The blogger rules, announced on Monday by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), are part of revisions to the agency’s Guides Concerning The Use Of Endorsements And Testimonials In Advertising. The last time these guides were revised was in 1980. At that time, there was no such thing as a blogger or social media.

‘The post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement,’ said the agency in a news release. ‘Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.’

There is nothing in the rules, which go into effect on Dec 1, that specifies how the disclosure must be made.

‘That’s left up to the endorser,’ said Mr Richard Cleland, assistant director of the FTC’s division of advertising practices. ‘It can be a banner, part of the review. The only requirement is that it be clear and conspicuous.’

The new rules also take aim at celebrities, who will now need to disclose any ties to companies, should they promote products on a talk show or on Twitter.

The move suggests that the government is intent on bringing to bear on the Internet the same sorts of regulations that have governed other forms of media, like television or print.

Sites like Twitter and Facebook, as well as blogs, have offered companies new opportunities to pitch products with endorsements that carry a veneer of authenticity because they seem to be straight from the mouth of an individual consumer.

A spokesman for Singapore’s Media Development Authority said the agency would ‘take into consideration the requirement for disclosure rules for bloggers’, but declined to elaborate further.

Popular food blogger Leslie Tay ‘fully endorses’ the FTC regulation.

‘Honesty is the best policy. Bloggers should always declare any conflicts of interest upfront,’ said Dr Tay, who already declares that the food is sponsored by a restaurant as part of his review.

LOS ANGELES TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, NEW YORK TIMES

Source: Straits TImes (subscribers only)

A good friend of mine in the Secondary school days have opened a new milkshake palour in the CBD area. Words cannot describe how good his milkshakes are, so check out these two video reviews from RAZOR.TV.

Feeling the sugar craving in you on the rise? Try out for Once Upon A Milkshake’s creamy milkshakes and let me know what you think!

The outlet is located at Maxwell Chambers, 32 Maxwell Road, #01-08 (Mon-Sun: 11am to 11pm).

Hi everyone,

It’s been a while since I last blogged because I was busy with some other projects that my way unexpectedly. But that doesn’t mean I have forgotten about this blog, or Internet Marketing in general.

In this post, I’m going to share with you how I managed to get a blog ranked number one in Google search results using Twitter in LESS THAN 2 WEEKS!

The blog that I created is ToaPayohProperties.com. The registration date is 16th August 2009.

I took an entire week to set up the blog with Wordpress and make changes to the design element.

Next, I registered a Twitter account and pushed all the blog posts I’ve made up to my new Twitter account. Bear in mind that at this stage, I am still receiving ZERO visits to my blog and the only person who knows about the existence of this blog is probably myself.

I continued with consistent blogging for the whole of last week. As a result, the blog not only got indexed by Google, but also snatched the top spot for the keyword, “toa payoh properties”.

This is my success story with the use of social media, in this case Twitter, to get my blog ranked on top in my designated keyword. If you have any success stories to share with regards to social media, please send in your comments.

Dear readers,

I’m finally debt free after fully repaying my education loan to the bank. No more monthly deductions and no more stress over working for the sake of money.

Here’s my story…

When I started my part-time degree course two years ago, I made up my mind not to take up any loans and pay cash every semester by prudent saving my salary. This was not a problem for me as I made careful calculations and budgeting before I signed up the course.

So why did I eventually take up an education loan? Did I miscalculate? Was I wrong?

Well, the truth is shortly after I started my course, I was fortunate to have met an investor on an online forum. He shared with everyone his theory and beliefs about moving away from paper investments such as stocks and bonds, and move to hard assets such as gold and silver investments. After doing some reading of my own, I was convinced that the economy was heading down in the next few years and recognised the potential of investing in gold and silver.

After purchasing my first few gold coins in a couple of months, I realised that they were making double digit returns. I decided to take up an education loan since the returns can easily cover the interest charged for the education loan.

Fast forward to 2009. While the economy has really headed down and investors were seeing red in all their investments, my gold and silver assets were still all seeing 10-20% returns as I invested whenever I could while gold and silver prices were down. After repaying the loan in full, I still retained a few gold coins from the investment.

I would say that I’m very lucky to have met the right people along my life journey and thankfully, I seized the opportunities available to me. In all honesty, opportunities are all around us. It is up to us to discover them and seize the day!

PS: The title is entitled debt free for now, because I recently purchased a new pigeon hole for the family. But that’s another story, for another day.

Palett Taste: 7/10
The taste was definitely better than than the usual Tiger, Carlsberg, Tsingdao, etc. It’s also more bitter. Carbonation was good. Have bubbles coming up consistently like what we see in commercial beers.

After Taste: 3/10
After taste was not very good. The beer taste remained, but there was the wierd after taste that comes with young red wine. I am guessing that with age, the after taste should improve.

Initial Head: 5/10
It’s probably similar to Carlsbergs, but nowhere near the head we see in Erdingers though. Rated 5 because this is my first homebrew and I want to use this beer to benchmark future homebrews.

Head Retention: 5/10
The head disappeared within 10 minutes (okay I wasn’t timing). I want to use this to benchmark future homebrews as well.

Clarity: 7/10
Could easily be an 8 but I want to keep some ratings for future homebrews (rate too high later must rate above 10…). It’s clear like a lager, considering that I did not do any filtering. What’s more, the bottle that I opened was from the bottom of the fermenter.

Chris Rating: 6/10
Though the beer is definitely drinkable, I’m leaving more ratings for future homebrews, benchmarking with this beer.

During my trip to Australia a few months back, I purchased a Cooper Microbrewery Kit after being inspired by Solidghost when he shared his home brewing experience. In many countries, home brewing is very common. Singapore however, has a small community of home brewers, probably because of the higher temperature that makes it a challenge to home brew.

Being a beer lover trapped in a country where alcohol is heavily taxed. Home brewing seemed like the perfect solution. In Singapore, individuals are allowed to brew any form of “fermentable” alcohol such as beer, alcohol, cider, sake, etc. legally for home consumption. The limit is 23 litres per month for beer, and another 23 litres for other forms of alcohol.

In case you’re curious what the Cooper Microbrewery Kit contains, here a list of what you can find inside the box:

1. Fermenter (brewing bucket/carboy with airlock and spigot)

2. Can Opener (for opening up the can of beer ingredient kit)

3. Stir spoon

4. Bottler

5. Bottles and the necessary caps (enough to fill 23 litres)

6. Thermometer

7. Kettle (for boiling water)

8. Hydrometer (for measuring the gravity or alcohol content)

9. Manual and CD guide

Separately, I’ve bought 3 Tap-a-draft (TAD) bottles with a TAD valve and cooler box for easily bottling (no interest in washing 30 bottles) and to hold 18 litres of water needed for the brew. I’ve also bought the Nottingham Ale Yeast which is supposed to be a neutral yeast, not adding flavours to the beer while creating a clearer beer. I also bought a larger cooler box to contain the fermenter as the temperature needs to be brought down to around 20 degrees celcius in order for fermentation to take place.

Over the weekend, I made my first home brew with the Tooheys Special Lager kit that I bought in Australia. Beer kits, as well as microbrewery kits are readily available in departmental stores unlike Singapore where there are a very niche group of sellers.

I apologise that I did not take any pictures of my brewing process as I was too focused in brewing forgot to prepare my camera. For this brews, my aim is to use the simplest processes to achieve the fundamentals in home brewing before exploring new ideas.

Here are the steps in home brewing:

Night before actual brewing day

1. Chill 18 litres of water the night before the actual brewing process (The chilled water helps to bring down the temperature of the wort in order to pitch the yeast).

Actual brewing day

1. Sanitise all equipments that will come in contact with the wort content a.k.a. soon-to-beer beer (I used Iodophor to sanitise everything before running them through a kettle of boiling water just in case).

2. Place the can of beer kit in a pot of hot water for 10 minutes to soften the beer concentrate in order to pour them out easily later.

3. After 10 minutes, open and pour the can of beer concentrate into the fermenter, followed by brewing sugar and hot water (around 2-4 litres, I use a kettle full of hot water).

4. Mix all the contents (now termed wort) and make sure everything is will dissolved, especially the sugar. By now, the thermometer reads 40 degrees celcius.

5. Pour in the 18 litres of chilled water into the fermenter to add the volume to 23 litres. The temperature is brought down to around 20 degrees celcius which is good enough to pitch the yeast.

6. Pitch the yeast into the wort, allow it to settle for a few minutes before stirring into the wort.

7. Cover the fermenter with the lid and air-lock.

8. Place the fermenter in the cooler box with two ice packs and cover it up.

9. Leave the wort to ferment for a week (or until bubbling in the airlock stops).

So there you have it, you get your very own home brewed beer in 9 simple steps with no bells and whistles.

It’s that time of the year where friends and family gather together and have a glorious spread of turkey and ham. It’s also a spirit of giving and sharing. Remember to make some donations while on your way to the party!

How are you celebrating this Christmas?

I’m going to be have a potluck party at one of my classmate’s place. There’s going to be lots of food and drinks to go around while we party our way through the night.

Here’s wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and lots of joy in the year to come.

Dear readers,

Barack Obama is officially elected the 44th president of United States!

When two political powers clash in a contest to be the most powerful man in the nation, it takes a huge amount of effort to come up top.

Marketers around the world has got to give credit to Obama and his team for the brilliant use of the Internet to give themselves to promote their campaign. This is probably the best case study ever, demostrating the power of the Internet in international marketing.

Here are some examples of how Obama used the Internet to propel himself into presidency, reinventing the way campaigns are run with modern tools.

Updated information, 24/7

People who wanted to know more about Barack Obama were able to find out more about his accomplishments and the policies that he were pushing for in his website. Obama’s website also kept its supporters and the nation updated with the latest happenings of his campaign through streaming videos, photos and blog postings.

Fundraising

Volunteers used Obama’s website to organise over 150,000 campaign-related events over the entire course of the campaign. Over a thousand phone-banking events and online donations helped Obama raise a record-breaking US$600 million fund for his campaign in contributions from more than three million people.

Combat Against Rumors

Like all political campaigns, rumors about politicians are bound to spread like wild fire, be it intentional or not. In a large country such as the United States, it is not an easy task to combat rumors and politicians typically either choose to have a press statement to refute these rumors, or ignore it completely which could be a disastrous move.

Obama again made use of the Internet to combat rumors. The team launched the website, FightTheSmears.com to provide the facts about the rumors about Obama and his campaigns. The website also served long with many other internet action groups to collect and refute rumors as quickly as they come.

Obama’s online initiatives have helped touched the hearts and minds of the nation on a very large and cost-effective scale. This soon-to-be textbook example of empowerment through people and technology goes to show that the Internet is the right way to go for businesses to market themselves.

In recent months, we have seen huge moves of the volatile market in these troubled times. Even commodities such as gold which is considered defensive, have been moving in difference of US$20-50 in many occasions.

The question in the minds of most investors are, how is this crisis going to fare as compared to the previous crash and depression.

Looking at the chart below published by The New York Times, it appears that we are definitely in for a hell-of-a-ride here.

The current financial crisis makes the ‘87 crash look like child’s play.

My opinion is to stay calm by the sidelines and wait. Potentially, I’m seeing more negative downside coming our way before the actual recovery which requires drastic change.

Dear readers,

Let’s face it. Nobody is indispensible to companies!

In such times of uncertainty where even giant corporations suffer in a sea of red in the stock market and dark clouds cover the economy, one has to make contingency plans and create escape routes.

So what are you going to do, should your company collapse or if the top management decides that you are redundant and gives you the sack?

Instead of looking at making money for the short-term, I always advocate to aim at sustainability. That is, having long-term money making plans.

Here’s what I may do for the next three months if I get retrenched.

Expanding clientel in my Webhosting Business
I’ve been running a webhosting business for the past two years and revenue has been consistent. It’s high time that I focus on expanding my clientel to generate more revenue for the business.

Make more money online
My approach to internet marketing has always been passive. Build well-designed websites with good ad placements, that are more or less self-generating in terms of content and visitors. With little or no work needed, passive amounts of income would pay for my bills. With more time in, I could take on a more active approach.

Turn my hobbies into cash cows
Having always been interested in photography, I’ve always been thinking of taking up a full-time photographer role. Having little flair for designing, I’ve also been accepting long-term content management jobs for both static and flash websites.

Yup, so that’s pretty much me. What are your plans?