Someone once compared a pastor of a church with a blogger. He estimated that a pastor needs 20-30 staff to help run a church that spreads its message to a congregation of 2,000 people, once a week. In comparison, an average blogger can reach an audience of 500 people per day. Most times, this represents the efforts of only one blogger, without any staff. How’s that for reach vs efforts?

Over the last month, I was contacted by the PR teams of YTL and Maxis to cover the Yes4G launch and review the new HTC HD7 Windows phone. With little effort, these corporate giants are able to leverage on the strength of bloggers and their respective networks to their advantage.

Maxis places a lot of emphasis on their reviewers programme and aptly calls it Maxis10. They select 10 key influentials, allow them to review cutting edge soon-to-be-released phones and let them keep the phones, subject to several conditions. Oftentimes, this selected group spend hours upon hours crafting blog posts, videos, photos and social media postings, thereby increasing visibility and anticipation for the devices.

Here’s the Maxis10 section on their official Facebook page – right now, they’re looking for reviewers for the HTC Desire Z.

Here’s a few of the Maxis10 squad who were selected to review the HTC HD7 phone (photo by Maxis).

From left: Alex TheBackpackr (ME!), Nicole Msxeroz Chua, Saimatkong Tian Leong, Effi Obefiend Saharudin

It goes to prove that geeks are cool (most of us anyway…) and we have varied interests. There were sessions on how to Salsa, Espresso appreciation, sharing of holiday experiences, Kufi art and also a little about coding standards. Overall it’s just a gathering to network and meet others. A few interesting observations:

1. Everyone is on Twitter – am I correct? (Seems that way, ‘coz people were Tweeting from each session) – Follow me?
2. Many techies use Apple Macs – it’s rare to see so many Macs in one location!
3. Typical staple geek food is pizza – well, it ended that way yesterday…
4. Live streaming seems to be the in thing now

I found it interesting to “guess” and try to associate Twitter usernames to faces – very often, the little avatars don’t do a good job at all. Anyhow, the funniest incident was sending @thechannelc a Tweet saying, I’m behind you, the guy with the camcorder, to which she turned around several seconds later and shook my hand. Indeed, we’re all a connected bunch.

We also had live updates on the #barcampkl hashtag going on here. Great use of technology there.

I had a video camcorder with me, and recorded bits and pieces from the day, and put them together here. Enjoy! Are you in the video? If you are, add an annotation on YouTube with your Twitter / Facebook username by clicking here.

Music credit: Steve ALLEN (Robert Pieculewicz)

Oftentimes, I feel there has been a death of new content and many just try to hop onto the bandwagon of another site, and harness traffic based on certain keywords and content. Regurgitation of the same is really not very cool, if you ask me.

(Image source: sxc.hu)

I’ve read articles and been inspired to craft a blog post based on it, but with a mash up of my thoughts and that from other sites. That is still original in nature, due to the research that has been put into it and is different from a pseudo-replicated-story. But what we’re seeing these days is somewhat wholesale copying (almost like what every university student used to do), but with changing the sentence structures, so that they are not so easily detected if certain phrases were pasted into Google!

Boy, you almost see a transformation from sentences such as “ImageShack Launches Mediocre TwitPic Alternative” to “Mediocre TwitPic Alternative Launched by TwitPic“!

Perhaps old-school creativity and the passion for writing has been lost. OR, bloggers feel very pressured to deliver article after article and they are already sapped dry. I don’t know about you, but I think I’d prefer to have less frequent articles, but genuine ones that weren’t almost copied wholesale from another site.

Don’t plagiarise, strategise! (Gee, is that a corny quote?)

The problem – the government now selectively limits what site we are allowed to access and directs the Internet service providers (ISPs) to abide accordingly. As of the 27th of August 2008, access to a prominent and controversial blogger’s website – Raja Petra’s Malaysia-Today.net was blocked.

An initial investigation showed that the DNS servers for our national ISP ceased to point to the right location, which was puzzling as it has never happened before.

Soon after, MalaysiaKini reported the following snippet.

What does the MCMC really stand for anyway? I decided to take a peek at their manifesto, which is extracted from their website.

So… which part of “promoting access to communications and multimedia services” do I enjoy? Perhaps I should reword it to “promoting access to SELECTED communications and multimedia services”. And also, “Ensuring consumers enjoy THE GOVERNMENT’S choice and a satisfactory level of services”.

Or even better, read the MSC Malaysia Bill of Guarantees (which my company Integricity has obtained) which the government is promoting. Point number SEVEN specifically says, “Ensure no Internet censorship”. What then does this mean for us? We can endorse one thing and yet do another? Malaysia tentu boleh (Malaysia surely can).

What will be next? Blocking of freedom to Michael Backman’s website because he condemned Malaysia in his article “While Malaysia fiddles, its opportunities are running dry“? Are we afraid that Malaysians will wake up and realise, “crikey, this country is horrible!”? Too late – those who do, already DO!

Rather, should we not focus our time and energy on improving the nation, rather than wasting precious time and energy on fictitious story-telling in the press, as we have witnessed lately (which are a lot better than some fairy tales I heard as a kid)?

“Selamat pagi, Malaysia” and “sila bangun dari lena” (good morning, and please awaken) – let’s realise that blocking Internet access is not going to work.

After all, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how to circumvent this amateur block by using the following methods as listed on Integricity’s blog.

Ruhani Rabin, Senior Developer at Integricity and Alex Lam, The Backpackr having a chat

Summary:

• Generate content – related to your purpose
• Socialize with other bloggers (virtual socializing is fine)
• Leave pertinent comments on blogs that are similar to your own
• Ask questions to garner a response

One video blogger she told me about who has been really successful is Luria Petrucci (or better known by her screen name – Cali Lewis) from GeekBrief.tv – she’s a real inspiration, as she releases 3-5 minute video programmes online 4 times a week. She started 2 days before Christmas in 2005 and in 3 weeks, amassed 3,000 viewers. After 5 months, she started podcasting full-time!

GeekBrief.tv

Interesting information about GeekBrief for production geeks…

• They produce the show using a Mac Pro and Macbook Pro
• Their video camera is a Canon XH-A1
• Yup, they use lights – Kino Flos and Lightpanels
• Man, they use a countryman mic! I want one!
• Wireless sound transmission happens via the Sennheiser EW100 G2
• Aside from that, they’ve got a bunch of other mics, headphones and a mixer
• Finally, beat this – they even use a teleprompter!!!

Wow, impressive set up, Cali! At present, I’ve got a Macbook Pro, a hackintosh, a bunch of mics, a Panasonic DVX video camera, a compact JVC for covert filming, Sony HDV Walkman (no it’s not for music! It plays and records DV tapes), Canon 40D & 30D DSLR and friends with lotsa gear – thank you Lord for good friends!