Colin Charles Agenda » New Media

Restaurants need to manage their online reputations

Colin Charles — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:14:41 +0000

Bloggers are an opinionated lot. They tend to speak the truth (most of the time – let’s ignore undisclosed advertorials). You have a bad experience at an establishment, you have a blog, you’re bound to pen down your thoughts. Its only natural. You’re trying to help the general public that bothers to search for the term, to avoid such a place.

Before blogs and web publishing became popular, folk would write e-mails to their friends, and this may end up being forwarded. In fact, forwarded e-mails still exist till today, for the non-web publishing savvy.

So, I find it surprising that American Chili’s has not discovered social media, blogs, and the online world, just yet. Most complaints tend to circle around the branch in Bangsar Shopping Centre, but looking at the comments, you can see that your mileage may vary at all their outlets. For reference: The best AND worst spot for a Guinness, Bodoh punya manager, american chili’s bangsar says there’s a marked difference between a vodka orange and a screwdriver.

In there, there is a perfect opportunity to respond to folk. All those posts have comments open. Why isn’t Chili’s being engaging? Do they need the “social media experts” to contact them offering services? After all, today, when I Google “chili’s bangsar” (not logged into my Google account, and without quotes), link number 7 and link number 10, point to a couple of the blog posts that I linked to above!

This is the age of the Internet. Start responding to your customers. They have the right to talk back now. Foursquare, Yelp!, blogs, and many other services have given them the opportunity to speak their minds.

Of course, if you plan to start being engaging on the Internet, don’t be arrogant. That’s just a sure fire way to ensure that savvy folk don’t show up at your restaurant. Same Google test (“bar italia malaysia”) – post was #7 on the Google search page. However, there were so many other posts/comments before it about how much Bar Italia did not rock.

So here, I’ve just identified two establishments that need to improve their online reputations. Do you search online before going to eat at a restaurant? Do you put weight on Foursquare tips of places you’re going to?

Pompous Malaysian Minister discourages immersion in Western-created sites such as Facebook, Twitter

Colin Charles — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 11:13:48 +0000

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” – Thomas Jefferson

A lazy Saturday, I’m taking a break from most things, and I figured I’d fire up Twitter and see what’s on. Many people pointed me to: Malaysians advised against being immersed in Facebook, Twitter (a href=”http://malaysiakini.com/news/122094″>Malaysiakini picked this up too). It features Rais Yatim, being more pompous than he usually is (yes, please watch that video – its highly amusing).

He added that facilities like internet could not be accepted wholly because it was a form of business introduced by the West and “Malaysians were just users.”

Malaysians were just users. Why were they not the creators of sites like Facebook and Twitter? After all, with organisations throwing money away in the form of grants, so readily to companies, why haven’t we created the next Facebook or Twitter? Ping.fm had only two employees, picked up some angel funding, and have recently been acquired by Seesmic. RM150k for a year, is enough for two founders to hack on something, and make it worthwhile, yet, we see higher amounts of folk gaming the system. What about Twitpic? This list can go on, but that’s not going to be the focus of this post – Malaysian’s can create, if they put their mind to it. To boot, there are also funds that they can have access to.

He goes on to talk about how one must upkeep religious values and be mindful of them when using social networking services. Wow, whatever he’s smoking, I want some.

“We must be strong in our believes and culture because the identity and image of our country depends on us.

Yes. The image of the country today, largely depends on what the people say. Politicians can go overseas and lie to others, but what do people do before the want to visit a country? Invest in a country? Move to a country? They check up on the prospective new place on the Internet. They use Google search. They’ll read Google News. Heck, they might even go read Google’s Blog Search. Others will check out Flickr and Picasa to find good photos, some will check out YouTube. Others will look at TripAdvisor to find a good hotel. Others will check out the newspapers. The list goes on. However, what citizens do, is they speak their mind, when online – so the government clearly lacks control of their old one-way-mediums.

His next statement makes absolutely no sense at all. Maybe he should have spoken in his native Bahasa Malaysia?

“They are just selling Facebook, Twitter, L-Band and various other services, even through space, as a product but we do not do such business. We accept all this in a state of cultural shock,” he said.

Culture shock, eh? Seriously. He continues…

“We should not be quick to condemn or look down on those who do not use Facebook. Newspapers are still relevant, so is Facebook, but do not be carried away with everything and disregard the old system,” he said.

Of course. That would be plain wrong, and ageist. Not everyone needs to be on Facebook. Or Twitter. Or read online media. Its fine that people have a choice. Today, if one chooses to go “old school”, all one has to do is wake up in the morning, buy a dead tree edition of your favourite newspaper, read it, then go over to the boob tube, watch the myriad of programming available on free-to-air channels, and suck in all the propaganda. However, as a society matures, they do tend to disregard the old, and check out the new (for example, if I’d had followed the old system, I’d be seeing this silly media article in the dead tree edition of The Star – I saw it half an hour after it was published because I was on Twitter). Societies mature, and their needs mature, so they do outgrow the old (same applies to political regimes).

It continues, in where he says things about how one shouldn’t use Twitter, Facebook and SMS messaging for the wrong reasons. He tells us that we cannot escape from the law for our actions. And that most people understand the whole 1Malaysia concept. Drivel, in general.

Anyway, newspapers in their dead-tree form are losing relevance. We have two that are free now – The Sun and The Malay Mail. The Star has pretty much all its content online. And Malaysians can read The Malaysian Insider (Malaysian creation) for free, or subscribe to Malaysiakini (Malaysian creation). As the Internet penetration rate goes up, we’ll see more of this. The magazine industry in Malaysia has been suffering for a couple of years (no eyeballs, no advertising ringgit).

So, there are Malaysian creations, used by people, where Malaysians are not just users but creators. I’m sorry Rais, you’re so out of it.

ChurpChurp alcohol advertising on Twitter

Colin Charles — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:00:06 +0000

While waiting for a meeting to start, I fired up Twitter, and I saw an interesting tweet from Niki Cheong promoting the Heineken Facebook application, which apparently allows you to “plant trees, send greeting cards, and gives you tips on how to party!”. Of course, this isn’t something Niki himself posted – it came via a Twitter advertising network, created in Malaysia, called ChurpChurp.

Malaysia is a country that doesn’t appreciate liquor advertising unless its qualified – i.e. you’re non-Muslim, and you’re of age (I’m uncertain if this is actually 18 or 21, but I believe it is the latter). Heineken basically asks for your date of birth on their website, and I blogged previously about Guinness going so far, to ask for your IC number or passport number!

But look, they’ve found a loophole! Heineken Malaysia has 33,239 fans of this writing. Are they all above 21 years of age?

In fact, Niki’s tweet, just goes to their fan page, and under “Celebrate!”, they ask you: “Are you ready to party?” If you say “Yeah!”, it allows you to go to a Bar finder (note: no checking of age, etc.). What is a bar finder? A place to find lists of bars, in various states, that serve Heineken!!! I mean kudos with the application – the list, allows you to select “Klang Valley”, pick a bar, find all the contact details, show it up on a Google Map, and show you a picture of people having a good time. Kudos to Heineken for embracing social media and creating a Facebook application, and having so many fans on Facebook!

So, it seems that liquor advertising has found loopholes: you do it online, and you get other people to write about them. You do it on Facebook. You might do it on Friendster soon (considering MOL now owns it). You get bloggers to write about it. You get it out on Twitter (are all of Niki’s followers above 21?). Completely brilliant. Twitter’s terms of service doesn’t state anything about this, but it does mention “You may use the Services only in compliance with these Terms and all applicable local, state, national, and international laws, rules and regulations.” Funnily enough, I don’t think rules that apply to other forms of media, apply online at the moment.

BTW, I’m not picking on Niki Cheong (in fact, I just spoke with him before posting this – I have his blessings), or any of the other Churp’ers. I’m just making an observation on how alcohol companies are “going 2.0″, figuring out how to circumvent Malaysian requirements, by going completely online, by targeting social networks, et al.

Interested to hear your thoughts!

Why politicians should use Twitter

Colin Charles — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:46:36 +0000

Yesterday, local politician, Khairy Jamaluddin was given some advice about his usage of Twitter, from a senior media figure:

has been given unsolicited advice by a senior media figure to stop tweeting if I want to be taken seriously as a politician. :(

Khairy is not just any ordinary politician. He’s young (33), the leader of UMNO Youth (the youth organisation for the largest political party in Malaysia, that creates the majority of the component party Barisan Nasional), overseas educated from young, and seems like a smart chap. He’s tomorrow’s leader. He’s got a pretty lengthy Wikipedia entry, if you want to know his credentials.

The media in Malaysia has painted nothing but a fairly negative picture of Khairy. When his father-in-law was the Prime Minister, he was widely criticised. When his father-in-law left, the current Prime Minister decided not to pick him for a position in the Cabinet, despite being the leader of the UMNO Youth (first in history, I believe). So to be fair, I myself have never held Khairy in high regards.

OK, let’s go back to the fact that Khairy is young. And he’s the leader of the young guns (aka future voters). So he’s more versatile to adopting to the communication mediums of the young. And that’s something the rest of his archaic party members just don’t seem to get.

Thanks to Twitter, I’ve seen the human-side of Khairy. He appeals to me more as a politician now. In fact, if more from his party do that (and more importantly, do it correctly), there’s going to be a swing to getting more people voting for the Barisan Nasional.

Politicians have never really been very accessible. With Twitter, even though Khairy only follows 55 people, he has 2,589 followers. Why? He reads his @reply queue. He occasionally responds to them (in a very politically correct fashion — he never engages in anything that may seem detrimental quite naturally). So even if he doesn’t respond, you know he’s reading your comments. So you can choose to be snarky, you can choose to have your own opinions, and he’s going to read them (short of him blocking you).

Anyway, back to the point. I take Khairy more seriously as a politician because he tweets. Another Twitter user @kamal, basically said: “Fox Communications is just being a spoiled sport you are handling your own PR”. That could very likely be it. Eight minutes later, Khairy tweeted: “Notwithstanding +ve tweet replies from tweeps, KJ is re-evaluating tweet career in case “seriousness” is KPI at next reshuffle. :p”. Good to note that people told him to continue using the social medium, known as Twitter.

Oh, and I’m young. The other youngsters aren’t bothered about listening to government propaganda. They’re getting information off the Web. They want to be interacted with. Perils of the Gen Y voter, eh? And Khairy understands them… because he himself is a Gen Y voter (I should think).

Kudos Khairy. Continue Tweeting. Continue utilising social media. And good luck in your political career.

For those interested, I’ve started a list with regards to Politicians in Malaysia Using Social Media. Its far from complete, but you can help!

ChurpChurp: Nuffnang’s new Twitter offering

Colin Charles — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:42:23 +0000

I’ve written about Nuffnang in the past, but today, I will focus on their new service ChurpChurp. This is Nuffnang’s latest foray into the advertising space – they’re into Twitter advertising. All Singapore and Malaysian Twitter users, this is something you should read about and understand.

This isn’t new

Twitter advertising has been around for about a year, with the first service that launched, being Magpie. This is similar to what ChurpChurp is – it identifies campaigns, matches them, and will then automatically tweet them for you (visually, how it works).

Magpie allows you to pre-approve all magpie-tweets before it goes out there an automatically posts them. Its not clear if this is just an option or something that happens all the time – auto-posting at random seems more interesting eh?

Magpie has a tweet average – once every ten tweets – by default. You can change the ratio (to once every 200 tweets too, it seems). Magpie supports disclosure, via a customised disclaimer, so you can have a hashtag to say it is sponsored. You can read this and more in their FAQ.

Disclosure is encouraged even via IZEA (the people that mass marketed sponsored conversations). They also have Sponsored Tweets, a yet to be launched service.

And in quick Googling, I also found RevTwt.

ChurpChurp

A quick view of ChurpChurp, without signing up (the last thing I want is my followers to be spammed). The registration page is most interesting, considering they use your age, race and religion potentially, for targeting purposes. They quite blatantly state: “Although optional, depending on the country you are in, we may use race and/or religion to target sponsored posts.”.

But Nuffnang has always shone because they err on the side of fun – they associate themselves with alcohol and possibly tobacco (I can’t remember a recent tobacco related campaign) related companies, and its no different on ChurpChurp. Imagine following funny-man Kenny Sia, and he tweets something like:

Just had a smoke. The menthol feels so good, you should definitely give it a try http://www.ciggies.com.my/ #churp2

But that’s a matter for another day. Alcohol related advertisements are rife in the Malaysian blogosphere, and I can almost guarantee that all readers aren’t of the legal drinking age.

How does ChurpChurp work? Two ways: automated insertions, or via customised insertions with just the appropriate keyword and link. The automated insertions might be easy to figure out, but the customised insertions with just a keyword, and potentially a different shortened URL (for tracking purposes, quite naturally)? Without disclosure, this could potentially be great for advertisers, and in fact, unsuspecting Twitter users will fall prey to ads too. I should make mention that ChurpChurp does support disclosure.

ChurpChurp has an FAQ for Twitterer’s as well as one for advertisers. There’s an interesting list of items that ChurpChurp will not advertise for.

ChurpChurp has defaults – up to 10 ads per week – but this can be customised. You can cash out after earning RM100/SGD100, and I wonder if the rates for the “chosen ones” go up higher enabling them to cash out faster? Or are “chosen ones” really chosen based on Twitter follower count? Remember, if chosen ones are based on follower count, it changes quite rapidly, as and when Twitter decides to clean out spam accounts.

Does this work?

Magpie has been around for a while and seems to not be going anywhere. In fact, I even follow one Magpie advertiser, @WoNoJo. He tells me that he’s just experimenting with Magpie, and I find his other tweets have more value, so I still listen to what he has to say.

That may seem like a blatant “OK” to this ChurpChurp idea, but it isn’t. Remember, you are enabling Churpers, and you can stop by just unfollowing them.

Duncan Riley over at The Inquisitr, has published a telling piece on how he used Magpie and what he thinks about it in: In-Stream Twitter Advertising: Does It Work?. All potential ChurpChurp advertisers should be reading this.

I’m following someone who’s Churp-polluting my stream. What can I do?

If you value his/her tweets, tell them via an @reply that you do not like it. Direct message them if they follow you.

Alternatively, you can always unfollow them.

However, if you feel strongly about this, feel free to drop a direct message to the @spam account on Twitter. Gareth tells me in a comment that its best to direct message the @spam account on Twitter, so as not to mistake your account as a spam account too.

I’m thinking of joining ChurpChurp, should I?

Well, quite simply, you should not. But the promise of earning money is there, right? Just ask yourself: do you want to alienate your followers?

Also, please look at Twitter’s terms of service – #8 states You must not create or submit unwanted email to any Twitter members (“Spam”)..

Anything else?

I invite you to share your comments about ChurpChurp in the comments section. On Twitter, it seemed like most people weren’t too thrilled with Nuffnang polluting the Twitterverse, but it was only a matter of time after they had polluted the blogosphere.

Update: Thanks to Gareth for telling me in comment #1 that its best to direct message and not @reply the spam account on Twitter.

Blogger registration, revisited

Colin Charles — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:06:56 +0000

Apparently, the whole idea behind registering bloggers is coming back. The esteemed Information, Communications and Culture Minister, Rais Yatim stated:

“The idea is good, but we have to see it from the legal aspects and from the aspect of freedom of Internet use.”

What is this? A world of X-Men, where there are mutant registrations, in where the special powers are that of questioning the current administration and providing a more balanced (or biased) view of the political scene? Ptff.

Curious I am, about the Multimedia Signature Act. I don’t think anyone in their right minds, is interested in registering the fact that they write a blog. But its great to see the threat of bloggers so mainstream, that they’ve been talking about registration for at least two years.

Business models, new media, and verticals

Colin Charles — Thu, 07 May 2009 11:35:54 +0000

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about business models and new media with a specific focus on verticals. I’m passionate about the open source movement, and have been involved with free software since the mid-90’s. In fact, I’ve earned my crust, all these years, thanks to open source, so I have no complaints there!

Anyway, lets talk about new media. I’m thinking specifically around podcasts, video podcasts, and even online magazines.

Online magazines

We’ve seen the demise of LinMagAU (regularly hit Slashdot, when it was running), and even the MyOSS Magazine, all labours of love. In this space, I think the most successful magazine that sits online today, is Linux Weekly News (LWN). And they do it, thanks to having a business model – affordable subscriptions (USD$5/month), or group subscriptions.

Podcasts/Video podcasts

I think one of the most successful podcasts, is the now defunct LugRadio. So popular, they even managed to create a conference around it (LugRadio Live!).

That seemed to run on pure love, with sponsors for hosting. I don’t recall any ads, and I think they did it for the fun of it. Now if you search for “Linux” in the iTunes Podcast directory, there are just under 150 related podcasts (and video podcasts, maybe), that have Linux or an open source connotation in them.

Their quality varies. Some aren’t even updated any longer. One of the most successful FLOSS podcasts, that have a business model behind it, seems to be FLOSS Weekly (part of the whole twit.tv army that Leo Laporte has). They have advertising on the TWiT network, and you can support the network via donations (one time contribution, $2/mo, $5/mo, or $10/mo recurring). This stuff works via Paypal, and I can’t imagine the $2/month recurring option makes so much sense (considering Paypal fees that go with it). Plus you can buy some merchandise (something you can do, when you’re established).

Something that has recently caught my eye, is the Ubuntu Podcast. Its a video podcast, they accept Paypal donations. It also seems like a labour of love.

Hosting

Media (audio, and video files aren’t small) hosting and delivery isn’t cheap. The TwIT network makes use of CacheFly, and they’re not cheap, though they seem to have a reliable, global CDN. The Ubuntu Podcast seem to use DreamHost, who must have affordable hosting options, as they host their videos on the site too.

And that’s the other thing – if you’re doing something in the open source vertical, you better have multiple file formats. You want to provide audio files using MP3’s, yes, because people have iPod’s, and they might want to play it in their cars, but for the purists, you need to have OGG files too. That just about doubles your storage space. Think video, and you will start to cringe.

YouTube seems like a good hosting platform, with sensible CDNs, but you’ve got a 10-minute video clip limit (which might be a good thing). Blip.tv wants to help you monetise your video, however, getting video from them in Malaysia is a painful experience, so far. TWIST uses ustream.tv – I haven’t tested them out yet.

Business plans

A lot of labours of love, work for a while, but then die in time. It seems that unless you have a kosher business model, you’re not in it for the long haul. LWN and the TwIT network seem to have got it right – you need to get some kind of income, to defray the cost of doing business.

Advertising

Are most open source people blind to ads? I recently checked my Google Analytics account and found that no Linux users clicked on any of the ads on my blog. The Windows users were kinder than the Mac users, naturally. So Google AdSense might cover things like the cost of hosting, but its not exactly a business model.

Looking for sponsors might make some sense. I don’t know what the TwIT network rates are, but Jason Calacanis has This Week in Startups, and his rate is currently at:

Each commercial is $1,000 and you can purchase them in 10 week run by emailing sponsors@thisweekinstartups.com. All sponsors must be pre-approved and have groovy products like DNAMail and Ustream (our first two products).

This is a new show, and the projections are anywhere between 10,000 – 25,000 viewers in the first six months after it debuts. At a size of nearly 1GB for an 18 minute podcast, I wonder if that’s being kind?

So it comes down to finding sponsors, who believe in what you’re doing. And donations might work (it works for No Agenda with John C. Dvorak and Adam Curry, and it seems to work for the TwIT network of shows).

Subscriptions work, if you have premium content (LWN), that people can sample for free a week later.

So, what are the up front costs?

Quite simply:

A good mic [for audio podcasts]
A (cheap) video camera (Flipcams seem to work even these days) [for video podcasts]
Hosting [this requires a lot of thought - remember that bandwidth isn't as luxurious all around the world]

It looks like there might be some time involved in post-production. The tools are available fairly easily, on most operating systems that you’re on (though I hear, iMovie on the Mac is about the best for video on the cheap).

And yes, I’ve not figured out where to host podcasts or video podcasts yet….

Podcast hosting options?

Colin Charles — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:05:36 +0000

I’ve been looking around to find a host for podcasts, while toying with the idea of hosting it in Malaysia on my box as well. Self hosting has the advantage that its free, but at the same time, it may not be as fast for others outside the country, and then I’ve got to worry about it being a bandwidth hog.

I’ve been looking at PodBean, as well as libsyn. They all tend to have the same feature set: storage space that grows on a monthly basis, unmetered bandwidth, all starting at about USD$5/month. PodBean seems to offer just that little bit more, it seems, with video podcasting being supported just as well (this is a reason why the self-hosting mechanism isn’t one I’m after).

So, do you podcast? What do you use? Why?

Behind the scenes: Advertising and PR, Bloggers and Integrity: Making Money, While Being Honest

Colin Charles — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 13:49:29 +0000

Today at BarCamp KL, I presented a brand new talk: Advertising and PR, Bloggers and Integrity: Making Money, While Being Honest.

Advertising And PR, Bloggers And Integrity Making Money While Being Honest

View more presentations from bytebot.

The back story

On April Fool’s Day, I sent out a feeler to see if anyone was interested in a talk titled “Advertising & PR, Bloggers & Integrity: making money, thru honesty”. It seems like the response was positive, and it was to be scheduled on Saturday for BarCampKL. Wow, a few days to come up with a brand new talk… naturally, I asked people for feedback, and received them (right up till 7 or so hours before the talk was scheduled to be given).

Preparing for the talk

On Friday, I posted a bunch of notes that I had taken down in OmniOutliner. I gathered some feedback, and then implemented the whole thing into Keynote (this is incidentally also my first presentation in where I am not using OpenOffice.org Impress, a software package I had helped contribute to for a significant portion of my life). To boot, I also purchased the Keynote Remote application for the iPhone/iPod Touch, for USD$0.99. This moves me away from using the usual Logitech Presentation Remote. So let’s just say all this marked new ground for me, as I got to learn new software in an evening, including using the presenter notes, and so on.

Giving the talk

Considering I had never given the talk before, and was winging it based on notes I had created a day before, let’s just say it was a little rough on the edges, lacking statistics that I would have liked, and lacking graphics that I should have included. I’m sure there will be a 2.0 version of the talk, if I’m to give it elsewhere.

I was pleased that the talk had a standing room audience. During the talk there was active discussion. That’s what made it fun. Lots of participants shared their experiences, and it was people representing media buyers, PR firms, as well as the bloggers themselves.

Generally speaking, most people believed that disclosure should be the way to go. There is nothing wrong with making money from your blog, but telling your audience that you are doing so, is a duty to your readers. Its the right thing to do!

Conversation about the talk went on even during lunch, and I seemed to hear lots of positive feedback about it. Its a pity I didn’t get the whole talk recorded!

In closing

Expect a series of blog posts, that are more well thought out, and are logically separated on this topic in the near future. And to think, all this talk started with what I told David Lian, a few weeks ago, at the KLTweetup, about how I believe Nuffnang will be irrelevant in 2 years if they don’t change their business model. Not existing is hard (both founders have got deep family pockets), but becoming less relevant, I guarantee it (or I’ll eat a shoe — one made of cake, nonetheless ;-))

First step to podcasting: Get a good mic

Colin Charles — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:48:58 +0000

My goal for a while now (since November 2006 — yes, its March 2009 now) has been to be to start a podcast. Or two. Or a network of podcasts. Lofty goals, but a man has got to dream, no?

I’ve now made the first step into getting that started. I purchased a Samson C01U USB Studio Condensor Microphone. Its a great mic – and it works as advertised. Just plug it in, adjust the sound levels, and its recording just fine in GarageBand or Audio Hijack Pro. I didn’t but the shockmount (aka “spider”) from Samson, as I found a cheaper, metal one, for RM90.

Finding recording gear isn’t the simplest. I ended up having to go to Pasar Road to get the item (from Instraco). It seemed more convenient than having to order it in from overseas.

The following reviews had been helpful as well: MacInTouch as well as the comparison with the C03U as well (costs a bit more, good for recording many instruments, but definitely not what I require).

So, what will I be podcasting about? Something free & open source related, naturally. At least for starters. Another one for startups, entrepreneurs, and so on, I’m sure of (it doesn’t have a name, or a domain).

Update: A link to the product sheet, as it has a very interesting video about how the C01U and C03U work, and how to position it, and so forth.

Taxis in Bangkok