Beware of infographics, especially if the findings are too good to be true

So Indonesia is now officially more entrepreneurial than United States or Germany.

That’s according to an infographic by Gist, which describes the Silicon Valleys of the world. While I’m not trying to diss Indonesians, I find the results somewhat suspicious. So I went snooping around.

It turns out that the conclusion is derived from an “Entrepreneurship Index”, which gave Indonesia a score of 2.81 and the US a score of 2.8.

The scores come from a survey in which people were asked to gauge the following about their country: Whether innovation and creativity are highly valued, how easy it is for people to start a business, whether people who start their own businesses are highly valued, and whether people with good ideas can usually put them into practice.

The infographic revealed that Indonesia ranked 48th in the world for attractiveness to investors. The country has also apparently made it easier for entrepreneurs to get funds and start a business. Read more

Infographic: A quick guide to the Asian startup scene

After six months in Asia, sixteen flights to eight countries, and interviews with over 100 entrepreneurs, investors, and organizers, Kira Newman of Tech Cocktail has worked with Malaysia infographic startup Piktochart to come up with this graphical summary of her impressions of the Asian startup scene. She’ll be writing more about Asia in the future. Check it out: Read more

Infographic: What’s happening on the Internet every 60 seconds

The Internet is vast and thriving with activity. These infographics give you an idea of its scale — did you know that more than 695,000 Facebook status updates and 694,445 Google search queries are made every minute?

Images: GO-Gulf.com web design company