the(new)mediaslut

The blog post started as a cry for help. Now it has turn into a media circus.

It might have taken Jean of Jean.sg lots of guts to blog a post her post re-accounting her unfortunate incident where her modesty was deemed to have been outraged, however, was she aware of the reactions she would be getting from netizens?

They varied from support to insults.

Interestingly, the blog post has been picked up by the Singapore media and it seems like John (the alleged aggressor) has turn into from villain to the unfortunate victim.

This blogger have been asking her girlfriends if they would blog about such an incident and to get their opinion about the blog post.

Not surprisingly, many of them replied that they would not blog about it because it was something too personal.

What surprise me was their reaction to the blog. Most of them highlighted that they felt Jean was just trying to get attention.

Maybe that’s the problem. Has social media turn bloggers into anti-social animals where the blog is the only avenue to attract attentions to one call for help?

Or is it the medium that is starting to be the place for a person to let out her/his soul?

Or maybe, just maybe, bloggers need to have their own PR person to help them communicate to the press?

So what should Jean do now? or John?

From left: Alice Sabrina Priscilla Fidelis Esther Peggy Qiaoyun

The Associate Press (AP) came under fire from last week for serving a take down notice against the Drudge Retort for copyright violations.

It seemed AP wants quotes from 33 to 79 words from the site.

Jeff Jarvis for Buzz Machine posted that AP’s action was calling the pot black.

Wrote Jeff,

This complaint comes from an organization that leaches off original reporting and kills links and credit to the source of that journalism. Yes, it has a right to reproduce reporting from member news organizations. But as I point out here, the AP is hurting original reporting by not crediting and linking to the journalism at its source. We should be operating under an ethic of the link to original reporting; this is an ethic that the AP systematically violates.

Jeff, a few days later, suggested that AP should has proposed a link ethics.

Whenever this blogger cuts a quote from another blog post or online media outlets, this blogger will try her best to link it to the site.

This blogger also limits herself to cutting a paragraph or two, three max, from the source.

However, some Singapore bloggers looked to cut and paste the entire article, citing the source but do not link it back to the source.

Blog.Simplyjean.com is one such blog that has been cutting and pasting the entire article from the straitstimes.com without linking it back to their site.

Simply Jean via kwout

Jean’s argument would most likely be that the link to the article will disappear after two weeks in straitstimes.com.

But should simplyjean .com also follow Jeff’s link ethics and link the article back to straitstimes.com?

(This blogger thanks a reader who coming up with this post’s title.)

APLINK has gone on a rampage in his blog with posts about his unhappiness with Ping.sg banning one of his client’s blog, Hypercol.

Some have argued that the blog has been hacked. However, its not. Its the wrath of APLINK.

I disagree with APLINK on his approach of taking on Ping.sg. His emotions got him the better of him and this is what his posts represent now.

Unfortunately, blogs remain in Google-space for an eternity until Google shuts down. With this type of posts, it is not going to be his best reference of what he is really capable of doing in the blog-o-sphere.

Saying that, APLINK  is angry, very angry, very very angry. He has been supporting Ping.sg for pushing a client to advertise in Ping.sg, but he got banned without a prior warning. Sending an email to tell a member his blog has been taken out isn’t prior warning, its an ultimatum.

This sounds smacked of what ODEX and Nuffnang have done recently.

Prior to this, when APLINK managed to get the client to sign on to advertise with Ping.sg and even engineered a search bar to help increase the interactivity of the ad, out came a competitor ad just next to it, above and under.

Ping.sg did not have to seek APLINK’s approval for the competitor’s ad. Experienced ad sales people will tell you that it is better to at least inform APLINK first before doing so. Ping.sg did not.

Talk about building a relationship.

While Ping.sg might see APLINK as a small blog, it still that get the hits and his visitors’ perceptions of Ping.sg might change over night.

Seeing how APLINK is also networked in the communications industry, hell hath no fury than the wrath of a scorned communications person, especially since APLINK has privy to some inside Ping.sg stuff which was highlighted by the Ping.sg creator himself!

That, however, is for another post.

Andrew, of APLink, is pissed that Ping.sg has taken out his client’s Hypercol blog because it was deemed as a commercial blog by Uzyn, the creator of Ping.sg.

Wrote Andrew,

Whilst I am U-Zyn’s friend this email is just ridiculous when companies like nuffnang, advertlets & blog2u have used his portal to make huge amounts of money from advertisers like nike ….on bloggers sites (isn’t this commercial). This only makes me think that ping has double standards -

Uzyn has countered and wrote,

We at Ping.sg have noticed that there have been an increasing number of commercial sites misusing the bloggers’ platform for their commercial purposes.

Sticking to our policy that Ping.sg is only for bloggers in the region, we have recently banned tens of sites, linking to commercial entities, from further using Ping.sg services.

Uzyn’s earlier post was a job advertisement looking for an intern.

Unless the role of the intern is to be his personal assistant, Uzyn’s intention to hire an intern has to be for commercial reasons too.

Going by Ping.sg’s definition of what commercial blogs, did Uzyn misused the bloggers’ platform for his own commercial purposes too?

Be An Intern At Ping.sg! « Ping.sg Blog via kwout

This argument of commercial blogging isn’t new. Back in 2005, a blogger at Techrepublic also raised the question asking what constitute a commercial blog and when does that blog cross that line.

Wrote Jay Garmon,

Of course, every silver lining has a potential cloud, and we’re already starting to trip over potential problems. Specifically, what happens if somebody uses their blog as a “free advertising” platform for their business. Setting aside the potential legal implications, would members find this offensive? Personally, I’m of the mind that members can blog about anything that isn’t illegal or blatantly offensive, but I’ve seen plenty of discussion threads that have been used to plug a Web site or a business, and the community’s response to these posts has almost invariably been pretty negative.

Should Ping.sg ban commercial blogs? That’s Uzyn’s call.

However, my suggestion for Ping.sg is to let the community decide. At the end of the day, that’s what web2.0 is about. The creator gives out the tool, creates a community and let the community decide.

If Uzyn decide to play the role of gatekeeper, then the web2.0 has taken two steps back and have gone back to the media0.5 generation.

Commercial blogs usually don’t get the Pongs and are usually ignored.

Even if a post becomes abusive and racial, Uzyn has also set in place tools to prevent such posts from getting ponged or from appearing in Ping.sg.

I wonder, as much as the Web2.0 generation preached about the Web2.0 culture of the down-up approach, why is it I keep seeing the return of the top down control they try to put in place?