Internet and politics

For a time, politics was an untouchable concept limited to the people in power. It happened in senates, it happened in Parliament, and all the citizens could do was watch. The only time when the citizens could participate was during elections. The citizens voted. Participation started and ended there.

The campaigns leading up to the election of President Barack Obama in USA saw the heavy involvement of online social networking. The internet was used to rally support, to organise gatherings, and even to "shoot" the opposition.

So will we ever have such a dynamic online political environment here in Singapore??

Well the path to the 2011 elections.................seem to indicate otherwise.

Perhaps it could be Singapore's small size but online activity about the elections has been rather tame. No fiery rants about the opposition, no rally cries for change. No famous fan made videos either making fun of one political party or expressing love for another party (like the "Obama girl" video)

Personally, i feel that this is not the fault of restricted online media. The internet is anything but restrictive. The fault for the less that enthusiastic pre-election atmosphere online lies in the less than enthusiastic public.

Are Singaporeans Apathetic toward politics?
The answer is YES.

But the punchline of the joke is that it is not our fault. It is the system. Singaporeans just do not have the time or the energy to be passionate about politics. All their energy is already being sapped in their day to day lives, just trying to live and get by. Our society is so stressful, so competitive that a typical Singaporean youth would be more bothered with his upcoming project deadline than silly old politics.

It is a simple matter of the costs outweighing the gains. What will you gain from letting your political views about opposition parties be heard online. I doubt that the government actually pays any attention to those few online rants that already exist.

It is a vicious cycle.
People start these online campaigns in the hope to illicit a reaction.
The public, being as apathetic as they are, will have little reaction.
The government will either take you to court (like what they usually do when they encounter politically defaming remarks online) or not bother at all.

Thus in the end, any online politically motivated movement will fail in Singapore.

Multimedia marketing - MOCCA fail

Yikes.

Online classifieds are nothing new, but in 2007, Mediacorp singapore launched "mocca.com", an online multimedia marketing site. The word "Mocca" is a short form acronym which stands for "MediaCorp Online Communities and Classified Advertising".

The site allowed users to create and post up their own multimedia advertisements for products or services.

Classified advertisements can be posted on MOCCA for free except in two categories: property and vehicles. Ads in those two categories are charged at 50 cents a day, with a minimum duration of 14 days. (real clever as that equals $7 right up front payment).

These paid ads can have up to 10 images and a video link.

The free ads in other categories can have images and videos too. Up to 2 images and 1 video link. Advertisers can upgrade these ads by paying a similar rate to the vehicle and property category ads. 50 cents a day (S$7 for the minimum 14 days duration) and upload up to 10 images.

All ads can also be further enhanced, at a cost of S$2 to S$4 a day, by having them highlighted on the category or main home pages.

While it might have been an innovative idea on paper, the execution of the idea is just...........funny. Initial advertising for the site (as seen in the video link above) was met with laughs and jokes.

Basically, no one took the idea seriously. No one took the site seriously.

AS of now, its popularity is no where near that of other marketing sites. Most ads on the site are traditional word ads with very few actual multimedia ads that mediacorp originally intended that users post.

Therefore, as a multimedia marketing site, Mocca.com is a complete failure.
A joke, just like how its advertisements make it out to be.

Of Viruses and Worms

My favorite singer. Always sings the most hilarious parodies.

This one is about a computer virus. The song takes the form of a virus alert warning gives an insight into the dangers of computer viruses in a fun filled way.

Some creative liberties were taken, since it is obvious viruses will NOT neuter your dog. But all in good fun i guess.

There is an implied second meaning behind this "virus alert". How do you know a "virus alert" is not the virus itself? After all, the easiest way for an enemy to strike is to pose as a friend.

Think about it.

Here are the lyrics for anyone who wants to sing along
Hey, everyone, listen up, your attention if you please
Really wanna give you a warning
'Cause I found out this morning
About a dangerous, insidious computer virus
If you should get an email with the subject, 'stinky cheese'
Better not go taking your chances
Under no circumstances, should you open it
Or else it will

Translate your documents into Swahili
Make your TV record "Gigli"
Neuter your pets, and give you laundry static cling
Look out!
It?s gonna make your computer screen freeze
Look out!
Erase the Easter eggs off your DVDs
Look out!
Erase your hard drive and your backups too
And the hard drive of anyone related to you

Virus alert!
Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message on to everybody

Soon, very soon, it will make all the paint peel off your walls
It?ll make your keyboard all sticky
Give your poodle a hickey
And invest your cash in stock in Euro Disney
Then, it will tie up your phone, making crank long-distance calls
It?ll set your clocks back an hour and start clogging the shower
So just trash it now, or else it will

Decide to give you a permanent wedgie,
Legally change your name to Reggie,
Even mess up the pH balance in your pool

Look out!
It?s gonna melt your face right off your skull
Look out!
And make your iPod only play Jethro Tull
Look out!
And tell you knock-knock jokes while you?re trying to sleep
Look out!
And make you physically attracted to sheep
Look out!

Steal your identity and your credit cards
Look out!
Buy you a warehouse full of pink leotards
Look out!
Then cause a major rift in time and space
And leave a bunch of Twinkie wrappers all over the place
That?s right it?s a...

Virus alert!
Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message on to everybody

Virus alert!
Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message on to everybody
Warn all your friends, send this to everybody
Tell everyone you know, tell everybody now

If you get infected, you?ll wish you had never been born
So before it emails your grandmother all of your porn
Turn off your computer and make sure it powers down
Drop it in a forty-three-foot hole in the ground
Bury it completely; rocks and boulders should be fine
Then burn all the clothes you may have worn any time you were online!

Virus alert!
Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message on to everybody

Virus alert!
Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message on to everybody

Virus alert!
Delete immediately before someone gets hurt!
Forward this message on to everybody
Warn all your friends, send this to everybody
Tell everyone you know, tell everybody now
What are you waiting for?
Just hurry up and forward this to every single person that you know!
Hit send right now!

playing with Windows movie maker

Windows movie was never anything new to me. All the way back into my polytechnic days, i was playing around with the tools. I have an active youtube account seen here

http://www.youtube.com/user/Xamtaro

The only problem is that i do not like to take my own footage. Without a professional camera, editing tools, lens filters and a lot of time, such footage would look cheap and amateurish . As a result, i prefer to work with pre-shot footage and sound.

My hobby is creating fan-trailers.
That is a fake movie trailer syncing sound from an existing movie trailer to footage from an unrelated film.

Now you might scream "copyright infringement" but then i will scream "right of fair use".

As long as i use less than 10% of a film, i am entitled to right of fair use.
Trailers, both footage and sound, are covered under fair use as well so long as i do not make a profit from them.

OF course i do not desire any profit, but i would appreciate a couple of "likes" eh?

here are some of the vids that i am most proud of. Try comparing the footage in those trailers to that featured in the original trailers. The similarities are uncanny.

E Learning. Classroom of the future

As we are moving into the digital domain, so too will our classrooms. There was a theory put forth in class that in the future, we would no longer need classrooms. All learning would be online. Students and teachers would log into an online classroom from the comfort of their own home and have lessons in a virtual space. Almost like going to school in that MMORPG "Second Life".

The implications for this theory are astounding. For starters, we would not have to build school buildings anymore. Anyone who wants to learn can get a good computer and a stable internet connection. At most $2000. No more hefty school fees since you no longer have to rent facilities or pay for teachers' transport or your own transport. You pay for the knowledge gained.

With the use of customizable avatars, in-class racism or teachers' biases based on students' appearance would be null and void. There will be no such thing as "the ugly girl" or "the dumb jock". People can look however they want. There will no longer be cases of social outcasting based on looks. No more long commutes in the morning traffic jam, no more blaming a slow bus for being late for class.

Despite all these benefits, i remain sceptical. Knowledge is not the only thing we learn in school. There is a whole array of soft skills that we learn, for example, the value of discipline. The discipline to get up from bed at 6am in the morning and drag yourself to school, sit through a lesson and then do revision afterwards. With a digital classroom, you no longer need that level of discipline.

And be honest. Many students goof off during lessons nowadays. While the teacher is talking, they are chatting with their friends, they are sending each other handphone messages, they are tweeting. Without the physical supervision of a teacher's presence, it will be so much easier to goof off. Goofing off in the future classroom would take the "art" to a whole new level. Students would leave their avatar in study mode while they switch windows to play a video game or open up an instant messenger to chat with their friends. There would be more and more creative ways to goof off.

Cheating would also be so much easier. Need I say why?

Playing truant would made made more convenient with the creation of "bot" avatars which will go to school for you and clock in your attendance while the actual student is watching a movie.

The bottom line is this: People lack the discipline to be allowed into the proposed digital classroom of the future. Such a way of learning will give rise to a whole new generation of smart kids, but undisciplined, spoiled brats.
Therefore, the classroom of the future would just be like the classroom of today. Only with more high tech computers.

E-Commerce fail

For every Facebook, there are 10 more "fail-books". But how do we know this? How do we know that there are many more e-commerce failures than successes? First, it is really easy to set up an e-commerce site. Every e-commerce course that charges hundreds of dollars to learn how to easily set up a simple e-commerce site would tell you this. Judging by the number of people who signed up for such courses back during the dotcom bubble, there should be millions of them.

Instead try to name the reputable ones that people keep going back to. Off the bat, i could only come up with 12. There might be only hundreds of successful e-commerce operations in the worlds. Note that this prediction does not include companies who are already "brick and mortar" operations and whose e-commerce sites are merely a supplement and an extension to their regular offline operations. So what happened to those that were not successful? We never hear from them again. The news and other official sources keep harping on those who were successful, seldom do you hear about the failures, and this leads to the perception that e-commerce will lead to big bucks.


So how do they fail so epically? Here are 5 reasons

1) Lack of a profit plan
You want to attract people to buy from you. The easiest enticement is customer benefits. Free shipping, lower price, extra goodies, you name it. These are surefire ways to entice a customer and cause him or her to choose you over your competitors. But some people go too far. A sad example would be "pets.com" which dealt in pet accessories and supplies. In order to attract customers, they sold their products at insanely low prices and free shipping for bulk purchases. This got a point where they were generating a loss and had to shut down.
Dumb.

2) Bad site design
Online equals speed. But what if it takes longer to find a product you want in an online store than in a brick and mortar store? Badly designed search functions and lengthy list turn people away. People who visit online stores want speed and efficiency. They want categories that accurately describe the product. Just putting a bunch of links of a page is not good enough. Last but not least, is the aesthetics. A plain white page is just boring, but having everything in bright gaudy pink is clearly overdoing it. A simple but sincere design is all that is needed. Look at the successful ones like amazon.com and you will see that the colors are very basic, the site is not decked out in bells and whistles and it is easy to navigate.

3) Not building clientele or community
Customers are one of the best forms of publicity. If they liked the site, they will tell others about it. Having a system where customers can share reviews or feedback about products and services can help to improve the e-commerce operation. Many e-commerce sites that fail do not have this function. The first implied message is a lack of openness and customers hate that. It implies that the e-commerce site might have something to hide, like maybe it is scared that customers will complain about bad service or products. Having a feedback system and an open forum to build community shows confidence in both the business and the customers. That confidence will be returned in kind.

4) They waited too long
Market saturation was something that caused many online e-commerce sites to go bust. Most of those that were left were the "first movers" . Customers adore innovation, they love sites that offer something new that no other competitors offer. One bad mistake that sites make is that they do not get their innovation out into the market fast enough. Sure one has to do research and fine tune everything, ensure all is in good working order. E-commerce is not without risks and it would be foolish to "jump in" impulsively. However, it is also foolish to wait too long. Someone else might have already come out with a similar innovation before you thus effectively making him the "first mover" instead of you. He gets the recognition and you are stuck with the unfair label of "copycat".

5) They did not wait long enough
Research, research, research. Market research is very important. Any good e-commerce operation has to know what the consumer wants and whether there is a substantial market size for the products or services that the site is going to sell. You do not, for example, set up a business to ship chicken from China during a bird flu outbreak. There has to be a demand, and may e-commerce operations die out because they offer products and services that hardly anyone had an urgent need for. A good example is "photopoint.com" which dealt in physical camera film negatives. Too bad they jumped into the fray right when digital cameras were becoming popular. No one had a need for physical film.



And here are what i feel are the top 10 e-commerce failures
# 1 Webvan.com (1999-2001)
# 2 Pets.com (2000)
# 3 Kozmo.com (1998-2001)
# 4 Flooz.com (1998-2001)
# 5 eToys.com (1997-2001) # 6 Boo.com (1998-2000)
# 7 MVP.com (1999-2000)
# 8 Go.com (1998-2001)
# 9 Kibu.com (1999-2000)
# 10 GovWorks.com (1999-2000)

Social network site showdown

Social networking is a hot recent phenomenon sweeping the globe. From Facebook and twitter to Friendster and myspace, internet users are spoilt for choice when it comes to entering the world of social media. Think of social networking as a subset of the larger all-encompassing category of “social media”. While social media only allows you to be both consumer and producer of online content, social networking is specifically meant to connect people over the internet. Similar to how one has a network of friends in real life, social networking is just the extension of that real life network concept into the digital realm.

The names "Friendster" and "Facebook" should be familiar to most modern individuals who have computer access. The focus of today's blog is a small "compare and contrast" between the two famous social networking sites.

1) First impressions

- This is Facebook's greeting page

Simple hues of blue, a detailed "registration sheet" for new members and meaningful and effective image showing the concept of an online social network: connecting people from all countries across the globe irregardless of geographical distance. There is even a brief description of what Facebook does. The impression is a down to earth professionalism and an unpretentious taste that will appeal to anyone

Basic colors of green and white are accompanied by two supposedly cute, but badly rendered, manga styled characters in weird costumes. The images change every few hours, giving a lot of variety. While not as "wordy" as Facebook, nor as dull thanks to the pictures. Unlike Facebook, in which the registration requires 7 different details, Friendster just requires 1 for now, thus making signing up for newcomers more hassle free. The problem is the little blurb which describes what friendster is. Friendster is described as a "gaming destination" and ends with "come and see what all the fuss is about!". The impression is a more juvenile one as compared to the professional air of Facebook. One gets the feeling that this is more for the kids.

2) interface

Today, the user interface of Facebook and Friendster are not too different. It is better not to say who copied who. Both have similar widgets like a status update, a wall, picture albums, a friends finding option, games; Even the layout is rather similar. The difference is the respective "emphasis" of each site. Facebook tends to place emphasis on the personal profile and the friends finding. On the other hand, friendster emphasises more on meeting new people and keeping up with friends through the games. The focus is on fun whereas Facebook's focus is more on the actual "networking". Also, the ads that pop up for both sites are a little different.

3) Ease of use

Both Facebook and the current incarnation of Friendster both have relatively "newbie friendly" formats. Again, this could be the case of one copying the other in an effort to gain popularity. Both websites also enable 3rd party applications. The "friends finder" search functions seems to differ though. Facebook seems to have a stronger privacy protection system in that you may only add friends whom you already know or are friends of someone that you are already friends with. In other words, there has to be a form of connection, no matter how trivial, before you can add a new person. Friendster on the other hand allows one to find friends and add friends more easily using its search function. You can search up strangers with similar interests and add them as friends.

This concept can be seen as either an advantage or disadvantage of Friendster over Facebook. It is an advantage as it allows one to expand their social network of friends faster with the simple search engine. On the flip side, this shows that there is less privacy protection on Friendster since any old stranger can just add you as their friend without knowing you personally. Because information about your interests are so readily available via a search engine, this allows people to use that information readily. Perhaps they could be advertisers looking to target people with similar interests, or even stalkers.

Overall

Despite their similarities, Facebook seems to be winning out due to its sheer popularity. Its number of users have surpassed Friendster's despite Friendster coming before Facebook. In the end, numbers is what counts when it comes to a social network. Facebook shows more potential while Friendster is still stuck with that rather juvenile stereotype.