I remember when I first spoke to Timothy. Nuffnang just started and he asked me to be part of Nuffnang to help out on legal matters. I immediately took up his offer without hesitation. At that time, I had the same idea of having a blog advertising network but since Timothy has started it, I abandoned my idea and took up his offer. Now Nuffnang has grown into a multinational company with presence all around Asia.
I also remember when I asked Timothy on when is he getting married to fourfeetnine. He said, “Not so fast la!”. But shortly after that the famous meme proposal video came out.
wtf
Their wedding was held in Penang. After having a bad experience in New York city (bed bugs, permanent scar from bunk bed), I decided to spurge a little on hotel. We stayed in Lone Pine Hotel, Batu Ferringhi. Lovely place, good service and great food. Ah.
Awesome tub outside our room
Place to chill out and feed mosquitoes
We swam here!
Timothy and fourfeetnine’s wedding was a Disney themed event. Up! was the flavour of the night.
Loads of balloons and lanterns.
There were plenty of people from the advertising industry and also bloggers. My wife and I were seated with the famous Sultan Muzaffar and Vivy Yusof and her husband. Muzaffar is now an editor at Gua.com.my whereas Vivy and her husband runs an online shopping mall, FashionValet. Internet entrepreneurship FTW!
Unlike my wedding, I managed to speak to Timothy a few times. Most of the time, it’s quite hard to get to speak to the groom and bride as they are too busy. For this reason, I usually disappear in the background and enjoy the food and company.
The hall was large and spacious
You can read more about Timothy and fourfeetnine’s wedding at Timothy‘s website and fourfeetnine‘s website.
Just as I was in dire need of funds to renovate my new house, I receive my 3rd cheque from Nuffnang. Last year’s advertorials were good. I was receiving two advertorials a month.
My parents passed me one of their houses to me. It’s a very old house and pretty run down. I had almost everything taken down and it costs me a bomb to re-fix the entire thing.
St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner hence to warm things up, Melvin, Tania, A and I went to Delaney’s @ Federal Hotel for a pint of ‘Black Gold’ to warm up for the event.
When I told my friends about Delaney’s, none of them know about the place. Apparently, the place has been around for more than 10 years.
Even the façade and interior looks old school.
Although it was a Friday night, the place wasn’t crowded. It also had a live band playing some nice tunes.
I was told that over 100 pubs are having a Guinness promotion and Delaney’s is one of them. The promo’s name is Guinness St. Patrick’s Finger Food Festival. I also heard that you can get a redemption stamp card from the barmen to win Guinness St Pat’s hat. All you need to do is to collect 12 stamps.
You have a few choices of finger food. For us, we ordered the Chicken Wing Balls with French Fries.
Duck Meat Spring Roll – not part of the promotion but sounds interestingggg
Waiting for my Guinness to come – Cant wait! Drink fake 1 first..nomnomnom
Here it is!!! woooo My Black Gold!
Chicken Wing Balls – I thought it would look something like fishballs.
Oh, it comes with a free gift. A luggage lock! Great!
I don’t know why but the Guinness Draught at Delaney’s tasted much better. It was fresh and milky! After a long day at work, a big gulp of the Black Gold is magic!
Guinness Stout has always been my preferred choice of alcoholic drinks. It doesn’t give me runny nose like beer and it doesn’t give me hangovers like hard liquor. I wish every bar serves Guinness Stout!
After finishing our finger food, we ordered more food.
Cheese baked potatoes – zomggg the cheeeseee. It came with a generous amount of potatoes – baked to the core with melted cheese spread all over it. Absolutely yummy.
Sheppard’s pie – came with a thick layer of mash potatoes covering a layer of stewed beef. Tassty!
After eating 3 meals with potatoes (French fries, baked potatoes and mashed potatoes), we were stuffed!
As a lead-up to the big day at 1 Utama, 13 GUINNESS outlets across the country including those in Penang, Johor, Melaka, Ipoh, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching will be hosting their very own St. Patrick’s bashes, which will see a combination of live music and fun, exciting activities.
St. Patrick’s Day will be held on 19 March 2010 at 1 Utama, from 6pm onwards. There will be plenty of scrumptious food and entertainment. You can even learn how to pour your own perfect pint and keep the glass – all for RM20!
One of the newest technological advancements has arrived in Malaysia. Finally, Malaysians can now watch High-Definition (HD) broadcast, all thanks to ASTRO.
HD channels present a sensory viewing experience with sharper pictures, more vibrant colours, cinematic surround sound, and a wider screen – giving audiences crystal clear details and colours like never before. It delivers details that are five times greater than that of regular Standard-Definition (SD) programming (the standard shows we are watching on Malaysian TV are SD), and it comes with the 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound.
ASTRO has launched the HD service under its brand name ASTRO B.yond. HD broadcasting had been around ages ago. Australia started its HD broadcasting since 2001. If not for ASTRO, HD broadcasting would not have seen light in Malaysia.
On HD content, ASTRO will start with four HD channels – ASTRO Supersport HD, HBO HD, National Geographic Channel HD and HISTORY HD on 18 December 2009, followed by ESPN HD in January 2010. FIFA World Cup 2010 will also be in HD. It will be so clear until you can see the sweat of your favourite footballers!
With HD content, you can watch shows on HDTV like this. Experience sharper images!
Customers can sign up for ASTRO B.yond at www.astro.com.my/byond or call the ASTRO customer Hotline 1300 82 3838.
Customers have a choice to sign up at an additional service fee of RM20 per month and a commitment of 12 months. As part of the new B.yond service, customers will get the new B.yond box, new smart card, new outdoor unit dish, HD Multimedia Interface (HDMI) cable and new remote control. New set-up installation fee will be waived in exchange for the existing box.
Being in front of a camera is no easy task for me. I cocked up a few times. The poor cameraman had to refilm me over and over again.
When speaking in front of the camera, I had to ensure that my English is perfect. No grammatical mistakes etc. However, it was not easy. I think I did screw up a bit. Now I understand why former Ms. Singapore, Ris Low screwed up her interview with leopard preenz and boomz.
Also, it was bloody hot. We had to speak under the sun. Since the videos are shot in HD, I bet you can see our sweat dripping off us.
Tziaaa..I BET, I BET, THAT SHE WOULD GET THE MOST CLICKS ON HER LINK!!!
Azaria, our director for the day, sitting in front of a monitor to check the progress. Eric Yong was here to ‘8’ as well.
Me. One of the camera chaps was nice enough to shield me from the sun.
Lolling!!!
I heard the TVC will be out on YouTube. Will let you guys know once it is out!
Astro B.yond Bloggers Night
To celebrate the advent of Astro B.yond, ASTRO will be organizing an event called Astro B.yond Bloggers Night on 13th January 2010 at Modesto’s, Desa Sri Hartamas from 7:30pm till 10.30pm.
Refreshments will be provided for and there will be total of 3 units of Astro B.yond set comprising 32” LG High Definition TV, Astro B.yond box, new remote control and new outdoor dish to give out along with free subscription to Astro B.yond channels!
There will be also be a game called “Murder in the Details”. The winner of the Murder in the Details will be given a HDTV! Stay tuned for the announcement of the Murder Mystery Game on ASTRO’s Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/Astro).
Also, two best post-event coverage will get a chance to win a HDTV. However, in order to qualify for the prize, all bloggers must be a Fan of the Astro Facebook page.
Nuffnang is looking for 100 bloggers to attend the exclusive event. To be eligible to attend the event, all you need to do is to blog about the event and email to your full name and blog URL to astroB.yond@nuffnang.com.
Many thanks to Nuffnang for organising our trip to Singapore. Our transport and accomodation were sponsored by Nuffnang and also their sponsors e.g Pringles and Tourism Singapore.
Other than the Malaysian blogging community (around 100 bloggers), the Philippines and Australian blogging communities were flown to attend this event. I was told that 50 people came from Australia.
Nuffnangers @ Heritage House
We were put in to a nice boutique hotel by the name Link Hotel located at Tiong Bahru. The nearest train station is Outram which is about 5 to 8 minutes walk from Link Hotel.
@ the lobby of Link Hotel
My room was quite nice. I don’t mind stay in the room the whole day if I could.
Unfortunately, there is nothing nice to eat around the place in the day time. There is one restaurant by the name Kampong Chicken Eating House tasted so-so.
The event was held in Pan Pacific Hotel. Celebrity Allan Wu hosted the event.
We were also given a nice door gift containing rock candies. I remember trying them in Melbourne. You can have personalised messages imprinted on the candies. Nuffnang’s candies had the words ‘I love blogging’ and ‘NN Blog Awards’ and also Nuffnang’s logo.
A short clip of how Nuffnang started and how it had evolved was played before the presentation of the awards. The short clip was really well done and I was told by Michael and Jojo Stryus of Kyanite that they worked on it until 6am to produce the video. Their hard work paid off tremendously.
Welcome speech by Bossming and Timothy. It looked like both of them were getting married.
Out of the 12 awards, only 2 Malaysian bloggers won. Xiaxue dominated the awards by sweeping 3 awards namely best original blog design, most influential blog and region’s best blog. Singaporean, Australian and Pinoy bloggers had a fair share of their awards as well.
While making her acceptance speech, kennysia went up on stage, grabbed Xiaxue’s microphone and did a ‘Kanye West’. He said, ‘yo xiaxue, imma let u finish but Steven Lim has the best blog design ever!’.
Scrumptious meals that were served
There was also an award for bloggers who submits the best video entitled “Its Krrunch Time, Get Playful”. Singaporean jayleif won the contest together with SGD5000 cash. Check out the video below.
Here are some pictures taken from the night! (Lousy point and shoot, pardon the quality).
When the night was about to end, Bossming (co-founder of Nuffnang) came to me and told me that I have played a big part in Nuffnang and thanked me for it (I advise Nuffnang on their legal matters). It made my day!
The only drawback of this event is the absence of alcohol. We only had orange juice, coke and sprite for drinks :/ I was soooo thirsty! I guess its because of the participation of young bloggers in the event. Some are as young as 16 years old, like zoeyve -_-
To compensate for the lack of alcohol, KY, ShaolinTiger, kimberlycun, eyerizz, Mike Yip and gf and I headed to Brewerks at Clarke Quay for drinks. Their beers are brewed inhouse with all sorts of taste. Most of them tasted weird to me -_-
I can’t wait for the next Nuffnang blog award – with alcohol!!!!
When I received my first Nuffnang cheque, I used it as down payment for my mother’s car. This time round, I am also spending it on a new car. As most people would say, it is not wise to spend too much money on a car. Unfortunately, I have no choice but to replace my car as its getting too old. People will soon know me as the lawyer who drives the noisy worn down Satria.
The sum of RM7K is actually quite small compared to juggernaut lifestyle bloggers like Kennysia, Nicolekiss, Cheesie, fourfeetnine, ShaolinTiger, KY and so on. These bloggers probably have made 5 to 6 digits from their blogs. www.xes.cx is a small blog compared to theirs.
For the benefit of blogger who haven’t made their 5 digits and also non bloggers, advertorials are the most lucrative source of income for bloggers. One advertorial could range from few hundreds to few thousands.
However, writing advertorials is no easy task. It involves a lot of creativity in a short span of time. Usually, we are given less than a week to write an advertorial.
Getting a brief to write advertorial is not an easy task. Most of the time it depends on your traffic and sometimes, your rapport with the blog advertising agency or media agency.
On another note, income made from blog is taxable. I dread the time to pay tax this year.
I was there and I was bored. But it was great to meet some old friends and bloggers whom I knew online for quite some time.
Food and beer were free flow whole night but beer ran out before I could get my hands on it. The party had couple of girls in costumes e.g. Nurse, French maid, police women (in hot pants). Wow.. and I thought it was a pajamas party. Notable highlight was the presence of celebrity bloggers such as Kenny Sia, Xia Xue and Dawn Yang (Hot!).
The contestants of the new reality show, Malaysian Dreamgirl were there as well.
Among the contestants was Ringo of www.cheeserland.com.
Me: Ringo! Hi hi!
Ringo: ?
Me: I’m CL!!!
Ringo: oooooooo…*runs away*
Me: O_O|||
Anyway, Vote for Ringo aka Cheesie by SMSing “DREAM 11” to 33001!
FORGET ABOUT MEAGER CHEQUES FROM OTHER LOCAL BLOG ADVERTISING!! JOIN NUFFNANG AS A NUFFNANG EXCLUSIVE AND YOU’LL GET…
1) Payment Rates for both Cost Per Unique Visitor and Cost-Per-Click.
The less ads a blogger has on his blog, the higher share of voice and the less each ad will have to compete with other ads for attention. Hence, the higher the CTR and the higher the value of that particular ad space on the blog.
That is why for example you will never see 8 different ads on the same page on a newspaper unless it’s in the Classifieds where each advertiser pays a small amount.
As a result of that, Glitterati Nuffnangers will earn 20-40% more than ordinary Nuffnangers.
2) Payment Terms
In the advertising industry just like in many industries, payment from advertisers come from specific terms like 60 or 90 days. In the past, Nuffnang has used its cash reserves to pay off bloggers for campaigns that we still have not been paid for by our clients. Due to the great increase of bloggers in the Nuffnang community, we are no longer able to provide this service for all our Nuffnangers and unfortunately will have to restrict this service to Nuffnang Glitterati.
However, all Nuffnangers will still be paid in a timely manner as stipulated in the Program Table.
3) Advertorial Opportunities
Many bloggers know that while banner ad campaigns earn a decent stable income, it is advertorials that pay the most. Each advertorial depending on the advertiser, commitment and traffic can earn a blogger a minimum of RM 50 to RM 1,500 not including freebies that may sometimes be included.
In the past, advertorial opportunities were available for all our Nuffnangers. However, due to the high demand for advertorials and the need for us to narrow down which blogger of the thousands will get advertorials, only exclusive bloggers will now be eligible for advertorials.
4) Community Events
Nuffnang is known to organize the biggest community events ever which range from free movie screenings, lunch meet ups and many more. We find that in many of these events, many Nuffnangers would like to bring guests along with them and we at Nuffnang would like to oblige as much as we can.
As such, 70% of the seats for each event will be allocated to Nuffnang Glitterati AND the guests they may bring.
5) Contests
Contests among Nuffnangers have been something we’ve been having quite a lot with many bloggers winning everything from free meals at Friday’s to mobile phones or even the upcoming contest of a free trip to Gold Coast. With the high demand for these contests, we will give priority to Nuffnang Glitterati with 70% of the prizes to be allocated to them and the remaining 30% to be allocated to non-Nuffnang Glitterati.
6) Innit
Innit is a tool developed and hosted by Nuffnang to add the additional service of driving traffic to any Nuffnang blog. This tool will now only be restricted to Nuffnang Glitterati since it is within our best interest of our community not to indirectly drive any traffic to a future competing network.
The vast majority of the Nuffnang Community is already eligible for the exclusive program so there isn’t much to worry about. All of us at Nuffnang sincerely hope that this new initiative will show how much we do appreciate your loyalty.
