’s expertise.  Nowadays, before travellers book for their next trip, they often spend over 20 hours to search online.  With this information at hand, people can book direct.

Second, the easily accessible websites, booking forms, and payment methods allows people to make the booking with a lot more comfort.   The advertising messages can be reached easily from search engine, such that when you search for “Motel in Seattle”, you can often reach a directly of Motels available around the area on Google Search results.

The popularity of flash deal sites (i.e. Groupon, Social Shopper, and a whole lot of others) has allowed suppliers to work directly with these marketing sites to reach the consumers.

Review Sites

Major review site such as TripAdvisor had always wanting to stress that they earn their income from advertisements only.  But they did not promote the fact that they also own a lot of different other websites that does booking.

The impartiality may become the weakest point for review sites to go into booking.

Experience and Share

These two categories are now combined with mobile technology becoming more popular – this is because nowadays people take photos on their smart phone, then automatically will share it out on Facebook.

There are also many apps on iPhone / Android mobile phones such as Instagram that allows people to easily take photos and post them.  Twitter and Facebook status update contributes to the “What I am doing” updates to share their travel experience instantaneously.

Next: The Canadian picture

Related posts:

1. What Would Steve Jobs do If He Wants to Recreate the Travel Industry?

Since I am now having my both feet in the Travel industry, I figured I should blog more about my travel stories.  Of course, since my background training is more in technology, this is just a perfect place to talk about Technologies in Travel.

Some of my favourite readings are:

• Tnooz.com
• Uptake.com

While I still have a lot of interest in sustainability, that will become more of a personal mission.  I am a certified energy manager, and if I do find more sustainability related story in travel, I will jump in and blog some more too!

No related posts.

Today during our bubbletea meetup, I was thinking about how we can make our subsequent meetups more interesting.

One idea is to have different topics – such as cars, movies, tvs, current events, politics (can be dangerous), etc.

Then, a light bulb went on inside my head – how about an AppSwap?

Most of our members use a smart phone, either iPhone or Android phone (I actually current using a Nokia N8, but I am looking to change very soon).  I think it will be interesting to meet at a physical location, and talk about what their latest / favourite apps to be.

So the idea is this:

1. Each person attending the meetup will pay a $1 fee for the meetup (don’t ask yet, just keep reading)

2. Each person, if they have a favourite app that would like to introduce to others, can speak up.

3. Attendees can learn, discuss, and download the app on the location.

4. Will the pool of entrance fee, the crowd will choose the best Apps for the event, and will be award an Appstore Gift card.

5. App developers who want to promote their apps, can help sponsor the event and we can create a user test group during that time.

What do you think?

No related posts.

This is one of the latest book I have read, Switch, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.

The book talks about that human has two major psychological force – the rider (the rational mind) and the elephant (powerful emotions, heart).

Most often the mind and the heart disagree – and every time the heart/emotions/elephant will over power the  rational rider.

The 3 part frame work in the book are:

1. Direct the rider – what looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity

• Find the Bright Spots – investigate what’s working and clone it (health kids in poor villages)
• Script the Critical Moves – Don’t think big picture, think in terms of specific behaviors (1% milk)
• Point to the Destination – Change is easier when you know where you are going and why it’s worth it (you will be third graders soon)

2. Motivate the Elephant – What looks like laziness is often exhaustion  The rider cannot get his way by force for very long, so it is critical to engage people’s emotional side – to get their elephants on the path and cooperative.

• Find the feeling – Knowing something isn’t enough to cause change. Make people feel something.
• Shrink the Change – Break down the change until it no longer scares the mind.
• Grow your People – Cultivate a sense of identity and instill the growth mindset.

3. Shape the Path – What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem.  The situation, including the surrounding environment, is the path.  When you shape the path, you make change more likely, no matter what’s happening with the Rider and Elephant.

• Tweak the environment – When the situation changes, the behavior changes.  So change the situation. (smaller popcorn box)
• Build Habits – when behavior is habitual, it’s “free” – it doesn’t tax the rider.  Look for ways to encourage habits.
• Rally the heard – Behavior is contagious.  Help it spread.

No related posts.

For those who follows Internet in China, one of the most interesting thing going on these days is the fight between Tencent QQ (the instant messenger and 3rd largest Internet Company World Wide) vs 360 Safeguard.  Nowadays the fight has escalated to the point where both companies announced that they MUST only use their own product and cannot have both QQ AND 360 coexist in one’s machine.

ChinaHush did a really good piece, and I found plenty more interesting things on the Chinese social networks.

One is a poll that is surveying which software people would choose to keep and which will uninstall.  35% of the poll (12488 people) chose to uninstall QQ! while only 4% chose to uninstall 360.

Furthermore, people are a lot more upset with QQ (over 50% of the people surveyed.

Here is a screenshot of the poll taken between Nov 2 to Nov 4.

QQ vs 360 poll (Repost from Kaixin001)

Another post circulates on Kaixin001 is about all the technologies that Tencent has borrowed from other companies.  Well that’s why we know Tencent is a powerful company!

Accusations of Tencent copying other technology (Repost from Kaixin001)

No related posts.

Okay, this post is long overdue.

After spending 3 years in Beijing, I have collected a list of things to do/places to go.  This post is assuming that you have already looked at the regular things, such as Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Wangfujing, etc.  Some of the stuffs in the list are actually going to these touristy areas too, but with ways that you may not have thought about.  So here it is,

20. Walk around in Chaoyang Park on a nice sunny day.  Take a detour to the Solana (蓝色港湾) for the massive outdoor mall that reminds me of Whistler ski village.    

19. Take the subway (try to avoid line 1) all day and pay 2RMB. Go from the northeast corner of the city down  to the southwest corner.

18. Take a cheap bus (with the IC card 公交卡, which is 60% off all rides),  which turns out to 3RMB to go to the Badaling great wall (八达岭长城).  The bus stop is at the Arrow tower (箭楼) near the Jishuitan station (积水潭) on line 2.  You will have to wriggle your way through fake Transit workers telling you that “you are too late for the bus”, “all buses broke down”.  But just walk pass them and head towards the tower.

17. Spend the entire day at the Forbidden City (故宫). Don’t try to squeeze 3 sights in the same day even  though there are other sights nearby to see.  Avoid the crowd by going onto the side, take lots of pictures, walk really slow.

16. Go to a networking event at night – check out the FC club (fcclub.com), Network Club (thenetworkclub.com), Beijing Energy Network (google group), Web Wednesday and Linux User Group (tech groups), and many chambers of commerce.  Meet the other expats and other people and feel the energy of the city.

15. Take a bus or subway to Sun Kong place (新光天地) at Dawanglu station on line 1 (大望路).  Admire the brands in the mall, and then, walk OUTSIDE towards the south side, across the overhead highway and the river, and you will see a long distance bus station and a local market.  You can observe the huge difference just by walking 2 minutes apart.

14. Practice your negotiation skill at Yashow 雅秀市场 (next to Sanlitun) or Xiushui market at YonganLi station (永安里，秀水市场).  If they offer you a Polo T-shirt for 300RMB, reply them with 30RMB, and then smile and wink at them. They will probably take  your offer.

13. Roam around the universities – Tsinghua, Beijing university – buy some cheap English books for 10RMB.

12. Watch a movie at the Broadway movie Center (百老汇电影中心) at Dangdai MOMA (当代MOMA).  It’s in the middle of a complex that has 7 different buildings, but with a skywalk that link them through. Pretend that  you want to buy a  unit, and then go check out all the buildings!  The coffee shop there (Kuberick) offers free refills of regular coffee (iced or hot).

7 buildings connected with a skylink

11. Shopping for clothing at the Beijing Zoo market – There are several clothing malls around, but don’t waste your time. Go straight to the one at the basement (Julong Fuzhuangcheng, 聚龙服装城) – you can find an entrance next to the McDonald’s.  Can’t really negotiate and bargain – because they are offering quite a good price compared to other places already.  The place closes at 3 so go there early.

10. Go hiking at Fragrance Hill (xiangshan, 香山). Try to avoid the time when leaves turn colour (i.e. Autumn) because you will see TOO MANY people.

9. Take a bus to Cuandixia ( 爨地下) They only have 1 bus that goes there from the furthest west station on line 1 pingguoyuan (苹果园) and it’s an 1.5 hr bus ride. The return bus is at 3:30pm and again, there is only 1 per day.

8. Wander around in the small alleys (hutong, 胡同).  You can start from nanluoguxiang (南锣鼓巷), and walk up north, and then east will get you to the drum and bell tower (zhonglou 钟楼，gulou 鼓楼).  Just get yourself lost – a taxi is only 10RMB to start.

7. Eat a local breakfast that consists of: tofu with a  spicy sauce (dofu nao 豆腐脑, or literally tofu brain), deep fried donut (youtiao 油条), a basket of meat buns (baozi, 包子), and wonton soup with dumplings (jiaozi, 饺子). All these will probably set you back for around 5RMB, if you get it off the street.

6. Check out all the conferences and exhibitions in town – they are mostly free and you can get into it by providing them (a fake one will also do) a business card.  Some of the cooler exhibitions are: Auto show (I think you need to pay, but lots of cool cars and models), Camera show (highly recommended! Free and lots of models!), Art shows (or see the listing about 798).

5. 7-9-8. Spend a whole day there, spend 2 if  you have to. Enough said.  I don’t recommend other art districts yet at this point because they are not yet mature enough to make it a worthwhile trip.

4. Nanluoguxiang – 南锣鼓巷 – just explore around there.  There’s a hotel that was converted from  a courtyard house, and you can go in and check out the hotel room.  The yogurt is quite  famous and there is one that you will need to line up, and that store closes whenever it’s sold out.  There is also one store (more like a neighbourhood co-op) that sells crafts that the seniors in the neighbourhood created, and also has a small exhibition about the history of Beijing in general.  Very informative.  I also highly recommend the Tibet bar – and try out their Wheat wine.

3. Go skiing in the winter – there are shuttles that leaves from Dongzhimen 东直门 McDonald’s at 8am. You just need to pay 120RMB or so, and everything will be taken care of.  Cannot compare to Whistler, but it’s a nice fun way to get around town.  If you can find a few friends with cars, drive around there and stay overnight for the hot springs.

2. Bar hopping between Sanlitun and Gongti – More western = Punk, Vics, D lounge, Tun, Xiu (Thurs nite), Q-bar, Latern;  More local = Latte, Bobomee(?!), Club LA, China doll, Mix.  More russian = Chocolate

1. Buy yourself some BBQ Sticks (chuanr, 串儿) and some 3RMB Tsingdao beer, and sit away in Sanlitun village.

Also, as an online resource, check out sites like thebeijinger.com or cityweekend, or grab one of the free magazines.  They are lots of help too!

No related posts.

Tech Startup scene in Vancouver seems to be very promising these days.  The past long weekend there were TWO events that drew great crowds for working on some cool projects. The more famous one of the two is Startup Vancouver, which seemed to get quite a buzz from local social media. The one that I went to was called Vancouver Hackathon (#hackyvr) – and  was hosted by The Network Hub.

Apparently the two events had quite a different crowd –  hackyvr being a free event and was promoted in the local hacker community (which I must admit I never knew too much about), got many independent programmers, and bright students in the audience.

Over 50 people signed up, and over 25 showed up on a rainy Friday night.  After some beer and networking, each person went around and introduced themselves, and at the same time pitched their projects to the crowd.  Some projects were currently in development, while some were great ideas that the group helped refined.

Some of the cool ideas/projects discussed:

• Mr Toad – Remote console for mobile devices
• A remote management software for consultants and trainers
• Video pitching platform for startups
• education management software similar (but WAY BETTER) to webCT
• Facecred – that’s the project I worked on!

The magic happened after all individuals pitched their ideas – people were supposed to form groups to help out in different projects.   However, staying true to the name of the event, I think most people there had a very strong mind of what they wanted to do already, and hence we see many small teams had formed and most people just worked on their own project that they had started with.

photo courtesy of  @hummingbird604

A few of us – Sean, Paul, Tim, and I – were discussing in the lobby of The Network Hub, pondering what projects to join.  Several ideas were pitched – travel deals curation service (haha that’s mine), and then Sean was like, is there anyway to display achievements?

Hence, the basic idea of  Facecred was born.  The idea is that,

Everybody has some achievement – whether it’s being the MVP of  your volleyball league,  or being a volunteer with the Cancer Society  - and having these achievement awards hidden in a bookshelf or in the basement is not very cool.  We create a service that lets any individuals or organizations to create their awards and recognitions, and be able to award to the person.  The person can then choose to display it on the  Facebook wall and profile.

So with that idea in mind – it was white board time. We spent the rest of the night discussing the architecture, use cases, and how to split up the work.  Sean is a superstar – he took care of most of the backend logic.  Paul is great with Facebook application designs so he was in charged of that.  Tim and I work on the UI that allows the front end website that acts as a dashboard for sending out awards.

Because the past few years I was involved into more business development, my technical skills has actually been quite outdated –  so I wasn’t much help besides the big picture white board diagram and UI design.  I did get some chance to mug around with the JQuery stuff – which is really cool since the last bit of tech work I have done was mostly WordPress or Drupal and some CSS.

So my long weekend was spent with my team mates – Friday night until midnight, Saturday from 10am – 11pm, Sunday from 10am-7pm.  At the end of the weekend, we were able to give a demo of how it works, and everybody who lasted until 7pm got a HackYVR Badge to display on their facebook profile!

I want to thank Mike (@yurechko) for organizing the event, Minna (@thenetworkhub) for hosting us and sponsoring coffee (I think I have half the cannister), Adrian (@AdrianEden) for buying us pizza, and HoweSound Beer (@howesoundbeer) for providing us beverages!  Also nice to meet some cool speakers: Kenshi from Thinking Ape and Colin (@cperciva) from Tarsnap.

At the end of the weekend, great friendship was forged and we will continue to work on this project.  So keep a close eye on  Facecred! (@facecred)

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1. The Concept of Appswap meetups
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