the(new)mediaslut

From a moral standpoint, can journalists on a junket skip totally irrelevant sessions and go shopping? Or do they have to sit in on sessions, pretend to take notes and not write up anything anyway?

That question came about yesterday when Smartbrain was locked in conversation with a Malaysian journalist at the Shanghai Spring Intel Developer Forum (IDF). The afternoon session of day 0 was all about Intel Capita and its investments into China for the most part. Being a vetran of IDF in Bejing last year, Smartbrain noted to the group that the Intel Capital section was totally and utterly irrelevant to our type of publication at least and last year yielded absolutely nothing for Smartbrain to write about.

Hence, the reasoning went, we should go and check out the fake iPhones and BMW phones at a nearby store. All the more appealing since the event venue is right next to an underground station.

Incidentally there are “Dopodo” phones which boot up with a Windows Mobile facade, look similar to a Symbian S60 phone in use an have a weird full ABCD (as opposed to QWERTY) keypad which makes it almost useless.

However, when a Filipino Intel PR overheard our little plan of egress, she was visibly upset and said we had time on the end of day two to go shopping; that she knew of places in the tourist distrit that gave a nice discount to Intel event attendees and that we should stay.

Exit, Smartbrain stage right, but not before mentioning in passing that some of the shops in Yu Bazarr are ten times more expensive than shops where the locals shop to begin with.

Ten minutes later, Smartbrain finds his merry band of would-be escapees looking totally miserable in the foyer. Apparently there had been a minor incident and none of the other Journalists now felt comfortable with hopping out during the Intel China capital session.

Smartbrain left anyway and got in a sizeable bit of shopping in the Orient IT Plaza that day plus all the information needed to write up a mini shopping in Shanghai story.

On a side note, Shanghai is fun in a barbaric kind of way. If there is no room, shove. The lunch journalist buffet queue was a lesson in how to get ahead without shame: The foreign journos were in a neat, orderly queue (for the most part) while the locals just pushed their way into get food when and where they wanted.

The entrance to the main keynote hall was verging on a crush (and would probably have been illegal in the UK under health and safety laws) and the hapless usher with signs saying “VIP” looked on helplessly on as non-VIP visitors filled up the VIP seats.

At least there aren’t any prostitutes offering their services right outside the convention centre this year as was the case at IDF Beijing last year. Now, that’s progress.

You may heard the term from print to screen where books are turned into movies and it seems journalists from Singapore’s mainstream media are looking at social media for their source of the story.

It is, therefore, even more important for the brand protectors, like the PR and the corporate comms, to constantly be aware of the going ons of the social media scene.

It all started with postings on two SPH forums at omy.sg and asiaone.com about how the forum member won her case against Nokia to refund her the full amount of a Nokia phone which she bought stopped working after a few days.

Unable to get the mobile phone repair, the forum member asked for a refund and got it through Singapore’s Small Claims Tribunal.

However, when the forum member called Nokia to check on the refund, Nokia office replied they did not receive any notice from the Small Claims Tribunal.

So what did the forum member do?

She got the courts to call in the Repo Man.

Wrote XiaoYun at OMY.sg on Feb 18 2008,

I then applied for WSS (Writ of Seizure and Sale) the next day. An appointment date was scheduled on 11 Feb 2008.

I accompany the bailiff officer to Nokia HQ. Nokia was then given two options by the bailiff officer. One was to make settlement and the other one was let the bailiff officer to sticker their movable assets.

They finally woke up and agree to make payment. By then, they got to pay $1,018.43 instead of $778.

The forum post ended in Singapore’s popular blog aggregation site, Tomorrow.sg on Feb 22, 2008.

The Straits Times posted a teaser on its online site today to highlight that the Nokia incident will hit the pages of the print papers on Feb 25, 2008, with the headline “Nokia forced to cough up more than $1,000 over faulty phone“.

Wrote Alfred Siew of The Straits Times,

EARLIER this month, Ms Tan Geok Hoon marched into Nokia’s office, brandishing court documents and threatening to seize the assests of the cell-phone giant.

A bailiff stood at the side of the 43-year-old sales manager, ready to reposess the company’s things.

Ms Tan was enforcing a small claims court decision that ordered the world’s largest cellphone maker to pay her $778 for a faulty cellphone she bought last year.

The moment, which Ms Tan recalled recently, marked the culmination of a seven- month David-versus-Goliath battle.

The story of one woman’s fight against a mighty firm made its rounds in several online forums last week, casting the spotlight on how the world’s top phone maker handled unhappy customers.

This shows that the mainstream media are reading forums and blogs for a story source and I believed this isn’t the first time that it has happened.

However, I went through Nokia.com.sg Press Center and failed to find any official respond to the incident.

Neither could I find any Nokia response in the forums.

The question here for Nokia is that while the company promotes its mobile phones as a blogging tool, what type of respond mechanism does the company have when it comes to addressing the social media scene?

Or do they wait for it to be blown up in the mainstream media before they respond to them?