Cover It Live!

A new 'live' blogging tool has hit the internet superhighway and taken off like a cyclone. It allows you to not only blog about an ongoing event like an election, but also allows you to use multimedia features to peg your blogging to. These multimedia tools include audio, video and images, but also incorporates interactive tools such as easily set up polls and reader comments which can be moderated. The most beautiful of this is that it allows multi-post blogging capability. To know more, visit the website here.

We introduced it at the office for blow-by-blow blogging needs and the reporters are adapting quite well to it. One of the good things about new media technology is that the younger set find it easier to pick up while the older generation are a bit sceptical. With Coveritlive, I think the makers of the software have made it quite simple to use and pick-up rate is less than 20 minutes for newcomers to understand. Why this is so is easily understood.

Remember the days when ICQ was introduced? Well, this interface is similar to messaging service except than in messaging service, you talk to one another. Later when ICQ introduced conferencing, you could 'chat' with several people at one time. Look at Coveritlive as the ICQ (or any IM). Instead of allowing conversations between people who are 'talking' to each other, it also allows 'eavesdropping' by readers. And the beautiful part of it is that these readers are allowed to comment on what the administrators are chatting about and join in this community.

At the heart of Coveritlive is the code snippet which allows the 'chat' template to be easily posted on websites. Like YouTube, you just cut and embed on any site you want and you have an entirely 'live' coverage of any event - whether you call it blog or chat is up to you.

This is exceptionally good when doing Live Blogging (or online reporting) of events such as sports, races and elections for instance. The only bug I see is perhaps the instantaneous posting of each message/blogpost is dependent on line. Otherwise, you could do a lot with Coveritlive - including embedding pictures, and other multimedia stuff.

CIMB SPAM - BE VERY CAREFUL IF YOU RECEIVE THIS

SPAM FROM CIMB!

The above is an email purportedly sent by CIMB, a Malaysian bank. I detected it recently and decide to post it here. This is a very advanced email spam waiting to snare you into giving your account details and if you did, you will lose everything and CIMB will not know anything or be liable because it did not send the email.

Look at the red arrows. The top arrow shows the purported email (directaccess@cimb.com) and the bottom one shows the so-called copy right - just to lend legitimacy to the spam. Below this arrow, you see a DO NOT REPLY message, which should set off your alarm bells.

There are hyperlinks on instruction 1 and 4 in blue, but fortunately, it was disabled when the mail dropped into the server. (You can disable all these links from possible spammers by disabling HTML on your email and choose only PLAIN TEXT for email display in your mail settings).

I hope by posting this, CIMB will be alerted. I have yet to see anything on their site - www.cimb.com.my -. Will it be like the Petronas Scam I warned about earlier? I really hope not if the Public Relations (Community and Corporate Image/Branding departments) people are reading this.

DISASTERS - Keep The Info Flowing Freely AND Easily Accessible

There were complaints among reporters - that information were hard to come by during the recent Bukit Antarabangsa landslide tragedy. Victims, understandably, were reluctant to speak to the press. The authorities were also similarly Press-shy. As a result, all sorts of speculation were rumoured - including that of massive looting that went on when house owners were asked to evacuate for their own safety at the disaster zone. Even the police chief had to appeal to the public not to spred rumours about the looting as he instructs his men to secure the abandoned homes and look out for looters.

Today, a smart company has got an information centre up and running and from its effort, perhaps the disaster management committees of the future could put the setting up of an information base as priority in disaster relief. A centralised info centre will keep everyone enlightened and update on the true situation.

Skali, an e-business enterprise, has taken a commendable step to assist the disaster relief by using Blogger to set up their web presence here.

Operating from the Burger King outlet next to the Petronas service station, it is spearheaded by its CEO.

According to Bernama, the team would provide food and drinks to people affected by the landslide as well as vital information from its SMS alerts.

"We inform the affected residents from our database of more than 300 house owners on information like when they can move into their homes or the status of the electricity connections. We are always in touch with the authorities so that the information is authenticated"

In any crisis, information - correct information - should be made available to all. Public relations mangers should think about it in the aftermath of the Bukit Antarabangsa Landslide Tragedy

BUKIT ANTARABANGSA LANDSLIDE: How RTM can use the citizen media to assist reporting of disasters

Yet another tragedy happens at the Ulu Kelang hills, 15 years later after the collapse of the Highland Towers which took 48 lives. This time, two posh housing aread were affected - 14 bungalows lost their foothold to crashing earth and 4 lives were taken at 4am in the morning of Saturday Dec 6.

While the news was related quickly by the Online portals of mainstream media and updates equally efficient, the national media, RTM, was rapped by its minister Shabery Cheek.

BUKIT ANTARABANGSA TRAGEDY: RTM rapped for slow updates

KOTA BARU: Upset with RTM for being slow in disseminating news about the Bukit Antarabangsa landslide yesterday, Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek has directed the national network to provide regular updates on natural disasters in the country.

The information minister said the move would allow the public to get the latest information on disasters like yesterday’s landslide.

More at the minister's blog here

In a later post, the minister said RTM would interrupt several programmes to bring in the latest report on the landslide to give a clear picture on the incident to the public.

“I have asked RTM to give the latest report from time to time and stop several other programmes,” he told reporters after attending a briefing on the flood situation in Kelantan at the Kota Darul Naim, here.

The Bernama radio, however, has done quite admirably, with updates and interviews done regularly, to provide listeners with the latest.

In tragedies and disasters like this, mainstream media (not online) could have ploughed the blogosphere for material - the latest, people-reported information to beef up their news and updates. If there were videos uploaded by those who were at the scene, by all means, get them up while your television or radio newscrew try to get your own filming done and getting them back to the office. Places to go in times like this are Youtube and Google Blog Search. Right keywords will yield most interesting results and might save your day and your job.

For Online news portals, this is also the time to maximise the reach of your brand and corporate identity. Instead of using your own video servers, why not use embed your logo on the video and upload them to Youtube for viral distribution and saving your own server bandwidth? There are simply more traffic in Youtube that you can ever do on your own domain name and it makes good sense to tap them and make your site known to these new markets as well.

Below is a good video done by an eyewitness. It is not even a video but a compilation of photos strung together as a slideshow. Tells a different story of the tragedy and makes good study for online media, don't you think?