Sales, Social and Tech

Those working in traditional media and was invited to attend IFA by Samsung were in for a rude shock at IFA when Samsung staff barred them from entering the Samsung SMART lounge. Only bloggers and digital celebrities were allowed into the lounge. Wrote Christian Post, "The Samsung SMART Lounge is an exclusive lounge for bloggers and digital celebrities. All bloggers have to do is register at the entrance. Complimentary coffee, free Wi-Fi, comfortable seats and neat tables with power will be provided. You can connect with the many bloggers in town from around the world, refuel yourself and blog away while charging your devices." Read more at http://global.christianpost.com/news/ifa-2012-berlin-live-watch-online-live-stream-of-samsung-galaxy-note-2-unveiling-80788/#YCFWQu3ySprQpmwG.99 Samsung's treatment of traditional media as second class citizens to an event like this would not go down well in the near future. One journalist was overhead saying "it'

(Update: I have been updated that the list price now for a full page full color for Straits Times is now SGD49k.) One of my journalist friend at Telecom Asia updated his status that he was seeking comments from both the PR of M1 and Starhub over an advertisement. His eagle sharp eye noticed that in the M1 ad, to promote the Fibre Broadband Bundle at COMEX 2012, had a hotline number that was not to M1's 1627. Pay attention to the last line - For more information, visit m1.com.sg/msquard or call 1633. Dial 1633 and the first thing you will is "Welcome to Starhub customer care.." A quick Google search showed that a full page full colour ad might cost up to SGD33,206,04  before GST and other discounts.  An expensive lesson for the person who approved this ad. 

I thought I played Devil's Advocate, take a step back and give another perspective on the whole Diner en Blanc social media fiasco. From a blogging perspective, there are reasons why food blogger, Daniel Ang, should take some responsibility in this issue. 1. Did Daniel create a relationship with PR that deleting a post was perceived as a possibility? In one of his post defending the PR agency, Daniel wrote "I cleared my content with the PR company (just to be safe) and they also thought the idea was fun and imaginative". As Daniel highlighted that he "cleared" his article with the PR, wouldn't this mean that if the PR didn't clear his article, besides editing the article, he would also give the PR a choice to delete the article? If you are a writer or journalist for a traditional mass media outlet, giving the PR company the final say in your article is no different from doing a advertorial. A blogger should also not let the PR company have the

I don't think I want my son to go to local Singapore universities given that the national papers announced that 40% will get shot at local universities. From a Facebook user . Is this a Post NS training exercise? 

No wonder the series rated PG - Parents Guidance needed to correct their children on the right English idiom. Image from a Facebook user. So if a book is thick and has a nice cover, it is a bad book? I am confused.

The French... They take down everything.. Wrote Diner en Blanc Singapore , To afford the greatest number of participants, media, and page visitors, the opportunity to read this important message, we have temporarily disabled the Facebook page and are centralizing communications on our main website. We will reactivate it in the next few days as we continue to provide you with updated content and information to make Singapore's first Dîner en Blanc a success!

(Update: It seems Diner en Blanc has made an announcement on their Facebook Page about the incident .) It must be a unpleasant Friday for Thox PR, the PR agency for Diner en Blanc, as they try to manage the social media fall out of the Singapore version of the event. Blogger Daniel Ang was initially invited the Diner en Blanc Singapore event and wrote on his blog on the suggestion of bringing a few white coloured local delicacies to the event.  However, probably under the instructions of the French organisers, the PR agency then proceed to ask Daniel to delete his post and uninvited all bloggers to the event.  Wrote Daniel in his first post,  "G ood question. While the Parisians probably indulged in their platters of classy white canapés, here’s a list of White food you can consider bringing, Singapore style of course. Let’s be a little bit creative. 1. Smooth Beancurd Tau Hway (Available Lao Ban Beancurd Old Airport Road / One Raffles Place) 2. Mini Teochew Handma

Willy Lim, co-Founder of NetProfitQuest, has ranked the recently launched ME app from MediaCorp as "If you want to learn what NOT TO DO in a mobile app, this is the app to download". Wrote Willy , "But anyways, I decided to give the app a try when I saw the ad THREE weeks ago. Guess what? The app was not even available in the Apple app store until the TV ads has already been running for 2 full weeks. After struggling with it for more than 10 mins, I finally registered.  (Hey, I'm supposed to be mobile app expert and I took 10 mins....) But it told gave me a "You are already registered" error... Clicking on the various icons, I almost fell asleep waiting for the tabs to load.....and ALL the tabs load up to show ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!" Willy also added in his comments that the ME app might be in violation of App Store Review Guidelines:-17.2 Apps that require users to share personal information, such as email address and date of birth, in order

Sticky Singapore , one of the more popular Facebook Pages in Singapore with 122 070 fans, recently launched their Facebook Fan Club powered by NETS. How does it work? Customers of Sticky Singapore can join the Fan Club on the spot with any smart phone (no apps download needed).  They simply scan the QRcode, and then click LIKE to join the Sticky Singapore Facebook Page. When paying, customers give their mobile number to the cashier for fan verification and pay with NETS, as usual. Click http://JoinFanClub.com/stickysingapore to join their Fan Club now. How does Sticky Singapore benefit from launching the Fan Club? 1. Sticky Singapore can convert more customers into Facebook Fans Most businesses have lots of customers than fans. By launching the Sticky Singapore Facebook Fan Club, it creates a powerful incentive for Sticky Singapore customers to become fans. With more fans on their Facebook Page, Sticky Singapore does not need to spend as much money on other marketing

It seems the "Nigerian" type scammers are using LinkedIN to , well, scam you of your money. I received this invitation from this guy below. Don't think I knew anyone from Taiwan and the request to connect sounded very suspicious. LinkedIn has always given me 1000 reasons why I should be connected to strangers. In less than 24 hours, I received an email from "Su Hwa" who wasn't actually Su Hwa.  LinkedIn Su Hwa  has sent you a message. Date:  8/14/2012 Subject:  Attn Mr. Aaron I am Mr. Tien Chai, I write briefly to call for your partnership in a 25 Million USD transaction, if interested contact me via my private email below with your full contact information and your email contact that you use regularly for better communication, i cannot say much from you due to the confidentiality of the partnership. Regards, Chai From Taiwan  Of course I reported this email as spam, but was quit disappointed that scammers have infiltrated

Users of Singtel broadband starting to notice pop-up appearing on every browser they used. Singtel's official line is that it is currently investigating the issue and many thinking it is a virus attack, a forumer at Hardwarezone may have found the reason for the pop-up. Wrote ttschn at hardwarezone , "it looks like it was caused by a misconfigured nginx transparent proxy. it was redirecting URLs like /x.gif to staging.examiner.com/x.gif. so some sites with tracking images like g.gif?id=XX&crypt=YYZZ got redirected. and then it just so happened that staging.examiner.com was asking for http auth." If this is so, then the pop-up seem to be more human error than virus attack.

If you, dear PR, think sending journalists a write-up from Wikipedia is so social, do think twice as doing so will only harm the journalist instead of aiding in the story. A IT journalist recently received a description of a product, but before he even decided to put it as a story his spider sense alerted him to Google the description, only to find it was a similar copy from Wikipedia. Wrote this IT journalist, "Say for example, I requested for information from PR. PR sends to me a reply, and I use it by paraphrasing it in my story, and the story gets printed. The next thing I know, the reply was actually taken from Wiki, and it gets noticed by readers and I get accused of plagiarism, because I used a PR's reply to my question as the basis for a portion of my story, which as it turns out, was bloody lifted from Wiki." Wikified?

A photo of a Samsung Galaxy SIII appeared on the Samsung Pakistan Facebook Page which resulted in comments that the photo didn't look like a Samsung Galaxy SII. Samsung Pakistan was indeed honest about making the mistake but the reason given shown why administrating a Facebook Page is not as simple as it seems.  Wrote Pro Pakistani ,  History repeated itself yesterday, when Samsung Pakistan uploaded an image on its official Facebook page with caption: “Picture perfect view made even more perfect with Samsung Galaxy S3”. Soon after the upload, comments started to come-in, with shouts that its not Galaxy S3, rather it appears more like a cousin of Galaxy Note. Complying with the commentators (apparently without researching), the page admin edited the caption and changed Title to “Galaxy Note”. So Samsung Pakistan accidentally released a photo of the new Galaxy Note 2? Not exactly. Image from  http://propakistani.pk/2012/08/10/samsung-pakistan-this-is-how-a-poor-f

Rumours of the death of Singapore's first Prime Minister days prior to Singapore's National Day were easily quashed when Mr Lee Kuan Yew appeared on "live" national TV attending the National Day Parade. The Twitter rumour mill even got one journalist's mother calling her up to confirm the news.  Wrote Eileen Yu of ZDNet ,  Lee, according to the Twitter rumor mill, had died earlier this week. His supposedly death was a trending topic on Monday but went so viral on Wednesday even my mum called her reporter-daughter to check if Lee was indeed dead. The rumors varied. One claimed he was brain-dead, while another alleged he was already dead and the country's national papers were instructed to hold back the news until after Singapore's birthday celebrations. The Twitter community is out with a vengeance and is now trying to identify who started this rumour . Though this wouldn't be classified as mass hysteria, this incident easily how a onl