.: ShaolinTiger - Kung-Fu Geekery :.

We Ate This was syndicated in The Sunday Star Metro section to be specific, after only 2 posts!

More over there:

We Ate This Featured in the Sunday Star - Metro

And updated with one of my favourite places to grab some Italian food.

Italiannies - Italian Food Pasta, Pizza and Salads - The Curve

Well it's not the first time in my paper, so far I've been in The Star, NST and Malay Mail and all result in the same thing, no spikes, no big surge, no extra traffic.

Especially if the article is one from In-Tech, it definitely leads to no extra traffic.

I got a bigger peak from talking about mamakspecial.com.

I wonder why...?

Do all In-Tech readers already read my blog?

Do readers of The Star not use the Internet?

Does no one actually read In-Tech?

I know if you get in a paper in the UK like The Guardian or Daily Mail, you'll easily get an extra 100,000 unique hits over 2-3 days.

Even if it's just the smallest mention.

If you haven't seen the article it's here:

Blogging and big bucks

Not sure why they chose that picture of me either, but all in all it's a good article and my face is HUGE in the paper.

Inviting all bloggers to the AllMalaysian Bloggers Project, on behalf of a friend I'd like to extend an invite to all Malaysian Bloggers to join this project.

AllMalaysian Bloggers Project

The AllMalaysian Bloggers Project (AMBP) is an undertaking of the folks behind the AllMalaysia.info website, all of whom believe strongly in the freedom of speech. The objective of this little project is to gather ALL Malaysian blogs under one umbrella site from which (potential) readers can find the various blogs by theme.

Basically, it's a blog directory. No big deal, there're plenty of them around, except this is probably the first time a rather large (albeit local) online media org is hosting it.

Hosting a directory is just one part of the whole thing, of course - although it is the core of their plans. It's also expected that they will host blog gatherings, blogathons, and even possibly organise workshops (on writing, presentation, etc) for bloggers.

So what's in it for us? Very simple - bloggers form a very powerful viral marketing voice. We hope to be able harness this voice to market/promote our services/products. It's not compulsory, of course. There're NO compulsions in doing anything for us - you're even free to criticise us to your heart's content!

Most importantly, they ensure that privacy will be maintained, your personal information will not be disclosed to third parties without your written consent. So no need to worry that any snooping politician and his men will be poking around The Star's database trying to grab data - Privacy Policy

Finally, as a sweetener to invite blogger participation, they are holding a contest sponsored by Genting, where 20 shortlisted bloggers are voted by web visitors, with the winner winning some cool prizes! (Voters get to win too!)

What do I think of it? I don't know, it's too soon to say. But I support any local initiatives that may bring the blogosphere up a notch or two.

Smart people don't seem to read the local newspapers, nor any businessmen worth their salt (The Edge anyone?). As they are all pretty much biased, washed out tabloid trash.

Smart people read news online (BBC, CNN, Malaysiakini, Jeff Ooi) or read foreign papers, even those papers such as The Times of India are much better.

It seems people prefer to pay more for some decent news rather than the local papers which are only good for wrapping tomorrows nasi lemak in.

Even in the US the traditional media has shifted its paradigm toward the online medium, advertisers are pulling out of the printed papers and spending more heavily on the websites (Below the Line).

Look at the Washington Post for example, it's an amazing site with a blog, trackbacks and integrated Technorati features.

According to a new forecast by Forrester Research, as much as 8 percent of all advertising spending will shift online by the year 2010. Much of this shift will come at the expense of tradional media channels such as magazines, direct mail and newspapers.

The problem with local media in my opinion is:

1) It's sloppy, there are spelling mistakes, factual mistakes, research mistakes and so on, it's basic journalism 101, please check your facts before publishing

2) It's heavily censored, only what the government wants to come out comes out (seems to be the current government too, or whichever party that paper has an alliance to), sometimes feels a little like China

3) The content is poor, often syndicated and unoriginal, where is the real journalism, the hard talk, the cutting edge stories?

4) The specialist sections are just as bad, In-tech? Anyone even know which days it comes out? Anyone use it for anything other than eating their dinner on?

The television is just as bad, magazines are pretty poor too but seem to be getting better at least.

People just don't care about newspapers here, stats show more than half of people that read newspapers don't actually buy them, they just read them in the office because they are there. It's a vicious circle, people don't care, people don't read, papers stay crappy, biased and with low circulations.

For example I got a URL in a national newspapers and saw a massive surge in hits of 0, yeah 0, no extra hits, no one read the paper and went online. Well if they did, it was less than 100 people, so I didn't notice the difference.

If you did that in UK you'd get at least 100,000 hits over a week as BryanBoy saw when he was published in the UK Telegraph.

Sadly I don't know what we can do to fix it, but well some of us are working on something to bring the new media and traditional media closer together, at least it's a step in the right direction. It just seems to be taking forever to get started.

Bah I don't even want to start on the quality of the television shows, argh! Comedy? You call that comedy? I call it 4 decades outdated slapstick that only appeals to people with IQs of 60 or below.