Seraph Chronicles

Advertlets: Asia’s Better Blog Advertising Network

It had to happen some day, what with the increase of bloggers locally, blogvertising was bound to take off locally and the day has come, Advertlets, a Kuala Lumpur based company that’s focusing on blogvertising for Asia’s blogosphere, particularly Malaysian Bloggers. Advertlets, another project initiated by Josh Lim and Associates is looking to take the Malaysian and Asian blogvertising to the next level with new and innovative technologies. Advertlets aims to be Asia’s Better Blog Advertising Network by helping advertisers reach out better to the right audience and at the same time help bloggers learn more about their readers and earn from what they like doing best - Blogging!

Site statistics on your dashboard

How does this all work? Firstly, if you are a blogger and would like to be part of this advertising network, head over to Advertlets.com and register an account with them. Upon registration you will need to submit information about yourself and your blog, to better help Advertlets serve ads on your blog. You can then get the code for their widget and place it on strategic places on your blog so it gets the most exposure. The widget is easy to insert as it’s a straightforward cut and paste javascript, just be sure to copy everything and paste it on your blog as it is. After placing the code Advertlets can start tracking the number of visitors and unique visitors. All this information can be conveniently found on your Dashboard upon logging in. This can double as a simple alternative to keeping track of your site statistics. You can even check the demographics data collected through the polls to better understand the readers of your blog and further improve and cater to the needs of your blog’s audience, very useful for any webmaster or blogger. All this information can be easily accessed from your account on their website.

Poll widget with feedback form and ability to cycle through ads

Advertlets ads are targeted and unobtrusive, using the latest in Ajax and Web 2.0 technologies to present ads in a totally new way. The type of ads that appear on your blog is determined by demographics collected from polls right off your blog. New users of Advertlets will need to place a poll on their blog to collect information about your readers and ultimately determine what ads will be displayed on your unique blog. The poll is unobtrusive as it comes in the form of a widget that will load the poll questions dynamically using Ajax, this ensures faster loading times and less congestion of your blog traffic. The widget even provides a feedback form for your readers to send feedback and their thoughts straight to Advertlets, enabling the Advertlets team to further improve their system.

Stats showing the potential of the Advertlets network

Another interesting thing to notice on the Advertlets website is the statistics counter on their website showing the monthly impressions available for advertising on all the blogs that have signed up with Advertlets and the number of poll questions answered so far. Information such as this will further convince potential advertisers to advertise with Advertlets, benefiting not only Advertlets by fellow bloggers as well! There’s even a list of member blogs shown to further fortify that the stats shown are not for show only.

Members of the Advertlets network

Still early in it’s beta stages Advertlets has done a good job of building a huge network of bloggers and advertisers, improvements are made every week to their website and the bloggers of Malaysia look forward to seeing Advertlets grow with the local blogging community.

All in all, Advertlets is a versatile and targeted advertising network that looks good on your site and serves up relevant local ads that will further and more effectively to the local community with it’s demographics based ads serving and is unobtrusive to readers. Finally an advertising network that fills the void for local advertisers to further reach out to the tech savvy youth of today!

Santa Singh

Got these jokes from a colleague, hope you enjoy a good laugh, and hopefully it can help you de-stress a bit. Happy laughing!

Santa Singh was traveling in a crowded bus. He was carrying the Passport size photograph of his son (for college admission). Accidentally, the photograph fell down from his pocket. He started searching for it frantically & found the same on the floor of the bus. Politely, he asked the saree clad female, standing in front of him,
“Can you lift that saree? I wanna take a photograph”.
The rest is history. He was beaten so badly that he had to be admitted in a hospital. He was surprised to see Banta Singh on the bed next to him, in a still worse condition. Banta started to explain his “Adventure”.
He had gone to a remote village on some work & due to his high level of intelligence, couldn’t finish the work on time. He had missed the last bus from that place. He couldn’t find any hotel. So he approached a nearby house and asked the Owner whether he can stay there for the night.
The Owner replied “I have 2 grown up daughters. Sorry, I can’t allow you to stay”. He approached the next house and asked whether he can stay there for the night.
The Owner replied, “I have 3 grown up daughters. Sorry, I can’t allow you to stay”.
In sheer desperation, Banta walked to the next house. Not wanting to take any chances, decided to use some smartness (???). With a lot of confidence he knocks on the door and asks,”
Do you have “grown up” daughters?”.
The Owner asked, “WHY?????????”
Banta replied,” I wanted to stay here for a night…..”
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Family Problems

Two men, one American and an Indian were sitting in a bar drinking shot after shot.

The Indian man said to the American,”You know my parents are forcing me to get married to this so called homely girl from a village whom I haven’t even met once.We call this arranged marriage.I don’t want to marry a woman whom I don’t love…I told them that openly and now have a hell lot of family problems.”

The American said, “Talking about love marriages…I’ll tell you my story. I married a widow whom I deeply loved and dated for 3 years. “After a couple of years, my father fell in love with my step-daughter and so my father became my son-in-law and I became my father’s father-in-law. My daughter is my mother and my wife my grandmother. More problems occurred when I had a son. My son is my father’s brother and so he my uncle. Situations turned worse when my father had a son. Now my father’s son i.e. my brother is my grandson. Ultimately, I have become my own grand father and I am my own grandson. And you say you have family problems…………… …………….Gimme a break !!”

PRESS RELEASE: Malaysia Deserves Better Broadband !

Two Malaysian tech startups, Advertlets.com & RedesignMalaysia.com declare war on bad broadband services, and provide marketing & advertising ammunition to competing ISPs.

Kuala Lumpur, 16 April 2007.

Advertlets.com, an online blog advertising network and RedesignMalaysia.com, a website which campaigns for broadband reform and improvement in Malaysia have launched the “Malaysia Deserves Better Broadband!” campaign.

To mark the launch of the campaign, an innovative advertising system has been created that allows local ISPs to target and advertise their services to verified users of competing broadband services - to more than 50,000 Malaysian Internet users a day.

The launch of the “Malaysia Deserves Better Broadband!” campaign is timely, as it is an avenue to drive the nation to get closer to achieving the target of 50% household broadband penetration by the year 2008, an aim of the Energy, Water and Communications Ministry and the Government through the MyICMS 886 Plan. Currently, the broadband penetration rate in Malaysia is only about 3-5% of the population.

The advertising system is distributed over hundreds of Malaysian blogs, under the Advertlets blog advertising network. Each computer accessing the internet has a unique IP (Internet Protocol) address, which can be used to identify the geographic location of visitors as well as determine what internet service provider they are using (Each ISP is allocated a certain range of IP adresses).

The system, which consists of an embedded advertising code on blogs and a sophisticated backend, then uses its database of IP addresses in Malaysia, and matches each IP to the appropriate Malaysian ISP (Internet Service Provider) to display relevant advertising. For example, if ISP X wanted to reach customers of ISP Y, they could choose to advertise with Advertlets, and the advertisements for ISP X would only be shown to those who are using ISP Y’s services.

Currently, the system can detect virtually every ISP in Malaysia : including TM Net, DiGi Internet Exchange, NasionCom, MaxisNet, Airzed, Time Telekom, NTT MSC / Arc Net, Jaring / MIMOS (MIX), CNX Solutions, EB Technologies, Bizsurf, and more. There are further plans to upgrade the system to be able to detect the location of potential viewers, to be able to target users of a certain ISP in Kajang or Kelana Jaya for example.

Josh Lim, director of Josh Lim Ventures, which is responsible for both Advertlets.com and RedesignMalaysia.com has this to say : “A lot of consumers are not aware that there are more services than just the incumbent broadband provider (TM Streamyx), due to the fact that the broadband market here is largely occupied by them alone. From the feedback we have received, a lot of people are dissatisfied with the speed and service quality of the Streamyx service, however, many feel that there is no where else to go. TM spends millions on marketing its Streamyx broadband service through online, TV, radio, outdoor advertising and print media. “

Mr Lim goes on to say: “However, through targeted blog advertising, even with a budget of a few thousand ringgit, the smaller ISPs can compete fairly in promoting their services to online users over hundreds of Malaysian blogs, and foster greater competition in the arena. That’s the beauty of targeted advertising – it reaches directly to the people that matter, and maximizes your marketing budget. “

He explains what is holding competition in the broadband area here back, and how it can be better for consumers and ISPs: “Smaller ISPs find it hard to compete with a company with millions of dollars to spend in advertising, and it is hard for them to sustain their business without gathering a sufficient number of new subscribers. Blogs are emerging as a formidable new media outlet for information, and we feel it is a great opportunity for us to help bloggers earn extra side income, as well as help ISPs to deliver better broadband to them. It is a win-win situation for all.”

He cited the recent competition in the prepaid mobile sector between Maxis Hotlink, Digi Prepaid and Celcom Xpax as a positive turn of events that has benefited consumers in terms of reduced prices and better services.

He says: “Malaysia cannot grow further as an IT hub without having better broadband services. We aim to spur competition in the broadband sector through providing this service, and start an ‘arms race’ that will benefit the consumers. We would love to see ISPs here compete to outdo each other in offering more coverage, better services and lower rates, as this is highly beneficial for consumers”.

Internet Service Providers who are interested in targeted blog advertising of their services in this manner are invited to check out www.advertlets.com for more information, or e-mail info@advertlets.com . Alternatively, they may contact Josh Lim Ventures through telephone at: 03-78049282, or by mobile at 0123119141.

About RedesignMalaysia.com

Launched symbolically on 31st August 2006, www.RedesignMalaysia.com is a private sector initiative that aims to improve the sorry state of broadband services here. It is the “ultimate initiative on broadband issues” in Malaysia, an independent project to educate consumers about the broadband situation in Malaysia. It features news on broadband related developments interactive coverage map detailing broadband options throughout the nation as well as a list of ISPs available in Malaysia. The website has been featured, and its founder, Josh Lim has been interviewed on The Breakfast Show on NTV7, as well as the cover story of NetValue 2.0 in The Edge.

About Advertlets.com

www.Advertlets.com is an Asian blog advertising network that launched on March 9th, 2007. Launched first in Malaysia, it has already signed up hundreds of bloggers, and currently, there are 1.4 million impressions available for advertising. Advertlets provides something truly unique to online advertising, through the use of blog demographics for individual blogs (Gender, Age Range, Profession), as well as targeted advertising which can be used to only target Malaysian visitors.

About Josh Lim Ventures

Josh Lim Ventures is the founding company behind RedesignMalaysia, Advertlets and Josh Lim & Associates. Believing in an interactive design style with substance, intelligence and an edge, they create impressive, highly functional websites incorporating rich-media technologies, with an aim on providing useful services to Malaysian internet users.

Previously, they have worked on projects for Proton, Cineleisure Damansara, The Manhattan Fish Market, Pernod Ricard (Chivas Regal & Martell V.S.O.P), The Malaysian Energy Commision as well as the websites for Malaysian celebrities Daniel Tan, Ferhad & Joanna Bessey.

Its principal, Josh Lim, a designer by training, is influential in the field of interactive design and the local tech industry, having co-founded doxob.com, a community for web designers as well as having been featured in The Star, Cleo Magazine, The Edge Malaysia & Singapore, TV3, Astro Ria & 8TV in relation to his work. He is also an active public speaker on the subjects of design and entrepreneurship, and last did a college speaking tour in conjunction with Nescafe Kickstart and MYC Magazine.

STROKE: Remember The 1st Three Letters… S.T.R.�

I received this very useful email at work, it’s about identifying a stroke victim, what are the symptoms of a stroke, and hopefully be in time to save the victim from the adverse effects of a stroke. If you find the contents useful and wish to forward it through email to your friends and family please do so, or if you wish to post it on your blog you may do so as well. Alright now, read on and hopefully this can help save a few stroke victims out there.
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Underwater Photography

Alright, after a long wait, I finally had my snorkeling photos developed and scanned in, the results were better than I’d expected, but that’s not to say each photo is excellent, there are a few personal favourites of my own and I hope you like the photos as much as I do. Oh, if you would be so kind as to let me know your opinions and which one is your favourite I’d be ever so grateful. Alright now, on to the photos:
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My List

Saw this MyList programme on friend’s blog - Boonage and found it to be interesting, a valiant effort for the bloggers of Malaysia indeed. The purpose of MyList is to gather Malaysian bloggers under a united front in one big bookmark. As you will discover, there is such richness and diversity in our Malaysian bloggers that is sure to open your hearts and minds of our fellow Malaysians and their lifestyles. If you wish to participate in this great program please read on.

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A freaking hot day

Woke up this morning at 8 something from my dad’s handphone (yes it’s that loud that you hear across rooms), apparently his colleagues don’t get it that it’s Saturday morning, pretty irritating, considering there were several calls, worse than any alarm clock. Well since we were all awake by now, and I was down with a flu and a freaking irritating itchy throat, I proposed to go to see the traditional chinese doctor at Lam Wah Ee, western medicine just does not work for itchy throats and coughs, well at least not for me anyway. I find Chinese herbal medicine to be more effective with such illnesses.

Memorial Hall that houses the Chinese medical division

It’s a blessing that the generous people of the Lam Wah Ee organization have this division, what with it’s economical charge of RM1 for consultation and medicine, two packets of medicine to be exact, yes hard to believe right? And the medicine is pretty potent, albeit Chinese medicine always works slowly, but yeah it’s still effective, much more effective than chemical based medicines. I’ve been here since my primary school days, when once I had this terrible cough that just wouldn’t go away for months on end, but slowly after taking this Chinese medicine I was eventually totally freed of this accursed cough. The division has since grown and expanded, they now have air-conditioning, which is a relief as the queue is often long and the measly ceiling fans did little to ventilate the waiting area. The latest addition is automated sliding doors, I was quite appalled by this actually. Guess they’ve been prospering ever since they brought in additional doctors from China, and started an acupuncture division, well it’s all for the best for Chinese medication in Penang.

They don’t call it a memorial hall for nothing

Well lucky the queue today was not that long and by 12pm I had already got my medicine and could leave, and it’s about time for their lunch break before they continue operations at 1:45pm. Well now the journey back was freaking hot, I was sweating so much that my arms was glistening in my sweat. Looks like cars in the future would need more air conditioning outlets than just the front row, perhaps on the side doors or something, if this gets implemented in future models of cars be sure to thank me (neh, I’m sure someone else has already thought this up as well). It was a relief to reach home, have a nice cold drink of Ribena and a nice shower. For some reason I feel kind of tired today, I’m blaming it on the morning alarm calls this morning. Signing off for now while I recharge my batteries a while.

Higgins Bertie - Casablanca

I fell in love with you watching Casablanca
Back row of the drive in show in the flickering light
Popcorn and cokes beneath the stars became champagne and caviar
Making love on a long hot summers night

I thought you fell in love with me watching Casablance
Holding hands ‘neath the paddle fans in Rick’s Candle lit cafe
Hiding in the shadows from the spies. Moroccan moonlight in your eyes
Making magic at the movies in my old chevrolet

Oh! A kiss is still a kiss in Casablanca
But a kiss is not a kiss without your sigh
Please come back to me in Casablanca
I love you more and more each day as time goes by

I guess there’re many broken hearts in Casablanca
You know I’ve never really been there. so, I don’t know
I guess our love story will never be seen on the big wide silver screen
But it hurt just as bad when I had to watch you go

Oh! A kiss is still a kiss in Casablanca
But a kiss is not a kiss without your sigh
Please come back to me in Casablanca
I love you more and more each day as time goes by
Oh! A kiss is still a kiss in Casablanca
But a kiss is not a kiss without your sigh

Please come back to me in Casablanca
I love you more and more each day as time goes by
I love you more and more each day as time goes by

Transformers New Screens!

As you might have noticed I’ve removed the shoutbox in the sidebar, the reason being it’s being spammed with unwanted links and no good message would be seen by any of the readers at all. Well now enough of that, I’ve got some new images of the upcoming Transformers movie, just to tide you over as the anticipation builds up for the movie’s launching!

Optimus VS Scorpinok (I think)

You don’t want to mess with this police car

Every good movie deserves a good high speed chase or marathon in this case

Well now that’s it for now, I’ll be sure to post up any new scenes from the movie when I have them. Hope you enjoyed the images.