Sleeping like a Chipster chip? Here’s how…

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to be a potato chip? To have your skin rub against metallic-plastic foil wrapper? Well, I think I might have just found out.

It all began with the challenge from NuffNang Malaysia to member bloggers to post the 1) picture with the most Chipster packs in it 2) Quirkiest post 3) Best pajamas ever.

I realised I could probably not afford to buy enough Chipster packs to challenge anyone in that category, or be quirky enough to win the Wii…. so…. last category left – make the best darn pajamas there is.

After spying what the competition had to offer, it made natural sense to do what they didn’t do (see, there’s a strategy to this) and do it better. So, I spied and I spied and then… *aha* “Potato Chips have to sleep too, don’t they?”

So I went to the store and bought ablout 16 Chipster Large packs. Couldn’t find one single flavour, so had to go mix and match.

Went home and started doing:

First step was to cut out all the Chipster packs VERY CAREFULLY and keep the foil wrapper intact. Then, once all the foils had been cut:

You have to dump all the Chipsters into TupperWares. Wife and I actually tried to makan the Chipsters on the spot, and failed. You can’t imagine the amount of Chipsters 16 packets hold. Lydia says: “I think can keep till next Chinese New Year.” On to the next step:

Each Chipster foil had to be scrubbed clean. Otherwise, it’ll be super oily and definitely not something you’d want to soak your skin in. *Health Tip* I read somewhere that too much direct contact with salt is bad for your skin. Once it’s clean, you can move on to:

Putting the pieces together: this step requires a plan. Which I did. In my head. Serious! Anyway, this step by step is starting to put me to sleep so I guess I’ll jump right to the end. Ta- Da!

Some glam pics of myself posing:

Front – Who’s the REAL Chipster man now?

Back – I am too sexy, too sexy for my…

The Sleep Test

After spending the night in Chipster Wrappers, like a potato chip, this test subject can confirm that Chipsters-made pajamas are indeed snug and warm, best for climates. I guess that’s how those potato chips are kept so crispy!

Last, but not least:

My wife, Lydia, would like to thank Chipster for organising this contest as she now has 16 bags to go through. She has one request, though, as her eyes light up when I mention the NuffNang Chipster Pajama Party (“Will there be lot’s of Chipster to eat?”) – can she tag along for the party? Here’s her pic, on my blog:

Please say yes!

Coming Soon…

Guess what? Check back tomorrow night.

When virtual and real collide…

There was a story recently on the BBC news about scientists who predict that computers the size of blood-cells will be here by 2033 leading to “fully immersive virtual realities.” Lead inventor Ray Kurzweil predicted “Virtual will compete with reality.”

That, Mr. Kurzweil, is already happening in Malaysia. Check out Jeff Ooi’s post:

On Page A14 of Guang Ming Daily (Feb 27, evening edition), my opponent whipped all bloggers in a broad sweep by stating that “bloggers hide behind computers and live in a virtual world”.

I laughed out loud at this comment.

There are more people than just bloggers who “live in a virtual world.” Today, virtual is real.

Many, many, many, people live in the immersive virtual world of emails, websites, blogs and forum. You talk to people you don’t know IRL (in real life) who have funny names like “CyborgBoy” or “Haxxergurl.” You chat with colleagues from halfway across the world whom you’ve never met except on Instant Messaging and email.

You make use of this virtual world to share, communicate, transmit, discuss and interact. But you know that this virtual world is just a conduit, because unless you fancy talking to a bot, these are still real people you are interacting with.

The reason why social networks like Facebook and MySpace are so popular is in fact, because you are really connecting and making friends with real, breathing, living people.

Sure, there are bloggers or virtual personalities who prefer to remain anonymous, but there are just as many who prefer to merge their real-world identity with their online presence. Jeff Ooi is a prime example – his mobile number is listed on his blog for goodness sake. I wouldn’t call that hiding.

The truth of the matter is, especially for the industry I work in, the virtual and the real are colliding. We don’t need to wait for another 25 years and for micro-computers to be injected into our blood. Identities are unifying.

Remember the first time you signed up for a Hotmail account? Then your first Geocities account? If you’re like me, you used different sign-in names. In stark contrast, people are now using the same identity again and again online – I’m davidlian on most sites and forums I participate in – and with more and more relevance to their original identities.

Movements like the OpenID initiative are going to unify our identities even more creating a stronger association with our “real-world” alter egoes. You going to need to be authentic online as much as you’re authentic offline.

That’s what I’d want my MP to be.

EDIT* Nigelsia had a great pic to illustrate this post, stolen shamelessly off someone’s Flickr:

Elections Brand Plagiarism

There’s a sub-culture in urban states (like the US and even here in Kuala Lumpur) called “Brand Plagiarism or Logo Culture” where you take the logo of a known brand and turn it into your own message.

Some brand-guardians think this is flattery, others are mortified by such butchery of their brands.

I’m just wondering how Celcom is feeling right now:

Was driving past this yesterday night. They even used the bird symbol! LoL!

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Worth Surfing: malaysiavotes.com

For all of you interested in following the Malaysian Elections through an independent news site that’s not biased to either side, you really should check out www.malaysiavotes.com.

The people running this site were journalists from The Edge and an ex-colleague of mine (who happened to be their colleagues in The Edge) has vouched for them. Personally, I’ve worked with at least one of them in the past (part of my job) and they are credible, intelligent and decent people so I’d vouch for them too.

Hooray for Online Journalism!

Social Networks shrinking – what are people using them for anyway?

Just a little while ago, the cross-section of the technology and marketing world was abuzz (and probably still is) with the idea of social networking and the possibilities to reach consumers in new ways with products and services.

The first chinks in the armour are starting to appear. Yesterday, the Guardian published a story citing Nielsen figures on a decline of 5% in UK Facebook users. Similarly, MySpace also saw a 5% drop.

Now, 5% doesn’t seem to be too much but if you put it against the context of all the furore that’s been going on around Facebook applications, forced invites and the (belated) measures Facebook are taking to respond, the message is starkingly clear – it’s time for social networks to clean up their act, literally.

People don’t want to receive spam from hundreds of different applications just because they have a couple of hundred friends who have vastly different interests and perhaps a few shared ones.

Facebook was appealing because it could let friends connect in groups of shared interests of play games they both had an interest in playing. It started to get painful when there were too many friends each trying to “recruit” you into playing their game. (I get about 12 vampire bites a day).

So, the final word in Social Networking (at least for now) seems to be “Niche.” Personally, I think Facebook has the potential to be precisely that by allowing people of similar interests (Groups) to connect with one another whilst making it simple to ignore and clear the clutter of the myriad of other stuff that doesn’t interest them.

I’ve asked a couple of friends about what they do on Facebook and while initially Vampires and Zombies were all the rage, the excitement has died down and it’s become a really practical communication tool for these people. For most of them, it’s about sharing pictures, posting comments, dropping personal messages and being a part of a group with similar interests. And of course, the odd app or two should still be there.

Niche doesn’t have to mean a social network that’s just built around one purpose (look at the very successful LinkedIn). Instead, I think it’s going to mean more and more the sort of flexible network that will let you carve your own space and find your own niche without having to drown in mass messaging.

Facebook’s clean up act could mean just that.

Just installed: Firefox Beta 3

I’m a sucker for Beta software. Just can’t resist installing the latest and (unready?) versions of software I use. So I went ahead and installed FireFox 3 Beta 3 yesterday. and it looks like this:

First impressions: Visually, there doesn’t seem to be much difference in the way FireFox 3 looks and feels compared to FireFox 2. That said, FireFox has always looked fine. What’s more important is that Beta 3 seems stable and hasn’t crashed on me yet even though I had like seventeen different windows and tabs open!

Function-wise, I like some of the new ’smart’ functions FireFox 3 incorporates (thus far, there may be more):

Smart Bookmarks

Auto-bookmarking isn’t really a new feature – FireFox 2 had it and virtually every browser built since the Netscape era has a handy tool called ‘History’ that’ll let you re-visit your previously visited pages. Smart Bookmarking takes this a step further, letting your auto-bookmarks be organised by the “most visited pages” and even tags. Tags works just like online social bookmarking services like del.icio.us, but allows you to attach tags to your bookmarks offline so you can easily search for previously bookmarked resources on any given topic. Real useful for doing research!

Revised Download feature

The biggest improvement for me here is the inclusion of a search function to help you locate those pesky files you’ve downloaded from the internet. If you do a lot of downloading, and have trouble finding files after that, this is just the right tonic for you.

These are the two major functions, for now that make FireFox 3 look like an evolutionary internet browser as opposed to a revolutionary one. Personally, I had hoped for more Web 2.0 functionality (incorporating OpenID?) like Flock but, I guess you could argue that just as much could be done with the extensions supported by FireFox.

Malaysia’s very own Internet Elections portal

So, what sort of change does the Internet bring to elections? Would it affect Malaysia? We’ll know in a couple of weeks, I guess.

There was a really good article from ReadWriteWeb I read that characterised how the Internet would change the nature of electoral campaigning and allow candidates to get closer, more directly engaged, with their audiences. Case in point:

• Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and the other US candidates all have Facebook profiles & groups.
• YouTube partnered CNN to host presidential debates on its Video Service.
• At least Barack Obama & Hillary Clinton have blogs. Many more campaign workers have blogs.

But that’s not all. Just run a Yahoo! search and you’ll find countless forums, blogs and sites that support discussion and debate on the US Elections.

Well, the good news is, us Malaysians aren’t too far behind. Beyond the political bloggers / watchers in our country, I’d like to point out that leading Bahasa Melayu daily Harian Metro has launched its own elections site entitled, aptly, “PilihanRaya 2008.”

Harian Metro’s Pilihan Raya 2008 site.

What really surprises me with this site is the functionality built in. You can not only get the latest news and information for the General Elections, but also vote in the on-going poll, or add your own comment.

Comments are on the left side of the screen.

I cannot stress how important a factor it is to allow people to comment. What’s an election if we don’t allow people to debate? The simple ability to comment makes this platform more than just a web-site. It’d be interesting to see the discussions (and… uh… moderation?) that’ll go on on the site.

This is pretty ground-breaking stuff, especially coming from an established newspaper. I’m personally wondering if we’ll see a similar site from NST the next couple of days to cover off the English-speaking audience.

Meanwhile, kudos to Harian Metro and its online team. Exciting stuff.

You Tube Videocracy: The event no press were invited to

… which made them want in even more.

Funny play on the human psyche this – we want the things we can’t get even more, but to go cover a press event? Granted it was an excellent event by an excellent brand and some key announcements were made. Some journo even tried to sneak in and was promptly thrown out.

Well, the news didn’t stay quiet for more than 24 hours thanks to Ian Schafer who promptly posted his notes up on his blog.

Personally, it wasn’t so much the news that excited me (what’s active sharing anyway?) but the manner in which YouTube pulled this event of. It’s got me thinking, if we organised a big event here in Malaysia, and “neglected” to invite the press, but made sure we invited loads of industry people (marketing folks, handphone dealers etc.), would that make it even more desireable for press to drop by and cover it.

Something tells me it won’t. Ah… the mysteries of life.

Here’s a quick video I found of what the event looked like: