Today’s Digital Life touched upon the opportunities for bloggers to earn some advertising revenue through their blogs. Overall, the article just touches the surface of the whole issue, that is, the article is probably helpful if you are a newbie in the advertising on my blog system. You get just the bare insight on how things can work, not how things work.

In fact, there are a few things that I think should or should not be asked.

Firstly, I don’t see the point in asking about the member count. Digitial Life pointed out, which I agree, that the member count will overlap because some, like me, mix two advertising companies and put their ads on my blog. In my case, its Advertlets and Blog2u. Personally, I feel that this member count does nothing except to brag about how much “command” or “market share” one has, except that the whole count is a fake number. Why do I say that? Other than overlaps, one fails to take into account disgruntled bloggers. That is, bloggers who fail to see the vision of a particular company and decide to leave. Now I may be biased from the stuff I read from Ping.sg, because, as far as I am concerned, there only seems to be one company that is steadily losing members, and in a big way too, declaring on blogs and those posts end up on the top 10 in Ping.sg. Now more people seem to be leaving this company, and ironically, this is the company that is declaring the largest number, or 13000, compared to its rivals of 12000 and 5000. How many people of the 13000 are still staying, I do not know, but if we take into account that every company has disgruntled bloggers, then perhaps the 12000 company may end up commanding the larger market share?

The other problem relating to this article is that it seems to portray that anyone can earn money from online advertising. I must give them credit though, because they recognize an important fact that some groupies do not, that is, only those popular bloggers commanding a strong and steady amount of page views per day earn better. The problem though, is that somewhere in the article, it chooses to spread a false ideology from the sales pitch by a certain company, to say that you only need 20 unique visitors a day to share the moolah. Or the money.

Now, if you have been in this advertising arena for some time, you would have realized that it is completely questionable. On first read, you may feel that as long as I have 20 unique visitors, I can join them and earn money. However, the real statement is, if I have 20 unique visitors, I can join them. Period. The earning money part does not come into play as effectively. It all depends on how much visitors you have. If you just meet the bare minimum, sad to say, you will probably not be earning enough to even cash out.

What Digital Life should have asked, is the amount of earnings PER member. This effectively tells you, on average, how much money you can earn if you join. Of course, you have to do a little decrement because the popular bloggers will take the bulk of it. But you end up with a better number than member count.

What they can ask is also, how many ads are served to members, PER member again.

Now if those questions are asked and answered positively and truthfully, the leading advertising provider won’t really be leading, isn’t it? It MAY not be leading. So far, it is leading on member count, that is members who joined, without taking into account members who left.

The point of writing this is that the article just barely scratches the surface of advertising revenue opportunities. In fact, more could come out of this, and more space could be given to competitors like Advertlets and Blog2u? Perhaps Digital Life can come out with some neat comparison, which will definitely be more useful than the current article.

Advertising is not easy. Earning money is not easy. All is but a dream, and we can all just hope to collect enough money to cash out. So peasants, no matter which company you are loyal to, lets just wait and collect. But for those who have not yet joined, perhaps, you may want to see if your daily unique visitors is good enough. 20, is definitely NOT good enough.

In todays Straits Times Home section, you will notice that on Page 8, there’s an article that talks about a Worker’s Party leader who voted for the PAP in the last general election. In the article, it says that he was criticized for making public who he voted for, that he is sending out conflicting signals.

I agree totally one sentence in which the WP Leader Mr Yaw said, and that is he does not believe in opposition for opposition’s sake. That is true. In the last GE, sometimes we hear of people saying, “Vote for the opposition. We need an opposition’s voice in Parliament”. But what are we doing that for? Are we voting for the opposition just because we need an opposition inside, or are we voting for the opposition because this opposition MP is much better than his opponent? I believe, that it is the rightest sense to be the latter.

Voting for the opposition just for a voice in the opposition doesn’t seem to work. After all, one of our prominant opposition leaders took the easy way out by not voicing out anything when the Prime Minister asked him a question, isn’t it?

I do not see why Mr Yaw is sending out conflicting signals too. I mean, he simply voted for the MP he thought was best for his consituency. Let us not talk about the possible stories about being political and what propaganda. In its simplest form, this is true exercise of our rights. We decide who we want to be elected, based on previous jobs done and whether this person is good for us or not. Simply put, if a person’s isn’t cut out for this job, we should not give it to him even if he is our relative.

There isn’t conflicting signals when he campaigns to ask voters to vote for him. Whilst he believes that the PAP MP in his own constituency is much better than the WP one, he also has his own right to believe, and try to make you believe, that he is the better choice than the other MP. After all, he isn’t contesting in the constituency that he lives at. If, he voted for the opponent rather than himself, then we can raise a ruckus. But now, he believes that he is better in one place, and that his friend and colleague is lousier in the other place, what’s wrong with not voting your friend and colleague?

I don’t think there is any problem with this at all actually. Sometimes we just got to think, why did he do that, and perhaps we will understand better.

Mas Selamat has been at large for over a month and a half or so already, and all we get are words. I believe that a majority of us are getting pissed off over this incident, and it does not make it any better when it seems to be our fault. Mr Brown has an excellent “letter” that sums everything up.

How can you and I be blamed for his escape? It is not our duty to stand and guard him. In what way are we “complacent” in this matter? Why then, do they talk about complacency amongst citizens? True, we had been living in a sense of safeness and security, believing that nothing can go wrong in Singapore, because we have an efficient government who has been leading us for decades. Had we been complacent because we keep thinking that way? Then that must change. People, do not be complacent and think that the situation in Singapore will remain that way. We should always look for the winds of change and perhaps in a few years down the road, we should all change like Malaysia.

This letter below is quite a good one. Notice that we do not know who is to blame for the terrorist’s escape. We only know it’s the damned fucking guard that’s at fault. But surely some department should take responsibility? I mean, it’s not the first time someone escaped from the freaking toilet. Even Channel 8 knows that. Hence, why have we not taken active steps to prevent escape from different venues?

Questions that have been going on in my mind include:
1) Why wasn’t the toilet windows locked? Or grilled? Maybe they should change the windows to those Mc Donald’s style glass, where it will only break when Singaporeans all queue for Hello Kitty. Ventilation can be in the form of ventilation fans which are small squares that a full grown adult cannot escape from.
2) Why wasn’t the criminal tagged? It seems that in certain prisons, they tag their prisoners so they know where they are at any point in time.
3) Why information was so slow to be distributed to us?

Many many other questions. And has the report from the inquiry been out yet? Or have I been studying too much that I missed the report? Perhaps I am too complacent, believing that the inquiry will do everything.

Govt has to take some responsibility too

I REFER to last Saturday’s article ‘Guards were negligent, says MM’. Like MM Lee, I very much agree that the Government is not to be blamed for the escape of Mas Selamat Kastari.

The good track record of the Singapore Government should not be diminished by this unfortunate incident. However, there should be some level of accountability by the Home Affairs Ministry and not only by the guards who were in charge of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) detainee who had once planned to crash a plane into Changi Airport.

The ministry had a role to play in ensuring all this did not happen in the first place.

But none of the statements from the ministry suggested that it was apologetic over the incident and there was no admission that there could have been an oversight on its part. Ironically, an Insight report in The Straits Times on the same day cited Dr Michael Benoliel, an associate professor of organisational behaviour at the Singapore Management University, as saying ‘All the great corporations collapsed because they underestimated the competition’.

Is it fair that accountability lies only with certain strata of staff members of a corporation?

Let us all ponder this since we have often compared our Government to a large corporation.

Mohd Rashed Badarudin

The LTA just announced ways to revamp the transport industry. They have just released a transport masterplan, a copy of which was shown on National TV and I thought it’s a rather extravagant use of public funds.

The proposal involves many things, one being letting the grassroots take part in the discussion. Another is the possibility of giving more money to car owners when they scrap their cars. A move that is questionable and needs further study. Who in their right mind would not buy another car? It’s like the government giving you subsidies.

The problem, in my humble opinion, lies not so much on price problems. I don’t see the effectiveness in raising ERP prices or limiting the COE given out. There are other things to consider other than price problems. One of the more important factors, in my opinion, is the standard of our own PUBLIC TRANSPORT.

We have seen many fare increase over the past few years. Everytime the prices go up, we are promised a world class public transport system. But, is it truly world class? Fares have gone up, but standards have dropped. In fact, it is now easier to see a cockroach on a bus compared to a few years ago. Buses seem to be getting noisier and drivers seem to have this problem of stalling their engine.

A good public transport system is a determining factor on whether we choose to take public transport or private ones. The thing is not so much on the cost, whether it is expensive to own a car, for those who are in this equation are those who are able to afford a car anyway. The determining factor is whether the public transport is cheaper and as effective in bringing us to our desired destination.

If we have bus routes that are planned well to bring us to our desired destination in a comfortable and efficient manner, then why would we need cars? If we are able to get to places on time even on public transport, and not waste too much time, why would we need cars? If we can squeeze into the mrt during peak hours and have sufficient space to breathe so we won’t faint, why would we need cars?

Let’s not kid ourselves. Oil prices are rising (and falling sometimes), so it won’t be long before the public transport companies start to apply for fare increases. When that time comes, will they promise to be world class again? I think it is better to under-promise and over-deliver, than to over-promise and under-deliver, even though what you deliver may be the same.

Anyway, this forum letter (shown below) just shows us why public transport (including taxis) are not so appealing to us. Other than rude drivers, we have picky drivers, or drivers who cheat us by driving further to charge more. Is this efficient? No. If we truly want lesser cars, we should work and change our public transport system!

Cabby cheats take passengers for a ride
IT IS no doubt easier to get a cab nowadays during peak hours, because you can see long queues of empty taxis and zero passengers. This has led some cabbies to take desperate measures, bordering on the dishonest. As passengers are hard to come by, especially during expensive peak hours, drivers intentionally take a longer route, hoping to stretch and make more out of what may be the only fare they’ll pick up during this time.

I had suspicions a couple of times during recent rides but didn’t think much of them as I wasn’t 100 per cent sure of the shortest routes myself. However, my journey on March 21 was a familiar one from Marine Parade to home in Potong Pasir. Instead of turning into Lichi Avenue from Upper Aljunied Road, the driver drove past this well-known straight-road connection between Upper Aljunied Road and Potong Pasir and continued along Upper Aljunied Road before turning into Upper Serangoon Road and finally reaching Potong Pasir. I hadn’t paid close attention nearing the Lichi Avenue left turn and realised too late.

When I asked the driver, he said he didn’t like making many left and right turns along Lichi Avenue, and preferred the straight road. This was not true as taking Upper Aljunied Road and Upper Serangoon Road actually includes more turns and traffic lights. The cab company was Trans-

Cab. I am 100 per cent sure the driver was trying to lengthen the journey.

To substantiate my suspicions further, I must quote another driver who checked my destination before letting me in. After I got into the cab, he admitted if my journey had been a short one, he’d not have picked me up.

I hope all cab companies will remind drivers about integrity.

I would also like to remind passengers to stay alert during cab journeys and specify your preferred route - or else you may be taken for a longer ride.

Lee Li Cheng (Ms)

I read a letter on the ST Forum today about another person complaining. Yeah, Singaporean’s are first class complainers. Anyway, this person is appalled (I think this is too strong a word) that there is differential pricing for tickets to a soccer match. He does not understand why it cost $8 to buy a ticket before the match day and then it cost $10 on the actual day itself.

If we look around, we are living in a world based on economics. Every company in this world wants profit maximisation. In this instance, I think it’s all about demand and supply. The match is held in National Stadium, and it makes sense to sell the tickets at the stadium. On that day, people who have not gotten tickets yet will purchase them directly at the National Stadium. There will be a greater demand for tickets since most people can’t be too bothered to get tickets in advanced. It makes sense then to charge a higher price since consumers are willing to pay more.

Or perhaps we can think of it this way. They are trying to separate the two markets by selling at different locations. In a tongue in cheek manner, perhaps they are trying to separate the cheapos and the true fans. Anyone heard of price discrimination? To sell the same thing at different prices in different markets. That is happening all the time.

Why does SMRT and SBS provide 45cents travel to young students in JC level and below? Because they are charitable and compassionate? I doubt so. It’s about price discrimination and filling up seats that would otherwise be empty. Same goes with student prices at cinemas and preferred credit cards having discounts. It is to attract people to come when they would otherwise have not.

Look around you. There are examples of differential pricing everywhere today. Student meals at fast food chains? Do you even know that student pay $4.50 for a extra value meal at McDonalds? Safra members having $8 weekend tickets at all Golden Village cinemas? NUS students having discounts at various shops when they flash their matric cards?

He says “Do the $2 more earned per ticket sold on match day make such a difference?”, and that he doesn’t understand the rationale.

I don’t understand his rationale too. It is very obvious that the $2 matters much to him. So much so as to write a letter to the ST Forum. Does it make a difference? I think it’s a rhetoric question.

Why two prices for the same match?

I AM appalled that there is differential pricing for tickets to the Fifa World Cup soccer qualifying match between Singapore and Lebanon tonight.

Before match day, it costs $8 and you have to buy a ticket at Jalan Besar Stadium.

On match day, it costs $10 per ticket when you buy it at the National Stadium.

As much as I would like to show my support, does the Football Association of Singapore expect me to go to Jalan Besar Stadium to buy tickets earlier to enjoy the $2-discount and travel to National Stadium on match day to watch the match?

Do the $2 more earned per ticket sold on match day make such a difference?

I cannot understand the rationale.

Heng Lian Meng