Facebook Chat: First Impressions

Looks like most of us got Facebook Chat today. I see people like Brian on it (and Twittering about it from @litford), Kean Hean and Estee the Geek Goddess as well.

Here’s a little screen shot of how it looks (click for larger image):

I was excited to get on Facebook chat because the number of people on Facebook means it’s a great way to stay connected and get to know some people who’re your “Facebook friends” a little better.

One thing sorely missing is the ability to add multiple people into a conversation. I feel it’s a shame that I can see everyone who’s online right now on the right hand side, but can’t add two or more people into the same chat room so we can catch up together.

If that function gets rolled out soon, I can definitely see my time on Facebook increasing dramatically.

If you want to find me on Facebook, search for Daryl Tay. I’m the one from SMU (obviously!)

Quick Thoughts On The IDC Panel Discussion, And I Want Yours Too.

Haven’t had time to really get online after the IDC Conference, because of a night out with my two closest friends Rubin and Reuben with some grown up talk (jobs and marriage). But I really wanted to squeeze out a real quick post on today’s IDC Panel discussion and give you a sense of what I’ll be talking about over the next couple of days.

First, a big thank you to @litford, @byzantin3 and @ridz84 for watching the live webcast and sending me nice messages on Twitter. I’m sorry I didn’t reply because I switched off Twitter on my phone for the day. Didn’t want to be distracted while on stage. Again, thank you for taking 45 minutes off your busy lives to hear what I had to say!

Second, an even bigger thank you to Geek Goddess Estee for coming down in person to support me there and for passing me a book on New Media. Can’t wait to read it!

I’m going to mention @litford twice because he has a recap of the topics and questions and answers on his blog as well as posting the live feed. If you missed it, check out the discussion over there.

Next, I have 5 points that I’m going to blog about in detail over the next few days, but I want to throw them out here first.

1) Advertising and blogging.

Again, Brian has talked about this in his thoughts from the panel. I was listening to a podcast on the way home and coincidentally it serves as a great case study for how to do advertising/sponsorship in the blogosphere. It’s a North American example, but I think it applies pretty well.

2) On Gen Y not reading the newspapers.

MediaSlut as always has started a very good conversation about how this may be worrying. I was told from Debbie that @ridz84 agreed on the live chat with me that most of us don’t read the papers, and before I respond to MediaSlut, I’d like to take a straw poll just to give an indication if I am guilty of a gross generalisation, or if there’s some truth to it.

3) Trust.

I think this came up as a common underlying thread between all the panelists. How important is trust between you and a blogger? Does it even matter? Or is it just another one of the many, many fragmented voices online and there’s no differentiation?

4) Relationships.

I had the great fortune of meeting two brilliant people from HP who I could share my huge enthusiasm for Snapfish with as well as talk about the HP Mini-Note a little bit. Very smart people who definitely realise the value of engaging in this space and meeting them in person convinced me that they’re not just doing it because someone at corporate or their PR company said to do so. From talking to them I could tell that they truly believed it was a worthwhile endeavor and that’s the reason why they are doing it.

At the same time I had a couple of crappy experiences today too which I’m not sure I want to talk about in detail, but at the very least I will mention vaguely.

5) Corporate Interest.

I am genuinely, genuinely curious about whether companies are interested in social media/new media/web2.0/whatever as an option right now, (which is already too late). Or if they think this is going to be another fad that will pass through in a year. The reason why I ask this is because I think one big issue, corporate blogging, was brought up today, but it didn’t seem to generate much discussion after the panel. The other thing which is a smaller issue, was that we ended the panel on a note about microblogging, specifically Twitter. I’m sure companies in the audience could benefit from such a quick-action response mechanism, but again I’m not sure that was a conversation that was going on after the panel.

I just want to say I don’t mention #5 because I think they should be talking to me about these issues. I don’t claim to be the best person for them to talk to because after all, I’m still a student observing all of this from the comfort of the university. But is this conversation happening at all?

All in all, today was really great for me. I would’ve liked to have heard some questions from the floor and hear some of the real questions and concerns that companies have when thinking about engaging in this new space that is changing so rapidly, but unfortunately we didn’t have enough time. Was probably good that they timed us though because I think we could’ve gone on till tomorrow with no problem at all.

Well those are my quick thoughts on today’s discussion. If you have any please feel free to chime at the comments below, or if you like, drop me an email at uniquefrequency[AT]gmail[DOT]com.

Blogger Outreach: Happening Slowly But Surely

Over the last two weeks I’ve been reading about Sheylara’s Xbox gaming preview and then heard about it on the Tech65 podcast today, and last night I read about the HP Mini-note PC blogger preview from Michael, Vanessa, Bernard and Estee (among many others).

My first thoughts? “Damn I need to buy an Xbox 360 just to play The Force Unleashed”, and “Damn that HP Mini-note PC would be sweet to carry while I travel”.

More serious thoughts: I think it’s great that companies like Microsoft and HP would reach out to our local bloggers in the blogosphere. And on top of that, I think it’s great that they didn’t just throw out a wide net and see who gets caught in it, but they really made an effort to engage in targeted outreach to reach the people who would be excited about their products.

Today I also met up with people from The Digital Movement for an informal discussion with a couple of execs from Google to talk a little about feedback and collaboration.

I think this is definitely signaling change in Singapore. No longer are these big companies thinking: We will just produce the product and people will just buy them. They recognise that there is a conversation taking place whether they like it or not, whether they want to take part in it or not.

And frankly, I feel they ignore this conversation at their peril.

I’m sure there are people who’re going to say “Well, how many of these bloggers who saw the HP Mini-note PC will actually buy it? Or how many people who read a blog entry on it will buy it? What’s my conversion rate?” in other words: How is this going to affect my bottom line?

I think from a very practical point of view, that has to be a consideration. But is it the only consideration? So many management case studies point to hotels who give employees a certain amount of money to make right customer complaints as a way of generating goodwill. Is this truly any different?

If the result of this blogger outreach means that the next time someone is searching for the HP Mini-note PC as part of research about whether or not to buy it, and the top few results on Google are these pages and reviews and feedback from the bloggers who attended the outreach, I think the cost of holding that blogger outreach has paid for itself.

I have a lot of other thoughts on the whole blogger outreach strategy and who it works for and stuff like that, but I’d really like to hear your thoughts on the issue. So… comment away!

Blogs I’m Subscribed To: March (Local Edition)

As promised:

Sheylara, who helped me with the Social Media Breakfast: Singapore video.

Jasmine from social media class. (Dammit I haven’t tried Entrecard yet)

Geek Goddess who is actually pretty entertaining.

Lionel from media relations class (also a regular Twitter user)

And finally my four favourite local blogs right now: Kevin, Priscilla, Vanessa and Brian all for being simultaneously entertaining and informative at the same time. Not easy for a blog to do.

I’d encourage you to subscribe to their rss feeds if you like them, and if you like the stuff I blog about, why not subscribe too?