Few days ago, I told the story of Singapore popular street directory shutting down after losing their lawsuit and appeal against the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) over map copyright infringement last week.

Despite all that and few negotiations here and there, it looks like the all popular (not to mention indispensable) streetdirectory.com is set to reopen once again. The domain is back up now with the site is currently still down due to updates they have to make on all their maps.

I just hope they introduce bus travel guides not only for SBS but for SMRT as well now.

7 Interviews within a period of a month, man that have to be my lifetime record to date. There have been some good news coming in lately, and my agenda will see me through quite alot in thetime line for the coming weeks, such as my final DSTA interview as chaired by DSTA Deputy Chief Executive as well as being invited for my NUS Global Merit Scholarship Interview as well. Wow that is alot to digest in such a short time.

Only 2 scholarships? So kiasu for what!
Come to think about it, despite 7 interviews, most of them are school-related ones for awards, such as the LKY award for math and science. The only scholarship ones I’ve applied for are only the DSTA one as well as the bond-free local NUS scholarship (which I don’t think I will be accepting if I get to study overseas). Many of my peers and lecturers asked me why I didn’t apply for more scholarships, particularly the PSC scholarship, not because everyone is doing so and as many would “do so”, given “what can you lose?”.

I am not the kind who applies for scholarships just for the sake of applying, neither I am one who “follows the crowd”. The PSC scholarship just do not seem to fit my cup of tea, of course it’s highly sought after and the most prestigious scholarship you can get in Singapore, it just do not fit the purview of what I desire to do with my line of interests.

Though true that public service and job prospects of being a possible permanent secretary as a PSC scholar in your future can give you bragging rights. So even if I get awarded with it, I do not see much satisfaction myself as how as others will see it- it will be like going through a job dictated by our societal definition of “success”, which I believe is the fulfillment of your life’s objectives, which I see in my case developing cutting edge technology as a research scientist and engineer with the sciences and technology agency.

That is of course subjective and debatable, but hey at least not all the brains can be found within the public service commission, that will be shortsighted to think so!

Tomorrow will be my 2010 Youth Olympics Dialogue session with few key personnel such as Mr Jacques Rogge (President IOC) and Mr Sergey Bubka (Chairman, YOG Coordination Commission) at Victoria Junior College. I will be able to keep everyone updated on the events there after my afternoon flagday with Viriya Community Services for the day. In the meantime, have a great weekend everyone!

Got a call from Josh Lim, the CEO of Advertlets today with regards to my views about them I had on my previous blog post. He apologized for the problems they had caused, especially with the delays in payment, we ironed out fews issues I had outstanding in mind, especially on improving their customer response and that really eased many of the problems I faced with them. Ultimately, we can see negative publicity is the least constructive to their business so it was quite an anticipated but rather fruitful overseas call (KL) within such a relatively short timespan of the complaint.

We started by addressing few cases he highlighted, namely on blogs cases, especially from slowcatchupkuan.blogspot.com being exceptional as he had a case of excessive amount of click fraud, so his account was banned and therefore the flame which rippled greatly over the anti-advertlets community. He also highlighted the embarrassing incident of failing to pay for their blogging event (as told by danielfranklingomez.com) largely a regretful one given a problem rising based on assumptions and miscommunication on their part. And despite having done over 10 majors successful events, this was the one undeniably one which sticks up the most like a sore thumb and had the most lasting impression by the community, after all it’s quite a fact in life that people only remember your bad moves.

April’s fool! got your fools yet? Oh wait my DSTA 2nd interview is today… uhoh!

Collected my Advertlets cheque today, it came in registered mail from HSBC KL office, they underpaid me about 5 times lesser than what I’ve cashed out in total, about 5 months late too. I wasn’t amused either, after all, previously drenched with a daunting sense of incompetency in their job so I didn’t set my standards too high for them in the first place.

I have read quite alot about this less than a year old startup company, with so many complains coming in and out around town I slowly learnt that I wasn’t very much alone. I won’t be bragging about this just because of the trivial fact that I was not paid or feeling cheated- it is part of a constructive argument and comparison I will bring forward my point and perspective on the issue, highlighting my personal viewpoints as well as including relevant external references and experiences.

Extremely slow customer response
Advertlets took 2 weeks to a month to reply my support emails, even if they do, it’s largely automated or based off templates from my experiences, it’s like the staff are afraid to discuss any issues with you, even if you do, their extremely long reply time will simply turn you off. This is contrary to Nuffnang (their direct competitor) where I can get a real personalized human response with my message forwarded to their relevant departments within 1-2 days.

Extremely long payouts
Based on feedback, 2 months is the fastest, for those in Singapore. It took 5 months from me, even if they do pay, as I have learnt, your earnings might be audited. I have a feeling that their ad fraud system is not fully mature to the extent of paranoia, given the fact that why blog advertising had not caught on in the US is due to the fact that unlike traditional media, there are no reliable ways to measure the ad effectiveness or to even verify if a blog has as much traffic as it claims. Nobody uses their demographic polls on my site and I felt they were obligated to send me a cheque possibly to fill me up on my previous comment on them about their rather slow payments. It’s also worth noting that there are people who are not paid at all. For the record with Nuffnang, they does theirs by a full month from cashout.

Unprofessional
This is a whole long bit. The first part reminds me like comparing 2 detergent brands, brand X & Y- Instead of business and relations building, well, Advertlets is widely known in the community to pillowfight indirectly against their competitors, something bloggers like myself come to detest Advertlets for (also as supported by this Cnet.com article). The ultimate laugh for most bloggers now would being able to name a company anytime who runs a notorious online business who failed to avoid domain renewal problems while still in active operations, this will go into history.

I won’t be digging up old past issues of vulnerability, bugs or claimed hijacks they previously had on their site or during their downtime, neither on the controversy of them forgetting to pay for their blogger’s gathering event, due to the questionable creditability of the stated resources. But these are worth highlighting if you want to know a little more history of Advertlets.

However, I can commend them on some of their rather effective but rather notorious motion into paying bloggers (sponsored posts) to write constructive blog posts to review/advertise their website- a rather good way to get incoming links, traffic and increase search engine rankings from robots especially from high traffic blogs. The catch is that you have to get the post up live with a set of requirements (i.e use certain images and must have a link to their site) and though some freeform content is allowed, ultimately only approved posts meeting their interests will be paid, so these posts will usually spot a biased and unnatural sense of positive energy towards them.

Overall, it’s the whole picture I am taking about, the whole package from the blogger and advertiser perspective, the professional company- customer approach. Speaking from a web developer point of view in dealing customers and more than 10 years of web creation experience, if they were to treat bloggers in such a lowly manner, I won’t see that to be much different to their advertisers either, remember it’s the overall package I am talking about, not only making or giving preferences only to the hand which feeds you.

It is sad to see how such a company starting to stray away from their users, I had high initial hopes for them. Only time will tell how they will do in the future, given their recent promising partnership with SPH media.

P.S I appreciate constructive viewpoints, please do not post masquerading posts in the comments.