Yuhui's Social Media Blogger

BarCamp Singapore 6 at The National Art Gallery Singapore

2010-10-10T16:37:00.001+08:00

This weekend, I made my way to The National Art Gallery Singapore for BarCamp Singapore 6, i.e. the sixth BarCamp in Singapore. I had been half-hearted to attend, and even more half-hearted to present. But eventually, I packed in my trusty ol' MacBook Air "Aironaut" and made my way down the former City Hall at Fullerton Road.

Background
A "BarCamp" is an informal conference where anyone can speak on their topics, and attendees can vote on who they want to listen to. However, given the shortage of speakers in Singapore, almost everyone who wants to speak will eventually speak, even if he gets no votes. Oh wait, this is Singapore democracy...

Longer BarCamp, more sessions
What made this BarCamp Singapore special was that it was held over two days instead of the usual one day. With sessions held every half hour between 12pm-6pm, that amounted to a whopping 96 sessions! As usual, about half of them were tech-related, but there were just as many that covered other subjects, like "Why buildings hog so much energy" and "How to be a successful author in Singapore".

The venue: The National Art Gallery Singapore (former City Hall and Supreme Court of Singapore)
The National Art Gallery Singapore itself was quite chaotic, since there was an open house this weekend. As a result, not only did BarCamp attendees and Art Gallery visitors have to squeeze past each other, but there was the occasional interruptions from young children and old seniors during the presentations.

But BarCamp Singapore was purposely held during this time to (a) take advantage of the facilities when they're publicly available, and (b) to let members of the public become aware of BarCamp. (b) was moderately successful, with some members of the public peeking in initially out of curiosity, then staying for a session or two.

Post-session voting of speakers/topics
This BarCamp also allowed attendees to vote for their favourite speakers after each session. Voting was carried out through Twitter, apparently as a wide-scale beta test for someone's new web service. My gripe with this was that, for some bizarre reason, "retweets" were not counted as votes. (My other gripe was that voting was done on Twitter exclusively, so if you don't tweet, you don't have a voice. (Oh wait, Singapore democracy...)

Round-up
I liked the new concept of extending BarCamp Singapore to be more than one day. From previous BarCamps, I've noticed that there would be a few sessions that unfortunately didn't garner any votes and were thus left out. But I'm sure attendees would still benefit from those sessions. So I think this was a good idea.

But I'm not so hot on the post-session voting. And I'm not complaining because I'm a sore loser who will miss out on winning the iPad. I think its voting mechanics are flawed fundamentally and a manual count should be considered, especially if the vote counting system is still under testing.

Damn, I keep forgetting, Singapore democracy...

Review: omy.sg invitation to MINI Singles Party

2010-09-27T23:49:00.004+08:00

On a Sunday evening, the night of the finals for the Singapore Formula One race, I made my way down to CHIJMES for a singles party. I had been contacted through omy.sg some time back and frankly, I'd forgotten that I'd even furnished my details with them.

Registration was from 6-6:30pm, so of course I arrived at 6:30pm. The party was held on the front lawn on the ground floor, an open area that was encircled by a simple white chain. There was huge MINI backdrop at the front and two tables with finger food and alcoholic drinks to the rear. There were also some small tables for standing and milling around.

By the time I arrived, the proceedings had already begun. At the registration table, I got my goodie bag, which consisted of a few vouchers for spas and beauty treatments, then entered the lawn area.

Since I had gone alone, I wasn't sure of what to expect and had actually decided that if I wasn't having fun, then I'd just leave early. When the MC finished with her round of quizzes, we were invited to partake of the food and drink. I helped myself to some of the finger foods and took a cup of grape juice + vodka + apple bits. I should've gone for the orange + vodka a.k.a. screwdriver.

A lady saw my drink and asked me what it was. That question led to my joining her and her friend at a table. A few others joined us and soon I was talking for a long time with some of the women there. Two Japanese ladies also joined us, and soon they were lost in a Japanese conversation with the first lady.

The basic questions that we asked were: "Is this your first time at such an event?" and "How did you find out about this event?" The most common answers were, respectively, "Yes" and "Through an email". I later pieced together that this was organized by the Social Development Unit (i.e. the Singapore government's dating agency) and omy.sg was one of the partners. MINI was a sponsor, in conjunction with the ongoing F1 race.

While I was chatting with someone, Violet Lim of Lunch Actually took the mic and gave some tips on how to break the ice on a first date. She made everyone take part by making us ask one another "What is your dream job?" That question was supposed to spur us to be creative and get to impress the other person. But in the end, we mostly went back to familiar topics of conversation, like current job and music taste and "What would you be doing now if you weren't here?"

Later, six couples who had been preselected to go on dates were brought up on stage to find out which couple had learned the most about each other. However, by then, almost everyone in the audience was more interested in socializing. So I don't know what questions the couples were quizzed about nor who won.

Around 8pm, the party had ended. There was going to be a live screening of the F1, but there was hardly anybody left. Some of us who stayed a bit longer continued to meet and talk with the others, with some contacts being exchanged. This being the 21st century, I collected Facebook contacts rather than the usual phone numbers!

Generally, this party was badly organized. There were a lot of things to complain about. Firstly, there was the food, or rather, the lack of it. We were promised "free flow of food and drinks". But for an event that was held at dinner time and serving alcoholic drinks, the food was simply not substantial. I had to grab something to eat later, otherwise I'd be starving through the night.

The other letdown was the MINI sponsorship. We were only treated to a static backdrop with a picture of a MINI car. There was no actual MINI to be seen anywhere. And the contest prizes were for things other than MINI-related items. (T-shirts had been given away earlier, but I don't know if these were MINI-branded.)

And then there was the lack of any real ice-breakers, except for Violet Lim's challenge to us. This being a singles party, where almost everyone was a stranger, it would have been good to have some kind of simple organized activities.

Fortunately, there were people who were more adept at socializing among the participants, and they were able to get the reserved ones, like me, out of our shells. So kudos to those participants, but zero points to the organizers.

By the time I left, a few of us were talking about a movie outing. So I guess something potentially good came out of it.

And yes, I've added a few new Facebook friends too.

"Intro to Web Analytics" presented at BarCamp Singapore 5

2010-03-27T23:34:00.002+08:00

Intro To Web Analytics

View more presentations from Yuhui.

The presentation that you see above, "Intro to Web Analytics", was what I had presented at BarCamp Singapore 5. Thanks to the 10 or so votes that my topic received, I was able to present at 3pm. About 30 people attended it, and I hope they got to learn something new. Nonetheless, it was quite disappointing to see some people leave. And I don't know if it was lack of preparation or sleep or my soft voice or something else, but I have a feeling that I didn't quite connect with my audience as I would've preferred.

It seemed like just yesterday that I was attending my first BarCamp at IDA. That was the fourth time that a BarCamp had been held in Singapore. And now, I was not only attending the fifth Singaporean BarCamp, but also presenting!

My poor presentation this time round hasn't put me off from presenting again in future. It turns out that, though the BarCamp attendees are generally quite geeky, they need to hear a topic that can be understood by them or is amusing enough for its universally understood theme. Web analytics, as it turns out, is probably too specialized a topic for BarCamp.

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"Smallville: Absolute Justice" - BitTorrent piracy and why studios are the losers

2010-02-21T23:51:00.004+08:00

For a few years now, copyright owners have been hammering into our heads the dangers of intellectual property piracy. There were the big lawsuits from the music companies, and there are the ongoing litigation against film and TV show pirates. In spite of all these actions, piracy continues rampantly and studios lose millions of dollars.

Or so we are told. It is trivial to accept that, yes, studios do lose some revenue from piracy, after all, a lost sale is lost revenue. Similarly, it is reasonable to assume that any music/film/TV show/other intellectual property that a pirate wants can be obtained fairly quickly and easily at any moment in time.

I had a more intellectual pursuit of knowledge when it came to digital piracy. I wanted to answer two questions:

How long can a popular download last?
What is the estimated audience loss to the producer?

To answer my questions, I tracked the activity for a particular torrent, the telemovie "Absolute Justice" from the TV series, "Smallville". I picked this show for two reasons:

"Smallville" is an immensely popular show in the U.S. and around the world. I mean, hey, it's about freakin' Superman!
This show, in particular, had been hyped up significantly for its creative direction and appeal to comic book fanboys everywhere

Point of disclosure: I'm one of those fanboys.

One day to "Smallville: Absolute Justice"! *psych* Wonder how many BitTorrent seeds it'll spawn.
11:57 PM Feb 4th

My assumption from these two reasons were that those who were crazy about this show would also seek out ways to get the show. But for my purpose of actually tracking the show's piracy rate, I turned to BitTorrent. Yes, there are other methods and tools to pirate, but none provide publicly available numbers, or if they do, don't require a paid subscription to access those stats.

To track BitTorrent seeds (i.e. pirates who share a complete copy of the show) and leechers (i.e. pirates who are in the midst of getting a copy of the show), I used the popular tracker, isoHunt, which compiles seeds and leechers from a variety of BitTorrent sources, thus providing a nice aggregated number.

Over the next two weeks after "Smallville: Absolute Justice" had been screen on U.S. television screens, I tracked the number of seeds and leechers that isoHunt reported for its torrent. At first I started out every few hours of the first day, then the first few days, and then a week later. Here's what I found:

1. How long can a popular torrent last?
A torrent can last almost indefinitely, especially if it's popular. Two weeks after the torrent became available, isoHunt was still tracking about 700 leechers for "Smallville: Absolute Justice".

But see that blue peak at the left side of the chart? In general, the more seeds there are, the faster a torrent will finish getting a copy of the material. So the best time for a pirate to have obtained a complete copy of "Smallville: Absolute Justice" would've been within two days after the torrent was made available.

FYI: I label this period up to the seed peak as the torrent's "half life". Just as with isotopes, the number of seeds tends to decrease rapidly after that peak. It's a copyright-free term, so use it freely if you wish.

That observation also makes sense when you remember that piracy is illegal. Therefore, as soon as a pirate gets a complete copy, he would want to stop seeding to reduce his chances of getting caught. But why doesn't the number of seeds drop after the first day? My guesses:

BitTorrent download speed depends on the number of seeds available. So when there are few seeds early in the torrent's life, it takes longer for any leecher to finish getting a copy. To prevent any disruption from getting a copy, leechers probably leave their torrents running all the time and may "forget" to disconnect soon enough.
There are some altruistic pirates, though as time goes by, the fear of getting caught slowly outweighs the desire to help others, thus there are gradually fewer seeds overall.

2. What is the estimated audience loss to the producer?

I had said that "Smallville" is a popular TV series, and "Absolute Justice" was its most eagerly anticipated episode this season. Just how popular was it? According to CWTV's press release (CWTV was the U.S. network that premiered the show), "Smallville: Absolute Justice" garnered about 2.8 million viewers. To put that in perspective, that's about 50-60% of Singapore's population!

That's a lot of viewers!

And how many viewers did it lose to BitTorrent piracy? Assuming that one seed equals one viewer, then the area under the blue line chart represents about one million viewers (after rounding down conservatively). Putting that into perspective, that's about one-third of the legitimate CWTV viewers.

That's a huge loss!

Advertising from the show's premiere on CWTV should've been enough to cover the bulk of the cost of production. Additional sales from iTunes would cover the rest. DVD sales in future would pad the studio's pockets very nicely.

But sales from another one million viewers? That would be pure profit. And both Warner Bros and CWTV lost that. Which just highlights the problem that Hollywood has. While its actively suing consumers and imposing further restrictions on distribution, it's still dragging its feet on how to satisfy consumers who have a strong craving for its material.

Take copyright restrictions, for example. Now I'm a fanboy, I've followed the hype, I'm very very very psyched about seeing my comic book heroes come to life on the small screen in all of their spandex glory. But as someone living on the other side of the world, I can't watch "Smallville: Absolute Justice" legally. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. I either have to wait for my local TV station to bring it in (and it'll probably be screened at some unearthly hour), or buy the DVD when it comes out.

The problem is that it's not about content distribution on the Internet. News and discussions aren't controlled by geographical copyright restrictions. I've read the show's description, I've devoured the interviews with the cast and crew, and I've seen the teaser images. So has every other fanboy. But because I can't watch it (yet), I can't partake in the conversations with other fanboys or relish in the awesomeness of the show. I could read the recap and spoil myself over the plot, but where's the fun in that?

An enlightened Warner Bros and/or CWTV executive would do one of two things, or both:

Work with televsion stations everywhere to allow for one-time simultaneous worldwide screenings, akin to what movie studios do with their films.
Make "Smallville: Absolute Justice" available for digital sale all around the world, whether through iTunes or direct download from CWTV.com or other channel.

Whatever it does, the studio and producer need to figure out how to convert those one million viewers into non-pirates who can still enjoy their favourite show.

Of course, this is just wishful thinking on my part. No exec is that enlightened, unfortunately. There's more money to be gained in the short-term through lawsuits. In the meantime, pirates will continue to ride along the long tail of available torrents, or download their stuff from some other venue. And that's a pity for intellectual property owners who are trapped in their old mindsets.

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BarCamp Singapore 4 at IDA

2009-11-21T22:45:00.000+08:00

On a Saturday, when most geeks would take the opportunity to sleep in over the weekend, a large group of us descended on the Infocomm Development Authority's (IDA) office to attend the fourth BarCamp Singapore. This annual unconference featured presentations and discussions from various speakers covering a myriad of topics in more than eight rooms.

Aside: an "unconference" is a conference, but where the schedule is generally not cast in stone. Those who want to present put up their topics on a board (or wall, in this case), and attendees decide if they want to attend those presentations or not. It's very democratic in the sense that if a presentation garners no attendees, then no one is compelled to attend and the speaker doesn't need to present (though his ego may be hurt).

I arrived at BarCamp only in the afternoon. This was my first time at a BarCamp -- or any unconference, for that matter -- so I was just eager to better understand its concept. Looking at the topic wall, it seemed like most of the good stuff had already been presented in the morning. So I went for the next one that caught my interest.

Chris Gomez presented to a small, packed room on what makes a good film. Unfortunately, what I got out of it are:

a presentation with tonnes of slides that are whizzed through and the speaker stays quiet to let you read what you can makes for an un-gripping presentation, and
what makes a good film is subject to the producer's whims and fancies.

Chris began the session by trying to explain why "2012" was a bomb ("because it just sucks" was the gist of his argument), then showed clips from some videos, or rather, documentaries that he thought were the pinnacle of filmmaking. One or two were both entertaining and educational, but the rest were just artsy. I kept thinking to myself, "What about films that have made it big at the box office, shouldn't they be considered successful too?"

So I left my first session feeling disappointed and hoping that the next one would be better. I decided to pick something that is far out of my usual circle of interests, so I listened in on Khairul Rejal's presentation on the challenges facing Malay youth. He started 15 minutes late (apparently because all topics had been pushed back by a quarter of an hour) and dove straight into slide after slide showing, well, just how screwed up the Malay youth community is in Singapore, in terms of academics, family life and morality.

One thing that was debated for a long time between he and an audience member was the importance of religious studies to the Malays. The (Chinese) attendee didn't understand its significance and why Khairul harped on its importance. Khairul tried to emphasise that religious studies take on a unique level of importance in the proper moral upbringing of Malay youth. In hindsight, I guess the closest comparison that I could understand as a non-Malay/Muslim is the importance of Sunday school to Christians.

At the end, I took away that there are problems among the Malay youth and other Malay youths, like Khairul, are trying to fix things. Unfortunately, there were no clear next steps, no "how you can help", unless it was done very subtly or after I'd left.

The last presentation that I attended was one that had been tacked on late in the day. Joe Augustin, the radio DJ, presented on how it is important for individuals to market themselves successfully for the benefit of society as a whole. His basic premise was that if a genius or expert was not marketed well, and as a result no one made use of his abilities, then society would be the poorer as a result of its loss of using him. Joe laid out three fundamental principles that everyone needed to have:

an overt benefit -- not just obvious, but overt
a reason to believe in you, such as recommendations from others, and
be dramatically different -- no subtlety allowed

For an impromptu presentation, this one turned out to be the best one that I had attended. It wasn't just because Joe is naturally proficient at public speaking, but because his presentation actually made me think and reconsider my assumptions. I think that's the mark of a good presentation.

That took me to the end of BarCamp proper. After that, everyone adjourned to the newly opened HackerSpace at Arab Street for drinks. (HackerSpace is a small hall-like office for programmers to code together, but this time, it was just used as a social venue.) And then it was on to nearby Nadin's for a Turkish buffet dinner.

So that was my first experience at BarCamp. Overall, I found the quality of the unconference to be lopsided. You either get good speakers with powerful messages or you feel like you're attending a primary school presentation. But it was good to see that the topics were not just related to technology, but anything under the sun. I don't know if BarCamp still gives the impression of a geek conference, but if it does, then it needs to shed that image quickly for its benefit!

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Omy Halloween party at MINT Museum of Toys

2009-10-31T23:24:00.000+08:00

Thanks to Omy, I was invited to a Halloween party at the MINT Museum of Toys. Since I'd never been to this museum before, but had wanted to for the longest time, I figured that this would be too great of an opportunity to pass up. So I RSVPed in spite of not knowing who else (besides the one friend I could bring along) would be there.

As it turns out, the weather gods conspired against me, and the thunderstorm that evening prevented me from arriving at the appointed hour of 7pm. Instead, I finally set foot at the museum about one-and-a-half hours later, or about midway through the party. As such, now I really didn't know what to expect. The programme at the registration table gave the impression that the organised events had happened earlier, and the rest of the evening was "free and easy".

After getting some food in the basement restaurant, my friend and I headed up to see the exhibits in this five-storey museum. In spite of its many floors, there are surprisingly few exhibits, mainly because the museum is housed in an old pre-war building, so precious space is limited.

There was supposed to be a guided tour of the museum, but I guess we'd missed that, so we just wandered around on our own. There were a lot of old toys, which shouldn't be surprising since this is a museum after all. So there were no Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, no Ben 10, no Pokemon or Digimon or whatever-mon.

In fact, there were no toys from the eighties (as far as I could tell)! So yes, it was quite interesting to see the range of toys on display, but none of them really struck a chord with me that made go "aaahhhh" nostalgically.

As for the party itself, the main action was on the third floor, where there was a buffet dinner and live music. The people there were just mingling about, resembling a party for people who knew one another already. Almost everyone was in costume, though not necessarily in the "toys" theme, unless you count witches and the like.

Okay, I realise that this was a more-or-less "social media" event, and I had been invited as a blogger. But there really wasn't much of that aspect of activities going on. I recognised one other blogger, but then I can't possibly know every blogger in Singapore. But bringing a bunch of bloggers together doesn't make a "social media" event. And just because we're bloggers doesn't mean that we'll bond automatically.

(Of course, I realise that by saying the above, I'll probably never invited to another Omy event. Oh well.)

The party went on after the supposed end time of 10pm, but I and my friend left then. We were given a free mouse pad (!), some bookmarks and postcards (!!). In the end, I felt like this party probably was either not organised for random invitees, or I had arrived so late that all of those formal introductions had already been over and done with, so boo to me.

Instead, the highlight for me was viewing the toy exhibits... and I gotta admit, I'm really glad I went in free of charge.

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Social Media Breakfast 7 at Lenovo

2009-09-19T22:03:00.000+08:00

Picture from Willy Foo

It may have been raining, but that didn't stop me (though it did delay me) from joining almost a hundred other people from trooping down to Lenovo at Lorong Chuan for the seventh Social Media Breakfast outing. Instead of a hall, we were gathered in... the pantry! Well, at least the drinks were easily reachable.

The topic this time was to listen to a few case studies around social media marketing. As someone who's participated in a few of such "social media" events, I was eager to learn from the other side of the table.

Felicia from Text100 presenting on "Search for N". I don't read claudia.sg so I didn't know about this campaign. #smbsg7 11:58 AM Sep 19th from mobile web

First up was Text 100 to present a Nokia case study. This was around the "Search for N" campaign to launch the N97 phone. Organised as a treasure hunt, clues were seeded through blogs like Claudia.sg. Winners would then win the phone. I had no inkling of this particular campaign, but from the results, I'd say that Nokia was pleased with the results and publicity.

Express in Music talking about music personalisation. Something about composing and sales. I'm still trying to figure it out. #smbsg7 12:12 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

Instead of a case study, the next presenter, Express in Music, described what it did. I wish I had more to say about it, but I can't. And from some of the tweets during the presentation, it seemed like I wasn't the only one who shared that view. From what I gathered, it had something to do with end users creating their own music for a campaign because music is more intimate. And then they could sell the music... or something like that. Like I said, I'm at a loss here.

Around this time, Daryl Tay had to quieten the noisy folks at the rear of the pantry. I guess people were just too lazy to walk out to the driveway to chat.

Waggenner Edstrom up next. Long intro, probably used up half their allotted time! *lol* #smbsg712:28 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

Melvin Yuan started his Waggener Edstrom team's presentation with a long, somewhat rambling introduction. Anyway, the team then went on to present about last week's Twestival, in which they succeeded in collecting donations amounting to about $17,000 for the Children's Cancer Foundation. They also touched on Kiva.org (as an example of the power of micro-financing) and an HP event.

Brandtology introducing itself. No specific case studies? #smbsg7 12:41 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

Like Express in Music, the next two presenters didn't provide anything specific in terms of case studies, but were more like an introduction to their services. Brandtology described their business of monitoring sentiment, giving the example of looking at the online chatter around four blockbuster movies this year. Kelly Choo also said that he would be giving away a free self-painted Twitter bird. (The part about giving away a bird generated sniggers around the room.)

Ammado introducing itself. Platform to support the cause you want. Again, no specific case studies. #smbsg7 12:53 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

From what I learned, Ammado is a (U.S.-based?) platform that allows charities to collect donations. Corporations and organisations can also purchase vouchers, which can then be used to donate to any Ammado-listed charity. The service seems to have launched in Singapore, though the freebie voucher for SMB attendees was in U.S. currency. But as a friend remarked, it's a mystery about how it generates any revenue.

Blogathon case study on now. Eager to know how Tangs benefited from it. #smbsg7 1:04 PM Sep 19th from mobile web

Finally, the team from Lenovo, Intel and Tangs presented what Derrick Koh promised to be the "best presentation" of the day. They screened two videos from Blogathon, the 24-hour event at Tangs that had 10 bloggers staying awake to do stuff in the shopping centre, while getting their friends to vote for their favourite. Based on what they shared, it seemed like this event was all about generating awareness about... blogging? I don't know. Tangs apparently didn't fix any target in terms of sales or dollar return on investment, which I thought was unusual behaviour for a retailer.

After that was the food and networking moment. I caught up with some folks whom I hadn't seen in a long time. Almost everyone joked that we only meet at such social media events! Anyway, it seemed like people weren't staying for long, with most leaving within 10-15 minutes of the presentations' end.

What I liked about this SMB was that its continuing use of a fixed agenda suggests that its maturing beyond just a "talk cock" session. I'm sure there are those who prefer the old format (and thus were making all the ruckus during the presentations with their chatter), but this current format seemed to work in bringing in new attendees.

With that in mind, I thought that the venue was a letdown. The event announcement said that the place would be larger to accommodate the growing numbers, but it was actually quite small. And with two kinds of attendees (those who wanted to hear the presentations, and those who wanted to mingle), a venue that allows different activities would have been appreciated.

Unfortunately, even with a proper agenda and venue, it would still be up to the presenters to make attending SMB worthwhile. I was promised case studies and got only half of that. The rest came across as marketing spiels. And preparations were clearly inadequate, with presenters needing to fiddle with the sole laptop between their presentations.

Of course, it isn't easy to organise an event like this, especially from a logistics standpoint. And as SMB continues to grow, I guess details like these will be worked out eventually.

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Viral in Singapore - when juicy news is leaked and a newspaper gets caught flatfooted

2009-09-02T23:34:00.002+08:00

On Sunday, the headlines of the local English daily, The Straits Times (ST), was about a change in the off-peak car (OPC) scheme. This was something that was really big news given the government's obsession with reducing vehicle ownership and traffic congestion in land-scarce Singapore. The changes in the scheme promised to make it even more attractive and cheaper for drivers to own their own vehicles.

FYI the OPC scheme is one where cars are registered to be driven only at non-peak hours, i.e. early mornings, late evenings, and weekends. It's supposed to alleviate traffic congestion.

So that was the big news on Sunday: a massive change in a key land transport policy. And I found out about it like most other news-reading Singaporeans -- through the local press.

But it turns out that that wasn't the big news, as I was to discover on Tuesday. While going through my Twitter feed, I came across this tweet:

That got me intrigued, though I was to find out through later tweets that said link had been removed. But those tweets also recapped what had happened. In summary:

the Land Transport Authority (LTA) had briefed journalists about the OPC scheme's changes, ahead of the weekend
the news was to be embargoed until after Minister Raymond Lim's speech on Sunday
but a press release went up on LTA's website, which local car enthusiasts discovered and started discussing on car forums
ST asked LTA if they could run the story since it had been leaked, and LTA said no
but LTA later said yes, given that the leak had spread far and wide
ST journalists blogged about this incident, but later censored themselves

What did they censor? These are what I gather:

That an LTA executive had screamed at the journalists not to run the story
The phrase "red faces" in reference to LTA

You can read a fairly detailed recap at Mr Brown's blog.

I guess this is some kind of milestone in the government's dealings with cyberspace. Given the ease of connecting with people of common interests at certain online channels (forums, social networks, instant messaging, etc.), it is possible for juicy news to spread very quickly without control, like wildfire.

However, here's my additional two cents, from my personal perspective. As a non-car enthusiast, I had not known about the leak until I saw my friend's tweet. And in spite of my so-called digital connectivity, I had not known about the ST blog entry, again, until I saw those tweets.

Therefore, it is entirely possible that I would have missed out on this sensational news, had it not been for my connection to a well connected friend. Currently, I wonder how many people, especially those who are interested in the OPC scheme, are still in the dark about what had transpired.

In my view, this goes to show a few things about online connections and their impact on viral content:

Content must be extremely alluring to key recipients in order for the former to spread. In this case, it was the juiciness of a government news leak and a screaming government official.
It's really about who you know, i.e. whether you know the "influencers", not what you know or what you are. Like if I hadn't followed my friend on Twitter, I would be none the wiser of this event.
If you're an entity (person, company, society, etc.) with a sizeable and deeply engaged following, what you say and/or do online can be picked up immediately, and no change you make subsequently can cover up for it. Like ST censoring its blog entry to reduce LTA's embarrassment.

The above observations apply to the current craze of social media marketing, which I think is what makes that kind of marketing so difficult to do. I'm sure someone will eventually crack the methodology for effective social media marketing. And I'm sure the government will eventually figure out how to handle viral news to its benefit.

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Why I don't use Google Latitude

2009-07-28T00:11:00.002+08:00

Google Latitude seems to be all the rage now. I don't recall ever receiving so many invitations to join and share my location. Is it suddenly popular to let everyone know where in the world you are?

Not for me.

Over at Mocca's "Techie Monster" tribe, I've explained in detail "Why I don't use Google Latitude". Do you share the same sentiment as me?

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Facebook is not in China

2009-06-04T18:41:00.000+08:00

In my previous entry on Facebook's usage in Asia Pacific, I compared Facebook with Kaixin001 and Xing in China. But it turns out that there are even bigger social networks in the Middle Kingdom. (Which just goes to show that if you aren't as tuned into a particular market as you should be, you'll miss important information!)

Thanks to a pointer at Plurk (which has since been deleted for some reason), someone mentioned that I should look at Xiaonei. That was a forehead-slapping moment! I had heard of Xiaonei, but for some reason, it didn't cross my mind then to take a look at its usage.

That led to another forehead-slapping moment of realisation (and a really painful forehead!). I had forgotten about the other social network giant in China: QQ! QQ, of course, is more than just a social network. It has morphed into this giant portal-social network-instant messaging service, something that one would be hard pressed to find anywhere else (except perhaps in South Korea and Japan).

Here's what Google Trends reported for the visitors to Facebook, Xiaonei, Kaixin001 and 51.com in China:

I think the chart shows it clearly. When it comes to reaching social network users in China, Xiaonei and 51.com are the places to go, although it looks like Kaixin001 has been catching up in the last month. And, of course, Facebook barely registers a (relative) blip.

You'll notice that I didn't include QQ in the chart. If I had, all of the other lines would appear almost flat along the x-axis. That just goes to show the immense reach that QQ has in China -- and also the huge size of that market!

Aside: this week, China has been reportedly blocking major social network services as the anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown nears. Affected services include Facebook, Twitter and more. Such governmental actions, combined with the pecularities of the local market, for example, due to language, may make these local social networks even more well used locally. That's something to think about if you want to crack the Chinese market.

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Technorati tags: social networks, social media, China, Facebook, Xiaonei, Kaixin001, 51.com, QQ

Facebook is everywhere in APAC, right? Well, almost.

2009-05-29T15:50:00.001+08:00

Mention "social network" to anyone -- especially a marketer -- and you'll probably get this response: "Facebook". Facebook, the poster child for so-called Web 2.0 sites/services, has become so synonymous with the phrase "social network" that you will be hard pressed to think of another similar web service.

But while that may be true in a large and generally homogenous market like the United States, it does not necessarily apply in a fragmented market like the Asia Pacific. In this growing economic powerhouse, marketers have to consider the many different countries and languages, and the associated individual cultural eccentricities.

All of which means that if you're asked, "What is the most popular social network in Asia Pacific?", then Facebook should not be your only answer. Neither should your answer be limited to including Friendster only, which is still alive and kicking in this part of the world.

Comparisons of social network usage in Asia Pacific

To guide me in my thinking, I turned to Google Trends. Aside: this free service makes use of data from other databases to show how many visitors a website gets and which other sites these visitors go to. Thus, its results should definitely not be considered to be 100% accurate, but used as an indication of what the situation was in the past and where it's likely to go in the future.

Based on what I found, Facebook is generally well visited across the Asia Pacific region. In all countries, it appears to have significant share of voice. So if you can only invest in one social network and need to reach the most number of people, then Facebook is probably your safest choice.

But if you can afford to target individual markets, then here are a few social networks that you would probably want to consider.

China

Local site Kaixin001 (开心网 - literally "happy Web") enjoys a level of popularity that far surpasses Facebook. And it's still growing! When you also consider that China is considered to be the emerging Internet giant of the world, then Kaixin001 should be the place you want to be.

Another social network, Xing, is supposed to be huge in China as well. However, it doesn't appear to register in Google Trends. This either means that Google's database isn't as complete as we'd like to think it is, or Xing members have other, non-Web means of accessing the network. (This brings to mind a popular "social network" in India that uses the handphone, rather than the computer, as the device to connect with friends.)

Update: I've posted an addendum to this section to take a look at other Chinese social networks, like Xiaonei and 51.com.

The Philippines

Remember Friendster? Apparently, the Internet users of the Philippines still do. Friendster also still enjoys a good level of visits in Malaysia and Singapore. However, in these three countries, usage is dropping. Asia is supposed to be Friendster's base of strength, but based on these declining trends, it may seem that that won't be true for very long. (If I were Friendster management, I'd be thinking of ways and means to overcome this trend!)

South Korea

If you're an Internet marketer, then you would know that South Korea is in a cyberspace all of its own. With the country's unique characteristics, it is no wonder that its services are especially unique to its users. So it should come as no surprise that Cyworld is the largest social network there. Google reports that Cyworld's visitor level has been dropping slowly over the last 12 months. Though the instinctive response would be to blame Facebook (!), I'd wager that there are other, more plausible reasons that only the Koreans would know.

Thailand

When it comes to social networks, Thailand is another country that is all on its own. Locally, Hi5 is the most used social network. As is the case of Kaixin001 in China and Cyworld in South Korea, it is possible that language plays a huge factor in contributing to its large presence in Thailand. Also, possibly as a result of the close physical proximity and cross exchange of peoples, Hi5 has been enjoying substantial use in Vietnam.

Australia, Japan

Finally, we come to these two countries where music-focused social network, MySpace, has significant number of visits. However, the social network's visitor levels in these two countries has been dropping in the last 12 months, even as Facebook's has increased. Once again, the upstart proves to be a formidable challenger to the throne. But if you want maximum reach in these two countries, for now, MySpace should still be in your social network mix.

What's next?

Now that you have this information at hand, what can you do with it? That depends on why you need this information. If you need to blanket the region with a message, Facebook is probably your most logical choice. But if you have local content that is designed for local audiences, then you might want to think about diversifying your plan to include popular local social networks.

And one more thing: you might have noticed that I didn't include another popular social network, LinkedIn, in the above comparisons. LinkedIn is focused on a different crowd -- executives and professionals -- whereas the social networks mentioned above have mass appeal. So yes, LinkedIn would barely register as a blip in Google Trends. But if you need to reach these kinds of people, then you might want to think of LinkedIn too.

(Note: for the purpose of this entry, the Asia Pacific region refers to the group of these countries: Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.)

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Technorati tags: social networks, social media, APAC, Asia Pacific, Facebook, Friendster, Hi5, MySpace

Is Social Media Marketing illegal... in Singapore and APAC?

2009-05-06T16:50:00.000+08:00

Social media marketing has become the latest "in" thing for marketers to do. So it should be of great concern to learn that such tactics could be a marketing "grey area" or, at worse, downright illegal. SEOmoz has an article that discusses the legality of social media marketing from a U.S. perspective. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has guidelines about disclosure for paid endorsements, as part of its rules about "stealth marketing". Basically, this means that if you've been hired to say something good about a product or service, then you need to state that commercial relationship obviously.

This concern couldn't come at a better time. Social media marketing is picking up steam in Asia Pacific. In Singapore, there have been many so-called "blogger events" to promote new products and/or services to key local bloggers. While the bloggers are usually not paid in cash, they could be paid in kind, e.g. sample products and contests (does free food count?). Depending on how strict the court wants to be, that could be construed as being paid to endorse.

Of course, the first question you should be asking is: is there a law or ruling in the local market that is similar to the FTC's stance? I'm not a lawyer nor a legal expert, so I don't have a clear answer to this. But I also realise that I -- and any modern marketer -- should be aware of it now.

So to all the legal mavens who are reading this, what do you think: is social media marketing legal in the Asia Pacific region?

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Technorati tags: social media, law, legal, social media marketing, marketing tactics, stealth marketing, paid endorsement

Dear omy.sg - blogger engagement, you're doing it almost right

2009-04-30T22:10:00.001+08:00

As mentioned in my previous entry, I was willing to forgo certain "blogger liberties" in exchange for access to an exclusive event. (That event was the preview of "Star Trek".) On one hand, I was very excited and thankful to be one of the 30 bloggers who obtained free passes to watch it.

On the other hand, the overall experience left me feeling like a half-filled glass. Trouble started when I arrived to collect my passes. It turns out that this wasn't an omy.sg-only event. Rather, (I think) three other blogger-related groups had co-organised it. But this lack of exclusivity wasn't what frustrated me. It was the registration table. Representatives from the three groups occupied the same table, with their individual registration lists.

But there were no markers on the table to indicate who they were! I had to go from the Nuffnang representative to the omy.sg representative. Okay, I had to take an extra walking step down the table, but I thought that the situation could've been handled better. After all, such set-ups are second nature at wedding dinners, so someone somewhere should've known how things should be done to facilitate the registration process. (Unless none of the organisers and/or representatives had ever been to a wedding dinner.)

Then there was the lack of concessions. Ah, forget it. Getting a free pass to "Star Trek" was sufficiently awesome to overcome any lack of free food and drink.

But then, there was the issue with the free pass. We had to surrender them at the entrance, I suppose in lieu of an actual movie ticket. I later found out that some attendees were actually able to retain their passes. But I comforted myself with the assurance from the cinema usher that we would be able to get the pass after the movie.

How naive of me! By the time I left the cinema hall, the only passes left were those that were horribly bent or distorted. And then I realised -- of course! -- that people would take more than their allotment. Which thus left me empty-handed of freebies, save for a small badge.

But should I blame the organisers for this? Well, actually, yes. The free pass is a greater boast factor and much valued item than a badge (which was actually given out by the Starfleet uniform-clad Star Trek volunteers, not any of the organisers). We should've been allowed to retain the pass after passing the entrance. There was never the chance that someone would be able to give the pass to a friend outside of the restricted area, because of the ushers at the entrance and the demarcated queue and the general law-abiding nature of Singaporean residents.

So omy.sg, I hope that your next event is better planned and executed. Keep giving us the good stuff and you're bound to get very positive PR from your core market in return.

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Blogger engagement with penalisation - sign me up!

2009-04-27T23:11:00.001+08:00

Here's a curious case for social media beliefs. It's said that bloggers have generally become a force to be reckoned with. Some would say that they have more privileges than the mainstream media.

Case in point: organisations that engage bloggers in outreach programmes are generally advised not to dictate the terms of engagement, e.g. forcing the bloggers to write about the engagement/event. Instead, the organisations are told to let the bloggers do what they want, a privilege that the mainstream media does not enjoy. The theory is that these bloggers have developed a following of readers based on an unspoken agreement: readers will read the blog as long as the blogger does not sell out through non-voluntary endorsements. Therefore, it would be against the organisations' best interests to force the bloggers to do something that they don't want to do.

So, why would I agree to attend omy.sg's sneak preview of "Star Trek" (i) with the agreement that I will have up to three days to blog about it, and (ii) failing which I will be blacklisted from future movie previews?

Because this is an awesome opportunity for me that I can't afford to pass up!

Movies are one of my many passions. To be able to enjoy that passion on someone else's tab is an even sweeter treat. And I like writing reviews about the movies I watch. Heck, I even set up a movie blog dedicated to those reviews.

So since I was planning to write a review about "Star Trek" after watching it (on my own dime), writing a review for omy.sg is a non-issue for me. Of course, I'll thank omy.sg for the opportunity. But I don't have a problem with being blacklisted if I fail to live up to my side of the agreement.

(Which reminds me: set a reminder for Saturday to get the review up!)

Of course, undertaking such an engagement is not something that every blogger will agree to. I'm sure there are avid moviegoers who will pass on the sneak preview because they don't want to be tied to the three-day contract. That's their decision. I'm just not one of them.

It's like if Apple invited me to Cupertino for an all-access tour of their campus, and I had to sing their praises for the next year, then yeah, I'd do it too. Though I'd keep my praises in a measured tone because not everything that Apple produces is gold (remember the PowerMac G4 Cube?).

So with some engagements, a non-voluntary response is acceptable. But you, i.e. the organisers, have to be darn sure that your engagement is worth it if you expect to succeed in doing so!

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Opportunities abound after The Pirate Bay

2009-04-19T23:41:00.000+08:00

Recently, the courts in Sweden found BitTorrent directory The Pirate Bay guilty of, well, piracy. In case you weren't aware, The Pirate Bay had a notorious reputation for listing torrents to download movies, TV shows, music, books, software, basically anything that could be transferred over the Net.

(And "torrents" refer to the file used by the BitTorrent protocol, a method for efficient data transfer between computers. Sort of like file downloads, but on steroids.)

With The Pirate Bay shut down, there is now a large hole left behind for file sharers, waiting to be filled by the next Pirate Bay. Of course, there are those who are not too alarmed by the shutdown. After all, there have always been other BitTorrent directories (which I won't list here). Any of these could easily become the next big BitTorrent directory, and file sharers will be able to go about their "business" happily.

But this article isn't about piracy, it's about opportunity. In other words, what's next for Hollywood? The movie studios have scored a huge, decisive victory. But the tide has turned in terms of how consumers enjoy their films. Whether the ideal of "content should be free" is true or not, consumers have already become used to the idea of downloading their favourite shows to watch at their own time and leisure.

Of course, this isn't the first time that such a seismic shift has occurred. Remember Napster? After it was shutdown, other so-called peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and programs came up, notably Kazaa and Azureus. But significantly, so did the iTunes Music Store (now known simply as the iTunes Store). Consumers could download their favourite music, and music publishers got their royalties. And everyone was more or less happy.

Can the same happen with movies and TV shows? The iTunes Store already offers such downloads, but obviously that hasn't been enough to placate the general audience. I think the issue is with distribution. Music can be easily transferred to a portable device to be enjoyed anywhere. There is no similar device that provides the same level of entertainment at the cinema or in a home studio for movies/TV shows.

Sure, there's the iPod and Playstation Portable. But you have to be content with watching a show that was produced for the big screen on a tiny screen. The experience is similar to how it was when online video was just picking up with RealVideo.

And then there's the method of transferring the huge files to the consumer. BitTorrent succeeded because it was generally able to allow consumers to retrieve the full length shows at an acceptably short amount of time. Unfortunately, there is no such method among the legally acceptable networks/programs.

However, these are still early days and there is a huge opportunity for movie studios, device makers, lawmakers and consumers to exploit. The next person who can replicate a cinema experience -- or even a 40-inch full HD TV experience -- in a method that is seamless and transparent to consumers, especially technology-averse folks, will become the next film kingmaker.

But as the Swedish courts have determined, The Pirate Bay isn't one of them.

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Tweet (Twitter)! Tuesday: a tweet recap

2009-04-11T15:20:00.001+08:00

The first Tweet! Tuesday SG was held on 31 March. Though it was the day before April Fool's, what transpired was certainly no prank! Instead, attendees were treated to a presentation on what Twitter (and micro-blogging, in general) was about, and attempted to glean some information about its usage in Singapore and the region. Laurel Patworth, a social media marketer from Australia, also presented her two cents' worth on the micro-blogging and social media scene.

Upon arriving, Kelvin Lim had said that he had quoted something from my post about the non-agenda for Tweet Tuesday, so I eagerly awaited for it. (It was the "stand-around-and-talk-while-eating-free-food session" line.)

But more happened that night as well. So, in Twitter fashion, here's what I twittered about during the night:

Leaving for #TweetTuesdaySG now. Somehow, I don't think I'll be the last. Oh, and I'm going empty-handed too *bad karma* #sgtweet 6:43 PM Mar 31st from web
About 50 people at #TweetTuesdaySG. It's the eating/drinking/socialising phase 7:30 PM Mar 31st from mobile web
Tweet Tuesday SG starts now with an intro of what this is #sgtweet 7:42 PM Mar 31st from mobile web
Somehow I didn't get the survey. Hmm... #sgtweet 7:42 PM Mar 31st from mobile web
Intro to microblogging and Twitter #sgtweet 7:46 PM Mar 31st from mobile web
Twitter vs Plurk, haha. #sgtweet 7:51 PM Mar 31st from mobile web
Question time about Twitter, Plurk, and microblogging. The questions sound familiar... #sgtweet 7:54 PM Mar 31st from mobile web
Discussion about corporate and government use of Twitter #sgtweet 7:57 PM Mar 31st from mobile web
@claudia10 demoing SplitTweet #sgtweet 7:58 PM Mar 31st from mobile web
Done with the formal presentation #sgtweet 8:03 PM Mar 31st from mobile web
Laurel Patworth @silkcharm is speaking now #sgtweet 8:15 PM Mar 31st from mobile web
Viral is the antithesis of social media? Hmm... #sgtweet 8:40 PM Mar 31st from mobile web
Back to the socialisation phase of Tweet Tuesday #sgtweet 8:50 PM Mar 31st from mobile web
@mhisham says there's only one can of Carlsberg left - and lots of Tigers! #sgtweet 9:11 PM Mar 31st from mobile web
Leaving The Sail now. Not bad for a first event of Twitter Tuesday #sgtweet 9:32 PM Mar 31st from mobile web

(Note: the "correct" Twitter hashtag is #sgtweet, not #TweetTuesdaySG, though the former has been messed up by including any tweets about Singapore.)

And two more that were tweeted later:

#Singapore city skyline from the 44th floor of The Sail. http://bit.ly/SYAo7 Missing one integrated resort tower due to incorrect overlap. 12:08 AM Apr 1st from web
Turns out that I did receive the #sgtweet survey. This is what happens when I check my email and Facebook inbox once a day! 12:25 AM Apr 1st from web

In the end, Kelvin remarked that it had become another "talk cock" (or "tweet cock") session. Ah well, I guess you can't stray far from that.

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Tweet (Twitter)! Tuesday: what's the agenda?

2009-03-28T18:23:00.001+08:00

While the focus this weekend is on Social Media Breakfast (or dinner, as the case may be) and its tie-up with Earth Hour, I want to take a moment to ponder about another "social media" event that's coming up. It's called "Tweet! Tuesday" and this Tuesday's one will be the first in Singapore.

My first encounter with Tweet! Tuesday was through a Facebook event invitation from Kelvin Lim. He later messaged me that there was no specific presentation for Tweet! Tuesday. That made me remark that it could become another stand-around-and-talk-while-eating-free-food session.

Which was what Social Media Breakfast has been like until recently. The danger for Tweet! Tuesday then is that there would be nothing to differentiate it from any other "social media" event, and it might devolve into nothing more than a gathering of like-minded people.

Of course, I don't think Tweet! Tuesday is supposed to be another "talk cock" session. The Facebook event's description stated simply:

Join us for Tweet! Tuesday and find out what's the fuss over Twitter, Plurk, Jaiku and other micro-blogging services and learn /discuss how experts are using them.

That makes it sound like its focus is on so-called micro-blogging services and probably their impact on the local social media scene.

I went in search of other Tweet! Tuesdays to see if other countries/cities had similar events. Though none were found, I did locate Twitter Tuesday, which is probably what Tweet! Tuesday is based on. Apart from looking like a spam site, there was no "About" page there that explained what Twitter Tuesday was about. But from the site's contents, I got the impression that it was about how people and organisations are using or can use micro-blogging as part of their online mix, and the tools that would help them.

Assuming that that is the direction for Tweet! Tuesday, I suggest the following:

assume that attendees are familiar with Twitter and/or micro-blogging services (since I suspect that the "usual suspects" will be in the invitation list)
ask them why they use a particular service, e.g. Plurk instead of Twitter
what have they used micro-blogging for
likes/dislikes about micro-blogging

At this point, I doubt it's necessary to discuss the various tools that are available. Instead, getting the answers to the above questions could lay the foundation for deciding the agenda and direction for future Tweet! Tuesdays.

And let's not make it another "talk cock" -- or "tweet cock" -- session!

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Google now allows advertisers to target behaviour

2009-03-12T23:21:00.002+08:00

Today, Google announced a new way for advertisers to be able to target their ads based on visitors' behaviour. Google calls this "interest-based advertising", i.e. advertising according to your interests.

But some may call it a gross invasion of privacy.

How does Google determine what you're interested in? It uses your history of previously visited websites to figure that out. The way current browsers are designed, it is theoretically impossible for Google to know where you're going unless you explicitly allow it to do so, e.g. by installing its Google toolbar in your browser.

But there are a few other less obvious ways that Google can collect your history. One of them could be through its AdSense network. Website publishers make use of AdSense to deliver ads and earn revenue. With its large AdSense network, Google has in its hands websites that cut across a swath of categories -- and the people who visit those websites. It would be trivial for the Google AdSense cookie to add your visit to Google's history-tracking database.

Another method, which a friend brought up, could be through Google Analytics. This is another tool that is used by a huge number of websites. Google Analytics is used to track website traffic. But owners can also allow their website tracking information to be shared with other Google products. So who's to say that Google isn't using Analytics to collect visitors' web history?

Of course, all of the above is speculation. But that doesn't mean it's not possible. Should you be worried? I am. And Google probably understands that. It's provided a page where you can set your advertising opt-in preferences. But based on my usage, it seems like the page isn't working. I get an error that my browser is blocking cookies, even when I've set my preferences to accept all (which, by the way, is something that you should never do, unless you really don't care about your privacy).

What do you think about this new development in advertising?

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Twitter/Plurk music recommender: songs you like that no one's heard of!

2009-02-15T17:20:00.001+08:00

In my search for new music to listen to, a thought suddenly crossed my mind: I like to a lot of songs, but they're probably so obscure that no one knows about them! And maybe there are other people like me, in that they like other obscure songs.

That thought led me to post on Twitter and Plurk: "What song/s do you like, but chances are, no one else has ever heard it/them?"

The response wasn't overwhelming, perhaps because no one reads my tweets/plurks (or maybe my question was too bizarre to respond to!). Which brings into question the power of "social media". People/organisations/brands will only listen and respond to you if you have influence. No one's going to bother with you if you're a "small-timer" in terms of content creation/contribution, thus you will make a negligible dent in the universe. Just because you blog/tweet/plurk/Facebook/whatever doesn't mean that you are suddenly on a very large pedestal. It just means that you blog/tweet/plurk/Facebook/whatever.

Nonetheless, here are 11 song recommendations:

Varsity Fan Club - "Future Love"
Michael Jackson - "Ghosts"
Sara Groves - "When the Saints"
Carlotta - "Maybe in a Year"
Standfast - "Carcrashes" (recommended by me!)
The Beatles - "The Long and Winding Road"
Danny Woon - "Siapa"
Mariah Carey - "Breakdown"
Omerta - "Lamb of God"
Tartini - "Devil's Trill"
The Mae Shi - "R U Professional"

Watch them now!

YouTube playlist: Twitter/Plurk music recommender: favourite songs - unheard!

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My review of Plurk

2009-02-06T00:31:00.006+08:00

In addition to Twitter, I've been using a similar service called Plurk for some time now. Like Twitter, it lets me post short messages (up to 160 characters long) and follow my friends' messages. But there are a few other thing that I like, which I've finally jotted down and reviewed.

Here's my full review:

About a year ago, when Twitter experienced serious site issues, it caused a lot of people to look for a similar service to continue their conversations. One short message service that benefited was Plurk.

Like Twitter, Plurk is a place for you to post short messages. These messages are limited to 160 characters, so you're forced to be concise about what you want to talk about. Like other social networking services, you can add your friends to view their messages. All messages appear in a common timeline. There is also a mobile version so you can "plurk" from your phone.

But Plurk also has a few extra features that make it stand out and, in a way, more engaging.

1. Horizontal timeline
The first thing you'll notice is that you view your timeline in a left-right fashion. I won't go into the technical details here, but suffice to say that you can use your mouse's scrollwheel to scroll horizontally in the timeline. Each message is placed at around the time that it was sent. Thus, the timeline looks quite haphazard, though there is a method to the madness. With this spatial arrangement of messages, you have a visual cue as to how recent each message was sent.

2. Threaded conversations

One annoying thing about Twitter is that responses are not grouped together with the original message. If you want to view all responses to a particular message, you can't. On the other hand, Plurk groups responses together. If a message has any responses (indicated by a little number next to the message), you just need to click on the message, and the list of responses will appear. This makes it far easier to follow conversations.

3. Unread message count in the browser title
One annoying thing about Twitter is that you need to reload the site to view the most recent messages (when viewing your profile only). Plurk automatically checks for new messages at periodic intervals. This is achieved through AJAX, so the background activity is completely transparent. If there's any new activity, e.g. new messages or new responses to old messages, Plurk notifies you by reflecting the unread count in the browser title. It also provides a handy link to new messages and/or responses, so you don't need to hunt them down in your timeline.

4. Karma

To encourage members to make use of the service, Plurk uses something called "karma" to reward usage. The more you use Plurk (post messages, respond to messages, get more responses per message), the more karma you gain. Once you obtain a certain level of karma, you're rewarded, e.g. change your display name and timeline design, new smiley emoticons, etc. But for every upside, there's a downside. If you don't use Plurk, e.g. if you're on vacation, then you lose karma and could potentially start from zero.

5. Qualifiers

Plurk recognises that messages are not necessarily about what you're doing. They could be about what you're thinking or feeling or loving or hating. These verbs, e.g. "thinks", "feels", "loves", "hates", etc., are known as qualifiers. You can pick one for each message to make it more meaningful. The most popular qualifier is "says", but you can also "share" stuff, like photos and videos. Which leads to...

6a. Thumbnails of photos and Youtube videos
Like Twitter, you can post links to web pages, photos, videos, basically anything that has a URL. But if you post a link to an image, Plurk automatically displays a thumbnail of that image. Click on the thumbnail, and you can see an enlarged version of that image. If you post a link to a Youtube video, Plurk posts a thumbnail of the video. (Unfortunately, Plurk doesn't provide thumbnails for videos from other sources, e.g. Metacafe).

6b. Labelling URLs
For all other URLs, you can hide the URL with parantheses, e.g. http://plurk.com/yuhui/invite (Join Plurk now!) will display Join Plurk now!

7. Cliques

Another cool feature that's provided out-of-the-box by Plurk is the ability to group your friends in "cliques". For example, you could group your colleagues under "Work" or drinking buddies under "Barflies". With cliques, you can message those friends without naming them one-by-one. Then only your friends who are in that clique will see your message, while keepng it hidden from everyone else.

8. Privacy
Talking about privacy, Plurk also allows you to post a message that can be seen by only certain people. Twitter provides something similar with direct message, but that service is limited to a one-to-one conversation. Plurk lets you post a private message that can be seen by specified friends and/or cliques. This makes it a one-to-many conversation, which is infinitely more useful.

With these stand-out features, it's no wonder that there is a thriving community on Plurk. The Singapore Plurkers are quite a chatty bunch and have been known to organise spontaneous get-togethers through the service. There's even a Facebook group for Singapore Plurkers .

So if you're game for another messaging service besides the ever-popular Twitter, give Plurk a try!

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Bloggers' Calendar 2009

2009-01-08T22:56:00.001+08:00

Back in Hari Raya Haji of 2008, I trooped down to a photography studio near the old Rex Theatre to participate in a fun little "grassroots" activity that would eventually become christened as "Bloggers' Calendar 2009". It had been organised by a group of bloggers who openly invited any other blogger to have his/her picture taken.

We were given timeslots according to our birth months, so at the appointed time, I showed up at the studio. The photoshoot itself was held in a fun and casual manner. We did some serious shoots and some wacky ones. We tried different positions and played with angles.

But what was supposed to be a ten-minute shoot stretched into an hour. Not that I was bored in the intervening moments. Among other things, I hijacked Daphne's Plurk, attempted to set up a (modded) Wii, and helped to buy lunch for those who were there.

All that happened about a month ago. The Bloggers' Calendar 2009 was "officially" launched on the fourth day of the new year with a dinner party. It consists of cards for each month, contained within a plastic case (like a CD jewel case). It cost $6 each, but for the glossy output, I think it was worth it.

An online version of the Bloggers' Calendar has also been made available. There's talk that it will include some interactivity. Okay, I guess that'll be cool. For me, what I really enjoyed was how this thing was done by a group of people who just wanted to have fun together. No ego was (apparently) involved and no corporate sponsorship was entertained (there was a serious discussion among the participants about sponsorship).

I suppose this will continue to be an annual occurrence (as long as resources remain available). I think it'd be nice if more people could participate. I had invited (through Facebook) other bloggers, including Mr Brown. Alas...

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Blogger events are hype, don't fret over them

2008-12-20T23:16:00.002+08:00

It's been nearly a month since some folks discussed how bloggers are invited to corporate events. I've thought about this for a long time, but had not found the right thing to say. But as Preetam would tell everyone and Nadia seems to imply, nothing's happened unless I started some kind of controversy. So here goes.

Firstly, a chronological background of what this "debate" was:

(There may have been more entries written in relation to this debate, but I am not aware of them (as of this writing).)

To Shelly and anyone who's bothered by this debate, my suggestion is: "Don't worry your pretty little head over this." There are two "truisms" about the blogosphere:

Blogs are rated as the least trusted news source.
In Singapore, more people from many walks of life go to STOMP.

I'm also not giving that suggestion because I'm one of those bloggers who gets invited to said events and don't want any "competition". In recent events, I've actually been the one who said, "Hey, let's find more people who are outside of the usual circle to participate." If organisations want to "engage" bloggers, then they damn well better invite every Tom, Dick and Hari blogger that they can lay their hands on!

But if you still want to attend these events, then there are avenues to aid your discovery. I personally have gone to the extent of managing not one but two calendars of events. Social Events started off as a Google Calendar. Though that is still updated, Social Events really lives on at Yahoo Upcoming. If you see an event there and its notes don't say "By invitation only", then you're welcome to attend. Most of the time, you'll rarely even see those three magic words, which means you can attend if you have time and know how to get there.

Another way to find out about these events is through other people. As the saying goes, it's not what or how much you know, but who you know. Priss mentioned that she's been invited to events because she knows Sabrina. I don't know Sabrina (well, okay, I introduced myself to her once, but seem to have fallen off her radar since then), so I don't get invited to those events. So Shelly, don't feel so excluded. I may be invited to some blogger events, but there are many that I am excluded from.

Oh yeah, they are parties. They're events by name only. They're really about getting a bunch of people together and filling their stomachs with free food and drinks and their minds with hype and politically correct niceties. I've never organised a corporate blogger event, but my guess is that the thinking goes along these lines:

"Hey, I've got this awesome new product/service that's launching in Singapore. Yeah, social media is important and all that. It'd be cool to invite some bloggers down for an 'exclusive' event. Give them some free food, throw some freebies around. But don't forget to hype up the new product/service! Get them to write about it. (And subtly encourage them to leave out the bad stuff.) Yeah, that is so cool, man. Oh, after that? *pfftt* The newspapers/TV will take care of that."

That's the impression I get, anyway. They're just a one-night-only, two (okay, three)-hour partying and networking and hype. After that, you go your way, I'll go mine, at least until the next event for the new "gee whiz" product/service.

As the saying goes in "Grey's Anatomy": "Seriously?" Shelly, is this really what you want?

Perhaps I've become jaded to all of these so-called "blogger events". Sure, they're fun, in a way. For the penny pinchers, they're great places to load up on unhealthy food and get some free entertainment. For social butterflies, they're wonderful venues to catch up with pals and make new ones. And for the organisers, they're a low-cost way to (hopefully) get more related results in a search engine.

Of course, as more people attend these events, more entries will be written about the product/service being hyped. That could lead to more irritation by readers who wish wistfully for the time when blogs were online personal diaries without the product placements. I've no answer to that except to stop reading them. Besides, blogs aren't trusted, remember?

In summary:

Yes, you can attend blogger events! Check out Social Events or contact the right "influencer" (that's my label, not any PR agency's or organisation's).
Blogger events are these delightful, free parties. And don't forget the product/service marketing hype!
If you don't like reading event-related entries, don't read them. No one trusts blogs anyway, so you'd be better off too.

Aside to organisers of these events: just because you invite a few self-proclaimed bloggers to your event doesn't immediately make it a "social media" event.

Aside to folks who invite me to these events (or were going to): if this entry takes me off your list of invitees, so be it. But I hope you replace me with someone who is not one of the "usual suspects". At least then my exclusion can count for something.

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Social Media Breakfast 5 at Samsung Store, Vivocity

2008-12-13T16:31:00.000+08:00

Picture from Claudia Lim

It was time for another Social Media Breakfast (or Brunch, really) and, to tie in with the festive period, it was a year-end party. It was held at the Samsung Store at Vivocity. I had thought that the area would be too small to accommodate everyone, but it turned out to be just nice.

Perhaps it's because the turn-out wasn't as large as at the previous Social Media Breakfast at URA Centre. Still, where it lack in quality, it made up for in terms of quantity.

And by quantity, I mean the proportion of new faces to familiar ones. I didn't recognise about half of the attendees. Over a sumptuous meal, I talked with a few of them. Time will tell whether these new faces return to upcoming social media events.

An Xbox and Wii consoles had been set up (to be used with two of the flashy flat panel Samsung TVs), but few people played with them. Instead, as had happened at previous Social Media Breakfasts, people were more interested in chatting and mingling. I suppose that's how things are, and everything else is, to put it nicely, a distraction.

There was supposed to be a webcast with the U.S. founder of Social Media Breakfast, but it never happened due to technical difficulties.

Instead, the highlight of the afternoon was a pitch by Daniel Goh for Samsung Hope. It's Samsung's corporate social responsibility project that encourages the public to donate to its selected charities. While venue owners aren't allowed to pitch their (commercial) products, Samsung apparently was provided some leeway to promote its charity.

Overall, the party was a good time to catch up with old friends while getting acquainted with new ones. Post-event, a few people adjourned to Starbucks (I guess someone needs to bail them out of their 97% profit loss). I left for a while, but returned in time to hear Bernard Leong espouse on his hope for a new local social media tool, which if I dare say is one that I've thought of before but never knew how to execute.

Related entries:

Social Media Breakfast 4 at URA Centre: corporate approach to social media - 4 October 2008
Social Media Breakfast 3 at Asian Civilisation Museum - 16 August 2008
Social Media Breakfast at Frujch - 29 March 2008

Social Events calendar - now on Upcoming

2008-10-09T23:16:00.001+08:00

Sometime back, I started a Google calendar to keep track of so-called social media-based events in Singapore. Today, I'm "moving" Social Events to Yahoo's Upcoming service.

Actually, it turns out that there was already a group for listing such social media-based events. Not surprisingly, it's named "Social Media Singapore". However, it looks like it hasn't been used at all. So I've started listing the events that used to exist in the Google calendar.

Truth be told, I was never really comfortable with using Google calendar. I had the feeling that not many people were familiar with such iCal services, let alone know how to subscribe to one. Upcoming, on the other hand, uses a familiar RSS feed, which anyone can subscribe to. In addition, anyone with a Yahoo account can also contribute to the group (hint to all social media event organisers!).

(And, of course, I'm an idiot for being slow to pick up on this free service in the first place!)

I hope the move helps to increase awareness of these social events in Singapore. There is definitely a need to raise awareness of social media in Singapore, as seen from growing corporate adoption of it in marketing. I hope the Social Media Singapore group helps to facilitate that growth.

And if you're an organiser, please add your event there!

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Social Media Breakfast 4 at URA Centre: corporate approach to social media

2008-10-04T18:11:00.001+08:00

The fourth Social Media Breakfast (or Brunch, as the organisers renamed it) had a different format from previous ones. Whereas they used to be informal networking sessions with food, this one had a panel discussion... though still with food.

The topic was on how companies could make use of social media. Due to the make-up of the panelists, the discussion was very oriented towards public relations (PR).

Here are my notes:

Panelists: Willy Foo (LiveStudios) (moderator), Derrik Koh (Lenovo), Pat Law (Arc Worldwide), Supriya Addanki (Text 100), Daniel Goh (Samsung), Ben Koe (formerly from Hill and Knowlton)

Derrick: Social media is unconventional. It needs selling in to management. Social media is about creating / participating in conversations. 4 Ps: people, privacy, passion, perpetual beta.

Daniel: Conversations have shifted to online. 90% of customer service complaints are online. Marcom execs are resistant to adding more duties / KPIs.

Ben: Social media is not a one-time event, needs ongoing commitment from company even with agency changes.

Supriya: Agencies need to learn and engage in social media first.

Derrick: New metrics needed to measure social media / relationships / conversations, e.g. not measured in sales.

Daniel: Traditional management can barely understand "hits". It also needs to understand about message / tone of conversations (qualitative data).

Supriya: Need to know profile of bloggers that you are talking to. Build one-to-one relationships.

Derrick: Conversations need to be two-way, i.e. between bloggers and companies. Feedback is important between both parties.

Pat: went through her entry, "11 things you need to know when pitching to bloggers".

Derrick: Easy for anyone to talk about a brand, so management is tempted to pay bloggers, especially for positive comments.

Willy: No stopping professional bloggers from demanding payment.

Supriya: Agency's responsibility to educate bloggers, e.g. about journalism.

Derrick: There's a lot of good and bad social media "stuff", but it's up to management to decide how to engage. It's a derivation of the PR side of business, e.g. dealing with journalists. Social media is an evolution of traditional tools, e.g. CRM.

Daniel: Engage bloggers appropriately. Understand level of blogosphere, know who are the readers. Also, no one-size-fits-all solution to engaging bloggers.

Supriya: What do bloggers want in an event? (open to floor)
DK, NTT: It depends on bloggers
Claudia: Something fun, engaging, different
Cullen: Try the product, something friends can be engaged in

Derrick: Companies need to find out if new platform makes sense to them. E.g. Lenovo targets niche groups, not mass public. Give bloggers what they want, e.g. at events. Bloggers are not the same in other countries, understand local norms, e.g. in Japan and India, bloggers and journalists cannot be in the same room.

Geri (from Lenovo): Marcom execs are encouraged to innovate, e.g. seek out new channels.

(lunch break)

Willy: showed a Youtube video to illustrate how social media can bring fame.
Willy: demonstrated how LiveStudios uses Facebook.

(around this point, I dozed off from lunch, so my notes are sketchy)

Derrick: Use social media to build credibility. Corporate blog should be about what people want to talk about.

Melvin Yuan (from Waggener Edstrom): Social media is still in the honeymoon stage. Businesses are driven by bottomline, but social media is about relationships. Social media is today's PR.

Derrick: Companies lose control in social media, but PR still retains control of the message.

Pat: Too frivolous to claim that all companies need to engage in social media.

Derrick: Pick your weapons and tools.

Melvin: Social media affects everyone.

Willy: Different strokes for different folks.

(the end)

There was a much larger turn-out this time round. Aside from meeting some new social media enthusiasts, I also talked with some PR execs too. (I've even been contacted for an event already!) I think this is a good sign, especially from an event perspective. As I've lamented many times, I always see the same faces at different events. Hopefully, this will change after the PR folks meet unreached enthusiasts at SMB4!

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