Blog archives: Media - Orangescale.NET / Thomas Arie Setiawan

14th Yogyakarta Gamelan Festival 2009

ygf

Yogyakarta Gamelan Festival (YGF) is an annual music event in Jogjakarta. This year, it’s the 14th festival and has “EVERYWHERE” as the event theme. Anyway, this event is organized by Gayam16. There are many agenda during this event including music performance, exhibition and also workshop from July 16-18.

This event also invites musicians from some cities like Pamekasan (Madura), Tolitoli (Central Sulawesi), Solo, Jakarta and also from United Kingdom, USA, France and Japan. It’s a little bit different now. Sapto Raharjo, a gamelan music maestro, was passed away in February 2009.

The music performances will be held in Concert Hall, Taman Budaya Yogyakarta from July 16-18, 2009. And here’s the program schedule:

Thursday — July 16, 2009
- Concert (8PM – 11PM)
  - Y. Pamulangan Beksa Sasmita Mardawa (Yogyakarta)
  - Kutiplak Ndang Tak (Yogyakarta)
  - KPH9 (USA and Yogyakarta)
  - Agus Bing and Prabumi Ethnic Jazz Band (Solo)
  - Stupa (Yogyakarta)
- Exhibition (10AM – 11PM)
  - Tribute to Sapto Raharjo
Friday — July 17, 2009
- Concert (8PM – 11PM)
  - Gita Rarya (Yogyakarta)
  - Kito Siopo? (Japan, UK and Yogyakarta)
  - Alex Grillo and Friends (France and Yogyakarta)
  - Singgayan (Tolitoli, Central Sulawesi)
- Talkshow (3PM – 5PM)
  - Cultural Dialogue (at Amphitheather, Taman Budaya Yogyakarta)
- Exhibition (10AM – 11PM)
  - Tribute to Sapto Raharjo
Friday — July 18, 2009
- Concert (8PM – 11PM)
  - Youngsters Gamelan 16 (Yogyakarta)
  - Rene Lysloff and SaKAna (USA)
  - Kabud Hitam (Pamekasan, Madura)
- Workshop (1PM – 4PM)
  - Gamelan Nowadays (at Auditorium of Lembaga Indonesia Perancis)
- Exhibition (10AM – 11PM)
  - Tribute to Sapto Raharjo

Indonesia’s Presidential Debate Audio Podcast Download

This is a list of Indonesia’s presidential debates in audio podcast format. I didn’t have the forth episode (vice-presidential debate) since I wasn’t at home.

To download the files, just click on the podcast titles or use right-click menu and choose “Save Link As…” if you’re using Firefox, or “Save Target As…” if you’re using Internet Explorer.

You are free to download and share the information about this podcast. Enjoy!

Presidential candidates: “How to Create Good Governance” hosted by Anies Baswedan.

Presidential candidates: “Unemployment and Poverty” hosted by Aviliani.

Vice-presidential candidates: “How to Develop National Identity” hosted by Komaruddin Hidayat.

Presidential candidates: “National Unity, Democracy, and Regional Autonomy” hosted by Pratikno

A Twitter Conversation

Found an interesting conversation between Gagah Putra — a blogger — and one of the political campaign team. It’s interesting because it’s done virtually, using Twitter. Also, because I’m curious about who the person/group of people behind @megabowo’s Twitter account.

Let’s start it. First, the conversation started with this:

@megabowo skrg misi ekonomi kerakyatan, sementara dulu Mega menjual aset negara ke asing. Apa ibu Mega mengakui kebijakannya dulu salah?

@megabowo responded

@gagahput3ra Ya. Pada saat menjabat sebagai presiden, ibu Mega banyak menyetujui saran-saran yang diberikan oleh Mentri Keuangan Budiono.

Followed by

@gagahput3ra Sekarang, ibu Mega secara jelas menyerahkan kewenangan ekonomi kepada pak Prabowo / Partai Gerindra u/ ekonomi kerakyatan

Ended by

@megabowo oh, berarti sy bisa ambil kesimpulan dulu Megawati tdk berkemampuan memveto kebijakan mentrinya ya. Good luck utk Mega-Bowo!

VIVAnews Deleted Its Twitter Account. A Smart Move?

Not following VIVAnews doesn’t make me stop reading people’s comments about it. There are some blogs brought this Twitter account into discussion. Today, I noticed that @vivanews_com account had been deleted by the account holder. Maybe, it’s because the Twitter users’ (especially in Indonesia and its followers) responses.

twitter404

Now, the question: Is it — deleting its Twitter — a smart move? Is it the best option? I think, it’s not. Let’s figure out why the account was closed.

VIVAnews wanted to get another account, and announce it as its official account. When it was published, I couldn’t find any link of it at their site, or something mentioned that it was official.
They (people at VIVAnews?) want to do it better in the future.
They want to “remove” people’s comment.

I think, rather than closing/deactivated its account, the account holder should stop the auto-update and show that they’re listening. They can do it by removing its feed(s) from Twitterfeed. Then, they give respond also via Twitter. Why? Because it’s the medium. They can ask for feedback, and how they can make it better next time.

It can be a better counter for the negative comments on Twitter. If they think that closing account will remove the negative comments, they’re wrong. It’s still accessible in Twitter database, unless people who wrote tweets delete them. See these screenshots: one and two. Those screenshots were taken, even the referenced account has been deleted.

Now, will they join Twitter again? I’m curious.

I don’t follow VIVAnews on Twitter

If you’re using Twitter, you might get some new followers in the last few days. One of them might be VIVAnews. I had VIVAnews followed me, but I didn’t follow it back. Why?

I do follow some bots on Twitter to get updates as long as they don’t flood my timeline. Some media (portal) in Indonesia start using Twitter as a tool to gain readership — sometime they just want to do it. What makes it wrong is that they don’t do it nicely. Sometime, I think they don’t have any strategy.

The only news portal on Twitter I follow is @thejakartaglobe. Why, because it does not send tweets automatically using so called RSS to Twitter tool. And, they’re joining the conversation, not killing it. For example, few months ago they joined the discussion on Plumpang tragedy. I still remembered when someone on Twitter gave updates, @thejakartaglobe responded. Asking some questions for clarification. That’s a good example, I think. So, there’s someone behind — a real human.

I’m not sure wheter VIVAnews’ Twitter account is managed by VIVAnews or not. Because:

The profile does not mention the primary website URL.
Some tweets seemed ‘funny’ e.g.
- Thanks udah Follow vivanews.com :) (link)
- Bored, bored and bored to day,,, i need new PC Games (link)

OK, this account tried to get more followers by following other users. This is a usual strategy. Does it work? May be. May be not. What people — the followers — think about it? You can read their responds. :)

Update: To find out the conversation on VIVANews’ Twitter account:

Go to http://search.twitter.com/advanced
Enter VIVAnews’ Twitter username on the “Referencing this person” field
Hit the “Search” button.

Mentioned brands on Twitter

Brand Republic released a list of 100 most mentioned brands on popular microblogging service, Twitter. Here are the top ten (order by how many these brands were mentioned):

Starbucks
Google
BBC
Apple
AIG
Amazon
Microsoft
Guardian
Dell
Coca-Cola

Do all of those brands — and the rest on the list — have their own Twitter account? No. The list does not discuss about why Twitter users mentioned those brands. Not clear whether they got positive or negative comments. They’re just mentioned and popular on Twitter.

(via Doug Bowman)

Media File Preview Inside Google Mail

Yesterday, I enabled some Google Mail features offered from its Labs section — I’ve enabled some before. Google Mail Labs is a place to test some new features in Gmail. There are many features/applications we can test.

Google Mail users or those who use Google Apps for domain can enjoy this feature. Go to top right navigation, and there is a small icon to visit the lab section.

I enabled YouTube, Picasa and Flickr preview in mail features. If we enable this feature, we can see multimedia files preview inside our Google Mail account. The pictures/videos will be derived from the link inside the mail content. If there is a link to YouTube video, we can watch the video inline. Useful!

Good Bye and Hello Videoblogging!

If you read my blog, you might know that I have started my videoblog few months ago. If you follow me via Twitter, yo might heard about my video-related website: orangebox.tv. So, it is time to say “good bye” and “hello”.

“Good bye“… because I want to discontinue my videoblog at video.orangescale.net. I will stop posting new videos there. I might still use my Vimeo account to store my videos, but I will not post them at video.orangescale.net. I will keep them as archive.

Now, it is time to say “hello” to my new videoblog. Last week, I decided to buy a new domain name for my videoblog. It’s orangebox.tv. I did this because I want to bring this site into completely different section, not under my blog domain name. This is the first time I bought a .tv domain, too. I bought it for less than US$ 20/year. I want to join the videoblogging crowd now, especially among Indonesian videosphere. Hello Notsogeeky and Webicara!

Blogpemilu.com

Last year, I bought a domain. It was blogpemilu.com. I wanted to build a site related to General Election in Indonesia. But, I haven’t figured out what to make.

In the last few weeks, I decided to use it as a tumblelog using Tumblr with custom domain service. Why not using self-hosted blogging? The answer is simple and straight forward: I do not want to get busy preparing the tecnical stuff like themes, etc.

There are many Tumblr users from Indonesia, and since a Tumblr-powered tumblelog can have multiple authors, it’s just perfect. I started writing some texts, quotes, photos, etc. Then, I invited some Tumblr users I know — from Twitter — to contribute. So, here it is now: Blog Pemilu. Big thanks to all contributors!

If you want to contribute, you can. You only need a Tumblr account. Just contact me directly or by email — the information is available on the site. Other requirement? Well, you want to share Pemilu-related stuff. :)

Iron Flickr Man

I watched Iron Man. I think it’s a good movie. But, I will not talk about this movie, or make a review of it.

I’m interested in the story behind this movie related to… Flickr! If you see the image, just look closer to the two images inside. Looks similar, right?

The picture is from Jeremy Keith‘s Flickr album, and it was used in the movie! For me, the most interesting thing about this is about “how” his image can be used (in this movie).

Jeremy Keith has a detailed story about this. You should read the full story. Read about the communication between Jeremy and Ashley Kravitz.

Once I finally made it to Austin, I settled into a comfortable routine of geeking out, having fun and generally over-indulging. As I was making my way to the conference centre one morning, my mobile phone rang. It was Ashley.
“Sorry I didn’t manage to get the form to you”, I said. “My laptop died on me. I know it’s too late now.”
“Actually, there’s still time”, she responded.
“Look”, I said. “Let’s cut out the computers completely. Can you fax the form to my hotel? I can sign it and fax it back to you straight away.”
And that’s exactly what we did.

Interesting!

The BOBs – Best of the Blogs: Deutsche Welle International Weblog Awards 2008

the-bobs

Just a reminder. This year, The BOBs (Best of the Blogs) 2008 has been started on August 31. Compared to the last year competition, this year Indonesian bloggers will have an opportunity to join the event. So, if your blog is written in Bahasa Indonesia, you may join. The award will be given out in 11 different languages: Arabic, Chinese, German, English, Dutch, French, Indonesian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

What is Deutsche Welle?

Deutsche Welle is Germany’s international broadcaster: online, on-screen and over the air. It provides a European perspective to audiences around the world and promotes intercultural dialogue.

Last year, the event got more than 7,000 submissions. The number will increase not only because Bahasa Indonesia is included as one of the criteria, but because the number of bloggers is also increasing this year.

Okey, let’s talk about the mechanism. If you want to join, submit your blog from the submission page. Your blog will not be nominated immidiately. The editos will check every submission to make sure that it fits the criteria. You can nominate yourself, or other bloggers.

Read more details about this award on the FAQ page. Anyway, one of the judges — from Indonesia — is Budi Putra (the CEO of Asia Blogging Network).

TimesPeople from The New York Times

timespeople

The New York Times launches a new feature called TimesPeople. It’s a social network for Times readers — and it’s still in beta. Here, we can share interesting news found at NYTimes.com with other users. If we think that other people should find out about articles, comments or any other news at NYTimes, we can recommend them to other people.

When I tried this service and explore some pages inside TimesPeople, I see a combination of Twitter, and del.icio.us. Only combination from those services? I see Newsvine and Digg, too.

Currently, we can use this social network service only on Mozilla Firefox. It’s available as add-on. Read TimesPeople FAQ page for more details.

The United States Lifts Travel Warning for Indonesia

A good news for Indonesia. The United States govt lifted its travel warning for Indonesia. This decision was taken because of security situation improvements in Indonesia. The Bali blast in 2002 brought Indonesian tourism into dark era. Well, that’s probably not the only reason, but it was a big hit.

So, if this year the goverment of Indonesia has set a target of bringing 7 millions of visitors for its Visit Indonesia Year 2008 programme, it might be a good news. Selamat datang di Indonesia!

(reference)

Joining FAM Trip Journalist as bloggers

Last week, Yan Arief told me that we’re invited to join an event called FAM Trip Journalist. Yan Arief got the news from Pak Octo Lampito from Kedaulatan Rakyat, the biggest newspaper in Jogjakarta. Anyway, what is FAM Trip?

A FAM (familiarization) is a trip offered to meeting professionals (including planners, journalists and travel agents) in which event venues and destinations highlight–and, thus, give attendees first-hand experience with–their products. FAMs may be fully or partially sponsored by venues or destinations. (source)

We’re invited as bloggers. Yes, as bloggers. Yan Arief already knew Pak Octo for long time, but I just met him (Pak Octo) when Yan Arief took me to Kedaulatan Rakyat in last February. At that time, we introduced our unofficial TransJogja.NET website. (Read more about it — in Bahasa Indonesia). Luckily, Pak Octo already knew a bit about blogger and he told us that there would be an event that would involved bloggers. Great!
Continue reading »

Some notes about 21Cineplex website

Before going to theaters for a movie, I checked the schedule first. And I want to get the information about the movies — their schedules — I go to http://www.21cineplex.com/. It’s informative, but I found annoyance there.

I can’t bookmark a theater page. Whenever I want to go directly to a theater page, it takes me to frontpage. I think it’s because my browser does not send HTTP_REFERER?
Because I can’t add a theater to my bookmark, it means that I can not send a permanent link to other people. If I want to show a page to someone, for example: “Go to theater in Yogyakarta”, how to do that? “Open the site, then click this, then scroll down, you should see the link there”. Like that? Doh!
Every theater has its own RSS feed. This is good. But, it seems that the feeds are out-dated. I just open a feed few minutes ago (April 20), but I got the feed for April 9 (as seen from <pubDate> value).

A question: why?

There are some answers, but I am just guessing. Probably:

they put advertisement there. More page views, more value?
they think people are not interested to subscribe to RSS. RSS — in this case — means less page views?
nobody complains about this, so there is nothing wrong with the site.
the point is: “All information are there. There. The most important thing is that users can find them.”

Okey, I will stop complaining now.

Telkom blocked more sites

A sad news for people in Indonesia who use internet, including bloggers. Few days ago, some people reported that YouTube was blocked from their internet providers. Telkom Indonesia as the largest internet provider in Indonesia followed the action. According to the news release (in Bahasa Indonesia) Telkom blocked these following sites (including blogging service providers):

Youtube
MySpace
Metacafe
Rapidshare
Multiply
Liveleak
Themovief****.com

Sad, really sad. There is no further information about how long this situation will happen. Anyway, about the reason: those sites are blocked because it contains articles/posts about a video. One thing we have to remember is that: only because of a single content material. Too bad. Anyway, Boy Avianto has a very great article about the issue.

Good bye YouTube

The decision is final, YouTube is blocked in Indonesia, from internet access using Indonesia Internet Exchange (IIX). Asosiasi Penyelenggara Jasa Internet Indonesia (Indonesian Internet Service Providers) came into this disappointing decision.

According to the news, this decision was triggered because of the case of an uploaded video entitled “F**na”. The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology of The Republic of Indonesia said that they already contacted YouTube to remove “F**na” from the website. The govt of Indonesia gave two days for YouTube to remove it. But, it seems that YouTube did not gave an expected response.

What does this affect the Indonesian blogosphere? I visited some blogs having embeded YouTube videos, and all failed — of course, because my internet connection is blocked already. Some people said that they still can access YouTube… But, I think it’s about time.

I just don’t get it. YouTube has move good contents (compared to ‘bad content’), I think. Argh!

Update (9 PM): The information said that there was a technical error about the blocking. It’s said that it’s related to human error (wrong blocking mechanism). Many people are still able to visit YouTube, some are unlucky. My ISP has some proxies and right now, I can still open YouTube — not like this morning. BUT, I found some sites (BIG sites!) already blocked.

Pesta Blogger 2007: What a great event!

Yes, I went to Pesta Blogger 2007. It’s the blogger’s biggest event this year in Indonesia. I met super bloggers from Indonesia. I met my favorite bloggers. I knew them from their blogs… and when I met them in person I feel that I have met them for ages.

Pesta Blogger 2007

It was a great event. I will write more about this event — from my perspective, of course. You can find more blog posts, photos and video from Technorati, Flickr and Youtube. Anyway, Pesta Blogger 2007 official site is a good place to start searching, too.

Photo by fistoriza.

Irfan Setiaputra, Cisco Indonesia Managing Director

Irfan Setiaputra

I just want to spread this news. Irfan Setiaputra, Cisco Indonesia Managing Director, joined the blogosphere few months ago. His blog is located at http://irfansetiaputra.com and it is powered by WordPress. All entries and comments are written by Mr. Irfan Setiaputra himself. So, if you write comments on his posts, he will read and give responds.

Welcome to blogosphere Mr. Irfan!

Anyway, there are also two other bloggers. Betti Alisjahbana (from IBM Indonesia) and Elisa Lumbantoruan (from HP Indonesia).

Subscribing to Reader’s Digest Indonesia

Today, I received my first Reader’s Digest Indonesia issue. Actually, it was my girl friend who wanted to subscribe to this magazine. Last July 2007, we decided to subscribe to this magazine. We thought we would had our first edition for August 2007 issue. But things did not go as we expected. Here are some notes:

We contacted Reader’s Digest Indonesia (RDI) by email first (langganan (at) feminagroup.com). On July 12th, 2007 we received a quick respond for our first email. It was quick I suppose… about an hour.
After receiving information I needed, I sent the payment for yearly subscription. On July 16th, 2007, I sent my payment confirmation. Since I did not receive any error message (No email bouncing), I thought that my confirmation was sent successfully and I will have my August edition by the end of July.
I waited. On August 6th, 2007, I contacted them (by phone) asking why I did not receive the magazine. The customer support told me that they did not receive my payment confirmation in her inbox. Ouch!
It’s not completely their fault, I think. I can accept that. So, I re-send the payment confirmation, and I got a respond from them in the next few minutes. I was informed that I will receive September 2007 edition as my first issue.
And today, I receive it. Great!

Overall, I am satisfied with the service from Femina Group. I had all my pre-sales questions answered. Thank you Reader’s Digest Inodnesia and Femina Group.

Orangescale.NET