FORTHECLUELESS

Yahoo! Geocities To Close

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 03:17:00 +0000

Haven't you heard? Geocities will be closed. For over a decade, Geocities has kept millions of sites around the world running, mostly free of charge. Today, Yahoo which acquired Geocities some years ago, has decided to close all the sites down.

Read this:
Important notice: GeoCities is closing.
Dear Yahoo! GeoCities customer,

We're writing to let you know that Yahoo! GeoCities, our free web site building service and community, is closing on October 26, 2009.

On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and files.

What You Need to Do
If you'd like to move your web site, or save the images and other files you've posted online, you need to act now by choosing one of the following options:

Move your site to Yahoo! Web Hosting.
We know your files are important to you, and we want to make moving to Web Hosting as easy and affordable as we can. For a limited time, you can move your files automatically, take advantage of terrific features like a personalized domain name and email, even redirect your GeoCities web address to your new site all for only $4.99 a month for a full year.

For more information and complete terms, please see our special offer now.

Download your files to your own computer.
With your pages and images saved offline, you can re-create your site with any hosting provider.

To quickly download your published files, visit your GeoCities web site, right-click on each page, and choose Save Page As... from the menu that appears. Choose a location on your computer to save your files, then click OK or Save. Learn more about downloading your files.

Don't Wait
Please be aware that after October 26, your GeoCities files will be deleted from our servers, and will not be recoverable. If you'd like to save your files, you must download them now or move to Yahoo! Web Hosting. If you need assistance, please visit the help center.

We want to thank you for being a GeoCities customer, and hope you continue to enjoy our other Yahoo! services.

Best regards,

The Yahoo! GeoCities team

If you have a site under Yahoo Geocities, do as they advise or you may not be able to retrieve anything like this writer did many years ago when Geocities was sold to Yahoo.

Microsoft, Mac, here comes trouble

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:35:00 +0000

In 2007, I blogged that Google might be working on some operating system. At the time, speculation had it that Google might be working on something for use in computer operating systems - the domain traditionally held by Microsoft, Mac and to some extent, Linux.

Today, this speculation has materialised. Google was indeed working on an extension of its Chrome and is planning to use it for netbooks. Will it stop there? Who knows...?

Excerpt:

Google's blog announces a natural extension of the Chrome project: an operating system for netbooks. "Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. (...) Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on
top of a Linux kernel."
Read more here:

New Face Of Journalism?

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Sun, 10 May 2009 22:03:00 +0000

In the old days, if you can write, have a nose for news, chances are you will land a job at a newspaper office. Later, when the demand exceeded supply, media houses put up the bar - you need to be able to write, have a nose for news, and a degree in journalism or mass media/communication.

With the development in new media over the years, as web now dominate and even killed a few traditional print media for good measure and will continue to do so, a new skill is required from journalists. As can be seen here, journalists who are not computer savvy, are on their way out.

Adsense Going Interest-Based, So Update Your Privacy Policy!

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:56:00 +0000

Adsense is getting more intelligent, and if you have not received your notification from Google, here it is:

We're writing to let you know about the upcoming launch of interest-based advertising, which will require you to review and make any necessary changes to your site's privacy policies. You'll also see some new options on your Account Settings page.

Interest-based advertising will allow advertisers to show ads based on a user's previous interactions with them, such as visits to advertiser website and also to reach users based on their interests (e.g. "sports enthusiast"). To develop interest categories, we will recognize the types of web pages users visit throughout the Google content network. As an example, if they visit a number of sports pages, we will add them to the "sports enthusiast" interest category. To learn more about your associated account settings, please visit the AdSense Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=20310.

As a result of this announcement, your privacy policy will now need to reflect the use of interest-based advertising. Please review the information at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=100557 to ensure that your site's privacy policies are up-to-date, and make any necessary changes by April 8, 2009. Because publisher sites and laws vary across countries, we're unfortunately unable to suggest specific privacy policy language.

For more information about interest-based advertising, you can also visit the Inside AdSense Blog at http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/03/driving-monetization-with-ads-that.html.

What do you do if you display Adsense on your site? Easy - just get your Privacy Policy Updated. Don't have one? Well, you can get one here

New Media - Dont Get Carried Away

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:34:00 +0000

Malaysian newspapers are embracing new media like crazy, especially after the dismal performance of traditionally preferred political parties during the March 8, 2008 elections. Many blogs have had a field day, beating traditional online news left and right.

With a revenue model yet to be seen - even Facebook which is into is 6th year is struggling - one wonders how Malaysian papers are making ends meet where Online news is concerned. How much do we invest in preparation of something like new media which has yet to consolidate and show exactly where the dough is coming from? Is it manpower? Facilities? Both? How do we provide the balance sheet to show the investors at the end of the day that we should rightly be in the black than red?

Journalists, too, should pay heed to what they do best - seeking out and writing news. Sure, there are plenty of things to use right now to get your news online. Throw a stone into the internet abyss and you will hit an upcoming, potentially going-to-be-the-hottest social media tool with ease.

Do you start learning every software and using every single bit of stuff out there - perhaps even at the detriment of your own skills as a conveyor or analyst of news? Give me some views.

Gutterpost Back With Vangeance!

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:32:00 +0000

Now at gutterpost.com.

Does this means the small David has beaten Goliath? In the last post, it was found that Gutterpost was banned by Google after politician Elizabeth Wong's scandalous pictures were sent and put on on the website. Google and Blogger banned it couple of hours later. But now it appears that the tell all site is up and running and with its own domain. However, it appears that the site is still using Blogger templates - is it still hosted on Blogger but using its own domain? Only Google/Blogger can tell.

Gutterpost Banned For Violation

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:15:00 +0000

This could be the end of the Gutterpost located at thegutterpost.blogspot.com. The blogsite which became famous after the expose of Edison Chen's nude picture as well as a host of others, the most recent being that of Malaysian politician whose partially nude pictures were released to the local media and which made their way to Gutterpost three days ago.

Blogger has apparently taken the site off (see image below) for "violating terms and conditions".

Could this be the start of crackdown on pornographic and other sites that are seen to have violated the Blogger terms and conditions? Perhaps the start of the curtailment of free speech the west has so fiercely protected in the preference of clean content on the Net? Let's watch as see.

Google Glitch - THIS SITE MAY HARM YOUR COMPUTER!

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:58:00 +0000

If you have been searching Google, you will notice that the results of ALL sites have been marked as harmful. I am perplexed by the results which led me to think that there might be a glitch somewhere in GOOGLE's Search Engine.

See the attached image below:

Even Google has earmarked Google Search as harmful! How Embarrassing!

Other Search Engines seem to be performing OK.

If you insist on clicking on the site links, Google redirects you to this page:

Conclusion: Even Google Can Make Mistakes!

Trojan Heur in CoverItLive!

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:25:00 +0000

I was shocked when I tried using CoverItLive on a computer running Kaspersky Internet Security 2009. Access was denied when a Trojan named Heur was detected, identified, blocked and removed.

I had been talking about this piece of software in an earlier post and am surprised. I do not know yet what this trojan does and if you do, please tell me. You may read more about Heur here.

The image below is my Kaspersky's detection warning.

Cover It Live!

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 23:29:00 +0000

A new 'live' blogging tool has hit the internet superhighway and taken off like a cyclone. It allows you to not only blog about an ongoing event like an election, but also allows you to use multimedia features to peg your blogging to. These multimedia tools include audio, video and images, but also incorporates interactive tools such as easily set up polls and reader comments which can be moderated. The most beautiful of this is that it allows multi-post blogging capability. To know more, visit the website here.

We introduced it at the office for blow-by-blow blogging needs and the reporters are adapting quite well to it. One of the good things about new media technology is that the younger set find it easier to pick up while the older generation are a bit sceptical. With Coveritlive, I think the makers of the software have made it quite simple to use and pick-up rate is less than 20 minutes for newcomers to understand. Why this is so is easily understood.

Remember the days when ICQ was introduced? Well, this interface is similar to messaging service except than in messaging service, you talk to one another. Later when ICQ introduced conferencing, you could 'chat' with several people at one time. Look at Coveritlive as the ICQ (or any IM). Instead of allowing conversations between people who are 'talking' to each other, it also allows 'eavesdropping' by readers. And the beautiful part of it is that these readers are allowed to comment on what the administrators are chatting about and join in this community.

At the heart of Coveritlive is the code snippet which allows the 'chat' template to be easily posted on websites. Like YouTube, you just cut and embed on any site you want and you have an entirely 'live' coverage of any event - whether you call it blog or chat is up to you.

This is exceptionally good when doing Live Blogging (or online reporting) of events such as sports, races and elections for instance. The only bug I see is perhaps the instantaneous posting of each message/blogpost is dependent on line. Otherwise, you could do a lot with Coveritlive - including embedding pictures, and other multimedia stuff.

CIMB SPAM - BE VERY CAREFUL IF YOU RECEIVE THIS

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 01:20:00 +0000

SPAM FROM CIMB!

The above is an email purportedly sent by CIMB, a Malaysian bank. I detected it recently and decide to post it here. This is a very advanced email spam waiting to snare you into giving your account details and if you did, you will lose everything and CIMB will not know anything or be liable because it did not send the email.

Look at the red arrows. The top arrow shows the purported email (directaccess@cimb.com) and the bottom one shows the so-called copy right - just to lend legitimacy to the spam. Below this arrow, you see a DO NOT REPLY message, which should set off your alarm bells.

There are hyperlinks on instruction 1 and 4 in blue, but fortunately, it was disabled when the mail dropped into the server. (You can disable all these links from possible spammers by disabling HTML on your email and choose only PLAIN TEXT for email display in your mail settings).

I hope by posting this, CIMB will be alerted. I have yet to see anything on their site - www.cimb.com.my -. Will it be like the Petronas Scam I warned about earlier? I really hope not if the Public Relations (Community and Corporate Image/Branding departments) people are reading this.

DISASTERS - Keep The Info Flowing Freely AND Easily Accessible

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:40:00 +0000

There were complaints among reporters - that information were hard to come by during the recent Bukit Antarabangsa landslide tragedy. Victims, understandably, were reluctant to speak to the press. The authorities were also similarly Press-shy. As a result, all sorts of speculation were rumoured - including that of massive looting that went on when house owners were asked to evacuate for their own safety at the disaster zone. Even the police chief had to appeal to the public not to spred rumours about the looting as he instructs his men to secure the abandoned homes and look out for looters.

Today, a smart company has got an information centre up and running and from its effort, perhaps the disaster management committees of the future could put the setting up of an information base as priority in disaster relief. A centralised info centre will keep everyone enlightened and update on the true situation.

Skali, an e-business enterprise, has taken a commendable step to assist the disaster relief by using Blogger to set up their web presence here.

Operating from the Burger King outlet next to the Petronas service station, it is spearheaded by its CEO.

According to Bernama, the team would provide food and drinks to people affected by the landslide as well as vital information from its SMS alerts.

"We inform the affected residents from our database of more than 300 house owners on information like when they can move into their homes or the status of the electricity connections. We are always in touch with the authorities so that the information is authenticated"

In any crisis, information - correct information - should be made available to all. Public relations mangers should think about it in the aftermath of the Bukit Antarabangsa Landslide Tragedy

BUKIT ANTARABANGSA LANDSLIDE: How RTM can use the citizen media to assist reporting of disasters

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:23:00 +0000

Yet another tragedy happens at the Ulu Kelang hills, 15 years later after the collapse of the Highland Towers which took 48 lives. This time, two posh housing aread were affected - 14 bungalows lost their foothold to crashing earth and 4 lives were taken at 4am in the morning of Saturday Dec 6.

While the news was related quickly by the Online portals of mainstream media and updates equally efficient, the national media, RTM, was rapped by its minister Shabery Cheek.

BUKIT ANTARABANGSA TRAGEDY: RTM rapped for slow updates

KOTA BARU: Upset with RTM for being slow in disseminating news about the Bukit Antarabangsa landslide yesterday, Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek has directed the national network to provide regular updates on natural disasters in the country.

The information minister said the move would allow the public to get the latest information on disasters like yesterday’s landslide.

More at the minister's blog here

In a later post, the minister said RTM would interrupt several programmes to bring in the latest report on the landslide to give a clear picture on the incident to the public.

“I have asked RTM to give the latest report from time to time and stop several other programmes,” he told reporters after attending a briefing on the flood situation in Kelantan at the Kota Darul Naim, here.

The Bernama radio, however, has done quite admirably, with updates and interviews done regularly, to provide listeners with the latest.

In tragedies and disasters like this, mainstream media (not online) could have ploughed the blogosphere for material - the latest, people-reported information to beef up their news and updates. If there were videos uploaded by those who were at the scene, by all means, get them up while your television or radio newscrew try to get your own filming done and getting them back to the office. Places to go in times like this are Youtube and Google Blog Search. Right keywords will yield most interesting results and might save your day and your job.

For Online news portals, this is also the time to maximise the reach of your brand and corporate identity. Instead of using your own video servers, why not use embed your logo on the video and upload them to Youtube for viral distribution and saving your own server bandwidth? There are simply more traffic in Youtube that you can ever do on your own domain name and it makes good sense to tap them and make your site known to these new markets as well.

Below is a good video done by an eyewitness. It is not even a video but a compilation of photos strung together as a slideshow. Tells a different story of the tragedy and makes good study for online media, don't you think?

How Gleneagles Intan Hospital Deal With Spam Mail

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:05:00 +0000

I once received a forwarded email about some poison perfume sample which caused the death of seven women upon inhalation and exposure. It was purportedly sent by a person who claimed to be an employee of Gleneagles Hospital Limited, on behalf of the hospital, in order to warn the public as these seven women were supposedly admitted and treated at Gleneagles Hospital.

How does a PR person deal with such hoax and spam? Apparently, the hoax did not end at emails but also in SMS. Apparently, the PR arm of this hospital had been proactive and well-versed on crisis management and proceeded to set up a webpage on its main domain to explain itself and the hoax. Showing its concern, the hospital wrote:

We understand the panic and mystification that this email has caused and the public's need to seek verification and consolation from a reliable medical institution such as ours. Thus, we would like to highlight that we have never admitted or treated such patients and have never been aware of such incidences. We would also like to categorically state that this email did not originate from our Hospital and / or any of our employees, current or otherwise. In addition, we declare that no one was ever at any time commissioned or authorised by the Hospital to deliver and circulate such warnings. Further to this, we would also like to point out that our registered company name is Gleneagles Hospital (Kuala Lumpur) Sdn. Bhd. (Co. No. 198498-T) and we were never at any point known as Gleneagles Hospital Limited as claimed in the email.

If you like to read more, go to Gleneagles website.

Another bigger company than Gleneagles, Petronas, seemed to have adopted a silent stand over the phone scam that has been circulating like Urban Legend. This site, which was alerted by the scam a year ago, decided to post the message of the spam here.

And because of that, many other phone owners - as far as those in Singapore - have written in here to comment and voice their displeasure. Petronas has a Scam Notice on recruitment here but unfortunately the company did not include the phone SMS scam, which I believe is doing more damage to the national oil producer's image.

This is not good for public relations and the faster Petronas's public relations department do something to control the damage the scam is doing to its image (not to mention gullible phone users), the better.

Using Videos To Tell Stories Online

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 23:43:00 +0000

One of the biggest mistakes newspapers going online when it comes to using videos to tell stories is to try to buy and use the best in the market. While budget may permit expensive indulgences, one needs to be reminded that web limitations certainly will not do justice to near-Hollywood productions.

Here are some tips on what to look out for if you decide to use videos to tell your story.

Choosing Equipment:

Size and Price: You don't need monstrous shoulder-mounted videos used by TV news crew to record videos unless you aim to stand out in the sea of media people at press conferences. Smaller palm held ones are just as good these days, cheaper and offers much mobility. They also offer easier playback and can be set up in a jiffy. Bigger doesn't mean better recording and the bigger ones often do no better than the smaller video devices, including cameras and camera-phones like the Nokia N95. Besides, do you need really hi-tech video cameras to record videos for posting onto video sharing sites like YouTube which has a relatively small viewing window?

Audio Playback: While you don't need top-of-the-range video cams, you need a decent audio recorder. Of course, if your video recording equipment offers good playback, that would be the most ideal. But if it doesnt, then you may need to get a good microphone with good pick-up. This will ensure that your natural sounds on your video is crisp clear. These microphones will allow you to record in a variety of situations such as one-to-one interviews or in groups such as press conferences. A note of advice when using microphones is to remember to switch it on when doing video recordings. You will be surprised to find how many videographers forget to switch it on only to find out their folly after returning to the office.

Stabilising Devices: Tripods are a must in a good videographer's bag. They help steady the video when filming sit-down interviews. Used well, they will not make your video appear as if you were filming while on a boat or in an earthquake. Image stabilisers, a recent development in cameras and video recorders, are devices that help prevent blurred images from camera shake. Most mid-range priced video recorders come with image stabilisers. Get recorders that have this feature installed if you can afford it. It will be worth your money spent.

Display Screens: Most video recorders have flip display screen. This is extremely useful if you are a one-man videographing unit. Flip screens allow you to record yourself such as when doing commentaries and recording videos.

Software: There are a number of free and paid softwares for editing videos. Best known among free ones is the Windows Movie Maker which not only allows you to edit but also do enhancements such as transitions, subtitles, credit lines, etc to produce a somewhat 'professionally done' video pieces. But of course, if you wish to have better ones and can afford them, Adobe Premiere Elements, Ulead VideoStudio and Final Cut Pro are good choices - allowing you to do more than just cutting the frame sets on the recording.

Facebook Now Available In Malay

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:24:00 +0000

Selamat Datang ke Facebook dalam bahasa Melayu.
Kini penutur bahasa
Melayu di seluruh dunia boleh menyertai Facebook. Berhubunglah dengan semua
rakan anda, tidak kira apa bahasanya.
Gunakan Penjejak Rakan
untuk mengetahui sama ada lebih ramai rakan anda telah menyertai dan jemput semua rakan
berbahasa Melayu anda untuk mendaftar.

This is amazing but not unexpected. Facebook is now available for the Malay speaking - about 26 million of them in Malaysia alone.

Check it out. This is what I call smart web development. If Facebook's algorithms have been programmed right, the conversations can be turned into its database of the Malay lexicon. Now, I just hope the Dewan Bahasa Dan Pustaka is smart enough to capitalise on this to champion Bahasa Melayu and promote it worldwide.

What Blogger Is Doing To Fight Spam

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 22:54:00 +0000

I just discovered a good feature Blogger has introduced - an anti-Spam Blog feature. If you wish to read more about Spam Blogs, go here.

Basically, what it does is that an automated feature on all blogs hosted by Blogger (or elsewhere and managed by Blogger Dashboard) detects any possibility of a blog becoming a Spam Blog. Once it detects or identifies your Blog as a potential Spam Blog, it sends you a notifcation at the blog's registration email, locking your blog, and urges you to act within a specified period to unlock the blog - failing which your blog will be deleted.

Among the things implemented are:

It keep spam blogs out of NextBlog and the "Recently Published" list.
The same classifiers are used to require an extra word verification field on the posting form for potential spam blogs, making it harder for spammers to set up automated systems to do their posting since human intervention needs to complete this step.
The Flag as Objectionable button is introduced in the Navbar which lets readers notify Blogger of problem blogs and put them for review them and take appropriate action

This is an interesting development for Blogger towards creating a more socially responsible blogging commune on the web, especially when Blogger is the biggest host of blog community. Whether this control over spammers is in line with the Internet spirit of free speech is another matter, however. At the very least, from a public relations aspect, this anti-Spam Blog control will garner goodwill from Internet-users and keep spamming rogues at their wits' end.

However, it is interesting to note too that many blogs have been set up to host objectionable content, particularly porn, disguised under 'ADULT MATERIAL'. One wonders what Blogger is doing about it next,

Please Login/Register - Dangerous Words You Should Use Sparingly On Sites

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:59:00 +0000

A decade an a half ago, during the big rush to get to the Web, one newsportal I know had these two words prominently displayed on its landing page:

Please Login
(below these, in finer print, are)
If You Have Not Registered, Do It Here

As a result of this, users were turned off.

Indeed in the days of Internet infancy, particularly among Malaysian websites, the urge to gather visitor/user information was immense.

Most website owners thought that if you were to ask users to register or log in, it would allow you at least to get the users' profiles in exchange of the service you provide.

It was a feeble attempt at datamining in those days. The only portals that have successfully used it were the free email providers and chat rooms, where the need to have access far outweighed any afterthoughts on the part of the users. Others who have applied the Login requirement have successfullly driven off their potential return visitors, I believe.

Today, the Login/Register requirement is still being used thoughtlessly, without considering the implications. If you are a public relations practitioner in charge of your company's website, or a webmaster tasked to craft your firm's portal, think again if you should put up the Login/Register barrier gate at your front door.

Unless you only want registered users to use your site, I suggest provide alternatives for all visitors.

Allow limited access for sampling of your site's content. For more access, a Login/Register requirement can be imposed. This will allow the user to decide if he wants to register or not.

When you set up a Login/Register requirement, you will need additional resources such as a backend database to serve login information. Can you afford this? Maintenance costs will also be higher.

You will also be bound by privacy laws that require you, the service provider, to protect any personal information. Any leaks or spams resulting from it can and will attract legal actions.

If you have not realised it, datamining using Login/Register feature may not be accurate. Have you ever registered with a fake access information just to see what lies beyond the locked front door of a website? If you have, then don't you think some people will just do the same and the data you have just mined could well be adding to your server garbage?

In conclusion, use Login/Register feature sparingly and intelligently. Unless you really need it, don't even think about it!

And if you really need users to register to log in, make the registration simple - emails and usernames will do more than a string of text fields from your cat's name to your granny's social security number.

Great Copy Makes Interesting Ads

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:32:00 +0000

Since the day Bernbach sold the Beetle to the world in two words "Think Small", the war for eyeballs has more or less centered around good advertising copy. Sometimes it is more than two words, sometimes a mouthful of a sentence.

But ask any copywriter worth his/her salt, he/she will opt for a catchy heading than rivers of text.

Good headline for ad copy can sometimes say more than a truckload of text. Look at these ads below and you will get what I mean.

(In Malaysia, back in the 70s when Maggie is trying to gain a foothold, it was the jingle "Maggi Mee, Fast To Cook, Good To Eat" that created the brand recognition both on TV and across the airwaves on radio.)

In advertising, a little exaggeration is allowed. If your product is good, you can brag to the world. Such is the case of this ad by Horlicks:

This little girl is telling you that you can be healthy if you drink Horlicks. Subtle and effective, doesn't it? I remember this concept being used by one cod liver oil peddler in Malaysia in its TV ad.

The advertisement shows an empty classroom with only one boy student seated facing his teacher. The teacher asks for the names of other students and was told, each time, that they were absent. All except the boy, who had apparently been fed with cod liver oil, had taken medical leave because they were ill.

Who says you need a frightening ad to send the message that drugs are harmful, just like you see on Malaysian TV and billboards? This one says everything about starting them young on anti-drug campaign. The problem with using nursery rhymes like this, in Malaysia, is that not many may understand it.

Tainted Milk Scandal: Chinese Public Relations Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 21:49:00 +0000

This piece of news came more than three weeks after the first baby died of complications suffered from the side-effects of consuming melamine-tained milk. AFP reported it:

China tries to contain tainted milk fallout

BEIJING (AFP) — China attempted Sunday to contain the fallout from the tainted milk scandal, announcing a new survey of dairy products showed no traces of melamine and promising to subsidise farmers hit by the scare.

The latest test of more than 600 batches of liquid milk from 27 cities across China showed they were free of melamine, the industrial chemical at the centre of the dairy scare, the Beijing Morning Post reported.

Products made by 75 brands were sampled including prominent ones such as Yili, Mengniu and Bright Dairy, the paper said, citing the nation's product safety watchdog.

It was the sixth round of tests in China since the milk scare broke last month, according to the watchdog, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

Why this came such a long time after the first case was detected and the news was allowed spread like wild bush fire, albeit uncontrolled, was perplexing. From where I am sitting, the only assumption is that the Chinese authorities did not activate its Public Relations mechanism fast enough. Now that the fallout has reached global proportions, it will be quite a task to try to manage it, except let time be the greatest healer.

Like I said earlier, improperly managed crisis can turn into great disasters. This is one fine example.

Melamine-laced Milk Scandal - Lessons For Malaysian PR practitioners in Crisis Management

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:05:00 +0000

The Sanlu Milk Scandal happened several thousand miles away in China and most of Malaysia's milk and milk-products manufacturers are not in the direct line-of-fire.

When the news broke some three weeks back, many were not even aware of the intensity of the fall-out - only to find themselves hit smack in the face when governments started withdrawing samples for testing and subsequently removing the suspect products off the shelves.

In Malaysia, the alarm bells rang only after Singapore had removed samples of milk and milk-related products for testing and the authorities started taking samples - 53 at first and 132 the next 24 hours - and testing them. Most of these products are household brand names. Only 7 test results were released the first 24 hours of the first sampling but the fact that these were safe and melamine free did not mean much. What about those that were tainted? Till today, the ministry did not reveal much except to say that some products are melamine-free and some questionably "within standards".

While the announcements of the testing and results were commendable, and the public relations section of the Ministry of Health must be congratulated for quickly setting up a web-based operations centre here, the usefulness of the portal was very much limited to learning which products are safe.

Consumers don't want to know which are safe. What they need to know is which are not, and if this is available, they can avoid them.

Not all products were released at specific intervals daily - for instance, there were no results released on Sept 29, two days before the main public holiday of Aidil Fitri. For two days subsequently, offices would be closed as people go on their national public holiday. Would the researchers continue working on the tests and release results daily? One wonders!

Since last week, however, the companies whose products have been taken for sampling have been kept extremely busy. While some were savvy enough to initiate crisis management countermeasures, others were still waiting for the crisis to blow over - which it would given enough time.

In the wake of the Singapore testing, one of the earliest to come up with press ads to declare their products safe was Kraft, which produced the highly popular Oreos. Dutch Lady launched its countermeasure one day earlier than the Oreos advertisement with a press conference but the news (which was carried by major news distributor Bernama) was more than a investor-relations move than building consumer confidence.

Dutch Lady Not Affected By Tainted Milk Scandal In
China

PETALING JAYA, Sept 23 (Bernama) --
Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd, one of Malaysia's leading dairy companies, does not expect any negative impact on its earnings or dividends following the tainted milk scandal in China, said managing director Hans Laarakker Tuesday.
"We believe, with the strong brand that we have and also the measures being taken, there should be no negative impact on
sales or our market share," he told a media briefing here....
More here

Couple of days later, that week's Friday, this writer had the privilege of interacting with an almost frantic public relations consultant of a prominent brand of milk and milk products. This US-based company produces infant formula mostly.

The call came at about 11am asking if a press release on the company's stand on the whole milk contamination issue had been received by the office. It was sent by fax, I was told. When I said "No, we received nothing of that sort", she sounded exasperated with a noticeable tension in her voices that I could almost swear that the first thought that flashed through my mind was that she failed to send any material and were now making up for it.

I told her she should have checked the previous, when the fax she claimed was sent. Doing so hours before the newspaper was printed would have been a less stressful thing to do.

At 11am the following day, it would take at least another 19 hours before her client's statement could see light of day - if at all editorial space provided such an opportunity.

Why not set up the notice at the client's website? And how about taking up and advertisement to ensure that the statement was published? And thereon suggested various things she could, as a public relations consultant for a multinational, could do with some creativity.

The Sanlu Melamine Laced Milk Scandal, when the fallout had done its damage, could perhaps be best remembered as one event that has tested the capabilities of public relations practitioners in Malaysia in the face of a crisis.

The ignorance of public relations practitioners of the speed with which information (and misinformation) travels in cyberspace and the need for urgency for action in the age of media convergence, can clearly be seen by the lack of the use of web tools and other tools to reassure their publics.

I do not remember seeing a Google advertisement stating products were safe by any company. Social networking tools like YouTube (reinforcing the company's safety standards, perhaps?) or Facebook (company-moderated group to discuss concerns?) were not used at all to disseminate information about companies that were in some way affected by the bad publcity generated thousands of miles away.

Crises turn into disasters when companies and their public relations people do not know how to manage it. The public relations practitioner is dutybound to safeguard the company's corporate image and the goodwill it has earned over the years. Not knowing how to respond, to act rather than react, during a crisis, or worse, ignoring it altogether, is suicidal - to both the practitioner's career and the future of company he/she represents.

I identify two main reasons for the slow engagement time.

One: the public relations person is ill-trained to handle crisis if he/she was roped in based on good English, some reporting experience and had not undergone a course in proper public relations.
Two: The PR arm or personnel was placed in the backseats of the marketing function (as marketing communications) and was unable to react sufficiently fast enough because of corporate red-tape.

How much a company and its earnings will suffer (whether or not its products are contaminated) is yet to be seen. But for not doing anything if its products are milk or milk related, the company stands a good chance of ending up in the book of bad public relations case studies. For the public relations practitioner who did nothing, it is time to look for another job.

Is Phemie Dull A Possible Scammer?

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:19:00 +0000

I received this email offering to place ads on my site. Naturally, I was happy to oblige but the subject line piqued my curiosity. It was a FWD message and sure enough, when I tried replying, the address was from another person/being.
Below is a screenshot. (If you have received the same on your site, let's build reference links to each other by adding comments to this post).

I have googled for Phemie Dull and guess what appeared here. I have reported it to Godaddy and waiting their reply. Keep your eyes on this article for updates if you own a domain and have been approached by Dull.

What Companies Like Readers' Digest Can Do To Save The Trees

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 06:28:00 +0000

I wrote about how my letterbox has been inundated with junk mails from companies like Readers' Digest some time back. I have received some response from readers one of which was released at the post. The reader wants to know what can be done.

Well, if I am the Readers' Digest CEO, I will ask my marketing man to stop spamming mailboxes with junk mail. In this time and age, this simply does not work. If he fails to listen to me, I will then make him deliver the junk mails to all my subscribers in the Asia Pacific and let him realise how much paper have been wasted and how many trees had been cut down because of the junk promotional mails. If again he is undaunted, I will fire him and employ someone more in tune with this time and age - especially where global marketing had gone on the web.

For the readers, however, I think the best instance is to cancel your subscriptions to Readers' Digest for spamming your mailbox with physical junk mail. By not respecting your privacy, and intelligence, why should you keep it alive?

It is perplexing to know that despite the computers being used to link all front and back operations, Readers' Digest apparently did not bother to check its database to see if the intended recipient of its mailers was already a subscriber and therefor there is no need to bomb his mailbox with a Life-time Chance To Win $2,000,000 contest forms of various sizes. This persistent unsolicited mails more certainly do not speak highly of its marketing intelligence. Perhaps, you'd be better off reading National Geographic.

Educational Excellence is Just Mind Over Matter

noreply@blogger.com (Swee) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:51:00 +0000

The University Sains Malaysia was conferred the APEX University status recently, acknowledging its superiority among the rest of public educational institutions in Malaysia. But where English is concerned, I would not hold my breath - as seen in the congratulatory chest-beating which ran in the local print media.

And if this advertisement is anything to measure its education excellence by, then the past products of the varsity should take a hard look at their slips. Afterall, educational excellence is purely mind over matter. If you dont mind, it doesnt matter. And if it was you alma mater, then you should correct the matter. Mater I mean - before you run another ad.