Ian On The Red Dot

Exhibition held at Post-Museum,

an independent cultural and social space situated in Little India Singapore

Thanks to the awesome Nadnut, I scored an invite to Johnnie Walker’s Jet Black Party. It was an awesome night of great drinks and even better company.

The event was held at ‘One on the Bund’ housed in the refurbished Clifford Pier.

The highlight of the night was drinking the delectable concoctions created by 4 world-class mixologists.

w00t.

Managed to get free tickets for the Video Games Live concert. Initially I wanted to go for it after my mom told me about it (yes, I know it is sad that I had to find out about this concert from my mom) but couldn’t because the budget for this month was tight.

So, when I got approached with the offer for free tickets if I helped spread the word, I had the joy of a kid who has just been told he can go and play Nintendo at his friend’s house.

Double w00t.

VGL is not just a concert, but a celebration of the entire video game industry that people of all ages will adore. Created and produced by Jack Wall and Tommy Tallarico, Guinness Record holder for prolificacy in video game composing, VGL is a tribute to video games culture over the last three decades. The concert will stage music and footage from the most popular video games from past to present, including Mario, Halo, Final Fantasy, WarCraft, Sonic, Metal Gear Solid, Interactive Space Invaders, Diablo III, Metroid, Pac-Man, Kingdom Hearts, Castlevania, Zelda and many more.

This is what I would be enjoying on Friday night:

For most of us who had the good fortune of growing up with gaming in the eighties and nineties, it is really interesting to see how those games have managed to become embedded into the mainstream and how people have used those influences to produce other creative works.

An example – making the movie Death Race even more awesome:

There used to be a time when parents were able to understand what their kids were doing for recreation. Football, tennis, badminton, softballs, rugby,squash – these were activities that parents understood, and could even support if not join in the fun.

Then those blasted contraptions called computers came along and things changed. Kids started getting lost in new worlds created by – what parents must surely think are the devil’s playthings – computer games.

“So son, what did you do over the weekend?”

“Oh, nothing much dad. Me and some clan mates played a few games where we gang-banged some idiot noobs.”

And the conversation pretty much ends there, with the parents’ hearts breaking into a million pieces, them wondering what they did wrong to raise such a deviant child.

In a move to help create an environment where father and son can bond over the sharing of spoils after slaying a level 200 monster in a faraway virtual land, the event Licence2Play is being organized by SPHere Exhibits and the Singapore) Cybersports and Online Gaming Association.

Its aim was to introduce cyberwellness and responsible gaming elements into the industry, thus engaging often-neglected stakeholders like parents, educators, and the Government. While at the same time having loads of fun and family entertainment, which is what gaming–a pretty recession-proof industry–should always be about.

Find out more about the event from Aaron over at his cnet blog.

Yesterday the first, supposedly, Singapore Tweetup was held at Geek Terminal. Like the usual kaypoh I am, I decided to go down look look see see. It was great to finally meet ctham who I started following during the whole AWARE fiasco as well as catch up with some friends.

Sadly, I had to leave early, but not before acquiring a sour taste in my mouth. Apparently a few other individuals had also felt the joyous occasion of finally meeting people you kind-of-know-and-are-friends-with for the first time was sullied by a seemingly hidden agenda for organizing the Tweetup – the promotion of an online reality TV show SuperModelMe.

Now, there are few things I enjoy more than being in the presence of 10 hot babes, although only 1 lady really came close to shorting my thought and speech circuitries like the Bond gals did many years ago – yes, you the stunning leggy model in blue top, I’m talking about you.

But I like to be warned beforehand that I’m going for an event where someone is trying to officially promote something, and make no mistake, that was what happened tonight. Imagine if a company arranged an event called ‘Bloggers Meetup’ and a whole bunch of bloggers gathered thinking it was just a night of socializing and networking. Suddenly a representative of XXX company steps forward, takes the stage and starts pitching about a new product.

Make no mistake, THERE WILL BE BLOOD!!!

Twitterers are people too. It would be nice if they were engaged with a certain amount of courtesy. Tonight’s gathering was in danger of becoming a outreach-to-Twitterers event instead of a simple Tweetup. Spin it whatever way you want, the models weren’t Twitterers (despite them having accounts created) and tonight was a gathering for Twitterers.

Having said all that, I think getting the models to use Twitter for the duration of the contest is an interesting concept. Instead of going into a confession booth at EOD to complain about their day and bitch about fellow contestants, they can do it whenever they like by whipping out a phone and twitter. Hell, what I’m really looking forward to is the indiscriminate taking of photos and the subsequent uploads to Twitpic.

Sadly, these fine ladies don’t seem to be that much in the know about Twitter. But every cloud has a silver lining, and while I may not be a social media guru, I would gladly hold the hands of the ladies as they take baby steps into the brave new world of the Twitterverse.

Update:

As always, Unique Frequency weighs in with an interesting post.

Ingrid shares her thoughts.

There are actually worse ways for an event to be ’spoiled’ – the addition of 10 well groomed ladies into our presence, relatively speaking, isn’t all bad.

Notes:

The story about the Bond gals is an interesting one, at least to me. Never had I ever been so close to four accomplished women with such perfect poise and mesmerizing beauty. I don’t think I ever will.

Last night was the game between Singapore and Uzbekistan. I went to watch the match alone. When I reached there at 7.45pm, this was the sight that awaited me:

I was not to be discouraged and decided to join the queue.

There was great atmosphere among those of us queuing to watch the match. We knew there was little chance of us getting in before half time but we didn’t care. Some people were keeping track of the score by calling or messaging those in the stadium or those watching from home. We cheered when we heard Singapore equalized to make the score 2-2.

I had hope we could pull an upset. I also thought that the stadium must have been packed.

After 30 minutes of queuing, I finally got my ticket. Guess what..the tickets were being sold by young kids. I think that’s so wrong. I know they are earning their keep but somehow it just felt exploitative.

Anyway, when i was walking up to the seats, this was the queue that remained:

When I got in, two things greeted me which left me deeply disappointed. The first was that we were now down 4-2. What happened!!!! I called my Uncle and he told me we let in two soft goals. Then I saw us let in what was a really cheap goal from a corner kick. Sigh.

The second thing that greeted me was the half empty stadium.

Only one side was anywhere near full.

I know I’ve said it many times, but I’ll say it again – I miss the days of the Malaysian Cup and League.

What I don’t get is this. Why were we playing so many long balls that night. I mean, let’s face it, if we want to go to the World Cup Finals, then we must know we will be facing teams with individuals bigger and taller than us. Long balls doesn’t seem to be the optimal strategy against such opponents. Sure, we could hope our players get bigger or maybe, just maybe we could work on another style of play.

Anyway, last night, three English guys sat behind me and made disparaging remarks about the team’s fitness and skills. I felt like turning around to say, “Your England not so much better. They didn’t qualify for Euro”. But I didn’t. I realized why what they said hurt so much was because there was truth in what they said.

We weren’t on par with the players from Uzbekistan in terms of fitness and skill. We also didn’t have the gamemanship that those players had. I mean, come on lah ref, how kayu are you? Those guys can easily muscle any of our players off the ball, but when one of ours touch them a bit, those jokers fall to the ground in the kind of agony that is only warranted if they had been knocked down by a bus.

The performance didn’t even deserve a Golden Globe nomination. It was that bad.

Sigh.

This loss didn’t hurt as bad as the one against Malaysia. Maybe it was because there was a certain resignation that this team was way better. Or maybe I’ve lowered my expectations.

But I think last night, the team had a little bit of fight in them. Despite the soft goals, they did play with a certain amount of pride.

Anyway, I need some help here. Can anyone remember when the Singapore World Cup 2010 initiative was started?

I remember how my father and uncle would talk about the legendary Quah Kim Song and his generational of exceptional footballers. I never got the chance to watch these players but managed to experience a little bit of the Kallang magic growing up. The highlight was when we did the double – that season I would watch the matches on TV and for the occasional game go to the stadium. The nights of the Kallang roar were unforgettable experiences.

Then came an equally unforgettable night though I wish I could remove its stain from my memories. The night that Singapore was trashed 4-0 by Malaysia. I think I left the stadium almost in tears.

It is one thing to lose. It is another thing to lose to a bitter soccer rival. BUT the greatest pain was watching our national players collapse in cramps. Some people would say it is because they gave their all, I say they didn’t prepare enough to play for the team. I’m not sure what anyone else will remember about that night, but that was the night I saw a team of players wearing the Singapore flag over their chest with no respect at all to what that means.

That flag means something. The right to wear that flag means something.

Anyway, like any love affair, I’m going to allow myself to be hurt again. So tonight, I’ll be heading down to the National Stadium to watch Singapore play Uzbekistan.

All the best Singapore. Do us proud.

Two weeks ago, a bunch of my colleagues and me trained for the lost sport. It is all part of trying to find the lost ring.

The video from our first run is below. I used my mobile phone to capture the event so the quality is much to be desired.

If you’re from Singapore, and part of the team trying to find the lost ring and also keen to train for the lost sport, do drop a comment here.

You can check for events over at Upcoming’s Labyrinth Training Events.

Earlier this evening was an event organized by TDM where Vinton Cerf from Google shared this thoughts about the future of the Internet. Some people might say his visions of the future, he joked that it might be hallucinations. You just got to love a guy who is self-deprecating.

Three things about Vinton Cerf. The first was that as he walked pass us, he made the first move to acknowledge our existence. The second was that he made a comment that he didn’t want to be the guy who comes to talk but not listen. The third thing I’ll touch on soon.

SimplyJean liveblogged the event here. Some tweets from the event here and here. Someone was videotaping the event so I’ll leave you to watch the video when it comes out to know what he shared tonight. The reason is this – I could try to summarize what he said, but it would be meaningless, because tonight while partly was about what he had to say, it was how he said it that really mattered and you should watch the video to get a better experience of what happened tonight.

Here is the third thing about Vinton Cerf. He demonstrated tonight that no matter how intelligent you are, or how brilliant your idea is, everything is for naught if you do not have the power to communicate it. I’m not sure how other people would describe Vinton Cerf, but if I had to describe him in one sentence, I would say he is a brilliant communicator.

He is undoubtedly a brilliant guy. When he spoke, it was in a way that didn’t make any of us feel stupid. It wasn’t that he spoke about simplistic stuff but that he was able to distill and communicate his thoughts in a way that we could understand and actually feel smart, if not become smarter, because we understood his reasoning, his feelings and his thoughts.

He spoke brilliantly, clearly and eloquently.

As we were leaving the room, my ex-coursemate from NUS and me commented rather wistfully that if we only had more professors like that in NUS.

But no matter, tonight was a really special night for me. It isn’t often that I feel that I have been in the presence of greatness. Tonight was one of those nights.

I am sincerely grateful to TDM for organizing this event and creating the opportunity to listen from someone like Vinton Cerf. Hopefully, there will be many such nights to come.

For now, I will never forget the experience I had in room 325.

Added: James brought up the Starhub blocking of BitTorrent incident after Vinton Cerf talked about net neutrality. Vinton’s response was amazingly balanced and reasonable, almost sympathetic towards Starhub – It really says something about him as a thinker.

Beware: This is a long long post. Longer than usual. I think.

So, I was invited to The Open Room event hosted by Ogilvy. Daryl Tay from Unique-Frequency shared about his interactions or rather lack of interactions with the people from the companies. By his standard of using namecards, I think I was slightly luckier than him.

I think it might help going for such events alone. Why? For brief moments of the evening, without the support group of friends, I did feel slightly isolated. Damn that room. There was nowhere to hide! Thankfully for me, Brian and his colleague Mel really are the consummate PR professionals. They introduced me to a bunch of really interesting people.

One of them was Keith from Nokia and he demonstrated Nokia’s sharing platform Ovi.com. Seemed easy enough to use. Sadly, my phone doesn’t come preloaded with the software. I really should explore my phone more besides just using it for phonecalls, messaging and taking photos.

I lamented to Keith how each new variation of Snakes on the Nokia phones just disappointed me and I really preferred the original 2d Snakes on the Nokia phones. Keith was helpful enough to suggest a site I might get that version. I realized while I am perfectly comfortable tinkering with the hardware of my desktop and installing new software on my MacBook just to test test play play, I really haven’t gotten into the mindset that my phone can be ‘messed’ around with. Hmmm…

Anyway, Keith also showed me the pictures of his kids. I think his oldest was like 9 years old. And he didn’t look old enough to be a father of such a big kid. Apparently the products of NiuSkin really work.

Ok. The one thing I really took away from that night was the Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics shared by John Bell.

Ogilvy PR’s Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics

* We reach out to bloggers because we respect your influence and feel that we might have something that is “remarkable” which could be of interest to you and/or your audience.

* We will only propose blogger outreach as a tactic if it complements our overall strategy. We will not recommend it as a panacea for every social media campaign.

* We will always be transparent and clearly disclose who we are and who we work for in our outreach email.

* Before we email you, we will check out your blog’s About, Contact and Advertising page in an effort to see if you have blatantly said you would not like to be contacted by PR/Marketing companies. If so, we’ll leave you alone.

* If you tell us there is a specific way you want to be reached, we’ll adhere to those guidelines.

* We won’t pretend to have read your blog if we haven’t.

* In our email we will convey why we think you, in particular, might be interested in our client’s product, issue, event or message.

* We won’t leave you hanging. If your contact at Ogilvy PR is going out of town or will be unreachable, we will provide you with an alternate point of contact.

* We encourage you to disclose our relationship with you to your readers, and will never ask you to do otherwise.

* You are entitled to blog on information or products we give you in any way you see fit. (Yes, you can even say you hate it.)

* If you don’t want to hear from us again, we will place you on our Do Not Contact list – which we will share with the rest of the Ogilvy PR agency.

* If you are initially interested in the campaign, but don’t respond to one of our emails, we will follow up with you no more than once. If you don’t respond to us at all, we’ll leave you alone.

* Our initial outreach email will always include a link to Ogilvy PR’s Blog Outreach Code of Ethics.

I think this is a brilliantly conceptualized Code of Ethics. Why? Because they are applying the principle of “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you”. Secondly, they show the understanding that blogs have their place in a marketing campaign, just another tool to use, but isn’t the end all be all of online marketing. One of the problems with people peddling ad spaces on blogs is that they hype up the effectiveness of blogs in online marketing. We don’t get it from these guys. Nice.

Pause.

What exactly is a blog? Is is a word that describes a tool or a form?

Take TechCrunch for example. Is it a blog? Well, it uses a blog as the publishing tool. But the form? By the way, what is the form of a blog post? Can it even be defined?

Is the form of a blog post distinguished by its relative informal style of writing as compared to that of an article on a newspaper or other more old-school, mainstream media properties like nytimes.com. Or is just the bad English, limited vocab and grammar like this blog.

Ok. Where am I going with this. It would probably be superfluous to note that there are many types of blogs. One of the types which I suspect constitutes a high number in Nuffnang’s community of bloggers is exemplified by blogs like Xiaxue, Estee and Dawn (list compiled in increasingly level of hotness).

Firstly, Nuffnang is used as an example because they are the highest profile local blog advertising network (at least in my view of this world).

Nuffnang has this pitch for bloggers:

Firstly, there are the monetary gains! We’ll do all the groundwork looking for advertisers and link you in with them. Once an ad is served on your blog, you start making income!

It is our sincere belief that Blogs should be credible and rich sources of information. Correspondingly, we will do our utmost best to ensure the ads served on your Blog match your content and readership as closely as possible. What this means is that your readers will be up to speed with the best deals in the market place!

How people using Nuffnang can try to monetize their blog:

1. Cost Per Unique Visitor Ads
2. CPC Ads
3. Advertorials

What Nuffnang is doing for the bloggers:

1. Blogger Partners
2. Blogger Outings
3. Affiliate Programme
4. Networking Sessions
5. Sponsorship for Blogger Related Events

The stuff Nuffnang is trying to do for the blogging community isn’t new. It resembles a lot what a manager running a Rewards / Loyalty Club Scheme might do. The monetization strategy for blogs is the same as any form of media advertising. Get something which pulls in lots of traffic / eyeballs and stick ads. Of course, we can make the ads more relevant. Really? Are these ads any more relevant then the sort I see when I watch soccer on ESPN. The conceit of people plying the online advertising space is that contextual advertising and demographic targeting is way better than say what we get on radio, print and tv. Really?

Seriously. Really? Think about your experience with Google ads on blogs.

If you need a reminder, see this post – Christian blog against gay lifestyle has Google Ad promoting the gay lifestyle.

Even if it is better, what ad networks like Nuffnang is doing is basically just turning blogs into ad spaces that do not take advantage of the uniqueness of blogs as a form and tool. Sure, blogs give more people a voice. Opinions of most of these bloggers wouldn’t have had a chance to be heard before blogs and these opinions do matter. But, what this just means is that you got more people producing content at more places, and more places to stick ads.

Nothing done so far seems to be born out of the uniqueness of blogs as a medium and form. What do I mean? What am I actually looking for?

Blog based marketing shouldn’t just be about bloggers talking about your products in advertorials or reviews or posts after an event.

Blog based monetization shouldn’t be about ads or about writing advertorials, reviews and post-event news.

Then what should it be about? The key was this line – We won’t pretend to have read your blog if we haven’t.

See, if you read my blog, you will know I am interested in Christianity. If you really read my blog, you will know more about this interest – that I’m not a hardcore Christian who will faithfully go for Festival of Praise nor am I a person who wants nothing to do with Christianity. My feelings and thoughts about Christianity is somewhere in between and if you read my blog to understand, you will know where exactly in between.

My point? Contextual advertising probably can understand the content for individual posts. Maybe even understand what the whole blog is about. But as of now, it cannot understand me as a person. The algorithm does not have the ability to meet me in person over a cup of coffee at Starbucks below your office to talk shop (hint to someone mentioned above).

So, here is why I think the future of blog (and here, I’m referring to a very specific form) monetization (and I believe there are many ways a blog can benefit you monetarily without exactly putting dollars, and in Nuffnang case it seems, cents into your bank account) and blog based marketing isn’t more algorithms for contextual advertising or more ad networks just to treat blogs as ad space and bloggers as anonymous content producers that draw traffic but PR companies like Ogilvy who bring their offline skills in understanding people and connecting people in the online world.

Now, Nuffnang lovers, I do recognize Nuffnang is trying to connect people. Maybe even understand people. But let’s take a look at some numbers – they have thousands of blogs in their network. If you tell me they have a relationship with everyone of those bloggers and understand them as individuals, either you are lying or you are on some narcotic (hint. I might like some cos whatever it is, it seems to put you in a happy happy place).

Nuffnang business model is about numbers.

Ogilvy is talking about people actually reading the blogs. Obviously there are limitations. It might not scale so well. Now. The key then is to build the (or just tweak existing) tools for PR people to do their job easier and better.

Now, here is something I want to add. When I get to know a person better, I stop caring so much about their interests. I do of course. But more importantly, I care about how their life can be better. The last line is a hint where I think the new companies focusing on blog based marketing and blog monetization should focus on.