the(new)mediaslut

It seems banning DK99 from Ping.sg has somehow made DK Ping.sg’s “in-group” public enemy number one.

And as Sun Tze said, its better to keep your enemies closer so you know what they are doing.

DK has announced an hourly special to state his opinions about the recent ban by the Ping.sg “in-group”.

The first two are out and there make for an explosive read for a Sunday.

Wrote DK of dk.blog.sg,

Below are the blog entries planned for the day and their schedule released time today.
Note: All timing are in Singapore time (GMT+8)

1100am: My reply to “The Reason Behind dk99’s Ban” - My reply to the locked forum entry.

1200pm: Anniversary Party Sponsors. Where are they now? - A look the sponsors of Ping.sg 1st anniversary party and where are they now.

0100pm: Why DK stop organising gatherings? - Why DK stop organising gathering after the Christmas Gathering?

0200pm: Ping.sg Advertisement - Meet DK (Banned Edition) - A short advertisement break by our sponsors.

0300pm: DK not insightful enough for ping.sg awards. - An insightful look into why DK wasn’t in ping.sg awards.

0400pm: Did they know what they are in for? - The truth behind the “I’m in. Are you?” twitter message.

0500pm: First argument. DK vs Uzyn & Daphne - Did you know that it happen almost a year ago?

Late night: Conclusion - Last post to sum up everything.

Ping.sg has banned another member from its aggregation site for making seditious remarks that could split the community into two.

Wrote Uzyn for Ping.sg,

I love Ping.sg and I will not hesitate to take any actions to stop any unappreciative users from trying to break the site and the community.

The member who Ping.sg has banned isn’t just an ordinary member, but somebody who have worked within the community from day 1, maybe later.

Wrote DK of blog.dk.sg,

Missed the good old days when everything is still peaceful in the community. When the community is run by the community itself and not some community manager. When there is no elitism even in the regulars. When every single member are equal.

Still remember the first gathering at Pitstop Cafe.
The exposure during the Nexus event.
The meetup at Essential Brew.
The great gathering at Geek Terminal.
The fun we had at Far East Shopping Centre booth.
The ping.sg presence during blogout.
The geek terminal launch party and the mini birthday celebration after that.
The first anniversary party.
The funny advertisement we made for ping.sg.
The huge gathering at Ms Clarity Cafe.
The recording of blogbuzz.tv.
The wonderful Christmas gathering.

For that, DK99 was banned from Ping.sg

DK was referring to a blog post made by Daphne who is the part-time marketing person cum community manager for the Ping.sg  community.

Daphne did a great job of responding to DK’s post.

Wrote Daphne,

When I wrote the term, the “in group”, it was really quite clear to me that it was not an exclusive list of bloggers, and neither was it limited only to those bloggers who attended. If you look at my pictures from that damning post, you will see the faces of some of the most prominent bloggers on Ping.sg.

It had all the elements of a perfect PR crisis communication plan. Firstly, Daphne apologised for her post if it caused any unhappiness among readers who misunderstood her words.

She explained what her post really meant and finally ended it explaining how Ping.sg is for everybody.

Unfortunately, the instigator got banned and the issue is now a blogging point for the weekend.

While Nocturne provided a psychological explanation to the actions of Ping.sg and DK, this blogger doesn’t really think DK is all out for the glory.

DK’s post highlights a classical dilemma that all marketing teams have: How do you balance your marketing activities to keep existing clients happy and at the same time  get new clients in? In this case here, replace clients with members.

DK was probably concerned that new members are alienated from the usual group. This meant that all Ping.sg activities would be by the same members every year and this members could feel burnt out by it.

This probably explained why a couple of Ping.sg community members who helped out in last year’s Awards are taking a back seat.

As the community grows, you want new members and existing members to work together.

This blogger doubts the founder of Ping.sg plays World of Warcraft as you constantly have new members joining guilds which have level 70s soloing those level 20 instances or even up to level 60 ones nowadays. How do existing guild members help the newbies get to that level?

If the founder of Ping.sg is complaining about being in the red, it isn’t really a surprise.

Vendors want more than just banner ads these days and if they part money with Ping.sg, they want extra value adds from Ping.sg.  Maybe something like putting their content in a edm which can be send to members.

The irony of it is that Ping.sg has banned commercial blogs that depend on Ping.sg to get the hits and awareness so they can pay Ping.sg the money to advertise on Ping.sg.

So banning advertisers like Andrew Peters and Chain of Beads for having commercial blogs is like biting the hand that feeds you.

Furthermore, the only advantage that Ping.sg has is a technological one where members need only put in their RSS feed once and the site automatically updates it when a new post is entered.

From a marketing standpoint, more and more competitors are entering the other fields that Ping.sg stand a higher chance of making money, like the blog awards.

Omy.sg has entered this space. Not only do they have sponsors, they have rewards for the voters to vote for the blog awards.

The Ping.sg Awards is in less than two weeks time and no sponsor has been announced.

Inside marketing sources have also highlighted that working with Ping.sg Awards have not gone really smoothly too.

Does this mean  the found of Ping.sg have to fork out his own money to host the event?

Andrew would have tried his best to convince two of his clients, Recuit.net, or even Twinity, to part some marketing dollars to sponsor the awards, but this blogger can safely assumed that opportunity has been slammed long time ago.

This leads to the possibility that DK might one day become a marketing manager with a huge marketing budget to do online marketing. With the bridge burnt, this blogger doubts DK would want to bring Ping.sg from red to black.

This blogger overheard that Qualcomm managed to get a group of Thai Tech journalists to don their corporate blue at an event over the weekend.

One Thai journalist decided to protest in true Thai style and wore yellow at the event.

 He should have wore red which he allowed him to claim he was the red ocean, the rest were just blue!

Yes, the same Thai tech journalist that got thrown out of Paragon Bangkok for wearing an “anti-Thaksin T-shirt”.

Bangkok Post | Database | When things started to get nasty at Paragon via kwout

Speaking of blue, have you ever tried downloading something from Microsoft Windows website and it didn’t turn your Windows OS blue?

Bill Gates tried downloading Windows Movie Maker in 2003 and ended up with every single Windows update, but not the Window Movie Maker.

Bill Gates’ web experience: Byzantine, idiotic logic | IT Project Failures | ZDNet.com via kwout

Bill sends a complain email and guess who gets the blame?

Marketing.

Bill Gates’ web experience: Byzantine, idiotic logic | IT Project Failures | ZDNet.com via kwout

Yeah, everything is marketing’s fault.

You can read the full email transcript here.

A little interesting short news snippet at Channel NewsAsia caught my eye today about a mock protest for men to compete in an woman only running event may have “run afoul of the law.”

Wrote Channel NewsAsia,

SINGAPORE: A publicity stunt to promote the Anlene Orchard Mile run may have ended up running afoul of the law.

About 20 men took part in a ‘mock protest’ along Orchard Road on Sunday afternoon to complain about not being able to take part in the women-only run.

The organisers did not have a permit to do so and police are investigating the incident.

Channelnewsasia.com via kwout

This reminds of a Salesforce.com mock protest against software held almost exactly a year ago at the same place saw the AP MD ending up at the police station to explain the protest.

Marketing, All you need is an internet connection, SINGAPORE, Marketing, CRM, Event marketing, Blogging, Technology, | Market-interactive.com via kwout

Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (SMRT) Corporation is currently running a campaign to reward commuters for traveling on their trains which ends on April 30, 2008.

The tagline for the campaign is “Ride SMRT, Celebrate Life!”. However, it seems that when flash mob group Mission:Singapore (M:SG) of 18 members threw a party on SMRT train, starting from Marina Bay, they were stopped by a station manager at Admiralty station.

Wrote Daryll Nanayakra for MyPaper,

The enthusiasm of the group soon caught on with the commuters, who seemed to like the idea…

Another commuter, Madam Polly Au, 51, an accounts executive, also liked the idea. She explained: “It’s a very fun idea, as long as the SMRT people don’t come catching them!”

And that was exactly what happened at Admiraty. The group was told to leave the train after a station manager came to investigate, following a tip-off from a commuter.

The station maanger, who only wanted to be known as Nara, 42, said: “Dancing is not allowed because users might users might cause obstruction to the other commuters.”

SMRT, you are such a party pooper!

“Why are you launching such a stupid product?”

Fortunately (or unfortunately), the question posed by a chinese newspaper editor was only for the ears of media who sat through the whole farce of a press con (complete with launch gambit involving kids from an orphanage) and gathered together right after to bitch about it.

The product in question is a Malaysian-branded smartbook (a kind of net top that Intel is promoting) and also heard was, “Yea lar…why are they doing it for?”

Similar in specs to the popular ASUS eeePC, this particular smartbook is instead narrowing their potential market to students and more especially kindergarten kids. The result is a toy-like 7-inch or 9-inch notebook complete with kid-safe features like rounded corners and not much else.

Not even a single parental control or some sort of guidance software.

Other features include Wi-Fi, 512MB, 40GB HDD or 2GB NAND Flash memory aaaaaand… a Linux OS.

There is option to upgrade to a very trimmed-down Windows XP Starter Edition for RM99 and when asked if the specs could support a full-blown Windows XP OS, the rep claims that it can.

If it really IS able to support at least Windows XP Home Edition, I would consider getting one. But at same time I don’t want people to mistake that I’m using my niece’s or nephew’s toy!

Such a shame.

The buzz nowadays for marketing is 360, as in X-Box 360 degree marketing. This encompasses advertising, activation, public relations, media buyings, customer relationship management, etc under one roof. Thus, clients can just go to one shop and get the whole enchilada if needed yet only deal with one account director and one billing.

It is also one big money grab.

360 is basically a way for agencies to get as much as they can from clients, regardless or not if they really need SOME let alone ALL of the services offered. Suppose clients have an internal PR division, but only need advertising help. A 360 proposal is like getting (and paying) for 16 double cheeseburgers when a single Big Mac would do.

And that’s when it gets nasty.

Since chances are clients are unlikely to spend a whole lot of money on 360, some chunks would have to be excised. And each division, eying their internal budgets and targets, would begin clawing, backstabbing, lobbying and pleading to make sure their division is NOT the one that gets amputated.

Of course, 360 is supposed to foster big agency unity and let other sections move forward if our own services is not needed. Bullshit, if money’s involved, the knives are out and its just a question WHEN you get stabbed in the back, smiley face and all.

Screw advertising, they’re a bunch of award hungry parasites that bring no value to the client’s sales. Dump PR since you can’t really measure how effective the campaign is. Take on the ground activation since our performance is determined by actual on site sales (Never mind this division is so damn expensive and watch out for their internal profit margins on third party costs!)

Yep, 360 marketing is a strength of big agencies against puney ones, which is like saying “We can do everything under one roof, one can you do?” But big agencies also have big overheads. And aren’t we going into a global recession? Guess what get cut out of a client budget first?

It must be a blow for Yahoo as Opera has decided to use Google search as the default search engine.

Wrote ReadWriteWeb,

Starting on the first of next month, the widely popular mobile browser Opera will switch from offering Yahoo! to using Google as its default search engine. While Yahoo! has its own relatively sophisticated mobile offerings, the company can’t be happy to lose Opera to Google. Update: Yahoo! emailed to tell us that “Yahoo! has elected not to continue its mobile search partnership with Opera at this time.” Interesting!

Yahoo OneSearch maybe one of the better search for the the mobile space but what’s the use if one of the more popular browser for the mobile space decides not to use it?

If you are a classical Windows guy who cannot stand the push for open source Linux, don’t worry.

Microsoft is here to save the day with Source Fource and Friends!

Meet Windows Vista Sensei, taught by Office Master!

Check the new super heros here.

When it comes to social media, most companies leave it to the communication department or PR agency, but should Social Media be limited to these two groups only?

Kami Huyse for Communication Overtones twittered that she was facing problem with her HP laptop and the concerned twitters were quick to give her advice on what to do next.

However, Kami knew she had to have a new laptop fast. So who she called?

Richardatdell.

Wrote Kami,

I called RichardatDell for a recommendation….

…Since I needed a computer immediately, Richard suggested I consider getting one from Best Buy.  The retailer is now carrying Dell computers.  If I ordered one from the Web it would take a week, and I didn’t have a week.

Richard took it a step further and WENT to his local Best Buy to see what they stocked.  He called me from the sales floor. Simply stated, he went above and beyond the call of duty. It is part and parcel of what I have advocated for in using public relations tools like social media to enhance customer service.

I now have a Dell Inspiron 1420 sitting on my desk.

Kami’s post also looked at how customer service can use blogs to improve their customer service.

The post reminded me of Malcolm Gladwells’ The Tipping Point which he described the three groups of people that could be a catalysts to a business.

They are the Mavens, the information specialists that everybody will go to for advice.

Then there is the Connector, the people who link people to other people or brands.

This is followed by the Salesperson,  the people who persuade you to get things done or things brought.

In today world of mash-ups, an individual can be all three but most of the time, they are often independent of each other.

The blog content engine has made RichardatDell a maven of Dell’s computers and laptops and that is why Kami went to him.

Can you at your finger tips name a HP blogger?

You could also described RichardatDell a salesperson in the way he “persuaded” Kami to get a Dell notebook. It wasn’t a hardsell, but it was the personal touch that sold the notebook.

Is there a Connector here? Kami’s the Connector. She connected her reader about social media and bloggers like RichardatDell.

As a blogger, what is your role? Can you identify yourself as one of the three?

Thanks to beconfused for introducing Zi Char Uncle!

So your food delivery service is targeted at university undergrads whom 100% have an email account and uses the Internet daily, what would your marketing strategy be?A Zi Char uncle at the Nayang Technological University (NTU) of Singapore has gone the online route by creating a blog and even a Facebook group.

Zi Char is a local Singapore slang when translated means stir fried and a Zi Char stall is a shop that sells stir fried dishes.

Here are two ideas that the Zi Char uncle can used to really exploit the use of the blog and Facebook as a marketing tool.

1. Facebook daily special

Facebook has a mini-feed so the Zi Char uncle can announce a daily special in the social networking site. It could come with a code number which readers just SMS and get the dish at a special price. Something like a blue light special at Kmart.

2.  User generated menu

Get the university students to suggest new dishes to the Zi Char uncle. The Zi Char uncle do not have to select all of them, but only those he feels are reasonable enough for him to do.

Select a few dishes and credit it to the students who suggested it.

The Zi Char uncle can even show how much orders have been from the suggested dishes and rank them weekly on his blog or Facebook group.

This way, the students who suggested the dishes would one to have their dishes on top of the menu and thus do their own push to get friends in campus to order it.

In the January 08 issue, Marketing Magazine Singapore provided her readers with a sense of deja vu when their popular and well-read “Guess Who Don’t Sue” section.The Dec 07 issue wrote,

Which expat client-side advertising manager got an interesting “welcome to Singapore” recently? In the process of reviewing her media plans, she called one of the magazine publishing companies to request for some circulation figures. First she was told the ad sales department do not have them, then she was told circulation figures were confidential.

Yet in the January 08 issue, guess what was the first Guess Who Don’t Sue story?

Go read the Jan 08 issue or keep on guessing!

Maybe its time for the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, IDA, to follow in the foot steps of the Media Development Authority of Singapore, MDA, to create a rap for some brand awareness marketing exercise.

Wrote The Straits Times (Date: Jan 11, 2008),

As for his own grandson, it seems that despite the brotherly advice he received lately, Haoyi is thinking of applying for an Infocomm Development Authority(IDA) scholarship.

MM Lee spoke candidly about a chat he had with Haoyi over lunch at his house on Sunday, revealing that he had to ask his grandson what IDA stood for.

He was told it was the Government’s agency for information technology.

When Singapore SEO, Larry Lim, wrote how Advertlets was capitalizing on Nuffnang’s SGD1 misery, I made a comment the entry on how the competition is going to benefit bloggers.

My comments:

In this case here, Adverlet’s bloggers save on the $1 and this will force Nuffnang to reconsider their S$1 charges. Who benefits? The bloggers, of course.

Ming Shen Cheo, executive director for Nuffang, wrote in his email to Nuffnang members that “As a concession, we have decided to absorb this cost till October 31st).

See what competition does to the players involve?

Ong Sor Fen for The Straits Times wrote an opinon piece that has become a major discussion point among the Singapore blogosphere. This is in contrast to what Han Fook Kwang, editor for The Straits Times, was quoted to have said during the launch of Stomp n June 2006.

“I HAVE never, nor will I ever, read blogs,” wrote Sor Fen.

Digging through this sites’ archives, the(previous)mediaslut wrote of an article written by a one Aaron Koh of ITJourno Asia.

Aaron quoted Han Fook Kwang, editor for The Straits Times, to say “I don’t blog and I don’t rule out blogging in the future.”

“My children blog and it’s a new phenomenon,” said Han.

“We have to accept it, get use to it and be part of it.”

Sor Fen, however, did not think the same as her boss and wrote that there are “intelligent bloggers out there. But trying to find them is akin to looking for a single brainy needle in an exceedingly large and, mostly dumb, haystack”.

the(new)mediaslut wonders what Han’s children think of that statement.

Read other bloggers’ post on Ong’s statement at www.vantan.org, Rambling Liberian and Otterman speaks…

Pay some thought to the footers of some corporate emails which state ‘if you are not the intended recipient…’. Nobody pays much heed to them, but that clause sits there for a reason.

Some tech journos across Singapore were treated to a bit of a surprise earlier this week when the following email arrived in their respective inboxes.

Sent from the marketing manager of one tech company (best known for its display monitors) to her friend cum counterpart in another company, the email contained ’sound’ bits of marketing advice. It read thus:

"These are the few regular ones… I suggest you dig up who you have advertise with and call up the sales person who use to in charge of your account and introduce yourself as the new person on board who will be in charge of Marketing & Advertising (advertisement $$$). They will usually try to be nice by giving you upfront coverage/exposure so that you will give them advert $$$."

Said marketing manager proceeded to list some email addresses (the same ones who ended up being the cc recipients of the email). Let it be noted the list also contained the news desk of a pretty prominent local newspaper.

Needless to say, the local IT media was kept entertained for awhile. A recall for the email was issued, but the damage had already been done.

So what happens then? Bring in the good old PR fire engine with its fleet of damage dousing hoses, of course.

This following email arrived the next day, this time with the journos as the intended recipients.

“Dear XXX,
I truly apologize for the earlier email which was meant to give a friend tips on her first attempt on press release… and it turned out to be my blunder.
This is truly a genuine mistake at my part and I apologize for what was unintentional and not directed at your credible publication and team.

Your understanding and magnanimity and I still look forward to your support regardless as always.
Thank you and sorry. : (
Sincerely,
YYY”

How much reputation can one salvage when the recipient of the scandalous email happens to be the media? Bad choice of industry to piss off, just plain…bad…

Those of you who blindly click the ’send’ button on your email client without first checking the content and list of recipients ought to kick that habit. You might find yourself in a sticky PR situation, otherwise.

All that aside, that first email might still have counted as decent marketing advice…Oh, the irony…

A marketing person from a US big brand resort lamented about the lack of Return of Investment (ROI) when they executed an advertising program with a local tech website.

Though the advertising program showed million of impressions, the resort got ZERO bookings and no emails about the advertised location in Asia.

The intention to target male geeks on a vacation spot to bring their other half maybe well intended, but the program might have failed in understanding the mentality of the male geeks. 

Males when they shop, they know what they want in their mind, they go to a shop, look at the prices, buy and walk out of the shop.

For example, say the geek is looking to buy a graphic card, he would go straight to Sim Lim Square, go around the shops for the best price and get the graphic card.

You wouldn’t catch a male geek window shopping for the best looking tie or get distracted to go shopping for a holiday when the geek’s on a mission to get his graphic card, or would you?

The New Paper’s headline today shouts “15 China Brides for free” and the owner says it like any other market gimmicks.

From The New Paper :

“I don’t see how giving away 15 brides for free as a promotion is any different from giving away 15 magazines during a promotion,” said the matchmaking agency owner, Mr Toh.

themediaslut thinks Mr Toh meant free matchmaking services for 15 couples.

But in any case, themediaslut hopes matchmaking agencies do not go down the slippery road and adopt the following gimmicks.

Bad, very bad marketing gimmicks for matchmaking agencies

1. Buy one get one free.

2. 5-8pm, happy hour prices.

3. Loyalty card programs: Every bride you take, we give you a stamp. After 10 stamps and we give you one free.

4. The Great Singapore Sale: 50% off (50% off the top or off the bottom?)

5. 30 day trial period - 100% Money back if not 100% satisfied.

6. Buy two and get the next one at 50% off (Combination of 1 and 4).

On the Other Hand

The new era of photography has happened due to the advent of camera in your samsung phones. This has totally changed the scope of digital cameras. People now don’t even spend money purchasing their digital camera accessories even if there is a nikon digital camera involved.. The nikon digital camera is losing its market. Also because enjoying hip hop music and doing photography from your cell, he will tell this to the local police.