The Google Buzz is yet another innovative creation of Google in response to Twitter and Facebook. How is it better? Well, firstly it has the convenience of, quite literally, being right there in your Gmail Inbox. Secondly, conversations are threaded and can also be made in private but most importantly, it doesn’t have a word limit like Twitter does. You own your content, choose and filter how you want to see your messages and it doesn’t crowd your inbox with notifications.

Businesses and schools can use Buzz for internal communication and information sharing. This could have a huge impact on improving workforce time-management and result in significant financial savings for companies. Eventually Gmail accounts can become common amongst people if Buzz maintains itself to be a point of attraction for the company.

Session 2

Sushant Rao - Director, Head of Asia, World Economic Forum, Switzerland

Presentation Title: “South Asian Economies and the Path of Growth, the Challenges and opportunities”

1.    WEF - More than just the Davos gathering - an initiative to bring together business leaders from all walks of life

2.    Also runs a WELCOME forum - a virtual gathering of more than 10,000 world leaders for collaborative dialogue and debate

3.    Global Competitive Report - Pakistan outlook

a.     Combination of hard data through IMF and WB and Leadership Opinion Surveys

b.    Competitiveness is defined as ‘productivity’

c.     Stages of development defined - progressive process

i.    Factor-driven

ii.    Efficiency-driven

iii.    Innovation-driven

d.    Report results: World overall

i.    US came out on top due to its large market - UK went down in the list this year

ii.    BRIC economies are doing better - China has broken into the top 30

e.     Report results: Pakistan

i.    Overall ranking of 101 out of 134

ii.    Important areas:

1.   Education

2.   Security environment

3.   Business friendly policies

4.    Financial Development Report - 2008 - also available on WEF website

a.    Pakistan performed remarkably well compared to other developing financial markets

b.   No 5 in overall Banking Efficiency Index

5.   World Trade Report

a.   Done in partnership with WTO

b.  Pakistan in top 25 in FDI and foreign labor - however, still work that needs to be in the perception among the international traders about the business environment and trade environment in Pakistan

6.   Last words

a.   Trade in Inter-South Asia is only @ 4% compared with ASEAN @ 45% - so this can be improved further

Zafar Siddiqui, President CNBC Pakistan, Chairman CNBC Arabiya, Africa

Presentation Article: Media in the Emerging Markets

1.    Referred to climate change - “another flood here, time to build an arc”

a.     Discussed some facts from a recently published article

2.    Emerging Markets

a.     Powerhouses that have adopted open market policies

b.    Market Trends in Emerging Markets

i.    Liberalization - decline in support for public media - private media ownership

ii.    Increasing trend of sponsor-centric content development as opposed to content being developed in the interest of the public

iii.   The New Media Vs The Traditional Media

1.    USNews has abandoned print in favor of web publishing

2.    Blogging increasing faster than ever

3.    Many firsts of the New Media in the recent US elections

iv.    The Digital Divide

1.    This could lead to the exclusion of millions in the world, especially Africa

3.    Media in Emerging Markets

a.    With the economic downturn in the West, the international media giants will look toward the emerging markets

b.    Free and independent media are necessary for effective functioning of democratic situations

c.     Informed decision a must for the democratic process to continue which can be facilitated through a responsible and free press and media

Rishi S. Jaitly - Senior Policy Analyst, Google Inc.

Presentation Article: The Internet in 2008: Democratizing Democracy and Globalizing Globalization

1.    Google’s Mission:  A Knowledge Society

2.    The Old World - 20^th century consumed content - saw content presented by the few

3.    The New World - participation by many, empowering people to speak to the world at large

4.    AdWords - a tool to raise awareness but also raise funds

5.    Learning from the recent US elections

a.     Expand electorates through web tools and social media

b.    Build a brand - through text by creating a context - the ‘change’ brand of Obama

c.     Live debates - a way to hold your elected officials in check and ask them tough questions breaking through the established media

d.    Pushing democracy to its limit - democracy on steroids

e.     Sign up to sitemap.com to get included to Google and other search engines

6.    Globalizing globalization

a.     Internet by definition is ‘global’ and by getting your products or services online, you are participating in a global market