k r i s a n d r o

It was a blast at the “Your Blog” event yesterday at the Open Room. The event is organized by the good folks at Ogilvy and the topic was on “How to market your blog Like a brand”.

Yongfook

 

The speakers came from very different backgrounds; we have Yongfook, the handsome-enough-to-make-me-question-my-sexuality CEO of Egg Co., who produced cult favorite projects like Open Source Food (now known as Nibbledish) & Sweetcron;  Arti Mulchand, who has spent much of her career life in SPH and probably regards words as any guy would regard porn; Design Sojourn,  a serious award winning industrial design leader who still has enough humor to ; and not forgetting Andy from ToysREvil who made me laugh so hard from his Singlish and subtle hand-wanking gestures that I teared up.

All of the speakers (apart from Arti who owns a small personal blog) have very successful blogs in their own right and the amazing thing is that none of them made money directly from blogging. The success I am referring to is of course the niche traffic that they have built up over the years and it was the personal branding in their blogs that led them to other opportunities. All these happened because of their blogs; Yongfook dated a hot girl (he also got a job in a big media company in Japan but I like to emphasize the ‘hot girl’ part), Design Sojourn is working for a huge electronics giant; and Andy has… toys. (You guys will never understand how important that is to him)

The great thing about the speakers is that they shared their own experiences on how they evolved as a blogger through the years and it’s exactly what I am or what most of you bloggers are going through. I started off writing in 2004, just wanting to have a voice and not caring about what I say because who is to judge me on my own space? Soon the readers rose from one (myself) to a couple (colleagues, friends) and I found blogging tools like wordpress that relieves me of my lousy html skills. Soon, strangers started popping out of nowhere because of search engines and referrals and I found my voice becoming restricted. I could actually hurt somebody and thus hurt myself from the things I say! I came soon to accept that true opinions (the ones with FUCK YOU! ALL YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!!!) are not meant to be on the web especially when I am not very anonymous.

I soon turned to the ‘dark side’ and got into the hype of putting ads on my blog so that I can eventually strut around in my berms in Orchard during daytime, scoffing at all the stressed out peeps in suits and ties while checking out my adsense account.

It didn’t work. So now I am back to where I started, and realize that not everyone can make money through blogging directly (certainly not me).

Their blogs were a brand. People who knew of Yongfook, Design Sojourn & Andy knew what they were about and their success were built upon shaping their blogs to their strengths for a niche audience. Getting success in terms of traffic hits are not much of a secret these days considering how much information is out there. Barring bloggers who cannot write coherently or has no opinion whatsoever, we all can succeed in our own right.

So what’s my niche to work on. Humor methinks.

It’s a little on the ‘Lame’ side of humor but I’ll get whatever laughs I can get.

Don’t make me come over and tickle you.

(Check out the key take aways summarized by Brian Koh of Ogilvy)

(Oh and Arti, if you are reading this. You were shaking so bad throughout most of your speech but the points that you put across were definitely a lot of food for thought.)

Apart from the fact that the National Geographic is on channel 11, Starhub Cable TV; my knowledge on National Geographic was poor to say the least. It was with great excitement that I was invited by Pat Law of Ogilvy PR to the exclusive preview of Asia’s first National Geographic Store in Singapore!

 

Never have I ever thought that the National Geographic would have a physical store and much less open one in Singapore.

The bloggers were told to meet at Newton Food Centre and were chauffeured by a grand convoy of 17 SUVs from the great volunteers at www.suvec.org. A personal SUV for every blogger! How cool is that? The royal treatment was only marred by the traffic jam at the town area, but we arrived safely at Vivocity, where the store is located.

 

Stepping through the boarded doors of the National Geographic Store was like stepping into another dimension in Vivocity. The mood of the store mirrors that of an art exhibition but with the promise that one can actually afford the cool ‘exhibits’ that the store showcases.

 

The National Geographic Store provides a ‘one stop’ experience for shoppers that sells stuffs ranging from books to the likes of apparel and photography equipment. Even if you don’t fancy the stuffs that are sold there, one can always be reminded of what to buy for your trip by walking through the store. One of the interesting facts about the store is that almost anything can be bought, even the furniture! The sold furniture and items like the photographs are replaced and it gives the store a different look and feel from time to time. Just note that I said, ‘almost anything can be bought’ and not ‘everything can be bought’. The cute store attendants cannot be bought (amongst other things), so do ask nicely if you fancy anything from the store.

 

Asia’s 1st National Geographic Store is located at Vivocity 1st level. Visit it if you haven’t already!

For those who have been dwelling in underground vaults and marvelling at how fast your Intel Core 2 processor is and how l33t you are, well, I got news for you. Intel has released their bleeding-ly fast successor to the Intel Core 2 with the Intel Core i7 processors and once again, kept bloody Moore’s Law alive and threatens to bleed my wallet dry.

 

It’s such a love hate relationship I have with processors and graphic cards. One would feel excited that technology is keeping up the pace and a great company like Intel creates great products like the Core 2. You wait a few months for the prices to plunge before making the purchase. You buy it after saving up for a couple months surviving on scraps from the rubbish dump and water from the bowl of your neighbours pet. And before you can bask in the full glory of owning one of the fastest processors around, Intel steps in and taps on your shoulder and says, “Oh! We have just released the Fastest Desktop Processor On The Planet! The Intel Core i7!!!”

[Photo from Pat Law]

 

At least I got to attend the media event to help me regain some love for Intel and I can always count on the peeps at Ogilvy to tickle me and Nadnut with the labelling of our media passes.

[Photo from Pat Law]

 

Yes, I was Christopher Tan for that night and no, I didn’t do anything kinky with Nadia Bennylava.