Interesting Bites

I was having a casual discussion with my bosses on internet advertising and my boss spoke about the explosion of social networking sites. I totally agree with him that social networking websites are very popular these days - with everyone I know of having at least a Friendster, Facebook or Hi5 account. As for me, I have only an inactive Facebook account which I am still trying to grasp and understand the functionalities.

When I was first introduced to Facebook, I was pretty reluctant to sign up but because of the coaxing of some of my friends, I signed up. After that, I never really bothered to do much about it.

I was more interested in business networking rather than on a personal level, so I started joining Linked In. It was during a seminar I attended in MDec, conducted by one Craig Rispin that I got to know about the beauty of Linked In. You can get introduced to professionals in fields that you would like to network in - and because you get introduced, its just like a business network except that its all online.

If you are also in Linked In, do connect with me :-

As for the other social networking sites, I’m still very keen to explore and create one … when I find some time to do so.

I’ve been very upbeat about online advertisement and I have proposed quite a few online advertising options to my company.  In October, we engaged an online rich media expert company to manage our trial online campaign on The Star Online and Sin Chew Jit Poh Online.  It cost slightly above RM5,000 and it was fully managed by the company (which I do not want to mention their name).  They dissapointed us as they did a horrible graphic work, did not understand our line of business and direction and even missed one of the datelines!  Worst of it all - they could not produce any results for us - not even one lead at the end of the day!  It was near impossible to justify spending over 5 grand for no returns.  In marketing, that spells disaster.  After a lenghty negotiation, the company agreed to run another campaign for us FOC - but the damage was severe… the entire management has lost trust in online advertising.

I then brought up Advertlets, and managed to convince them to try out a campaign for something half of what we initially spent for the first campaign.  As our in-house designer prepared our graphics, I made sure that it was a very ‘light’ topic as I wanted to maximize the responses.  Now into the 2nd week, I can say that it is doing pretty well for a trial campaign.  I now need to tweak the campaign a little to generate more interest.  As for the management, it will be much easier to get them to approve larger campaigns in future.  I’ve also started negotiating with Nuffnang and next will be Google Adwords.

A lot of exciting things to come!

That’s one nice thing about having a family member who is working with magazine-related industry - you get tons of tons of it FREE!  And, I am even starting to throw away the current month’s magazines as they are taking up a lot of precious space in my little apartment. 

I am thinking whether is there any possibility I could set up a small online magazine store to sell these unwanted items.  Its going to be like a 2nd hand unwanted items store, but it will be only all those magazines that I’ve read and would like to dispose of.  They are usually brand new when I sell them to the newspaper uncle, as we only read it once.

Hmm…. now that’s a new idea that I could work on.  :)  Gonna put on my thinking cap now!

A few months ago, an ex-colleague of mine was planning for her wedding.  She had this idea that she would use a website for her guest to RSVP (for the wedding dinner).  Since its a tradition that even those who cannot attend have to give an angpow (money gift), she would integrate the website to local banks - so, if someone click on “I Cannot Make It”, the guest will be directed to another page where you can immediately key in the angpow amount you want to give, and the bank will do the works. 

I think it is a good idea, probably would be better if refined.  This is what I think an ideal online wedding planner should have :-

• Guest List
  Couple can key in the guest list and generate labels for them.  Each label has a code, which is the default coode for each guest.  Guest will use this code to respond to the invitation.
• RSVP Form
  Invited guest can state their attendance in this form, whereby if you are not attending, you will be given an option to give an angpow, which will then be linked to the local banks & Paypal.  Having Paypal means you can also use major credit cards to give angpow!
• Checklist
  The couple can state that all invitations has to be RSVP by a specific date, and after that date, the RSVP form will be closed.  There will be a checklist of total guest attending, those not attending & the amount of angpow and those who did not respond.  So, with this checklist, the couple can start calling those who did not respond via the RSVP form.

Just a thought… anyone interested to pick up this idea?

Asia’s first no frills hotels - Tune Hotels in Kuala Lumpur.

Tony Fernandes is coming up with another first and probably will be a big hit again! 

Anyone who has put up in hotels before will know that if your budget is anything below RM100, you’d probably end up with dirty bed linens, mouldy bathrooms and showers that doesn’t work.  Now, with Tune Hotels, you can enjoy a nice comfy bed (5 star Tune Bed by King Koil, as stated in their website), power shower, nicely done up room - all from RM9.99! 

What’s the deal?

• Nice comfy bed
  5 star Tune Bed by King Koil and clean bedlinens
• Choice of Single / Double Bed
  You cannot add beds
• Power shower
  Comes with hot water in all bathrooms
• Ceiling Fan
  There is air-conditioner in each room, but with a pay-per-use concept
• Daily Housekeeping

There are no mini bar, bath towels, soap, shower cream, wardrobe - but hey, its a no-frills concept remember?  You can make your booking online very easily & you can easily check out the rates (rates might differ according to peak season) and then decide if its right for you. 

Coming to Kuala Lumpur?  Stay in Tune Hotels!

I’m turning 30 this year.

Hubby reminded me that it is necessary to have a yearly medical check-up to ensure that there is nothing wrong “inside”.  I went over to the nearest BP Lab today to enquire about the blood, urine & cancer marker test that they have.  To my astonishment, it is very very expensive to do a full check-up these days. 

A regular package that consist of the usual blood & urine test is RM130.  On top of that, they recommend a machine test (something like relax ECG, upper abdomen scan, bone density test….etc..etc) which was RM120.  Cancer markers are RM20 each and there are 6 altogether.  So, for a first timer like me, they are recommending the whole works of it - a whopping RM370!!!  I thought about it and decided to go for the Regular Blood & Urine test (RM130) and the 6 cancer markers (RM120), so my total bill will be RM250 - which is still pricey. 

If these lab test are more affordable, I believe the average & lower income earners would make it an effort to go for yearly medical check-up.  I wonder if anyone would be interested to set up a low-cost laboratory? Probably, something like AirAsia when they first set it up, when flying was only for the higher income earners.