Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Pak to be 1st emerging market to start REITs --(SECP)

Commissioner of Securities Exchange Corporation of Pakistan (SECP) Salman Ali Shaikh said on Wednesday that Pakistan will be the first emerging market to initiate Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). "The objective of REITs is anchored around the concept to introduce an alternative asset class with the purpose to add depth to the capital market and provide transparency to real estate sector in the form of comprehensive disclosures and accountability through a trust mechanism ingrained in the REITs Regulations," he said at SECP consultative meeting held to discuss REITs Regulations, 2007 in Lahore on Wednesday. The session was a sequel to the earlier one held in Karachi on August 9, 2007. The participants of the meeting included prominent lawyers, chartered accountants, real estate developers, constructors, surveyors, valuers, project managers and representatives from the Punjab Government.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

2 moons on 27th August 07

Two moons on 27th August

"27th August" the Whole World is waiting for.........

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night on the sky starting August.

It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultivate on August 27; when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of earth. Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27,2007 10:00 pm(KSA) & 12:00 am(PAK) In INDIA at12.30 am. It will look like the earth has 2 moons. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.

Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/weather/nightskyaug.shtml

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

GigaOM column on the relaunch of FWD by Daniel Berninger, President FWD

Daniel Berninger
president, FWD
web: www.fwdnet.net
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
GigaOm: FWD relaunches to break the telco trance

Written by Daniel Berninger

The media educator John Culkin remarked: "We don't know who discovered water, but we're certain it wasn't a fish." The observation summarizes why I recently pitched Jeff Pulver on relaunching FWD, the VoIP operator formerly known as Free World Dialup. (Disclosure: I am helping Pulver relaunch FWD.)

Though not as well-known as Skype or Vonage, FWD, now 12 years old, is the longest-surviving VoIP company in the world. From the beginning, FWD distinguished itself through advocacy efforts (e.g. FCC Pulver Order) and enabling tools (e.g. free SIP device registration), which helped the company attract some 700,000 registrations.

FWD does not seek to provide a communication service as much as empower amateurs to create their own communication solutions. The do-it-yourself ethic saves end users from waiting for the so-called experts to awake from their telco-trance and figure it out for us.

A decade into an Internet-enabled communications era, most communication offers remain bound by 20th century definitions. Consider the examples of SunRocket and the newcomer, Ooma. We can debate the technical innovation or pricing advantage(s) of their respective products, but both companies viewed the world through a telco lens focused on one thing: Getting a share of profits enjoyed by entrenched telcos.

The usual business theory that success depends on providing better value to consumers falls short in the case of telco startups. It fails due to two line items on the income statement: 'marketing expenses' and 'COGS (cost of goods sold). Marketing is expensive because it's hard to win customers.

New entrants like Ooma will spend far more on customer acquisition than incumbents ever have, because incumbents acquired their customers in a monopoly context and now need only invest in retaining them. Incumbents own the telephone network, too, which puts new entrants at their mercy for interconnection, inflating COGS. There are still more expense traps for new entrants that survive the marketing and interconnection gauntlets (just ask Vonage.)

The death rate of start-ups that touch the telephone network remains near 100%, but startups pursuing new ways to enable voice communication need not limit their efforts to improving the telephone call, because "communication" is not synonymous with "telephone call." After all, a telephone call falls woefully short as an alternative to meeting someone in person. The audio quality of telephone calls compares unfavorably to even AM radio.

FWD sustains itself through a membership option to keep the focus on communication rather than billing systems. Ooma represents a step in the right direction. It trades the usual services model for a consumer electronics model, but the Ooma device still has to compensate for a ton of telephone network baggage.

The arrival of the Internet can release us from the limitations of the telephone network, yet so far we have been inexplicably unwilling to use this key to our freedom to venture outside the telephone network prison. Even as the experts tell us the price of a voice call will drop to zero, both AT&T and Verizon managed to enforce price increases in the last 12 months.

This is one reason why calling costs still leave two thirds of the world's population with few, if any, communication options. Yet all this can change for those following FWD's lead: Imagine a communication future as if the traditional phone network never existed.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Poem from an Unknown person

Around the corner I have a friend, In this great city that has no end,

Yet the days go by and weeks rush on, And before I know it, a year is gone.

And I never see my old friends face, For life is a swift and terrible race.

He knows I like him just as well, As in the days when I rang his bell.

And he rang mine but we were younger then, And now we are busy, tired men.

Tired of playing a foolish game, Tired of trying to make a name.

"Tomorrow" I say! "I will call on Jim, Just to show that I'm thinking of him."
But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes, And distance between us grows and grows.
Around the corner, yet miles away, "Here's a telegram sir," "Jim died today."

And that's what we get and deserve in the end. Around the corner, a vanished friend.
Remember to always say what you mean. If you love someone, tell them.

Don't be afraid to express yourself. Reach out and tell someone what they mean to you.

Because when you decide that it is the right time it might be too late.

Seize the day. Never have regrets. And most importantly, stay close to your friends and family, for they have helped.