What's keeping moi busy?

So, what's keeping me busy?? WORK!! 

But that doesn't mean it's boring. Far from it actually...

Since I've embraced the web division at my work place with open arms and turned my back against the news division... lol okay, news was interesting but web feels like.. this-is-where-I-should've-been-all-my-life! and I totally look forward to coming to work every day.

So what do I do at the web division? Well, our division handles 7 websites - 3 for tv, 3 for radio and 1 for news. I've been given responsibility of 1 tv, 1 radio and the news site with a colleague of mine who overlooks me (let's call him "W" shall we?). Now, this doesn't mean I'm a serious techi, but maybe I'm such a wanabe and I'm loving all the new things I'm learning. I love that feeling you get when you work on something and hit 'refresh' and voila! the results are online LOL yeah yeah it's lame but isn't it just awesome? :D

And lately I started writing 'newsy' articles for our news website. Well, it's actually called "featured" articles but I want to make a brand new blog site for the articles and get with the web 2.0 and "W" is going to help me - the noobie to make it happen very soon. Hopefully I'll share the link when it's done.

Apart from all that, I manage all of the Social Media accounts and Social Media Marketing aspects for the two English tv and radio channels as well as news. That itself keeps me totally busy. Social Media and SMM are beginning to catch on really strong in Sri Lanka and I'm learning all I can these days. Actually, if you remember, the 5-day U.S. tour that I went on, in March (a completely free tour, thanks to the U.S. Embassy in Colombo and the Foreign Press Center in U.S.) was because of the work I've been doing on Social Media for the media organisations I've been working for during the past one-and-half years or so, as well as on my own. Guess it paid off pretty sweet yeah?

Aaaand my Social Media adventures continue....! This Saturday, I'm going to attend the first Social Media Marketing work shop.

Facebook goes ZERO

Facebook has made another fantastic launch! early morning on Wednesday (19th May 2010) – Sri Lanka time, Facebook announced the launch of 0.Facebook.com – an imageless version of the standard m.facebook.com site for their mobile users. And what’s most fantastic about this new site is that, those of us who login to Facebook through mobile phones can access it free of charge! 

Read Facebook’s official announcement

According to Facebook, more than 100 million people actively use Facebook from their mobile devices and over 200 mobile operators in 80 countries offer “Facebook Mobile”. Initially, free browsing over 0.facebook.com is available only through 50 mobile operators in 45 countries and territories including all you lucky lucky Mobitel users in Sri Lanka – including me of course ;) 

Read Mobitel’s official announcement

Here is the list of all countries and territories along with mobile operators that currently offer 0.facebook.com free of charge. Click on image to view full list:

Facebook admits that most people do face certain challenges when using Facebook over their mobile device over m.facebook.com, mainly being the speed and the cost. So, keeping these two main challenges in mind, the new 0.facebook.com has been developed to be faster and free.

Over the new site, Facebook says that you can access the key features of their standard mobile site m.facebook.com; such as updating your status, viewing the News Feed, Liking and Commenting on posts, Sending and Replying to messages, Writing on a friend’s Wall, just as you would on Facebook.com completely free of charge from those mobile operators who offer this service.

However, to make your browsing experience faster, photos will be viewable only by clicking on them AND you will have to pay the normal data charges if you want to view photos. You will also be subjected to normal mobile browsing charges if you leave 0.facebook.com and go to another site. A notification page will appear, reminding you that you will be charged if you attempt to view a photo or leave the site.

And those of you who are not yet lucky enough to have this service in your country or offered through your mobile operators yet, keep your fingers crossed... Facebook says the service would be available through many other mobile operators soon. Some of the operators and regions that will have 0.facebook.com available worldwide have been listed by Facebook as :

• Telstra in Australia
• Movistar in El Salvador
• SFR in France
• XL in Indonesia
• DiGi in Malaysia
• Telecom NZ in New Zealand
• SMART in the Philippines
• Vodafone in Qatar
• Digicel in Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago
• 3 in the UK
• MTN in Cameroon and Guinea Conakry

So, without much delay, I checked out this feature over my cheap Chinese mobile handset and true enough, the speed was worth smiling about :) How about you? How many of you have checked out the new 0.facebook.com? or have it going in your country? What’s your opinion?

Alec Ross - Advisor, Innovator and Guru

30 journalists from all over the world were at the Diplomatic Reception Room of the US Department of State in Washington DC. We were on a reporting tour and the topic was Social Media. We had just met the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and were still highly excited about the meeting.

This time we were eagerly awaiting the arrival of Alec Ross, the Senior Adviser for the Innovation in the office of the Secretary.


His role in leading the State Department's efforts to find practical technology solutions for some of the globe's most vexing problems on health care, poverty, human rights and ethnic conflicts was of high interest to me; as it involved many innovative methods in which social media can be successfully utilized in tasks as diverse as the ones they are engaged in.


Alec Ross walked in with a charming smile as he greeted us. Then he let us in on a little bit of history about himself. Ross’s background is in the NGO world. In 2000, Ross and 3 colleagues co-founded “One Economy”, a global non-profit that grew into becoming the world’s largest digital divide organization, growing from a team of four people, to having programs on four continents.


During 2007 and 2008, he ran technology, media and telecommunication policy for Barac Obama’s presidential campaign. Then literary just a year ago he came to the state department to build an innovation agenda for America’s diplomatic and development agenda.


Alec Ross commenced his speech with a little story about a friend who goes to the same shop to buy toys made of scrap metal from a very rural part in the world, Until one day - the guy who sells the toys tells her to email him and pre-order what she wants, thus demonstrating the global connectedness that is evolving.

Then he described one of the successful efforts made by his team just after the tragic earthquake in Haiti. A member of the staff had come up with an idea to encourage people to donate small amounts of money – a maximum of 10 dollars – over their mobile phone. With a prompt okay from the Secretary of State, they set it up, so that when people awake the next morning, it would be the first thing that would come up on their mobile phone, prompting them to take quick action.

And action they took… Their effort raised more than 30 million dollars in about 3 weeks. In 10 dollar increments – that’s response from about 3 million Americans for the earthquake victims in Haiti !


Ross gave another example to demonstrate how they are attempting to use technology is with regard to the continued narcotics and cartel fueled violence in Mexico.

One of the biggest issues that have come up recently in Mexico is that people are afraid of reporting criminal activities in their neighborhood to Police for the fear retribution, as they are afraid that they will be killed for reporting crime. Therefore, Ross and his team have been developing an idea with the Mexican government for the past several months to set up a Web based and SMS based crime reporting program.

With this program, people can confidently report a crime directly from where they are, and an NGO then makes the content and the source anonymous and post it on a special public website. The police are then given a particular number of minutes, within which they have to report back to the website, regardless of what they find. The idea here is to introduce anonymity, transparency and accountability – into fighting narcotics and narcotics fueled violence in Mexico.

Meanwhile, Alec Ross pointed out that there is a perception about the United States in recent years that they are attempting to ‘overpower’ other countries. He further said that one of the significant shifts since Hillary Clinton has become the Secretary of State is that there is less reliance on “overpowering” and an increased focus on “empowering”.

He also said that his role and the role of his team was, within that broader frame of empowerment, how technology can be a platform that can empower different communities and nations. He also let us in on an example to illustrate how dedicated the Secretary of State is, to bring the latest technology into handling US government activities.

He said Hilary Clinton met about 15 to 20 young people who are involved with new media technology in the State department. He pointed out that for someone who sits down with heads of state, kings and queens – to sit with youngsters who are not seniors at the State Department was kinda cool and that it shows the level of her dedication.

Finally he said that as someone who has the opportunity to interact and engage with Hillary Clinton quite frequently, it’s a real treat to work with her.

Meet The Secretary

Stepping out of the Newsroom and flying to Washington DC was not on my To Do list but somehow it manifested itself in the form of a Social Media - Reporting Tour, about a week ago.

This was to be my first real experience overseas and the first time I was to fly to a foreign destination on my own. 4 and a half hour flight to Dubai, 8 hours at the airport trying to get on Facebook and another 15 hours of flight to Washington DC should have killed my excitement but it didn't. In fact, the moment I arrived and took a taxi to the hotel only to find out that due to a 4 hour delay as a result of flight delay, my check-in time was pushed back and I had about 6 hours to wait till my room was vacant! But luckily, I bumped into one of the 30-odd journalists who were supposed to arrive at the Washington Plaza and leaving our bags at the concierge, the two of us went sight seeing in DC.

To give you a bit of the background story - the tour was organized by the Foreign Press Center of the U.S. Department of State and funded by the U.S. government. So why would they do this? Well, according to what I understood from the folks at the Foreign Press Center, by inviting over 60 journalists and bloggers from around the world on 2 reporting tours - one in February and the other in March - the U.S. government hopes to highlight their views on different matters and to present them to other nations through the journalists. Apart from that, the tour being on Social Media, the U.S. government more or less painted a fine picture of just how they maximize the benefits of using social media to put their message across to the general public in a more effective manner and at the same time, to harness the views and comments from the public as well.

However, the next morning almost 30 journalists, together with representatives from the Foreign Press Center - Nicole, Matthew, Dorris and Neil - were at the U.S. Department of State building. After the routine and strict security check-ups, we were taken to the Treaty Room, just to look around. This was prior to the scheduled meeting with Alec Ross - Senior Advisor for Innovation to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Gordon Duguid - State Department Deputy Spokesman.

Then something happened.. Our guides from the Foreign Press Center pointed at a row of chairs laid out at the entrance to the U.S. Secretary of State and said, we're taking a picture. Just sit here and gather round but leave the middle seat empty. So as we were curiously assembling as we were told, I happened to overhear Matthew saying "Hillary Clinton" and I quickly turned. I couldn't believe my ears, so I asked, "Matt, did you just say Hillary Clinton is going to be here?". And he was like "Shhhhh..." And the next thing you know, the door opened.

Someone came out.

There was tension.

There was anticipation and excitement in the air...

And then she arrived.

U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton herself arrived in the presence of 30 exclaiming foreign journalists and bloggers.

She spoke to us briefly, asking from which countries we were from and she invited just a few questions. Three lucky journalists managed to ask questions before she said "let's take a picture".

Answering the questions from the group, On Uganda she said that Uganda should not kill people for being homosexual and that the United States was monitoring this.

And on the Israeli and Palestinian issue at that time she said that the US government is of the view that Palestinians should have a state of their own and at the same time, Israelis have a right to live in peace.

Meanwhile speaking on Azerbaijan she said that the Obama administration spoke out when Azerbaijan bloggers were arrested by the government, adding that the U.S. government is working on resolving the Azerbaijan and Armenian issues.