Our government isn't a tweet whore (Entry 9)

We all know by now that social media is so pervasive that anyone who knows how to make proper use of it puts themselves at a great advantage.The effect of social media is too great to ignore. Take, for example, the McDonald's curry sauce debacle.

McDonald's recently had a shortage of curry sauce. We now know that it's because they were coming in with a new shipment of curry sauce with new packaging and all (and some people say it tastes funny), and there was a delay in the shipment. However, during this period, hundreds of people were outraged with McDonald's because they thought that McDonald's had discontinued curry sauce like they did with mayonnaise.

This was a guess at best, because McDonald's never released any official statement on the matter because they didn't think it was a big deal. Temporary shortage. So what? The only thing that people had to base their information from is when they went to Mackers and the lady at the counter says "No more curry sauce." They probably meant "We are out of curry sauce" but people probably heard "We no longer supply curry sauce". This rumor spread like wildfire on the social media networks, and before you knew it, a significant part of the population was lit up over Macs not having curry sauce anymore. Only a few days later did McDonald's respond on their Facebook page explaining the temporary shortage, but the damage had already been done.

On to my main point. We all know by now that social media is an important tool in any company ot organization's PR efforts. Why, then, does the government still insist on not utilizing Twitter properly? Anybody who follows the PAP on Twitter knows that there's almost no point in following the PAP on Twitter anymore. Their Twitter account is practically dead!

Let me compare two shots, one of the Democrats' Twitter page, the other of the PAP's Twitter:

The Democrats

The PAP

Can people not see the disparaging difference in usage between the two? It only seems that the PAP tweets during election or National Day Rallies, basically only during times when they want the people to listen to them. That shouldn't be the case. they should be up to date and connected all the time, for when the people want to hear from them. The Democrats tweet all the time, as they understand how they can use these social media networks to further disseminate their information effectively, not only by tweeting it, but by their followers retweeting them.

In terms of usefulness, it's obvious that not a lot of people find the PAP Twitter the least bit useful, considering the 5,124 followers as of this post, as compared to the blogger Xiaxue, who has 84,571 followers. The government needs to step up and recognize that here lies a very crucial tool that they are letting go to waste. They could be utilizing this and become more credible and connected in the eyes of the people.

The Prime Minister recently pledged for a new PAP. Let's hope this includes being more well-connected and in touch with the population.

A global digital media network (Entry 8)

That there's the tagline of DigitalJournal.com, and this is a screenshot of the site. Digital Journal is one of the many citizen journalism sites out there, but to me it seems to be one of the better and more professional ones out there.

One thing about them that sets them apart from most other citizen journalism sites is that they QC their writers. In order to be approved to contribute to the site, you have to submit a "resume" article to show that you're a writer of quality before you're allowed to contribute regularly. This serves to control the quality of articles featured and increases the credibility of the website in general. Non-approved users can still contribute, but only via uploading photos and blogging. When it comes to articles, only quality ones are featured.

At first, I thought that this defeated the purpose of citizen journalism, since not all people that want to contribute are allowed to. Then again, it's not about the sheer number of contributors, but how pervasive and spread out they are, to ensure that there is wide and instant coverage. How normal news agents and wire services work is that they get information mainly from PR agencies, other news sources or on-the-ground reporters. With citizen journalism, these on-the-ground reporters are literally everywhere. There's always news coming from the ground.

Another thing that's cool about Digital Journal is that they pay people who contribute, based on how popular or successful their reports. They mainly draw revenue from ads, and they're willing to share that revenue with contributors. This, I suppose, will get more people to contribute, which would make the website more rich and useful, which would increase traffic and increase ad revenue, so that makes sense.

The only thing that I'm bummed about is that there isn't that much about Singapore-based news. Admittedly, we're a 'small market', and so we would need a dedicated local citizen journalism site. Something better than STOMP please. STOMP is now just a place for people to bitch about ugly behavior.

Is the doctor the mad scientist too? (Entry 7)

For years, I've been hearing this rumor that I've never been able to confirm, and I'm sure that many people have heard of this too. The reason why Norton is regarded as the safest antivirus software, and the reason why it defends against just about any virus, trojan or other assorted malware out there, is because...

Symantec writes its own viruses to which only they have the cure for, and releases them into the Internet. This means that other antivirus programs, like MacAfee, AVG and that crappy one that Jackie Chan advertises for, either cannot find solutions for these viruses or will take a long time to do so. This gives Symantec a great advantage over the rest. *insert gasp here*

Holy shit, right? Well if this were true, then Symantec could be charged with a number of Internet crimes in a number of countries, and probably even in the International Court of Justice. Then again, if this were true I reckon that Wikileaks would've exposed this by now. Or maybe they're too bust exposing corrupt governments and child porn peddlers to care. After all, these so called viruses don't seem to be causing a problem, are they?

Well, if you're using Norton along with almost all of the online world, then of course it wouldn't be a problem. But a substantial amount of computer users use free versions of MacAfee and AVG, so those people will be vulnerable. Then again, if you're too cheap to buy a computer but not antivirus software, like buying a car but not maintaining it, then maybe you deserve to catch an Internet virus.

But I digress. After looking online a bit, I realized that this claim is also extended to MacAfee and basically any company that creates antivirus software, all in an effort to boost sales for their product and to remind people how relevant they are. However, of course the PR departments of these antivirus companies are going to deny releasing anything malicious online with the intention to mess with people and their data. Also, we have to consider the fact that for the many years that people have been using antivirus, there haven't been any major lawsuits against antivirus companies for purposely releaving malicious software on the Interwebs (not that I've heard of, anyway). That argument may not be entirely valid as would be argumentum ad ignorantiam (saying something is false because there is no evidence of it being true). So we're going to have to rely on the words of Internet analysts, and by that I mean some fat, jobless guy in his mother's basement who just spends all day coasting the CNET forum. I kid.

Anyway, I found a post that might help. Essentially, this guy says that yes, antivirus companies do release viruses, in two scenarios:

1. Some viruses pose as free antivirus programs in order to entice people who believe that they're smarter than Norton users because they've found a free alternative. Well, good luck to these people who think they can get a free pass. As the local saying goes, not every day is Sunday.

2. Norton, MacAfee and gang, the established antivirus programs, do release minor viruses for research purposes, in order to figure out how viruses spread. These viruses wouldn't be debilitating, and would be able to be easily deleted by any decent antivirus software. It's the same thing as these companies employing white hat hackers to crack their system and find exploits so they can fix them and improve.

However, whether or not these companies actually release malicious programs to justify their own existence, we may never know. For now.

Wikileaks has some homework to finish.