Sales, Social and Tech

China has decided to ban "Livestreaming" on the country's Twitter alternatives after the authorities found that censorship is hard work.  Wrote Mashable , Chinese authorities have sent shockwaves through the social media sphere, with a blanket ban on livestreaming across three major online platforms. On Thursday, the government ordered Weibo, iFeng and ACFUN to stop all its video and audio streaming services, according to an FT report. This blanket ban would impact "Livestream" stars like Jing Qi, who underwent plastic surgery to boost her online popularity, and the 30 billion yuan (USD$4.3 billion) revenue produced by this internet platform. The cottage industry that rose from the "Livestream" technology would also be impacted. Wrote Reuters , Live streaming has also bolstered the growth of ancillary businesses, including agencies looking to find the next live streaming star, consumer loans, and even cosmetic surgery. Deng Jian, chai...

Google Post, which was previously available for the US Elections in 2016, is now available for all small business who have registered their business with Google My Business. Google Post allow you to put small snippets about a promotion, event, or show case new products,etc. Take my company's Google My Business layout above. If you Google "NetGain Systems", you will see the NetGain Systems Pte Lte Google Business Profile. Below the profile is the Google Post of our free IT monitoring software. According to Search Engine Land , Google says this give businesses the ability to: Share daily specials or current promotions that encourage new and existing customers to take advantage of your offers. Promote events and tell customers about upcoming happenings at your location. Showcase your top products and highlight new arrivals. Choose one of the available options to connect with your customers directly from your Google listing: give them a one-click path to make a...

 have an open source competitor but I don't encounter them that much in Singapore market. If and when I do encounter prospects using this open source solution now, I tend to avoid them. The reason for avoiding them isn't because I am competing myself with free, but rather, I have found these prospect have invested, not just time, but money and resource to maintain this open source software. Let me explain. While the open source solution is free for download from the source website, maintaining the open source solution requires effort. Interestingly, I found that IT teams that use this open source solution, have a manpower or two hired assigned just to manage this open source solution. If these open source IT teams decided to use my paid solution, it would have meant that their investment, in terms of time and money, to get where their open source solution is today, have been a wrong decision from the start. Unless I am to talk to new a IT director who wants to revam...

Cathay Organisation, owners of Cineleisure, has put up Pink Dot ads on its escalators. To the chagrin of those against Pink Dot contacted Singapore advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore (ASAS), to weigh in the legality of the advertisement. ASAS responded and reports highlighted that the watchdog asks Cathay Organisation to remove the phrase "Supporting the freedom to love" as it "may affect public sensitivities due to the issues at hand". ASAS did highlight that the rest of advertisement was ok by them. Read more here . Isn't it strange for the watchdog to ask the owner the medium rather than the advertisers to make changes to the ad? Cathay Organisation also felt that the changes should have been directed to the Pink Dot organisers rather they, the medium owner. “Given that the ownership of the ad belongs to Pink Dot, Cathay is not in the position to decide on the removal of the statement ‘Supporting the freedom ...

It is amazing how we are quick to forget that a single wrong comment on social media can make one the most hated person in Singapore. Back in 2012, we had Amy Cheong . Her comments on Facebook about a Malay wedding under her HDB void deck resulted in an online CSI that cost her her job. Fast forward to 2017 and we have Thomas Chua Poh Heng and whose name will forever live in Internet infamy. Thomas reposted a video of the funeral of a Traffic Policeman who died while on duty. Thomas then commented that his death was well deserve as Thomas was once given a traffic ticket by the same Traffic Policeman. Even the Home Minister for Singapore, who is responsible for the Police Force, was offended by Thomas' statement. The screenshot showed that post was marked global by the Globe image next to the Singapore tag which could hint that this post was meant for all to see. As such, the argument of a "private"post does not hold any weight here. Just as expected, aft...