Malaysian Dotcom Youth Search ceremony part 2
This is the continuity of yesterday’s post. I decided not to go to PWTC, instead, I went to Alamanda Putrajaya for shopping and viewing of the new Proton Saga. It is indeed very nice, and if I’m not committing myself on my current car’s monthly installment, perhaps I’d be getting one for myself. Btw, I’m sorry for not providing much details about the event on yesterday post, I was there for only a short period of time, not much to be covered. And there is a lot of work to be completed in office yesterday, I was only able to view the pictures and write the post at around 1.30 am, sigh…
Well, part 2 is not that interesting too ;(, I can’t gather much information about the event on the net. Even, the official website also doesn’t provide such information. Walau-eh!!
The winner
First thing that you wanna know!!
The Malaysian Dotcom Youth Search Award
Name : I’m not sure. But this guy is humble and really down to earth. He deserves to win this contest. His father was accompanying him too, must be a dad’s son huh?
Website : ShoutMix.com - Free chatbox for websites
Alexa Rank : 17,008
Pagerank : 6
backlink : 26,300
Most Popular Blog Award
Name : Paul Tan
Websites : PaulTan.org - Most of you have heard about his blog, all about cars
Alexa Rank : 11,454
Pagerank : 6
backlink : 4310
How is the winner chosen?
I’ve no idea on this, and it seems to be another unanswered question that only the organizer knows. It is definitely not based on popularity or traffic, otherwise Paul Tan who won the most popular blog would have easily won this contest. In fact, according to one of the moderators in eMenang, the winner does not even installed the script to get voted!!!!
So these are my assumptions:
1. The commercial value of his site and the possible unlocked value of the website and the partipant
2. How the same product can be developed further or on the collaboration that can be made with the winner
3. The entrepreneurship spirit and the age- he started at 21 if I’m not mistaken
4. The participant’s skill set - During the media conference the winner mentioned that he started coding this program by himself since studying in MMU.
5. The organizer’s future planning and agenda which suits with the winner-to-be
The event
YouthMalaysia is a lot more than this contest alone. There’s a lot more activities which you can find on their outdated webpage. Dotcom Youth Search award is one of them, and there are others such as TafficJam, fashion, YouthStyle, futsal, graffiti, charity and etc.
The Organizer
YM is the brainchild of Joel Neoh, the winner of The Firm, which was aired on NTV7 last year. It was co-organized by MCA, Ministry of Youth Development, Rakan Muda and co-sponsored by gov and private agencies. Just imagine, the total prize is 300K, it is not cheap, so someone must be sponsoring this, if not, it must be coming from the gov.
The Goodies
We’ve got TM nut beg freebie containing gossips and entertainment (what the heck!!) magazines, pen, event’s pamphlet and a mouse pad. Btw, since I have 2 sets of this goodies, I decided to give it away to anyone who’s staying around Seri Kembangan or is working near Cyberjaya. First come first served. Contact me if you’re interested.
click to enlarge
Btw, is anyone of you in this picture? FahmiShah, are you somewhere in this pic, I read somewhere (I can’t recall from where) that you were there too?
click to enlarge
Resources: LYN , emenang forum , youthsearch
Congrats to all the winners. i wish i could be there socializing with fellow bloggers but a bit busy lately.
It’s amazing how he can think and do that (shout box)… He saw an opportunity. He knows how to do it…He is a winner before the youth dot com search….
Paultan nampak samada terlalu pendiam atau sombong?
What do you think Zaki?
Wow! a lot of goodies.. very lucky to get the goodies.. congratulations to all the winner… i never knew that shoutmix is local.. i thought it is from oversea.. very professional..
I’m glad that I didn’t win the competition.
It opens the door of improvement to me.
I read somewhere that the organizer call the final contestant to have final interviews few hours earlier before the event started, but it didn’t happen. I can see how he quite frustrated. I didn’t manage to chat with him since they have media conference right after the event
But I manage to chat with LiewCF and few other blogger. Got picture with them, but I’m shy to show if off.
I decide to go last minutes, haha, my wife is the one actually encourage me to go
Hey everyone,
I hope I can answer some questions in this reply.
I did put the script to get voted because it was a requirement for the contest. It has since been removed after the winning since the banner no longer loads and the event was over. Sha from eMenang might have heard wrongly or I might have said wrongly about the issue of the banner not loading during the period of the event.
ShoutMix has over 150k new sign-ups for the past year alone. Customers include Fox TV stations in the US. I believe it won because it is commercially viable. I’m trying to beat the other leading provider at the moment (in this shoutbox/tagboard field I believe mine is ranked 2nd globally for its userbase).
I already have a solid development plan for the entire year 2008. Development started since few months ago. I am not entirely sure if I will get to work with Nuffnang or Youth Malaysia but nevertheless any business opportunity would definitely be great.
I started the business at age 18 before I went to MMU. I quit MMU after completing 2 years of my 4 years degree course. I’m 21 now, turning 22 April this year.
I started coding discussion board and shoutbox as early as age 15. I made it available commercially at the age of 18 just before I went to MMU. I had to give up my studies because business was affected due to my divided commitment between the two.
I did everything on the site on my own including customer service. I handle XHTML, CSS, Javascript+AJAX, PHP, MySQL and management of the servers with custom Apache/MySQL/PHP/memcached configuration. I’m all on my own due to the lack of fund.
I will most probably not get much ties (or none at all) that will affect my own business plan. I do get investment opportunities and I might head towards a new direction with these opportunities. This event indeed helped me.
There isn’t any conspiracy behind this event for now. Just witness for yourself how ShoutMix grows from here in the coming years and it should be clear.
I hope these answers help in making things more transparent now.
I do feel insulted with this line. I live on my own with my own money and I support my family with my business. My father is proud of me and I’m glad he can be there to witness the event.
Having father around does not make us a daddy’s son. Won’t you be proud to share your success with your father too?
p/s. I rushed all the way back from Penang to attend this event and slept only for 1 hour before getting to PWTC in the morning. I also experienced the troubles Paul Tan had.
Mr Tan (I assume it is your last name based on the comment’s name)
First of all, I would like to thank for your clarification that you made here, I admit some info is not accurate since it was gathered from around the blogsphere, due to lack of information which should be available right after the contest by the organizer. As I said earlier also, some info is assumption only, again due to lack of info
Secondly, congratulation of what you have achieved so far. I’m not fan of shoutmix or shoutbox or message box, so I hardly heard about it before. But it seems that you have managed to get user overseas which is a very good indicator of your business direction
Last not least, I apologize if you do feel insulted with that statement. No offense here dude. I wanted the blog not to look so formal and that we’re able to chit chat in here.
Zaki, no problem there. Just couldn’t control but raged a little when I read that particular line but hey, let’s keep it cool now. Hope I’m not making things tense here. I am not well known and most probably no one know I existed in the local scene. I hope I’ll get this opportunity to make more friends in the field I’m in (the web).
Btw, was it you with your wife taking pics the other day? I remember seeing a very close couple there the other day.
Good to know that you’re fine now with our misunderstanding. No it’s not that tense of a situation, we should indeed voice out what we feel, and have it opened up here, this is what blogging all about.
Wow, you really started at a very early age, I must say that I’m indeed impressed.
Yup, you most probably got the correct couple, coz back then, I didn’t see any other couples around.
Hahaha, now you know
http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/595537/+200
look for my post… my nickname is paultantk. once you read it, you’ll understand why.
Zaki, I have posted the link to this blog entry in LYN topic. Hope you wouldn’t mind that.
no prob, in fact I have mentioned about my post in LYN too, but I didn’t put the link, I don’t want to be seen like promoting this blog too much :). But there is my blog URL in the signature.
Yea, but it seems that your “Blogjer is my blog” link somehow refers to Onlinejer. Both of your signature lines redirect to same page. :p
Dang it!! my bad, otherwise I should have got more traffic from there. Thanks for pointing this out
Nice site