Nuffnang's ChurpChurp Comes Clean

I recently published an article about Nuffnang’s new ChurpChurp or Twitter advertising platform almost started on a rocky foot. But indeed, ChurpChurp’s team of PR are handling the situation really well. Just today I got an email from one of the hotties working at ChurpChurp; Doria.

It’s answers to some of the what ifs ChurpChurp would face as a new Twitter advertising player in Malaysia and Singapore. From the email:

Disclaimers on Churps

Being Twitter fans ourselves, at ChurpChurp.com we believe that we should all be transparent in the Churps we send out. Which is why we have built into our system a mechanism for you to add in a disclaimer of your own to all the Churps that go out. We didn’t want to do this “cookie-cutter” style and make everyone have the same disclaimer so we left it to you to decide how best to inform your followers that it was a Churp. Whether you use “Ad:” or “Churp”, it’s all totally up to you.

How much does a Churp pay?

This depends on two things: How many followers you have and how much a particular advertiser offers to pay for a tweet. Since Twitter advertising is still a pretty new medium for many advertisers, we don’t expect the initial Twitter ads to pay a lot but we do expect it to grow significantly as advertisers try the medium and grow more confident in putting more ad dollars behind it.

Auto-generated/User-generated Churps

Note that for both auto-generated or user-generated Churps, you can choose not to take part in the campaign if you don’t believe in the product or you don’t think it’s something you want to do. Just click the “reject” button.

Of course, in the email they also said ChurpChurp is a baby and they’ll definitely hit their head on the floor a couple of times but that won’t discourage them with our support.

Well, I’ve registered for ChurpChurp and I recently saw my Churp on Twitter. Currently, my custom disclaimer is “Churp:” but I might change it to “Ad:” for more prominence and straight-forwardness to followers. But we’ll see.

Right now, I just want to see if Churp would deliver a higher average return as compared to Nuffnang. There, I said it.

Or, would it be worst as I’m neither Kenny Sia nor KYSpeaks. :P

P.S.:  If you’d like to stalk Doria, you can start reading her blog. She demands it!

Posted by dannyfoo on July 31, 2009 | Filed Under Business & Marketing, My Life | 2 Comments |

How To Create a Website Like

Facebook, Friendster, Google, [insert competitor website here]

In the website design industry, this is one of the common questions brought up by a Malaysia client. Yes, I say Malaysia client because out of all the international enquiries I’ve read which were sent to Simpleet, the ones who ask this question are normally, Malaysian.

What is most irritating about this scenario isn’t the fact they posed the question. Because, it’s not a stupid question – not really.

It’s the embarassment of not wanting to use our intellectual minds fully.

google_whiteboard

Normally, whenever a potential client ask us this question, we’d ask them in return, “what are the features/functions they’d like to see in this project?” This is the defining moment where you can tell if a client knows what they want or don’t have a clue. If they said…

I’d like to be able to connect to friends and colleagues as a group. And, there has to be personal messaging or group messaging. But the selling point of my social network is…

Ladies and gentlemen, if the client could describe this to you. They can still be saved and their project could be a success. However, if they were to say…

Like Facebook or Friendster-lor. What they have, I also want…

Stop! I’m sure you can see a difference already. One knows the vision and one is still blurry of their own vision.

Whenever this happens, it shows the client haven’t done their own research of their idea. However, all of this can be omitted with the right amount of funds – sometimes. If you’re a website designer or developer in Malaysia, you’d know what’s coming.

The client who has the vision will carefully weigh the providers budget, knowledge and experience – some, working relationship. The other would jump out of his seat, all bug-eyed and comment on the budget really required for such an idea.

This, my dear readers, is the classic case of “how to create a website like…” in Malaysia.

Posted by dannyfoo on July 30, 2009 | Filed Under My Work, Website Lessons | 8 Comments |