Why become Nomadic?

When I first got my Macbook - the general perceived notion was Macs don't crash. Mine did! After googling for information on backups - I realised that Macs are just like other 'PCs' - and that they rely on third party vendors for the same hardware. So as fate so happened - my hard dsik crashed and I lost all my data.

This got me asking many questions, including the BIG WHY? Well, I never answered the latter - however many of the former helped me create a sense of how life should be - with the inclusion of backups. And in that episode, I lost my personal kodak moments - fortunately some were uploaded to flickr - but not all.

I then realized that my bookmarks, which I kept synced with Foxmarks and Delicious - were still accessible. My documents that were saved in Gmail were still accessible. My mail also... and then it dawned, that everything that was on the Internet (or the Cloud as I like to call it) were still around.

That's when I realized that - by keeping a copy available in the cloud - I had something that others would worry about the backups - I also had access from anywhere, office, home, internet cafe or the usual cafe.

That's what led me to my search - living a digital life. Mind you this is primarily targetted at heavy knowledge workers - however, that doesn't stop ordinary people with jobs from backing up onto the internet.

Infact my aim is to have everything online - and use the laptop that I have as a tool - rather than personal domain. The Mobile Phone, the Laptop and the Internet - will form the key part of this strategy - of course with the right software and vaporware.

Having said that, there's one thing to note. Today vaporware (basically sites that provide services) can well disappear overnight - be acquired or be obliterated. Flickr and Delicious are both owned by Yahoo which is currently a target by Microsoft and Investors like Carl Ichan and Dan Loeb will do all in their power to profit from it. Usually when companies like this get acquired by Behemoths - it could turn into their death. The service even though it is good, may be modified by the new parent company. Take the perfect example of AOL and Time Warner - a mistake in history.

Back to Business.

Is it difficult to adjust to a nomadic lifestyle. Nope. It just takes a bit of preparation and practice. Setting up a nomadic mobile system requires a bit of learning. Your learning curve may be a bit steep if you're not used to technology. Before you start asking me questions, I suggest you get familiar with whatever you're planning to learn - and experiment.

Honestly speaking - I don't want to spend my whole life stuck to a screen. I want to be out and about, interacting with humans (I'm an only child, so I understand the value of friendship better than most).

If you really live a life stuck to the screen, in cyberspace or in your deskspace - all the best! I pity you... in my generation, I've seen more dot com millionaires and people make money from the internet - business has certainly opened up because of the internet. Only a few are around. Companies that would have taken years to build - just take a few months and lines of codes, and people all over the world to use it. If advertising is the only model for making money in an online business - its not sustainable. Although more users are coming online, people will evolve and have advertisement blindspots. Rather they'll search for what they want - if they find, they buy it (my bet on Google). However, a new trend that is happening - is to see what others recommend through social networks - where virality works the best. Google I believe is changing is algorithm to adapt to such social networks - to identify which sites are good and meet the criteria of search. There are plenty of SEOs out there trying to tweak their web pages. However, at the end of the day - if not many people are talking about it or linking to it - then no matter what SEO you do - its useless.

This was a bit prose... but hey the thoughts were worth sharing!