P1 To Approach Consumers Directly

This is a continuation of the P1 WiMAX Experience post I wrote before.

During the P1 WiMAX Experience event, time was allocated for the invited guests to have an open discussion with P1 representatives regarding the Internet services in Malaysia, the ISPs, WiMAX services and also role of P1 as the first provider that launched WiMAX internet services in Malaysia.

P1 was represented by 3 staff members, namely Billy Lee (Technical Officer), Christina Tang (Director of Brand/Marketing Communications) and Kenny Wong (Chief Marketing Officer - CMO). They impressed upon us that P1 values sharing session and discussion with consumers are one of feedback methods for them to improve their product and customer services.

Here are some of the P1 plans which was shared with us:

1. P1 WiMAX coverage is rolling out in Alor Setar
2. By year end, P1 expects to cover at least half of Klang Valley.
3. Unfortunately, Kelana Jaya may only get a taste of P1 WiMAX around December 2008 or first quarter of 2009.
4. USB modem will only be available in the first quarter of 2009.
5. An online application will be provided so that users can monitor their monthly bandwidth usage.
6. A package for heavy users is being considered right now.
   

If you do not already know, P1 will be implementing a fair usage policy in their P1 WiMAX services, meaning that subscribers download/upload speed will be managed so that all users across the network will enjoy satisfactory connection speed. In the fair usage policy, there is also a bandwidth cap of 20GB for subscribers of (bandwidth) limited plans.

However, from the tone of P1 representatives and rumours which I have heard from Malaysian internet user forums, the fair usage policy is not strictly enforced at this moment because the subscriber volume is still relatively low compared to the maximum capacity that could be supported by P1's impressive facilities.

At the end of the discussion, most guests understand the need for the fair usage policy but apparently some bloggers still feel that 20GB per month is inadequate for heavy internet users. To our astonishment, P1 tried to gauge our respond towards a package for heavy users, "Would you subscribe to a package for heavy users?"

Da-hhh. So apparently they knew our main concerns. Unfortunately, the representatives did not give further details regarding the package for heavy users, for now we can only assume that it is under consideration and may or may not be offered. I am sure the market response would very much influence P1's decision, so you might want to try emailing P1 if you are a heavy user who would like to have a customized package.

As for me, I am glad even if P1 has only briefly considered the possibility of offering customized plans for users with different needs. I suppose this is a good sign, we finally have an ISP which would listen to consumers' voices and do whatever it can to improve its services and consumers' internet experience.

Next I shall be discussing fair usage policy as well as bandwidth cap neutrally. Is there anything you would like to ask P1 or would like P1 to acknowledge or know about? Please share it with us here.

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P1 WiMAX Experience

I had an opportunity to attend P1 WiMAX Experience event about 10 days ago. I managed to secure an invitation to the event because of a fellow blogger friend who attended P1 W1MAX Launch back in August.

The purpose of the event is to showcase P1's superior services and products. I also later learn that it was the opening day of the P1 Packet Hub. During the P1 WiMAX Experience, we were given a tour around the main lobby, the brand-new office, as well as a short peek into employee's facilities and the service monitoring room.

The main lobby or customer service center is located on the ground floor, it is very well decorated, there were many fancy souvenirs, banners and comfortable seats and sofas spread around the space. Now anyone interested can just walk into the customer service center, try out any of the 3 P1 W1MAX speed packages on offer and talk to customer service for enquiries regarding the services.

P1 is among the most proactive WiMAX provider in Malaysia. Before departing the ground floor for higher floors, we got a chance to laze on the comfortable sofas. Apparently that is a cue for us bloggers, industry experts, members of the press and other invited guests to have an open discussion with P1 staffs regarding the issues of internet, ISP(s), wireless internet services, P1 W1MAX, WiMAX and the roles played by P1 in the industry thus far. I have noted down some important points from the discussion but I shall post them in another blog post.

Next, we were brought up to the higher floors. If you think the lobby is impressive, then I am all the more impressed with the employee's entertainment and relaxation facilities seen below. I suppose the reason why the discussion is done before further tour is because P1 doesn't want what we see in the higher floors to influence the discussion but I must say that the sight of the facilities have no doubt changed my views regarding P1.

Lastly we were given a glimpse of the service control room which is a high priority and security room. We were of course, not allowed in there, we have to see the settings of the room through a glass partition.

Well the tour was fun and the P1 staffs are really friendly and accommodating. When I started this blog, I have never expected to participate in any blogger events or meetings. However I suppose a blogger needs to interact with other members of the society and keep himself updated on all happenings, otherwise he will be outdated. I fully support such events, so if you know of any, kindly do let me know!

Oh by the way, I forgot to visit the toilet of P1. I wonder if it will be as sophisticated as the rest of the building or as pretty as the RM5 or RM7 "premium" toilets in KLCC and Midvalley.

Have you attended any blogger gatherings or events? Would you like to attend one? If there is another event by P1 or other companies, do you want me to invite you (if it is possible)?

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Interesting Talks by QuaChee

QuaChee is a blogger, an entrepreneur, a model, an actor and a friend (if I may say so). He has achieved many things which some youngsters could only dream to attempt.

Recently QuaChee has published a tourism book called 50+1 Malaysia - a book about interesting places, food, people and events in Malaysia. It is not the first book published by QuaChee, he has published another book called Batik Inspirations in 2005.

QuaChee is obviously a very busy person and his business requires him to travel to and forth between Malaysia and her little Southern neighbour, Singapore. He is one of the few entrepreneurs which I look up to mainly because he gives personal attention to his contacts and would correspond directly and he is rather humble too. I also love what he is doing, rarely would a young Malaysian promote our beloved country as much as he did in his work. Besides, I just sort of think that the life of an entrepreneur is rather exciting, absolutely different from millions others who work 9-5 shift every weekday. I have at least one other personal friend with similar life, perhaps I should interview both of them and other entrepreneurs and write up a blog post to share with you insights of entrepreneurs' life.

By the way, QuaChee will be having 2 talks this weekend. Here are the details of the talks:

I LOVE Malaysia Lah
So often than not, living in Malaysia, we have 101 complaints about this country. But beyond all these, Malaysia is a beautiful country from places, food and even people. And to say I LOVE Malaysia is no understatement. It is afterall, home.
15 NOV 2008 (SAT), 2pm,POPULAR @ Sunway Pyramid

50+1 Malaysia: The Journey & Things You Might Not Know
Did you know we had over 100 book covers? And that the book title was something different in the start? These are just the few things we faced. If you are interested to learn more on the journey of publishing this book and insight to the publishing industry, this talk is for you.
16 NOV 2008 (SUN), 2pm, POPULAR @ IKANO Power Centre

The talks are free and I am especially interested in the second talk. You know I have this crazy idea of being an author/writer of at least 1 book before I grow senile. Besides, I am sure QuaChee will be glad to entertain anyone who likes to have entrepreneurship advices from him.

So I urge all youngsters, even working adults and the press especially to attend these events. This talented patriot deserves every bit of support for his tireless efforts to promote Malaysia. Hopefully his talks will be covered in the newspapers! QuaChee has demonstrated that life and work can be meaningful, if you wished your life could be more exciting and that you could make a difference in this world, maybe these events would be a good first step... :)

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The Motive Network Now Powered by Advent 2.0

As a non-US citizen, it is not easy to be accepted into any any advertising network (especially those affiliate network). Most advertising networks would require their publishers to have a decent-looking website before approving them as members while others would conduct a 1-to-1 interview on the phone to find out how their publishers intend to "sell" their affiliate products or services.

By chance, I stumbled upon Motive Interactive. It is an advertising network specialising in CPA offers but other monetizing options for publishers are available too, including CPM, CPL, etc.

Some advertising networks do not provide support to their publishers whatsoever, they just give out some codes and expect publishers to do the rest, there is no stats tracking, no stats report, no direct affiliate manager and feedbacks between publishers and advertisers. The same cannot be said of Motive Interactive. At first I was reluctant to apply as a publisher but after corresponding with Motive Interactive's support staff, he convinced me to join, elaborating that their network is different and he even showed me a preview of their new Advent 2.0 platform.

The Motive Network will be powered by Advent 2.0. Advent 2.0 is specially created to cater to increasing demands of advertising industry and it is highly scalable and adaptable should any unforeseen changes in the future arise to maintain its competitive edge.

The key features differentiating Advent 2.0 from other networks' platforms are:

• it provides ad serving and impression tracking capabilities (beneficial to publishers and advertisers alike).
• the data model, code model and system processes are designed by industry experts with years of experience building high volume performance advertising and lead generation networks.
• it contains advanced features other platforms do not have - multiple payout support which includes commission based sales, individual publisher and advertiser allocations and lead routing to multiple advertisers and buyers.
• it has real time and batched lead processing as well as very flexible and powerful data
  handling and validation capabilities.
• it has a clean, streamlined user interface that empowers publishers to get to the offers, creative, statistics and campaign information they need quickly.
• publishers have access to tools to measure important campaign performance metrics across all time periods, campaigns and payouts in multiple perspectives including 'effective' perspectives like eCPM and eCPL.
• it has simple, but powerful filtering capabilities for offers, campaigns and performance statistics.

Even when my affiliate manager was 'selling' the platform to me, I was in doubt despite learning about the efficiency of the Advent 2.0 system. Realizing the shortcomings of words, Motive Interactive decided to come up with the following 'preview' video of the system.

Well, a picture paints a thousand words and a video paints a thousand pictures. Hence I am convinced that The Motive Network might just be the affiliate network which might help me make money and I am now looking for best offers in the Motive Network to promote. Once I make some money from Motive Interactive, I shall share my promotion methods here, hopefully people who decide to use my methods would sign up as my referral to enable me to benefit from some referral earnings.

Motive Interactive's referral earnings program is 5.5% lifetimes referral earnings. This payout is among the highest in the industry. The referred publisher must continue to generate commissions without a lapse of twelve (12) calendar months in order for the referrer to continue receiving the 5.5% commission from that publisher each month.

By the way, before ending this review, my affiliate manager informed me that Motive Interactive is now actively seeking for top affiliate marketers, especially those who could generate publisher commissions higher than $10,000 per month. To encourage those internet marketers to try out the new Advent v2.0 system, the following reward system is devised.

Rewards are paid each month based upon a publisher's commissions for the previous month. The reward payout starts at 1% then increases to 2% the higher the tier. The current payout tiers for the rewards program are as follows:
Top affiliate marketers out there, you'd do well with $10,000-$25,000 rewards, not to mention the commissions already in your pocket if you could sell so much of Motive Interactive's affiliate products, they would love you so much!

So, I'll be taking off to see what offers could I promote soon. Thank you to my affiliate manager, Luke, you have already opened my eyes to the possibilities eventhough I have not earned much from affiliate network, yet.

Click here to join as one of the publishers of Motive Interactive

Have you joined any advertising (affiliate) network as a publisher or advertiser? Are you satisfied with the service? What do you think about Motive Interactive's new Advent 2.0 system?

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