Just several days ago, I wrote a post in my other blog about China’s decision to block Plurk. In it, I linked to a result from Google Website Trend analysis showing that Indonesia brings the most traffic to the Plurk’s website.

Needless to say, it got me really intrigued. I then play around with it, using Twitter and Facebook as a variable to analyze. And these graphs are the results :

As you can see, Indonesia ranks as the 4^th country who brings the most traffic in Facebook, while in Twitter it is listed as the 8^th. Combine it with the fact that it’s the biggest traffic contributor for Plurk, and you get the idea that Indonesia is in fact a very prominent country in the global mapping of social networks.

One will then begin to naturally wonder the implication of this fact. For instance, what does it mean for Indonesia ? How can we capitalize on this seemingly-crucial fact that we are renowned users of social networking sites ?

It seems to me that there are two approaches to think about this issue, – classified according to the direction the effects that will inevitably happen to us. First, there is an inward implication, – although not specifically stated -, that people around the world have recognized the fact that us Indonesians are here to stay. It clearly shows that Indonesians are not just some sporadic users of social network. Instead, we are a large group of devoted people who regularly engage in connecting and networking via the Internet. This can only translate as a good thing because bit by bit, Indonesians will then gain stronger voice in this world. On the individual level, people from Indonesia will also get more opportunity to do some serious networking without being associated with any unnecessary facets of the image of a third-world country.

Secondly, and this is the harder part, is the outward responsibility we have with the fact. Now that we are being recognized as prominent entities in Social Networking world, what are we going to do with it ? Remember Peter Parker’s words when he said, “With great power comes great responsibility” ? Of course, it can be argued that we can then make contributions by building our own social networking sites. And we did that successfully, at least to an extent. But for me, it looks like we could go further than that. Why haven’t we incubate some ideas, – and then execute it, which will be useful for the whole world in a global level? You know, products as revolutionary as Blogspot, WordPress and Twitter.

This is what I offer for you to ponder as I close this fact. I am suggesting that this is the focus that we should develop. Indonesia are so full of talented developers and workers, but few who have the required ability to perform as a brilliant thinker in a conceptual level. And we all know that ideas are where all the great things in life come from.

The year 2009 is marked as the year of elections for us Indonesians. In the early April, we voted for our legislative members, and shortly afterwards the big presidential election will follow closely. This blog is of course not about politics, and will never talk about it, I presume. That’s why I’m not going to contribute to the wildly-crowded, but lively, discussions about Indonesian politics.

What is indeed interesting to be slightly touched is the role of CTO ( Chief of Technology Officer ) in any government’s administration. This issue was brought to the surface by Barack Obama when he announced that he will appoint USA’s first CTO with the following purpose in mind :

“to ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will ensure the safety of our networks and will lead an interagency effort, working with chief technology and chief information officers of each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices.”

As we speak, we know that he is still yet to make good of that promise. America is still waiting to see who’s going to have the first seat as her CTO. Political issues aside, I think that’s one good strategy to adopt for whoever going to run as presidential candidates here in Indonesia. Of course, speaking locally, he / she then will be called a Minister of Technology or something similar.

The job of being a CTO is surely not an easy one, let alone being a CTO for a whole nation. In the corporate world of business, a CTO job will closely reflect or overlap with the more familiar job of CIO ( Chief Information Officer ). An excellent article I read discussed about this and mentioned that :

“the CIO is responsible for ensuring that the company’s information technology investments are aligned with its strategic business objectives. To this end, the CIO has emerged as the key executive for information assets, operations, and policy…… In addition, most CIO responsibilities have expanded beyond the traditional role to include both strategic and tactical duties, as well as corporate policy direction.”

Now take that definition and apply it into a nation, – in this case Indonesia. Cross out the words “company” and “corporate”, and change it with “country” or “national”. You will then get an accurate picture of a very complicated, but challenging, job a CTO would have in our country. This position would demand an individual with a very specific set of skills and educated and experienced in such fields as information technology, electrical engineering, or computer science. He or she must also be a positive leader, an effective communicator (skilled in both listening and speaking), a persuasive negotiator, and a customer-orientated individual.

Again, I am not going to argue about whether such a capable individual exists in our country or not. Instead, I’m going to propose that every presidential candidate of Indonesia will do well to include the role of CTO in his / her planned platform. It is an undeniable truth that nobody’s perfect. So why not incorporate it into your program ? At best, – that is if you’re elected, it would help to work at technology-related issues in Indonesia. There is simply a yearning need for that cannot be ignored. At worst, – if you lose the vote; well, at least it would make your campaign sexy. Think about it.

Not too long ago, the infamous Michael Arrington of TechCrunch reported a rumor where he stated that Google was ( or maybe still is ) in talks to acquire Twitter. For a starter, it may be worthwhile to revisit his argument as to why Twitter is so valuable to acquire these days :

“More and more people are starting to use Twitter to talk about brands in real time as they interact with them. And those brands want to know all about it, whether to respond individually (The W Hotel pestered me until I told them to just leave me alone), or simply gather the information to see what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong.

And all of it is discoverable at search.twitter.com, the search engine that Twitter acquired last summer.

People searching for news. Brands searching for feedback. That’s valuable stuff.

Twitter knows it, too. They’re going to build their business model on it. Forget small time payments from users for pro accounts and other features, all they have to do is keep growing the base and gather more and more of those emotional grunts. In aggregate it’s extremely valuable. And as Google has shown, search is vastly monetizable – somewhere around 40% of all online advertising revenue goes to ads on search listings today.”

In other words, if left alone, Twitter will surely emerge as the new giant in the search industry, – complete with its abundant advertising dollars. The only question is, can Twitter sustain its current operation and mature to be a major player it seems destined to be ? Financially and technically, maintaining its operation as probably one of the strongest social media today must be a very complicated issue. Yet I don’t want to dwell on that.

What I want to talk about is Google’s take on this issue. If the rumor is true, it seems to me that it signals that they want to be the lone, solitary giant in the search engine realm of business. Not that there is anything wrong about that. We all know that as per today, they are the best in terms of skills and resources to serve the biggest search engine in the world.

What makes it more interesting is that Google actually proceeded to make its move by holding talks and discussions with Twitter before the other giant of the industry, Microsoft. Compared to the non-committal and complacent Microsoft, this implies that they again have a better sense of direction as to where the world Internet trends are shifting. And a good business forecasting ability is a crucial pre-requisite if one is to stand on the shoulder of giants.

It is now fascinating time as we wait in suspense whether Google and Twitter made progress in their discussions. On the one hand, Twitter CEO Evan Williams has already sold a successful product he made in the past to Google ( Blogspot ). On the other hand, there is this antitrust issues that put some constraints, – at least categorically, which dictates that Google should proceed carefully here. Again, Arrington noted about this too.

As we wait on any updates on this matter, I’ll just state that Google is showing that it is still going strong as a major giant here. And mind you, it is not a sleeping giant; but rather a very alert and sensible one.