Gavin Goes GAGA!

Chinese New Year apps to help with the celebrations and/or ease the pain of annoying extended family gatherings we wish existed.

With the Chinese New Year approaching, I decided to perform a search for apps that might come in handy to help with the celebrations and/or ease the pain of annoying extended family gatherings (whichever way you view the Lunar New Year activities). Sadly, I didn’t see anything of interest or utility, so here’s my wish list for apps to serve those of us who have the fortune/misfortune of having to celebrate/endure Chinese New Year. Bear in mind, though, that I’m all for anything that makes this obligatory participation as painless as possible.

1 Auto Ang Bao
I imagine those who “qualify” as hong bao (red packet) distributors would love to have a means to ease the annual hassle that is withdrawing ridiculous amounts of cold hard cash in small denominations (debited from your hard-earned savings no less), inserting the obligatory “right” amounts into red packets just narrow enough to fit the bills but never wide enough to do so easily (not to mention the Purple Heart-worthy number of paper cuts you’ll inevitably suffer), and then noting which packets are to go with which of your brat relatives.

If only there were an app that would allow you to specify an hong bao amount, and then let you deposit that amount straight into the respective brat’s (or brat’s parents’) bank account by a mere phone bump (since most of these brats seem to have more expensive phones than adults nowadays). Better yet, the app could let us hand the hong baos out digitally, saving us the trouble of even having to attend the family gathering altogether.

What? Give and no receive? ¾ I can hear you complain. Fret not; I have that covered too. The app should also allow one to auto-return an hong bao of the same amount received. That way, you’ll never have one of those, “Ah Beng only give my son $4!? If I’d known I wouldn’t have given his spoilt daughter $18! Loogi lah! (lose out lah!)”

2 Relationship Status Update For Kaypoh (Busy-body) Relatives
This one’s quite self-explanatory for those of us who have to face this annual interrogation that makes you want to choke yourself to death on the nearest nian gao (Chinese New Year cake).

“So old still not married ah? When’s your turn? Cannot find boyfriend ah? Never try SDU?” (SDU: Social Development Unit. Don’t know what it means? Bing it. )

“Not planning to have kids? Wait too long wait very hard you know? Or your lao gong beh hiao zo gang (directly translated as: husband knows not how to do his work) is it?”

“What happened to [insert name of he/she who used to be one’s ex who shall not be named]? But you looked so pei (compatible) together…” In front of your current squeeze no less.

“How come every New Year I only see you bring [gender similar to yours] friend ah? Don’t tell me you tong xing lian (Yes, gay. Get over it.)!?” Loud enough for all your relatives to hear, naturally.

What we need is an app that will allow us to state all of the relationship and family planning status updates that these annoying relatives tend to enquire upon at this time, which will also then allow us to Bluetooth or disseminate that information wirelessly to all relatives present (or who have checked in to the location on Foursquare) before we even step in the door. Or we could it even have that information sent to the respective kaypoh relative’s Hotmail account in advance so they might just possibly tire of gossiping about it by the time the family gathers.

(This is probably the one instance when posting all such status updates on Facebook and Twitter is forgivable. You never know which relatives might be secretly stalking you.  Suppressing snooping relatives trumps Saving Social Energy. Just for this time of year.)

On second thoughts though, I don’t think this will be effective. You’re probably still better off going “old school” by snooping on the Facebook pages of said annoying aunt(s)’s own spawn yourself and digging up dirt on them. What for? Why, for blackmail of course. No questions, or everyone finds out your straight-As-earning so-called savant of a son also has a habit of posting pictures of himself in drag…when in any kind of dressing at all.

3 Bak Kwa Price Watch

For some reason, local Chinese people go ape shit over barbequed dried pork during Chinese New Year. I love the heart-attack-inducing carcinogenic slices of mystery pork meat as much as the next Singaporean Chinese person, but I really don’t see why we have to buy pre-apocalyptic stocks of it only now when it’s available all-year round. The result of this is an absurdly priced literal pound of flesh and snaking long queues to buy the greasy squares.

Now all someone has to do is to rip off the API of a stock market price watch app, and turn it into one that will deliver the latest rise and fall of bak kwa prices from all over the island to our mobile device. Throw in some geo-location tools so we know where to find said cheapest bak kwa, and maybe some Groupon integration so we can combine forces with friends to get the bak kwa for even cheaper, and I believe you’ll have a top-selling app for all February months from now till the day when pigs can fly and prevent us from turning them into bak kwa.

Any other useful app ideas that will come in handy during Chinese New Year? Share them in the comments below!

The bells weren’t ringing for many iPhone users this New Year’s weekend, when thanks to a glitch the alarms on Apple’s iconic mobile phones failed to go off, causing many to oversleep, and others to predict Armageddon.

iPhone 4

I was planning to blog about the iPhone alarm bug yesterday (2 Nov) instead of this rather belated update. I’m not lying, I swear. I even set an alarm on my iPhone to wake me up at 5am to write this so that my post would be right on time for those whose alarm failed to wake them up on the morning of the 2^nd.

For those as oblivious to this most unusual of New Year incidences (who would expect a technological device to go awry with the change of numerical digits that comes with the change of year?) as these poor sods who didn’t hear about it and still set their iPhone alarms on the 2^nd, there was a bug with some iPhone versions that caused alarms set to go off on the first and second days of 2011 to go on strike.

As you might expect, this caused quite the furore from affected users. I suspect the uproar would have been worse if the greater majority of users weren’t all comatose from a late night of drunken New Year’s Eve revelry.

Actually, strike that. That most of the fun-loving, normal folk weren’t affected — they were probably relieved no foolishly-set early alarms went off on New Year’s Day morning —probably explains all the complaints about the bug: only the boring, party-pooper folk who went to bed early were affected by the glitch.

However, I suspect quite a number of complainers to simply be opportunists. Hey, if I was out partying until 6 in the morning and failed to wake up for say, a wearisome family gathering or a brunch shindig organised by the boss, I’d have used the iPhone alarm glitch as an excuse too.

In fact, I’d even go as far as to blame this glitch for why I haven’t updated my blog for two weeks. After all, this alarm issue was originally reported by British users as far back as November. No, it doesn’t matter how the alarm on my iPhone (strangely set to UK time) not going off could have prevented me from writing new blog posts — the details are not important!

The point is, if I am going to rely on the latest in technology for something as important and fundamental as what time I wake up, then it damned well bloody work and I would have every right to blame it for any unfortunate consequence that results when things go wrong.

“I couldn’t finish my assignment because my computer crashed.”

“I can’t send you the proposal because something went wrong with PowerPoint.”

“Hey honey, I didn’t reply to your text asking why I still wasn’t home at 3am on a Monday night because my office Blackberry is set to automatically turn off at 10pm and I didn’t see your message.”

“Sorry I missed your wedding! I saw that your Facebook status was still set to single, so I assumed you called the whole thing off…”

“Sorry I didn’t invite you to the wedding. I lost all my contacts on both my phone and computer and I didn’t know how to reach you.”

Well, it’s 2011. My phone alarm failed to go off on the first two days of the year. And that’s going to be my excuse for every screw up I make in the remaining 363 days.

Were you affected by the iPhone alarm glitch? I’d love to hear your stories. Do leave yours as a comment below.

Read on for sexy photos of hot girls in bikinis at Zoukout now!

(OK. I was leading you on about the sexy photos. You can however look for the link to those photos somewhere down the page. )

Copyright (c) Lifestyle Asia Ltd. 2010, All Rights Reserved.

It’s the Monday after Zoukout 2010 — Singapore’s biggest beach party. Were you a) one of the 30,000 revellers there on Saturday night? Or b) one of the unfortunate hundreds queuing up unsuccessfully to get tickets? Perhaps you were c) one of the other people elsewhere getting annoyed that your Facebook wall, Twitter stream and Windows Live Messenger was getting flooded by updates from a) and b) saying how great/terrible being at/not being at Zoukout was?

Depending on which category you belong to, Zoukout 2010 likely proved to be an interesting experience, social media-wise.

I belonged to group a). I was there in typical kiasu (don’t know what that means? Then just Bing it already!) Singaporean fashion at 5pm just to get a decent parking lot. Zoukout for me was about…

…discovering that technology and the latest apps can’t help you find your friends in a massive crowd if you can’t get a signal.
So I have a smartphone replete with location apps like Foursquare, Facebook places as well as others that help you pinpoint exactly where your friends are. All that is useless when you can’t get 3G reception. Still I could have always sent a text or made a call to find out if my “lost” pal is 1) making out with some drunk girl in a dark corner somewhere, 2) drunk and passed out under a coconut tree, or 3) two persons down from where I am, right? Wrong. I had close to zero reception (I’d like to indulge in a conspiracy theory here that involves me being on a rival telco to the one sponsoring Zoukout, and event props that were actually masterfully disguised reception blockers).

If you belonged to group b), you may have discovered — while waiting forever in the unending queue for tickets — that social networks today are arguably the best source of the latest news.

It was probably on one of these that you discovered…

1)… that while you were deciding which bikini was skimpier and would make you a priority target for this year’s Zoukout molester, a long line was already forming at the ticketing counter.

2) …there were cases of counterfeit tickets being reported so you probably shouldn’t let that guy cop a feel in exchange for the tickets he was touting. Ok, maybe just a quick one since he’s cute.

3) …some of your friends had already got in and had started partying…while you were still queuing.

4) …someone had snuck a photo when one of your girls took a peek out of your skimpy bikini cup to see if you were getting any closer to the end of the queue…and that photo was now making the rounds on all the social networks.

5)… that all tickets were sold out…after you’d been queuing for more than three hours.

6) … “Oh.My. God. Tiesto/David Guetta’s music is like, AWESOME!?! I can srsly die happy now lor.”

Maybe next time, you’d pay more attention to these social updates. If you had done so earlier, you’d have known that,  1) advance tickets were selling out a week before the event; 2) more people were attending this year than ever before; 3) that bikini you wore was so 2009.

And if you belonged to group c) you may have learned the following…

1) Even if you can’t make it to Zoukout, you can still get by-the-minute live event reporting from start to end. (Well, at least if the people you follow are on a certain telco sponsoring the event.)

2) Even if you don’t want to go or care about Zoukout, you will still get by-the-minute live event reporting from start to end.

3) When social timelines get cluttered and your streams are flooded with things you don’t care about, social networks become painful and pointless. (The Save Social Energy movement regrets to report that Saturday night saw the worst case of social energy being wasted in Singapore since the campaign started. 55 Twitter fail whales may have choked and died as a result of the irresponsible actions on this night.)

4) Drunk people tweet the darndest things.

5) You can still check out bikini-clad Zoukout revellers without paying through your nose and squeezing with the crowds from the comfort of home, where no one will judge you for staring at cleavage.

6) “Oh.My. God. Tiesto/David Guetta’s music is like, AWESOME!?!” seems to be a viewed shared by a ridiculously-large number of people.

There you have it: 3 Totally Useless Social Media Lessons Learned at Zoukout 2010.

Was this as useless as I promised? What did digitally-relevant lessons did YOU learn at Zoukout? Did you lose your phone? Do you also think that Tiesto/David Guetta’s music is like, AWESOME!?! Tell us by leaving a comment below!

Local start-up Beeconomic was acquired by Groupon for US$24m. Time for you to get in on the action?

First, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin was discovered to be living it up in Singapore. Now, local start-up group buying site Beeconomic has been acquired by US group discount website Groupon. Looks like our small little red dot is really starting to create little ripples in the sea of social media.

But what’s Beeconomic? Basically, it’s a site that offers one really good deal every day. The catch is, you only get the deal if enough people buy it. This way, merchants only get to part with their product at the discounted price if there are enough buyers to make it worth their while. It works out well for all involved…especially Beeconomic, it seems.

Why? Because Groupon are rumoured to have shelled out a staggering US$24 million to buy them over after they’d been operating for only something like seven months. While this number is widely believed to be exaggerated, it does evoke the kind of nostalgia of the dot.com era in mid-boom and the way money seemed to fall from the sky for every start-up lucky enough to jump on the bandwagon. Ah, the good old days for those of us old enough to have been some part of it.

Without a doubt, this takeover of a local start-up has surely raised a few envious eyebrows on this island. Like me, you may be wondering what you can do to emulate Beeconomic and get bought over for US$24 million (or even half that) in half a year.

The good news is not that Beeconomic’s model is groundbreaking, nor is it even the best-performing group buying site in Singapore (others include merrygo.me). I’ve got a few ideas that I think you can try to do a Beeconomic with. Tell me what you think…

Create Your Own App
Of course, there are already lots of mobile apps out there. Of course, you have to come up with something new that fills a need. But who says you need a big new idea when you can already take one where others have failed at and make it work? Example…

• A Dating App That Actually Hooks You Up
  If there’s a dating app that people in these parts actually use, I haven’t heard of it. Maybe it’s because I’m newly single and haven’t yet reached the rock-bottom state of loneliness and desperation that motivates me to download and try every single dating app out there. More likely, there isn’t one localised to Singapore and the region that works well enough for people here to use it, and talk about it. Sex and the hallmark definition of “love” always sell, if you find a way to do it. People have done much crazier things on the pretext of love, than to spend a mere US$2.99 on a mobile app.
• An App That Actually Helps You Find Your Car
  I know, I know, there are a gazillion apps out there proclaiming to help you remember where you parked your car. The trouble is, I don’t know of any that work. These apps usually use GPS to track where you parked, which is fine if you want to remember what building or street you parked on (why anyone not suffering from Alzheimer’s would forget such a detail is anyone’s guess). But when you need to find your car within the mazes that are many of our indoor/underground multi-storey car parks in Singapore and Malaysia i.e. where GPS usually fails, these apps are usually rendered completely useless.

Create Your Own WikiLeaks

AP file photo

Anything to do with WikiLeaks is white hot on every trending list right now. You too can get in on the action, without putting yourself on anyone’s hit list. I mean, why tattle-tale on powerful organisations and governments when you can simply do it on normal people around you?

Imagine if we had a WikiLeaks for “nobodies”, vengeful, bitter people, gossip-mongers, as well as genuinely-well-intentioned whistleblowers could have a central channel with which to “leak” scandalous, damaging information on anyone and everyone.

Sure, you’d probably get “cable uploads” on adulterous philanderers — photographic evidence, captured text messages, etc — that would put private investigators out of business and destroy families (that arguably may or may not have already been destroyed anyway); but you’d also probably get whistles blown on those misappropriating company, or even, public funds (think TT Durai and the Lamborghini-wrecking LTA exec) .

You’d get tantalising revelations of say, teachers behaving inappropriately with students; but you’d also probably get the alert on which of your neighbours is a convicted paedophile.

Will you get in trouble for creating this layman-level version of WikiLeaks? Is this even ethical? I honestly don’t know — what counts as whistle blowing and what is perceived as invasion of privacy and/or blackmail seems up in the air these days. And again, that depends on how much power the people you squeal on have.

I’d also warn you to proceed with as much caution with my other ideas. If any of these were actually feasible and lucrative, I’d be hanging out at Filter, sipping from 5 –litre vodka bottles with Mr Saverin, rather than writing this post; and I’d sure as hell wouldn’t be sharing them with you (I watched The Social Network too, you know).

Think my ideas are rubbish? Got better ones? Then share them in comments below! (I promise not to steal them).

Last week on Black Friday, I blew more than a hundred dollars on a bunch of $10 tees from threadless.com to add to the dozen other $10 tees I already own from them. The following Cyber Monday, I splashed another hundred or so on CDs (yes, CDs) from Amazon. Now I have a stockpile of tees and CDs, and no money.

Just how did this happen?

I’m passing the buck on this to the enormous influence that social networks like Twitter and Facebook wield over us.

Black Friday has for several years now been the busiest shopping day of the year for folks living in the States — the day after Thanksgiving when shoppers do the bulk of their Christmas shopping, and stores throw ridiculous discounts in their faces (which came first is hard to tell). How crazy do they get? One only has to look at how Black Friday weekend has helped Microsoft sell 2.5 million units of the Xbox Kinect in less than a month.

Cyber Monday is a newer phenomenon, apparently thought up by some brilliantly shrewd retail marketers to get Black Friday shoppers to part with their hard-earned money as freely as they did on Friday on the following Monday; except the spending is done online. According to a TechCrunch article, Cyber Monday brought in $887 million in sales last year — a bounty even greater than what was earned on Black Friday that same year.

AP file photo

Before, such insane spending seemed to be restricted to those living in and around the land of the people who give thanks by eating a large bird. This year though, I am of the opinion that the people of the Orient and other far flung lands have also joined in the madness — my empty wallet is some small measure of proof. More resounding substantiation is a survey which had reported that there would be more consumers in China shopping online on Cyber Monday than in the US, UK, Germany and Japan.

The thing is, I would have never spent a cent if I hadn’t been on the usual social networks in the days leading up to Wallet-Emptying Weekend (doesn’t quite have the same ring, does it?). In this time, my Twitter stream and Facebook walls were inundated with endless alerts to barmy bargains and delectable discounts from brands such as Apple, Amazon, Toys R Us, Nike, and HP, among numerous others.

Never mind that most of these sales weren’t even available to us here in Asia, the tremendous buzz created on popular social networks just made me want to jump on the bargain bandwagon at the first opportunity — which turned out to be $10 tee shirts. I suspect I’m not alone in my buyer’s remorse.

I hate to admit that I succumbed to herd instinct, but it is what it is. It’s like how Singaporeans tend to join a growing queue just because it’s a growing queue, even if we don’t really know what we’re queuing for.

But the basic premise is really just about the power of influence — that of multiple social networks comprised of numerous entities who already wield some influence on you in varying degrees (if not, you probably wouldn’t be following them on Twitter,  friends on Facebook, or contacts on Windows Live Messenger). If a lot of them start saying that Megan Fox is really a man, you are eventually going to start believing it. (Admit it; you did for a time.)

If only I had practised a little bit more of what I preach and Saved Social Energy by hiding updates from threadless.com and other retailers I follow (and of those who are likely to retweet them) , I might have saved more than that; I might have saved more than two hundred dollars.

Instead, I’m now asking if there might be any musically-inclined ladies who may want to stay over at my place and listen to a bunch of CDs. I can provide a tee shirt or five if you need to get comfortable. No, I didn’t really think I’d turn a return on my “investments” this soon.

Did you succumb as well to the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping deals? Tell us what you bought and how much you spent with a comment below.

“I want you back! Don’t care what I have to do… I want you back (back)!”

I had a dream. I dreamt of the above lyrics to the Bananarama Mambo anthem being sung out loud and with gusto by the cast of Glee, except the cast comprised of the good officers from Singapore’s very own ISD and Police force. Who were they were singing this to? Why, fugitive Mas Selamat of course.

Why was I dreaming such a strange dream? Obviously, it has to do with the recent news concerning the arrest and charges of Mas Selamat’s relatives who harboured him and helped him escape to Malaysia after he flew the coup of Whitley Road Detention Centre in 2008, leading to an unsuccessful islandwide manhunt for the fugitive.

It got me thinking, what if in 2008, we had the social media tools and apps that we have now? Especially with all the various geo-location and tagging apps and abilities that we have now, perhaps Mas Selamat wouldn’t have gotten away so easily.

To prove my point, here are some of the social media tools and apps that may have hypothetically thwarted Mas Selamat’s escape:

1 Facebook

Original edited photo from theonlinecitizen.com

If you haven’t had it happen to yourself, you must have heard at least one anecdote from someone you know about how he misbehaved at a party and almost got away with it…until someone photo-tagged him in incriminating photos on Facebook (another case for Saving Social Energy and restricting others’ from photo-tagging you). Now, imagine if I saw Mas Selamat in his tudung-disguise making his getaway from his niece Nur Aini Asmom’s home (she’s since been jailed for harbouring a fugitive, along with two other relatives, while her brother got off with a stern warning). I’d have immediately taken a photo on my mobile phone and uploaded it to Facebook! I imagine my Facebook wall post would look something like the picture above. As a matter of fact, my colleague swears she saw him on bus number 12 during the time of the manhunt (in all seriousness, she even reported this to the police) — I’m pretty sure she would have posted her discovery on Facebook too, if we all used it this often back in 2008. She probably would have tweeted it as well, which brings us to the next tool…

2 Foursquare and Twitter

Not only would I — or my colleague — upload our Mas Selamat sightings to Facebook, we would have tweeted it.  And to help out our neighbourhood police, we would have checked in at the location of the sighting on Foursquare as well. Who knows, Mas Selamat itself may have been on Foursquare back then if Foursquare was around. My tweet would probably look something like that on the right, and the cops would immediately know the location of this sighting. Who knows? I may have even gotten a one-of-a-kind Foursquare badge! A “Super Vigilante!” badge. Now that would have been so cool. The Singapore Police Force really should consider working with Foursquare on badges for great acts of citizen policing. We could even check in every time we see a possible gangster with a parang and help stem the recent spate of gang violence!

3 Cool Mobile Apps

So I thought I saw Mas Selamat dressed in a tudung, but can I really be sure? Maybe it was just a really aesthetically-challenged makcik (Malay for auntie). If only there was a way in which I could block out the misleading clothing and focus on just the face… Now there is! With the Photo Bubbler phone app, you can block out parts of a photo so that people in it look like they’re nude. Of course, I wouldn’t want to picture Mas Selamat nude, but by removing the tudung disguise, I could have highlighted just the face and confirmed if it was really him.

So fugitives beware! Mas Selamat may have gotten away in 2008 but with all the social media tools and apps available these days, that’s likely going to be a one-off fluke. I wouldn’t be surprised if Osama bin Laden finally gets caught because one of his cronies couldn’t resist checking in at his cave hideout just to get a Foursquare Great Outdoors badge.

So the online gossip grapevine has been all abuzz with the news that Eva Longoria (of Desperate Housewives fame) has filed for divorce from her husband of seven years, NBA basketball player Tony Parker.

If you’re a kaypoh (Singapore slang for busy-body) like I am, you may have taken a peak at their respective Facebook pages. If you did, you would have seen this status update on Longoria’s Facebook wall…:

AP file photo

It is with great sadness that after 7 years together, Tony and I have decided to divorce. We love each other deeply and pray for each other’s happiness.

…and this one on Parker’s:

It is with great sadness that after 7 years together, Eva and I have decided to divorce. We love each other deeply and pray for each other’s happiness.

You’d think that a couple going through a divorce would have separate spokespersons as they would lawyers, but I guess this wasn’t the case (that or one of their spokespersons or Facebook page managers got lazy and just copied the other’s).

This got me wondering, would I do the same? Would I announce the dissolution of my relationship on Facebook or on other social networks? Would you?

What do the various ways of breaking up publicly on social networks probably say about us non-celeb plebians?

Here’s my take on it:

The Formal Statement
Announcing the end of a relationship ala Longoria-Parker by releasing a public relations statement seems, in all fairness, acceptable. It’s like a notice of sorts — “I no longer reside at BlkXX Tan Ah Kow Rd”.

If anything, it will surely save you the bother of having to point to your chest and inform each and every one who asks after your no-longer-better half that love don’t live there anymore.

Verdict: Marginally acceptable. Still, do you really want such personal and private details about yourself out there for all to see? The celebs, well, they don’t really have much of a choice.

The Facebook Relationship Status Update
You know, the one that displays an icon of a broken heart followed by the words,

[insert name] is no longer in a relationship/married.

Or [insert name] is now in a relationship [insert new partner’s name].

You’ve seen it, probably lots of times (and likely, too many times), on the status updates of people in your network. It’s juvenile and reeks of a little too much petty bitterness.

The broken-heart icon just tries to hard to invite pity. “Awww…are you ok dear? Stay strong!” tends to be the usual comment that follows below the update. Awww…

Verdict: Not unless you want to come off appearing like a 14-year old. Or if you’re female, you’re probably just going to invite stalkers who’ve been biding their time, waiting for you to be on the market again so that they can make their creepy moves.

Emo Status Updates
“Men are pigs! We’re better off without them! I hope that [insert preferred term for promiscuous, philandering woman] gives him herpes!”

Nothing conclusively official here for those following you, but not very subtle either. Such status updates usually go on for a while before they fade away (I should know; I admit to being guilty of them myself).

Sure, this method can be a great outlet for your grievances, but then again, you don’t get to see your Facebook friends rolling their eyes at each outburst.

There’s also a very good chance you’ll probably say something you’ll regret and can’t take back because, well, once it’s out on the internet, it’s out there forever! (Refer to my previous post about protecting yourself online)

Verdict: Spare everyone on your Facebook the drama. If you need to vent, go “old-school” and let everything out on to a diary — you’ll get the same relief with none of the potential future complications. Just remember to burn it when you’re done moping.

For those of you reading this on xinmsn’s Gen Tech Blog, this might be the first post you’re seeing from me (for those reading it from GavinGoesGaga.com, my blog is now also on xinmsn! It also explains the “DigiTalk” in my post titles from now on).

A short introduction is in order: I’m one of the founders of the Save Social Energy movement and I started my GavinGoesGaga.com blog as a channel to educate on and promote the idea of saving social energy.

What does it mean to Save Social Energy?

Well, social energy refers to the energy that you use when you socialise – both in real life and online. The Save Social Energy movement believes that most of us spend far too much unnecessary time on different online social networks. From these social networks, we consistently get exposed to a lot of clutter, and can end up missing out on the conversations that are truly important. Worst of all, we might end up feeling socially tired, leading to a lack of productivity, agitation, boredom and restlessness.

Saving social energy simply means spending our time on these social networks more efficiently so we can balance work, social networking and other lifestyle requirements effectively.

For more information about the Save Social Energy campaign, do visit the official Save Social Energy website, Facebook page, as well as check out my earlier posts on GavinGoesGaga.com .

I’ve talked a lot previously about Saving Social Energy in the context of having too many updates, spam, greymail, TMI (too much information) updates and tweets, silly game app requests and the like. Recently though, I heard a podcast discussing cyber bullying that got me thinking about Saving Social Energy in the context of how users — like you and I —  probably don’t think enough about what we are putting up about ourselves on the internet.

(You can listen to the abovementioned podcast of radio station BFM 89.9’s interview with Barrie Ooi, Windows Live Lead, Consumer and Online Microsoft Asia Pacific here.)

There has already been a lot of discussion about how people seem to be more ready to disclose private information about themselves on their online social networks that they wouldn’t on any other channel.

We seem to be all too willing to share details about who we are, what we do, and where we live on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. For instance, we put pictures of ourselves, state our relationship status and even personal details like phone numbers and other contact information on Facebook. A lot of Foursquare users also don’t seem to mind checking into their home addresses in addition to the places they frequent.

The question is, would we as readily put all that information on paper and stick it up on physical notice boards or hand them out to strangers? Probably not.

One can easily see how providing details so freely online might enable cyber stalking. The information we post online about ourselves also potentially allows others to use that information against us, in the form of cyber bullying or otherwise.

Previously, I’ve talked about how we can Save Social Energy by taking just a few seconds to think about what we’re about to post or tweet online, and that we should consider how that may affect the people following us on our social networks.  What I neglected to also mention, was how we should also to take that step back to think about how that post or tweet is going to affect us.

Do you really want that revealing photo of yourself out there for the world to see (as much as a lot of your followers may want to see them)?

Do you really want to make that controversial statement or accusation that someone might twist and use against you?

Do you really want to make your home address public so anyone can know where you live?

If not, you should start taking a moment to consider what you post online. You may also want to fully utilise the following available tools and controls of the social network sites you frequent to protect your privacy.

Windows Live Hotmail and Messenger

• Family Safety
• How do I change who can see my information and my activity?
• How do I change who can ask me to be a friend, leave me comments, or send me messages?
• How can I limit access to my info?
• How can I restrict who can find me in search?
• Tips to help protect your Hotmail account
• Set your Messenger privacy level
• See what others see about you on Messenger

Facebook

• How to report when someone is attacking or abusing you on Facebook
• How to report abuse
• Tips for keeping your account secure
• Editing your Privacy Settings
• Blocking people

Twitter

• How To Report Violations
• What to do with abusive users
• Blocking people
• Protecting your tweets

Foursquare

• How can I delete my home from foursquare?
• How do I block a user on foursquare?
• How do I check in privately on foursquare?
• Where can I see and adjust my privacy settings?

Other useful online resources on protection and bullying:

• http://www.microsoft.com/protect/
• http://www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/adults/cyber-bullying.aspx
• http://www.ncpc.org/cyberbullying
• http://www.cyberbullying.us/
• http://connectsafely.org

Forgive me, Mark Zuckerberg and the other gods of social networks, for I have sinned. My last blog post was like, five days ago.

I have broken Commandment #4: Thou shalt not travel overseas without ensuring thou is signed up for an affordable data roaming plan or at least buy a prepaid card with unlimited data at the destination country.

I travelled to Kuala Lumpur five days ago without a data roaming plan I could reasonably afford, rendering any uninhibited use of data services while there dangerously exorbitant. Nevertheless, I was informed of a really cheap prepaid card that offered unlimited data for a day; and yet, I still stubbornly refused to buy one. Because of this, any log-ins to Facebook, Twitter, or check-ins to Foursquare, were limited to the rare occasions I was within a free wifi zone. For this travesty, I am truly regretful.

In my previous blog post, I talked about how the new Windows Live Messenger’s Favourites and Highlights tabs can be really useful when you don’t have the time to skim through the dozens of new updates from the hundreds of friends on your social networks. (Watch the video that shows you how to do this on the Save Social Energy Facebook page) You know, like when you only have a few minutes to quickly check your networks, and all the updates you really want to see are from the 25% of your contacts that you’re actually close to (as reported in a Microsoft survey)?

Sample screenshot from mobiputing.com

As I discovered while in KL, a tool like this is more important than ever when you only get to log on to your networks once a day. Imagine an entire day’s worth of updates from every single one of your contacts to filter through! No easy task. The way I was quickly scrolling through all of these on my touchpad, you’d think my phone was a genie lamp, what with all that fast, repetitive rubbing.

Eventually, I did manage to get my head out of my [censored] and realise I could actually use the Favourites and Highlights features on the Windows Live Messenger app installed in my phone after all. All I had to do was to view the Social tab (see bottom left corner of the sample screenshot).

That made the rest of my infrequent checks of my social networks a whole lot easier. Social energy saved. Next time though, I’m getting that damn prepaid card.

Eduardo Saverin's photo taken from his Facebook profile. Doesn't he look like a real nice chap?

For the past week, Singapore has been all abuzz with the revelation by TechCrunch that Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin has been residing here funding Facebook games. If ever there was a better example of foreign talent worth attracting, I’ve never heard it.

That this news coincides with the screening of The Social Network movie (er, yah, the one about Facebook) here just means that a lot of local folks have never been more interested in a guy who was mostly just previously known by a mere name displayed on the social network’s home page.

I suspect the number of Singaporeans Liking Saverin’s Facebook page has surged ridiculously in the last week. I should know — I went and Liked his page like a good groupie immediately after watching the movie, and so did most of my colleagues who caught it as well.

The TechCrunch article and other follow-up ones also juicily revealed how our new pal Ed has been hanging out regularly at local clubs like The Butter Factory and Filter. What? You mean we might have rubbed shoulders with or puked on one of the billionaire founders of Facebook and didn’t know it? Why, that’s…just…cool!

I wonder if Ed has sneakily invested in Filter (the club he is said to patronise more frequently these days) and deliberately leaked this nugget out to the press. Just imagine the hoards of hot women who’ll be flocking to the club now in the hope of being able to cosy up to an obscenely-loaded, good-looking and young ang moh fella (whom we hear is a pretty nice guy too)! And while most of them will probably have to contend with shaking their booty on the dancefloor without success as Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” blares from the speakers, a select few are sure to land the real booty — the one that isn’t filled with cellulite but which will also similarly grow much larger and heftier in the future (I’m talking about Ed’s gazillions BTW).

But whatever kind of Eduardo Saverin groupie you are, I’m sure that (like me) you’re also following him on Facebook in the hope of catching an update where he might possibly give away his next location or activity in these here parts. The problem then is, with all the of updates from non-billionaire, non-Facebook-founding friends and family just clogging up your wall, how are you to ensure you never miss one from Ed’s Facebook page?

I’ll let you in on my little secret: By using Windows Live Messenger, and by making Ed my one-and-only Favourite, I’ll never miss any of his Facebook updates when I check my Highlights tab. Neat huh? (Watch the video that shows you how to do this on the Save Social Energy Facebook page!)

However, if anyone ever accuses you of being a stalker, feel free to quote our other good pal Zuck (that’s Mark “I’m CEO, bi**h!” Zuckerberg to you punk!) and say, “You so suaku (uninformed) ah? Didn’t you know the age of privacy is over?”