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” Imagine walking past a shirt shop with two friends and glancing at the garments in the window. Suddenly your mobile phone pings with a message.
Buy two shirts from the shop, runs the text, and you will receive a 20 per cent discount; buy three and the discount will be 30 per cent.” (Financial Times, 10 Feb 2013)
Why on earth would I want that?
There were two pieces of news connected with Facebook this week: Bloomberg reported that Facebook was developing an app that would track your location and let everyone know where you were at any given time.
The app would run in the background of your smartphone, even when not opened. And the catch - you would not be asked if you want to be tracked or not.
In June 2010, then Russian president Medvedev, has sent his first tweet from Silicon Valley. The Russian tech startup scene has been active since the 1990s and can be hardly called young (Yandex has been launched prior to Google) but what we are witnessing now, since that first presidential tweet, is an attempt to organize itself as an industry (first Russian Startup Index released, RusBase launched etc.). Almost all ingredients are in place (hot startups, large talent pool, a local VC network, Government support, large test market etc.) now we just need to see results …
(Photo courtesy of: AFP)
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