Nokia 'The Rookie' Online Reality Show

Malaysian edition of 'The Rookie'

If you happen to be one of those ‘reality television shows’ buff, then chances are you might like ‘The Rookie’, a reality show by Nokia. But wait, there is a catch. ‘The Rookie’ isn’t a reality television show; it is an online reality show as each episode is streamed online in the form of a webisode.

What is ‘The Rookie’ all about?

‘The Rookie’, as aforementioned, is an online reality show that pits 12 contestants between the ages 18-30 against one another for the elusive honour of being labelled as ‘The Rookie’. The contestants have to go through gruelling challenges and have to perform to their highest ability as the weakest contestant is kicked out after each round.

The contestants of 'The Rookie'

What are the prizes?

Besides being crowned as ‘The Rookie’, the winner will win a cash prize amounting up to RM10, 000 while the top four contestants will win an internship with Nokia, Universal Music, Standard Chartered or 8TV, all of which are prestigious companies. Special prizes will be given to the winners of each round too.

Where can I watch ‘The Rookie’?

You can watch ‘The Rookie’ on its Official Website for free. Each webisode is short (around 10 mins) and the quality is pretty good (no HD for the time being though). At the moment, I am not sure how frequently they upload each webisode but it must be something like twice every week.

My take on ‘The Rookie’

To me, there are quite a few similarities between ‘The Rookie’ and ‘The Apprentice’. As such, I’d call it the poor man’s version of ‘The Apprentice’. What ‘The Rookie’ lacks is someone mega-influential like Donald Trump to make it a tad more interesting.

Anyway, I like this show because of its originality. It's nice seeing the contestants trying out every trick from the book to win their challenges. Moreover, in an open and no-holds-barred manner, they would criticise a team-mate or even their leader for any shortcomings during their challenges.

It’s pretty obvious that ‘The Rookie’ is a vehicle to promote the Nokia brand and its E72 model which each contestant is given to utilise during the challenge. However, with some fine challenges lined up for the contestants and short and brisk webisodes, I’d have to say ‘The Rookie’ makes for a good viewing.

Innity Ad Network

If you are an avid blogger or a website owner from the Asean region (Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam) who is looking for an additional income stream, then I’d reckon you consider placing Innity ads on your site.

Innity was started in 1999 and has now become one of the most recognisable online advertising agencies in this region. According to its website, Innity is “an online premium performance advertising network reaching over 2.1 billion impressions to more than 29 million unique visitors.”

Now, that’s something. Besides having a high reputation, Innity also pays rather handsomely. At least that’s how it is for me because having displayed ads ranging from Adsense, Nuffnang, Clicksor and Advertlets, Innity brings back returns far higher than the aforementioned ad agencies.

How can I be an Innity publisher?

However, to be chosen as a publisher for Innity ads, you must first live up to its high expectations. Sites must have 30, 000 page views per month, 6000 unique visitors per month, have quality and frequently updated content, genuine (not fraudulent) traffic and cannot link or display adult and profane content among others. If you think your site fits the bill, you can apply @ Here

The Ad Formats

One thing that sets Innity apart from its competitors is that it offers many ad formats. In addition to the basic formats such as rectangle, leaderboard and skyscraper ads, Innity has full page, balloon, in-text and bottoms-up ad formats among others. This means that depending on how much space you can spare on your site, there will always be certain ad formats that can be displayed.

Earning from the Ads

There are three ways in which you can earn, namely via Cost per Click (CPC), Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM) and also Cost per Engagement (CPE). The CPC and CPM earning model is used extensively throughout all ad networks, where you get paid for every unique click for the former and for every thousand impressions for the latter. The CPE model is distinct as it pays for every ad that is engaged by your site visitors.

The Benefit of Signing Up With Innity

Innity associates its ads with top-class advertisers and this is something that you must capitalise on. Say, for instance, someone visits your site and sees advertisements that are displayed featuring renown brands such as Nokia, Samsung and Dell, that person will have a good first impression of your site.

Over the long run, with more people visiting your site, the credibility of your site will also increase and people will return to your site. The best part is that if you feel that there are certain ads that will depreciate the value of your site, you can instantly reject the ads from being displayed.

Are you already displaying Innity ads on your site? Or have you heard of Innity ads from your friends? Feel free to share your thoughts regarding the Innity ad network by leaving a comment below.

Power Soccer: An Online Football Game

If you are the hard-core footballer who’d tend to spend more time playing football off the pitch than on it, chances are that you would fall in love with ‘Power Soccer’, a 3-D browser-based massive multiplayer online game.

Created in 2005, Power Soccer boasts millions of real-time players from every corner of the world. I started playing this game a couple of years ago, and was practically forced to stop playing it over a year ago after getting banned, for reasons unknown to me. At that time, I was riding high in the game – I was ranked eleventh best in the world and top in Asia and Australia!

You must be wondering: Why would millions of people out there want to play this game when there are better football games available such as ‘FIFA Online 2’?

Well, the answer to that question lies in the fact that ‘Power Soccer’ is more than just a football game; it is an online community. You’d come across loads of amazing and good-natured gamers, and you could make friends with them.

That aside, the technicality of the game itself isn’t complicated at all, and the game interface is also user-friendly.

Basically, gamers take control of a team and as they play more matches, they level up and are able to increase their player’s attributes. At the same time, by winning matches, gamers are able to increase their rank points, which influences their overall rank in the game.

Sometimes, gamers become over-excited and too eager to win. That would lead them to resort to ungodly tactics such as cheating, but don’t worry, there are administrators who keep an eye round the clock so be rest assured that those who cheat would be banned from the game.

After having been away from the game for over a year, I decided to make another account and play some games. Obviously, I had lost my touch but I was amazed by the amount of progress the game designers had made in that period to increase the gaming experience. It seems to be more realistic now.

There are a number of game modes. For starters, there are training matches available, after which official matches would be the order of the day. Then, there is the cup mode as well as league mode. There is also a ‘game day’ feature, where Premier League battles are played out by gamers. Lastly, a ‘career mode’ feature was recently added to the fold.

Well, if you happen to bore yourself out by playing too many matches, you could hang out in the chatroom where you can interact with other the gamers. There are also the forums, where you can drop by to seek clarification regarding some matters, or just share some ideas with the other gamers.

In addition to that, if you are the sort who can afford to fork out some money, then you could purchase the game membership which has certain perks such as free league tickets and bonuses when levelling up. Besides that, there are add-on features such as coaches, and also different hairstyles and goal gestures that serve to increase the gaming experience, but I feel that these are nonessential.

However, just like any other game, ‘Power Soccer’ has its fair share of flaws. Apart from occasional cases of cheating, latency also exists. This causes the game to lag, and it can sometimes frustrate gamers to no end.

I bet you can’t resist to get your hands on this game now, can you? So, what are you waiting for? Go log on to www.powerchallenge.com and knock yourselves out playing the game. Don’t come blaming me though if you mother starts scolding you off the computer!

Laughter, The Best Malaysian

‘Laughter, the Best Malaysian’ is a compilation of jokes put together by David Tong, an avid joker and laugher himself. Spanning over two hundred pages, it contains hundreds of jokes, all of which are classified in their respective genres.

I saw this book recently while I was at a Popular bookstore, and decided to buy it – the cover looked attractive enough and after having a quick glance through the book, I found it rather interesting.

The jokes in this book have a distinctive Malaysian feel to it. Not surprising since the writer is a Malaysian himself. He didn’t write or come up with most of the jokes – the jokes were already there and all he did was compile them. As he said, it had been a long-time desire of his to come up with something like this.

After having read this book, I would reckon you guys should go get it. To begin with, the jokes are short, so it makes for a good read after a long and tiresome day – to unwind and relax. Besides, the jokes aren’t discriminative in any which way. There aren’t any racially, sexually or politically motivated jokes.

I must concede however, that at times, I couldn’t get the hang of the jokes. They were just above my understanding I guess. Then, of course, there were some jokes that were simply lame – lame to the maximum that is! But still, on the overall, it is a well put-together book with refreshing jokes.

Now, just to share a light moment with you guys, I have chosen a few of the jokes from the book. Read ’em, have a laugh (or cry!) and tell me how are they. If you are impressed, then the best would be to go and purchase the book and read the whole thing for yourself! 

Take two

Mui Mui: Ah Loke says I am pretty. Ah Toh says I am ugly. What do you think?

Ah Meng: A bit of both. I think you are pretty ugly!

Herd of Cows

“Look at that bunch of cows.”

“Not bunch-lah! Herd of cows.”

“Heard what?”

“Herd of cows.”

“Sure I’ve heard of cows.”

“No! A cow herd.”

“Why should I care what a cow heard? I’ve got no secrets from cows.”

Three-ring Circus

They say marriage is a three-ring circus:

1) Engagement Ring

2) Wedding Ring

3) Suffering

Lameness

Boss: Why are you late for work?

Office assistant: I’m sorry boss. I tripped into a longkang and sprained my knee.

Boss: That’s a lame excuse!

Marketing Skills

You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say, “I am very rich. Will you marry me?”

That’s Direct Marketing.

You are at a party with a group of friends and see a gorgeous girl. One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you says, “He’s very rich. Marry him!”

That’s Advertising.

You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You approach her and get her telephone number. The next day, you call and say, “Hi, I’m very rich. Marry me!”

That’s Telemarketing.

You are at a party and see a gorgeous girl. You get up and straighten your tie. You walk up to her and pour her a drink. You open the door for her, pick up her bag after she drops it, offer her a lift home and then say, “I’m very rich. Will you marry me?”

That’s Public Relations.

You are at a party and see a gorgeous girl. She walks up to you and says, “You’re very handsome and rich.”

That’s Brand Recognition.

You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say, “I’m very rich. Marry me!” She gives you a nice hard slap on the face.

That’s Customer Feedback.

David Tong

When Dinosaurs Roamed The Earth

I was browsing through the papers a while ago and I came across an article entitled “Dinosaur Footprints Found in China”. After reading through that piece of article, I paused for a while and thought, “What was Earth like when there were dinosaurs?”

Maybe, when the dinosaurs graced the world, the scenario was like how it was pictured in the Jurassic Park movie, or perhaps like how it was cooked up to be in the Land Before Time collection of animated films. The thing is, we cannot know for sure how it actually was, not for the moment at least.

I think dinosaurs were ghastly, beastly, mean animals. Or perhaps, even worse than animals. I mean, we definitely like to see T-Rexes in movies, but imagine you getting chased down ruthlessly by one, and then the guy gorges on your flesh with delight.

If the dinosaurs were to exist now, even the so-called herbivorous dinosaurs such as the ‘Long Neck’ would be dangerous. That's because if it weren’t to eat you up, it would have you smashed flat to the ground after having its gargantuan feet on your body. And you would be smashed meat!

But for some reason or another, dinosaurs were fated not to coincide with the timeline of the ‘Homo Sapiens’, the species of which we originate from. Scientists have proven that dinosaurs had gone extinct some 65 million years ago, long before the fist human set foot on Earth.

If we cannot picture how the Earth was with the existence of the dinosaurs, then how about this – predicting what was it that sealed their fate, in the sense that what was the cause of their apparently sudden departure from the face of our planet.

Theorists have come up with numerous unfounded theories. Like the one I read in the papers, it said that all the footprints of the dinosaurs that were discovered were facing in one direction. It stated that a panic migration was underway when all of a sudden, an Almighty force intervened and, all was gone.

Well, that’s just not about it. I remember reading elsewhere that asteroids, massive floods and climate change could be the root cause of this. Whatever it is, we leave this topic open for discussion to those from the paleontology fraternity.

Anyway, with all the bones and fossils that have been dug up all through these years, at least the human race know the bodily structure and appearance of those strong and versatile beasts that come in all shapes and sizes.

The best part is that I have heard many children saying that they wished dinosaurs were still on this planet. Actually, I used to hope for that too. A bit of panic every now and again wouldn’t be so bad after all, would it?

So, what are your opinions on dinosaurs? Do you seriously wish they still existed, or would you rather want to see them for real in a museum? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment. Thank you!