Blogscapes

In earlier posts, I’d talked about how politicians have been jumping on the new media wagon and exploiting it to get a feel of the ground and further their popularity.  For instance, there was a Facebook standoff between Hillary, Obama and McCain some months back.

The politicians in neighbouring Malaysia have also realised the impact of new media, and the ruling party has taken an about turn on its view on new media. From disregarding it, they are now encouraging party members to keep blogs. Of course, by now, everyone has probably heard of and/or read Mahathir’s blog.

In Singapore, our local politicians have also started to use new media to reach out to the public. First there was George Yeo who was the face of PAP’s new media user, who blogged about his experiences. Now, more and more of the PAP’s members have started to adopt new media as part of their communications strategy. Teo Ser Luck is on Facebook and Vivian Balakhrishnan keeps his own blog.

According to the Today article, PAP MP Lam Pin Min (Ang Mio Kio GRC) said that, “The power of the Internet as a political tool must not be underestimated as demonstrated by the experience of the recent elections in our neighbouring countries. The party understands this and takes the feedback from netizens very seriously.”

Of course, new media shouldn’t just be used for the sake of using it. To be meaningful, it should serve as a platform for open discussion and feedback, and not a channel for propaganda.

Well, do share your thoughts about what you hope to see being used and done in new media by our local politicians.

Often after a breakup or a divorce, the heartbroken yearn for a change - they want to move away from the person, place and things that remind them of their heartbreak. Some move to a new town, or new country; some change jobs and some try to change their identity by changing their looks, their friends, their lifestyle. But no one has been so extreme as to change his life - his house, his job, his friends and more! 

About a week ago, on 22 June 2008, Aussie Ian Usher, aged 44 put his whole life on auction on ebay. He was tired of his life after his painful divorce and wanted to start afresh with the money he would receive from the auction. After a week of bids, the auction closed on 29 June 2008, with the winning bidder paying “A$399,300 for all of Usher’s worldly goods, which also include his friends, a motorcycle and a jetski”.

I doubt if Usher would have taken out an ad to sell himself in mainstream papers but new media definitley makes it easier! Not only has he put his life on auction on ebay, he’s also created a website, a blog, video lifestreaming of the auction event so that spectators across the world can follow the happenings, and you can read about his life, his background, and even view the photos and plans of his house! People can even get involved by taking part in a poll on his website, write in his guest book and contact him personally too.

This is looking very much like one comprehensive new media marketing strategy!

Anyway, would you ever auction off your life like that? And if you would, how would you use new media to do that?

I attended the PR Academy Conference 2008 a couple of weeks ago. The focus was on new media:

Any comments, anyone?

About a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the Twitter Writing Contest organised by Copyblogger.

Well, the results of the Twitter Writing Contest are out and posted in Copyblogger’s latest posting.

Alas, yours truly didn’t win the 8GB iPod!

But here are the winning entries, taken from Copyblogger:

First Place:

Time travel works!” the note read. “However you can only travel to the past and one-way.” I recognized my own handwriting and felt a chill.

Second Place:

Tony was a snitch, so I wasn’t surprised when his torso turned up in the river. What did surprise me, though, was where they found his head.

Third Place:

When Gibson hit that homerun in the fall of eighty-eight, my old man had never been so happy. He hugged me for the first time. I was eleven.

First Honorable Mention:

Happily sobbing she held the boy, her memory of his violent conception falling away. She had learned to love him, this would be her revenge.

Second Honorable Mention:

The priest at the funeral home asked if she had been a loving mother. The children all stared at each other. The silence spoke volumes.

This may not mean much to anyone else but me, but thought I’d just like to announce that Blogscapes has passed the 10, 000-hit mark!

Frankly, when I started the blog late 2006, little did I know then, that the compulsion to maintain the blog and write regular posts would be with me, and so it has! Here’s to 10, 000 more hits!

All is not well in cyberspace.

The suicide of Megan Meier as a result of cyberbullying highlights that cyberspace can be as dangerous and cruel a place as the real world. In fact, it can be even more insidious as you really don’t know who you are dealing with.

We’ve all talked about how one can disguise and masquerade as someone else on the Internet. You can choose to be 5 or 50, male or female, and try out different personas online. We all know about online fraud and the stealing of identities.

This time, it’s the creating of a fake online identity that has led to disastrous consequences.

And while we think that MySpace and Facebook as the stuff and playgrounds of teens, it was 49 year-old Lori Drew, mother of a teenage girl Megan had a falling-out with, who created a fake MySpace account under the name ‘Josh Evans’ to lure, tease and then taunt Megan to her death. Whatever happened to talking to the girl or her parents? In a bid to take revenge on Megan for not being friends with her daughter, Lori Drew worked out an elaborate scheme to hurt Megan.

The case has drawn controversy. There are numerous blog entries on it, and Youtube videos, and there’s even a wikipedia page devoted to it:

A federal grand jury indicted Lori Drew on May 15, 2008, on three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress, and one count of criminal conspiracy. A penalty of up to five years in prison corresponds to each of the four counts that the indictment carries. The case has caused several jurisdictions to consider legislation prohibiting harassment over the internet.

This case certainly highlights the need for better legislation regarding the use and misuse of cyberspace, as well as the need for education on how to handle cyberbullying and online pressure as well, as after all, online actions do effect real-life consequences. 

Last year, I wrote a post about racist bloggers in Singapore.

You’d think that after that episode, bloggers would be more careful about what  they blog about. I mean, come on, it would be pretty naive to still hang on to the notion that blogs are for your own eyes only, and that  they have no real consequences beyond the virtual world.

But, just yesterday, another Singaporean blogger has been arrested for putting up a racist blog. The 24 year-old goes by the onscreen moniker, Fragrance Prince.

When I tried to access the Fragrance Prince blog, I was given the message that the blog is only for invited readers. Looks like he’s wised up a little.

Anyway, some other bloggers managed to get hold of his so-called apology on his blog before he restricted access to it, and according to them, this is what Fragrance Prince said,

Quoted from http://fragranceprince.blogspot.com

Sincere Apologies
Dear Readers,

I would like to express my sincere apologies for any misinterpretation to my blog entry.

I regret having mentioned this entry in my blog which I didn’t expect it to turn out to be like this, I should have been more mindful.

Once again, I am sincerely apologetic for the recent events that had happen.

Your’s sincerely,
Franco

Well, apology or no apology, Fragrance Prince’s words have certainly caused a stink on the blogosphere and beyond.

I came across a post on Copyblogger announcing a Twitter Writing Contest!

The contest requirement is to write the best 140-character story, and the best story will win the writer an iPod Nano (of course it’s got to be the nano!)

The post also writes:

It should be a great exercise and a lot of fun. Being constrained to exactly 140 characters will spark your creative juices and force you to focus stringently on word choice, sentence structure, and even punctuation.

Here’s an example that I tweeted over the weekend:

Three flies are bugging me on the deck. I kill two, and spare the third. “Go tell the others this is what happens,” I warn as he buzzes off.

Isn’t that such a great, cute tweet! Forget the essay, the novella, the short story, here comes the micro-tale!

If you think that ‘brevity is the soul of wit’ and want to give it a try, find out more at Copyblogger.

Interestingly, new media news made it to mainstream news. Last night’s news on Channel 5 featured a video on Youtube that has been getting many viewers lately.

Ghost sighting at Raffles Place   has been getting very popular with Youtube viewers. This and a series of other ‘ghost sightings’ sparked talk about whether ghosts had been spotted at Raffles Place.

Actually, the series is part of an advertising campaign by the GMP group to promote work-life balance and remind workers not to stay too late at the office! ‘No one should work late’, they say.

But of course, that’s not their only message. The group is using the series of videos to promote their job-matching services, which they reveal when they tell the truth behind the Raffles Place ghost  .

Many in PR and advertising have talked about how the marketing mix should consist of both traditional and new media, and GMP has just shown how new media such as free Youtube services can be used to good effect.

The blogosphere is thriving! This is especially so with the number of China’s Internet users hitting new highs. Even in the rurul areas of China,  the numbers surged 127.7% in 2007.

In fact, China has become the fastest-growing Internet population with 221 million online users. This makes it a tie with the number of users in the US. The number has exploded despite the Chinese government’s efforts to curb access to materials they deem as offensive or pornographic. Remember the cute policeman and policewoman policing the Internet and screens of the Chinese online users? Perhaps, it is because of the imposed curbs and censorship that has caused the surge in online use.

This growing number of Internet users is seen as a cause of concern for Chinese officials who feel that users would turn to the Internet for their subversive activities and discussions.

Or perhaps they need not worry so much as many Chinese have turned to the Internet to rally support amongst the Chinese against the pro-Tibet acitivists during the Olympic Torch Relay through the various countries.

Perhaps, the Chinese government would like to take a leaf from the Malaysian government in its about turn in moving from ignoring and criticising the Internet to embracing it. It’s now calling all its members to write blogs and use new media to connect with the electorate and general public. It’s learnt its mistake of not using new media, thus leaving a void for other online discussions to take place without it.

In Singapore, blogs, websites and other new media abound to supplement and complement the news in mainstream media and serve as alternative forms of engagement. 

I do believe that using new media would in a way help to engage with younger voters and members of the public, but new media in itself would not do much - you would still need good, quality content, and online conversations that would be open to all, and of course, an open mind.