the(new)mediaslut

If Singtel gets the sole rights of selling the Apple iPhone in Singapore, they will probably highlight how Singaporeans are benefiting from Singtel’s foray into acquiring foreign telcos.

Commsday’s Pamela Perez highlighted a Reuters report that Thailand’s AIS Chief Marketing Officer has highlighted that AIS, Singtel and Australia’s Optus have been approaching Apple for the rights to sell the iPhone in the respective countries.

Wrote Pamela,

Thailand’s Advance Info Service together with its parent company Singapore Telecom and Australia’s Optus have begun discussions with Apple to launch the well-touted iPhone in Thailand and the southeast Asia-Pacific region, an AIS senior official told Reuters.

Chief marketing officer Sanchai Thiewprasertkul told the Bangkok Post, the firms have been discussing phone volumes, marketing terms and partnerships.

However, the agreement has yet to be completed as Apple’s revenue sharing condition is not likely to work in Thailand, Sanchai said.

One would have to wonder what strategies will Singapore’s Starhub and M1 apply to get these rights for the Apple iPhone.

A group of under 14-year-olds in Perth were waiting for TR717 flight to Singapore for a series of friendly football matches.

It could have their first time ever traveling overseas on an airplane.

Unfortunately, Tiger Airways flight TR717 was postponed because “the captain became concerned about his crew working overtime“.

What do you think the type of image these 14-year-olds would have have Tiger Airways now and when they grow older?

I scanned through all the Australian online publications and while a Tiger Airways spokesperson came out to explain why the flight was delay, there were no apologies and remedies in the statements made.

Here’s a sample.

Wrote news.com.au,

“The captain had a look at the time sheets of the crew and decided to postpone the flight because he was concerned they would work out of hours on the return leg,” Tiger spokesman Matt Hobbs said.

“I’m not sure why on this particular flight they thought they might go out of hours, but we stand by our pilots.”

There’s the reason and yes, I would rather be on the postponed flight then one being flew by pilots who did not have their mandatory rest periods.

Matt Hobbs might have apologised in making his statement, but it was not reflected in any of the Australian publications.

I tried searching Tiger Airways website and I couldn’t even find a page for press releases. Was there an apology from Tiger Airways about the delay?

How about a statement from Tiger Airways to provide a remedy that such delays do not happen again?

Without a remedy in place, are delays due to scheduling problems still a high possibility with Tiger Airways?

If that questions linger in the customer, how confident would the customer be to book a flight again with Tiger Airways.

The three Rs of crisis communication as stated in the book “Drop the pink elephant” is applicable to companies, big or small, that need to handle a crisis.

But you might ask, “Would an apology be an admission of guilt? A sign of weakness?”

The book also explained that it actually will have opposite effect.

On the other hand, apologising is a sign of strength, humbling the corporation to their level of the customers and trying to understand their frustration.

Delayed flights can cause a lot of frustration. Money can’t solve everything and if the company feels that refund is all that is needed to appease their customers, then a rethink of their crisis communications strategy is necessary.

The Pacific Telecommunication Concil has selected CommsDay to be the official daily newsletter for the annual PTC conference in Honolulu from January 13, 2008.

CommsDay will also be assisting in the production of live television coverage from the event.

Decisive Publishing was founded in Sydney in 1994 by two then-25-year-old entrepreneur-journalists, Grahame Lynch and Jeremy Grigg. Operating out of a one-room office in Sydney’s Chinatown, Decisive launched what was then an innovative product for Australia’s duopolistic telecom sector, a two-page daily fax newsletter about all matters telecom called Communications Day.

Grahame Lynch can be contacted at  grahamelynch(at)commsdaymail.com.

Sources close to the two publishing house highlighted that Fairfax recently showed an interest to buy Questex Asia.

The deal was apparently called off by Fairfax as the asking price from Questex Asia was too high and based on “promise” profits.

However, the proposed buyout got Fairfax close enough to look at the Questex Asia’s books.

Talk about competitive information.

2Clix recently took Australia Whirlpool to court over a  forum post at its site.

2Clix may have dropped its case, but  according to Phil Sim of Squash.wordpress.com,  2Clix’s action will remain in infamy thanks to Google search results.

From Squash.wordpress.com:

Unfortunately for 2Clix, the case won’t be dropped from Google or any of the web’s various search engines. In fact, seven of the first ten results related to 2Clix now reference the original Whirlpool post and the subsequent legal action. 2Clix’s reputation on the web will for a long-time be defined by this action and the Forum complaints that prompted the whole thing in the first place.

In circumstances like this, the only way to fight information you believe is defamatory is to fight-fire-with-fire. Respond to comments, write your own blog response, take your story to the press and other bloggers. Getting lawyers involved will only ever make you look like a bad guy and they’re almost impossible cases to get up anyway.

On the surface, it looked liked a regular breaking news for Commsday about Google’s plans to lay “new Pacific “Unity” undersea cable” last Friday.

However, the story became one of the rare Australian articles to have made it to the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Slashdot and other popular tech blogs in a single day.

From Commsday:

“However, Communications Day understands that Unity would see Google join with other carriers to build a new multi-terabit cable,” wrote Grahame Lynch.

“Google would get access to a fibre pair at build cost handing it a tremendous cost advantage over rivals such as MSN and Yahoo, and also potentially enabling it to peer with Asia ISPs behind their international gateways - considerably improving the affordability of Internet services across Asia Pacific.”

From Google News, there were up to 29 results highlighting the story, not forgetting the mention of this blog’s email to CNET’s Buzz Out Loud.

Google Planning New Undersea Cable Across Pacific?
Slashdot - Sep 22, 2007
tregetour writes “Google is planning a multi-terabit undersea communications cable across the Pacific Ocean for launch in 2009, Communications Day reports: …

Rumor Control: Google Laying Pacific Cable? Wired News - Sep 21, 2007 A report from an Australian trade news service, Communications Day, has rekindled speculation that Google might very well be interested in becoming a …

Google Shoots Down Reports Of Grand Telecom Ambitions
Information Week Weblog, NY - Sep 21, 2007
It is unlikely that Google wants anything to do with selling increasingly commoditized connectivity. Quite simply, it’s not a very appealing business to be …

The Singapore government announced changes to a few sex related laws for the resident island state.

While the local papers focused on these new laws help to give more protection to children and women, many foreign media chose to blow theirs on new rules of heterosexuals going down on their partners and entering via the back door. (Pardon the puns, couldn’t resist it!)

Headline in Today: Children, women to get more protection

Headlines in other foreign newspapers (from Google News)

Singapore to ease laws on anal sex
Taipei Times, Taiwan - 32 minutes ago
Oral and anal sex in private between consenting heterosexual adults would be legalized under a bill introduced in Singapore’s parliament on Monday. …

Singapore OK with oral sex, but not between gays
Brisbane Times, Australia - Sep 17, 2007
SINGAPORE - Oral and anal sex in private between consenting heterosexual adults would be legalised under a bill introduced in Singapore’s parliament today. ..

Heterosexual oral, anal sex to be legalised
NEWS.com.au, Australia - Sep 17, 2007
ORAL and anal sex in private between consenting heterosexual adults would be legalised under a Bill introduced in Singapore’s parliament. …

Oral, anal sex legal in Singapore
Daily Telegraph, Australia - Sep 17, 2007
ORAL and anal sex in private between consenting heterosexual adults would be legalised under a Bill introduced in Singapore’s parliament. …

Oral, anal sex legal in Singapore
NEWS.com.au, Australia - Sep 17, 2007
ORAL and anal sex in private between consenting heterosexual adults would be legalised under a Bill introduced in Singapore’s parliament. …

Singapore May Allow Oral, Anal, But Not For Gays Queerty, NY - Sep 17, 2007 Singapore’s government’s getting sexual today as a new bill looks to strike down laws banning oral and anal sex. While it may sound like a great development …

Oral, anal sex to be legalized in Singapore bill
Inquirer.net, Philippines - Sep 17, 2007
SINGAPORE - Oral and anal sex in private between consenting heterosexual adults would be legalized under a bill introduced in Singapore’s parliament on …

Did you notice how popular these new rules are with the media Down Under?

The Singapore Slingers woke up from their new year slumber to beat the Townsville Crocodiles 114-103 in a Australia National Basketball League ladder match yesterday at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

Guards Off.. Slingers No 14 Brad Davidson (left) vs Townsville No 4 Kelvin Robertson

Compared to the match on Wednesday, the determined Slingers looked more energetic and played with the purpose to prove their critics wrong.

Townsville No 4 Kelvin Robertson attacking the board with Slingers No 35 Marquin Chandler attempting to block

Leading the charge was Slingers’ No 23 Mike Helms attacking the boards and scored a total of 34 points.

Showtime! by Slingers’ No 23 Mike Helms

In the second quarter, Helms made a aggressive block shot that the crowd got could only cheer in awe.. Unfortunately, themediaslut was fast enough to take that shot.

Helms jumping tall trying to tip the ball into the basket

Townsville’s No 4 Robertson stole the ball from center court, charged downtown and wowed the Townsville’s supporters with 2 points.

Disappointed Townsville’s supporters booing a referee’s bad call towards the end of the game.

Show Time! by the Singapore Slinger Girls

It was a Harvey Norman Appreciation Night at the Slingers game and the Slinger Girls were dancing to the beat of the Harvey Norman tune most of the time.

The Slingers game provided Harvey Norman the alternative to another usual boring Dinner and Dance appreciation night.

Slinger girls adding an oriental touch to their routine

The Singapore Slingers lost their match against the Melbourne South Dragon with a score of 85 - 105.

It wasn’t the Slinger’s day as the shooting and passing were way off.

From the box scores , the Slingers made only 8 of their 23 attempts at 3points with a percentage of only 34.78%. The South Dragons made 28 attempts at 3points with 14 (50%) making it to the scoreboard.

No.  35 Ben Knight attempting a shot

The field shots also didn’t go down well with the Slingers. Of the 89 attempts, the ball went into the basket 32 times giving them a total shooting percentage of 36%.

 
No 23 Mike Helms charging towards the basketball. Made the basket and drew a foul. 3 point play for Helms.

The South Dragons, on the other hand, had a 48% success rate with their field goal attempts, making the basket 42 times out of the 87 attempts.

No 33 Ben Knight attempts a 3point but misses.

Clearing, for the Slingers to win the match against the Townsville Crocodile, they would need to improve their shooting percentages.  

Slinger’s Singapore player No 12 Koh Meng Koon was given the last 2 minutes for some court experience. Unfortunately with the clock running down and the Slingers team already resigned to a defeat, Koh had very much to do except for some ball control and a pass.

Koh challenging a Dragon player

Koh trying to squeeze pass 2 Dragon players rushing to double team him

What about the entertainment? The Slinger Girls pretty as they look also seemed to run out of routine as early as in the 10 mins of the half time break.

Strike a pose, girls!

An overseas friend commented the routines looked rather predictable over some time.  

Routine #1

Shake your poms poms.. Shake your poms poms.

In his five-minutes interview with ITJ Asia’s Milton Sau, Grahame Lynch, publisher of Commsday Asia, raised a very interesting tip that journalists, budding or experienced, should always remember.

From ITJourno Asia :

Milton: What’s the best piece of advice a journalist mentor has ever given you?

Grahame: If you can write 1000 words in 100 words, do it. And, remember you are a salesman of news – if you bore the reader he or she won’t keep on reading.

themediaslut was in conversation with an Aussie Hack(Aussie slang for journalist) and was given this quote from her about her views on PR.

The quote arose because themediaslut was looking at why some US companies, without PR reps in the region, get mention in the Singapore (SG) media more times than US companies with PR reps here.

Anonymous Aussie Hack:

"Interesting people dont need PR and rich people need PR to stay out of the press which means the only people who need PR to get in the press are not interesting or successful."

Of course, themediaslut being the fair person she is posed this statement to the Flacks (Aussie slang for PR) and received an interesting rebuttal.

Anonymous SG Flack:

"No, not true.  Interesting people sometimes don’t get out there. PR people help to highlight interesting bits of people who may somewhat be oblivious that their stories might be interesting.

"And people who aren’t successful but have potential to be be successful need PR to help them be successful."

According to NBL.com.au, Singapore Slingers did improve their fourth quarter game as they held the Taipan to a scoreless 6 minutes in that quarter.

However, it was the second quarter that gave the Taipan the win over the Slingers.

NBL.com.au :

The Taipans established a 10-point advantage in a dominant 34-22 second-quarter, which they held for much of the game until the final term.

The Slingers staged a thrilling comeback to start the fourth quarter, holding the home side scoreless for six minutes, before the Taipans pulled away to escape with the win.

Bob Turner, MD for the Singapore Slingers, expected a 4000 crowd average per game for the Slinger’s first season in the NBL.

In an interview with Sydney Morning Herald’s Jessica Halloran, Turner highlighted that it would still be possible for him to achieve that target.

"If we get to [the point] where this city takes us on, and the corporate community realises this will be the most financial [beneficial], most supported team because of the 11,000-seat arena, it will be the best place to play in the league, without a question," said Turner as written by Halloran.

"It will be the best place to play in the whole region."

Full story here .  

The Singapore Slingers is set to revenge their home lost against the Cairns Taipans away this Friday but Slingers’ owner Bob Turner hopes his team will show better composure in the last two minutes against the Taipans.

"Against the powerful Sydney Kings, the Slingers proved they can match any team in the competition and again faltered in the last two minutes to better discipline and composure by the Kings, ‘ said Turner.

"The Slingers are playing teams that have been settled and together for a number of years.

"The disrupted training in the pre-season due to injuries has severely hurt the teams development in the areas of control and teamwork and these are being addressed by head coach Gordie McLeod."

It was in the last two minutes the Slingers also lost the last game at home to Cairns.

"Briefly we lost to Cairns at home last Thursday in a game that had lead changes throughout but the Slingers faltered in the last two minutes to go down," said Turner. 

"Cairns was led by Martin Cattalini, Darnell Mee and the outside shooting of Anthony Stewart.

"The Slingers will need more output from American Marquin Chandler to combat the talents of Martin Cattalini, a long time representative for the Australian National team."

themediaslut has been asking many of her Singaporean friends why they are not interested in watching Slingers match when they play at home at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

The common reply was that the team is made up of foreigners and the two Singaporeans, No15 Pathman and No12 Koh Meng Koon , are not playing on a regular basis.

themediaslut then turn the question around and asked if the team was made up only of Singaporeans, would her friends take the effort to go down to the stadium to watch the match, the common answer would still be a no and they provided the S-League as an example.

There you have it.. It should not matter if the team is made up of all Singaporeans or none Singaporeans, if you love basketball, you should go down to the next Slingers’ home game and experience the atmosphere for once.

PS: In a country like Singapore that is looking to breaking every record there is, it is rather surprising that the local media missed out a record set by Pathman S/O Matialakan when he played against the Perth Wildcats on 22 Sept 2006.

Pathman became the first ever Singaporean and Asian to score two points in the NBL.

The Singapore Slingers took on the Sydney Kings earlier at the Singapore National Indoor Stadium and was denied victory after a late charge by the Kings.

Left: The Q for tickets before the match
Right: Thirst quenchers..

Crowd filling up the Indoor Stadium as the two teams warm up before the start

Left: Sydney Kings warming up
Right: Singapore Slingers warming up their shooting arm

The Game

The Kings took an early lead as they took advantage of the Slingers’ nervous start. In the starting minutes, the Kings led as much 11 points.

Left: Kings drawing first blood
Right: Bad start for the Slingers

Bob Turner (Left), owner of Singapore Slingers, and Michael Johnson, operation managers, looking on at the match.

Left: Slingers’ No 10, Larry Davidson, stretching out for a rebound.
Right: Slingers’ No 8, Jeremy Kench, trying to block a shot from Kings’ No 10.

Brad Davidson, Slingers’ no 14, attempting a three pointer (right) and a lay-up release (left)

 
Left: Slingers’ no 23, Mike Helms, attempting a layup release.  Helms was born in the land of the Pistons, Detroit.
Right: Pero Vasiljevic, Slingers’ center and no 3, attempting to dunk the net from behind the board.

Quarter Time Entertainment

Right: Slinger girls with a Halloween theme.
Left: Slinger girls announcing the winners of the season tickets lucky draw contest.

Same same but different?

The Fans

According to the papers, there were about 2,500 supporters at the game. The highest so far for the Singapore Slingers. It was a good mix of local and expat supporters but a majority of them were from Singapore.

Fans behind their Singapore team

Slingers Fans getting vocal, despite the clocking ticking down towards a Kings’ victory

Post match autograph session with the Slingers team

The Singapore Slingers will take on the Cairns Taipans away. The next home match for the Slingers against the New Zealand Breakers will be on 13 December 2006.

Singapore’s The Straits Times got it wrong again in its basketball write-up of the game between the Singapore Slingers vs the Sydney Kings game last night at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

The Straits Times (subscription needed):

But the Kings, who are gunning for an historic fourth straight title, turned up the heat after the break.

But from Wikipedia , the Sydney Kings appeared in the 2006 finals but did not win that match. The Kings, however, won the 2003, 2004 and 2005 title.

APC has the scoop on the Recommended Retail Price for Windows Vista for Australia.

    * Windows Vista Home Basic – AUD$385
    * Windows Vista Home Premium – AUD$455
    * Windows Vista Business – AUD$565
    * Windows Vista Ultimate – AUD$751 (ouch)

At that price, the OS is almost the cost of the hardware in the PC itself..

These prices have pushed themediaslut over the edge and her next PC purchase will be the Mac. 

The cheapest Mac themediaslut can find comes to about SGD1,688 and it has most of the necessary software.

 Plus, WOW can also be played on the MAC..

Bye bye PC. 

*not even saying goodbye to Windows.. HMP! 

(Whisperer’s post is reference to MediaConnect Asia’s story that Fairfax has licensed IDG titles lik CIO Asia, Computerworld Singapore and Computerworld Malaysia. Clip of the story can be found at the bottom of this post) 

Former Australian loudmouth PM Paul Keating was famous for once referring to his opposition counterpart as a dog returning to its vomit.

Might this be an apt metaphor for Australian media company Fairfax’s decision to buy IDG’s Singaporean, Malaysian and NZ titles.

Those of us with memories recall how Fairfax spent something like $20m buying Strategic Publishing and then basically destroying the whole thing in a few years.

Fairfax has a cultural problem with running media titles where the editorial and advertising have to work in synergy. In Australia it prides itself on quality journalism, all paid for by classifieds. Nobody really has to be commercially aware.

IT media is very different. And given that Fairfax sees the future of its new acquisitions as online entities as much as print, one had to wonder how they’ll get it right.

They just upgraded their Australian Financial Review site into an extremely expensive pay-per-view medium. Lots of stuff about investor tools and so on. But try finding an actual article in it. There’s actually no place on the website that points to and contains editorial… it’s all located in association with other features and whistles. To search and find one article today took me half a hour, having to enter credit card details twice and re-log in three times! What a joke.

But I’m just a loser reader. Surely the commercial heft of Fairfax will add might to those tired old IDG titles, particuarly with advertisers, I hear you say.

Not on your life!

Let’s say I’m an APAC marketing director, with regional budget to spend in SE Asia, Australia and NZ.

Let’s say I’m in HK, so I ring up Robert Ferguson in HK and want a deal. OK, he says, I can offer you Computerworld HK, Network World Asia but I’m going to discourage you from advertising in Computerworld SG, Malaysia and so on, cause I’d rather you go in my own Enterprise Networks Asia and Telecom Asia for those markets.

So I’m in Singapore, so I ring whichever Aussie manager is being rotated through the joint by Fairfax this month on his way to a "real job" back in Sydney and ask the same. Oh, we’ll put you in Computer World Singapore, Malaysia and NZ but dont think about those titles in HK or Australia - go in MIS and CIO instead.

I’m in Australia so I ring my IDG rep. Oh yes come into Computerworld Australia and I can even do you a deal for China or whatever. But I’m not real interested in selling you a NZ and SG leg because it aint my bottom line 

Now IDG is happy.. they’ve sold or licensed titles they clearly dont want, mainly ones that are fairly fringe to them. So why are companies like Questex and Fairfax - who have some respectable heft in their core markets - acting like dogs rolling around in their own ….??

Easy. They share something in common. Their core titles are declining. So while IDG does interesting things like concentrate its resources in big markets like China or get into parallel activities such as venture capital, the rather less ambitious managers at Questex and Fairfax think, ahem, I can beat decline, by adding more titles and spreading my overhead across more, albeit smaller and less impressive, revenue centres.

But here’s the issue. The advertisers are going to get mighty confused. Try figuring out where you should spend your money with the weird portfolios accumulated by the region’s IT publishers - it’s probably easier just to sink the whole lot into your own marketing events, trade shows and conferences.

And if every Fairfax, Questex and IDG site in Asia has the same news service, what does that do for their quite distinct brand identities?  

Media News 
Fairfax licenses IDG titles in Asia, New Zealand and sells UK assets
By Aaron Koh
08/08/2006 12:21:31 PM

It’s official. Fairfax has announced a relationship with IDG that will see it license IDG’s titles in both Asia and New Zealand, while it will be selling its UK publishing assets to IDG.

For more, click here . 

(themediaslut welcomes Whisperer, an experienced Australian journalist residing in SEA, to the slut network. Lots of Australian terms will be used by Whisperer which will require some explaination –> Hack = Journalist, Minder = PR) 

Which jumped up hack recently got put in his pace by a zealous defender of corporate truth and justice? Seems said hack was sat next to a major telco executive on a long-distance shuttle bus on route to a conference in Malaysia recently.

Realising that his schedule meant he would be speaking at a workshop at the same time as the exec’s presentation, he used the bus ride as an opportunity to pop some questions in, specifically about what the exec thought about what Sir Humphrey might term a "courageous" new competitive start-up.

Said hack, apparently having thought that identifying himself as a hack, demonstrating a clear professional interest in the area, apologising for not being able to attend actual presentation and then clearly asking questions in a journalistic tone all constituted something that was on-the-record, proceeded to write up the comments in his publication.

Enter the minder for the exec, who wasn’t on the bus. 

The exec’s views were misrepresented, as the interview was on a bus and was obviously not an interview but a chat.

Kindly pull the story and we’ll do a proper interview, said the minder.

Which made the hack think long and hard.

Would the answers be any different if asked 30min later in a stationary hotel room?

Is an interview conducted in a bus doing 30km an hour less legitimate than a interview conducted on terra firma, which moves around the Sun at 30km per second?

And are articles which focus on what executives think of their competitors unacceptable to some minders no matter what trajectory they were conducted at?