Happy 10th Birthday Amazon and The Star

Two institutions that educate and impart knowledge. With distribution of over 16 million for one and over 5 million for the latter, these two institutions have achieved incredible milestones in a span of 10 years.

From a small startup company operating in a 2-bedroom apartment, Amazon.com had grown by leaps and bounds. Its rise to the most wodely used online book(and now any items) retailer is all thanks to the venerable Jeff Bezos, a visionary, customer-centric, detailed-oriented businessman. His concept of allowing his staff to be as creative as possible in implementing new business ideas had created a website that not only sells but adds plenty of value to customers' purchasing experience. His persistance to continue permitting customers to review the items they purchased despite comments that certain criticisms will bring down the sales of the items through his website had on the contrary created even higher sales. For me, he had monopolised online shopping in a respectable way (unlike Bill Gates :P).

For their 10th anniversary, they have started a list of Hall of Fame for books that have garnered them the largest profit. Since I'm in the spirit, here are my personal top 5:

1. Alice Seabold - The Lovely Bones (touching account of a girl in heaven)

2. J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter (who could not enjoy this book?)

3. Mark Victor Hansen - One Minute Millionaire (good narration of fiction and facts in one book on how to be a millionaire)

4. Amy Tan - The Hundred Secret Senses (have not completed it but liked it already)

5. Mitch Albom - 5 People You Meet in Heaven (touching and inspiring)

On the local front, Malaysian are celebrating the birth of a local newspaper who had made us proud. Despite the monopoly usually seen by a government-backed media institution, The Star had risen to the challenge and beat the monopoly and now had became the most widely read newspaper in the whole of Malaysia. Go into any LRT, mamak stall and offices, seeing Malaysians as well as foreigners holding on to a stack of The Star is inevitable. With easy to hold and read tabloid-like pages and articles that stays on the neutral end without being too gossipy, The Star had held its reputation intact. Besides that, The Star should be commended for its effort in bringing Malaysian all over the world together via the Global Malaysian Network, for providing an avenue for Malaysian to voice their grouses and to start charitable works. The Star Online meanwhile had risen to become to most surfed website by Malaysians alongside www.msn.com.my and www.cari.com.my. The list of achievements are endless. Here is to more decades of good quality news from our beloved The Star.

Oh, I forgot to mention, it is Maxis' 10th anniversary this year too. Happy 10 years, my company :)