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Showing posts from September, 2006

P*****Click Media

Just came across this P*****Click Media that purports to assist in getting businesses getting top listed in Yahoo. Curious about it, I ventured to its website to find out more about how it does it and what it calls Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is nothing more than paying Yahoo to display the listings as Sponsored Results. It does not make sense to pay good money to be listed and companies that offer to help you do that is not truly value adding to your business. You can pay Yahoo but do you want to pay Google and MSN too to list your business? Paying to get listed is nowhere as good as being displayed in organic search results. Getting your business listed in organic search results costs you close to nothing and gives the best returns. All that is necessary is that you have to engage in some Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for your website. Properly done, you gain that advantage of being listed when the relevant keywords are entered at absolutely no cost! Furthermore, it is highly li

Adsense Blooper

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Ever since I started on Google's Adsense, I have been paying a little more attention to the ads that are being served on sites that have Adsense. The logic that goes on behind Adsense appears to be very powerful, serving up the advertisements that are tailored to the content of the sites. However, Adsense sometimes does have its own slipups... Look at the screen capture I made of one specific ad unit... Looks like eBay is going to be sued for human trafficking? Adsense logic does need a little more tuning to avoid making these bloopers again...

Singtel CEO - Chua Sock Koong

Singtel has announced that Ms Chua Sock Koong has been selected as Group CEO and the appointment is expected to take effect on 1 April 2007. As widely expected, the CEO position has been filled via an internal promotion. Hopefully she can be as good as Mr Lee Hsien Yang had been and gain Singtel to greater heights, while retaining our domestic telco rates competitive of course ;-)

Steph Song FHM aka Stephanie Song on YouTube

This post is really not in line with my usual postings but looking at this video on YouTube really makes me consider a career switch :-P

EZ-Link Online Enquiry vs PaSoRi

Just logged on to EZ-Link website and found accidentally noticed the following message Please note this service will be discontinued from 1st October 2006. To view your card’s past 20 transaction records and enjoy many more online services just buy a Sony PaSoRi Reader/Writer and log on to EZ-Online EZ-Link is going to discontinue its Online Enquiry from 1st Oct so that consumers are forced to spend money on this PaSoRi device where "convenience fee for top-ups via EZ-Online will be waived for a limited time". I am not sure what is the usage level of this online service but I believe it is an approach being taken by EZ-Link to increase its revenue. By disabling a free online service and forcing people to make the hardware investment, waiving fees initially, EZ-Link has the additional avenue for revenue once this EZ-Online thing catches on. Furthermore, people who are not willing to pay for what should have been a free service will no longer be able to easily get information

Civil Society Groups

Singapore is hosting the IMF and World Bank meeting 2006 and there has been much hooha about the strict rules Singapore has set on protesting. Singaporeans know that locally, we have a lot of complain kings and complain queens who incessantly complain about everything that they do not like. It seems to appear that the civil service groups will fit in nicely with Singaporeans' complaining culture. Why is it that we only hear about the civil service groups who are complaining about not being able to protest? Is there nothing the World Bank and IMF that is doing right that some civil service groups are willing to rally for? World Bank and IMF cannot be all that bad right?

Motivational Talks - Helpful or Farce?

Motivational speakers are featured today earning big bucks - from $2,000 to $15,000 a day - to teach people how to lead better lives. But are they truly worth the money? A well known speaker, who started off as an underachieving adolescent who became a self made millionaire, has frequently advertisements in the papers for his training courses actually hails from a rich family. While claiming everyone is gifted, he had an advantage not having to worry about supporting the family should he fail when going for broke in his ventures. A bankrupted business woman's business failed because of mis-management but today that failure is attributed to SARS instead of her poor business sense. She has not shown any ability to keep a business afloat but puts a positive spin that experience is the best teacher in order to market herself as a motivational speaker. Then there is this "adventurer" who has frequently indulged in largely senseless "adventures" who is also a motivati

Giving Up Seats on Public Transport

Just saw the news that Japan has implemented baby badges for commuters but how successful is such a scheme when the badges are so small and people can conveniently opt to "miss" seeing them being displayed... Maybe the SMRT can consider making an adaptation of the scheme using RFID. SMRT currently has seats in the cabins earmarked for the needy such as disabled, pregnant and elderly but it is common to find that these seats are not given up to the needy when necessary. By adapting the baby badges idea, SMRT can possibly install some sort of beeper or lights notification mechanism at these seats. Needy commuter badges with RFID can be distributed and when commuters with these tags come within range of these seats, the corresponding notification mechanism will be activated and remind whoever is currently utilising those seats to offer their seats. This may be a little off from the gracious society we will like to achieve but it definitely will be a helpful step especially when