On most occasions when I give out my business card to people I meet, I get a look of intrigue from them. Sometimes because of my rather unpronounceable Chinese name (don't ask), but mostly because I have two titles: "Senior Associate" and "New Media Specialist".

The first is a regular PR consultant's title that denotes my "rank" within the organisation, while the other is represents an additional expertise. In this case, an expert on the new/social media. Just in case you're wondering, this was not a title I gave myself.

I dare not claim to be Mr know-it-all about the social media, but I am passionate about the space and dare say I know enough about it for Hill & Knowlton to position me this way in front of our clients.

This brings me to a theory I conceptualised years back that I often call "Plus 1". It came to me when I happened to see a doctor, that I used to visit when I was a kid, on the evening news. He's a general practitioner (GP) based in a neighbourhood that's now too far away for me to visit. What is interesting is that he's taken it upon himself to be an "expert" in family issues and family health so much so that when the caption on the news program was displayed, it said "Family health expert" instead of general practitioner as it should. As a marketing move, I thought that was amazing. First he got to be the one interviewed, and secondly he's now publicly seen as an expert. That's got to be something that will drive business. So now he's doctor + 1, while the rest of the GPs are just doctors.

This got me thinking about myself (a journalist at the time), how I could position myself to be better. It doesn't mean needing two professional expertise like doctor + engineer, but just that little Plus 1 to give you that edge above the rest. It could be the smallest hobby or passion such as photography or organising parties. What I tried for was journalist + technologist because most of the other technology journalists I met could write, but most of them couldn't install Linux, for example, to save their lives. I could do that among other geeky things, so I figured that was my advantage: a real technology journalist.

What I believe is that everyone has that addition skill/passion. Everyone has a Plus 1 that sets them apart from the rest, it's just a matter of making it known and acting on it.

Earlier this week I was talking to Melvin my good friend and co-founder of Scoopasia, and he brought up a similar topic asking me why we in Singapore are so afraid to call ourselves "entrepreneurs" or "business men". It is somehow in our culture to not call ourselves what we're not when in fact we are.

A couple of weeks back I met an Australian architect (designs houses) who also designed a concept computer for a competition. That was such an awesome thing to do, positioning and proving that he was architect + 1. So how does this help his profession? Immediately I think of smart homes where design of integrated computing systems and buildings are critical.

The examples I could give are endless, but enough already from me. I'd like to encourage you to think about that Plus 1 I know you have and begin to apply it to your profession. I'm not a HR expert, but if you want ideas on marketing and positioning your Plus 1, I'd love to hear from you.

This is a follow up from a previous post where Technorati "lost" my blog. I since went on to unclaim it in hopes of claiming it again and starting over. That never happened... till today.

I've been on their forum, sent in trouble tickets, and today I got the ability to claim my blog back!

I'm glad they're actually putting good effort into the customer service and support, and I hope the rest who share the same problem will it theirs fixed too.

The bunch of us Media Socialists have discussed and felt it was a good initiative to start a wiki-based Singapore social media directory with the aim of consolidating an organic resource of everyone's (in Singapore) social media platforms. Off the main page of the wiki:

This wiki aims to be a Directory to Social Media Users in Singapore (not strictly limited to Singaporeans only), managed by the Community. It is a "Directory" containing links to individuals and groups using "social media platforms". It should not feature pages for individuals and/ or their bios (those who wish to do so can create their own blogs/ social media of choice, and place a link in this Wiki).

My listing looks like this:

Benjamin Koe - The eOK .network
"A technologist disguised as a PR consultant"
[PR, Technology, Marketing in Asia]

We're just starting out here, so there's not much in it but we hope you'll add yours too and together build a useful resource.

Join the fun at http://sgsocialmediadir.wikispaces.com

Ivan has a more detailed write up on his blog.

For the last year or so, I've had the conviction that the TV was going to be the next big thing in media, so today I was glad to read Steve Rubel sharing the same sentiment:

The TV is undergoing a renaissance. In five year's time, 50% of what the most coveted audiences watch on their sets will come off the Internet. However, it goes beyond video content. Television will run widgets and other connected software applications. These will be different from, yet complementary to what runs on a PC desktop or webtop. That's just the beginning.

I totally agree, and like to offer more reason why this is so.

In addition to Steve's argument that online content is streaming into the TV, I'd like to suggest we watch the set top box and IPTV space as well. Wireless technology vendors such as Motorola as well as networking giant Cisco are acquiring and pushing out TV set top boxes that do just about everything from digital video storage to Internet connectivity.

Game console makers are doing the same, most notably Sony's PlayStation 3 with WiFi and the upcoming virtual world Home.

I believe these vendors are preparing for the tipping point where metropolitan or national next-gen networks become common place. Governments are already trying to figure out how to cater for fibre-to-the-premise and over wide-area wireless broadband.

I also heard rumours that SingTel may be trying out IPTV with over the air signals and wireless CPEs. Mmm... interesting.

My guess is also that set top boxes will increasingly become storage centers for personal media such as photographs, videos, and music. Today, the less savvy still struggle with hooking up their digital cameras to their PCs with driver installations they can only pray will work. One day all will be unified in a media center that's not a PC, but a TV.

This may make me actually watch some TV. =)

(Motorola and Cisco are Hill & Knowlton clients)

How many publications (including blogs) do you religiously follow? I have realised that my reading and dedication to whole publications has dwindled due to the increasing nature of ad hoc chatter.

Ben's recent timeline of subscriptions:
Q1 2006: Wired, Business 2.0, digg, TechCrunch, Micro Persuasion
Q2 2006: Wired, Business 2.0, TechCrunch, Micro Persuasion
Q3 2006: Business 2.0, TechCrunch, Micro Persuasion
Q4 2006: Business 2.0, TechCrunch
Q1 2007: TechCrunch, Micro Persuasion
Today: None

What I've come to realise is if the news is important enough and relevant enough, someone around you will inevitably talk about it, blog about it, Twitter it, and even email it to you. And as a result, I have also found that I can get away with not knowing first hand news, because someone will mention it and I then subsequently use what I've heard as my understanding of that news in other conversations.

It may also surprise you that I don't at all pick up the newspaper to read (except occasionally at work when required) nor do I watch TV. I do however watch movies at cinemas and on DVD. My supposed "lack of news" doesn't actually bother me, in fact I feel that I lack nothing save a tiny bit of timeliness.

The vast amount of messages I get on Twitter and the absurd number of blogs in my Google Reader, not to mention the other feeds in other apps, make it nearly impossible to follow any single publication, even a simple blog, and the ad hoc "come what may" nature ends up being the norm.

I find I end up reading and hearing more, but with no intention of following though a whole publication.

If you're wondering, I completely replaced Mac OS X (Tiger) with Ubuntu 6.10 PPC because the poor iBook was crawling. I couldn't get any work done on it and it was just gathering dust. Now its blazing fast and is finally useful.

Also if you're wondering, the days of Linux install nightmares are over. Installing and updating Ubuntu PPC was easier than installing OS X on the same machine.

Update: There is a hack for AirPort on the iBook that works after all.Once again my iBook is free! (Thanks Asgeir)

Yesterday was a full day at Nexus 2007, a web 2.0 / entrepreneur / technology conference organised by The Digital movement. I must say it was one of the better organised events I've been to even though it was put together by volunteers who are mostly university students.

Although the speaker line up included Nathan Torkington (O'Reilly) and Cory Ondrejka (Linden Labs), I learned the most from a fellow Singaporean: the blogger known as ClappingTrees.

This happened in a panel discussion hosted by Kevin which included Kathy Teo (CNET Asia), Jennifer Lewis (STOMP), James Seng (Tomorrow.SG). As the discussions went on about crowdsourcing the media, I began to wonder why the distributed nature of free content creation was embraced, but gatekeeping was left to a bunch of editors... Then came ClappingTrees to the mic and spoke the words that were on my mind.

The question (paraphrased) was basically: In a world of social gatekeeping (think digg), why do the above crowdsourcing media qualify as gatekeepers of content that's not even theirs?

These media are clearly playing it the old school way wishing to set the agenda for their readers through "representative" gatekeeping. Even sprouting terms such as "loser-generated content". I thought this was really odd considering the next session of the conference discusses Chris Anderson's The Long Tail concept. Sure there would be crap out there, but maybe that "crap" has one or two fans? Why cut short the long tail with old school editorial gatekeeping?

To be fair, Tomorrow.SG did contemplate going digg-style and there is also Ping.sg (which I totally support), but it hasn't got critical mass yet.

After the session, I did mention to Kevin that it's not only the digg-style that could work here but StumbleUpon which achieves the similar social filtering with a less competitive interface. There are plenty of methods out there and possibly more that have not been thought of yet, but for now, I'm siding with ClappingTrees and believe if we're going to aggregate the social media, let's have social gatekeeping too.

Other obvious observations and occurrences:

• WiFi at conferences with more than 100 people never work. Had to use GPRS (can't wait for my HSDPA phone!)
  
• Live chat on projector screens during the conference is an awesome idea, but the Twitter feeds and Flickr set wasn't displayed in the auditorium, I guess it's hard to get 3 big screens, ya?
  
• Ivan suggested uploading porn and tagging it "nexus2007" on Flickr.
  
• Everytime I saw Coleman, he was eating.
  

The RSS focused start up xFruits has just introduced two very interesting products:

1. VocalFruits, a stand alone service that does text-to-speech for your RSS feeds.
2. Mail-to-RSS, which takes your emails and parses them as RSS feeds.

Mail-to-RSS is rather novel, but Gmail already does this so no big deal if you're a Gmail user, but it would be great for any other POP account. I wonder if it works with Exchange servers?

The one I found more interesting was VocalFruits. I haven't got a chance to listen to the quality, but I can just imagine the possibilities this service can bring. Imagine the visually impaired now can "read" blogs, Podcasting for those who can't stand listening to their voices recorded, and blurring the line between blogging and podcasting.

Now all we need is something to automatically translate RSS feeds. =)

Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) Singapore is trying to get the online locals to vote for their favourite TV commercial to be used for their 30th anniversary marketing campaign.

It looks as if they've taken a page from the social media especially YouTube. They appear to have the right goal in mind with getting as much social participation as they can in hopes of a viral campaign. But I am very suspect that the UGC is staged, but I can't confirm that right now.

KFC has put together 9 commercials with amateur videos of "customers" putting up a song and dance. I must say it is a genuine effort, and some of these may end up on YouTube: the exact people they want to target.

I don't want to judge this campaign too early, but it looks to me like it's going to miss the social media and viral effect and just end up with a couple of votes from a YouTube generation.

I just got back from Siam Reap, Cambodia this morning. Went on a short visit to the ancient temples of Angkor Wat and the many others in the same area. But since this blog isn't about my travels, let me just quickly note a few Internet "trends" I noticed while walking the tourist town of Siam Reap:

1. Internet access is a service for tourists, like a post office of sorts. I didn't see a single local using a computer.
2. Intellectual property is nothing! The symbol for Internet is the Microsoft IE logo. I noticed one with Google and Yahoo too. No Apple?
3. With all this buzz about Twitter, that could possibly be a good leap frog entry point for these folks since cellular coverage is good, even out at the temples.

If you really want to see what I did there, here's the Flickr set.