how Apple will continue to pwn the recession.

this is two good not to share.
taken off wired.com (possibly a geek's tabloid of unnecessary information)

Who says nothing good ever comes out of using vulgarities?

We got a freakhog distinction for shooting this documentary back when we were film students in murdoch university in 2004.

the idea came out from nowhere, with some unconventional titles. "!" was chosen because you couldn't really say it, and yet.. as a punctuation mark, it means so much. After that, the content naturally flowed..

what were we comfortable with?
what's uniquely singaporean?
does it make us special?

i think this documentary shows how language is a cultural force so many of us take for granted. And in even more extremes, cussing and swearing are language tools we use to connect with each other!

Enjoy!


! from Brian Koh on Vimeo.

All Your Livejournal Are Belong To Us

Here's a funny Error 404 page from the folks at www.livejournal.com



And to put this in context, here are a couple of videos to help you with your sense of humour.

all your base are belong to us


zero wing rhapsody


thank me later.

Predictions of the iPhone's impact in Singapore

So here's what i think.

i think that the iPhone will make social media tools more ubiquitous to Singaporeans when it's finally officially launched in Singapore.

why do i say that?

1) seamless wireless coverage around Singapore and 3G connection.

2) people will have near 24 hours connection to the net on a mobile device that has true web experience and user experience (screen touching! how intuitive can you get?)

this means that people will (hopefully) start subscribing to RSS feeds, receiving content via the iPhones, using Twitter a lot more, and actually blogging more on the go.

And one other reason why i think this will be so, is because so many of us travel by public transport, and there'll be a lot of downtime. traveling, waiting for friends to show up.. etc. i dare not think when WiMax becomes a part of all this.

The recipe is this.

ubiquitous network coverage + ubiquitous mobile internet device = ubiquitous net usage and a need to aggregate information faster, and on the fly.

we'll see come september

My little blackbook

Say hello to my little friend:


okay, what i really meant to show you was this:




they really know how to tease you when you open the box.


everything in it's right place.


many purists don't like the blackbook. i however, am sold on black tech.


pr0n


this could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship


call it a mild obsession.

No rest for the weary

Sometimes the powers that be, make it really difficult to fully express yourself, and you find that change is not something that people look upon willingly. I was really excited about a new concept on Tuesday, a way of doing things, but by Thursday, i find my enthusiasm waning at the uphill task it'll be to convert the masses.

maybe that's a key insight into Social Media, and rings true for the prophecy of Loren Feldman, that the most important voice on the Internet is always your own voice, not those that you follow.

Nobody likes to be told what to do, we're pulling in the information that shapes our worlds. Why then do establishments still bombard us with their truths, when everyone has already established their own?

These are troubling times indeed.

New marketing, but are we ready?

I really should be plugging our blogger social event that just happened last night to launch The Open Room, but i'm just so suitably buzzed up right now about something that i just have to type it down first. Yes, it's that important, but don't worry, The Open Room is somewhere a part off all this.

i'm currently attending the IAS Graduate Diploma in Digital Advertising, it's on every Tuesday from 7pm to 10pm, and it's taken considerable strain. In fact, things weren't going so well because, every body was rehashing the same thing over and over again. New marketing, new media, new advertising, basically everything was X X & X with a 2.0 behind it.

you get my drift, you've heard it all before. we've been telling it to you till no end. 2.0, digital, social and post- become great things to put in your product and service offerings so that clients will bite.

but it just won't work because you're just doing the same crap with a 2.0 stuck to it. so what you get is:

crap2.0
digital crap
social crap
post-crap

crap in, crap out.

and what do i mean by crap?

trying to service, sell products and services that worked on a unified mass media platform on what we see today in mature markets as a increasing fragmented media landscape

here's an illustration. in mature and connected markets like the US, Japan and even Singapore (super high broadband penetration) think about the choices you have:

Cable TV
Broadband (Youtube, Flickr, Twitter, Blogs, Facebook, Netvibes, RSS)
Magazines
Advertisements
Newspapers
Forums

The list could go on forever, and that's the media fragmentation we see, coupled with the insane amount of choice we have today.

What brand of toothpaste to buy? what type of toothpaste? whitening? more calcium? 12 hr protection? 24 hr protection?

Basically, we as consumers wanted choice? the marketers gave us choices. and i guess in the process, a lot of crappy choices, and we were at their mercy. choice became clutter.

now, with the Internet, we research what is relevant to us, we try to pull the information that is relevant to us, but it's hard work. And the offers and unsolicited information that finds themselves to us, is SPAM. marketers, advertisers and PR practitioners should take a look at the world's spam folder one day. we can only be positive that its digital, for i forsee worldwide deforrestation if spam was still paper.

So my point is this.

The old way of selling doesn't work on the new breed of consumers.

Marketers, PR and Advertising have become complacent in the way we engage consumers. we don't! we expect one way messages to work, or pseudo interactivity disguised as feedback, survey or clicking on a link..??

I used to be scared of this barrier. This barrier into the consumer space, this natural resistance to the things that we try to do.

Today in class, talking with like minded people, i think some of us felt that we had to change the way we did things. We had to find not just a new way to sell things, but genuinely connect with consumers, be their partners that make life better for them, we go down to their level, or we bring them up to us. Either way, don't take it the wrong way.. the idea is that we should all be on the level playing field.

bring back the days when i wanted something, and went to the small independent shop near my place.. rekindle the joy of having a genuine service that served a customer need or want.

what am i talking about?

about the idea of building shelters or sleeping bags for homeless people sponsored by advertisers or clients. perhaps you could do something good with your ad or presence?

how about the food stores that took your grocery list for a party you were organising, and helped you calculate how much each person owes you? and perhaps helped you collect that money?

how about building an online tool that genuinely helped solved information overload problems?

what about that branded shoe that you designed yourself?

what about that computer that you put together yourself, but they built and delivered to you?

what about that mp3 player that you got engraved, for yourself or a loved one?

NOW, all this doesn't just happen overnight, corporations are process driven, and different departments have goals to meet, but slowly.. once people start understanding this key insight on the difference between choice and clutter, something will change.

and change is exactly what i'm talking about. change in the way we as marketers, PR and advertisers do things, in the way we service our clients and our communities.

instead of being the agency, we become their partners, and we help join the dots and form long lasting business relationships with their customers and their brands. in fact, consumers should not be seen as such statistics, but as stakeholders, or business partners who enter a business-client relationship.. you get the idea. VALUE THEM as part of your company!

and that's where The Open Room comes in. i could have started this post telling you all about it, getting myself a media hit for it. but i hope you can see that The Open Room is just a small part of this ecosystem of change. We did it to connect brands and bloggers together, as if they could be business partners or colleagues.. and foster a natural, casual, fun, relationship or transaction. To have each other understand that we're all a part of this, and we'll make our business work together. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and detracters to one brand, will find solace in other. hopefully that other brand will welcome them with open arms.

maybe we'll then see that the pie is big enough for everyone. *shrug* (i sound like a non-profit don't i?)

so in closing, our market has changed gears, we need new marketing to connect with new audiences. why are we hoping and praying to the unseen god of materialism that our old methods will work on a truly different consumer. A consumer just like you and me, and yet.. so intrinsically unique.

Hillarious Korean Drummer (Not Drama)

Oh man, this cracks me up so much. It's a tape found in a studio when a Korean band seemed to be shooting a music video (probably in the 1990's)

Just pay attention to the drummer, his expressions are the things that legends are made from!

Omigosh... i soooooo want this!!!

a space invaders tumbler? it really doesn't get any better than this. ah! the simple things in life!

via link

Perhaps why Xiaxue is more popular than you

you've got to hand it to her. Xiaxue really puts Singapore on the map of the global blogosphere.

by now, you might have seen this video floating around on the Internet:



and if you haven't, well, there it is. it's an iphone "review" by Xiaxue because the producers of her vodcast, Xiaxue's guide to life played a "prank" on her by giving her a fake iphone to review, and when given a real iphone, she completely disses the much heralded holy grail of consumer geek tech.

i won't claim to be a media expert, but i've done filmmaking, studied mockumentaries and probably have an above average media literacy level. there are many clues that suggest that Xiaxue was not at all serious when doing this video, and it's amazing how many people think it's real.

notice an imac in the background? if that isn't meant to be irony and sacarsm, i don't know what is. Xiaxue may type bimbotic and exude that personality on her blog, but you'll actually realise she's pretty sharp when it comes to social commentary, choosing to blog about the little cracks in Singaporean culture, there is no way in hell she would not have known what an iphone was.

even if you don't want to take my word for it, she gives us the expose of the little prank she pulled in her own blog post

and the reason why she's popular is not just because she's just controversial, but also because she totally plays on the personality she's carved out for herself, and is willing to stake her own reputation on the line, and not just get pinged, tomorrow-ed, but also gizmodo-ed and fake steve job-ed now. how many singaporean bloggers can claim that for themselves? she's not in the technorati top 100 for nothing. (last i checked - 6 months ago)

in fact, her real strength doesn't lie in her content, but in her ability to not take herself seriously at all. i think she enjoys getting the attention, but not so much as doing what she likes, when she likes it, and has people around her to appreciate her not for what she does, but who she is. so i guess it's a sort of self-confidence and freedom to do whatever the hell she likes. i d think she'd still blog what she wants to blog, even without the media attention. ie. she's not doing it as a favour to anyone.

Another blogger that has gotten my attention lately is Loren Feldman. he has insulted America's top bloggers and social media strategists (if we can even call ourselves that), for example Robert Scoble, Shel Israel, Michael Arrignton and Jeremiah Owyang. Like Xiaxue, he gets his kicks targeting trends and people who take themselves too seriously. He's not as entertaining as Xiaxue, but he comes across as Mr Angry to everything, but it's a good counter balance to all the hype your friendly neighbourhood social media evangelists (like me) seem to perpetuate.

my point is, if i wanted to read good reviews, safe material, objective material.. i'd read what my old skool PR skills feed to publications and bloggers who are too lazy to write good stories.

and now that my brief analysis of Xiaxue is done, i'll comment a little on what uniquefrequency has blogged about Xiaxue's disservice to the Singaporean social media community.

Singapore's best kept fast food secret

Waffletown and i have quite a bit of history together. I basically grew up eating Waffletown as a kid, when mom would buy back fried chicken, mashed potatoes and the awesome waffles with ice-cream home for lunch. maybe i was a pretty spoiled kid. lesse, i'd probably need to have been in primary school if i were to count back the number of years its been since i've eaten their food.

probably about fourteen years.

imagine my excitement when my friends decided we'd actually have dinner there before one of our poker sessions.



Stepping into Waffletown is really a slice of nostalgia. the outlet at Bukit Timah Shopping Centre has since moved to Balmoral Plaza, and it's the only existing outlet left in Singapore. i think most of the crew is still the original staff, and amidst all the fast food outlets in Singapore modernising themselves, Waffletown preserves a lot of that 80's charm



the ambiance is suitably the way it's always been, and it really is a taste of things to come. i was excited to hear how my friends were going re-live a fragment of their past





it may not look like much, but these burgers make no qualms about not being gourmet, and just good plain'ol junk food for the soul



don't you wish you were the one sinking your teeth into this?



i opted for the three piece fried chicken meal.



this was absolute joy. it tasted more local than KFC, and probably reminiscent of the fried chicken you find at western food stalls in hawker centres. but it was so oily, crispy and it just added to the whole flavour of a real 80's diner. the coleslaw and mashed potatoes were just the way i remembered them as well.

and that's the thing that's so amazing about Waffletown, after 14 years, the food tastes EXACTLY the same! it all dawned onto me as i plunged into my first bite of the waffle ala mode blueberry with vanilla ice cream.



the same blueberry sauce, the same waffle batter, and the same non-gourmet ice cream that they've been using for years! consistent good food, despite the changing world around us, Waffletown is in a stasis lock, and a welcome haven for those who remember it.

i've got nothing against gourmet ice cream like Haggan Daaz, Ben & Jerrys, Island Creamery and the multitude of other similar chains, but there's a certain confidence about an establishment that doesn't see a need to compete with other market forces, and change their look, style or food.

it's just the way it's been, and just the way we like it -)

Is this the best Singapore has to offer?

i refer to a quote found here. this quote was left behind after someone blogged about his terrible experience waiting in a queue for hours at Singapore's recent Air Show

i'll quote verbatim on my blog:

"You are as stupid and as naive as they come. Let me tell you, this is where Chinese nationals are clever. Remember last time there was a budda tooth relic exhibition at expo? One china woman cunningly act blur and cut the queue from position number approx 1000 to within the first 10 persons at the main entrance. If you are not able to milk the situation for what it’s worth and turn it to your advantage, then you cannot blame anyone but yourself. The system is lousy, but you are not street smart enough to take advantage. Many people today actually just went in without tickets because they took advantage of the situation when security did not check the tickets. You are a loser, so don’t complain if you can’t beat those who cut Q."

i hope this is just a minority of Singaporeans, no, human beings who think this way. i'm no saint, but this "me first" attitude is exactly why we find society such a harsh, and unforgiving place to exist.

if you have any sense of decency, courtesy, values.. it gets scorned upon as being stupid, or we only have ourselves to blame. what results from this sort of thinking?

selfishness, unethical business practices, impatience, rudeness, apathy, hopelessness..

really, i can't think of anything positive about this behavior, and if you happen to be reading this, pay it forward, the world's a shitty place sometimes, but let's give a helping hand where we can.

Road Trip to KL

so, some of you might have been wondering what i've been keeping up to all this time. as per my last post, i did go up to KL to watch explosions in the sky. read on for our escapades!

if you feel inclined, you can check my pictures out on facebook or flickr

but i'll leave it to rudi, dewi and dhany to tell you about what you missed out on.



and here's a taste of the music that i recorded from the gig. i don't know what the track is called, but it becomes glorious at 0:27




dhany having a go at the batting cages. i love the hitting of softballs into the sunset


rudi at the end of a full swing


i love this shot of dewi right before she hits a cracker!


fake x-process yet again


quintessential group walking shot, in the heart of puduraya i reckon?


thanks for listening.

The Fine Fate of Steph Song: Acting in jPod

every now and then, something interesting pops into your life when you least expect it, especially when it's something you know not many people know about either.

for those of you who remember steph song, she charmed many hearts as an FHM cover girl, and later on acted in a few TCS programmes. and then she disappeared off the face of Singaporean TV.

I guess she went back to Canada where she's originally from (i read FHM articles, not just ogle).. and to prove that i read, i've been reading douglas coupland's jPod. and being from the internet generation, i google jPod to find out more about it, only to find a series was being made. i youtubed "jPod" and found this trailer:



which i then found out that steph song was acting as the jPod character, Bree, a sassy motion capture artist who tries to sleep with every man she meets (or so it says in her character's bio in the novel)


i mean, can you blame us? or her?

so anyway, my point is that: jPod is one of the better things i've been reading, and now i've just downloaded the first episode and it's currently into it's fourth episode. and this is another reason why the Internet is a valuable tool for the discerning consumer of his media. jPod, you are a geek's dream book, and now.. slightly funny drama series based on the same novel. coupland would be proud, he is after all the series's executive producer.

Stasis 10: there is good music in Singapore

firstly, you can read some reviews of Stasis 10 by following these links here:

Review by Kevin Matthews

Review by Visa

All in all, Stasis 10 was a pretty killer gig for Leeson. It was great playing to a crowd that was there to listen to local music, and the reception they gave was very encouraging and made me glad i'm a part of this scene. We played all our songs the way we wanted to play, and i think we pulled off one of the best versions of The Simple Life.. wonder if anyone has a recording of our set.

check out pictures by Ivanified here and snaps by Perplexed here.

and to close this post, check this awesome video of my friends, Mathilda and the Motherfunkees, and tell me they do not deserve to make it big and be up there with some of the music greats internationally as well?

conversations with someone not on facebook

masamania says:
actually t3 on teevee yesterday wasnt so bad
masamania says:
now if anyone asks me why im not on facebook
masamania says:
i can conveniently say
masamania says:
so skynet cannot find me
brian. Optijesus Prime says:
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAA
masamania says:
i am the future leader of human resistance
brian. Optijesus Prime says:
freakhog awesome

how i like my women (and maybe get a higher ping.sg rating)

women can be said to be a lost art. i'll let my muse, anna karina speak in my stead..

roller girl


ne dis rien

how embedding a Leeson video evolved my videoblogging experience

i used to be a production student, and so i was trained to shoot video in the highest possible format, and also be technical in the way i approached my cinematography, production, what format to shoot on, what format to export to and all the things that go in between. i shan't say i'm very good, but i guess i wasn't too shabby either.

anyway, fast forward a year, i find myself in the PR industry as opposed to production, and i found myself still holding on to those processes. i'd want to edit with professional software like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premeire Pro, but getting my hand on the software and hardware was an issue altogether, i just wasn't earning enough to equip myself with a semi-professional studio.

enter: my epiphany that social media has flourished because processes were simpler.

my ethos now, to borrow Masamune Shirow's Appleseed quote: functional simplicity, structural complexity

i want technology that works. at the push of a button, processes are automated, a product of high quality through the automation process, and then perhaps an improvement of a process when customised by the human touch.

anyway, my point is this, after i decided on this, i ditched trying to get my HD camcorder to work with my offline editing programme, and got a video recording of my band's performance through my point-and-shoot digital camera, which records a compressed .avi file. after which, i edited in Windows Movie Maker, exporting to a .wmv format, and then using a video converter, i converted it into a .mp4 format. Which is now ready to be hosted on youtube.


Absolute Beginners

and the good that came out of this, is that my video converter is my new maxim in wonderful ones and zeros. it converts most formats (.flv .avi .mpg) into .mp4 which seems to be the language of ipods, mobile phones, mobile devices, portable media players and video hosting sites such as youtube.

the complexity of social media, powered by a single "convert now!" button on this beautiful piece of software. i now enjoy videos on the go through my ipod, from stuff i've downloaded off the net. next up, figuring out how video podcasting works in syncing with my ipod, and perhaps starting my own vodcast! we'll see..

damn straight it's about the content! and LEESON IS BACK!!!

i should be sleeping. i should have blogged over the past week. i should have done a lot of things.

well, as much as this blog has been a faithful companion to me through the years, it's going to fizzle out if i don't feed it content.

in fact, that's the same thing for almost every other blog, keeping blogging, don't stop, search for your readers and they will come searching for you.

well, it's been pretty busy on my side of the world, i have a press conference tomorrow morning, and i've just finished promoting my band's gig on facebook, and now i'll start with this post

for those of you not on facebook, check out the official leeson website here and sign up for the the mailing list.

we also have a myspace page where we showcase our music. they're all old songs, but they should hook you in to gasp more for our new material. leeson myspace if you're on myspace, do add us as your contact too!

the story so far: Leeson's last gig as a full band was almost two years ago. we're back and are going to concentrate on putting out music that will have your feet undoubtedly shuffling and your hands flailing maniacally. that's usually a good thing

our big comeback show is at the ever awesome Home Club at 1030pm this Friday, 19th October

i couldn't think of a better place than Home, where the drinks are good, the company is better and the live music and DJs are the best! my brightest star in local music, styra spins with Joe Ng for BEAT! every friday night, and its such an honour that they'll be spinning after us!

so come down! tell all your friends! put it on your blogs, Facebooks, Twitters and in your forums!

with all our love,

vote for Theory. Is The Reason!

okay, i really have to support one of the coolest people i know. virtually.

haha, i actually got to know of kevin lim's blog, theory is the reason by sheer luck while surfing ping.sg, but the quality of his content always kept bringing me back to his blog. i must admit, communications theory has always intrigued me, and maybe that's why i'm also currently doing what i'm doing, engaging people on the online space.

i was initially inspired to blog by two bloggers, yongfook and styra back in 2003, but lately it's been kevin that really inspires me to always think of the future of communications and what possibilities lie across the horizon.

so i must admit that i was stoked when i read this off his blog. a blogging scholarship! support kevin's work! vote now!