Social Media for the Social Good

Never again can it be said that social media doesn’t help.

Parents these days are complaining about their children’s addiction to Facebook, about how their daughter checks her Twitter account during the family dinner, about how their son keeps playing Mafia Wars and updating his status.

It helps in a lot of ways, but not the ways you may think.

For regular people like me and you reading this, social media helps us by letting us go online so we can talk to our friends, catch up on Facebook, using socialmention.com to research about a particular brand for a school project or even get that new bag we’ve always wanted through a social media friend.

But for the people of Concern Worldwide, social media is the newest tool to help them raise money to help children worldwide through education.

Concern Worldwide is just an example of the many non-profit organizations that are slowly opening up and reaching out to social media in an effort to spread the word about social change and social good.

To put things in a local aspect, social media, while still considered the newest fashion of technology, has already started doing some good in Singapore.

On March 2010, Twestival SG was held at Brewerkz Singapore, along Clarke Quay. It was an independent event contributing to the efforts of Concern Worldwide. Spreading the message via various social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Twtvite as well as having their own Twestival FM, it was a successful example of how people could come together through the tools they use everyday.

The event raised more than 7,000SGD and that’s not even including the sponsorship figures.

But thing is, when I say social media, anybody’s first thoughts would go to “Facebook” or maybe even “Twitter”. But what about “YouTube”?

YouTube is the most popular video-sharing community online, boasting statistics of 24 hours of video content being uploaded literally every single minute and with a daily viewership of 2 billion. The most interesting thing about YouTube, however, is it’s community. A large portion of what makes any campaign successful (whether for the social good or not) is how viral it is. And YouTube is excellent for going viral.

Recently in September, StickAid2010 happened. StickAid is a live 24-hour non-stop variety show hosted by 2 of the UK’s most popular YouTube personalities, Myles Dyer and Charlie McDonnell in an effort to raise money and donate it to UNICEF. Not only did they have a YouTube account for it, they had a Twitter account, Facebook page, Twibbon add-on as well as a justgiving.com page where anyone could donate online.

Myles and Charlie, being internet phenomenons, naturally began tweeting about the event, before those tweets started going around, gaining more interest from those who don’t even have a YouTube account and haven’t heard about these two people before.

Apart from just talking about StickAid and how people could help by donating money, Myles & Charlie, as with any other program trying to raise money for a good cause, did some wacky stuff during the 24-hour live show to encourage people to tune in and donate. This includes Myles smashing raw eggs with his forehead, Myles & Charlie exchanging clothes on air, scotch-taping their good friend Alex Day on the wall and even re-enacting a scene from Twilight.

The pair initially decided on a goal of raising £10,000 for UNICEF, but after 24 non-stop hours, they ended successfully with a record of £19,592.57. 96% more than their original target.

I’m not saying that social media is the only way to go about doing social good. There are the usual, traditional ways of donating and raising funds, but while everyone’s hopping onto the social media bandwagon, why not NGO’s and non-profit organizations too?

The aim of these organizations is to raise money, but to raise money, you need to reach out to people and tell them of your plight and most importantly, make them see how important a role they play in helping out those in need.

Social media is a fantastic tool for reaching out to people on a more personal scale, and that is why I believe that no longer can it be said that social media doesn’t help.

So, what happened to the funds raised by Twestival?

of The Minority Report & Why We Should Care

A week ago, the entire class watched The Minority Report for New Communications Technology (NCT).

Needless to say, it was an interesting movie. I wouldn’t call it enjoyable because I’m not one for these kinds of movies (read: the kind of movies that involve Tom Cruise) but it was alright.

The Minority Report revolves around Tom Cruise’s character, who is the captain of the Precrime precinct, a subdivision which possesses the technology and authority of preventing a murder before it happens. The system is propelled by three “Pre-cogs”; genetically-altered beings that have the ability to predict murders, and from their “visions”, Precrime is able to arrest the supposed murderer.

Sometime later, Tom Cruise’s character becomes a potential perpetrator as predicted by the “Pre-cogs” (try saying that really fast) and thus begins the race against time to prove his innocence.

But we’re not here to give you a movie review, we’re here to analyze the type of technology that was used in the movie.

The first type of technology we see is Augmented Reality, when Tom Cruise puts on a pair of cool black gloves and whips out a screen from thin air and starts organising information left and right, dropping them into places, shoving them to the back or enlarging certain parts.

Lo and behold – this kind of technology already exists!

Augmented Reality is slowly becoming a trend, and is already being utilised – to play games, card tricks, even to help a company advertise their latest car. While it is still in the beginning stages, we can definitely expect it to change the way we communicate in the near future.

This is another type of technology in the movie –

Through scanning his eyes, the ads are able to know his name and apply that into that advertisements, making it more personal. This is a good tactic for those who have businesses, because it is always easier to sell something if you can make it relate to the consumer.

On the other hand, I believe this technology crosses the boundary of privacy because sure, they might only know your names, but sooner or later the people behind these ads are going to want more than that, like what your marital status is, what you do for a living, how much your salary is so that they can better personalize the ad according to the person and I’m not ready to divulge my personal information randomly. The way I see it, technology is technology but there are certain boundaries that need to be respected, especially if it involves privacy and personal information.

Not shockingly, technology that mirrors the scene from the above video is already being developed by IBM, and you can find more information about it here.

“Engineers in Japan have already developed a billboard that is capable of identifying a shopper’s age and gender as they walk past to offer them products that are more accurately suited to them.

The signs, developed by Japanese electronics company NEC, use basic facial recognition software and cameras to determine if someone is male or female and their rough age range before showing an advert that matches their demographic.”

I think it’s safe to say that it wouldn’t be a surprise if we see the technology in Minority Report in our daily lives sooner rather than later.

of Contact Lenses, Your BFF & Your Dream Trip.

Contact lenses, your bff (best friend forever) and your dream trip.

What do these three things have in common? I mean, okay fine, most of you would probably have already thought about going on your dream trip with your bff, that’s a given. Despite the fact that, y’know, their feet stink and they’re cranky in the morning and probably still owe you that $5 from that one time you went to Starbucks. But what’s contact lenses got to do with anything? I’ll tell you.

Seeing The World with CIBA Vision!

Betcha didn’t see that one coming! (You see what I did there, with the seeing and – nevermind.) Seeing the World with CIBA Vision is a competition that’s exclusively for tertiary students or anyone above the age of 17 to join in and stand to win not only your dream trip with your best friend, but also contact lenses!

Here’s what you gotta do:

1. Check out their FaceBook account and be sure to press ‘Like’

2. Once you’ve done that, head over to their official website and tell them all about your plans to travel the world with your bff – stuff like where in the world you wanna go, why you wanna bring your bff and what you guys plan to do there!

3. If your entry gets chosen, you stand to not only win that dream trip but also contact lenses! Be sure to “promote” yourself and your bff as much as possible – share the links on FaceBook, tweet to people and blog about it! The more you have your friends’ support, the likelier you are to win! So don’t forget to get typing and start spreading the word!

Now, I know what you’re thinking – that’s it? That’s all I have to do? And I gotta say: yup. Logging in to ‘Like’ the page and telling them about your dream holiday would probably take you 15 minutes at the max, and just like that you’ve put yourself into the draw. For those who are interested in the kind of contact lenses you can have – check out this and this!

Good luck!

Of thoughts & themes & a Great Perhaps.

I’m currently reading Looking for Alaska, a Printz award-winning novel by John Green (whom you can find on YouTube here with his brother Hank) and it’s proving to be such a worthwhile read.

The storyline goes like this: Miles (or Pudge as he is come to be known as) Halter quits high school and decides to enroll into a boarding school in Alabama to seek a “Great Perhaps” – a craving to lead a more eventful life than what he already has at home. He is obsessed with the dying words of famous people (a habit encouraged by the countless biographies of famous people his dad owns) and soon plunges into a world of trouble and friendship with The Colonel and Takumi, not to mention falling in love with the mysteriously vivacious Alaska Young.

I’m not gonna give away the rest of the plot because I’m still halfway through it, but this is just one of those books where you have the ‘I-wanna-finish-this-quick-so-I-know-the-ending-but-I-don’t-wanna-finish-it-so-fast-because-it’s-so-good-and-I-want-to-prolong-it’ feeling.

It’s been a while since I’ve read a book that’s been able to capture my attention like this one. The previous book that comes to mind is I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak, which shares the theme of “a Great Perhaps.”

I Am The Messenger is about a 19-year-old taxi driver Ed Kennedy who starts receiving anonymous playing cards coupled with codes in his mailbox. Without him meaning to, he falls into a habit of obeying these playing cards, because they finally provide him with a direction in his life, something to drive him to live, because so far, he doesn’t actually have a legit reason to live, other than for his rank dog.

I guess I always fall a little bit in love with books that possess the theme of a Greater Calling, a “something’s waiting for you out there if you can just get out and grab it with your bare hands” kinda feeling.

I adore the idea that life isn’t just about what we’re living with right now. We always dream of things bigger and better than what we have in our lives, because if our dreams are made up of things that we already possess, then we’re either the most content people in our lives or we’re really boring.

That’s why a dream is called a dream. You yearn for it to be true, work your ass off for it to be your reality. In the end, what you strive for is for your dream to turn into your reality, so that it can finally be the Life you want and not the one life has already chosen for you.

So what’s your Great Perhaps?

Watch this space!

Looks like this blog will be revived again for my New Comm Technologies (NCT) blog posts!

Watch this space! :)

Proper update coming soon.

But for now…

I hope Argentina is ready to face this fierce beast on Saturday.

Sieg nach Deutschland \o/

Twestival @ SG

Details for Twestival @ SG are up! Go here for more info!

It’s an annual event so if you can’t make this year’s, there’s always next year! I think the Twestival’s global focus, that is, to raise funds for educational purposes, is not only inspiring, but a perfect reason to attend the festival.

Twestival @ SG’s on the 25th, and BarCamp on the 27th! BarCamp registration can be found here :)

We’re already starting to gather our manpower and planning BarCamp, so hope to see you there! (as well as the Twestival!)

^^

Chatroulette 101 – ‘Next’-ing and How It Affected Me

Hey everyone! There’s been some hype about ChatRoulette as of late, so I figured, why not conduct a small experiment? ^^

ChatRoulette is, first and foremost, a chat messenger. It’s like Omegle, but with visuals. It’s a no-frills web application: all you have to do is fire up the website, click ‘New Game’ and you’re in! One of the simplest ways to talk to people definitely, but also puts you at a risk.

ChatRoulette, once you fire up the website, will ask you for permission to gain access from your webcam, so that your partner on the other end can see you too. Most people have no qualms about revealing their faces, but for those of you who value your privacy that much, it’s advisable to disable it. Then again, the likelihood of you talking to anyone will exponentially decrease, because no one likes to talk to someone they can’t see.

That’s the main point of the ChatRoulette, after all.

Once you fire it up, allow webcam access, you’re good to go! Don’t like the person you’re talking to? No worries! Just click the ‘Next’ button at the top left hand corner and you’ll be assigned to another random stranger for more chats ^^

I tried it the first few times and got rather confused because a) OH MY GOD THE AMOUNT OF R-21 STUFF THIS WEBSITE ENTAILS and b) people kept ‘Next’-ing me for reasons unknown to me at that time.

(I will not elaborate on the R-21 stuff. Go to the website if you’re so curious. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, because brain and eye bleach may be needed.)

So, I figured, I should probably get down to why people kept ‘Next’-ing me. It was easy enough to guess that it was because of how I looked. Not gonna lie, it hurt when people laughed in my face before ‘Next’-ing me the first few times, but I found myself doing the same thing once I got used to it. I shall talk about how this messes with your head later x)

So! I conducted a simple experiment spread over 2 days. I went online and made sure I met 50 people per day before logging off. Unfortunately, this has gotten my friends to think that I am obsessed with the website. I am not. Really.

Day One: I looked like a hobo. I didn’t brush my hair and wore a ratty old t-shirt and went online. 34 people ‘Next’-ed me upon visuals. 11 people looked at their camera, waved hi, and then ‘Next’-ed me. 5 people talked to me.

I got to talk to Mickey Mouse, too.

Day Two: I did my hair properly, wore a proper shirt and made sure the lighting was good. 21 people ‘Next’-ed me upon visuals, 9 people looked at their camera, waved hi and then ‘Next’-ed me. 20 people talked to me.

See?

This is the part where it messes with my head.

Superficiality

This website is a perfect example of how the human race is substantially superficial. People won’t talk to you unless you’re easy on the eyes, and doesn’t that mess you up a bit? It might be a known fact but coming to this website and experiencing it for myself, I had an internal struggle with that the first few times I used it.

I blew it off, the first few times when people ‘Next’-ed me, then I started asking myself what’s wrong with me and then realised it. Not to worry though because I didn’t take it that seriously and was able to laugh it off after that. You need to have a good sense of humour when it comes to this website, lemme tell ya.

I’m sure there are other impacts of this site, but I’m not looking forward to facing 50 more people on the website in the name of research xD

And like any other chat-based website, THERE ARE CRAZIES. Pictures are all SFW, don’t worry.

Met a guy with a foot fetish.

Met a stoner. Who was stoned. While talking to me. One of the happiest people I’ve met on the site though, heh.

This guy had his hoodie zipped up to his forehead, played Rick Astley in the background and bounced around with a heart sign. I GOT RICKROLL’D ON CHATROULETTE.

LOOK MA, I MET SPIDEY!

Aaaaand, that’s it! Are you guys still going to log on and check it out? Are you too afraid? Have you been on and how has it affected you? Tell me in the comments :)

In which I care too much about this whole Jack Neo debacle.

I think the things that amuse me the most about this entire fiasco is:

a. His wife knew about the affair and didn’t do anything about it.
b. His wife, Jack Neo himself and his mistress went to Crowne Plaza Hotel at Changi Airport for a meeting after the affair was revealed.

Really. The latter had me laughing for quite some time. They had the time, to drive from Jack Neo’s Pasir Ris house to the airport to go to a restaurant to think things through.

And now it’s been said that he’s got 11 more ladies to add to his raunchy list. Wow.

11 for you Jack Neo CoCo, you go Jack Neo CoCo.

DI Post #11 – Trip to National Museum!

I figured having more than 10 entries for DI couldn’t hurt *shrugs*

Few days back we made a trip down to the National Museum of Singapore. Been a long time since I’ve been there so this was quite a trip :) We didn’t take the normal guided tours (thank God), but Ms Nga arranged for a guided tour based on the building’s architecture for us, which was really insightful.

Our guide was really entertaining but half of the time she was talking, I just wanted to grab her and plonk her down into a seat and ask her if she’s okay. She kept shaking and I was really scared for her but the minute she walked, ZOOOOOM. She walks super fast for an old lady xD It was hard for us to keep up -.-”

Have some pictures!

The museum was officially opened by a British Governor originally but according to our guide, when they did open it, they found out that nothing was inside because the stuff they arranged for hadn’t made it there yet and were still being stored somewhere else xD The museum also went through a revamp (they included the annexe) which meant a 3 and a half year hiatus for them.
Thanks to Ain for posing :)

The pillars of the entrance hall. Notice the beautiful Corinthian pillars.

The pillars pull your eyes to follow up and look at this beautiful inside view of the Dome ^^

A clear view of the arches that line up along the entrance. It’s being held together by the key stone, which is the stone in the middle. (I’ll talk about this a little bit later)

Doesn’t look like Singapore, huh?

Our guide brought us to this area and told a scary story which I shan’t repeat right now because it’s nearly midnight and I’m a scaredy cat.

An Ionic pillar.

The annexe is 6m apart from the original building, so it’s linked together by a small bridge they constructed. On top of the new bridge are these…weird but enchanting lamps that will swing (albeit dangerous-lookingly) in random patterns every 15 minutes.

See?

I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

The ceiling’s not that interesting, I know, but the panels used to create this entire building had to take Singapore’s hot climate into consideration, seeing as how I hardly think they want their visitors to feel like they’re in an oven when they’re in there. This just goes to show there’s a lot more to think about when it comes to architecture, as well as design.

Staircase at the annexe. Completely different architecture from the original building. Very modern.

There was also this huge screen that displayed random images from time to time.

Skeleton of a whale that used to hang in the museum. Our guide was rather attached to it for some reason *shrugs*

We also went to a bag exhibit! It displayed how regular shopping bags had progressed from many years ago, suiting to the styles and needs of the current shoppers and consumers. Thanks to Sharon for posing!

I think one of the things you’ll notice is that many of the bags are paper bags, and are not meant to carry heavy things like how we do today.

Islamic Restaurant! I loved their Briyani <3

OVALTINE <33

I took a picture of this because it’s not everyday you get FREE tickets from Sistic. I’m lame, I know.

We also went to the Quest For Immortality exhibit they were having but pictures for that will be uploaded into a different entry!

Side note: I caught Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief with my friends right after this trip, and it was a bonus to spot all the different kinds of Greek/Roman architecture in the movie! Heaps of Corinthian, Doric and Ionic pillars xD

Aaaaaand, that’s it! :D