jeremy snyder’s meta|remix

you can also hear my thoughts at the jeromecast (please do subscribe!) but some thoughts here as well:

• the event was malaysia-heavy, with a lot of presence from msc and mdec
• the regional and pan-asian content was good. connecting with people from china, korea and japan was good
• seeing the growth in the startup vibes in malaysia, thailand and vietnam was good as well. singapore is really picking up in this area, and it was really awesome to feel the energy picking up elsewhere, too.
• i met some really interesting people there, with cool projects and great thoughts and ideas to share
• and i liked the little bit that i saw of kuala lumpur. i can’t believe i’ve been in southeast asia for two years and hadn’t ever actually been to kl (as it’s known here)

probably a lot of readers of my blog have also read neal stephenson’s “snow crash”

of course, working in virtual worlds, this is basically mandatory for us. but what’s interesting to me is that the concept i see from it more and more is not so much the metaverse, but the ability to buy citizenship in different countries.

consider this – as a citizen, you are automatically a customer of your country’s government. you pay for government services via your taxes. and more and more, with countries having more liberal, or even aggressive immigration policies, you can feel like a consumer. for instance, i saw ads saying “hey singaporean, immigrate to new zealand”. that’s openly soliciting business. mind you, i don’t feel that bad about that. i certainly don’t always feel that i get the value-for-money that i’m looking for. anyway, just an interesting thought for me…

just a quick note – if you live in singapore, this site, gothere.sg, really helps for getting around.

i just got back from a week-long vacation in phuket, thailand over christmas. and in the end, here’s my verdict: it was ok. not great, just ok. Continue reading »