Occam's Razor

Mapping technologies

Interesting mapping technologies can be found here . Smart waysto map complex data-sets into geographic representations illustrated in the following two examples:

• future global polution in 2300:

By 2300 the United Nations forecasts that the global population will be just under 9 billion. World population is expected to rise, peak and then decline slightly between 2050 and 2300. The highest long term population growth is predicted for Africa. Africa is currently underpopulated and has the lowest life expectancies. Other regions' populations are predicted to stay level or decline. Between 2050 and 2300 the areas currently known as India, China, the United States and Pakistan maintain their ranked order as having the world's highest populations. The numbers shown here are estimates - based on predicted future behaviours.

• current royalites and licence fee export :

Only 18 (out of 200) territories are net exporters of license fees and royalties. This means that a few people living in less than a tenth of the territories in the world between them receive the US$30 billion of net export earnings for these services.

The International Monetary Fund explained that royalties and license fees include "international payments and receipts for the authorised use of intangible, non-produced, non-financial assets and proprietary rights ... and with the use, through licensing agreements, of produced originals or prototypes ...". Thus these export earnings are payments for past ideas.

[Source B Giussani]

European Company Watch : Jamendo

One of my best LesBlog2.0 discussion was with Laurent Kratz, the CEO of Jamendo, an interesting Euro, Web2.0, community building , Music, Long-Tail, FLickr, CC distribution platform (is this a mouthful of what..).

It a good European example on how alternative legal distribution platforms are being launch to focus on the long tail, and dis-intermediate existing IP clearing houses: the local SACEM's which tend to be very cost-inefective IP monetization structures (in France 25% of the profit are used for the high internal SACEM operating cost( covering the salaries of more than 1400 employees....)).

Nordic UI technology

Must see visualisation technology, and interesting data set on world poverty: Gapminder is a Stockholm-based non-profit company  with some interesting interactive graphs help you visualize complex global trends (like the distribution of poverty, in different regions of the world, over time).

[From TED Blog]

Searching for a few search technologies

I got this email blurb this afternoon:

The long-awaited arrival of heavyweight Google to the desktop-search arena came last week, as the firm unveiled its free technology. But the consensus appears to be that start-ups already operating in the field - such as X1 Technologies and Blinkx - won't be too affected, although companies looking to break into the area may now have a much tougher time.
Existing start-ups cite a number of reasons for their optimism. For one, they say their search technology is better. Blinkx points out that its technology is active, rather than passive, while X1 says its technology can search types of files that Google's can't yet. They also point to niche markets that remain ripe for exploitation: Google's tool is aimed at general consumers, leaving the enterprise market wide-open...

I could not disagree more. I have downloaded and started to use the Google desktop search, and:

- It works
- It's well integrated, the integration with the Google bar that was already there is great...
- It's fast; much faster than my old MS desktop search...
- It's free

Yes, it does not work with all type of file, but I’m sure it will improve though time, and as far as I’m concern (as a far as my small company is concern...) we are pretty happy with the Google search, and you would have to provide significant incremental functionality (at no cost, since the other one is free) to convinced me to move. If you also consider that the other big guys will sooner or later move into that field, it will put a lot of elephant on the small path that X1 and Copernicus and the other small guys were treading one... ... so unless they are smoking, they better worry, and worry a lot (contrary to what the email said today)

Good coverage on the Google tools can be found on the Jason Calacanis, googleblog, Om Malik, and John Battelle

I'm happy to see i'm not the only one that does not buy the it valides our market crap...

On a similar note, good posting on how VC money is searching search technology in the wrong place, I agree that VC teams are fooling themself if they think they can be successful by funding yet-another-taxonomy-builder company (when the KM field is litter with dead or half-dead companies (we at RVC try to build a few, we successful in several cases, and not in others...), but i'm not sure where Tom thinks VC money should go?