No, you didn’t read it wrongly. Tiger Airways are giving away free air tickets, and it’s not one of those 1 free seat out of 300 seats. In fact, Tiger Airways are giving away 15,000 tickets for IMMEDIATE BOOKING ONLINE NOW!!! This promotion will end only when all tickets are fully booked. So if you are hungry for a trip out of Singapore or if you are planning to visit your friends or relatives - or even for sightseeing, then you should log into their website now! These tickets are good for travelling from Singapore to KL and each ticket is valid for a one-way trip - which means you will have to book for 2 tickets - both absolutely free to enjoy a round trip on the house!

However, the usual airport tax - which is usually about S$120 applies. Hurry! Before the tickets are all snapped up!

TWO days after Jetstar Asia offered Singapore-Kuala Lumpur one-way air tickets from 88 cents, competitor Tiger Airways has gone one step further.

It is giving away 15,000 free seats - for immediate booking online - the budget carrier said in a media statement on Friday.

Jetstar’s offer ends on Tuesday.

Whichever airline they choose, travellers will have to pay taxes and other surcharges that come to about $120 for a round trip.

It is still a fraction of what it now costs to fly Singapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines that currently dominate the market and charge more than $400 for a round trip.

Low-cost carriers that have for years been kept out of the Singapore-KL market will start plying the route from Feb 1.

For a start, Tiger which operates out of the budget terminals at both Changi Airport and Kuala Lumpur International Airport, and Jetstar which flies to the main terminals, will each operate one service a day between the two points.

Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia is expected to announce details of its Singapore-KL service at a press briefing in Singapore on Thursday.

The partial liberalisation of the market comes after years of lobbying from the airlines and travellers on both sides of the Causeway.

By December, all restrictions will be lifted, which means low-cost carriers can fly as many times as they want between Singapore and KL.

Tiger’s chief executive officer Tony Davis said the airline will also continue to push for the rights to fly to other cities in Malaysia including Penang and points in East Malaysia.

Jetstar, in the meantime, is so pleased with the response to its 88-cents Singapore-KL promotion fare that the airline is rewarding customers with a buy-one-get- one free offer for flights to all its 14 destinations, said chief executive officer Chong Phit Lian.

Bookings must be made online at www.jetstar.com/specials/1+1 between Jan 9 and 11 for travel until Feb 3.

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 7th January 2008

The headings shouted: Akan Datang: ERP! Yes, more gantries will be put up soon at various places, one of them being Toa Payoh Lorong 6. However, the LTA has said that these gantries will not be activated until speed falls below optimal levels. Hmm… If I were to run ERPs as a business, I wonder what are the chances that it will not be activated after having spent tonnes of money on it. Hmm…

Just a thought.

Photo obtained from straitstimes.com on 7th January 2008

Update: I was told that in addition to what I have written below, another thing to consider is that Nuffnang sends its crawlers every 48 hours to ensure that your blog does not violate the regulations. I’m not sure how true this is, but a few people have been telling me so. Thanks Yuhui.

I just got the following email from the Nuffnang mailer about their exclusivity program and wonder if it was worth it:

Dear Nuffnangers,

Today Nuffnang has successfully established itself as the blog advertising market leader in both Malaysia and Singapore. As such we have also faced increasing pressure from many of our loyal exclusive Nuffnangers to enact an exclusive program, rewarding them for their loyalty.

We have always kept it as no secret that we often give priority to our exclusive Nuffnangers in everything from community events to even the serving of ads.

However with the establishment of the Nuffnang Gliteratti, we have now crystallized these benefits as part of our community policy.

Please note that the Nuffnang Gliterati will take effect automatically from the 13th of January 2008.

To view the benefits of being a Nuffnang Glitterati, click here.

Best regards,
Ming
Co-Founder
Nuffnang.com

Not knowing what it was all about, I decided to take a look at their website:

Why You Should Join The Nuffnang Gliterrati

1) Payment Rates for both Cost Per Unique Visitor and Cost-Per-Click.

The less ads a blogger has on his blog, the higher share of voice and the less each ad will have to compete with other ads for attention. Hence, the higher the CTR and the higher the value of that particular ad space on the blog.

That is why for example you will never see 8 different ads on the same page on a newspaper unless it’s in the Classifieds where each advertiser pays a small amount.

As a result of that, Glitterati Nuffnangers will earn 20-40% more than ordinary Nuffnangers.

2) Payment Terms

In the advertising industry just like in many industries, payment from advertisers come from specific terms like 60 or 90 days. In the past, Nuffnang has used its cash reserves to pay off bloggers for campaigns that we still have not been paid for by our clients. Due to the great increase of bloggers in the Nuffnang community, we are no longer able to provide this service for all our Nuffnangers and unfortunately will have to restrict this service to Nuffnang Gliterrati.

However, all Nuffnangers will still be paid in a timely manner as stipulated in the Program Table.

3) Advertorial Opportunities

Many bloggers know that while banner ad campaigns earn a decent stable income, it is advertorials that pay the most. Each advertorial depending on the advertiser, commitment and traffic can earn a blogger a minimum of SGD 50 to SGD 1,500 not including freebies that may sometimes be included.

In the past, advertorial opportunities were available for all our Nuffnangers. However, due to the high demand for advertorials and the need for us to narrow down which blogger of the thousands will get advertorials, only exclusive bloggers will now be eligible for advertorials.

4) Community Events

Nuffnang is known to organize the biggest community events ever which range from free movie screenings, lunch meet ups and many more. We find that in many of these events, many Nuffnangers would like to bring guests along with them and we at Nuffnang would like to oblige as much as we can.

As such, 70% of the seats for each event will be allocated to Nuffnang Gliterrati AND the guests they may bring.

5) Contests

Contests among Nuffnangers have been something we’ve been having quite a lot with many bloggers winning everything from free meals at Friday’s to mobile phones or even the upcoming contest of a free trip to Gold Coast. With the high demand for these contests, we will give priority to Nuffnang Gliterrati with 70% of the prizes to be allocated to them and the remaining 30% to be allocated to non-Nuffnang Gliterrati.

6) Innit

Innit is a tool developed and hosted by Nuffnang to add the additional service of driving traffic to any Nuffnang blog. This tool will now only be restricted to Nuffnang Gliterrati since it is within our best interest of our community not to indirectly drive any traffic to a future competing network.

The vast majority of the Nuffnang Community is already eligible for the exclusive program so there isn’t much to worry about. All of us at Nuffnang sincerely hope that this new initiative will show how much we do appreciate your loyalty.

After reading the FAQ, some of the questions that ran through my mind included:

• Is there any guarantee of advertisements? Or do I end up advertising for them for free 90% of the time?
• How much more are we looking at? I wasn’t sure if there’s a definitely banded-rate… at least not where I could find
• There are priorities for community events and contests… then again, would I prefer this over payments?

Of course, I am comparing Nuffnang against Advertlets and Blog2U. It’s quite a pity that Advertlets incurred some bad PR recently - and it cost me 1 day’s worth of readership, minus those who read my blog via feeds - thank goodness for RSS! - then again, it was quite a traumatic experience for some of my readers, while others in my blog rolls wondered if I shut down for good; but I guess this sorts of equalizes Nuffnang and Advertlets - the $1.00 admin fee for withdrawing from Nuffnang and the redirection of blogs to some cyber-squatter for Advertlets. Of course, Blog2U also had its fair share of bad publicity, when one of their overworked staff at 1am sent out an email that exposed all the other bloggers’ email addresses.

Back to this exclusivity issue. Advertlets does provide me with a somewhat passive continuous income based on the readership of this blog, whereas Nuffnang provides only spasmodic income. Blog2U also belongs to the spasmodic model, but there’s no worry about future-dated money. So, really there are pros and cons to becoming exclusive to one advertising company - and there are many other factors to consider too.

For me, one of the more serious questions I have is whether advertisements will be more frequent. After all, it’s quite pointless when I have high traffic with zero ads. For those who wants summarized comparison, here you go:

Recemt sales in consumer electronics exhibitions had been focusing on Blu-ray players - or at least that’s what I had been seeing. Either that or the marketing that was done was really good. For the uninitiated, the Blu-ray is just 1 of 2 of the successors of DVD technology - promising to provide higher definition playback as well as other enhanced features. Blu-ray promises a larger capacity and better protection while HD DVD - the other competitor seems to provide only higher definition.

Perhaps the marketing strengths of Sony - who owns Blu-ray, had been really good because I can probably recall about hearing a Blu-ray player, but a HD DVD player? Hmm… probably just HDTV.

LOS ANGELES - THE high-definition DVD war is all but over.

Hollywood’s squabble over which of two technologies will replace standard DVDs skewed in the direction of Sony Corp late last week, with Warner Brothers casting the deciding vote in favour of the company’s Blu-ray discs over the rival HD DVD format.

In some ways, the fight is a replay of the VHS versus Betamax battle of the 1980s.

This time, however, the Sony product appears to have prevailed.

‘The overwhelming industry opinion is that this decides the format battle in favour of Blu-ray,’ said Mr Richard Doherty, research director of Envisioneering Group, a market research company in New York.

Behind the studio’s decision are industry-wide fears about the sagging home entertainment market, which has bruised the movie industry in recent years as piracy, competition from video games and the Internet, and soaring costs have cut into profitability.

Analysts predict that domestic DVD sales fell by nearly 3 per cent last year, partly because of confusion over the various formats.

But HD DVD is not dead.

Two major studios, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures, have deals in place to continue releasing their movies exclusively on HD DVD, as does DreamWorks Animation.

Warner Brothers, part of Time Warner, will also continue to release its titles on both formats until the end of May. But by supporting Blu-ray, Warner Brothers, the largest player in the US$42 billion (S$60 billion) global home entertainment market, makes it next to impossible for HD DVD to recover its early momentum.

Consumers have been largely sitting on the sidelines waiting to buy high-definition DVD players until they see which will have the most titles available.

Retailers have been complaining about having to devote space to three kinds of DVDs, and the movie business has delayed tapping a lucrative new market.

‘Consolidating into one format is something that we felt was necessary for the health of the industry,’ said Mr Barry Meyer, chief executive of Warner Brothers.

With Warner on board, Blu-ray now has about 70 per cent of the market.

Toshiba said in a statement it was quite surprised and particularly disappointed by Warner’s decision.

Which technology is better has been the subject of intense debate. HD DVD players have been much cheaper, but Blu-ray discs have more storage space and more advanced protection against piracy. Both versions deliver sharp resolution.

Blu-ray titles have sharply outsold HD DVD offerings by as much two to one, according to some analysts.

In Singapore, sales of either type of disc have been slow to pick up as well.

Retailers say regular DVDs outsell Blu-ray and HD DVD discs 20 to 1.

Viewers have stayed away because players are still expensive - usually at $1,000 or more. They are also waiting for more titles to ship in the new formats.

As of last month, there were about 100 such titles in either Blu-ray or HD DVD, compared with about 1,000 in the United States.

NEW YORK TIMES

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 7th January 2008

The National Library Board (NLB) who manages all the regional and community libraries in Singapore, have started on a project almost 15 months ago to archive local blog content as an effort to preserve a comprehensive record of online content here. However, only blogs that are created by individuals who are recognised as experts in their fields, famous personalities or are award winning will be considered.

At first read, it seems like elitism at its best again. Then again, we shouldn’t be so petty about it, right? After all, I’m sure I don’t want to be remembered for the wrong reasons. =)

HOME-GROWN blogs are making history, literally.

The National Library Board (NLB) is adding blogs to Singapore’s historical archives as part of its efforts to retain a comprehensive record of online content.

In all, the library aims to archive some 100 blogs by the end of the year.

Eleven have been selected so far, ranging from offerings such as Air-Conditioned Nation (http://cherian.blogspot.com) by media academic Cherian George, to the satirical Mr Brown (www.mrbrown.com).

Mr Raju Buddharaju, the library’s director of digital resources and services, described blogs as an ‘invaluable’ source of news and social commentary for the present and future generations of Singaporeans.

‘Content from blogs often offers views which would otherwise not be accessible from mainstream media,’ he said.

Even so, the library is selective when it comes to deciding which blogs to archive.

Only those produced by individuals who are recognised experts in their respective fields of knowledge, famous personalities or award-winning blogs will be considered, Mr Raju said.

The library will take digital snapshots of the selected blogs at least once a year and post their contents on its web archive - available at www.nlb.gov.sg. Access is open and free to the public.

Assistant Professor Lim Sun Sun, who teaches new media studies at the National University of Singapore, described the NLB’s efforts as ‘far-sighted’.

‘This affirms the importance of blogs in adding to the public sphere and contributing to the growth of public discussion,’ she said.

The move towards an official repository of blogs marks the second phase of the NLB’s efforts to document online media.

Its web archiving project, which began in October 2006, targeted websites initially. So far, around 25,000 local websites of social and historical value have been recorded.

The NLB’s eventual goal is to archive most, if not all, websites in the .sg domain - which are those registered here - by 2010.

Archiving of online material is not unique to Singapore. China and Japan have similar archives, and popular search engines Google and Yahoo also archive selected free online news articles.

Yawningbread.org, a prominent blog championing gay rights, is also being archived by the NLB. The blog’s founder Alex Au said he is ‘honoured’ to be included.

‘It shows that the Government considers even blogs known for their dissenting articles as valuable material for our future generations,’ he said.

Said Dr George, who has three blogs looking at various aspects of Singapore media and politics in the archives: ‘This is not about the authorities giving legitimacy to individual blogs.

‘It is part of a welcome movement in Singapore to recognise the value of multiple perspectives in telling the Singapore story.’

klin@sph.com.sg

Article obtained from straitstimes.com on 7th January 2007