I was looking at last Saturday paper and thought what’s the big deal about Singtel HTC Dream. What so exclusive about this “beta” phone using Android OS?

Who wants to pay $38 for this HTC Dream when the new HTC Magic (Android G2) has already been announced on HTC official website.

Singtel HTC Dream Launch

A report in today’s Straits Times (B14)… “Although there were no long queue at the weekend launch, Singtel said sales of the phone fell within expectations.”

It depends where you set the expectations!

HTC Dream Review

Try google for htc dream review or t-mobile g1 review(for the USA market) and you will see for yourself why you should wait for the HTC Magic.

Engadget said: “The G1(HTC Dream) isn’t going to blow anyone’s mind right out of the gate.”

The Sydney Morning Herald said: “Unfortunately the Dream can’t decide whether it’s a touchscreen device or not.”

So much for the negative comments of the HTC Dream. Let’s take a sneek at the HTC Magic instead.

HTC Magic Getting Rave Early Review

Unfortunately, there is no HTC Magic review on the production unit yet. What we have here are units displayed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Whether it’s early hype or otherwise it is good for the HTC Magic to be said to be “Getting close to perfection…”

So one can’t help but to compare this new HTC Magic to the iPhone.

“HTC has got a very smooth phone, which feels great on your hands and in your pants’ pockets. While it’s sightly thicker than the iPhone, the narrower, rounded body, and weight makes it feel the same size.”

And, this time round, HTC remembered to include video recording in the HTC Magic.

See it for yourself, here’s a HTC Magic Hands-on Video:

Now, I can’t wait to get my hands on the new HTC Magic aka Android G2. Maybe, Singtel should have included free upgrade to HTC Magic for all those who have purchased the HTC Dream and I don’t think they have sold many!

[Updated on 13 May 2009] I changed my mind on the HTC Magic, instead I will go for Samsung Android Phone – the Samsung i7500. The i7500 has a 8G memory, the 3.5mmm ear jack and other better specs; and I always wanted to get a Samsung.

Read about the Free SEO Starter Guide at the Blogopreneur this morning via Google Alert. It was a short post by Kian Ann. Since he highly recommend it and it’s by Google, I have to go download and print a copy of this free SEO ebook.

This is a basic SEO guide and I think it’s a must-read for everyone, not just webmasters and web designers.

Because it is such a short guide, only 22 page, there is no table of contents or organized in chapters.

So I have taken to time to list out the main points of this very useful and important SEO Guide by Google.

1. Create unique, accurate page titles
2. Make use of the “description” meta tag
3. Improve the structure of your URLs
4. Make your site easier to navigate
5. Offer quality content and services
6. Write better anchor text
7. Use heading tags appropriately
8. Optimize your use of images
9. Make effective use of robots.txt
10. Be aware of rel=”nofollow” for links
11. Promote your website in the right ways
12. Make use of free webmaster tools**
13. Take advantage of web analytics services**
14. Helpful resources for webmasters**

Click here to download the SEO Guide in PDF.

Google Using Viral Marketing to Promote its Services

Did you read the last 3 heading in the above list?

They are promoting Google services!

What a smart way to promote your services by giving away a small little SEO guide book.

Isn’t that viral marketing in action?

I am surprised! People are actually using Rednano.sg to search for information and landed on this blog. Thank you, SPH Search.

Even though the level of traffic from Rednano search is no way near Google, having a couple more visitors to my blog won’t hurt.

You may say I should not compare with Google and you are right. It’s unfair to compare Rednano to Google. But, I cannot help and remember the talk about “supplant the big names of Google and Yahoo as the prime tool for sourcing local information” as reported in the SPH owned The Straits Times on 10 Aug 2007.

So, I must track, monitor and compare the performance of Google vs Rednano and see which search engine is giving more traffic to my .SG blog.

Will I use Rednano to search for information on Singapore?

Probably not.

Why?

I didn’t see what I was looking for and I don’t like to be fed with information that is biased to SPH. I feel that this Rednano thing is just another platform for SPH to sell ad space.

The baby Rednano.sg is only 4 months old, so let’s wait and see what will happen. Meanwhile, it still Google.com.sg for me.

This morning I opened my mail box and found this short but very important note from William Kho(who attended the SEO Workshop in 2006):

“I followed your steps in creating a page on tips on caring for cats on Hubpages and I’ve got it ranked 2nd on Google in less than 30 hours.”

You can view his hub article which is ranked in the top 5 for the search terms – tips on caring for cats – in Google.com:

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-many-tips-on-caring-for-cats

While you are there, please join his fan club and add a comment.

You can also visit my hub page on Vivo City Singapore at:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Vivo-City-Singapore

It is simple and can be quite fun to write a nice little hub page on your topic of interest.

Starting writing now!

Found out that this crappy domain, SPH-Search.com has PR2. In terms of Google PageRank, SPH-Search is better than SPHSearch.com, SPHSearch.com.sg and SPHSearch.sg which currently ranked at PR1.

SPH Search registered these domains and launched them much earlier than SPH-Search.com. Logically, SPHSearch.sg should have better than PR1.

Why did SPH not link it’s high PR site such as SPH.com.sg, AsiaOne.com, Zaobao.com and StraitsTimes.com to SPHSearch.sg?

Maybe they did but screwed up in the process.

Maybe SPHSearch.sg would improve in the next Google PageRank update.

Maybe they were too busy dancing…

You can use Youtube to look for quality traffic sites that have visitors who will click at your video, banner ads, Google AdWords ad and etc.

Find out where and how to find quality sites to generate targeted traffic to your site. Visit DTAplha Talkback: YouTube’s Amazing Overlooked Traffic Secret… REVEALED! now.

Would you want to hire a Google reseller who screwed up their own AdWords ad? I discovered this since yesterday but until now, nothing has been done to correct the blunder.

I am very surprised that even an AdWords Qualified Company and AdWords Authorized Reseller, which got a Number 1 position for this ad on the keywords google reseller and google resellers got it wrong. The URL pointed to a page which did not exist, instead you were served with an Error 404 – Page not found.

Would Your Google Reseller Do This To You?

Watch this video to find out how did this Singapore Google reseller screwed up their Sponsored Links ad in Google.

Don’t Just Trust Logos Blindly

Business and companies which dabble into search marketing and the new media should not just rely on the logos such as Authorized AdWords Company and Authorized AdWords Reseller to trust their PPC manager 100%.

One should always check and verify the actual quality of job delivered.

Do you have any bad experience with your search marketing company or PPC manager?

Please comment below.

Singapore Management University (SMU) students not too happy about Nanyang Technological University (NTU) buying the keyword smu at Google Sponsored Links. Read the SMU student’s blog post here.

I think NTU is just wasting taxpayers’ money.

NTU is paying at least US$0.40 per click for the keyword smu. I know because I bid > US$0.40 to place a sponsored link to this blog post and only got a second place.

SIM & “singapore management university”?

You may realize that SIM ad appears when you search for singapore management university. That’s because SIM bid for the keyword management using broad search.

comScore reported that Americans conducted more than 10 billion core searches in January 2008. Read the full report at http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2068

As you can see from the table above, Google is leading at 58.5% followed by Yahoo at 22.2% and Microsoft at 9.8%. Over the past month, there has no been significant changes in the market share.

Jolly and I will co-author a book on search engine optimization and search marketing.

We don’t have the title of the book yet. However, this will be a small little book that will answer most of the questions that people want to ask about getting their sites visible in Google and Yahoo.

If have questions related to SEO, please write them in the comment box below.