Project Petaling Street

If people find out who the fotozzoom webmaster is, people might get a little err... annoyed.

They should not pinging PPS as they're making money and this look like a free and cheap way for them to advertise. if they wan't let them contact PPS owner and deal about $$ matter, what amount they need to pay PPS for a little banner or links. Sounds good? No?

I think obvious spams should be deleted.

However, these guys seem to be in a little grey area. They seem to have some interesting camera review posts, though, I'm no camera enthuthiast, it seems pretty legit.

I've checked out the link, and it seems okay to me. Yes, they do offer their services, but they also offer camera reviews for free. No big deal to me.

- MENJ

Farking,

How then do we differentiate from the likes of LiewCF, who writes blogs for the sole purpose of earning AdSense revenue.

See http://www.liewcf.com/blog/archives/2005/08/write-the-right-topic-at-the-right-time/

Just somethings that we should consider.

Hmmm. Well, I can see how it would be a problem if all these commercial sites start pinging pps.

But then again, some people would say my blog is also a commercial site? :( Although I'm just trying to get information out there.

If Im not mistaken I think Kahsoon.com is behind Foto-ZZoom. Personal blog making money through adsense I can understand but commercial blog in PPS? what if every company in Malaysia is using this form of advertisement ? What will PPS role at that time ? a platform for advertisements ?

I say NO! dont let them belittle PPS and take blind advantage of us!

Suresh : I think kahsoon and liewcf are closely related, they both have the same style of copy and paste and both of them boast about their traffic and adsense revenues at the same time.

for me, it is only a camera review blog.
Is PPS for non-commercial blogger only?

pps taglines :
"A blog-tal aggregating content from a cross section of Malaysians being Malaysian."
&
"Content from Malaysians being Malaysian"

the question is : "is the site fit in the above description ?"

on the other hand, you are allowing non malaysian sto ping pps (which i have no problems with).. so there can be exceptions to this principles ..

i would prefer commercial ping (with commercial value, not MLM stuff) rather than junk pings to earn more adsense revenue..

there are sexual related pings on pps .. no one has voiced any concerns (there ara minors reading pps pings !)

so why commercial pings should be problematic? and how do we differentiate commercial and adsense pings (as suresh mentionned)?

my say is, if it is in this particular website style of pings.. then let it ping .. no harm ... but if the pings are misleading (referer mlm etc .. ) or when it is too much, then we decide again, case by case ..

and for the sexual related pings, i think it is time that PPS implement category of ping so that by default adult contents are filtered out and will only show when "safe mode" is off. PPSv2 may implement it .. or maybe i'll build a PPSv2.5 implementing all this when i have time. (I will say a big No and demand censorship if the ping concerns sex with minors or animals or dead corpses or even with mickey mouse !, i can tolerate pings about your sexual life as long as it doesn't fit in the said categories)

my dua kupang

Frankly, PPS has been losing its shine ever since bloggers started pinging with the sole purpose of earning adsense revenue. And they still call themselves blogs. And the crap posted as entries aren't even worth a read. I'm getting realy sick of it.

Look at it this way, if 100 Malaysian companies ping the PPS with entries like ads or reviews every minute, what is going to happen to the individual bloggers who blog about their life and stories? Eventually, they will get fed up with the junk on PPS that they would stop coming altogether. Then you may have to re-question, what is the purpose of PPS?

Please don't let spam pollution occur in PPS. If you do, we may never get to see a 3rd B'day Bash.

Errr. Aiz... You're kinda behind time a bit. This site has been pinging PPS for quite sometime now.. (more than a month, I believe). And yes, the person behind Foto-ZZoom is Kahsoon, which I believe you already know...

Come on, let's be frank. The so-called Foto-ZZoom blog is not a camera review blog. Check this entry out http://www.fotozzoom.com.my/wp/2005/03/28/konicaminolta-dimage-z20-for-rm959-only/

It is clearly trying to advertise a promotional price for KonicaMinolta DiMage Z20 for RM959 by Foto-ZZoom.

To whoever that argues it is a review blog. I say bullshit. The so-called reviews are copied and pasted from a brochure/pamphlet that comes together with the camera. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can do that. Unless it's personally written and reviewed by the owner of the blog or someone affiliated with him, then fine. (I have nothing to say bout mooncup as clearly I DO NOT visit the website since I have no use for it. But I am an avid photographer hence that's why I know bout the copy-n-paste or "reviews")

"Project Petaling Street: Content from Malaysians being Malaysian"

Aiz, I believe it's about time you enforce some control and retain PPS as what the tagline says. Copy and pasting contents and reviews clearly is not a Malaysian being Malaysian. It's just being lazy.

LcF: "Is PPS for non-commercial blogger only?" -- i've never really thought about it, hence the starting of this discussion.

Kreko: PPS has a policy of non-censorship for content. That won't change. If kiddies want porn, there are much better places (which i'm sure they know about) without having to read PPS; the sexual content that you find on PPS is mild compared to what is on the Web. I'm not saying i condone sexual content/porn -- i'm just saying that if you start selecting what can or cannot be displayed, then you begin going down a very slippery slope. That path, i promise you, will be the death of any content aggregator such as PPS.

The question at hand is commercial blogs -- when PPS started 2 years ago, this wasn't even a consideration -- most companies thought (and many still do) that blogs was just a fad. We're going to see many more commercial blogs coming up soon.

Din: I appreciate your views, however i believe, a great majority of PPSers blog for the sake of blogging. There are very few that blog solely for Adsense (another one of those things that was not around yet 2 years ago at PPS' birth). And even those that do, they will discover very quickly that without quality content, their efforts will be wasted because people wise up and will refuse to visit their website because of it.

LETS TRY AND FOCUS THE DISCUSSION (instead of going over old ones such as content censorship):

Moving forward, its important to agree on a definition of what is a "commercial blog". My thoughts: a blog like LcF's is not a commercial blog. Fotozoom's is -- because it supports an active, commercial, "real world" business entity.

Critic: "Aiz, I believe it's about time you enforce some control and retain PPS as what the tagline says. Copy and pasting contents and reviews clearly is not a Malaysian being Malaysian. It's just being lazy."

I agree.

Problem: How to enforce this? Without a full time team of people actually being diligent enough to read the blogs coming into PPS, its pretty tough to be 100% sure.

PPS Editors? Invite the public to write in and suggest blogs that should be banned due to cut & paste?

Some possibilities exist, though i am very very wary of censorship and will never allow PPS to go down that road.

i agree with saintis kreko.

and besides, there isn't such a thing as a commercial "blog" is there? more like a review section, maybe. definitely not a blog.

hi - is it not possible to categorise the pings, just so personal, commercial, adult contents (etc.) can be separated if PPS visitors choose to? i think you had some sort of categorisation before, but i don't really remember in what form. having categories would also help declutter the site, as not everyone is interested in the same topics.

as for the commercial blogs - i would personally just refer to the ones by businesses - why not charge for the privilege to ping? this is very interesting at least to me, to see more commercial blogs and how a site like PPS might interest them.

aiz said - "My thoughts: a blog like LcF's is not a commercial blog. Fotozoom's is -- because it supports an active, commercial, "real world" business entity."

i agree.

(sorry for the multi-posts)

btw, i have noticed another blog that i view as 'commercial', but i'd rather not note it here before a more concrete policy is set.

Different people have different interest, I will not be blogging if it is writing about my life as I am not good in expressing my feelings out in words (I Can't!). I believe that my blog about technology gadgets and news (just like LiewCF) will bring useful compiled information for the my readers. Technology and Programming is my passion where I could express myself. I also admit that I am blogging to attract some users to my Classifieds page. But for LiewCF, he is for real man!

Blogging for adsense is just a return for the effort providing the compiled information. He is providing free information, in return for some pocket money. (it takes quite long to find useful information to blog, not only copy paste). If LiewCF is getting enough readers, he deserved the money he earned.

The Moon-cup seller told me that you (Aiz) allowed her blog to PING when I said her blog is commercial. So, how do you define commercial blog? Is it because kahsoon is behind fotozoom? Say if it is not kahsoon, and worded in a different way, with a new blog name, will it be term as commercial? To me - anyone selling any products, no matter how cheap it is, are commercial. E.g. if I bake cookies and post it on my blog and say, mari mari, mari beli. Is that commercial?

Quoted by Mistress M on my blog:
http://chanlilian.net/?p=586
I’m using PPS to spread the news about the product to more people. If you think it’s business minded, even Aizuddin was ok with including this blog on PPS.

Since when did Lilian became Kahsoon's guardian? Y everything also she speaks for him n not he speak for himself?

The webmaster of fotozzoom is Kahsoon.

I'm not saying this because I hate Kahsoon, but it's a fact. Not many people know it anyway. Alright, I hate Kahsoon. I admit it. *twisted laugh*

Mr Aiz, last time we asked u to ban Kahsoon you don't want. You didn't do anything! How to trust you like that? Kahsoon never stopped spamming and now he's spamming with this Fotozzoom thingamajigg. How to tahan, like that?!

I don't know about LiewCF though, but he told lies about me! He said I flooded PPS, in fact he did it himself. That bloody asswipe thinks he can frame me by pinging permalinks with different anchors!

Aiz, LiewCF and Kahsoon are the menaces of PPS. I propose a move for a ban on Kahsoon, and a warning on LiewCF for false accusation.

Aiz, we used to respect you. We hope to respect you in future, so please don't make another silly decision.

siao ta bo : Lilian kahsoon.. Lilian chan kahsoon... Lilian Chan Kah Soon! omg.

So Kahsoon is Lilian
but Lilian is not Kahsoon? huh? err..
*blur*

XXX-files....

if they are soliciting business on PPS, then I think it's fair that they pay PPS for the promotion. No such thing as free meal..

Aiz, 'q' brought up an interesting issue on categorizing pings and I think it is a good idea. for example: categories like, personal and original, tips and tricks, news and views, copy and paste...etc. however, too many categories would not be beneficial as people would become selective and thus destroy the 'cluttered' policy of PPS.

i think the real question is how anybody, esp an entity such as PPS defines a blog. we know where to go if we are bored and want to see some funny pics or clips or even news articles (i.e. humour.com, bored.com, malaysiakini, the star online, etc). The problem is, there are already sites like these pinging the PPS. honestly, i believe in PPS enforcing the unsensorship policy, but this itself is already a loophole, for people to make revenue out of useless entries. is that fair?

Yes, I am kahsoon kasoon kaching iluvkahsoon siao ta bo (btw, it is siaw tah poh, my dear) all into one. Didn't you know that the internet is not to be trusted?

lilian: aiyo, i little boi derno how to spell ma. Y u got so many personality 1? i veree scare of u d.

Lilian, if you bothered reading, you'd see I already asked Aiz this Q - like the 2nd comment to this post.

If you read Aiz's blog you'd know he also featured my site once (after my first post).

Anyway, I ping only a few entries of what I post - only the entries I think have interesting or new information - like posts on women's health generally, new testimonials etc, how a cup is used generally. Only 1 post in my blog actually involves me selling anything.

Would it be different if I did not include the post that says I am distributing the cups?

I've gone to look at the foto site, and I think mine is a bit different from his, but hey, potato, potahto.

There's no need to go insinuating like I am a liar lah. I will stop pinging if Aiz asks me to.

dun fight lor... y all still like kid liddat? I tot I was the only little boi here. Now becoming like this person hate that person... that person attack this person.

Aiz asked wat to do with commercial blogs onlee.. and he wants to do it for good of every1 in PPS. Not targeting any1 also. Aiyooo.

I quote "Like what a wise veteran blogger told me - when a circus like this happens, the matured ones are the immature ones . And the immatures tried to act mature." How true .. how true !!!

Lengjai - you just got that off Lillian's site and I bet you don't even know what you're actually saying.

I repeat my comment there :
So if your actions are mature in a “blog war” you are actually immature? And the immature-acting trolls are actually mature? That makes no sense.

As for the commercial pinging ... very subjective. But I suppose if all the pings are about "buy this, buy that (from me), discount this, discount that (at my shop)" then should not really ping.

IB, want meh say me lidat ? takan u r the only one knows what it means kot ? you also said "So if your actions are mature in a “blog war” you are actually immature? And the immature-acting trolls are actually mature? That makes no sense." you yourself also dunno what it means haha!! you are funny !

I urge you all to look at the title of discussion, look at the irrelevant comments made, stop the nonsense and refocus back on the topic.

Aiz,

If possible, DO NOT categorize the blogs. It just doesn't sound right.

And about commercial blogs. I think blogs that does their own personal review on a product in their own words and based on their experience (such as MistressM's Mooncups) should be allowed. There is no need to ban or disallow these kind of blogs. I think they're good because people can learn from these blogs. I mean, c'mon, it's hard to find long personal reviews on a certain product online nowadays. Fair enough you might get quite a number online but they're not as detailed.

On Adsense, what the hell is wrong with you ppl. Adsense or not, blogs earning from Adsense revenue do have quality entries and most are informative. Maybe some isn't but no one forced you to click on those Ads right? Those who clicked are those who wants further details on the related topic. It's like a short cut for them. Instead of searching directly on Yahoo or Google, they can read these blogs and if they think that it is not enough, they can further click the ad links.

Aiz,

commercial blogs is a no-no-no. What happened when suddenly, Blog of the Year belongs to fotozzoom? The owner of the company claim it or the webmaster?

I can't even imagine it. We can't separate ads and blogs nowadays. It's too complicated but definitely, commercial blogs are No. Negative. Invalid.

PPS should come up with new codes. Commercial blogs or corporate blogs shouldn't be allowed as it does not fit as "A blog-tal aggregating content from a cross section of Malaysians being Malaysian."

Good luck in making conclusion then.

I agree with the proposal to categorize pings - maybe into commercial and personal (or whatever). Those who violate or cross-ping, ban.

Pertaining the question of bandwidth, Aiz, you can assign some watchers among the veterans here... they'll report to you of any violations or discrepancies and you turn it into action.

Lilian: Yes, i spoke to MistressM in a few private emails and she explained to me her intentions. There was even one email where she mentioned the MCups she's promoting is not really for profit purposes (she has a full time job completely unrelated to MCups, and what she charges for the MCups cover costs only), but is part of a social awareness project she believes in; i.e. that women should be aware of their choices when it comes to such sanitary products.

Based on this conversation with her, i said its ok for her to ping PPS (i still think its ok). I think anyone would be hard pressed to classify her blog as a "commercial" blog in the same category of Fotozzoom.

ALL: Let's keep this discussion as civil as possible: name calling and insinuation is unworthy of us. Nothing has been decided yet on the issue of commercial blogs (though some good ideas have been mooted).

Ka-Soon: I really take offense to what you said, "Aiz, we used to respect you. We hope to respect you in future, so please don't make another silly decision." -- pls don't assume that i require your respect, and pls don't think i do things in order to get it. I work on PPS because its something i'm passionate about, and i will always try to do what's best for it and not because i need or even deserve any sort of "respect".

The reason why i ask for everyone's opinion on this matter is because i respect all of you, as loyal supporters of the Project. But at the end of the day, i'm the one who has to decide (and i have to bear the consequences of such decisions, good or bad), and when i do decide, i have to try and take in the bigger picture.

Aiz,

the poblem with commercial blogs is they leech. they are leeching from you and PPS to get their site hits. it is not appropriate nor is it good. we all come here to read interesting stuffs.

we should not categorize pps. it's ridiculous and will only result in many people losing the main point of what this PPS is all about. it will also divide the blogging community. with such a small community, it's not worth it.

quotes are really a waste of time. i don't bother reading it unless they have something to say about the quote. i read most blogs which do not consist of merely quotes. this one, you, Aiz doesn't need to lift a finger. they all can ping as much as they want as long as they do NOT promote and sell these products. Passionate bloggers will wise up and refuse to visit these sites.

People, stop being childish and focus on the topic at hand.

regards, j!mmy

i think we should let commercial blogs ping - and perhaps decide to categorize them later when their volume is unmanageable

my opinion - i'd like to encourage malaysian companies/shops/outlets to explore the world of blogging and realise what an impactful marketing tool it is

by doing so - we as bloggers may get paid to do what we love - blogging.

quite a win win situation :)

Well... I should said that everybody pinging to pps has their own set of interests or goals. Some wants to be notice (with their touching personal life stories), while some posting just to get traffic to their site, which may eventually lead to a whole load of ads on their sites, and even some pinging pps for "evil" purposes. So everybody has motives in here... if not why everybody bother to reply to this topic? If putting fotozoom in this case, maybe the likes of "kahs" and "liews" or even the site that we're running may constitutes to something as individual blogs (just because they are legit register as companies)... just imagine if they're suddenly come up with some financial backing to actually register their site as legit sites.. who they still be pinging PPS? Would they then be moving out from here or still pinging in to this playground?

Well.. at least that's my "doink" thoughts.. Anyway I've no grudge against those names mentions. Just that everybody has his/her own way of making/breaking into the blogosphere. Cheers! ;)

can someone tell me why categorising isn't a good idea for PPS?

perhaps not so much categorising, but even having tags, or marking the adult and commercial content as such would be very helpful.

I personally don't think there's anything wrong with a company having a blog and pinging it on PPS. If it's informative, it's fine - we're all intelligent enough to know if it's promotional or not...dudes, if you think 'commercial blogs' (we need a definition here) should be disallowed, gawker media, boing boing and all the weblogsinc blogs (these are all running as companies) (should/would also be banned from pinging to PPS if they ever want to)....
On the question on whether's tied to a company, are you guys telling me you'll ban google's blog ( which is great!) or any company's blog from pinging on PPS? that sounds pretty short sighted to me....

Everyone should realize that a blog is still a website and quality content needs to be subsidized one way or another.....google adsense? if not for it you think you still have great blogs? if Liewcf is making money out of it and it keeps him blogging decent content on a regular basis...good for him lah...bloggers don't be too self righteous about these things....blogging is a communication tool and no one should ever stifle how and what we communicate ( unless it's offensive)...

I would like to state my 2 cents without siding anyone but merely talks bout facts. Do any of you guys knows how many companies(SSSS) can afford to hire peeple(SSS) to blog for them ?

in such a case, if there is 1,000 companies pinging PPS with 3000 entries a day ....

1. Where will all the personal blog be ? over shadowed by the companies/commercials blog ?

2. What is the role of PPS in that time ? a billboard ? or advertising agency ?

I had once thought about using PPS to advertise for some of my companies but i did not becuase it did occured to me that if someone else is doing the same thing I would not like it either.

there! dats my view!

going through PPS is just no fun anymore...

I believe everyone has presented his/her views in ways that they see in the most appropriate manner. nevertheless, here's some of mine ;)

1. as a blog, of what it contain, it's still a blog. and if pps don't categorize it, then what you write and chuck into a blog, stills a blog. this means, no matter the blog we have writes about our own life, or things we like, or etc, with no prejudice, it's still a blog. (Question: DEFINITION of blog and its content are required).

2. nevertheless, we need to look into pps's purpose of establishment. as each person has its own version of "content from a cross section of Malaysians being Malaysian", I suppose a clear explaination and DEFINITION will help to clear things up. (Question: DEFINITION of pps is required)

3. what if commercial blogs flood pps? then measurements have to be taken to reduce bandwidth. but at this moment, i guess this is not an issue yet. (Question: DEFINITION of the appearance of commercial blogs deemed as PROBLEM is required).

btw, Aiz is doing a good job. We should appreciate his work rather as he volunteered himself for this whole project. He's not our worker, and we are not his boss. So I guess, we as caring and understanding Malaysians we should show our concern in a more proper manner.

sorry if any of my words offended you. my 3 rupiah.

i agree that we should categorise blogs.

blogs that can ping, and "commercial" blogs that shouldn't be allowed.

so there you go. two distinctly different categories.

let me remind you, Project Petaling Street is... A blog-tal aggregating content from a cross section of Malaysians being Malaysian.

i say this again. posting up multiple camera(or any other product/website) reviews, either copied off a website, or because someone is paid to write a review and ping pps.. is not what Project Petaling Street about, and in no way reflects anything about being malaysian.

it seems more like a blog about their products than blatant advertisments, so I reckon, grey area, but it stays :)

Erm... actually Fotozzoom is not the only commercial blog pinging in PPS. You might have noticed my other blog, Daily Almanac (www.mantra.com.my/blog), in here as well.

I'll make no excuses about it. Daily Almanac is an experimental blog for my company, Mantra - which I suppose makes it a commercial blog since Mantra is, in essence, a commercial concern. Still, I do not ping every single post. Only the ones I consider to be of interest to the readers here.

When I first pinged here, I honestly did not think much about whether Daily Almanac violates any regulations here. After all, that blog aspires to offer a Malaysian view towards our business of advertising and marketing communications. But now that this topic is up for discussion, I suppose it's become a valid concern.

Commercial blogs, in my opinion, are blogs that belong to a business entity. That said, you won't find any hard-selling on Daily Almanac. In fact, we even intend to offer tips, tricks and opinions; and possibly even free downloads someday. But in spite of it all, I won't deny that ultimately, it is a propaganda tool of sorts for my business.

Sorry to have to put you through this, Aiz. Commercial or not, I guess you'll have to make that decision. PPS is yours and whatever you say goes. I can respect that.

This brings up an interesting conversation with a good friend of mine a few weeks back about using blog as a personal publicity and personal marketing tool. The friend basically told me that I have specific skills (specifically in computer security and programming) which, if reflected and presented properly on my blog, will put me in a position as some sort of a voice in certain topic (i.e. programming and security) and hence, I myself will become a brand name. Of course the entries will not be so blatant like 'oh I AM the person that is capable of coding this sort of application', but the message will be subliminal, and presented in the blog in its cohesive form (which also includes things like, heck, name dropping). I happen to know a few friend who do this, and in the techie world, this is a natural flow of blogging. Take for example, joelonsoftware - I am intrigued by his company's product because of what he writes on his blog.

Now if I were to do this, does that make me a commercial blogger?

If say, the CEO of 8TV starts pinging PPS, does that make his blog commercial?

And, oh, what is the definition of a commercial blog, please?

The solution is simple:

Allow 'commercial' blogs to ping, but charge them a nominal fee for the upkeep of PPS. One charge for each ping.

Yes, it's very mercenary and very much against the original spirit in which PPS was conceived, but if you'd allow me to be bitter, that's what a number of Malaysian bloggers who ping PPS have turned into. Blogging purely for the Google Adsense revenue and losing sense of the original spirit of blogging (spreading information for, gasp, free!)

Sorry for the sour post, but the recent rash of pings with tips for Adsense, whining about getting booted from Adsense and whining about bloggers out-pinging each other leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I wonder how many bloggers who have made money from Adsense and PPS pings has ever offered to return the favour to PPS in some form (if I'm not mistaken, Paul Tan is one of them).

Hmm..I guess I might have been one of those guilty ones =P

So, I guess it's good if there are some guidelines. If no direct advertising allowed, just say it, most ppl will follow. Ppl who ping here are PPS readers as well!

Also, breaking it up into categories is good as well + an option to see a 24h/48h ping list would be good. There's already a ready-made open source solution that has all these features available and it's based on RSS. It's called lilina (http://lilina.sourceforge.net) Why not give it a try?

Additionally, to give more exposure to up and coming bloggers who has something interesting to say why not have something like boingboing/tomorrow? That was what I thought PPS Blog would be...

I see many new talented writers but somehow more attention is given to those who are already established...

Finally, if say you're talking about a free service for a company - is that considered advertising in PPS as well?

Ok Aiz...this is the first time im going to post comment here and at least noticed it. Last time the discussion about me and my clone i couldn't voice myself because you had closed the discussion too early heh.

About the topic of this discussion. Since i joined PPS i didn't know company blog is not allowed. Well problem solved. I've removed the ping.

As for my company camera blog is commercial or not...actually i thought Foto-ZZoom blog can let readers to get updated with the latest camera which arrived in Malaysia because Foto-ZZoom have close contact with all camera brands so they will update us with upcoming cameras before Canon or Nikon even update their site.

I gotta go scan fotozzoom blog TheStar article now heh. Didn't know it went on newspaper 2 weeks ago ;)

"As for my company camera blog is commercial or not...actually i thought Foto-ZZoom blog can let readers to get updated with the latest camera which arrived in Malaysia because Foto-ZZoom have close contact with all camera brands so they will update us with upcoming cameras before Canon or Nikon even update their site."

Are you saying that Foto-ZZoom is more efficient than big enterprises like Canon or Nikon? Man, then they should buy out Foto-ZZoom.

Explanation, their websites are so-called "slow" because they are a global organisation and they have regional websites (for Malaysia, Singapore etc). I have worked with Canon to know enough.

Your website/blog clearly has posts promoting the cameras and prices. Isn't that "commercial"??

"I gotta go scan fotozzoom blog TheStar article now heh. Didn't know it went on newspaper 2 weeks ago ;)"

If you want to boast, please do it properly. Foto-ZZoom is not small and it has many branches. I am sure some of your colleagues has aready spotted the article. And if they do know you are the one managing the website/blog, I am sure they will inform you too. UNLESS... you have bad relationship with your colleagues that they don't talk to you OR none of Foto-ZZoom's workers/bosses reads TheStar.

"The Blog Critic" Don't be the smart ass here...commercial or not i've removed pinging to PPS now. So you can shut the f up and continue with your junk. By the way...the article is discovered 2 weeks later because i use technorati and found out TheStar linked to Fotozzoom blog. Other staff in company don't read Star-Tech because most of them read Berita Harian if you know what i mean. So don't be stupid...stupid.

Kahsoon's issue solved. He removed the Fotozzoom from pinging PPS.

Categorizing would be nice too. Setting up and charge for commercial/company blog would be nice. We can get better prize for next year award too.

I'm just wondering, anyone cares to organise a 'I hate Kahsoon' club? I don't mind joining.

I am not the smart ass, you are.
Oh wait... I take that back. You are just an Ass.. you are not smart.

1) You still deny/do not want to admit openly that Foto-ZZoom is a commercial blog. I quote "commercial or not i've removed pinging to PPS now." It seems that you are indignant about it.

2) YOU BOASTED about having an "article" in TheStar when it has nothing to do with this post here. This is about commercial blogs on PPS, not about "Oh, I got featured in TheStar... I am so big... while you all just don't get acknowledgement". Did we need to know you got featured in TheStar? Someone that is humble would not need to show off. People WILL acknowledge it if you are good.

I did not resort to calling names. You started it first. If being uncivilised is your way... so be it.

Oh, by the way... I admit what I write in my blog is junk. Atleast my junk is original. Unlike yours.

And this is an open discussion started by Aiz asking for EVERYONE's opinion. Not just yours.

oh come on..is this how we settle things in Malaysia?

Hahaha, and who says only women bitch! Popcorn!!!!! James, Hanyi, Wingz, mahaguria, yoohoo....where are you!

Looks like 2006 PPS Bash is really gonna be a bashing event. sigh....

on a serious note:
1) Aiz, many thanks for PPS. You da man. call us hardcore bloggers if you need help.

2) Commercial blogs are picking up, let's take this as an opportunity for Malaysia.

2.1) I agree with categorisation of personal and commercial blog pings. let the readers go there themselves. is PPS capable of showing two listings?

2.2) Define commercial blogs as "blogs of commercial entities e.g. companies or self-employed, that promotes their products or services". already we have Foto-Zzoom and Mantra ;)

On certain blogs alleged to just blog for adsense, I say it's their right, even the cut & paste blogs, it's their right. But when their pings (or anyone)flood PPS, that's when grievances arises. Chaps like Kah Soon and the anonymous Ka-Soons should be allowed to continue, but please lar, dun flood PPS.

My humble suggestion for a temporary solution?

Kah Soon, since you have so many updates in a day, maybe you can ping a "daily summary post" that has links to your other posts of the day? help PPS a bit lar. Cheers.

foo! Guess what, suddenly I got an idea!
Let's start a commercial only blogtal!

belacans: good ideas.
aiz: why not have a special column on the side, or top, containing a "Sponsored Ping" or something, the way Google displays paid listings on their search results?

Hey Lilian, I agree with you. Thanks Aiz for even started the discussions. They certainly have opened my eyes.

I have one question though. Malaysia is way behind in blogging. What if one day, problogging becomes a trend in Malaysia? Does that mean PPS will have to close shop? I suggest categorising. But ofcourse, contents will have to be original, but that really depends on the blogger's expertise. Like what someone said before, sooner or later, the un-originals will automatically loose readership.

I want to laugh when I read all those lashing and bashing words in the comments.

Anyway, watever it is, the blogsphere is evolving. I'm sure Aiz will do watever that is best for the portal.

Eh LcF, good idea lah...if you do a commercial blogtal. I mean, ppl would know where to go if they want to look for reviews on product =) People LIKE ME!

LiewCF - Yes, yes, I sapot you!

I think we have an interesting discussion here. Thanks Aiz, for initiating this. I came here by chance, and hopefully still will be able to contribute something to the many, many comments.

1.) It is great to have a portal to which we can ping
2.) Competition is alive - that is why there is also blogsmalaysia now. May be it is frustration with Petalingstreet, may be not
3.) We always wanted to make blogs more famous in Malaysia, to have them have influence, oh - we are in the news, yippee. But how can bloggers expect that companies won't pick up the idea to blog? Wasn't it something everybody wanted? It is becoming more common in the US, it will come to Malaysia as well
4.) Everybody tracks their visitors. If you think a company can blog on, without any sales or ROI by blogging, do you actually think that their CEO let them blog on, waste money on a blog? Subsequently, if no one reads a company's blog, no one buys a company's products after reading their blog, they will stop, sooner or later.
5.) A company does analyse their customer groups. If they see no fit to their customer segment, they won't ping PPS.
6.) Aiz - you know I am also working with Asia Business Consulting and their blog. If you want me to stop pinging PPS with ABC, please send me a mail. It would be a pity, but I would stop. The reason I ping with ABC is because I want to share some insights with a different thinking. Not selling products or services - I am not selling to visitors from PPS - I am only pinging 2-4 times a day -, but others, that come across Asia Business Consulting's website, or via hits from search engines. So if you truly believe that I should stop, tell me so.
Okay?

And thanks for being a great, great guy. What you need to do is taking a hard look at PPS and what you want to make of it. I am more than happy to advise you or help you, as a friend!

You are are just stupid... I mean, so waht pinging PPS with a commercial blog? Just because they make money and you can't then you're jealous of the act? That's a camera review site... You all are just stupid, oh... it's too much free time...

The ugly Malaysian rears its head, all I've read are heated debates, name callings, even swear words. Is this how we settle an issue?! I've been blogging for almost a year and PPS has brought me in contact with so many great people, people like Aunt Lilian with her funny life stories and maybe even bad mouthing, people like Peter Tan whom I've been following since before he was highlighted in the Star, people like Pok Ku of which does not ping PPS but is still one heck of a damn good blog and others that have left the blog sphere like MDMafia. What is so wrong where have bloggers of calibre such as these gone? PPS is suppose to be a community, where we share anecdotes, share our tales, of sorrows, frustrations and ideals. Commercial blogs, we can go on and on defining them, as commercial entities maybe they should pay advertising space if they want to do business, product introduction, have you personally used the products yourself and are you in a position to recommend them? Sigh It's all so sad, that we're bitting each others throat like this. My take censorship no, but if complains mount to particular blogs that have valid detrimental influence on other people's blogging experience, Az should have the option to do somthing about it. Yeah it's a bit hard to have you ping and later relegated from the queue after just a few hours due to whimsical multipings and floodings. The issue here is not who is wrong or right, what can we do to insure that the interest of all using PPS will be a win win situation. It's not about the money people.

There's something that can be done to please everyone, and I guess we've all been waiting to see new features:
1) Let registered users filter out unwanted domain names. They don't like Kahsoon, fine, give them the option to filter anything with kahsoon.com. That settles a lot of problem.
2) Set a limit of how many times PPS can receive ping from a certain blog, or at a certain intervals.
3) Categorize pings. Tech, politics, fashion, personal, etc, even male/female blogs. Man, I'd love to see this option.
4) Let registered users bookmark certain blogs they want to keep track of (something like RSS - but from PPS instead of individual blogs). Send them a summary of stuff daily/weekly.

These are just from the top of my head. Man, if I had the time, I'll make something like this, everyone will be happy. Blogging scene in Malaysia has changed, PPS hasn't. If PPS and the bloggers are willing to work together, it'll be a kickass portal.

[/2cent]

Ivan, interesting suggestions. How about helping out with the backend? :-Þ

Hmm actually, I would, if I had the time. But it shouldn't be a very tough job. Plus, there's blogsmalaysia and we should see how it turns out. :P

Allow commercial blog on PPS - anywhere on PPS tat mentioned commercial ping not allowed?

Wingz points refers. If too much pinging by commercial blog, how do Aiz resolved the previous issue of too much continous pinging from similar person? Perhaps can apply same solution ka ?

At d first place, we all shld be thankful to Aiz & PPS. Throw ur ideas/suggestions. He decide.

Y shld there b personal/commercial blogtal? Practise tolerance & use common sense, everything shld be back to same old days where everyone feels happy, go PPS to find some interesting blog to read. Dont like, dont click. Hey! Now u dont even need categorising.

Ivan,
i'm building the ppsv3 on my own from scratch..

1) Let registered users filter out unwanted domain names. They don't like Kahsoon, fine, give them the option to filter anything with kahsoon.com. That settles a lot of problem.
** planned **

2) Set a limit of how many times PPS can receive ping from a certain blog, or at a certain intervals.
** implemented **

3) Categorize pings. Tech, politics, fashion, personal, etc, even male/female blogs. Man, I'd love to see this option. - technically impossible with auto pings from WP/MT/other due to trackback spec limitation, can be implemented for manual ping. Have another idea though for this
4) Let registered users bookmark certain blogs they want to keep track of (something like RSS - but from PPS instead of individual blogs). Send them a summary of stuff daily/weekly.

** something in this sense is planned, but will be differently implemented .. this can be programmed as well actually.. we'll see ... good idea **

my only hope .. have time to finish it before i start working .. if not going to delay very long

saintis kreko: kool thing man. Good luck!

I'm all in for categorizing pings. And of course, that blocking feature, too. Sounds like a reverse-RSS [or should I say, anti?] to me.

saintis kreko - good stuff, man. best to you and hope you make it on time ;-)

anyway, you're probably thinking something like photoblog.org, well actually beta.photoblogs.org where users could bookmark the sites they like and tag them. except that PPS also aggregates the content.

Thanks to all for contributing your thoughts and ideas. This issue is now closed. Pls refer to the PPS Policies for further information.

http://www.aizuddindanian.com/voi/wiki/ProjectPetalingStreetPolicies