Web 3.0 at Work - "Human does it better" for Focussed News

The news broke out about three hours ago during mid morning (around 10:30 am) at the American Civic Association immigration center in Binghamton, New York:

Thirteen people were confirmed dead (including perpetrator), twenty-six wounded, and forty-one were taken hostage by an Asian gunman: 42-year-old Johnson City resident, Jiverly Voong, who later shot himself. Five people, aged from twenty to mid-fifties, were treated for gunshot wounds at Wilson Medical Center in Johnson City. (Wikipedia, Apr 3, 2009 - US)

A search on Google News revealed that among the first reports came from Elmira Star-Gazette with the headline "Shooting at American Civic Association":

Police are responding to reports of a shooting at 131 Front St. this morning, the site of the American Civic Association. They began staging at Oak and Main ...

Immediately, the news was covered by a scores of other news media companies including News 10 Now, The Associated Press and USA Today being among the earliest. Within two hours, over a thousand news sources have covered it, and the count is at over 1,500 as of 3am Malaysia Time (MYT) or 3pm in New York, USA (EST).

However, although the news naturally made it the top-most position in Google News (US Edition), overall news focus was varied to several other topics including "madoff", "obama", "jobs" etc. as the media companies think that people are more concerned about the troubling economy and financial woes with Obama being in Europe (France specifically during G20 stop in London) meeting world's leaders to cook up economy-fixing plans:

But for the millions of Internet users on Twitter, the most revolutionary social media platform to-date (touted the "web 3.0 that people have been waiting for", which is reportedly being actively pursued by media giant Google for final acquisition), the focus topic was unanimous:

It's the mass-shooting and hosting crisis in Binghamton, clearly ahead of all others, similar to previous reportings of the Mumbai raid, several occassional earthquakes and tsunami warnings, possible Google acquisition of Twitter etc.


One of the first tweets on the Binghamton news probably came from BNOnews, a new media service (with over 114,000 followers as of 4th of April 2009) specifically focussed on using Twitter to disseminate breaking news headlines:

BULLETIN -- AT LEAST FOUR PEOPLE SHOT, MORE THAN 40 HOSTAGES INSIDE BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK BUILDING.

Immediately, the original tweet was retweeted by dozens other Twitter users creating ala-MLM chain effect for the news distribution, reaching thousands in the matter of minutes, and could end up to reach a million or so readers in the matter of hours, as observed from the dozens of tweets that continue to be posted every minute to a tune of thousands per hour, or tens of thousands per day!

That's Web 3.0 at work... as they say (ripped off DMOZ Open Directory's campaign), "Human does it (the news) better!"

BTW, our heart and prayers go to family and friends of the victims of the Binghamton shooting...

Read more about the Binghamton shootings at world's biggest and most up-to-date encyclopedia, the Wikipedia.

How to Trend Twitter - the @ideaShare Way!

1. Get some 70 people or so into one room,
   
   
2. Hook 'em up with the Internet,
   
   
3. Ask each to log in to Twitter.com
   (after creating a new account for the first time, if new user), and
   
   
4. Start tweeting with #ideashare tag!

After some shameless act of self-promotion for twitter names owned/co-owned by facilitators i.e. @cerventus,@myentrepreneurs, @worldisastage, @pieartboy, @michaelteoh, @elevyn_official etc., the not-so-newbies and newbies altogether sent well over 200 tweets with #ideashare tag over the course of over two hours, by which "ideashare" was already trending clearly on Twitter.com and on tag cloud at sites like Twitscoop etc, as observed by below graph, sparking curiosity among twitizens:


There were negative side effects though: The room was so packed with people, that those in the room were suffering internet surfing slowness frustration syndrome (as 20-30 ppl cramping wirelessly the small pipe of 1.5Mbps temporary/dedicated DSL installation at any one time), and to make things worse, the aircond couldn't stand the heat emitted by after-lunch human crowd and broke down, sending the room into the state of microwave and fried most of these brainiacs turning them into crappy tweeters, irritating everyone else in the twitterverse including @kamal, @lukejsmith and @bytebot, among others!

Guess, most of the people in the room hasn't heard about @kevinrose's latest gift to the web 2.0 crowd: @wefollow, ie. http://wefollow.com/tag/ideashare - you don't need to blatantly self-promote your twitter name. Instead, just tag, and you're it!

Need more tag ideas? Try "penang" (or the state you're from, which you can change at a later time) and "malaysia" (we're all Malaysians right? and there's no rooms in twitterspace!)

I'm also surprise why the facilitators were showcasing twitterfall and twitpic websites, when tweetdeck clearly has all of those small gimmicks with growing features like group, search and twitpic. (note: twitpic.com was down at the time of demo!)

The first of the two-day event in conjunction with the MSC Innotech 2009 Interstate - Northern Region event was organized by Kuala Lumpur-based Ureka Labs, and financed by the Cyberjaya-based Technopreneur Development Division of Multimedia Development Corporation (MDEC), custodian for the MSC Malaysia government initiative.

More information is available at the event-centric/local networking site developed by folks at Eureka Labs, http://ideashare.my

Surprisingly(?), not many people, despite having a horde of 60+ participants at the venue yesterday, are following @netbash or @ideashare (ownership questionable), with just thirteen and four followers respectively as of 7 am on the next day.

And folks @ MDEC neither owns @mdec nor @tedd twitter names, which are both registered by others as early as nearly a year ago (30mar08 for "mdec") -- Should I reveal more brandjackable twitter names??


About Twitscoop:

Twitter was built to help thousands of people answer a very simple question: "What are you doing ?"

Twitscoop was built to help you stay on top of twitter's hot topics or discussions.

Through an automated algorithm, twitscoop crawls hundreds of tweets every minute and extracts the words which are mentionned more often than usual. The result is displayed in a Tag Cloud, using the following rule: the hotter, the bigger (no joke here).

Thanks to twitscoop and the continuously growing twitter user base, you will soon realise that "What are you doing ?" can have very different answers, from "I'm standing in a queue of 500 to buy Gta4", to "Was that just an Earthquake ?", through to "Hey, Microsoft just acquired Yahoo" (no this didn't actually happen yet).

As a result, twitscoop enables you to stay on top of things in a matter of seconds, often way before the news actually hits the mainstream information channels !

CheDet Lompat Lagi

The URL domain for Che Det's blog that is...

chedet.com

The first blog post by Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, the former longest-serving Prime Minister of Malaysia who's warmly known by the locals of his birthplace as Che Det, was recorded on 1st of May 2008 (Labour Day holiday in Malaysia) when the nation was still in shock over the power of blogs (new media) that gave the ruling Barisan National (National Coalition) party its biggest lost in decades -- In fact, if Malaysians had embraced the new media significantly much earlier, perhaps, Dr M himself would have to cut short his prime ministership tenure that ended on his postponed resignation back in 2003.

The motivation for blogging for Tun M, judging from his earliest posts back in May 2008 was to counter mounting criticism against him, both from his older critics, and also the new critics from the ruling BN government, of which many of whom pointing the blame to his still powerful influence upon Malaysians to not giving BN a two-third control of the parliament during the March 8th election. Less than three weeks later, on Wesak holiday (19 May 2008) Mahathir resigned from UMNO, the backbone of the BN and a party he's been attached to for over 30 years. Since then, the blog has served as a free outlet for him, to defend himself verbally, as well as continue offering unbiased opinions on everything Malaysia and the world, and once shot to a popularity rank of top under 10,000 in the world, and top-100 in Malaysia, closing in the web traffic ranks of mainstream news media like the Star, Malaysia Kini, Utusan Malaysia & Kosmo and several of Media Prima's publications.

In fact, Mahathir today is probably the most popular former head of state in the world, who blogs regularly.The hard-to-catch personality who still travels around the world frequently, becomes easy to follow this time - practically everyday, his writings are reviewed and reposted by both the new and old media - blogs and daily newspapers.

Just check out Mahathir's most recent quotes on daily basis as tracked by Google News aggregation service:-

"What is most comical is hearing Anwar's comments regarding Nasarudin who joined Parti Keadilan Rakyat and left PKR. Jumping in (the trap) is allowed but jumping out is illegal," Dr Mahathir said.

10 hours ago Malaysia Today (2 occurrences)

"However, he can't put it off for a long because the assembly will need to convene to table the budget and such," said Dr Mahathir.

14 hours ago Malaysia Star (2 occurrences)

"But if the menteri besar did not want to convene a state assembly, then how can we force him to call for one? The law states that a vote of no-confidence should have been passed before there is a change in the government. Even if they continue to...

Feb 6, 2009 Bernama (2 occurrences)

"What can be done to a minority government if it remains and continues to harm the state? This situation is still vague as to my knowledge, there are no legal provisions for such situations," Dr Mahathir said, adding state officials might not...

Feb 5, 2009 The Malaysian Insider (2 occurrences)

"The Israelis have learnt a lot from the Nazis. They are using Nazi methods against the Palestinians. I thought they would sympathise with other people, having been oppressed and tortured by the Nazis...... but no, now they want to do the same...

Feb 5, 2009 New Straits Times (1 occurrence)

The former prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir bin Mohammed, has said that "the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them."

14 hours ago Today's Zaman (18 occurrences)

When asked if the Malays would be upset with the legal suit, Dr Mahathir said as a Malay himself, he disagreed but, "there are many Malays now who are supporting Karpal".

14 hours ago Malaysia Star (2 occurrences)

"He is the one that really wanted the biggest party hopping on Sept 16. Oh! Mistake, Sept 24. Oh! A mistake again," Dr Mahathir wrote with glee about his protege-turned-nemesis whom he sacked in 1998.

Feb 5, 2009 The Malaysian Insider (2 occurrences)

Dr Mahathir said United States President Barack Obama was "quite free to do a lot of things but with regard to Israel, he is paralysed. His hands are tied".

Feb 5, 2009 New Straits Times (1 occurrence)

"Kedah's situation is very different from Perak," Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir, the MP for Jerlun, told The Edge Financial Daily. "Kedah is a PAS-led government."

Feb 4, 2009 The Edge Daily (1 occurrence)

His blogging domain name chedet.com was so popular, that others have also registered .net, .org and .info counterparts of the name "chedet" immediately after the first blog post of Mahathir made the big buzz around cyberspace and mainstream media. The domain even made it to four wikipedia pages including a Japanese version for Dr Mahathir's biodata. These however are understandable.

chedet.cc?

But closing in 2008, many were puzzled when a migration to chedet.cc was announced. The new domain that was registered on Christmas Day, was officially launched on New Year's Day following the last past on chedet.com on 31st of December. Speculations arose that move was to not support US-dominated .com domain (overseen by US-based Verisign, Inc as licensed registry company). But both chedet.com and chedet.cc rely on Verisign as their registry, being .cc overseen by eNic, also Verisign company (since 2001) despite chedet.com being registered through eNom (second largest domain registrar as of 2008, with strong cooperation with Verisign through eNom's owner, Demand Media), and chedet.cc being registered through GoDaddy (largest domain registrar as of 2008, also a US-based company) - although I myself immediately speculated back then that the use of .cc TLD was to promote Malaysian-based Qinetics Solutions (a unit of MOL/Vincent Tan's Berjaya, through web.cc and webnic.cc sites, acquired from WeBCC), among the first proponents for .cc domain.

For most petty domain owners however, the switch from the much cheaper .com to a .cc seem pointless - why pay more? (why waste money) -- Oh well, the site with a popularity such as chedet.com can definitely afford it, with the cash it can naturally pulls! Read on...

With the new domain comes the new management (and ownership!) for the domain: Mutual Digital Sdn Bhd, chaired by Datuk Wan Lokman Bin Dato' Paduka Wan Ibrahim and headed executively by Tuan Haji Ismail Bin Daud. From the company's website, Mutual Digital boasts an impresive list of partners for its Mobile ASP business - practically every major name in the local telco and entertainment production industry. Its flagship service, the musiclobby.net, however seems to be put on hold for now. So the company's service to the public consumers for now has got be delivering content from chedet's both via web and perhaps mobile too. And to finance it, and perhaps make a hefty profit too, by sponsorship opportunities on the website. Great, but the small fish would have to wait, because the cheapest ad placement starts of RM2,100 for an "inside page" banner space at RM300 per day (7-day minimum) and the premium space on top of the page costs a whopping RM1K/day, making it one of the most expensive online ad space for a Malaysia-based publication -- if completely booked, this one site can easily pull about RM1-million in ad revenue per year!

chedet.co.cc ??

By mid January 2009, the site started giving a headscratch again - a soft switch to chedet.co.cc - a subdomain of a popular free DNS service by Korea-based co.cc (an independent company, not a domain sTLD like com.my etc.)? Could it be that this is to hide the site's popularity that are naturally metered by traffic ranking service Alexa? After all, based on a six-month monitoring, chedet.com has suffered dwindling popularity from a top-10K in October down to a rank of top-40K by December before missing from the top-100K radar after the domain switch? Supposedly, lack of controversies and increase in new media competition may have caused this, except of course, by early February 2009, when millions flock again to chedet.com to find out what Tun has to say with regards to the Perak political crisis.

The little traffic graph spike recorded by Alexa during the first week of Feb '09 shows how people still remember .com the most, being it is the most popular top-level domain with about two-third market share.

URL Jump

The concern here is CONTROL. A domain ownership is like a land title. Being approved as a domain registrant means that you're holding the exclusive right (no freeholds as of yet) to its use, and you are required to pay the relevant authorities a minimal annual fee. And in most cases, unlike popular physical land leaseholds for up to 99 years, domains can generally be held for a maximum of ten years. This provides the owner the most control - unless if you've falsify ownership or commit other activities not permitted by the registry or registrar, you can safely do what you want with the domain.

Tun Mahathir unfortunately does not owns the domain chedet.cc, which has been personally registered by one CEO of Mutual Digital for exclusive use by the said individual (not company), and ultimately owned by assigned registry (eNic), and above it, the governing entity for Cocos Islands (presently under Australian control). Though, should any control dispute arise, Tun can legally contest for the right for the domain via Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UNDP) set by ICANN, or any other legal agreements made between Tun and Hj Ismail/Mutual Digital -- However, consider that the less-monitored smaller entity eNic can easily dictate chedet.cc versus chedet.com (which on the other hand, registered through the rather influential Godaddy, and closely-watched Verisign).

The use of chedet.co.cc on the other hand might be a setback: suddenly, chedet's site is under the full mercy and possible monitoring of a single company co.cc -- it's hard to decide on infrastructure reliability, security, features etc.

For certain however, the possible move to avoid close monitory by Alexa and the likes (Compete.com etc.) is temporary, as once co.cc becomes very popular which it already is, Alexa will switch to monitor subdomains similar to what it does with blogspot.com, geocities.com and the likes.

And it puzzles me greatly on how a less than 1-year old domain bears a 199 changes on its whois record! BTW, Mutual Digital ironically does not even fully control its own mutualdigital.com and musiclobby.net...

Whatever it is, it's not Belilah Barangan Buatan Malaysia (Buy Malaysian) for Che Det for now, as chedet.my and chedet.com.my are registered for Kuching-based Jacob Liew (CDC) and KL-based C Wong (Alpha Global) respectively...


(in reference to Che Det's Lompat Lagi, Feb 6, 2009... This lompat-lompat reminds me of Battlestar Galatica's Jump, jump parodies)

Internet is (NOT SO) Hot in Malaysia

Think Internet is popular enough in Malaysia? Not yet, according to recent report by Nielsen... With only 20% reachability for Internet media (despite doubling in the last five years), the most popular blog or Internet site might still unheard of by 80% of the population... Read on the full report... 23 October 2008 Kuala Lumpur Mainstream media continues to dominate the Malaysia media scene with TV and radio reaching over 90 percent of the population and newspapers 54 percent. Internet penetration has also doubled in five years, now reaching two in 10 of the population, according to the latest findings from Nielsen Media Index survey. The Nielsen Media Index continuously tracks media consumption, product ownership, demographics and lifestyle information. The latest survey interviewed a representative sample of 10,000 individuals aged 15 years and above in Peninsular Malaysia over a continuous period from July 2007 to June 2008. “Traditional media such as print, TV and radio still command a high reach among the general population, but Internet will become a more integral part of the media mix while this medium continues to grow in this market,” said Andrea Douglas, Executive Director for Nielsen Media Research Malaysia. Newspapers The overall daily readership of newspapers stands at 54 percent of the population aged 15 years and above in Peninsular Malaysia (see Table 1). The growing newspapers readership over the last five years is driven primarily by Bahasa Malaysia dailies (28%). Harian Metro in particular leads overall newspaper readership and the Bahasa Malaysia newspaper segment at a reach of 15 percent (see Chart 1). Following Harian Metro as the second to fourth most read Bahasa Malaysia dailies are Berita Harian, Utusan Malaysia and Kosmo at eight, seven and three percent respectively (see Chart 1). Among English dailies, The Star maintained its lead with eight percent readership. Both NST and The Sun maintained their readership at two percent, and Malay Mail at less than one percent (see Chart 2). Sin Chew Daily continues to lead the Chinese dailies at eight percent, followed by China Press at five percent. Guang Ming Daily and Nanyang’s readership stands at two percent respectively (see Chart 3). Among the Tamil dailies, Nanban stays ahead of Tamil Nesan with its two percent readership. “Malaysians are opting for online news for faster and constant updates, as seen by the 35 percent growth in online newspaper readership over a year, reaching one million readers”, says Ms Douglas. “However, news seekers have not abandoned the traditional medium as nine in 10 readers still obtain their news via a hard-copy”. Internet Increasing Internet penetration goes hand in hand with increased Internet usage. According to the Nielsen Media Index, Past week (1) Internet users rose to 21 percent this year, with almost four in 10 users spending between one to two hours on the Internet every day. Apart from the more common features such as email, surfing and information gathering, the popular activities for netizens are online TV/music/games (47%), followed by message/chat/blogging (45%) and reading newspaper/magazines (35%). Radio Total radio listenership remains high – reaching out to 92 percent of the population, according to the latest Nielsen Radio Audience Measurement (RAM) study. Among radio channels, ERA tops the list with 28 percent reach, followed by hotfm at 26 percent. SINAR, THR Raaga/THR Gegar, MY FM and 988 ranked third to sixth position. Ranked seventh overall, Klasik nasional is RTM’s top channel, followed by Muzikfm, KELANTANfm, KEDAHfm and aifm. Free-to-air (FTA) and Pay-TV Total TV viewing remains popular at 94 percent viewership. Among the free-to-air channels, TV3 continues to be in the lead by reaching 73 percent of the population, followed by RTM2 at 52 percent, RTM1 at 42 percent and NTV7 at 40 percent. TV9 and 8TV’s viewership are at 32 percent and 31 percent respectively. As for Pay-TV Astro, its Family Package is still the most popular with seven in 10 subscribers watching channels within this package. Meanwhile Yesterday (2) viewership for satellite channels has grown from a reach of 20 percent to 33 percent in the past five years. “A plethora of TV channels are available for the audience in Malaysia now, with an average of 20 channels received at home compared to an average of 11 channels five years ago. The average number of channels viewed per person has also more than a doubled during the same period,” added Ms Douglas. PowerScreen PowerScreen reaches 41 percent of the population in market centres. It attracts PMEBs, other white collar workers, those aged 20-29 years and with high monthly household income. Posad Sixty four percent of the population has visited an outlet with Posad media in the past four weeks. Posad media with the highest reach are Sound Ads and Trolley Ads, at 61 and 56 percent respectively. Vision Four Viewing Guide Vision Four Viewing Guide, reaching three percent of the population in the past three months, is likely to attract PMEBs, those with high monthly household income, people who invests in mutual fund/unit trusts, and air travelers. Cinema Past two-week cinema goers recorded a four percent reach. Cinema patrons are more likely to be white collar workers and students. About The Nielsen Company The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions in marketing information, media information, online intelligence, mobile measurement, trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA. For more information, please visit, www.nielsen.com. Table 1: Media Reach (Base: people aged 15+ in Pen. M’sia) July'06-June '07 July'07-June '08 % Var Media ('000) Reach % ('000) Reach % TV (yesterday) 13,047 93 13,416 94 +1 Radio (past week)* 12,611 90 13,208 92 +2 PosAd (past month) 9,270 66 9,143 64 -2 Newspapers (yesterday) 7,695 55 7,667 54 -1 Magazines (past month) 3,821 27 3,803 27 - PowerScreen( past month) 3,389 24 3,170 22 -2 Internet (past week) 2,554 18 2,937 21 +3 Cinema (past 2 weeks) 592 4 617 4 - Vision Four Guide (past 3 months) 618 4 393 3 -1 Source: Nielsen Media Index and *Nielsen Radio Audience Measurement (Sw2’07 & Sw2’08) Chart 1 Chart 2 Chart 3 (1) Past week consumption of any media is the equivalent of the Average Weekly usage/consumption measure. (2) Yesterday consumption of any media is the equivalent of the Average Weekly usage/consumption measure SOURCE: NIELSEN's Mainstream Media Continues To Lead Malaysia's Media Scene Read a review by BERNAMA: "Mainstream Media Continues To Dominate Media Scene, Says Nielson"

Semangat Malaysia Kini (2008)

Malaysia according to Google Zeitgeist 2008:
(thanks to @andrewkjs for alerting me about this fresh list reported just hours ago)

1. "2008 has been a year of change in Malaysia and people have certainly been using Google to access information about these changes" - Wait, I see "Yahoo" at #2 and "Google" at #6... Try harder Google!
   
   
2. "The fastest rising searched items documented the rise in popularity of local news portals like Malaysiakini and Malaysia Today." - "Malaysia Today" is not exactly a "news" portal - it's a political tabloid! You can however says that Malaysians internet users are very interested in politics since all the four online publications mentioned including Harakah and Malaysian Insider are very political-oriented, with Harakah being highly political. Or people just prefer alternative/independent media since blogspot and youtube made it to top-10 too.
   
   
3. "Politics was also a topic of great interest in Malaysia this year, with searches aimed not only at politicians like Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Kit Siang, but also significant political events such as this year’s general election." - BTW, I don't think Barack Obama, Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana are "local" celebrities! Plus, Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana is the same person being Hannah Montana a TV character played by 16-year old Miley Cyrus. And I totally did not expect Ibiden and Gamuda to top news search for 2008, being at #1 and #10 respectively...
   
   
4. "Local car brand Perodua Nautica, Olympic badminton medalist Lee Chong Wei and domestic travel destination Terengganu also figured prominently." - Yay, Penang is top-6, next after its love-hate UNESCO heritage twin, Melaka, and nobody wants to go to KL or Cyberjaya! And Perodua Nautica, being #1 most searched car brand in Malaysia is missing from the world's largest encyclopaedia, the Wikipedia. BTW, we're still waiting for the chosen name for Proton's first MPV...

The "spirit of the times/age and its societies" list... ("Each of these lists shows the fastest rising searches, meaning these were the search terms that saw the largest increase in searches during 2008, as compared to 2007.")

Fastest Rising

1. malaysiakini
2. facebook
3. harakah
4. tv3
5. malaysia today
6. rapidshare
7. blogspot
8. youtube
9. malaysian insider
10. beijing 2008

Most Popular

1. youtube
2. yahoo
3. friendster
4. utusan
5. mp3
6. google
7. games
8. map
9. lyrics
10. myspace

Google News local searches

1. ibiden asia
2. anwar ibrahim
3. datuk seri
4. olympic badminton results
5. chua soi lek
6. malaysian election results
7. malaysia budget 2009
8. malaysia new cabinet
9. permatang pauh election
10. gamuda bhd

Local celebrities

1. anwar ibrahim
2. barack obama
3. lim kit siang
4. chua soi lek
5. mahathir mohamad
6. miley cyrus
7. lee chong wei
8. tony pua
9. hannah montana
10. siti nurhaliza

Local travel destinations

1. terengganu
2. pulau tioman
3. genting highland
4. port dickson
5. melaka
6. penang
7. pulau perhentian
8. bukit tinggi
9. sunway lagoon
10. selangor

Car brands

1. perodua nautica
2. toyota rush
3. proton mpv
4. proton blm
5. honda city
6. proton saga
7. grand livina
8. honda accord
9. myvi
10. honda civic

Just as you thought, or any surprises like mine above? What other categories do you think Google Zeitgeist should offer?

The three (festive) days of remembrances, well-wishings, pardons and sacrifices...

From 10 Zulhijjah (starting from "maghrib" time or the dusk of 7 DEC 2008) until 12 Zulhijjah, 1429th year of Islamic Hijrah Calendar, some 1.5 Billion Muslims are celebrating their loyalty to the one God of Ibrahim a.s, Musa a.s., Isa a.s and Muhammad s.a.w...

Joining over three millions Muslims congregating in Mecca are everywhere else in the world, starting with a morning prayer and khutbah on the morning of December 8th, 2008, and a special takbir utterance will continue to be heard until the Asr afternoon of the 10th of December.

For fellow tweeters, don't forget to tag your twitwishes with #EID for the next couple more days. (Psst. feel free to follow me, ie. @WoNoJo on twitter or friendfeed)

Have a great Eid al-Adha festival!

Maaf Zahir & Batin...

--
Nasir

CREDIT: Original photo entitled "Supplicating Pilgrim at Masjid Al Haram. Mecca, Saudi Arabia" is from from Wikimedia Commons

And here's another special card for the the month I found at Viprasys.com Forum, as posted by its moderator named "moosa", last year, for the similar 3-in-1 occassions:

Jamuan Iftar (Berbuka Puasa) Ramadan 1429H ICT Penang 2008 (16sep08)

Bersempena dengan Hari Malaysia 2008 dan malam Nuzul al-Quran 1429H, pihak Persatuan Usahawan ICT Pulau Pinang akan mengadakan jamuan berbuka (iftar) seperti yang diwartakan di bawah... (CLICK IMAGE TO VIEW LARGER SIZE)

CO-ORGANIZERS/SUPPORTERS:-

1. Dewan Perniagaan Melayu Malaysia Pulau Pinang (DPMMPP)
2. EventBrite.com
3. Gabungan Pusat e-Komuniti Pulau Pinang (GPeK)
4. Invest-in-Penang Bhd
5. NWC.com Sdn Bhd
6. Penang Development Corporation (PDC)
7. Smart Lab Sdn Bhd
8. TechBiz Penang
9. TechPenang.com
   
10. Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM)
11. WebPod DotCom / 1oasis.net
12. Whiz Technology Sdn Bhd
13. Hamba-hamba Allah...

Jemput hadir!

Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!

Salaam 51st Merdeka 2008 (31aug-16sep08) & Ramadan al-Mubarak 1429H (sep08)...

To all Malaysians, enjoy the weeks of celebrations of 51 years of Nationhood (1957-2008), from tonight, 12:00 am, 31 AUGUST 2008 until 16 SEPTEMBER 2008 (Malaysia Day, since 1963)!

MERDEKA! MERDEKA! MERDEKA! MERDEKA! MERDEKA! MERDEKA! MERDEKA!

And to all Muslims around the world, Happy Fasting the whole of Ramadhan al-Mubarak! May God accept your sincere ibadah, and rewards you in hereafter...

Women power!

Got SMSes this morning from a couple of friends. One a lady and one gentlemen. It's about a news article on the today's paper -- Just have to remember to buzz me when seeing news like this I suppose...

It's Sunday morning, and I'm finishing a web development work for a client (My "off days" are usually on weekdays). Once finished, and I can happily go to a Amir's wedding ceremony ("kenduri kahwin" - he had gone through the "nikah" solemn last Wednesday which I forgot to attend -- missed the correct date, but he ended up showing up at my house that very night introducing his bride from my Ayer Itam kampung), and perhaps do some shopping this afternoon before meeting a business partner preparing for tomorrow morning's deal with a local university -- we're supposed to commercialize a visual media enhancement software product, the long 6+ month of negotiations and planning (and acting for the press)!

The few shops selling newspapers are just two-minute away from my house, including a 7-11 (although it only carries The Star, not the New Straits Times), but I figured I can check the specific article out faster by checking out the paper's website. Cool, it's there! "Why waste women power?", the article asks.

KUALA LUMPUR: Picture this: your secretary is typing your correspondence and handling your calls and appointments -- but from the comfort of her home.

Is this possible? Yes, if management takes up a suggestion by Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam.

Dr Subramaniam, who took office on March 18, wants to increase women participation in the workforce and does not want family responsibility to curtail their involvement.

"Sixty per cent of our university students are women, so they must contribute to the country. Women, of course, do face a dilemma once they have a family. And many choose to stay at home because of their responsibilities," he said.

So Dr Subramaniam is calling on the private sector to take jobs, through outsourcing agencies, to women who choose to be homemakers .
"Another successful overseas concept is 'home office'. This means people take work home and work from there."

He hopes the private sector will lead the way.

"Industries and management have to change their mindset. They must, for instance, say, 'Yes, the secretary will not be in the office tomorrow but she will be doing the job from her home'."

Flexi-hours are another option.

..."

A positive start from the local government!

[Dr Subramaniam's deputy is a woman BTW, a famous one too - chief of Puteri Umno, Datuk Noraini Ahmad]

Now, we need to work on reviving the Pajamanation initiative... But reading Andy's blog post, I wonder too, "What's Walter up to these days..." (He's now with OLPC, another good cause on getting cheap laptop for kids around the globe, btw... but his personal website and blog are off at the moment!)

Heck, if I can make a decent earning at home, full time (I only go to my office some 20 minutes away once or twice a week - I hate the peak hours traffic!), many more can too, perhaps...

(working while at the same time not missing SUKMA (website is down!) live coverage on my LG LCD TV, catching up with MacBreak Weekly on iTunes and entertaining guests who arrived from Sepang last night - my sister with her daughter...)

Olympics 2008, starting with ICT in Kuala Lumpur

Phew! Time flew really fast, and it's already mid-may: time for international events again now that it's closing in to summer season for northern hemisphere -- the few months when folks from North America and European countries just love to travel for fun (college lads!) and casual business networking... (corporate and SMB guys)

And it starts with a BANG here in Malaysia, heating up with news feeds on prime time TV and prints, and the so-called new media, ie. blogs too... And this photo adds to the fresh sighting:



NEWSFLASH: Over 3000 delegates from all over the world will congregate in Kuala Lumpur this week for during the 16th World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT 2008)... And the exposition booths are expecting some 50,000 visitors!

And I get to be one of them, as usual... ;)

This is to confirm that we have received your registration details on WCIT 2008 Online Registration
18/05/2008
Account Information
Username : NASIR.SOBRI
Salutation : Mr.
First Name : NASIR
Middle Name :
Last Name / Surname : SOBRI
Name On Badge : Nasir Sobri

I'll let the newsprints offer you some previews:

View

BTW, the big crowd at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC) will not be just for WCIT forums. There are thirteen WCIT-related events too. For instance, the United Nations GAID Annual Meeting & Global Forum on 19 & 20 MAY 2008 -- quite a sequel to the GK3 event last December 2007 (also at the same venue):


OK, time to start driving to KL, some 300-km away... More updates to follow!

ELECTION 2008: Web 2.0 Part II (alpha)

It's official: The ruling coalition party that secured the biggest win/mandate in Malaysia election history just four year ago had just been given the smallest win/mandate today after the "new" Malaysians went to polls on Saturday, 8 MAR 2008 -- One could say that was the biggest setback for BN in Malaysia's modern history too. Politically, Pak Lah had certainly set up his biggest legacy - being the leader of this 'winning' party during both extremes, back-to-back!

Believe it or not too, Web 2.0 could have made this very big difference a reality. Of course, we'd need to investigate more to verify such statement which I'm sure many are already working towards it, and I'd think that I'd been doing that as well, time-permitting...

For now, let's just enjoy a quickie laugh (you'd only understand most of the jokes if you're Malaysia though...) reminiscing the few intense few weeks:

Election-attack for Malaysian sites..

Welcome to the Web 2.0 age for Malaysia!

Never before have so many small-run sites especially Malaysia-based ones braced so many hits within a few hours, as much as during the few short hours after Malaysia Election 2008 closed this afternoon around 5pm at most of the voting venues... Disappointed by slow reporting and less interactivity on TV (e.g. "official" reports via RTM TV1, government-owned major TV broadcaster, was so boring, with poor analyst commenting on results), folks in Malaysia and from everywhere watching the election results are flocking to websites reporting both opinionated and plain bits -- looks like Anwar, a major personality in Malaysia's political scene, also seconded this: "My concern now is why is there a deliberate delay on the part of the government-controlled media in announcing the results..." (AFP) -- I suppose RTM/ruling government is doing its part to calm people down and prevent any untoward incidents like the rumored possible riot etc. (We don't want another '69, do we?)

When sites from mainstream media companies like Bernama fails to load swiftly, thanks to dynamic and up-to-date search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN Live, Malaysians get "routed" to many sites including independent ones run by bloggers like Kedah-born Jeff Ooi (a constestant himself having just won his first seat under an opposition party ticket in Jelutong, Penang -- although is mostly based in Subang Jaya/USJ), Chan Lilian (a Penang-based blogger), TV Smith, Ahiruddin Attan (Rocky's Bru), and other politicians like Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Dato Lim Kit Siang, Tony Pua, Teresa Kok etc.

Popular sites like MalaysiaKini.com and Jeff Ooi's Screenshot were hit hard making them mostly unavailable, and Chan Lilian (self-called "5xmom")'s blog had a post by evening time asking people not to reload her site too often or the server will break until that actually happens by around midnight:



MalaysiaKini.com on the other had to strip down its site to a small-sized front page, and set up serveral mirror pages elsewhere, while it braces for frequent downtimes due to the massive surge of traffic.

Jeff Ooi's site is also experiencing almost zero reachability amids his major victory in the election.

Among the many sites I checked out for Election results, TVsmith's dedicated resource page at http://www.mycen.com.my/malaysia/election2008.html happens to be one of the most handy.

The Star Online, the most popular news site in Malaysia which is run by the most popular English-language print newspaper, bracing the big rush for Election news opted for a much stripped down version of default home page to ensure better availability. Compare the two versions below (traditional site layout on the right, but still linked from the stripped down homepage):












It's good to know however that my normally troubling Intenet connectivity keeps its "coolness" this time... ;)

Search & Pray...

As the millions of Malaysians continue to pray and be on alert, the search continues for the kidnapped victim, Adik Sharlinie as well as for the sketched suspect. May God help us!

Benazir Bhutto: 1953-2007

The entire world is shocked again, this time, two days after X'mas celebrations by Christians and the larger part of the Western world, or a day after "Boxing Day" (which many of us remembered sadly as the day a tsunami perished lives of 200,000 people in South Asia just three years ago).

This time, dozens of people were killed in another sickening chaos and terror act of a few, in an attack that also took the life of a prominent political figure of Pakistan whose name is synonymous to Women in Power and Courage (Under Fire). She knew it very well that she put her own life and the lives of many others at stake by returning to Pakistan, but for her, it's something that has to be done, and returned to the homeland she did two months ago after eight years living in exile. Immediately, there was an attempt on her life during her homecoming parade killing 140 people, but she managed to narrowly escaped uninjured.

Today, when most part of the world are welcoming better progress for Pakistan as the nation nears its election time, another attack was reported, first on how Bhutto again might have escaped uninjured just two hours ago, but an hour later on he she was confirmedly killed at the age of 54 either before or during the explosion by a suicide bomber. It's the news of the hour and the day, with new report sposted in news media all over the world, by the dozens every minute, accumulating 1000 online news posts by 11pm (MYT - about two hour after the attack) and adding another 500 in the next 30 minutes, half of which are duplicates.

It's a shocking, and sad day for Pakistan, and for peace-loving people all over the world! A hearty condolence to the families and friends of Benazir Bhutto and the people of Pakistan... May Pakistan sees its peaceful days and years soon.

Bhutto's LAST WAVE:

The future pajamanation...

We've been a bit slow in completing the next platform, but I can assure you that it's in progress, and we're hard at work at it....

Here's the screen clip preview:

The country managers are beta-testing it, and developers will continue improving it...

Paypal Malaysia.... and in 190+ countries...

One of the major reasons being cited as a hindrance towards e-commerce in Malaysia is lack of micropayment facility for online transactions, and most of the times, Paypal as one of the most popular payment service (up to becoming a de facto standard, world wide!) , gets mentioned as not being supported locally. Well, you can now move that Paypal excuse aside aside, finally...

And you can skip those e-books given out for free or retailed for a price (~US$3-$10) recommending all kind of tricks that soon or later no longer work or simply too much of a hassle to pursue in the first place -- like:-

• opening an etrade stock brokerage account in USA or Hong Kong
  
• opening a bank account in countries like US, France, Singapore, Thailand etc
  
• getting a virtual office complete with mail forwarding and Paypal account assistance in those countries
• opening some tricky prepaid card account through a local provider
• use friends or third party service to withdraw money (disallowed by Paypal).
• and the list goes on...
  

GOOD NEWS: You've long able to send/receive Paypal fund, and withdraw those cash into a US bank account or used aforementioned tricks resulting in a slight progressive improvements in e-commerce in Malaysia these late couple years indeed. Now, you can now withdraw to a credit, debit, or prepaid card too, in the following countries too (in addition to 28 other countries that also support withdrawal to a local bank or receiving a cheque):-

1. Bulgaria
2. Cyprus
3. Estonia
4. Gibraltar
5. Iceland
6. Indonesia
7. Israel
8. Latvia
9. Liechtenstein
10. Lithuania
11. Luxembourg
12. Malaysia
13. Malta
14. Philippines
15. Romania
16. San Marino
17. Slovakia
18. Slovenia
19. Turkey
20. United Arab Emirates

With China, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia being in the Paypal-ready countries list today, look forward for a spike in online commerce in Asia from this year on.

Getting a credit card, debit, or prepaid card

CREDIT: It's no longer hard to get one or more credit cards in Malaysia today. With so many banks issuing these privileges, many people with a monthly salary above RM1,500 and with a decent credit history can already collect quite a handful of VISA and Mastercards from various banks. Even those with a bad credit history, but an active credit account (like buying a car etc, if you've been eligible in the first place) can still get those cards. If you're jumping from an employment to a self-employment, unless if you have a decent amount of money in the bank, make sure you obtain the cards first because banks don't like to give credit out to self-employed or freelancers. The good thing about these cards are their acceptance by the most merchants throughout the world compared to other cards and depending on the cards issuers, you may also use the 0% interest flexi-payment plan to spread your payments into 6 to 24 months.

DEBIT: If you cannot get a credit card, or refuse to get one, try a debit card. Here, they are normally called VISA electron (a sister to a VISA debit cards issued in US, Canada and Australia). Banks like Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN Matrix - about three millions in circulation in the country) and Public Bank (PB VISA Electron) offers them. Just open a regular savings account and request for one. The benefits of these cards are your potential to earn money-back (small but something is better than nothing) and an interest in your savings account (if applicable). Just be careful though, as with such an easy access to your money in the bank to be spent on shopping both online and offline, the temptations is as good if not greater than using credit cards. But Public Bank for instance allows you to restrict such free flow of cash from your savings or current account into its debit card, and BSN allows you to put a limit on daily spending for your card. Some online merchants however, especially foreign ones however does not accept these debit cards, which is where Paypal comes handy because it's accepted at over 100,000 online sites worldwide, plus by millions other Paypal users. On the other hands, some offline merchants prefer these debit cards due to its lower fees (under 1%) compared to credit cards (~3% and up).

PREPAID: The third alternative, a growingly popular one lately is Prepaid Mastercard by banks like Ambank (NextG), EON Bank (Impian and MOL Freedom - in partnership with MOL Accessportal Bhd) and Bank Islam (Tourist Friend). Even Tune Money is working to come up with their own Prepaid VISA soon. These can be loaded with cash up to RM10,000 through mail, FPX (bank transfer), MMwallet (mobile money), Pospay (Pos Malaysia) and at respective banks or participating retailers like 7-Eleven & Onepoint/ePay/MrKiosk outlets. Most of these cards carry a nominal annual fee (RM20-40/year but is normally waived if you'd use your card more than 12 times a year). A little setback is the joining/startup fee (RM25-38) but considering you'd be getting benefits like a Personal Accident coverage (if applicable), such fees sound reasonable. The most recent development on using these prepaid cards to receive money is MOL SafePay system that happens to be the closest we have in Malaysia for an online escrow service (at considerably low fee of just RM2 or 2% of transaction amount whichever is higher), which looks promising having been integrated with eBay auction site for Malaysia.

Ready for e-commerce now? So, what do you think about local contenders in custom consumer e-payment solutions like Pospay, MMwallet, and MOL Freedom? Do you use them or do you plan to use them?

[future topic: a review on past, present and future of e-payment systems....]