Author: Grievous

Random Thoughts – On local blogosphere (I)

6 comments

What is the blogosphere? Wikipedia defines it as a collective term encompassing all blogs and their interconnections. It is the perception that blogs exist together as a connected community (or as a collection of connected communities) or as a social network. [1]

The above definition is better understood by non-bloggers or blog stalkers readers and perhaps even most bloggers outside Singapore. It is seemingly lost on some local bloggers, however. And this is especially true for local bloggers who have come to regard only the opinion of their blogger friends who reads and links them as those which matters. They live in a fantasy world, believing that “I am handsome because all my friends said so!” They also expect complete and unquestioning obedience from their friends. Heil Hitler! Anyone?

These bloggers apparently forgot that when they started their blog, it is as good as shouting at the howling winds or whispering in a noisy market. They get no attention then and the truth is, the content on one’s blog is useless without readers. In short, I define the worth of a blog in terms of the effect, usually in the form of reaction from the readers.

Here’s an analogy: In medieval times temple bells may already worth a fortune. But at the same time they are worth much more because people who lives in its vicinity conduct their activities with regard to the tolling of the bells. For e.g. farmers in the fields breaks for meals or call it a day. There is more worth to these bells than its monetary value.

So, consider Rockson’s blog. One might dislike his style of writing or his use of vulgarities, but consider the reaction he gets from those some would consider as ‘beng readers’ (even though they might not be any more or less beng than any of us). Then consider Xiaxue, who would be nothing more than a feisty tart screaming at the top of her voice at the busy streets [泼妇骂街] if not for the reaction she gets from her readers.

Thus, whether the blogger is deep or shallow, pro- or non-pro, in- or out- of my group in the Drunken Masters Bloggers Association doesn’t matter at all. All that really matters is the reaction of readers to the content a blogger produces (preferably regularly).

Based on this, it is my considered opinion when a blogger is a successful social media person, it would manifest in the form of a high level of social interaction on the blog itself – usually in terms of the number of comments and trackbacks one gets, or even when bloggers actively and regularly engage his readers by writing a new blog post in reply.

Therefore, it is my considered opinion that anyone who claims to be a ‘social media guru’ or ‘somebody in social media’ while having negligible level of interaction on their blogs beyond their own social circle, is simply… talking cock [Hokkien: gong jiao wey 《讲鸟话》]. It is a testimony that these ‘social media experts’ have apparently failed to recognise that local readers are also less vocal and less willing to participate other than those they are passionate about. In spite of all the hot air, they have failed quite spectacularly in the department of doing social media.

Thus, it really doesn’t matter just how high profile they are in the traditional media or how many so-called social media events they have attended or organised. All they have really done is hoodwink other bloggers into believing them to be promoting social media, but in reality they are using bloggers to promote themselves!

Now, anyone is free to disagree with this opinion since my blog itself has nothing to show as far as ‘success’ in social media is concerned. We are all entitled to our opinions. Yet there are things that are even worse than self-styled social media gurus, and that is when bloggers commit acts that is detrimental to social media, which I will talk about in my next post on local blogosphere, when I get myself down to writing it.

Comics:

Quote of the day:
“Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in the world.”
– Helen Keller

Recommended Read:
Cobalt Paladin: Square Room
ErniesUrn: Association of Bloggers Singapore
Freelance Writing: Have Bloggers Become Social Media Abusers?
Nocturne: Association of Bloggers Singapore

Current Affairs: Association of Bloggers Singapore

10 comments

I was sort of surprised to see on Monday [19 Jan 2009], posts about the Association of Bloggers Singapore (ABS for short) from some of the friends I have been following on my rss reader – namely DK, Eastcoastlife, Endoh, nicole, xinyun, and xtralicious.

I know I am 2 days late in reporting this, but I have my own concerns and misgivings about it originally. All that time I was trying to get through to some of the members in the committee pro tem to answer some of my queries.

Meantime, criticisms came as fast as (if not faster than) the news of its birth and blog articles reporting it. Some of the most common criticisms are: the need for a subscription; the lack of a proper website giving details on what it is about; an attempt to define who can be a blogger and impose guidelines to what can be written; and * gasp * the government’s gahmen’s first step in controlling blogosphere!

Let us look at each of these controversies and analyse them. Are they facts, just allegations or straw man?

  1. The need for an entrance fee and a subscription

    This is a fact and one of my primary concerns. My personal opinion is that ABS should reconsider the position of some student bloggers who can write well. I also reflected to several of their members the importance of proper accounting to the public and members as even non-profit activities like Social Media Breakfast (SMB) came under the scrutiny of a blogger.
    From what I gathered, the money collected will be used to cover activities in the event no sponsors are found, and none of it is used as salary or allowances for the committee for their roles. Money that is not spent will most likely be donated to charities. There seems to be some dissenting voices within the committee itself, whereby some have requested that for a trial period the fees should be waived until a year later. If you have any queries here, it is really best to direct it at the committee.

  2. The lack of information on the website

    This is a fact. Anyone who has visited the site can see that for himself and I consider it as public relations fiasco until I understand from some of the committee members, ABS has a pre-matured birth.
    The official launch will be in late February. DK told me they did not intend to announce the moment it becomes officially registered and had originally intended to announce it’s official launch date maybe later in the week and open to questions from the general public. Unfortunately, the article on TODAY forced their hand, and they have to reveal it before time. They are now working hard to get an FAQ up.

  3. An authority to issue guidelines on writing and to disqualify non-association bloggers

    Among one of the most ludicrous speculations. Just how does one expect ABS to enforce their guidelines? By confiscating your member fees? Taking you to court? I brought up the matter of whether ABS intends to negotiate a better deal with advertisers like Advertlets, Nuffnang or Blog2U on behalf of bloggers and I was told that is never an objective of ABS as it cannot enforce anything on its members.
    As to the matter of disqualifying non-association of bloggers, Xtralicious has put it across to me: Can the Chinese Association disqualify you from being a Chinese simply because you are not a member? One is a blogger simply by setting up a blog on any of the blogging sites or self host using a blogger software. It will take gahmen legislation to disqualify a person as a blogger and that takes me to the last point.

  4. Gahmen Control

    Chairman Pro-tem EastCoastLife seems to me to have many contacts in high places. At least that is the impression I have from this blog also authored by her. In my opinion, this has always been a convenient straw man. I recalled the days I used to post on soc.culture.singapore when people who didn’t like a pro-gahmen post will label its writer a gahmen lackey.
    But consider this: If endorsement or having close relationship with gahmen bodies and officials is justified as a step leading to gahmen control, then it is equally convenient for anyone to label collaboration with foreign talents justifiable as being disloyal to, or engaging in subversive and hostile activities against our nation!
    Whichever way the allegations go, they all have only these objectives – to inspire fear and to polarise – and then have you decide that the decision they want you to make is the best for yourself. I must point out that one shouldn’t be over-zealous in their nationalistic fervor before it becomes distorted as xenophobia or facism.

The above is my personal opinion on the formation of this association. I am not rallying for anyone to join, but I would plead with everyone to give the founders and committee some time to come up with the official answers.

As bloggers, some of us may not like the personality or the writing style of another person, but let us all refrain from having old skeletons dancing out of the closets and revisit old hatreds. While no one can force you to abide to this and remain civil, it will only make yourself look bad in the eyes of stalkers readers. Don’t forget that we bloggers are not all to blogosphere, our readers whom we somewhat influence with our thoughts makes up the other part. It would do us some good to remember that some of our readers may have even more clarity of thought than some of us do.

Shalom Aleichem. Peace be with you.

Comics:

Recommended Reads:
Singularities Industries: Whose side are you on?

Cheng Ho & 1421

Leave a comment

Estimated Length of Zheng He’s Treasure Ships


Size Comparison With Columbus’

I recently saw the documentary about Zheng He’s (also known as Cheng Ho *ching!*) on National Geographic.

I have read about Zheng He’s voyages before, but never in detail. Never mind he made seven voyages between 1405 and 1433, a good 55 years before the Portuguese reached the Cape of Good Hope. To me it was a mere interesting footnote in history as it has brought no significant changes to the world.

However, what I have never taken into serious consideration, was the number of ships and men in the voyage (200 over ships with 27,800 men). I also failed to recognise the significance of some of the ships in Zheng He’s fleet, which is claimed to be at least 126.73m long, while Christopher Columbus’ ship was only a mere 17m long. This has become quite a controversy as no one is believed to be capable of building ships of wood that large.

On top of that I failed to recognise Cheng Ho’s legacy. Malacca’s submission as a vassal of China pretty much freed it from the oppression of the more powerful Siam and gave birth to what would become modern day Malaysia, and Chinese fishing nets were still today in use in the many places he has visited then. Cheng Ho, being a Muslim himself, also left quite a mark in establishing Islam in this region.

Perhaps it is also a coincidence that I am currently reading Gavin Menzie’s 1421. Apparently this book and its sequel 1434 had sparked quite a controversy among historians.

Unfortunately, despite the controversy, the book has been dismissed by many historians. Even so, I still read it because it intrigues me to know this man has actually spent a large sum of money putting his books together, while not actually making any money from it. His obsession made me read the book to find out what convinced him about his own assertions.

Personally speaking, I am not very impress with his book, as I personally think a lot of evidence he presented are circumstantial and stretched a little too far. Unless there are solid finds – such as remnants of one of Cheng Ho’s ships in Australia and the Americas complete with its cargo to match his assertions, it would be difficult to convince me.

However, I certainly could not dispute the parts which are based on his experience when he was in the Royal Navy. In fact, I doubt anyone would be any the wiser about sea currents other than those who had many years of experience as a sailor.

Even if everything in the book is mere conjecture, 1421 is still an interesting read. I am still reading it and only half way through. But I have now learn of old maps of the map when it is still not completely explored, for e.g. the Kangnido, the Fra Mauro, the Piri Reis and the Waldseemüller map, along with the names of explorers who are the first to reach the Americas and Australia to chart it. It also let me understand why maps of those days look very much different from what we know of the Earth today and how the errors come about.

Though it might not present any solid facts to change written history, there are still things that we might not know about to be discovered in it – like the difficulties which cartographers and mariners of the past faced. Thus, I believe when I am done reading 1421, I would move on to its sequel – 1434 to check out whether there are other things which I still do not know.

Comics:

Recommended Reads:
Endoh’s Dungeon: All creatures are equal… but some creatures are more equal.
Endoh’s Dungeon: Social degradation in some of our youths?
Global Research: The Shadow Money Lenders: The Real Significance of The Fed’s Zero-Interest-Rate Policy (ZIRP)
Insane Poly: Work for Life, Live for Work

Marina Barrage (Night)

Leave a comment

Went to the Marina Barrage [day photos here] after dinner earlier on with DK, nicole and xinyun. It’s pretty windy down at the Marina Barrage tonight and I am quite surprised that there’s still quite a bit of people even after 9pm.

I took some of these photos with my Olympus C450Z 4.0Megapixels Camera I carried with me in the bag all the time. The reason they looked blurry and over-exposed is because these photos are taken with a slow shutter speed and without a flash (deliberately turned off). That’s not mentioning the photographer (me) suck at taking night shots without a stand.

Comics:

Recommended Reads:
The Online Citizen: “I hope Singapore government punish them”

Miscellaneous:
Other News: BLOG2u takes over SGBloggers

Sex and the Internet

Leave a comment

I installed the ‘WordPress.com stats’ plugin for WordPress recently. While going through the statistics, I noticed that several old posts continue to receive a number of hits regularly. For e.g. the posts on Nanyang Poly Sex Video and Old Singapore Photos continue to receive 10 – 20% of hits the blog gets daily, and these posts are almost 3 years old.

Even before I installed the plugin, I noticed on other trackers that these two posts are the all time popular. In fact two others have also been very popular of late, one of them being Edision Chen’s ‘Photo Gate’ Scandal and the other a post about certain parameters used in the Chinese search engine Baidu [百度] titled: 小龍女的 “女乃 豆頁”

What really interest me is that 3 out of 4 of these popular posts are sex-related or scandalous and it suddenly reminded me of this blog post lamenting the state of Singapore’s blogosphere which I read recently.

I do not agree with the blogger that there is something wrong with Singapore’s blogosphere. In fact, I don’t even think that the popularity of sex-related postings is a Singapore-specific phenomenon. After all, the ‘unexpected search parameters’ on Baidu which I wrote about, would indicate searches performed primarily by people in China using the Baidu search engine, followed by people who are literate in Chinese outside China. On top of which, the most popular website in Singapore may perhaps be sammyboy.com, not to mention that a lot of spam mails are usually sex-related, from women offering to undress on webcams, to drugs improving sexual abilities and increasing the size of your sex organ. It is almost certainly true that ‘The Internet is for pR0n’, a far cry from what its inventors in DARPA have envisioned.

The blogger is not accepting reality when he lament about the state of Singapore’s blogosphere with regard to the Top 10 Most Popular postings [in the last 24 hours] on ping.sg. He should acknowledge the fact that it is simply what the Internet is really about – a place where you can find such objectionable content [to some] easily and readily. Furthermore, he should accept that everyone has this peeping tom tendency [偷窥倾向], i.e. to peep into the privacy of others, and thus there is always this unexplainable excitement and interest in scandalous articles and news – especially those of celebrities. To provide such content would only be meeting the expectation and satisfying the desires of many users.

In short, while it might not be intentional, ping.sg has apparently stumbled upon a ‘gold mine’ simply by its un-moderated nature and allowing sex-related content posts to be published. Personally, I suspected that ping.sg might actually now have an increase in readership compared to the time when there was a thriving pseudo-community.

After all, while the existence of a community may bring a constant return traffic, the effect would be very much like bears catching salmons returning to the breeding ground. On the other hand, having readers of such outrageous, loud, sex-related post would be the equivalent of trawling – readers get snared regardless they liked the service provider or not. In short, it is a much, much more efficient way in ‘strip mining’ readership for income. Even though I have once proposed the complete removal of the Top 10 as the best solution to end the rampage of all objectionable content (when I was a user of ping.sg), I now believe by doing so would truly kill a portion of ping.sg’s traffic as it no longer satisfies the instant gratification for sex-related content that many readers (not necessarily of ping.sg) seek.

On hindsight, I am reminded that some participants in the ping.sg shoutbox have said all along that the attempt to curb or control these postings is not reflecting the true readership at all. After leaving for more than 6 months and looking in from outside, I must admit that they are indeed right about the this matter. Technically, ping.sg is a microcosm of the Internet and therefore the popularity of these postings merely a shadow of the general usage pattern of the Internet itself.

The Internet is for pR0n, indeed!


Disclaimer: I did not mean this post as an offense to anyone in particular or to any site. I do not want any more quarrels. Read it in the context of my response to this post.

Comics:

Recommended Read:
WiseCurve: Singaporean Blogsphere has hope

1 … 56 57 58 59 60 … 186