A tale of two Facebook groups

This week’s 15 Jan 2008 Digital Life (a Straits Times accompaniment every Tuesday) showcased examples of companies and organisations leveraging on social networking sites.

One of the showcased was Singapore’s very own Speak Mandarin Campaign. The Promote Mandarin Council has created a group in Facebook to promote the Speak Mandarin Campaign. The name of this group is: Speak Mandarin – Are You Game?. According to the Digital Life article, the group has an “impressive” membership count of 100+ (the current count is 140 as at time of writing this blog entry).

This reminds me of another Singapore-related Facebook group that I chanced upon. Unlike the earlier Promote Mandarin Council group, this other group does not have the publicity backing of any government councils or organisations; it seems to be started by a couple of individuals. And yet, its membership count is 2274 (almost twenty times more)! The name of this group is: I’m pissed off that my prime minister’s getting S$3.1 million this year. Perhaps the Promote Mandarin Council can take a leaf from this group’s book to grow their membership beyond the “impressive” 140?

It seems that Singaporeans are more concerned about this other issue than speaking Mandarin.

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Facebook

I had never given much notice to Facebook or any other social networking sites as I reckoned these sites are for people who couldn’t make any friends in real life and hence resort to making friends in the virtual world.

However I was sort-of forced to get myself acquainted with Facebook a few months ago. It all started with a potential customer telling me how he hoped to leverage his business on Facebook’s huge user base. During that conversation, when he remarked “I’m sure you must have played with Facebook right? It’s amazing that blah blah…”, I had to sheepishly interrupt him mid-sentence and admitted to him that I did not even have a Facebook account (much less knew how to leverage on it). Fortunately, he was kind enough to continue sharing his ideas and asked me to let him know if his ideas make sense or not after I have played with Facebook.

Fast forward to today. The lead has since turned cold but at least I’ve managed to use Facebook to get in touch again with some of my long-lost ex-colleagues and army friends. To date, my most far-fetched link-up is with a primary school classmate whom I have lost touch for the past… 21 years! I also come across a current photograph of my primary 3 maths teacher. Wow, those forgotten memories of primary school are coming back again.

Looks like I have to eat my words at the start of this post.

 

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我的四姑丈

四姑丈在前天(2008年1月12日) 与世长辞，享年71岁。5个月前的一场突如其来的肺感染使到他被送入加护病房(ICU)。他就在那个加护病房中度过了这5个月。今天在万里火化厂(Mandai Crematorium)，当表哥表姐们痛哭喊着 “爸爸啊！谢谢你把我们养大！” ，在场的亲戚也与他们落下了眼泪。

我电脑存档里有这么一张四姑丈的照片：

在2007年的农历新年，性格文静的四姑丈默默地座在门边看着电视。今年2008年的农历新年，他已不在。因此，今年的农历新年也将有些许的伤感。

四姑丈，你是位好长辈。我会怀念你的。四姑妈和表哥表姐们，盼望你们能够早日再振作起来，一起面对日后的生活。我衷心地祝福你们。

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Time to start blogging again

With my last post being more than a month ago, it’s time to pick up the feather pen again! This time with the aid of the wonderful Flock browser, hopefully my rate of posting can be more consistent. Of course, I shall not list this as a new year resolution else it will most likely be a resolution that I look set to break.

Just for fun, while googling for my name, this blog no longer turns up as the first result (due to the month-long hiatus). Instead the first result shows a somewhat startling title: “A Ridiculous S$1000 Claim Against My Friend By Her Ex-Landlady”:

Turns out to be a comment that I had left in my buddy Wilfrid’s blog. Ha ha.

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Blogging from Flock

This is a test posting, posted directly from Flock browser.

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