Sales, Social and Tech

Words used in communications frames the perception of the readers' reality. As such, words plays an important part in creating the right public relations between the subject and the reader. An example of this is highlighted in the choice of words used by our political parties in explaining mistakes or errors made in statement.  " WP clarifies Gerald Giam's remark in Parliament " shouts one of the headlines in The Straits Times today. This is reference to statement made by Mr Gerald Giam in Parliament recently on the debate on ministerial salary. When PAP's Grace Fu tried to explain her Facebook status update on ministerial salary, the headlines shouts, " Public misunderstood my comments: Grace Fu ". Without going into dictionary definitions, one can clearly see how these two words "clarifies" and "misunderstood" immediately create a perception of how one frames the image of these two subject making that statement. "Clari...

'I believe people can accept that our political leaders should have the best medical care - either with increased coverage or even free of charge. 'We cannot choose when and whether to fall ill. It is in the interests of the country and Singaporeans that our prime minister and our ministers are given the necessary medical treatment and recover well and fast to continue serving the nation.' ~ MP Baey Yam Keng It is very ironic that MP Baey Yam Keng, who is also the Managing Director of Hill & Knowlton (a MNC Public Relations agency), can make such 'high potential to be misunderstood" remark to the media to suggest that Singapore political leaders should get the best medical care for free so that can return to the serve the country earlier than sooner. How about the rest of everyday Singaporeans? Shouldn't they also get the best medical care for free because they are the ones that keep Singapore moving? Are the average Singaporeans not importan...

Charlie Brown Café was already giving discounts to UOB cardholders but management felt they were competing with hundreds of other restaurants that also offer discounts to UOB credit card holders.  The café was also willing to give fans a bigger discount because of the word of mouth marketing to friends when fans check-in. As such, UOB cardholders could purchase two main dishes and get a third dish free, whereas fans could purchase one dish and get the second one free. How does it work? Customers visit Charlie Brown Café and see posters enticing them with the benefit to join the Fan Club. Customers scan a QR code or enter the given URL to like the page and register their mobile phone number. Customers then tell the cashier their mobile number and the cashier enters it into the Taggo POS application. Once identified as a fan, the cashier will give the customer their Fan Club benefits. What were the results? In one month of the campaign, 115 fans of Charlie Brown...

Learn how easy it is for your fans to sign up for your brand's Fan Club, based on your Facebook Page, to reward your fans at physical venues. Like this bookshop, Libreria Cossavella, in Italy. Retailers in Singapore offering fan club benefits include Rock and Ash Singapore , Sticky Singapore at The Central , Charlie Brown Cafe , etc. More will be launched after the Chinese New Year holidays. The process of fans registering for the fan club is similar to the video. Taggo brings fan recognition to the point of sale. Check-in with your mobile number, or credit, debit or loyalty card to "like" a place or event and get exclusive fan benefits. Fans get bigger discounts because a check-in is created on Facebook. The more friends that check-in, the more benefits you can get. Patents pending. Email: info(at)taggo.me

Malaysia Health Authorities are monitoring orange concentrate, especially from Brazil, as residue of Carbendazim, a fungicide, has been detected in Minute Maid and Simply Orange juices. However, there is no mention of this problem from Singapore Health Authorities. The Coca Cola Singapore media room is also void of any news. Wrote The Star Online , KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry has announced that it is monitoring orange juice concentrate imported from Brazil. This is a precautionary measure after receiving information that residue of Carbendazim, a fungicide, has been detected in Minute Maid and Simply Orange juices. “According to data from the Food Safety Information System of Malaysia (FoSIM), no oranges from Brazil have been imported into Malaysia since 2010. However, in that same amount of time, as much as 2,775 metric tons of orange juice concentrate has been imported from Brazil,” said Deputy Health Minister Datuk Rosnah Abdul Rashid Shirlin in a statement yesterday. ...

Taggo with our Italian partner introduced fan club to Libreria Cossavella, a book shop chain Italy. Below is the Italian version of how Taggo works. We will be launching the English tomorrow.

(Update: mrbrown replied that he did interview a MP ,  Mr Baey Yam Keng, Post-65 Member of Parliament for Tanjong Pagar GRC. Then again, Mr Baey day job is to speak to the media.) The first part of the title above came from Jeff Jarvis' latest post .  This will definitely ruffle the feathers of the journalists in mainstream media in Singapore, but the points raised by Jeff resonates the same effect mrbrown has on wild west of social media in Singapore. So is mrbrown a journalist? After Jeff attended a "live" recording of John Steward, Jeff was determined to start a course on journalism via jokes. Wrote Jeff , Jon Stewart regularly demurs when we journalists try to drag him into our sad fraternity. Well, bullshit. His interview tonight with Republican Sen. Jim DeMint was journalism at its best.... ...He’s in favor of government when it adds value and security to citizens’ lives. He does his homework. He knows his facts... ...There’s a larger lesson here abou...

Facebook is about connecting to your friends. Google's counter strategy for Google+ is that your friends can give you better search results. Will this social network strategy work?

The editor for Australia site Build.com.au has found his article "5 technologies that will revolutionise our homes" plagiarised on ZDNet Holland. Darcy Wilson, the editor for Build.com.au, updated on his Faceebook profile today that ZDNet Holland has ripped his entire article into Belgian. Wrote Darcy, Just had one of my articles plagiarised (in Belgian) by ZDNet. Classy work, they even linked directly to our images and stripped out the CC attribution. Darcy's article can be found at  http://www.build.com.au/blog/5-technologies-will-revolutionise-our-homes  while the plagirarised version on ZDNet Holland is at  http://www.zdnet.be/news/134836/vijf-technologieen-die-je-huis-revolutioneren/ . Forum members on ZDNet Holland has also called out the site for plagiarising  http://forum.zdnet.be/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32997 .

Thern Da Seafood recently enraged the Singapore Facebook community when the administrator posted a status updated targeted at the attempts made by local divers to save sharks from ending up on dinner tables. The tables, however, have turned against the seafood brand. On November 17, the administrator for Thern Da Seafood posted an update to say "Screw the divers! Shark's fin & Mola Mola will be launched at NTUC Fairprice outlets during CNY 2012. Exact data for launching will be out soon". This update did not sit well with the Singapore Facebook community who condemned the said brand for being insensitive to how sharks are being killed for their shark fin. Some even called for the boycott of NTUC Fairprice - Singapore's largest supermarket chain.  NTUC Fairprice has since responded to the posting and has ordered the removal of Thern Da Seafood products off their shelves. Wrote Asiaone ,  In another surprise move, FairPrice is...

Challenger took up the challenge in March 2011 to operate for 24 hours at Funan. Some described it as an alternative to Mustafa. In an edm received today, Challenger @ Funan will return to normal hours operation on Jan 15, ending their 24 hours endeavour after 10 months. Challenger @ Funan will operate from 10am to 10pm. Now there is one less place for geeks to go to do their midnight shopping.. Wait, geeks do midnight shopping?

Singapore's reputation for being the best in the financial sector has come under fire again with reports that unauthorised withdrawals were made from DBS and POSB account holders. This comes in the heels of the story that eNets, an online payment provider, went offline for 11 hours because its domain was not renewed in time. A Facebook user has scanned her POSB bank book to show show the unauthorised withdrawal of funds. Image from Facebook Wrote the Facebook User,  POSB Withdrawal Fraud! Just came back from the bank to realise that my account has been hacked into. There has been 4 transactions made from overseas ATM machines with withdrawals up to $2000 over a 2 day period!! & my ATM card is here with me in my wallet! The POSb branch Manager has confirmed that there has been more then one of such cases reported since yesterday! & I have no internet banking nor paypal accounts! Am pending the investigations now.. Please check your accounts or update you...

Despite agreeing to pay for $20/hr cleaning service s at Chinatown  Complex Market and Food Centre, photos have appeared showing the mess has piled up instead of being cleared. Photo was taken at around early morning of 04 January 2011. It is an eyesore to Singapore's clean and green tagline.

Most IT vendor will tell you that they have up to 99.99% reliability. This means that for an entire year, the system will be down 0.01% of the time, or 52.44 mins for the entire year of 2012 as it is a leap year. eNets, however, lost that 99.99% reliability score on the first day of 2012 along by being down for 11 hours. This means eNets has a reliability score of 99.87% for the year 2012. eNets went down because the company forgot to renew the domain, eNets.sg, on time. eNets failure meant that many websites, especially those for government sites, were not able to pay with eNets online payment system. mrbrown, a popular Singapore blogger, noted that eNets did renew their domain but only for one year. Wrote mrbrown , One year?! Are you guys planning to be around in the epayments business next year? Are domain names so expensive that you can only afford a one-year renewal (which you might forget to renew again)? If an epayments company cannot keep track of a simple thing like...

2012 didn't start well for the National Environment Agency and the hawkers at the Chinatown Complex Market and Food Centre. According to tweeting hawker. Daniel Goh, hawkers at the popular Food Centre at Smith Street was told that the cleaning contractor, selected by the Hawkers' committee, has run away with the money paid to them. Cleaners employed by the contractor were also not paid by the contractor. Most of the hawkers who attended the meeting, however, couldn't agree with the temporary cleaning arrangement as it is an add on to existing cost. Temporary cleaning services asking for $20 per worker per hour? They're likely to make more than the hawkers then. — Daniel Goh (@danielgoh) January 3, 2012 Unfortunately, at the end of the meeting, the hawkers reluctantly agreed to pay for the temporary cleaning services. @ longadin Because if tables are not cleaned and cleared, we'd be fined by NEA. We'd still end up paying. — Daniel Goh (@danielgoh)...

I am on the 12GB  monthly mobile data plan and I seldom get pass 4Gig per month. But if you are looking to get more data from your monthly usage, I found the Onavo app that lets you do just that. The Onavo app is the mobile data tracker app which allows you to track the size of data that you use to visit a website or when you are using an app. For iPhone users, it helps to compress your data so you utilise a smaller data size from your data plan. From the session details above, it shows that the app helps to save data usage especially for apps and the web.  I was testing out the McDelivery SG app and the Onavo app was able to save up to 71% of data used. Maybe McDelivery should look their app to reduce data usuage. The Onavo app doesn't save much on video/audio though. This screenshot came with only 1 hour of usage so it would great to see how much savings can occur in a month.