Technology As Innovator

Eventually after aggressively penetrating Vietnam market with a lot of properties such as the colorful Zing portal, the controversial Zing chat and the very successful social-networking site Yobanbe, Zing MP3…, Zing is preparing to roll out Email service.

• 30Mb attachment, 3 times as much as that of Yahoo! Mail
• Server in Vietnam so bottle-neck effect is eliminated.

Through a short interview with Zing team’s Chief Developer, I learned that the following will be supported

• Unlimited storage
• POP3
• Screen capture
• e-cards
• Music embed. This is a smart move to integrate with products together.

When I logged in using Safari, the message “System is busy” pops out. I retried with Firefox and it went well. The message looks like a facade to the incompatibility of many browsers.

My prediction is that many users will utilize this service as a music-sharing channel.

Will you explore this email service?

Facebook just rolled-out its Chat function to a few networks. Facebook Chat supports Unicode and basic emoticons. Initially, it also provides Feeds and Online Status.

If you want to use Facebook as your primary channel of communication and networking, now you no longer need to reply on other IM services to chat real-time with your connections. Additionally, Yahoo! Messenger only allows 300 friends, while that of Facebook is much greater.

Facebook is joining the IM market with their huge user base in the back. More advanced features will be launched soon.

From Facebook Blog

This week marks the launch of Facebook Chat—a new way for you to communicate with your friends in real-time. The Wall and Inbox have been the primary ways to communicate, but when more immediacy is necessary—for example when making plans for lunch in half an hour or arguing over a foul call in the NCAA tournament—they might not be enough. Chat aims to fill this gap.

We’ll be rolling this out slowly going forward, but fairly soon you’ll notice our new Chat bar at the bottom of your browser—no installation or assembly required. From this bar you can view your list of online friends and open conversations with any or all of them. There’s no need to setup a “buddy list.” Unlike the Wall or Inbox, the messages are delivered and displayed to your friend as soon as they’re sent, so you should expect a response right away and without any page loading. Of course, Chat has to play nice with the rest of the Facebook experience. You can collapse conversations to get them out of the way, and go offline if you don’t want to use Chat at all. Chat is there when you want it, and tucked away when you don’t.

We’re working on pulling other features of the site into the real- time Chat world. Your notifications will now arrive in the Chat bar, and while chatting you’ll see your friend’s Mini-Feed activity thrown into the conversation, as it occurs.

Before we jump head-first into this new real-time approach to Facebook, it’s worth spending some time thinking about privacy. Conversations are one-to-one, completely private, and only between Facebook friends. The message history is saved from page to page, and even between login sessions, but it is not logged permanently. Should you wish to clear out the history immediately, there’s a link provided in each conversation to do so. If you don’t want your Mini-Feed stories embedded into your conversations, you can turn off that feature from either the Mini-Feed privacy page or the Chat settings panel. As Chat grows and evolves, we’ll continue to make sure that you are in control.

Chat is by no means a new concept, as instant messaging systems have been around for over a decade. But just as other features on Facebook have allowed friends to communicate more efficiently than before, we hope Facebook Chat will make it easier to connect instantly.

More link: Facebook Chat Help

Overall

Why would I want to use a Vietnamese web service

1. Connection speed, especially for video streaming
2. Local opportunities

What would drive me away

1. Security, including revelation of my account information and spam
2. Careless design
3. Immature communities

Networking

Professional Networking

I’m favoring CyVee because opportunities are real and more closely intact.

LinkedIn is terrific, but opportunities might come at a lower pace.

Social Networking

I’m currently very happy with Facebook.

If faceViet or yobanbe want to get me, they have to provide

1. Professional theme
2. English interface
3. Strong personalization options.

Social News

It’s a pity I prefer utilizing my RSS Reader over social news sites such as Digg. Therefore, no remark just yet.

However, the news sharing platform of CyVee looks nice and could be very useful in promoting company brand like the way Tim of TRG is doing.

Additionally, if Vietnamese service provider can create something like StumbleUpon, it would make a hit and I’ll definitely consider.

Photos Networking

Picasa has everything I need: 1Gb free account, folders, tagging and an uploader.

Is there a local site focusing on photos networking?

Music Networking

I’m enjoying sharing music on imeem. I am more into English songs. I like new age, hard rock and symphony and I’m not sure whether nhacso, Zing mp3 are rich of such genres.

Video Networking

Youtube is absolutely wonderful. I am amazed by its fast connection speed and stability.

Therefore, I don’t have the plan to move to Clip.vn just yet.

Mobile Networking

Has any Vietnamese vendor invest in this area?

Blogging

I am maintaining my different blogs on self-hosted WordPress, Yahoo! 360 and Windows Live Spaces.

If local blogging providers such as ngoisaoblog, blog.com.vn want to attract me, they would have to ensure:

1. High SEO compatibility
2. High security, including spam protection and splog tracking
3. Backup options and standard-compliant import/export functionalities
4. Permalinks

Instant Messaging

My clients in the US are using MSN Messenger. Most of my friends are using Yahoo! Messenger. For conference, Skype is just wonderful.

I don’t feel the urge of switching to Zing chat.

Email

Apart from professional emails on my domain, I use a Gmail account to access Google services and a Yahoo! email to make it easier for my friends.

Any company is investing in providing free email service in Vietnam?

Portal

I use my portal for work purpose and netvibes is still number one.

Zing looks very nice, but I’d rather having something customizable.

e-Commerce

I’m not having a real need of C2C e-Commerce, so no comment on this.

Map

A vote for diadiem, simply because I need to find ways in my local areas.

Entertainment

I’d rather go out playing sports than wandering online, so good luck socvui, hihihehe and so on

Conclusion

In conclusion, the 2 local web services that I utilize are CyVee and diadiem

CyVee give me real local opportunities and diadiem is definitely more useful than its Google counterpart.

For others, if they can bring me real values I’m seeking…