For digital managers running campaigns on Facebook for a number of clients, between brand managers, VPs, account managers, digital strategists, copywriters and page managers, it had always been very difficult to monitor interaction with fans - we could never tell who had been posting on behalf of the brand!
Often, we'd pick on a comment with wrong grammar and the typical response from the page manager would be, "But that's probably the brand manager who posted this comment!" Needless to say, since we couldn't tell who posted that comment, everyone could go on pointing fingers at each other forever.
There was this one time a well-known glue brand's franchise owner insisted he be on the admin panel for their page, only to post some unrelated ad on the page every now and then regarding jobs for doctors in KSA, confusing every one of us at the digital agency.
It seems that Facebook has finally identified this problem and plans to fix it soon, as I just came across this notification on one of the pages:
A little tweak to save page managers countless headaches, yay!
Promoting an app, a service or any other content organically is tricky business. While paid campaigns tend to ensure reach and visibility, 'virality' comes from the users/consumers - they HAVE to genuinely like it for it to go viral.
For this reason it is always a good idea to work on your game dynamics - make it fun and addictive. Flappy Bird is doing well primarily because only ONE person worked on the game and put his heart into it. Now people can't help but return to the game over and over again, perhaps in an attempt to challenge themselves.
#FirstWorldProblems
The game has occupied the number 1 spot on both iOS and Android app stores the past week, even though it has been uploaded since May last year. It seems its following got that critical mass that pushed the game into viral mode.
Flappy Bird Rank History
The gameplay is extremely simple - simply tapping the screen makes the bird fly. Yes that's right, the birds are flying in a manner similar to Angry Birds, and if you take a look at the pipes in higher levels, you might experience stronger waves of nostalgia hitting you back from the good old days of Mario World.
I think the Flappy Bird is rather ugly, but yay pipes!
Dong Nguyen, the Vietnamese guy behind Flappy Bird has been pretty busy with people calling in for interviews and sundry. Given that he does incorporate some standard advertising in the app, I hope he is starting to make some cash. Maybe a next step after this initial success would be to add some in-app purchases to increase his earnings. That way he might have some extra dough to spend on advertisements to try to prolong the lifespan of his game's virality and become bigger.
But first, he must integrate Game Center into the app (he says it's coming soon in the next update) so that players can at least see where they stand. If the game continues to do well, there's room to add social media plugins as well, especially for Facebook, but the server costs can add up so he must be careful in making this consideration.
Flappy Bird is a great example of keeping it simple and focusing on user-interaction. #TeamDong now has the opportunity to incorporate some feedback and improve the game in terms of graphics and design as well. Just continue following your philosophy to keep it simple in terms of graphics as well to keep the size of the game low in your future updates.
I am rather proud of my high score. Post your screenshot if you beat mine!
Sometimes I think these spammy SMS texts allow me that chance to have a reality check. It has now been more than a year that I've moved out of Karachi but all the spammy texts I received in this period were mostly for services and products based in Karachi. More recently, however, it seems that the spam SMS operators have figured out that I am not in Lahore and the texts I receive now are more for products and services that are Lahore based.
I still remember when I arrived in Karachi from Singapore, like, 4 years ago and reactivated my Lahore number and started using it in Karachi. Back then, there were fewer spammy texts, but because of the number format, perhaps, they figured I was from Lahore and so most of them were for Lahore.
It's almost as if these spammers knew how long it would take for me to get adjusted to the new place I had relocated to, before making their adjustments.
So there you have it - my life relocations through the lens of spammy text messages on my phone. I probably couldn't have picked up a topic that was more odd.
I do wish there was a way to stop these texts though. I've ignored so many important texts from clients, bosses, family and friends because of them that it is ridiculous. Unfortunately, most of them are sent by the telcos themselves, perhaps because they view it as a lucrative marketing activity. But honestly, it really is just spam. Because when you enter my private space, you have violated my sovereignty - yeah, like a drone attack.
I think it is ironic how the videomakers have experienced
fame at the expense of Muslims’ innocence. The quality of their work is so bad
that they would be chased out by rabid dogs if they ever stepped into
Hollywood. But not now, I fear.
Now they’re famous – all because of sentimental, ignorant,
emotional and passionate Muslims. If you are lost and still don’t know why I am
‘attacking Muslims’, please allow me to try
to explain.
There are millions of websites on the Internet that generate
content (videos, articles, photos, etc.) through
users. With thousands of submissions each day, they usually push the most-liked
or most-clicked content to their ‘front’ pages. This means that if you click on
a YouTube video a lot, it will be pushed to the main landing page of their site,
get noticed and get EVEN more clicks!
A ridiculous attempt at offending Muslims through the ‘movie’
called Innocence of Muslims would
probably never have reached the viral potential it has now achieved if offended
Muslims had not talked about it, written about it, or signed petition after
petition asking for it to be removed. Silence is the best weapon here – the same
way you ignore irritating beggars on Kalma
Chowk.
Perhaps you and your friends were not stupid enough to
search for the video(s) and view them, but the majority of Muslims give in to
their curiosity, clicking-through to the video to see “what’s so offensive
about it after all.” You might even have stopped watching it after the first
minute or so but your ‘view’ has already been counted in the statistics and
given the video an additional viral buzz.
I have received an overwhelming amount of invites through
Facebook Causes and other badly designed Facebook applications asking me to
sign a petition or support a cause by clicking through, but I refuse to comply –
because I probably have 1000+ non-Muslim friends on my list, and I don’t want news
of the video (or angry Muslims’ protesting violently) to be made known to them.
But my efforts are always in vain. Thousands of Muslims have
already protested over the short film by burning tires, and damaging property –
even killing a person who had nothing to do with the making of the film. I am
worried that some Muslims will kill themselves when they realize they were
responsible for the short film to have achieved headlines across the world.
I understand your intentions were genuine – you could do
nothing else but raise your voice, but when you raise your voice, some of us
get carried away by emotion and do some stupid things. In fact, when you ‘raise
your voice’, you fuel the viral spread, and now, because you got upset and
shared it with your friends, your friends are upset too, and their friends are
probably also upset – and so on and so forth till such videos become #1 on the “most
viewed’ lists.
I hope I have managed to make my point. Maybe next time,
Muslims – upon seeing or hearing about something offensive to them – will quietly
report it, not talk about it and try their level best not to make headlines. I
sincerely think that is the best way to avoid such offensive content to be
promoted by Muslims themselves.
Now that I have your attention, listen up America. Stop
being such a schmuck. It is high time for you to come out in the open and admit
that you failed in Iraq and you failed in Afghanistan. You are
not the God of Thunder and Thunder does not get rid of terrorists.
Nowadays Obama sits in his Oval Office hogging up the red button that sends drone attacks to distant locations, after he gives in to the
whims of his advisors and other know-it-all’s. We all know that a report
suggesting a 10% chance of hitting the target could, in fact, succeed, while a
90% chance of hitting a target can sometimes be amiss. Yes, Thunder is a funny
thing to play with.
What’s worse is that you don’t even inform the respective
governments of planned air-strikes. In fact, you’re so messed up yourself
that you end up killing your OWN civilians in Yemen!
See what a mess you made in Logar? I can almost picture it –
the Afghan forces reached a house where a renowned terrorist was suspected to
be – one soldier jolted the door handle in an attempt to yank it open – when
all of a sudden they heard a BANG! Poof! 18 Afghan soldiers died without even the
glory of a battle.
Hell, we don’t even know if the suspected target was hit or
not. Some dork probably told Obama seconds after he hit the red button, “That
was very good sir. I think we got him!”
Don’t get me wrong though – I really like Obama. I’m sure he
straightened his tie and got up to make a speech about withdrawing troops from
Afghanistan. Who needs people down there anyway when you can use Thunder, eh?
And while we’re on that, what’s the point of withdrawing
troops so elegantly that it will take
you two years? Maybe you should learn from the French. They lost four people
yesterday and they’re already pulling out next month – smart pussies that they
are (sorry, please excuse my French).
Could it be that an American’s life is less valuable than that of a Frenchman?
Nah, their government just cares more.
Now I’m not a military strategist or leader of the world’s (dying) superpower, but I know that chopping down these terrorist groups is like
cutting off Hydra’s heads – when struck off, each one is replaced by two new
ones. Already there is an increase in Al Qaeda operatives in Somalia, Yemen,
Nigeria and Indonesia. Extremism is on the rise and you are doing nothing to
calm it down – only making it angrier.
And making it worse for those of us snickering at Eric Cartmen’s follies while living in Muslim countries.
Side-note: Dow University of Health Sciences in Karachi is
apparently one of the best medical schools in the country, my wife tells me
(although hers is better, of course).
They are beginning US Medical Licensing Examinations’ tuition courses soon as
advertised in the paper today. What beats me is that you Americans throw drones
down on us and we are so foolish that we let you take away our nation’s brains
in return. And they work to improve your health?! Fuck this, we aren’t ‘a dysfunctional society’, we’re just plain retarded!
Following up from my previous post about sending Free SMS to Pakistan from the Internet, today a colleague shared a link from propakistani.pk over email. Apparently, as long as you worship Lord Googleuddin, you can NOW send free SMS to Pakistan - but only to Mobilink customers.
SMS sent by Gmail users to Mobilink subscribers will be free of cost, but with limited daily credits. Gmail offers initial SMS credit for 50 SMSes, which decreases each time you send an SMS from the Gmail chat client. Every time you receive an SMS message in Chat (for example when a phone user replies to one of your messages) your credit increases by five, up to a maximum of 50.
Pssst, you can also send an SMS to your own phone, and then reply to that message multiple times to get 5 credits for each reply. This is legal, as you’re buying credits by paying your phone company - finally they're getting smarter - maybe they read my previous blog post.
As usual, Google has been smart about it - the way they've designed it gets rid of spammers, who will not have credits after sending the first 50 messages - and how many new Google accounts are they going to make, right?
Right.
But it sucks that other operators in Pakistan haven't picked this service up because, see, with Mobile Number Portability it is impossible to detect the mobile service provider your contact is using (just by looking at the number). So now it will be hit and trial for most of us if we use the free SMS service, and if we get a reply back - only THEN we will know our contact has a Mobilink number and that they received our message.
As I landed in my home country somewhere around the end of 2009 after a few years, I had not realized that this was not the same Pakistan I had left only a few years ago.
Friends poked fun at me, and nowadays the ones who return after a similar gap share the same observations I had been making then - that Pakistan has changed, somewhat.
But it is very hard to determine what has changed. Allow me to share some random observations.
When I left Pakistan, female models' faces in billboards (in Lahore) had been melanined with paint by Jamiat walas. Rewinding a bit farther in the same era during Benazir Bhutto's stint at running the country, the South Asian fusion band Junoon got banned for 7 years for writing a song called Ehtesab which poked fun at corrupt politicians who shrugged off accountability (ehtesab).
By contrast, today I see way more female flesh in advertisements (warning: inner maulvi/aunty speaking!) and well, I'm sure everyone has seen Veena Malik's FHM photo online, even if the actual magazine cover had been sprawled over by black markers.
Owls: Wise in your language, but otherwise in ours.
You must've heard Shehzad Roy's new single - Apney Ulloo? I mean, wow. He goes through the ENTIRE history of Pakistan and charges Pakistan with worshipping the US (apney ulloo - goray goray!) throughout the song. And he is nowhere close to being banned - Salman Ahmed must feel awful for being muted when he tried to raise awareness on the same lines, having to resort to more subtle and subliminal techniques back then...
Things have certainly changed.
When I think Pakistani TV, my mind still thinks of PTV, STN, Geo and ARY. Back then, Musharraf was closing TV stations at will (after giving them the independence they still enjoy today) and things were, well, more conservative. There was no Mathira taking obnoxious calls, live on air, I tell you!
For one reason or another, but mostly because I'm a new media person who believes in freedom of choice, I have not watched television here in Pakistan. (I believe I am a smart human being who doesn't need TV programming to determine what I should watch; when to watch it.)
However, I have caught glimpses at work or at relatives' places and I was disturbed to see shows like Big Boss, though enthused to see shows like Hasb-e-haal that try to educate people, somewhat (minus that ever-present hyena in the show - no offence to her personally). But once I was at a florist's shop in DHA Karachi, and they couldn't stop laughing at this guy being beaten by a civilian woman, just to tell her later she was on candid camera! I mean, this is the kind of fart comedy culture that has stupefied the American population (among others) for years, and distracted talented people from pursuing content that supercharges intellect.
But yesterday I discovered that at least some things haven't changed in Pakistan all these years: the aunties. If you haven't seen this video already, I embed it here for it is a must watch:
Samaa TV's Subah Saweray Maya Kay Sath airs Mondays through Saturdays, 9 am to 11 am (repeats on Sundays at 10 am). My wife doesn't allow me to have any thoughts on this Gheirat Brigade by aunties because I tend to get sexist but here I quote Nimra, an environmentalist in Pakistan. She says:
Why arent these upper-class pseudo-liberal aunties (otherwise known as the real mullahs) going to the cafes in Zamzama to track down their daughters and thier friends? Why arent they going to five-star hotels where rich men bring thier mistresses? Apparently, dating, among other things is moral and liberal if you are rich but if you go to a park you are to be chased and humiliated? The greatest oppressor of women in Pakistan is other Pakistani women.
People ask me why I carry a copy of my Nikah-Nama (marriage certificate) in my wallet. With aunties like that chasing dating women (while wearing those shuttlecock burqas, I tell you!) and Police like this, I feel a lot safer with my Nikah-Nama in my pocket. But I have never had to take it out, so far.
When you come to Pakistan, you should know that self-righteousness knows no bounds here. We hide our inner hypocrisies well, and most of the time, our Inshallah's, Mashallah's, and Allahu's are cover-ups induced by our inner-but-overriding, holier-than-thou ego.
