the(new)mediaslut

Smartbrain is offering a “live” tweet of the current protests in Bangkok, Thailand. Follow him at twitter.com/smartbrain

Twitter / smartbrain via kwout

User-generated salty-sweet preserved pork jerky?

Not really, but local family business BakKwa maker Bee Cheng Hiang is celebrating its 75th anniversary with a online photo competition.

Everybody is going 2.0 these days.

omy via kwout

Go.. take a photo!

The church of Larry (a.k.a. Oracle) has gone PR 2.0 for this year’s Oracle World with nice one-liners coming in via Twitter from a user by the name of Oracle_JAPAC.

But, dear reader, before you rush off to add it, it is locked and only adds known media to the list.

Nice, concise updates that number a few too many and roll off one’s Twitter screen.

Incidentally, Smartbrain has no less than three disciples of the Church of Larry following him on Twitter today. Hmm. Is that one (or two) too many?

Seems like FY 2009 is the year that all major corporations go Web 2.0? Is it that the time is right? Or is it the financial meltdown that is causing them to find ways of cutting costs?

This also begs the question of PR. Many have asked if the P in PR stands for Press or Public. Disseminating information via Twitter, Flickr (AMD did that for Computex) or a web conference is nice, but can a PR build relationships through such an ethereal medium?

Smartbrain wonder who’s next.

Ping.sg has adopted a “Pay-per-post” approach to get its blog community members to “promote” the current Tiger Airways contest running at the blog aggregation site.

Wrote the eDM from Ping.sg,

Congratulations! You’ve been specially selected for an advertorial opportunity to promote the Ping.sg-Tiger Airways “Share Your Holiday” contest. The winner of the contest will be winning a pair of tickets to any destination that Tiger Airways fly to!This advertorial opportunity is for your blog at http:///xxx.xxx.xx

Your post can be a sharing of your trip to any destination and be submitted for the contest too! Where you may stand a chance to win the pair of return air ticket on Tiger Airways and/or $50 from the weekly draw. You can refer to this blogger’s post for idea. 

… The advertorial piece will earn you SGD xx.xx. Payment will be made within 10 working days after your post has been put up and ping-ed to Ping.sg. In addition, all advertorial and contest entries will also be featured on a microsite on Ping.sg for Tiger Airways contest and being featured on a random selection on Ping.sg homepage and be linked to your blog.

The start of this “Pay-per-post” services means Ping.sg has started to challange the likes of Advertlets and Nuffnang.Advertlets were one of their sponsors at the recent Ping.sg awards.  The last sentence highlights that payment will be made when the post has been pinged. Wait a  minute, isn’t this the type of advertorial post that Ping.sg discourages?

From Ping’s blog on Feb 05 2008,

Poof - you’re gonePoof, also known as flag, is a feature for the Pingsters to flag offensive pings. Currently the flags are,

• • Adult-oriented - Ping.sg should a G-rated and should be a community for all bloggers, there shouldn’t be adult-oriented materials being published on Ping.sg. Of course that’s an ideal case, but now Pingsters who care can help make sure these posts do not get on the ranking board.
  • Advertorial - Ping.sg is a platform for bloggers to share their blog posts, not for companies to advertise their products. I’m sure none of us will not want to see Ping.sg flooded with “$9.99 T-Shirt Just Arrived” or similar titles.
  • Inaccurate titles - You know how bad these pings can get. What is shown at the title isn’t related at all, or only mildly related to what the blogpost is about.
  • No content - There’s no content, only emptiness, or sole link.

And at Ping’s Blog on June 06 2008,

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.This is done solely to ensure that the pings on the platform is still largely consists of posts, views and opinions by the bloggers.

Syed Azidi Syed Aziz, aka Sheih “Kickdefella”, as been arrested by the Malaysian police under the Sedition Act.

Wrote The Malaysian Insider,

Syed Azidi’s wife Bariah Ishak said her husband was picked up from their house in Demit, here at 5.05pm.

She said three plainclothes policemen came in a dark-tinted white Pajero and told her that they were detaining her husband and would bring him to Kuala Lumpur today.

“They said my husband was arrested under the Sedition Act,” she said when contacted.

Meanwhile Kelantan deputy police chief SAC II Amir Hamzah Ibrahim, when contacted, said he could not confirmed the matter as the Kelantan police was not informed about it.

Kickdefella was probably arrested for asking Malaysians to hang the Malaysia flag upside down during the recent Merdeka celebrations.