the(new)mediaslut

FutureGov - Solutions for Government | Education | Healthcare

Check out the latest of FutureGov at their website at www.futuregov.net.

Wrote James Smith in an earlier comment on this blog,

FutureGov is not so much a replacement, as simply the new name for ‘Public Sector Technology & Management’ - a public sector solutions magazine that has been published in Asia Pacific for the past five years. The circulation remains largely the same, and the content is similar - what’s changed is our focus on public sector objectives and challenges, rather than IT execution.

This Al Jazeera clip shows why staying silent may not be the best option at all.

In this clip about the plight of Singaporeans affected by the rising cost of almost everything, Al Jazeera reported that “the ministry in charge of public assistance scheme chose not to be interviewed for this peice”  in about the 1min 40sec mark.

This was followed with coverage of opposition activist, Chee Soon Juan.

This blogger wondered why the ministry didn’t take the opportunity to highlight some of the schemes available to help the poor in Singapore.

The interview with a single mother only receiving SGD30 from her MP doesn’t help with the messaging either.

To clarify, this post isn’t pro-government or pro-opposition, but to highlight that non-participation of a serious interview like this can generate perception that could have an adverse perception by its people.

Also in the age of Internet2.0, a clip for broadcast may end up embed into political and oppostion websites that could use this to their advantage.

This blogger was clearing the spam comments when she surprised at where URLs the spam comments seemed to be coming from.

the(new)mediaslut › Moderate Comments — WordPress via kwout

You shouldn’t be doing this, but this blogger took the risk and clicked on the url and voila…

getphentermine’s Blog - CNET Asia via kwout

It looks like the CNET Asia’s member sites has been spammed or it has become a victim of a phishing site.

CNET Asia should better start putting in the right protocols and delete them. There were some “members” of names that are not fit for print and that could have a negative image on the brand!

Thanks to The Digital Movement and IDA, Singaporeans got a chance to meet Tan Chade-Meng, one of Google’s first Singaporean employee.

However a blogger event highlighted one of the greatest irony of the event.

Wrote Zit Seng,

We were advised to bring our own notebooks for a “live chat”. Well, wireless was mostly not working, there was no Wireless@SG, and the only “live chat” was the conventional Q&A with moderator on stage and microphone passed around.

Okay, this is IDA’s first InfocommLIVE. Let’s hope it gets better.

Maybe IDA was pulling a “Google” prank???

Woot! Singapore is involved in the testbed with Infocomm Development Authority of SIngapore (IDA) is a partner too.

Write BusinessWire,

Intel Corporation and Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO) today announced the creation of a global, multi-data center, open source test bed for the advancement of cloud computing research and education. The goal of the initiative is to promote open collaboration among industry, academia and governments by removing the financial and logistical barriers to research in data-intensive, Internet-scale computing.

The HP, Intel and Yahoo! Cloud Computing Test Bed will provide a globally distributed, Internet-scale testing environment designed to encourage research on the software, data center management and hardware issues associated with cloud computing at a larger scale than ever before. The initiative will also support research of cloud applications and services.

HP, Intel and Yahoo! have partnered with the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany to form the research initiative. The partnership with Illinois also includes the National Science Foundation.

Commsday spotted an announcement on Asia Legal Business today of an Axia counsel annoucing that OpenNet has won the Singapore NetCo NBN bid. 

However, the release has since been withdrawn from the site. Both IDA and Axia are now denying that the announcement has been made.

Wrote Commsday,

OpenNet, a consortium consisting of SingTel (30%), Canada’s Axia (30%), Singapore Press Holdings Limited (25%) and Singapore Power subsidiary SP Telecommunications Pte Ltd (15%) has reportedly won the bid to Singapore’s National Broadband Network. But both Axia and the Infocomm Development Authority deny a decision has been made.

The news, posted but now withdrawn on the deals centre section of legal industry website Asia Legal Business and citing comments by Paul Supramaniam of Berwin Leigton Paisner - the counsel for Axia NetMedia, said that consortium has “been successful in a bid to establish design, build and operate the passive optic fibre infrastructure relating to the Singapore Next Generation National Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN).”

…“We were privileged to have been involved in this very significant transaction,” Supramaniam said. “Axia has extensive experience in operating Open Access next generation networks and their participation in the prestigious OpenNet consortium alongside leading Singapore listed companies SingTel, SPH and SP Telecommunications can help deliver a solution that will put Singapore in the global lead in the infocomm sector.”

After two seasons with the Australian National Basketball League, the Singapore Slingers has announced their withdrawal from the league and are aiming to join the ASIAN PRO LEAGUE.

Wrote The Singapore Slingers Press Release,

When the Singapore Slingers tip-off for the new basketball season on Sept 17 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, instead of going up against the likes of NBL sides Melbourne Tigers or Perth Wildcats, skipper Ben Knight and Co could be taking on the likes of professional teams from Korea, Philippines, Japan or China instead.

This was after the Slingers management announced that the Singapore-based team has
officially pulled out of the Australian National Basketball League (NBL), and will not be taking part in the upcoming 2008/09 NBL season.

“We had every intention to play our third season in the NBL and had recruited a team to be very competitive and more relevant to Singapore, with three players of Asian heritage on the roster”, said Slingers Managing Director Bob Turner.

“In spite of the team’s financial readiness to participate, the recent withdrawal of two key teams from the NBL has had a negative impact on our business model and led to an unanticipated increase in travel costs. When the NBL could not accede to our request to help defray the exorbitant and rising travel costs, the board of the Slingers took the painful but necessary decision to leave the NBL and pursue the possibility of playing in a professional league in Asia instead”.

Which PR agency send two of their top two PR personnel to dissuade a journalist for a regional publication from writing a damming article on one of their client?

Not only did they not succeed, the journo had to pay for the meal, PR included..

Malaysia media came under the spotlight recently for focusing too much on Terengganu’s purchase of Mercedez E200 Kompressors replacement for the incumbent Proton Perdana V6 Executive cars.

Wrote Bernama,

This happened while members of the media were interviewing Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said, who was also at the function, on the issue.

Many of those who were at the press conference questioned the media members for reporting the issue on the Mercedes purchased by the Terengganu government.

“Do you (media) think this news (on the Mercedes) is good for the people or the government,” said one of them.

Another chipped in saying that the RM3 million spent by the state government for the purchase of the Mercedes Benzes was small and could not understand why the matter was blown out of proportion by the media.

Malaysia’s Minister of Information chipped in to highlight the importance of the media as the fourth estate.

How ironic as it was just in June 2008 that the Malaysia government banned media from entering Parliament.

But the question here is why should a purchase of Mercedes by a state government be important news for the Malaysia media to cover?

The answer can be quite simple. The money used to purchased the Mercedes is state money and it belongs to the people. The people are also interested to find out if the money could have been used for better social benefits instead.

Could the RM3million be used for scholarships instead?

Also the choice of Mercedes over Proton is also worth debating especially Proton is Malaysia’s national car manufacturer.

Over in Singapore, a blogger debated whether the story of Dawn Yang vs Xiaxue should be newsworthy enough to be in the national paper.  Is the spat between the two bloggers worth precious print space?

One may have thought it would be all over when the International Court of Justice decided on the sovereignty of Pedra Branca between Singapore and Malaysia.

In a recent statement  by Singapore’s Senior Minister of State Balaji Sadasivan to claim “an Exclusive Economic Zone up to 200 nautical miles from its lands and islands, and up to 12 nautical miles of territorial sea” showed that the dispute is far from over. 

The Malaysian government  has objected to the claim with a  state assemblyman describing the statement as “an action of provocation and said Malaysia should not be trapped by the provocation.”

Rockybru, a Malaysia political blog commentator, described statements by his government as “talking big”.

Wrote Rockybru,

I like it when our leaders talk big. Singapore’s Foreign Minister better stand up and listen. We may have lost Pulau Batu Putih to Singapore at the International Court of Justice, but we are not about to give away anything else.

I think what Rais means is that if Singapore continues with this kind of talk, it’s war. And I don’t mean we are going to war, ok?

In the earlier dispute over Pedra Branca, Singapore’s Ministry of Foriegn Affairs released a QnA on this “talk of war”.

Wrote MFA,

Loose Talk Of War

Q. What is this talk of war over the unresolved bilateral issues?

A. It was started by Malaysian leaders and media. Such loose talk of war is irresponsible and dangerous. It whips up emotions that could become difficult to control.

Singapore wants to have good relations with Malaysia. There is much that both countries can gain by working together. Our common interests far exceed our differences.

According to Wikipedia, the Exclusive Economic Zone ” is a seazone over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources.”

 
12 Nautical Miles or 22km off Pedra Branca, estimated via Google Earth

From Google Earth estimations, 12 Nautical Miles or 22km will stretch Singapore’s territorial waters into the South China. Extending 200 Nautical Miles of the EEZ will see it almost reaching Palau Matak.

800 Nautical Miles northeast of Pedra Branca lies the Spratly Islands which the EEZs are contested respectively by China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

About.com has an interesting take about the importance of EEZs especially in an era where islands are disappearing because of rising sea levels.

Wrote About.com,

One quickly realizes that the claims and disputes in the Spratly Islands involve some very high stakes. For the countries involved, control of those islands may mean the difference between prosperity and poverty and between peaceful coexistence and war. Seeing military men occupying make-shift shacks on rocks or physically piling rocks upon rocks in an attempt to increase the size of and “island” may, at first, seem funny or ludicrous. It quickly becomes evident that this is serious business in international sovereignty and control.

A blog, named XXvsDY, setup to highlight the recent sage between Singapore blogger Xiaxue and Dawn Yawn has highlighted that Dawn Yang has been plaugarising posts from other sources without giving the due credits.

XXvsDY’s posts arn’t very clear on the example of Dawn Yang’s plaugarising though so here is a kwout of them.

Freedom Digitized via kwout

Star Blog via kwout

Ironically, but not surprising, there is a forum at Stomp discussing about Dawn Yang’s plaugarism.

This blogger wonders if Singapore Press Holding will enforce the same set of standards to the Stomp blogger.

Then again..

Plagiarism site:http://www.sph.com.sg - Google Search via kwout

Sexual harassment can happen to both males and female and Today reported of a ‘not his real name’ account of sexual harassment in a PR agency in Singapore.

Wrote Esther Ng,

One time, he says, “I was sitting in the front seat of the car. My boss reached over and placed a tissue box between my thighs and I felt a hand brush against my thigh. I felt violated.”

He reported the incident to his immediate supervisor who offered to confront their boss, but Russell declined as he did not want to put his supervisor in a fix.

Eventually, he quit the job because in addition to being sexually harassed, he had to put up with personal insults from his boss, such as being called “names like ‘fat pig’ even in front of clients”.

This blogger wonders if any PR agency in Singapore will be speaking to Esther soon on their stand on sexual harrasement in the office.

Almost everybody in the publication industry will describe CNET Asia as a online publication.

One blogger, however, described CNET Asia as a blog instead.

Claud Continues To Talk via kwout

If you go through any media list that a PR agency can offer you, Darius Chang is a writer (probably a senior writer by now) for CNETAsia.com.

A rose by any other name may still smell as sweet, but when is a blog a blog?

Are all online publications now blogs as seen by bloggers? Is this a marketing perception issue that publishers of online publications need to address?

Or is this a problem when you mix editorial and bloggers together at an event that it is harder to differentiate the  media from the blogger or vice versa?

Is there even a need to differentiate bloggers from the media?

The differentiation is really that difficult actually.  Darius is paid as a tech writer to ask those “technical and brain squeezing questions and have probably done a lot of reading/research on the product at launch before attending the event.

The notoriety of being banned.

EASTCOASTLIFE gives her side of the story.

The aftermath of DK’s hourly blogging special between Ping.sg and him opened up old wounds between Ping.sg and EASTCOASTLIFE.

This can be seen with EASTCOASTLIFE’s explosive comments on DK’s 12pm post titled “Anniversary Party Sponsors. Where are they now?”

Wrote EASTCOASTLIFE,

Uzin took S$200 from my hubby. He promised a mention in Ping.sg but only did so two days before the 1st anniversary awards. He didn’t give him a receipt. He bought the cake from Arzhou who was running an illegal biz baking cakes at home without a license. The cake cost S$150 and another S$50 was to buy some lao hong biscuits. My hubby runs a legal biz frequented by VIPs. I will definitely take up this case myself though my hubby isn’t keen.

Photo from http://singapuradailyphoto.blogspot.com: The SGD150 cake in question with 150 white colour balls?

At last year’s Ping.sg Awards, the winner of Ping.sg Blog Of The Year was Sparklette.net who also won the Ping.sg Award for Best Blog Design.

In contrast, EASTCOASTLIFE won four individual awards and DK won two but none of them won the Blog of The Year awards. This lead to both bloggers to speculate on how Sparklette.net could have won the award.

Wrote EASTCOASTLIFE,

Did Uzyn disqualified me because I had won so many awards already? Or because of the scandalous post I wrote about him and dk? Was Veron given the award because she was the web designer of Ping.sg and Uzyn needed her more? :)

At the post award celebration, dk and I cornered him on this controversial award, he flared up and told us to shut up. ntt and ridz were present, we were bantering with Uzyn and he yelled :”DON’T SAY ANY MORE!” There was an awkward silence and sekling who was sitting beside me, said,”Don’t say any more, he’s angry!” What!? He can get angry, others cannot? His parents don’t teach him manners? Yell at an elder? ???! I walked out.

Why can’t he be transparent about his choice? What was he hiding? Nothing can be changed but he should at least answer the questions.

Will this year’s awards be better with more transparency or will we be expecting more controversy?

DK’s blue light hourly special today pushed the number of unique hits to his blog to above a 1000 when his daily average is about 400+.

Unfortunately, his emotions got the better of him as of his 3pm post when he complained about not being nominated for the Ping.sg Awards.

Same same like APLINK when his emotions got the better of him too.

However, DK did bring up interesting revelations about the sponsors for the first Ping.sg blog awards. It also brought up the argument that commercial blogs, be it an advertiser of Ping.sg or not, should not have a place in the aggregation site for the benefit of the members.

From a potential advertiser’s point of view, it doesn’t really make sense for them.
Let’s role play to see why.

Advertiser: I heard of Ping.sg and it has lots of members. Can you recommend if I should advertise there?

T(N)MS: Sure. You want to a banner ad for three months?

Advertiser: Yes, and you know we have a corporate blog to gel with the banner ad campaign. Can we be ponged?

T(N)MS: While it is encouraging to see a corporate like you engaging new media and making use of it,  you can put a banner ad on Ping.sg but your blog can’t be in the site. You see, your corporate blog is a commercial blog and it goes against the site’s T&Cs.

Do you think the advertiser would want to advertise in Ping.sg?

The New Socialite highlighted a solution for Ping.sg and the founder of Ping.sg is also looking at the same direction for a solution.

But like APLINK pointed out “so to encourage sponsors to join ping 2.0 commercial service - just ban them first from ping 1.0 - with no regard and expect them to come back happily and pay for the honor of being in the ping community once again ? Interesting strategy”.

This tech news could have been easily lost but it does make for an interesting read.

Wrote The Straits Times,

AN INTERNET start-up is suing national broadcaster MediaCorp for millions of dollars, the latest step in a legal tussle that could redefine how Singaporeans record live television.

The firm, RecordTV, runs a website that allows users to download free-to-air programmes, like Prime Time Morning, and store them in an online database.

The media giant had threatened to sue the Singapore-based company, claiming the device flouts copyright rules.

At RecordTV.com FAQ site, it seems like RecordTV checked with the relevant authorities before launching the service.

From RecordTV.com FAQ,

What is RecordTV.com?

RecordTV.com is simply an Internet-based DVR (Digital Video Recorder) or VCR. The functionality is identical to a DVR or VCR, except that the storage is on a remote server. RecordTV has consulted with the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) and Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) and accordingly obtained all necessary regulatory licenses for online storage services from the Government of Singapore.

Did something go wrong along the way? Is there a reason why Mediacorp was the one drawing first blood to sue RecordTV.com?

The original RecordTV.com was founded in US in 1999 but closed down in 2001 because of lawsuits. Interesting, the CEO then also highlighted problems of the lawsuits.

From CNET.com,

“We were kind of in a catch-22,” said RecordTV Chief Executive David Simon. “We couldn’t raise funding because of the legal issues…but we couldn’t also fight the lawsuit without raising funding.”

Here’s a video of the SG RecordTV.com team explaining their Facebook application in March 2008 this year.

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.

It seems like food establishments, small and big, are allergic to complains from their paying customers.

Local blogger Platoz complained about a small Ayam Penyat food stall at NTU and the owner allegedly “demanded” that Platoz stop complaining about his dish.

NTU Ayam Penyet stall owner asked me to stop criticizing him | Monk philosophy on everything under the sun via kwout

Privé, a more high end resturant off Keppel island, also decided to delete a comment from its Facebook community when a customer decided to use it to complain her displeasure at the service of the staff during a birthday dinner celebration.

Some might argue that Privé owns the Facebook group so it is in their prerogative  to delete comments that they don’t feel is right for the group.

That isn’t the point of this post.

Both food establishments have decided that the best way of addressing a complain is to take down the posts.

While they have erased the unhappiness in the short term, the long term damage is done.

Asking a blogger to take down a negative post or erasing a bad Wall comment shows that the establishments would rather sweep the damages under the carpet.

They forget that such actions can be easily propagated  with the Web2.0 tools that themselves hope to use to market their food offerings.

Their actions also creates a perception that they above their customers. In simple words, arrogance.

Would you want to part your money being served by service that is being portrayed as arrogant?

This blogger believes the two complainers are only looking for the two establishments to acknowledge their weakness, apologise for the bad service and improve their offerings.

Not a slammed door in their face.

If you think saying sorry is a sign of weakness, think again.

Imagine if the respond to the both parties was as follows:

We would like to apologise for the bad services experienced during your visit to our food establishment.

We have taken the necessary actions to look at how we can improve our services or food ensure your next experience at our food establishment on your next visit.

Again, please accept our apologies for the incident.

Would you want to visit the food establishment again?