Thursday, February 10, 2011

Oh Fasha, Please Reply My Tweet...Not

Sorry & Thank You

I apologize for the long absence from this blog. I'm sure by now readers are quite used to (1) the once a month sporadic blog posts (2) me apologizing for the once a month blog posts.
Then again, I can't be sure because I don't think I've got enough regular readers to get used to anything I do on this blog. Bah. So if this is your first time, I'd like to say...GET A LIFE.

Overwhelmed With Twitter


I did promise last year that I'd blog again more regularly. Unfortunately, at the same time, I installed the Twitter app on my BlackBerry. Lo and behold, Twitter has overtaken blogging or even FB status as my No.1 venting outlet. When you let go of steam (ie. Tweet) every time you take a break, or shit in the toilet, you kinda lose the momentum to come up with well-formed arguments, relying instead on short 140-characters barbs to voice my thoughts on everything and anything. Guess I'm as good at keeping my promises as the next politician.

I'm only following around 50 people, yet I feel overwhelmed reading their tweets. It could occupy your entire hour if you're not careful and prone to clicking on all the interesting links your friends RT. If you don't know what RT is, it's Rukun Tetangga. Yes, my friends are mostly part of them. That's why they seldom get robbed. Because their neighborhood's RT. Go figure.

My final comment on Twitter is this: Why is there a need to follow everyone and everything if your close friends are already busy RT interesting things from these other people? And yes, my Twitter account is protected (by RT, for the dimwits) but if my friends are reading this, feel free to request (@jimiecheng). Yeap. I don't approve all. You can ask my wife.

Celebrities & Twitter

While on the subject of Twitter, I can't help but note that a lot of Malaysian celebrities are into Twitter faster than they were with Facebook Page/Fans. It's amazing to see the number of followers (yes, Twitter is a cult) they garner. Lisa Surihani (@lisasurihani) has about 80,000 fans. Fasha Sandha (@fashasandha1) has about 64k.

But funny things happen when celebrities get into arguments with their followers on Twitter, like Fasha Sandha and recently Ifa Raziah. I don't follow either of them but I do read some entertainment sites so it comes as a surprise that some of our artists are dumb enough to forget that people follow them BECAUSE they're celebrities. Celebrities live by a different code. I'm sorry but that's reality. If you can't accept it, then tough luck. If you can be proud and RT when people praise you, then you sure as hell should be ready when people diss you online.

The End of Facebook?

Far from me to be a sage and predict that, but the reality is that social network has changed a lot in the past few years. Every time one company gets too big, it'll be shot down into pieces. Just ask Friendster and MySpace (Apparently MySpace still has a lot of leftover Malaysians wanting to hook up for easy sex or lesbian company).

My point is that society has no affinity to an Internet brand to engender loyalty. Simply because the social network is fluid, and constantly rising/falling based on society's (hence the name social network) somewhat irrational pattern of behavior couple with technological advances that could make one mode of networking instantly outdated. The only pure dot-com brand that has truly survived since I FIRST started surfing is Yahoo, and even they have seen their dominance totally shattered by Google.

And now Google is being slowly overtaken by Facebook as the default page on people's browser. This see-saw battle for Internet dominance will continue into the near future. Which is why it amazes me that Facebook can be valued at USD 40 billion - for another Internet company that depends ON ADVERTISING for the bulk of its revenue! Anyway, I know things will go belly-up when Mark Zuckerberg is valued more than Steve Jobs (a guy who actually produces something to sell).

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