k r i s a n d r o

After months of preparation and anticipation, Ping.sg finally had their 2nd Anniversary and Awards at Fig & Olive on Saturday!

The committee were at the venue early but we were running around like headless chickens sometimes. Everyone helped one another and we managed to complete our tasks in time. My slaves, Hendri and Miccheng, helped me finish up on the table tennis bats which were given out as award trophies.

Sylvia hooked the committee up with a lady named Caressa who made us such great looking and tasting cupcakes! If I wasn’t battling the fact that my love handles are starting to look like the edges of the cupcakes, I would have had seconds.

People started trickling in and everyone had their chances to meet up with the bloggers that they come across every now and then in the Ping community. Everyone had name tags that helped identify each one of us and due to the evil blogger by the name of Wendy, I had this tag.

Everyone loves to hate a Chao Ah Beng and hence I got quite a lot of poofs from the pingsters. But I wasn’t the most hated! The winner is actually…

Diana’s lovely daughter, Shervon got the most POOFed award! WAHAHAHHAHAHAHA! Not that she is hated though. Everyone wanted the little girl to win something. =P

The awards were hosted by the laugh inducing duo, NTT & Mintea. Despite a few cock-ups here and there, the awards were given out at a very nice pace. I was nominated for quite a few and I expected to return home empty handed after awhile as other bloggers walked away with their prizes. But I manage to win the “Most Entertaining Blog Award!”

And with the votes of the great crowd there, I won the “HP Blog of the Year”!!!

I TOTALLY DIDN’T EXPECT IT! I only remembered being in a daze as I walked up to receive my prizes which consists of….

…..and the biggest prize of the night….

This has to be the most awesome thing I won so far in my life! And no better time than now when I am actually looking to get an UMPC to blog and surf on the go. Thank you to the great people at HP and Waggener Edstrom Worldwide for sponsoring such a prize!

Melvin! If you are reading this, get me a new set soon! I can’t wait to caress it!

Sorry if this post felt very truncated and bullet like. I am so bloody sleepy and I cannot write this post as well as I should. But before I end this post. I will like to thank the following people. Uzyn, Daphne & the committee for organizing such a memorable event. Claudia and Miccheng for preserving the memories in pictures and video.

But most of all,

I want to thank all the readers who nominated and voted for me. Without you guys and girls, I would be just a regular guy with a blog.

Now, I am a regular guy with a blog, armed with two ping pong bats, a glass and a HP MINI!

WOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh! And please watch this great lipdub video created by Rinaz for the Anniversary!

Ping Lipdub Project from rinaz on Vimeo.

I try to not blog about the Ping community much as I have readers who are not from Ping and they will be scratching heads at what I say about the community I have grown to love but I must blog about this. Why do I love Ping anyway? Because, it’s a community that allows almost EVERYONE to have a chance to let their posts have exposure. Let’s just look at Ping’s FAQ, item #5.

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Basically, if anyone has a blog in which he/she THINKS might appeal to the local readers, the person can just join Ping. Uzyn nor Daphne, is NOT responsible for the content on Ping. Anyone can blog about anything and in whatever style they want. Even if the contents of a post or blog run afoul of a nation’s law, it has nothing to do with the staff at Ping.

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Recently, there has been a lot of feedback that the community has become ‘shallow’ and a handful of the ‘prominent bloggers’ have voiced their unhappiness at the content of the blogs and the shoutbox. Why? It could be a couple of reasons and various origins but I guess it’s the point when Daphne blogged about having a crush and there was a sudden surge of interest to who she was talking about. Bloggers like Wendy also had her share of traffic when she tried to find out who the mystery crush is. Why is there such a big hoo haa when probably there has always been posts made before like the one Daphne did? It’s because she is popular and she garners attention!

The so called ‘serious bloggers’ start to think why such ‘shallow’ topics get ‘Ponged’ to the top when they have used 30% of the words in the dictionary and done 3 days of research just to compose an insightful entry which eventually didn’t even make it to #10. And they are also disturbed when the shoutbox gets all lively when people talk about ‘shallow’ stuffs compared to serious issues.

Well, there are a few factors that make a post go to the top ranked in descending order.

1. Popularity of the blogger

2. Blog title

3. Reputation of the blogger

3. Content

The list above is not exhaustive but the point I like to bring is that unfortunately, CONTENT is the least importance. WHY? It’s because of a few factors.

1. There is no way you can know how good a content is without clicking on the post.

2. Most people who Pong entries because of other factors do not bother to revoke their Pong even if the entry they read is deemed ‘unworthy’.

3. Many people simply prefer to read ‘shallow’ stuffs.

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I said this here and there I think but I will like to say it again. I am a ‘shallow’ blogger mostly. I mostly write about mundane stuffs. I am not someone like Endoh who can churn out topics that are very articulate and invoke your thoughts on serious issues. I do enjoy reading posts by bloggers like him but I PREFER reading about ‘shallow’ stuffs which are interesting. This is what I love and this is how I usually try to write. I want readers to come in and read and LAUGH. Even if I only manage to make one smile, I would be happy.

Look at the reasons Ping came up with if you wanted to ‘poof’ someone.

If someone’s post is qualifies for one of the reasons above, ‘POOF’ him/her! If you simply do not like the blogger and cannot find a valid reason to ‘poof’. Do click on the button below at Ping.

If you don’t like the way the community is heading, you can either QUIT Ping, or just ignore the ‘shallow’ ones you don’t like with the help of the tools Ping provided. If you people still think ‘shallow’ bloggers like me shouldn’t be allowed in Ping, go ahead and draft a new FAQ for Uzyn to bar ‘shallow’ bloggers and if it gets approved, I WILL QUIT PING.sg myself. Not because I don’t agree with that ruling, but because I AGREE that I am a ‘shallow’ blogger.

As I write this article, I also understand that it is not WRONG for Pingsters to voice their displeasure at the ‘shallow’ posts/bloggers. If you are unhappy, blog about it, talk about it in the shoutbox, discuss it over msn, announce it over twitter. You have every right to do so. But I think it’s wrong if you complain to people like Daphne and probably Uzyn, who work hard at ensuring this community’s success. What is your purpose? Do you want them to do something about it? Do you want them to encourage people to blog on more serious stuffs?

On another note, if everyone is just using the proper channels to voice their opinions, Daphne and Uzyn shouldn’t be so affected by it. I know it’s only human to be bothered about it but people are people and everyone has a right to a voice no matter how limited it is by the gahmen.

Before I end this post, I will like to clarify the following before all the flaming. I am not saying that ‘serious’ bloggers are culprits because I do like bloggers who write well with an original and strong point of view. I am just sad and angry that Daphne is very affected by this group of ‘prominent’ pingsters because she simply bother to care.

How hard is it to just ignore posts/bloggers that you don’t like? If you have something to say, voice it in the proper channels. And for Daphne, I know it’s hard but you really cannot please everyone. I know you want to keep the community as a whole but in reality, there will always be people that doesn’t like other people or trends in the top posts.

So just let them be.

When a company pays a blogger to ‘review’ a product, is it an advertorial or is it really a review? This question came to my mind after a topic in the Ping.sg shoutbox which let to xizor2000 asking me of the following over WLM,

“In your experience…are you able to give an example of what u consider a review and what u consider an advertorial?”

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My answer to him was,

“A review would be a complete unbiased view of a product and an advertorial would be a ‘paid to be made positive Advertisement’“

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I never really thought of reviews or advertorials as separate entities before his question as I generally felt that most blogger opinions can’t really be trusted as they are paid to blog on the product. Before all bloggers swarm onto me like hungry Singaporeans with a plate of Char Kway Teow, let us be honest lar. How many bloggers in the right frame of mind will say what he/she really thinks about the product if he/she is being PAID to do so.

I mean sure, there are ‘ethical’ bloggers who will say what they mean. But the truth is, the ethical one is running the risk of having no companies approaching him or her for jobs. Like how Wendy puts it,

“if I were a company, I would be feeling quite dumb to pay people to say (possibly) bad stuffs about me”

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So when companies pays a blogger to do a ‘review’, are they actually expecting an advertorial?

So when bloggers are paid to do a ‘review’, are we assuming that it is actually an advertorial?

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I think that is why a top blogger like kennysia puts an ‘ADV’ in his header which represents ‘Advertorial’ each time he is paid to blog about a product. Firstly, it doesn’t mislead his readers that he is blogging about a product out of his own free will. Secondly, when readers see that it is an advertorial, the clever ones should understand that since it’s an advertorial, the opinions of the blogger should be taken with a pinch of salt.

I think companies and bloggers should adapt a common understanding that when a blogger is asked to blog about a product, it should be stated clearly if it is an Advertorial OR a Review. And this information should be CLEARLY represented on the post to let readers know WHICH it is.

Companies should understand that an Advertorial on a blog is just like an advertisement you see on TV, in between the shows. It’s a total biased view of their product that is in the form of a media to spread awareness of the products existence.

On the other hand, if the company is that SURE of a product, they should tell the blogger to REVIEW it with his/her total unbiased opinions. The company itself or others should also take heart in the true opinions of the blogger and not be afraid of giving the blogger products for review in the future.

If I am a reader and I am presented with the fact of whether the post is of a review or an advertorial, I can read the blog with the correct attitude. I know if I am reading about a product’s existence or the blogger’s true opinions on the product.

And wouldn’t YOU trust a company and a blogger that shows such transparency? I would!

I was looking at my web statistics at statcounter.com when I noticed a spike in my traffic.

Usually, my unique hits per day will hover around 100 and slightly around 150 if I blog on that day. So, I found it weird that there was a spike when all I did was blog about Dragonball. I don’t think i’ll get that much pongs from ping.sg or get featured on tomorrow.sg just because i talked about Bulma flashing her pom pom.

So, I went to check on where the traffic came from, and I found this.

HARDWAREZONE FORUMS? Why the hell would a link appear at hardwarezone which will lead to me?

I then followed the link to find out that there is a guy/hippo that blatantly copied and pasted my whole entry in a new thread about the one of me being molested. He even bothered to keep the formating i originally used.

This is the hippo that plagiarized my work

I then searched around for the link that led to my original work. Couldn’t find any till I saw this ‘clue’ that the hippo left behind.

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After looking at the 1st post in the thread again… this is where he ‘credited’ me.

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Luckily, the people at hardwarezone are clever enough to question if it was the hippo’s original work and clever enough to find that “smily gotch secret and peekture…”

I dug out my old hardwarezone password and commented on the thread. I wasn’t angry at all after i found out he linked me up, however in such a weird manner. But, a superhero appeared and told him off.

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(Acts gay) Wah…. Wendy, my hero!

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