Thursday, May 29, 2014
I love my boyfriend!!!!1
Hey guys, I know this tag has been around for some time nowwwwww, but I only recently got time to actually do it! AND I SWEAR IT. WAS. SO. MUCH. FUN. It's so funny to see how your boyfriend/girlfriend 'thinks' how well they know you x :')
follow me on instagram/youtube/THIS BLOG if you would like to see Mike more often! <3
The questions:
1. Who is my favourite movie star?
2. If you could be a type of food, what would you be?
3. Which side of the potato chip is saltier?
4. If you are to get a pet, what would it be?
5. Who is my BFF? (bestie!!!!!)
and most importantly...
6. Who said 'I love you' first?
follow me on instagram/youtube/THIS BLOG if you would like to see Mike more often! <3
The questions:
1. Who is my favourite movie star?
2. If you could be a type of food, what would you be?
3. Which side of the potato chip is saltier?
4. If you are to get a pet, what would it be?
5. Who is my BFF? (bestie!!!!!)
and most importantly...
6. Who said 'I love you' first?
Remix or not to remix? That is the question
When is exploiting your love one for sponsors/ fame ever right? I don't think i've heard of that approved law before. And if you scroll through your favourite "fashion-beauty" blogger are they doing anything different for their vlogs on this "Do my Boyfriend/brother makeup" tag? No. Its the same consistent giggling, (boyfriend) unwillingness , hand-behind-the-make-up-product-so-the-camera-can-focus-and raving about a certain product drivel.
Whatever happened to creativity, or in today's context, Remixing? Typical remix combines content within the same media or content from different media. For instance, a music remix may combine
music elements from any number of artists; just like your clubbing tunes, be it by deadmaus, armin or avicii. The Internet greatly increases the ease of locating and reusing material from other periods, artists, designers, and so on. In particular, since every company and freelance professionals in all cultural fields, publish documentation of their projects online, everybody can be updated with what the other is doing. Therefore, the speed with which an interesting blog entry gets referenced in other blogs is within a second. But the difference is quantitative than qualitative. (Manovich, 2007)
Quantitative vs Qualitative:
In quantitative work we classify features, count them, and even construct more complex statistical models in an attempt to explain what is observed. Findings can be generalised to a larger population, and direct comparisons can be made between two corpora, so long as valid sampling and significance techniques have been used. (Regents, 1999)
The aim of qualitative work is a complete, detailed description. No attempt is made to assign frequencies to the linguistic features which are identified in the data. (Regents, 1999)
What your bloggers are doing is quantitative work where they count the numbers of readers per entry and try to entice readers by loads of "eyecandy" photos that are overexposed and saturated, and talk about their day or what they bought, generic things, they care about the figure because more readers/more views = more money. Qualitative work would be blogging about relevant things like, food recipes, fashion trends instead of #ootd and music reviews not, your clubbing photos or hey if you wish, club reviews?
Whatever happened to creativity, or in today's context, Remixing? Typical remix combines content within the same media or content from different media. For instance, a music remix may combine
music elements from any number of artists; just like your clubbing tunes, be it by deadmaus, armin or avicii. The Internet greatly increases the ease of locating and reusing material from other periods, artists, designers, and so on. In particular, since every company and freelance professionals in all cultural fields, publish documentation of their projects online, everybody can be updated with what the other is doing. Therefore, the speed with which an interesting blog entry gets referenced in other blogs is within a second. But the difference is quantitative than qualitative. (Manovich, 2007)
Quantitative vs Qualitative:
In quantitative work we classify features, count them, and even construct more complex statistical models in an attempt to explain what is observed. Findings can be generalised to a larger population, and direct comparisons can be made between two corpora, so long as valid sampling and significance techniques have been used. (Regents, 1999)
The aim of qualitative work is a complete, detailed description. No attempt is made to assign frequencies to the linguistic features which are identified in the data. (Regents, 1999)
What your bloggers are doing is quantitative work where they count the numbers of readers per entry and try to entice readers by loads of "eyecandy" photos that are overexposed and saturated, and talk about their day or what they bought, generic things, they care about the figure because more readers/more views = more money. Qualitative work would be blogging about relevant things like, food recipes, fashion trends instead of #ootd and music reviews not, your clubbing photos or hey if you wish, club reviews?
References:
Manovich, L, 2007, Deep Remixability, University of California, San diego.
Regents Prep Center 1999, United Nations, accessed 3 May 2014,
<http://www.regentsprep.org/regents/math/algebra/ad1/qualquant.htm>Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Advertorial: Hair Products
This product is pure magic. ^_^
This little bottle promises to perform wonders on your hair and you will be left with the smoothest and most luscious hair you can ever think of. It smells amazing too and comes in 3 different scents. I don't personally have a favourite because I have only tried this one but I am pretty sure that the rest are just as good.
I also love the packaging of the product. It comes in such a nice, clean and transparent bottle that allows you to see how much product you have left. Don't you just hate it whenever you can't tell and then you find out that you're out of the product when you need it most?
Yay for packaging.
As you can see, I still have half a bottle left.
And this is what my hair looks like after using this product. After using it for quite some time now, I really do feel that it works wonders and I recommend it to everyone who needs to fix their hair. This product is available at www.omghairproducts.com and there's a sale going on so it's cheaper than usual. Also, you can quote PLZDONTKILLMYVIBEZ to get an extra 20% off!
So sooooooft.
Don't forget to try out the product. :D
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Too much??
We all know that social media has inherently brought upon the concept of traditional social networks in the “real world,” connecting users to familiar and new people through mutual acquaintances and common interests. The very nature of social media encourages users to provide heaps of personal information. Blogs alone, reveal not only personal information but chronicle intimacies of both the soul and flesh of the bloggers. It is a eminent that the internet provides a sense of anonymity, and the lack of such physical interaction provides a certain false sense of security. Bloggers have the liberty to tailor information to their readers, however it is also known that sharing too much information on blogs alone can be problematic as well. Constant flaming on their blogs, name calling by readers who barely even know them... etc. A great example would be: Naomi Neo, a singaporean blogger who got lashed at for showing her sideboobs in pictures. She replies her readers in her personal blog, and with a video to back up whatever she said as well.
""Guys, just so you know our boob sizes differ with the kind of bras we wear. Get over it that our boobs don't look the same all the time. Just bcos it's diff, it doesn't mean it's fake. Stop being so ignorant. Thanks."
A response video by Ben Matchap, a singaporean youtuber. He brought up pretty good points here!!
Have you ever wondered why bloggers engage in such adventures? From sharing their daily chronicles, to sharing their sponsorships, to talking about their love lives, to bringing their defamation "dramas" to a whole new level?? .. What are they expecting to gain from their public efforts? Having to blog with awareness that comes with a part of discourse? Paul B. de Latt mentions about how blogging itself is a "journey of self- discovery and intellectual self reliance", a project that involves "self clarification and self - validation". He goes on saying that by sustaining writing about such events, thoughts and emotions of one's life, "one is able to discover and develop who one is" also to " develop a community of sympathizers". Which I find is rather true, why bother putting up everything online when you know that there are surely gonna be haters about everything and anything that you do?
It can be understood that these bloggers are actually very much like exhibitionists, exposing intimate details of their life on purpose, also " correspondingly, their readers are engaged in voyeursim of a kind." Is this exhibitionism and voyeurism just a technological extension of what was happening before ever since the social media revolution? WIth the technological features of blogging, where the comment section could be hidden. Bloggers can decide, unobserved while being invisible behind their screens, whether or not to take up the invitation, example answering questions from fellow readers or accepting defamation from others. However, most of the time they choose not to.
It is evident that bloggers are typically exposing too many details of their lives, and their motives seems clear enough. Why do they even take time to risk exposing themselves to publicly to the world at large? What is the gamble of "extimacy" on the scale of the net? When is too much? Information overload? When does it cross the line of privacy and what can be said on the net? Paul explains further in the readings that "by externalizing one's intimate life through self dramatization, one may be more able to "grasp and re-internalize elements of one's inner life." Yeah, jotting down things on the diary would seem like a better idea, rather than sharing it with the world. Come on, the world already has enough problems of it's own.
What do you think? I personally think it's because of the fact that most of them are just in it for the fame... not to be biased, there are people who actually do blogging as a full time job!
With the shifts in our paradigms over the past few years has affected the way we perceive and deal with platforms like these on the whole. The west and the east, a diversity of cultures, all shifting with such speed that we can scarcely catch our breath, technology overtimes changes with us as well. Where Singapore is concerned about the freedom of speech, it's waving through glue. The scary truth is that even though we may not have time to adequately respond should any of these onslaughts escalating into catastrophic proportions - like cyber bullying and stuff. I personally believe that technology doesnt only exist independently on it's own, but we are co- dependent instead.
Lesson here: Think before you write, we've all encountered bloggers who talk about themselves too much and moreover do it poorly. - Overly detailed descriptions of weekend brunches with their friends we dont know, posting overly exposed pictures of themselves, insessant selfies, lattes with hearts drawn in the foam, 10 pictures of what they wore on that particular day... etc. I live in fear of being that blogger.
""Guys, just so you know our boob sizes differ with the kind of bras we wear. Get over it that our boobs don't look the same all the time. Just bcos it's diff, it doesn't mean it's fake. Stop being so ignorant. Thanks."
A response video by Ben Matchap, a singaporean youtuber. He brought up pretty good points here!!
Have you ever wondered why bloggers engage in such adventures? From sharing their daily chronicles, to sharing their sponsorships, to talking about their love lives, to bringing their defamation "dramas" to a whole new level?? .. What are they expecting to gain from their public efforts? Having to blog with awareness that comes with a part of discourse? Paul B. de Latt mentions about how blogging itself is a "journey of self- discovery and intellectual self reliance", a project that involves "self clarification and self - validation". He goes on saying that by sustaining writing about such events, thoughts and emotions of one's life, "one is able to discover and develop who one is" also to " develop a community of sympathizers". Which I find is rather true, why bother putting up everything online when you know that there are surely gonna be haters about everything and anything that you do?
It can be understood that these bloggers are actually very much like exhibitionists, exposing intimate details of their life on purpose, also " correspondingly, their readers are engaged in voyeursim of a kind." Is this exhibitionism and voyeurism just a technological extension of what was happening before ever since the social media revolution? WIth the technological features of blogging, where the comment section could be hidden. Bloggers can decide, unobserved while being invisible behind their screens, whether or not to take up the invitation, example answering questions from fellow readers or accepting defamation from others. However, most of the time they choose not to.
It is evident that bloggers are typically exposing too many details of their lives, and their motives seems clear enough. Why do they even take time to risk exposing themselves to publicly to the world at large? What is the gamble of "extimacy" on the scale of the net? When is too much? Information overload? When does it cross the line of privacy and what can be said on the net? Paul explains further in the readings that "by externalizing one's intimate life through self dramatization, one may be more able to "grasp and re-internalize elements of one's inner life." Yeah, jotting down things on the diary would seem like a better idea, rather than sharing it with the world. Come on, the world already has enough problems of it's own.
What do you think? I personally think it's because of the fact that most of them are just in it for the fame... not to be biased, there are people who actually do blogging as a full time job!
With the shifts in our paradigms over the past few years has affected the way we perceive and deal with platforms like these on the whole. The west and the east, a diversity of cultures, all shifting with such speed that we can scarcely catch our breath, technology overtimes changes with us as well. Where Singapore is concerned about the freedom of speech, it's waving through glue. The scary truth is that even though we may not have time to adequately respond should any of these onslaughts escalating into catastrophic proportions - like cyber bullying and stuff. I personally believe that technology doesnt only exist independently on it's own, but we are co- dependent instead.
Lesson here: Think before you write, we've all encountered bloggers who talk about themselves too much and moreover do it poorly. - Overly detailed descriptions of weekend brunches with their friends we dont know, posting overly exposed pictures of themselves, insessant selfies, lattes with hearts drawn in the foam, 10 pictures of what they wore on that particular day... etc. I live in fear of being that blogger.
Online diaries: Reflections on trust, privacy, and
exhibitionism by Paul B. de Laat, 2014 [Online] Available at:http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/627/art%253A10.1007%252Fs10676-008-9155-9.pdf?auth66=1401407210_f1b6f2d309aacbc02b88e958381b82e1&ext=.pdf.
[Accessed 28 May 2014].
My plastic surgery journey
Dear diary, on the 15th of May, Wendy and I ( In case you don't know she's my best friend) flew to the suburbs of Korea to get some work done on our faces. I did my surgery on the 16 of May at Hajuma Plastic Surgery clinic in korea, some suburb. I can't remember its name. Despite it being newly opened, Dr Kim Ji Taupoki is not new to this industry, again just like my hair stylist, he has MAGICAL HANDS TOO. He has worked at several reputable plastic surgery clinics in KOREA and is intending to open up his very own as well. I know with his magical hands and magical tools, i can trust him with my face.
She's so adorable. I love my best friend. We have a love hate relationship. But, thanks for accompanying me, even though half the time we're both vying for other people's attention, and competing on our blogs for who looks the prettiest online. (haha) anyway, she's a cool chic!
Follow her on @naaanaa on instagram.
Follow her on @naaanaa on instagram.
Our airplane food!!! oh yummmers!
Before surgery, Wendy and I stopped by a restaurant to have the famous korean noodles - it is called the ZHAR JIANG MIAN. it was so delish!!!! **pictures can be deceiving**
Walked around the area. Till we finally found the place.
@ Hajuma Plastic Surgery Clinic
Surgery area, it's so cosy! I could totally sleep in it.
And look! They have beautiful lamps litted at the corner of the room :) I wish my room was like this as well. WOW.
I did Magic Epicathoplasty (cutting the inner corner of my eyes) and 3D Lateral Canthoplasty (cutting the outer corner of my eyes).
Reason why i did those 2 surgeries was because i did not like the shape of my eyes. I did not like the shape of my nose as well and my chin because i think i look really fat, i also think that i look like i resemble the frankenstein. I have always wished to look like those korean models, for wider eyes even though my eyes seems to be pretty round already. I didn't lengthened them though, if i did my eyes would look weird, probably look like a retard.
I also did Non-Incision Double Eyelid Surgery. I already have double eyelids as you can see but Dr Dr Kim Ji Taupoki recommended i make it more defined. He wasn't a fan of too high eyelids so my double eyelids height remained the same but the line is more defined now. lol.
SO this is my before and after surgery face. It takes at least 6 months to recover fully.
As you can see from the bottom picture, i can't emphasize how much pain i am in after surgery. this is worse than i've expected. 3 weeks later.
4 Weeks later. looking a little better with my nose slightly tilted and skinnier, I asked Dr Kim Ji Taupoki to add in fillers for me!
Anyway, this isn't the final results yet!!! I still have another month for my eyes to fully recover and maybe another 2 months for my nose to fully recover? Of course i'm praying everything will be faster la so i'll continue working hard by taking my anti-swelling medication and putting ice/hot pack as frequently as possible.
Do follow me on instagram @bryanana to watch my progress k?
If you are interested in getting Plastic Surgery done, you can contact the Hajuma Plastic Surgery Singapore Team for more information...
Info : taupokisforlife@plasticsurgery.com
Reference:
http://ohsofickle.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/plastic-surgery-journey.html
http://ohsofickle.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/plastic-surgery-journey.html
Media Ownership
The media in many countries all over the world are subject to some form of media ownership and control. With media elements such as print, radio, films, and television being owned and regulated, the people are not free to do or speak as they wish.
Most Southeast Asian countries have a large number of the media owned either directly or by component parties of the government. This form of media ownership restricts the practice of freedom of speech as well as controls the content that is broadcasted through the media. In Malaysia, the media is government owned and heavily controlled; which puts a limit on the different viewpoints presented and provides the state with an opportunity to manipulate the media coverage (Weiss 2012). As for Singapore, the control of the media has been labeled as tightly constrained (Freedom House 2010).
With all the restrictions and regulations in place, people are feeling the pressure and have resorted to other mediums as a place for them to voice out their thoughts and opinions. They found this avenue with the increasingly popular blogging culture as well as the Internet, which had minimal censorship (Ahmad et al. 2011).
While the Internet is not regulated as much as other forms of media, this does not mean that users of the Internet will say or write as they please. With knowledge of existing regulations and acts in place, most bloggers claim to apply self-censorship as well as common sense when creating content. This just shows that their speech is still altered in some way or another.
This form of self-censorship is practiced by almost all bloggers regardless of the topics that they blog about. Even with bloggers that regularly write about beauty or entertainment products, the self-censorship is still applied causing most of the bloggers content to be relatively similar to one another and lack useful or honest opinions. As long as the acts and regulations are still intact, bloggers in both Malaysia and Singapore will constantly fear being charged with defamation for simply being honest, which has happened on many occasions and has become the most common legal problem faced by the media industry (Teo 2005).
References
Ahmad, AL, Mohamad, EMW, Redzuan, B, Hassan, A, Pawanteh, L, Ahmad, F & Aziz, J 2011, ‘Regulating Blogs in Malaysia’, The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, vol. 16, no. 3, article 12.
Freedom House 2010, Freedom World, report, Freedom House, viewed 20 May 2014, <http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2010/singapore - .U3x7nF41f1o>.
Teo, Y. (2005). Media law in Singapore (2nd ed.). Singapore: Sweet & Maxwell Asia.
Weiss, ML 2012, Politics in Cyberspace: New Media in Malaysia, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Germany.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Fame or Fortune?
“Hi all, my name is Inocensius. I am a
wedding videographer base in Melbourne. Today, I will review a new rode video
microphone pro. This microphone just comes to market last month. This pro
series have more advantageous compare with the previous model. This pro series
is lighter and rode improve their stabilizer system on this series. Moreover,
this pro series has adjustable level between -10dB, 0dB, +10dB, this adjusting
level is really useful especially that you record video directly from your
DSLR. You can buy this rode video microphone pro from ted camera on Elisabeth
street only $250 and it come with 10 year warranty.”
Above is an example of the blog post that
usually blogger write to promote a new product that they just got or bought. We
can find not only in Asian, but also in western that people do blog for
promoting or reviewing a product. These kinds of blog are grew rapidly and
leave questions for myself that “Are bloggers doing it for fame or fortune?” or
“Are blogger doing it just for the sponsorship, money, and free product?”
I took Singapore as an example country to
learn more about this case because we can find that really massive number of
people in Singapore that do blogging and most of them do it for promoting and
review items.
I try to research regarding Singaporean
blogger until found a website that give award to the most popular blogs in
Singapore. That website called TheSmartLocal.com. They give list of the top 36
blog in Singapore that we can find at http://www.thesmartlocal.com/read/most-popular-bloggers-in-singapore#.
From that website I try to take a look one by one of the top 36 blogs and learn
what they want from writing and keep their blog up to date. Until I found that
each of the blogger is unique and different between one to other. I can find
that some of them do it just for get money and sponsor, but in other side I
also found that a blogger write a post because they like to write and share
their idea, stuff, knowledge and experience to other people. For the second
type of blogger usually money and sponsor is not top objective that they do
blogging.
To attract us as owner of company or
supplier of an item to advertise our product most of the blogger put their blog
statistic about viewership. 1000 or more viewer a day is something that
possible to get for a famous blog. They also talk about the award or
achievement that they got in the past from trustable organization such as
TheSmartLocal.com. Most of the famous bloggers talk about advertorial, reviews,
food, tutorial and traveling.
As example when I take a look on Xiaxue
blog (top 10 Singapore blogger base on http://www.thesmartlocal.com/read/most-popular-bloggers-in-singapore),
it really make me surprise because she has a price list that tell us how much
we need to pay if we want ask her to advertise our product. The screen capture
of her blog I put on below:
What $3500 and up for advertorial????? It is
so expensive right? But yeah, that is the price that we need to pay if we want
to ask her advertise our product. We know and believe that many people will
read her blog so still many people ask her help. But in other hand, I can say
that all the blogger that know they are famous just put the price base on what
they want to get and thing money, money and money. They believe that do
blogging can cover all they need to life.
Moreover, I also found many famous blogger
that don’t do what Xiaxue do, they not put the price list but some of them put
the package of services like what Mitsueki do:
Personally I see that what Mitsueki do will looks
not really commercial blog rather than Xiaxue do even Mitsueki also has a lot
of fewer and follower.
In conclusion, which one is better blogger?
For me both their goal to do blogging are up to them as long as they can give a
good and trustable review or information to viewer. More viewer will read and
follow their blog if viewer fell happy and believe about what they said.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Dedicated to my dog!! gou gou!!!
Today is my gou gou's birthday and I am feeling very happy for him.
I bought him a birthday hat and a cake at brunetti! yummmers!
*sings happy birthday song * *blows off candles*
And then, afterwhich i went off to have dinner with Ronna, my other blogger friend.
We had a feast at Imperial!
Yup, so that's the end of my day. I'll end off my post with a selfie!
Oh yah, one last thing, check this blogshop out. they have really lovely clothes. i like them but i can't buy them cause i dont have enough cash now :( currently broke from all that eating out.
* hint hint* sponsors? anyone?
galstar.com
xx.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
My stylist has magical hands.
Today, I finally went back to retouch on my roots, YAYY no more black roots! (gaaah why does it have to grow so fast?) and left looking like this? And yes, doesn't my hair look SOOOO much shinier?? Anyway back to SALOVEMMI today to do my hair treatment.
Their hair treatment is specially locked in with a new technology, some ultrasonic infrared treatment (according to the presslist), and it's only available at their salon ISLANDWIDE!
But first let me take a couple of selfies with my new hair before i show you guys the process of how it was done!!!!!! Look at that pink hair, I can finally feel like A PONYZZZZZZZZZ. My stylist has magical hands, he knows what I want even before i even think of it. Literally doesn't even need me to tell him what i want and just does it right. And I know i can sit down and just let him do his THANG. Afterall, he's a celebrity hair stylist *flips hair*
oh YES, in case you are wondering what I'm wearing. I'm wearing this top that i got from the market and a skirt from Bugis street.
Sorry for the spam, but i really love my hair here, it look so luscious.
Follow me on instagram so that i can gain more followers @bryana1234567
Quote "Bryanaa" for 10% off all SALONVEMMII hair products!!
Tanks for reading ;)
Reference:
http://www.rchlwngx.com/2014/05/air-salon.html
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Confessions of a Blogger
HAUL VIDEO! For those who don't know already, I live in the city of Kuala Lumpur. Like every other city, KL has a culture unique to its own. And you ALL know what I mean when I say unique, it has the greatest variety of goods and chattels, ranging from skin care products to arm candy!
I took a trip to the city recently in hopes to get myself prepared for winter *as if winter isn't here already* and unexpectedly ended up splurging. Do tell me what you think, or if you have anything to recommend in the comment section below!
P/s: In my defense, they were all SO cheap!
In the USA, bloggers are expected to be cognisant of the guidelines set by the FTC (Federal Trade Commision) on the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. This means that should bloggers receive any sort of payment or product from advertisers or companies to blog about, they are to disclose the relationship in the blog. If the same rules and regulations are applied in Asia, I believe that viewers can avoid confusion regarding the post's intent.
These examples inattentively clarifies the post's intent for the viewers, but there are still myriads of blogs out there which do not exercise these kinds of 'preventative measures'. Even if they did, would viewers still be interested in reading sponsored posts, or to put it in another way, basically a post by advertisers? Is there ever in the history of blogging where a sponsored blogpost has a negative element in it? This brings us back to our main question, are bloggers really doing it just because they love to blog?
Comscore 2009, 2 Million More Australians Go Social in 2009 <http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2009/8/2_Million_More_Australians_Go_Social_in_2009>
Friedman, F. (2009), Parenting Blogs May Be Held Liable for Product Reviews, ABC News, [online] Available at http://abcnews.go.com/Business/AheadoftheCurve/story?id=7301845&page=1 Accessed 14th May 2014
Maheshwari, S. (2013) Youtube Shopper Haul Videos Have More Combined Views Than "Gangnam Style", Buzzfeed [online] Available at http://www.buzzfeed.com/sapna/youtube-shopper-haul-videos-have-more-combined-views-than-ga Accessed 14th May 2014
Miller, R. and Lammas, N. "Social media and its implication for viral marketing," Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, (11), [online] Available at https://lms.rmit.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-4943699-dt-content-rid-9451027_1/courses/COMM2336_1410/11-miller-lammas.pdf Accessed 14th May 2014
I took a trip to the city recently in hopes to get myself prepared for winter *as if winter isn't here already* and unexpectedly ended up splurging. Do tell me what you think, or if you have anything to recommend in the comment section below!
P/s: In my defense, they were all SO cheap!
For the uninitiated, haul videos are a genre of online video in which people show off their purchases, mostly clothing and accessories. These videos are also considered as another form of blogging, namely 'vlogging', which stands for video blogging. Haul videos are basically shopping haul posts in video form, where you have the bloggers telling you why they bought what they bought, which does not really strike me as 'informative'. Many of these bloggers, in my opinion, are social advocates of blatant consumerism. Informative or not, they have certainly gained immense popularity over recent years, there are now more than 800 thousand videos with 'haul' in the title on Youtube. (Maheshwari, 2013) The question here is, are bloggers actually doing it for fame and fortune? Or are they blogging just because?
We now live in the era of Web 2.0, or what Shih (2009) calls 'the fourth revolution', where communication amongst netizens and social media users possess the power to greatly enhance marketing efforts with viral marketing campaigns. According to Comscore (2009), the Internet has a potential audience of 11 million people of which more than 70% use a social network. Many startup companies and established business have hopped on the social bandwagon because it has proven itself to be one, if not most, powerful tool to achieve brand recognition and to reach an audience.
Image courtesy of Jay Dolan
We now live in the era of Web 2.0, or what Shih (2009) calls 'the fourth revolution', where communication amongst netizens and social media users possess the power to greatly enhance marketing efforts with viral marketing campaigns. According to Comscore (2009), the Internet has a potential audience of 11 million people of which more than 70% use a social network. Many startup companies and established business have hopped on the social bandwagon because it has proven itself to be one, if not most, powerful tool to achieve brand recognition and to reach an audience.
Viral marketing, also known as word-of-mouth (WOM), is the tactic of creating a process where users who share the same interest can market to each other. (Subramahi & Rajagopalan, 2003, p1) Though social media has propelled marketing to a whole new level, it has some setbacks. The 'marketer', which in this case, the blogger, is at a certain level of risk. Users might turn away from a social networking site if they feel that their interests are being subjugated to those of advertisers. (Miller & Lammas, p5) Schemes that blatantly 'adopt' users to promote products or services may upset the status quo and reduce the overall effectiveness of viral marketing. In relation to the shopping haul video or post, some products may have been placed beforehand and is included solely for monetary gain.
In the USA, bloggers are expected to be cognisant of the guidelines set by the FTC (Federal Trade Commision) on the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. This means that should bloggers receive any sort of payment or product from advertisers or companies to blog about, they are to disclose the relationship in the blog. If the same rules and regulations are applied in Asia, I believe that viewers can avoid confusion regarding the post's intent.
Some blogs like Malaysian beauty blogger Emily Quak's contains disclaimers. Image courtesy of http://www.emilyquak.com
Lifestyle blogger Koey Leow uses a more distinctive approach - labelling all sponsored posts in the heading. Image courtesy of http://www.koeyleow.com
Travel blogger Nicole Tan provides a more subtle but still appropriate way of clarification. Image courtesy of http://nicolekiss.blogspot.com.au
These examples inattentively clarifies the post's intent for the viewers, but there are still myriads of blogs out there which do not exercise these kinds of 'preventative measures'. Even if they did, would viewers still be interested in reading sponsored posts, or to put it in another way, basically a post by advertisers? Is there ever in the history of blogging where a sponsored blogpost has a negative element in it? This brings us back to our main question, are bloggers really doing it just because they love to blog?
Comscore 2009, 2 Million More Australians Go Social in 2009 <http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2009/8/2_Million_More_Australians_Go_Social_in_2009>
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