I was there when we hosted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong during thelaunch of CLing, a Chinese learning portal, co-developed together with Business China.
I was there when we set up the omy Blog Club and developed it to what it is today with a strong, vibrant community of over 3,000 registered bloggers.
There are more exciting projects upcoming at omy.sg. We have to constantly innovate in order to survive as the industry is constantly evolving. I would love to be a part of all these, but the journey ends here for now.
I am thankful for all the opportunities given to me by my wonderful bosses at omy.sg, my supervisor, Kuan Fung, and our big boss, Chim Kang.
I am thankful to all my colleagues, new and old for the great support they have given me, especially when I have to constantly trouble them with many last minute marketing projects. Janetin particular for having to support so much of my work whenever I am absent.
I am thankful to all the external partners, sponsors and advertisers I have worked with for omy.sg. Thank you for supporting us and do continue to shower your support for the omy.sg team.
It is bye bye for now as I am being transferred to market another website within the Singapore Press Holdings group.
I will still continue to watch omy.sg grow, but this time, as a blogger, as part of the omy Blog Club and as a news reader.
I still remember when we first ran the award six years ago, we have to set-up “internet stations” with laptops for guests to upload images or surf our site. Now, everything can be updated by many people at once on social sharing platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram via 3G or WIFI mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Amazing.
The blogging community in Singapore has evolved and grew quite a bit from the time we started the first Singapore Blog Awards and the omy Blog Club. There were bloggers who came and go, but there is also a core group who supported us through all these years. Thank you and do continue to support omy.sg.
Program booklets for Singapore Blog Awards 2013
The event this year is special for me because it will be my last at omy.sg. Adieus.
Here is the official press release from omy.sg on the results announcement:
The winners for the Singapore Blog Awards 2013 were announced today at an awards ceremony held at Shanghai Dolly. Mr. Lawrence Wong, Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth and Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information, graced the event as the Guest-of-Honour. Over 300 bloggers and guests were present to witness the awards presentation.
Minister Lawrence Wong arriving at Shanghai Dolly
Organised by omy.sg, Singapore Press Holdings’ leading bilingual news and entertainment portal, and presented by Panasonic, the Singapore Blog Awards honours independent content producers who devote their time and energy to create and maintain informative and innovative blogs.
The winning bloggers in the ten main award categories each won a trophy designed by Mr Tan Swie Hian, the most expensive living artist in Singapore, and a trip, inclusive of air tickets and accommodation, to the Northern Territory, Australia, amongst other attractive prizes.
The ten winners for the main award categories together with the VIPs on stage
The theme for this year’s awards ceremony was “60’s Fever”, in line with this year being the sixth year of the Singapore Blog Awards. Many guests showed up for the awards dressed according to the theme, and had fun mingling with the various bloggers from different walks of life.
Group picture with all the winners across the 17 award categories with VIPs, judges and sponsors
In this edition of the Singapore Blog Awards, there was a total of ten main categories, two celebrity categories and seven special categories. Here is the full list of winners:
Minister Lawrence Wong interacting with the winning bloggers
The winners for the Singapore Blog Awards were determined by a combination of online voting (30%) and professional scoring (70%) by a panel of independent judges appointed by omy.sg.
The ten best dressed people for Singapore Blog Awards 2013
The Singapore Blog Awards is part of a series of events branded under Social Media Fiesta, an omy.sg social media initiative.
There will be more post-event coverage of the Singapore Blog Awards 2013 on omy.sgand the official website. Stay tuned to both. 🙂
Holiday Creativity with Canon PIXMA Workshop @ Sheraton Towers
Just before the June school holiday, Canon Singapore and omy.sg held a Holiday with Canon PIXMA Workshop on May 25 at Sheratons Towers. The workshop was fully sponsored by Canon Pixma and over 120 parents and children had a fun-filled day, discovering exciting ways to create amazing holiday craft projects with the help of the Canon PIXMA printer.
Hosts Silver Ang and Joanne-Marie Sim showing off their Canon PIXMA craftsParents and their children, ready for the workshop to startA father with his two sons at workMother and daughter pairThese two are clearly having funA father with his two daughtersHappy group shot with all the children and the two hosts
If you have missed the workshop, fret not. Canon and omy.sg have appointed ten “craft guru” bloggers to blog and share on their workshop experience as well as their experience making their own own holiday crafts with Canon PIXMA printer.
I am not exactly the best father in the world, but whatever good stuff I can impart or provide for my one and a half year old son, Asher, I will try my best to do so.
Same for my wife Rachel who switched to teaching over her journalism career in order to spend more time with Asher during his formative years.
Together with four other parenting bloggers, I am given the chance to try out Pampers range of ultra dry diapers: Pampers Active BabyandPampers Active Baby Pantswhile at the same time, share some simple parenting tips.
We started Asher young, from when he was less than one year old. He was taught to gesture to us if he needed to pee or pass motion.
Later on when he learned to say simple words like “niao niao (urinate)” and “put put (pass motion”, we teach him to articulate when he needs the potty. Alternatively, we may also ask him if he need to “niao niao” or “put put” and see if he shakes or nods his head.
It helps that we bought him a small portable potty that he can mount on his own.
Currently, he is trained to use the potty before and after meals; before we go out; and when we arrive home. This builds up a routine which Asher can adjust to.
He gets lazy sometime and will refuse to use the potty even when he needs it. This is where we have to be really firm with him. Rachel’s approach will be to mollycoddle him. I will just strip him and plant him on the potty.
If he can sustain a dry diaper for a whole day, we will praise him for his effort.
When we are home, we sometimes use cloth diapers, while disposable diapers like Pampers are used exclusively when we are out.
We have been using conventional sticky-tape fastening diapers mostly. With the Pampers Active Baby Pants, Rachel and I can now experiment on getting Asher to take off his own pants to use the potty. I think Asher now knows that a soiled diaper is not something desirable. A few days ago, he pinched his nose and told my mum “chou chou (smelly)” after he soiled his diaper while they were shopping at a mall. 🙂
We have all read horror stories of diva bloggers misbehaving, demanding fees from restaurants for positive paid reviews, bringing along many friends to eat for free at food tasting, among many other complaints. Likewise, there are positive stories of bloggers who spend considerable efforts maintaining and crafting quality entries on their blogs out of interest rather than for commercial gains.
With the advent of social media and digital media, more and more brands are looking to working with and engaging bloggers for their campaigns and publicity.
Where do bloggers strike the balance? How should brands leverage on this trend? Why not hear it from the bloggers themselves?
Me moderating a panel of bloggers at SPH News Centre (picture via omy.sg)
As a prelude to the launch of the 6th Singapore Blog Awards this year in April, the team at omy.sg organised a causal sharing and networking session with a panel of prominent bloggers in Singapore. I was the moderator for the panel discussion.
Check out the full video recording below if you missed the event:
Personally, I think the panelist did a great job and were candid with their replies. If there were more time, we could have gone deeper into the topic and stir up more controversy.
The conclusion I draw is regardless of your motive for blogging, a common arduous task is how to grow your readers base or get yourself noticed by organisations and people that matters.
One shortcut is of course to join a blog awards (shamelessly plugging for the Singapore Blog Awards).
A L V I N O L O G Y 