the(new)mediaslut

That sign says forgiveness. A moving piece of street art at Makkawan today.

Smartbrain was in the heat of the protest in Bangkok the whole day and survived to emailed this blog photos of the day’s event.

 Latest photo at 9pm: The Thai Army on the streets of Bangkok

 Smartbrain saw the aftermath of a car bomb at about 5.30pm.

Smartbrain finds it odd that the vehicle used as a bomb is an imported and expensive jeep.

 Police with teargas canon getting ready for the protestors.

Protestors getting ready for their march!

Smoke and gun shots can heard from afar..

Check out Smartbrain’s latest update at his Twitter at www.twitter.com/smartbrain

Technorati Tags: thailand,protest

Why is it that not enough companies take photography seriously and end up sending journalists unpublishable junk when spokespeople and product shots are requested.

Recently, Smartbrain interviewed a certain mobile advertising solutions company and asked its PR to send him some nice shots of the spokesperson and some product shots with a pretty girl or presenter using the solution.

What Smartbrain got was a picture of a boring, man in a messy street branding a grimacing grin at his phone. He probably had someone aim a gun at him telling him to enjoy himself as he used the mobile ads. The composition was all wrong too with acres of messy buildings and wires in the background. Well, unless the shot was also for urban regeneration and how grimacing at mobiles makes even depressing environments more habitable, Smartbrain really does not see how it could ever be used. And that is before the quality issues - over saturation of colours for a start, come into play.

Smartbrain wonders if the PR simply ran outside his office in Chinatown somewhere and asked the first passer by to pose for a shot on his cheap consumer digicam.

This is what he got:

Can anyone guess what this picture is about?

Some PRs are quite good at hiring professional photographers but all too often, even in these rare cases, it is common that these pictures lack someone with a sense of aesthetics; an appreciation of the rule of thirds. Getting a dedicated art director, in office or even occasionally on-site to guide the photographers would make the industry much better for everyone, clients and journalists alike.

Key problems include

Generally, it’s the SME that gets it wrong, but not all big companies get it right either. HP’s press room is full of ancient material that should be re-filed under “historic”. AMD/ATi’s PR couldn’t get him photos Smartbrain asked for either, nor were they in the AMD press room, but he found them and more on AMD’s semi-official Flickr account for Computex Taiwan. More photos and of better quality too.

On a related note, why are PRs and large companies so paranoid about releasing spreadsheets or presentation files with charts and figures. Getting soft copies of pie or bar charts is like trying to draw blood from crabs and often all that is received is a cut down PDF that cannot be manipulated. Smartbrain can think of many cases where a well placed graph would make the story come alive. Smartbrain is not calling for entire, editable slide decks to be released as a matter of course, but the occasional slide would be nice with credit given to the company.

From left, Third place, winner and second

This blogger was at the first Singapore Toy and Comic Convention on Sunday and managed to catch the finals of the cosplay:anime finals.

You have to pardon this blogger’s ignorance of the characters the top three winners were trying to portray. If you are knowledgeable of the anime characters, please drop a comment.

Cute wins another competition

Is it just me or Singaporeans prefer “cute” in general? Cutie-pie here won the hearts of the audience with a cute rendition of some Japanese anime tune. I thought the guy below with his extravagant cosplay costume would have won the competition straight on.

“Fallen angel” came in third

 Also seen at the Singapore Toy & Comic Convention:

Stormtroopers taking a break from hunting Jedis and playing a game of Wii Tennis

Magic: The Gathering enthusiasts

Comic artist demonstrating their fine arts on the spot

For more photos, click here.

What do you call a super-sized Big Mac?

A Mega Mac meal, of course.

It is available in Malaysia for a limited time only.

Four beef patties in a normal Big Mac burger going for RM13.50 for a medium sized meal.

Had to share the other two beef patties with friends to watch the waist..

From left: Alice Sabrina Priscilla Fidelis Esther Peggy Qiaoyun

“Dispicable, insulting to the King, selling his motherland, traitor - get out.”

Smartbrain was at Si Ayutthaya to witness thousands of Thais demanding that Noppadol Pattama, Foreign Minister for Thailand, be trialled for treason which carries the capital punishment in the land of the smiles. The demonstration was held this morning in front of the Foreign Ministry.

The Thai mob has accused the minister of giving up the The Preah Vihear temple to the Cambodians.

While the International Court of Justice awarded the temple to Cambodia in 1962, the issue was raised recently as Cambodia made an application to UNESCO for it to be a World Heritage Site.

A map is required for the submission and this has raised the issue of Thai sovereignty again.

Wrote The Bangkok Post

Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said he is prepared to clarify the government’s position in a coming non-confidence debate, when the opposition Democrat Party may challenge the Preah Vihear stance.

The Opposition earlier cast doubts regarding the new map of the historic temple, suggesting that the foreign minister might have compromised Thailand’s national interests over the issue.

The minister also emphasised that all details in the new map would be released after the World Heritage Committee meets in July to consider the matter.

Mr Noppadon explained that he could not reveal what he described as “official secret information” now under joint consideration among the Royal Thai Survey Department, the Foreign Ministry and state agencies concerned.

But he said the disputed and undemarcated 4.6-square kilometre area surrounding and adjacent to the temple complex itself is not included on the map.

For more photos, click here.

(Update: This blogger was highlighted that the hotness rating was determined by the contestants themselves.)




Contestants of Siloso HotBod 2008 @ Sentosa

The audience voted for twenty-two year-old Jessica Lim to be Miss Siloso HotBod 2008 on Saturday and it seems they have a penchant for cutie pies instead of hotbods.

Last year’s winner also had that cutie pie look too.

(See Update above and comments below) Favourite Peggy Heng who had perfect hotness rating of 10 at the Siloso HotBod page went home disappointed, losing out on the crown and other secondary awards.

During the second walk out, B4 Joreen Kok and B2 Vanessa Hee was one of this blogger’s choice to win the Miss Siloso HotBod contest.

More photos below:

Female contestants trying to string the word Siloso while their male counterparts rushed to provide them with the letters.

Some could only string two letters.

More photos can be found here.

After a two year hiatus, normal service has been resumed. The anti-Thaksin movement is back where it started, literally and figuratively. It is as if the coup didn’t happen. Then again, the coup accomplished nothing as it put in some geriatric retirees in power to live out their fantasies of playing politician. The military were hell-bent (for lack of a more appropriate term) on reconciliation, yet the division within Thai society has deepened over the past 17 or so months.

The message the PAD are calling for is the same - a fair and unbiased trial for Thaksin and have him prove himself in court. Thaksin dissolved parliament to avoid a no-confidence debate. Today, his “puppet” PM is trying to amend the constitution to effectively get the lawsuits against Thaksin thrown out. This was after the chief investigator for the first case (Rachada land deal) was transferred to an inactive post. Same old, same old. Nothing has changed. Two years wasted.

Oh, well. The next mob is scheduled for Saturday 5th at Lumpini Park (scene of most of the mid-sized mobs last year, but not the really bigs ones just before the coup). Looks like there will be many more photo opportunities to come. Stay tuned.

Against…

And for…

Keeping the peace

“Live” from Smartbrain..

the usual… Human Development Minister Sutha Chansaeng’s education (or lack, thereof - he got a
degree from the Philippines in 6 months)… to complaining about
Thaksin.. he deaths (2,800 deaths)… and why democracy is not really
that much when you have vote buying (and then law changing to make the
vote buying legal)…

More people are arriving (after work ends I guess)… and the pro
Thaksin mob is still going strong on the other side..

the(new)mediaslut was invited to a car show in Bangkok yesterday.

This blogger isn’t really a car person but there are some of you who would like to learn more about the car scene in Bangkok.

For more photos, click here.

…by SmartBrain during the launch of “AMD Phenom X4 and Spider”…

What will they come up with next? And whatever the outcome, I hope our hardworking SmartBrain got her number…;)

Melbourne Tiger Thomas’ Hang Time

The Singapore Slingers were not expected to win their home match against Melbourne Tigers last night which they lost 96-105.

It was the Slingers’ low scoring third quarter that completely wiped out their hard work during the first half.

Slingers giving Tiger’s 33 a whiff of its strong defence

The Slingers biggest lead against Tigers about eight minutes in the first quarter was five points and they leveled the score at 43-43 when Grizzard (Slingers #1) scored two points into the fourth minute of the quarter.

Unfortunately, the Melbourne Tigers steam rolled the Slingers in both offensive and defensive after the scores were leveled.

The Slingers ended the first half with 47 points while the Tigers scored 55.

The half time break seem to have tire the Slingers rather then recharged them.

After Ben Knight scored at the third minute of the third quarters to make it Slingers 58 with Tigers at , the Slingers remained at that score for the next four minutes or so, while Tigers went ahead to score 10 points during that period of tiem.

During this scoreless period, it was noticed that Slinger’s Mike Helms took over the “ball-controller” responsibility from Shane McDonald, the home team seem to have lost their offensive power.

The Slingers ended the third quarter scoring 19 points while the Tigers scored 29 points.

The fourth quarter saw the Slingers’ getting more points with Helms returning the “ball-controller” responsibility to Shane.

Slingers fight back with a Helms’ special

The Slingers ended the final quarter scoring 30 points while the Tigers only managed to get 22.

Thanks to Nicholas Aaron Khoo, a few bloggers were treated to VIP box seats at the Singapore Indoor Stadium for the National Basketball League’s Singapore Slingers vs Melbourne Tigers game last night.

Precious from notesfrommyheart also challenged bloggers to guess his/her gender based on the blog posts. and winners got tickets to the match.

I don’t know who won, but I know Precious’ gender….

Is this Precious? Looks more like a media slut wannabe to me..
That’s Andrew of aplink.wordpress.com.

Precious? Nope that’s the sometimes
in distress damsel Qiao Yun of sheylara.com

Precious? Not yet.. Left Imran Omar of blog.thepacificwest.com
and right is Nicholas, wine waiter for the day.

Oi ATT, where is Precious? If you screaming that out, you are starting to sound like Gollum.

It took Gollum three books and more than 9 hours of movie time before it got his Precious, so hold your horses..

Left: Princessa of Sabrina.sg gracing the match
Right: Daphne of www.daphnemaia.com in the center

Bloggers with The Singapore Slingers

Bloggers with Bob Turner, CEO of Singapore Slingers

Drum roll please… Here’s Precious!!!

Overheard that for the next few contest Precious might be asking her readers to guess her age (which this blogger also knows and sure win one lor) and her sexual preferences (this one…. )

One of the many keys to being a successful agent of Public Relations is your networking capabilities.

The young and the restless agents of PR chilled out on Tuesday night to meet fellow young agents of PR at the Institute of Public Relatioins Young PR Professional Night at the Barfly in Clark Quay.

PS: Photos not taken by themediaslut and was send in via an anonymous email.

Cheers to more clients!

Checking the who’s who of the young ones..

"I had this client who paid me this much…" "actually, I had this client who was this big"

Looking good for the camera.

Left: To drink or not to drink
Right: Drink, lah!

..or just eat..

The agents of PR winning something in a lucky draw for a change

themediaslut attended the launch of new Chinese RaVeo-Mag, Pink5one.

Vincy (left) and Sharon, hosts of the Princess Hours which looks at giving beauty tips. (Photos by www.demoments.com for themediaslut.)

From the press pack, Pink5one.com want to be the "first in Asia to successfully incorporate Television Televiion, Radio and Print Magazine into a single medium".

In other word, all their content will be available online.

Pink5one.com will include online shows will feature food, entertainment, travel and lifestyle.

Although themediaslut is still lost of what Pink5one.com is after the launch, at least their hosts for the shows are younger, prettier and more energetic than the hosts you get at the MediaCorp channels.

Can’t remenber his name, but his the director-in-charge for pink5one.com. (Photos by www.demoments.com for themediaslut.)

Sugi, left, host of the Upsize (Food) segment with Mr. Baey Yam Keng, MP for Tanjong Pager GRC, guest of honour for the launch. (Photos by www.demoments.com for themediaslut.)

 
Other hosts of Pink5one.com which themediaslut could not identify. (Photos by www.demoments.com for themediaslut.)

   
Other hosts of Pink5one.com which themediaslut could not identify. (Photos by www.demoments.com for themediaslut.)

The hosts of Pink5one.com ending the launch with a group singing session. (Photos by www.demoments.com for themediaslut.)

BuyButtonz concluded their BuyButtonz fair for bloggers at Far East Plaza in Singapore yesterday.

Flyers distributors for BuyButtonz.
(Photo courtesy of Douglas Fun of www.demoments.com)

Prior to the trade fair, Miccheng of the Lazy Serial Entrepreneur blog commented on the BuyButtonz’s Ts & Cs which he was critical of some points.

As part of ChainFusion’s blog engagement policy, via Pacific West, they were quick to address Miccheng’s concerns (look at the comments field of the same entry).

BuyButtonz fair visitors appreciating the t-shirt design from Wanton Doodles.
(Photo courtesy of Douglas Fun of www.demoments.com)

At www.larrylim.net,  the Singapore SEO consultant described Pacific West of engaging Ping.sg as their official media as "clever marketing hype created by Andrew Peters".

Andrew Peters is the MD for The Pacific West .  

However, Larry also highlighted the wordpress.com problems that Andrew encountered on the eve of the launch.

themediaslut notes that this highlight the risk companies using free hosted sites, like wordpress.com or blogspot.com, where the site can be taken down at any sign of any terms of service violation that could beyond their control.

Companies should not be so stingy as to host their blog on a free website. A new wordpress blog with domain only costs SGD8 per month on some hosting site and it takes only ten minutes or less to set one up.

Luckily for Andrew, he was able to come up with a quick recovery with a new blog at aplink.beezy.biz and he is now in the process of setting up his own blog at www.aplink.biz .

The team of Ping.sg at the BuyButtonz fair.
(Photo courtesy of Douglas Fun of www.demoments.com)

Blogger engagement seem to be the in-thing nowadays. Ping.sg, a meta blog aggregator, was appointed the official media for the event.

Pacific West made use of the easy-to-use streaming site, www.ustream.tv, to stream the day events. A streaming window was prominently placed on the ping.sg.

However, the bandwidth provided by Wireless Sg was very bad and caused laggy upstream to ustream servers. This created laggy stream on Ping.sg site and others who could easily paste the codes onto their blog. Audio was a way no-no because of the bandwidth.

With event over and done with, Pacific West and Chainfusion should continue engaging the bloggers on what BuyButtonz really is and how it works for them as an easy online payment gateway.

With a better understanding of BuyButtonz , maybe online retailers can smile as beautifully as her all the way to the bank.

(Photo courtesy of Douglas Fun of www.demoments.com)

Looks like England, but it isn’t.

It is somewhere in Singapore.

Shots were taken from a loaned Tele-lens and it sure provide an angle that we don’t usually notice.

The insider journalist at the Intel Developer is complaining non-stop to themediaslut.. Oh.. how her ears are hurting.

 "They send us all the way to China," said the insider journalist.

"And we can’t do what a journalist is suppose to do at such events."

 At least the journalist was able to breath fresh conditioned air at the forum…

Thanks to the wonder of technology, the insider journalist was able to smuggle out a photo for themediaslut. 

Risky, but worth it!

This might be the only photo you get to see of Intel Developer Forum in China.

Sir, no photos….

"How to effectively spend your PR budget," commented the insider journalist.

"1st, Invite hundreds of reporters from all corners of the globe.

"Then hurl them into a big hall (thus missing the translation booth) with seating at the front right of the room.

"Make sure that they cannot see the English language slide desk and only see the Chinese language one.

"When exasperated IT Journo leaves the keynote and walks about, show him signs that photographs are not to be taken."

Intel didn’t send themediaslut to China and all she got are these "lousy" photos of the Intel Development Forum 2007.

Photos are not actually not that lousy, but thanks to the annoymous journalist who dropped the photos into themediaslut’s mailbox.

Intel Olympics? - The "bird nest" stadium in the background.

Hmm.. Guess Intel ensured there weren’t any Cinglish on the signboard. How many PR vetted the board?

Journalists testing out the new Intel processors

Left:  CTO Justin Rattner opening the session
Right: Knut Grimsrud on serial ATA 2.6 and SATA 3.0 at 6gdps

Mooly Eden telling journalists on Intel’s next moves in the areas of mobility

For more information, visit Intel’s site at http://intel.com/pressroom/idf .