Being Online: On Computing, Data, the Internet, and the Cloud by Jian Wang

Author:Jian Wang [Wang, Jian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Industries, Computers & Information Technology, computers, Distributed Systems, Cloud Computing, internet, General, Social Aspects, Social Science, popular culture
ISBN: 9781951627966
Google: V_cDEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2021-10-05T23:20:28.434952+00:00

It’s Not the Internet of Things, It’s the Internet of All Things Under the Sun

In the past, the process was about digitizing offline things; but today’s O2O (offline to online) is about making offline things online.

My work at Aliyun allowed me to think about cloud computing, the mobile internet, and big data all together.

O2O came into wide use thanks to group buying websites.

In 2008, Groupon appeared. This website provided customers with discounted products based on service and location. Groupon was not a pure e-commerce website; it was a combination of e-commerce, internet advertising, and offline services. The group buying craze swept the globe and, at its peak, China alone boasted some 1,000 companies in this space. Almost every third-tier city had its own group-buying site. Groupon was named the fastest-growing company in history by Forbes magazine. People started to discover that beyond search, games, and portals, O2O—meaning systems for inducing users online to make purchases from physical businesses offline—offered a mysterious appeal.

By 2016, people gradually understood that the O2O industry that had absorbed countless amounts of capital was just a flash in the pan. But this flash helped me see that the line between offline and online was blurring to the point that O2O had become O². The two worlds had blended into each other. When I was shopping in the world’s largest home electronics retail store, Best Buy, I watched someone look through things, and when he saw what he wanted, he stopped, pulled out his cell phone, and bought the item on Best Buy’s website. This scene is very important. He didn’t go home and buy something online; he bought it right on the spot. Was this mobile e-commerce or offline retail?

Suppose I run into you on the road and I say “hi.” Neither of us has our business card with us, so we get out our cell phones and scan each other’s QR codes. Is this mobile social networking or a face-to-face meeting?

In China, there will occasionally be regional power outages. When an area’s supply of electricity can’t meet the demand, the state grid has to shut down the supply, or it will affect electricity transmission across the whole grid. The commonly used method is to switch off the power. This is a direct means and can immediately shut down power to your house and your apartment complex. But the state grid has also discussed a different way of shutting off power. If every air conditioner were online, there would be no need to flip a switch. So long as you could change the temperature settings on all the air conditioners, power use would go down and there would be no need to cut off the electricity. There would be such a slight change in your home’s temperature, you wouldn’t even notice it.

The shade in passenger windows on Boeing 747s can be adjusted depending on passenger preference. This is a completely offline product. But the 787 isn’t designed this way. The glass in its windows changes colors at the push of a button to achieve a closed effect digitally.

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