Social Media around the world

Which social media is popular in countries around the world.

Click for bigger image

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Gazali, Plugged in & Online

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, & the Social Media that Fulfill ‘Em

Source / Read more: dontwasteyourtime.co.uk

Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike

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Gazali: Plugged in & online

Real Life iPad wedding

A guy did proposed to his girlfriend using social media.

And the logical conclusion: A cartoon, using iPad for the wedding.

Then it happened in real life?

Katie and Aaron were recently married, and the officiant did the entire service from his iPad.

They read their vows from iPad, after having copied them to the device from paper and ink versions.

I don't know what to say.

Thanks to  offbeatbride.com and geekologie.com 

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Gazali: Plugged in & online

Facebook Social Plugin

The official video released by Facebook on Social Plugin and its privacy issue.

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Gazali: Plugged in & online

Map of Social Media networks

2010 Social Media networks when mapped.

Inspired by XKCD via Flowtown

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Main Blog: Journeyman Journeys
FB FanPage: Gazali.Thoughts

Social Media Impact

How social media impacts us in our daily lives.

In fact its already done in real life. This guy, Matt Van Horn uses Twitter, Foursquare and Qik for his marriage proposal. 

Matt's blog.

Later it will be like this:

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Main Blog: Journeyman Journeys
FB FanPage: Gazali.Thoughts

Integration.

I'm just an amateur in doing all this stuff. I started this blog, only in February 2010. I do not know much about HTML or CSS, let alone Java. What I have is the ability, to sit down, hours on end, reading documentation about programming stuff. Yes, my hobby is that boring. Even my wife can't understand, how I can spend so much time on it. Brought to you by Gazali at www dot gazali dash ahmad dot c o dot c c. Proclivity for objectivity.
Let's start with this blog. The blog platform itself is free. Its from Google Blogger. The template I use is also free. Its called "Evidens White" by Design Disease. And the work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. What it means is that, I can use it and make any changes I like. The only thing that I have to do, is to leave the credits on the footer.

There are thousands and thousands of templates for you to use. Some free, some need to be paid. Those that you paid for, are even more fantastic. I sometimes feel like a boy in a candy store, who's free to choose anything he wants.

Most of the pictures I use, are from Flickr and its also under a Creative Commons License. The photographers are a fantastic bunch. That's why all of the pics are credited to the photographers. You could say that this blog happens because of all the sharing done by these people.

What you need to do, is figure out your content. Nobody can help you with that. You can have the most astounding flash website; people will visit it. If the content never change, most would visit it once only. Yes, you could argue that there are billions of users worldwide, what we need is quality, not quantity.

I've decided on a blog instead of a static webpage. I've done some design work for webpages, though I find updating the content is a bit tedious. Change the content, upload it, check, redo again, upload again, check. Its just a pain in the neck. A blog is much more easier to upload content.

In fact, I found out that a Wordpress blog can even be a static website. Even Blogger, have the ability to display static pages. So you can upload your products there, or some other stuff. Example of static pages here, are "My Story", "Chronicles" and "Free Ebooks".

Next, comes Facebook. Initially, I was skeptical about it. You know, giving out all of your stuff online to "The Man". I had a Facebook account last year. I deleted it. Only in February 2010, that I restarted the account again.

It was actually a "a-ha" thing. I did a lot of reading and research and I found out that its pretty hard to ignore a social web app with 400 million users. In fact, there were others too, like FriendFeed and MySpace. Though I find them a bit problematic. FriendFeed can't keep up with the numbers and MySpace allows full customizations, it was like Geocities. You have the most garishly designed webpages. My eyes hurt when I see it.

Facebook adopts a unified interface. You can't change a lot of the stuff. The only thing that you can change is your profile pics. And it works. This just proves one thing. By giving the users limited choices, the users are free to concentrate on connecting with other people. That probably explains the phenomenal growth of Facebook. Of course, the servers must not crash.

In Facebook, you have the ability to create a page for your business, causes, groups or whatever. Your personal profile is limited to 5,000 friends, Fan pages, unlimited.

In fact, Facebook is actually your web presence. My url for personal face book page  is http://www.facebook.com/Gazali.Ahmad, my fan page, http://www.facebook.com/Gazali.Thoughts. And Facebook can function as some sort of a mini blog. How? By using the Notes application. Hey, Facebook is not only about games, ok. Here's an example. And people need not to be logged on to Facebook to read it.

Being the tinkerer, I created my own fan page. Once again, content is king and time is short. I have 1 wife, 4 kids, 1 rabbit and a pond of fishes to manage on top of my other work. For blogs, its not a problem, the update frequency can even be as little as once a month.

Why I choose a fan page page instead of a group page? I can put up a custom tab. In my fanpage the custom tabs are "Welcome", "Free & Cheap", "World Cup 2010" and "Contact Info". And each have its own web address.

Facebook, its like a river. Things move fast. And I don't want to be tied up updating my Fanpage status. So I did the next best thing. Signed up for Alltop, choose the relevant categories, and direct the feed to Facebook. Hey, I even became a fan of my own fanpage. I read the articles.

With Facebook, I linked it to my blog. Not only that, I linked my blog to my twitter, linkedin and youtube account.

And with some code additions for JavaScript SDK and creating a Facebook application, I got the facebook "Like Box" on my blog. Don't ask me what's a JavaScript SDK, I have not read about it yet, just know that it works.

So there you have it. Tight integration done by an amateur.

FaceBook <--link--> Facebook FanPage <--link--> Blog <--link--> Twitter <--link--> LinkedIn <--link--> Youtube.

Just imagine what it can do for your business.

Photo Credits: "Britain Going Blog Crazy - Metro Article" by Annie_Mole.

Like and Fans

Figured it out. Why I have 2 boxes of "like".

The first shows "93 friends like this". What it means is that out of my 458 friends, 93 of them are in my fan page, or "Like" it. The second shows "130 people like this" What it means is that I have another 40 people who are not "Friends" with me "Like" my page.

Got it?

So if I invite again the 365 friends, and according to Facebook, they are twice as likely to click the "Like" button than the old "Fan" button, would my fans increased?

I think I just leave it as it is.

Fans and those who likes you.

A couple of days ago, Facebook changed their FAN button to a simple LIKE button. According to Facebook, users click "Like" almost twice as much as they click "Become a Fan" -- so, it follows that if Facebook changes "Become a Fan" to "Like," more users will click on it. Post by Gazali at Gazali dash Ahmad dot C O dot C C. Proclivity for objectivity.
I have a fan page in Facebook, its called Gazali's Thoughts. Its about giving free tips on the internet and popular applications, with a regular news feed about information technology. At times, I use the Notes apps in Facebook as a sort of a mini blog. Whenever I write something it gets twittered. For the past few days, my "Fans" have simply become "Like". Now I have two boxes on the left of my screen.

The top one shows "93 friends like this" and the bottom shows "130 people like this". What does it mean? Does it mean I have 223 "people or friends liking the fan page? On closer inspection, it is a duplicated list. How did they end up there? Was it after the change, they clicked on the "Like" button again?

When I click on the "93 friends like this" a window pops out with the heading "Related Pages". Related to what? My blog? When I clicked on "130 people like this" it shows "View Fans".

Since it is theorized that users click "Like", almost twice as much as they click "Become a Fan"; would that mean I would have double the number of fans, if I invited my friends that are not "Fans" or "Like" the page?

Yet the numbers stayed the same for now. Could it mean, other users are confused, or simply more cautious?

According to The Free Dictionary,:

v. liked, lik·ing, likes
v.tr.
1. To find pleasant or attractive; enjoy.
2. To want to have: would like some coffee.
3. To feel about; regard: How do you like her nerve!
4. Archaic To be pleasing to.
v.intr.
1. To have an inclination or a preference: If you like, we can meet you there.
2. Scots To be pleased.
n.
Something that is liked; a preference: made a list of his likes and dislikes.

fan 2 (fn)
n.
An ardent devotee; an enthusiast.
[Short for fanatic.]

Example in a sentence:
I LIKE the F1 races. I LIKE the teams and I LIKE to know about the technology of the cars. I would LIKE to drive one of those F1 cars around the circuit. I am a FAN of the Mclaren team and I'm a FAN of Lewis Hamilton.

According to Facebook, the above sentence would be:
I LIKE the F1 races. I LIKE the teams and I LIKE to know about the technology of the cars. I would LIKE to drive one of those F1 cars around the circuit. I am a FAN of LIKE the Mclaren team and I am a FAN of LIKE Lewis Hamilton.

What do you think?

Anyway that's the cost of free. The operator can change anything, according to his whims and desires. Will the era of free services comes to an end? How much would you pay for it? Your Yahoo or Gmail account? Your online photo storage, your online docs? Would you pay $50 a month for a google account that gives you online docs, photo, blog, email, rss reader, sites, social networking?

Facebook has 400 million active users. What if they charged everyone $1 a month to use their services? That's an easy $400 million every month. Or would they go in the way of Ning, a blogging platform? Stop the FREE service and become a SUBSCRIPTION service? Would you pay $25 a month for the service?

Or would you tolerate advertisements on your wall, after every other updates from you friends?

Will the take up rate slow down? Imagine a service like Facebook charging monthly fees at day one. Would their user base grow to more than 400 million like now?

Why is it important to have your own blog/website.
As you can plainly see, things can always change. The interface can change, the TOS can change, and it can even be changed to a paid service. It is important that everyone learns how to have his own blog or website. It is actually easy and not that difficult. The web host itself cost less than $10 a month.

The initial difficulty is getting the blog up and running, choosing the right template, and the right format. Once its done, all you need to do is provide the content. It is not as difficult as it seemed. Posterous is a good place to start. Just email your content, pictures, or videos and it will be automatically be posted into your blog and formatted correctly.

Does your content need to be ground-breaking, or long? Not really. See Seth Godin's blog, he writes regularly. His articles are short and simple. Not much pics nor any videos, yet his posts are always re-tweeted hundreds of times.

Once you write or post regularly, the people will come and it will build up. Initially, when I started there was only about 10 readers or so. When it reach 30, I'm over the moon. Now its in the hundreds. Don't worry, you'll get there.

When you become more technically competent, you can control the ads. Isn't that nice? You can even get paid for it. And the best part, all your articles that you wrote, are yours.

So remember, you are YOU and not Facebook or any other social media service.

Maximizing co.cc

So, you signed up for a domain name in co.cc. You use it for blogger. Instead of using the standard My_Blog_Or_My_Business.blogspot.com as your blog address, its now My_Blog_Or_My_Business.co.cc. And you got it all for free!

That's not the only thing that you can use for co.cc domain name. In fact, there is one cool feature that you should really look into. Post by Gazali at Gazali dash Ahmad dot c o dot c c, proclivity for objectivity.
Its called "URL Forwarding". What does it do? It simply forwards your co.cc domain name, to another domain name.

Let's say, that you have just signed up for a free service on the web. Usually an account will be created and you are given a website address. The website address are usually designated with your account number or your name, if its not taken up.

You will end up with ServiceProvider.com/YourName_YourBusiness_YourAccount. For example YourName.multiply.com. Now, instead of using that, you can redirect it to www.YourName.co.cc. It looks even better.

Here's how to do it.
First register for co.cc. If you have done that, log in to you account. Click on [Getting a new Domain name].

Think of a unique domain name. Do take note that some of the domain names are not free, nonetheless, its not that expensive.

Now click [Set-up] and choose [URL Forwarding]

Key in:
[Redirect to (URL): http://] Your free web address. Take note that you can't redirect to a co.cc domain name.
[Page Title]: Description of your page or one-line header.
[Frame]: use URL Hiding.
[Description]: Describe what your website is about.
[Keywords]: Keywords of your website. Each word separated by a comma.

Don't click on the [Google apps email setup].

Click on the [Set up] button to complete.

It takes a couple of hours, up to 48 hours before the change can take effect.

And that's it. Instead of MyName.multiply.com, you can use www.MyName.co.cc. Cool isn't it?

The free service co.cc only allows you a maximum of 4 domain name. Do what I did. I donated USD$10 (about SGD$14.27) only, and now I can register up to 100 domain names. After donating, I found that the set up takes almost immediately.

Instead of www.facebook.com/YourName it can be www.YourName.co.cc.

I leave it to your imagination. Enjoy.

Social Media Marketing

This is how Social Media Marketing ought to be. In 3 minutes.

Podcasting

Picture: "podcast set up" by the tartanpodcast.

Sometimes, technology constantly surprises me. I've just added a video feed for my blog. Thought I do a weekly video update, then this podcasting came about.

My video updates are done by myself using a simple webcam that I have on my netbook. The location is my home office. I have to talk clearly and no mumbling. And I have to be still, no sudden movement. It can't capture fast movement. Something to do with the "frames per second" (fps). I have not looked into it seriously yet, just simply trying it out. Anyway, it worked, because of YouTube.

I've heard about podcast and I know that you have to read the article, save it on your webhost and linked it. Now my blog is on a free hosted domain by Blogger. The only thing that I can store are pictures in Picasa. Probably there are services that can host audio files. The thing is, I have to search for it, another round of settings and configurations. Time, that I don't have. Right now I got 3 major projects.

Now comes along this company Odiogo that gives high quality text-to-speech solutions and automatic podcast generation using the RSS feed. Decided to give it a spin and my wife was impressed. Its not perfect, it reads the caption of the pictures as part of a sentence. Then again its close to 95%. Punctuation is very critical, without it, it just reads without pauses.

She always told me that I can be long winded in writing, and now she just simply can hear it. You can download it as an MP3. It can even be played on an iPod with the text displayed. iPod have this lyrics function.

Now I don't have an iPod, so if anyone wants to try, I like to know the feedback. Thanks.

I hope you guys love the new layout. I find the previous layout with 4 column too crowded. Now its a dynamically adjusted 3 columns layout. The left column for my post, 2nd column, advertisement, and 3rd for fans.

There is Google search function on top. Just key in your search, and it will search for it. Press the little "x" to clear the result. The top menus are linked to my LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts. You can connect to me on one or all. Its ok. Chronicles are about my current month posts and "Free Ebook" is still there. You can also subscribe to me via email or RSS as well.

I've also set up a social enterprise network. Fan page is called "Hometree Social Network". Initially my partners and me decided upon the name of "Singapore Social Network". Then we realized we can't register names like "Singapore", "Temasek" and a couple of other names. Its just that - regulations.

Photo: "I'm all grown up now" by ubiquity_zh.

We are launching at 50+ Active Ageing Carnival 2010 to be held this Saturday and Sunday, 3rd and 4th April 2010 at Suntec Singapore. We are giving away gifts and there is a photography contest. 

So on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I'll be busy setting up our booth.

Looking forward to see you guys there. and have a great weekend, everyone!

The best things in life are FREE

What's possible with FREE.

This blog

Domain name registered for FREE. (http://www.co.cc/) hosted on Blogger Custom Domain.

YouTube Channel

Own YouTube channel. Can use to promote yourself, shop, services, keep in touch with family and friends. Your own self-produced movies. Who says you need to be on TV? FREE.

Own brand email

With your very own logo and shop name. For your own club, organisation, shop, your family. 50 users each with 7.5GB storage for FREE.

Fully functioning email client.

Fully functioning email client with your own personalized Email (ex: xxxxxxx@YourNameOrBusiness.com), with Calender, Docs, Chat and Sites. FREE.

And together with Facebook Fan Page and Twitter, a powerful and FREE social media integration.

What it means for you? A world-wide reach, fully functioning integrated system to engage your friends, family and clients to promote yourself, services, products, shops, clubs, causes, movement .........

I leave it your imagination. 

Can a small business survive?

Social Media's ROI.

Using Blogger

I hope you have done your homework and have a ready subject or a business to promote.

First log in to Blogger, you need a GMail account for it. If you have than just use your Gmail login. If not sign up for an account. Try using your name or a close approximation to it. Its your choice, and do bear in mind you could use the email for your business. Examples like "Your Shop Name @ gmail.com" or "Your Biz Name @ gmail.com", or "My Passion @ gmail.com", I leave it to your imagination.

First timers will be greeted with this screen:

Fill up the relevant details, next screen will be:

Key-in your Blog Title  and blog Address. Then click "Check Availability". Example of Title: Cozy Homes in Singapore and blog address could be: http://cozy-homes.blogspot.com. That's a useful tip for property agents. Quick register it before someone else does! Next will be to choose your template.

Just choose what you like and click "Continue". Don't worry, if you don't like the template, you can always change it later. Next:

What just happened?. You created your very first website. Click "Start Blogging" and it will bring you to the built-in editor. Key in your post and click "Publish Post".

Congratulations on your first website and posting something to the world.

Your now have your own domain name, http://YourNameOrBusiness.blogspot.com hosted free on Google servers. Isn't that remarkable.

What you need to do now, is to experiment. Go ahead, change anything, get use to the User Interface. I'll leave you at that. Enjoy yourself.

My next post will be showing you how to get a better looking templates for free, and explain to you the finer details of Blogger and how to monetize your website and get a fully customize domain name like http://www.YourNameOrBusiness.com

Free Website. Don't believe it.

Finally did it. I've have registered my own domain name.

And moved my blog, yes this blog, to it. Look at your address bar. If you typed in: http://gazali-ahmad.blogspot.com it will automatically redirect to http://www.gazali-ahmad.co.cc. And that's my new blog address.

I did some research, read so many articles, and finally took the plunge. And it was seamless. No hiccups. All post exists. No broken links. In fact it was a non-event. I thought I need to do a complicated web settings, or write some coding. Nothing. Just simple point and click, some basic information, and its done.

And how much did it cost me? SGD$0.00 Yes its free. I did not have to fork out a single cent for anything. I did not have to sign up for any affiliate networking or whatever. From the blog, to the domain name, and to the hosting. ITS ALL FREE.

My only investment: My time and my network connection charges.

Don't you find it hard to believe?

There are so many people telling you that you need to pay for this or that. That you do not have the skill or technical know-how to do it. We'll do it for you for a fee. We even do a web design for you for a fee.

Let me tell you something. Everything on this blog are from free sources. Including the template that you see, that presents this blog. All I did was a little bit of coding here and there and its up. In fact the standard template, is good enough.

And you can do it too. Really you can.

First thing first. Do you want a blog or website? Now don't get confused. A blog is actually a website, or more to the point its a dynamic website. Just by looking at my website address, can you really tell its a blog? With so many tools out there, the line between blog and a traditional website are getting blurred everyday. 

Why are blogs far better than a static websites:

• You can post written text, audio and video and have it online within minutes. Try doing that with a static website, it takes hours and probably cost you because you need the web designer, if you are not familiar with building or editing websites.

• Your blog can be up in minutes, write your first post and ready to do business online and invite search engines to visit you. In Blogger, you can have 10 static web-pages. You can use the static pages as an "About Me", "Services" or whatever. And you have your own mini-website.

• Blogs tend to be indexed much faster than traditional web pages. Every time you post an entry, you automatically "ping" or notify the search engines telling them there is a new content and "come and take a look". Its all about traffic. The faster your website gets indexed, the more people comes to your site.

• Blogs are the most cost-effective medium to promote your services. Dare I say, it can even be free? Your maintenance cost for blog is ZERO unlike a traditional web page; you need a budget to maintain the site and keep the site updated.

• I am going to dare say that most website designers have no clue whatsoever about search engine optimization. Ok, that's an unfair statement. Probably most of them know. Ultimately, their strategy is to make your site look good. I do not know about you, unless the website content is regularly updated, you can have the most amazing Flash presentation; I'd probably visit it once in a very long while.

• Bloggers establish credibility much faster static website owners because blogs by their very nature build a stronger and more vibrant knowledge base.

• With a blog, you log in anywhere, write your blog post and click the “publish” button and your article is on the world wide web. Your post can easily be categorized, making it easier for your readers. With a static website, you must have an editor (DreamWeaver or Kompozer), write the article using the website template, update the page properties and finally uploading to your site using FTP software. Do note that you have to "wait" until the search engines visits your site to get it indexed. How long does it takes? It could be months.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not against of having a traditional website. It does serve a useful purpose for big companies and institution. They have the budget and the people to maintain it. They need to have one. Nowadays some of them also have a blog. I show how to compete with the big boys at a fraction of the cost.

I remembered a couple of years back, I wanted a website. So I met up with a couple of web designers from a web company.

I told them what I wanted, and they say it can be done. I had to provide them with the materials and graphics and they will do up the web page for me. All in all, it will cost me about $2,000 or so. That's the initial set-up. There is also the cost of maintaining (exactly what do they maintain? Do they need to "scrub" or "clean" the site?) the website that's chargeable yearly. Its something like $1,500 a year. With that package, if I need to update a page or two, they can do it every month. More than that, there will be extra cost.

The set-up fees of $2,000, that's ok, I guess. The deal breaker were the maintenance cost and I can't update it more than twice a month. And yes, they told me, when you build it people will come. I do surf quite a lot and one thing for sure, if the website is not regularly updated, the less frequent will I visit it.

I'd probably copy the website using HTTrack Website Copier if it contains useful information and that's it.

So are you ready for a website?

First, think about a subject that you are most passionate about. It could anything, from photography, scale model kits, travel or even a business that you like to promote, like health supplements, property, beauty products or even your own shop. That's right, if you have a brick and mortar shop, you can make your presence felt, by using a combination of social media tools.

Next chose your blogging platform. The 3 popular ones are, Blogger, WordPress and TypePad. I'm using Blogger, so naturally it will be about Blogger.

I'll show step by step on how to do it, from getting your own website to bringing in the traffic and how to monetize your blog and getting your own domain name (those http://YourName.com) and hosting it for free.

Are you excited? Watch out for my next post. It will be on the 24th March 2010 at 9:30pm (GMT +8) Wednesday night. In the meantime think about your passion or business that you'll like to promote to the world.

Photo Credits

• 1st Photo: "Spider Web" by josef.stuefer under a Creative Commons License.
• 2nd Photo: "Passion" by Pat McDonald (off and on) under a Creative Commons License.

State of PC

How many of you remembered the 3.5" disk or even the 5 1/4" disk? How about using the cassette tape as a storage media?

I had a so called micro computer way back then. It was the called Oric-1, somewhere back in 1980s. It cost back then about SGD$500. It doesn't come come with a monitor, you plugged it in the TV.

Countless hours were spent on it, writing machine code and assembly language, praying that the power won't trip. Why? A power trip will erase everything in an instant. And I have to re-key in the code again. It was my very first computer and it brings back sweet memories.

It uses the simple cassette tape player to load and save programs and it takes at least 30 minutes. You plug your audio-out from the cassette player into the device. Even after you have saved your work, it still can fail to load up. Hours lost again.

I used a couple of notebooks before and now currently its the LG x120 Netbook cost about SGD$600 or so and its much, much more powerful. Memory storage have shrunk to a thumbnail size chip. Looking at my netbook, the keyboard is about the size of the Oric-1. Its actually very convenient and I can update my blog post from it and read ebooks.

So when Apple launched the iPad, it was very underwhelming for me. As usual Apple is all about hype. To me its like cripple-ware, you can't multitask, no cameras, no usb ports, no Flash support. I just want things that work now. Not somewhere in the future where HTML 5 might become the de-factor standard. Though there are some people who would love it. Hey, its your money.

Fast forward to the 1990s. I bought Microsoft Office and it comes in the 3.5" disk format. There were at least 10 of these disk. The internet back then was simply a dailup. You register with an ISP (it was Pacific Internet Singapore) and 56kb was a big deal. All you need was a phone line and a modem.

Don't laugh, since it was by phone, I thought connecting to an overseas website will cost me an IDD charge. It didn't. And I was worried sick thinking that I may have to pay hefty overseas calls. The connection was so slow.

And now, its broadband and things have evolved tremendously. No longer do I need to buy Microsoft Office because I am using Open Office. A lot of applications are free. I use Picasa for photos, GIMP for my photo editing and Thunderbird for my email client. I do buy some softwares like antivirus, which cost me yearly about SGD$60 a year or so.

Everything is up in the so called "cloud". My list of contacts are in Plaxo and Gmail, that's about 500 contacts that I personally know. Both accounts are sync and also in my laptop. A lot of my files are stored in Google docs, some in Zoho, Box.net and Scribd. Photos everywhere from Picasa to Flickr to Facebook. My online resume is in LinkedIn and my profile is on Google. I have tonnes of passwords for so many services. All these files are backup offline into my PC, netbook and portable HDD. Sounds like a lot of work? At the initial setup it was, now its just a breeze.

What do I get out of all these? 

Simple, as long as there is a PC or connected to the internet, I can easily access all my files. I wonder, when I die, what would happen to all these files and contacts?

I know that some people are paranoid in putting up so much info in the cloud. Well, if you are not comfortable, then don't do it. Nobody is holding a gun and forcing you to do it.

My Gmail account is the nexus. I have set it up to access my Calender, Twitter, Facebook and Google Docs. In any given month, I can receive more than 1000 spam email. It doesn't affect me at all since Gmail have powerful spam filters.

Once an email arrived, it will be filtered to any one of the 117 folders or labels as Gmail calls them, that I have created. Those that is not filtered will appear in the inbox. There I decide to either filter and create a new label, delete it, archive it or Spam it.

I love Gmail Spam function. If I flag an email as spam, the next email from that sender automatically goes into the spam box where it will be deleted automatically after 30 days. I don't even bother to unsubscribe. If the info have outlived its usefulness, I just label it spam, and 'poof' its gone. I did "unsubscribe" before and what happened? 10 more emails from somewhere got in my email.

And now there is this Google Buzz, I got 28 followers and counting. I suspect that some of these followers are not real people. Why? They seemed to repeat the same or more or less similar post. Still have not figured out how useful it can be. I even have a person posting her blog in Vietnamese and another in Chinese?

Can all these services be shut down or go offline? Yes it can. Companies do go bankrupt.

Is the information secured? You never know.

Will they sell your information when you become famous or not? Might.

Can it be used to spy on you? Yes.

Why do we do it?

Its a trade off. We all want the convenience and to a certain degree, we want to be heard. It could be just within your group of friends, or to a wider audience. Its human nature to reach out and connect to someone. We are all a social species, most of us don't live in isolation.

I guess its something to do with wanting to be heard or seen. Nearly everyone needs that claim for significance.

As Andy Warhol, who said in 1968 that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."

Photo Credits

• Photo 1: Oric 1 by Lexikon's History of Computing Encyclopedia on CD ROM
• Photo 2: "Wiring Closet: BEFORE" by Cloned Milkmen under a Creative Commons License.
• Photo 3: "Happy Our Birthday :)" by Hamed Saber under a Creative Commons License.

Earn BIG money by logging in Facebook.

Once again, the infamous call of making BIG money is here. I don't know if it is universal, or just simply a challenge (problem) face by the Malays in Singapore. Though I do see it everywhere, even in US. I guess its  universal.

There we have images of purported "Bank Statements" or "Accounts" showing money credited and growing exponentially. Starts with $100, then $110, then $150 and suddenly, $1,500 then $15,000 after 6 months. I mean I could just get rich staring at my laptop daily.

I remember, a short while back, a friend approach me. To give you a brief background, he was from an insurance company in Singapore. The key word is once. When I met him, he has quit as an insurance adviser. I'm still at it, till today.

Excitedly he told me of an investment scheme that gives a fantastic rewards. Does "Swisscash" ring a bell? The scheme seemed to give guaranteed return, and at the end of the year, your money will have doubled. Something to that effect, if I can recall correctly.

Showed me his "internet bank statements" of his "investment growth" and said he has exercised his due diligence. How? By putting in his own money and tracking the growth and it showed.

Not again, I thought. I try to game him. Its always fun to do that.

"So how do you pay or put in the money?"

"Through Paypal, you have an account right, you are always good in IT", Ah, the flattery. Flattery gets you nowhere with me.

"How can they give such a high return? How do they do it?"

"Through investments!" he looked at me incredulously. "Why they can give you high returns is because they operate on the web (images of TRON appears in my mind), no office rental to pay, so you can reap better profits" How magnanimous of them.


Straight Talk - Stock Market
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I followed with a look of bewilderment. That hooked him.

"Let me show you the website," He switched on his laptop and went online:

Through the magic of web archiver, this is Swisscash. Looks professional isn't it.

"I thought you said they don't have an office? Why are they in an office setting?"

"This is just for show only" The irony of words. He didn't catch it. At this point I was just getting bored with it and simply had to end the meeting. All in all it was a full-bore scam.

True enough a couple of months, the "company" disappeared together with the monies. Just for those who still thinks Swisscash is legitimate click here.

How do you know that it can be a scam? If its too good to be true, then it is. Do your research throughly. You have the Internet at your fingertips,  use it, instead of just playing social games.

And now we have the same thing here on Facebook.

When will we ever going to learn that riches comes from passionate hard work, not just simply paying a certain amount, then hopefully it will sell by itself to another and another, and another.

You just got to put in the effort my friends and the service or product really adds value to the other person. Basic rule of sales 101.

Photo Credits:
1st Photo "Money" by aresauburn™ under a Creative Commons License.
2nd Photo "Cheating Cheaters and the Cheaters Who Love Them" by Mr Stein under a Creative Commons License.

Its about You

Are ready about you?

Yes, you. The future is all about you. The internet started way back in 1957. Since then its growth is enormous. Facebook alone commands more than 400 million active users and 50% of them log on in any given day. So much for productivity at work.

There are about 1,678,960 users in Singapore who are above 18 using Facebook. The total users in Singapore is about 1,927,180. Malaysia about 5,115,400. Indonesia 18,867,300 and Thailand 2,601,220. A potential commercial base of  28,511,100.

That's not including other social networking sites, like Twitter which now receives over 50 million status updates per day. Granted that the tweets sometimes can be downright irritating to boorish self promotion, the fact is, millions are updating and reading it. Every other person have an email address.

What does this mean to you? All this web 2.0 and what is exactly web 2.0? The term "Web 2.0" (2004–present) is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web.

Got it? Just think Facebook, Twitter and you'll get the gist of it.

Are you ready? It depends. It depends on your level of comfort in divulging stuff about yourself. Yes, you heard the horror stories of getting fired from your job because of Facebook and to much worse like a crime being committed and to being spied on.

It is actually simple. If you not comfortable with it, then don't do it. I have friends who aren't even on Facebook and we still meet up for drinks. Or, you could just network with only people that you have met personally. Do bear in mind, everything that is online, stays there even after you have deleted it years ago. Don't believe me? Then go here: 150 billion pages archived.

With that caveat out of the way, then let's go for the ride.

Central to Web 2.0 is to get an email address. I'd assume you have one already. Its actually good to have one in your own name or a close approximation to it, rather than something like suave995@email.com. Why? You may need it when applying a job. 

Imagine if its havoc247@email.com, would your prospective employer seriously consider you? Unless you are in the creative or advertising field, though, after awhile it still gets tired.

Don't even think of using your company's email, everything emailed or posted to you, your employer have every right to read and inspect it. Besides the company might close down or you may leave.

Next is to register yourself on Facebook. Do upload a picture of yourself as the profile picture first, not some logo or your favorite whatever. Change it later after you get connected to your friends. The average user has about 130 friends. 

If you don't have a picture, the chance of your friend adding you is lowered. Do remember, you name is not really unique, your picture is. I hardly add people without their actual pictures, unless I can verify it with their other photos on Facebook.

That's it, You are in the social network already. So start building your network.

My next post will be about Twitter, Plaxo and Linkedin and how to build up your professional resume online and use it to get a better employement. 

And for those who have a business or want to start a business, I'll show you how to leverage the social network, and increase your profits without alienating your friends. If you have an physical shop, how to promote and generate traffic to your shop through the online social media.

What will it cost you? Just the time to read and experiment. Me? I'm just happy that you visited this blog and read the articles, and I'll be over the moon, if you leave comments.

Finally on blogging, if its your cup of tea. Don't get me wrong, even though this blog was started only in February 2010, I've always been writing since way back then, it comes with practice. Only now I'm comfortable writing it publicly. A little bit of ego does help and most bloggers are egoistical.

I'll try to post it regularly, no promises here, I do have a consulting job to do. Just subscribe through RSS or email and you get the info immediately.

Photo credits (in order of appearance):

• 1st Photo "Web 2.0 Logo Collage" by Mmmonica under a Creative Commons License.
• 2nd Photo "First Playmobil on the Moon" by fdecomite under a Creative Commons License.