This is a social media aggregator disguised as an elite social media hall of fame. Vocanic Ltd, a company based in Singapore started a social media campaign in search of Malaysia’s top 500 social mediaphiles to take part in a secret project that was revealed yesterday in a “briefing”. I had the invite but I had better things to do on a Sunday afternoon.

With an eye on twitter I watched the briefing unfold. It became clear that this was a cheap stunt to collect data from unsuspecting social media users.  The company had little clue how to develop a service and now they need the 500 people to give it some direction. Or maybe this was another disguise because what they were really after was user information. There must have been more than 500 people who have given their information in the 6-page registration process.

I’m especially disappointed at being misled into a beta testing program and having to fill 6 pages with personal information that the developer couldn’t even use to create a service that’s half decent and launch-worthy. Then again, the 6 pages of questions were so badly structured, flawed and irrelevant, I’d be amazed that any meaningful data can be extracted to help an application developer. Just take a look at the pages I’ve screen capped.

I am ever happy to beta test new apps and volunteer feedback if a developer makes it clear that this is an invitation to a beta test. And if it’s a beta test, don’t collect personal information that has little relevance to product development.

So would I be willing to participate in this further? No. This is now Project DELETE.

Personally, I see twitter lists as another ego stroker. You know it is when people start thanking each other for adding them to a list or getting upset when they have been left out of a list and proceed to block, unfollow or both, the list curator.

I curated a list of Malaysians in Social Media for Listorious.com yesterday which I deleted today because it’s just not worth the emotional hassle. Some names are obviously left out because I don’t have every social media person on my follow list. Even if I did, I don’t count having 18K followers or someone who does not engage with others as being in or having a huge influence in social media.

Ego “twisting” aside for personal lists, there are great reasons for brands to curate their own lists.

Here’s my short list:
1. A brand can show what’s important to them with a list of tweeps they follow. It’s like Tony Hsieh’s alltop page where you’ll find blogs on customer service, lifestyle, fashion, shoes and tech. Knowing what Tony has accomplished in zappos, I want to read what he reads too.

2. I agree with point #5 on this list. Gives brands an opportunity to aggregate multiple accounts. Some brands have different names for different departments. Sometimes I wonder why. Customers want one website, one phone number and one email to reach a company.

Sometimes it works. If different twitter accounts are already established, a twitter list with all the brand’s accounts will help a lot. A great example is how AMC promotes the tv series Mad Men on twitter. Twitter accounts are set up for some of the main characters. One to check out is Betty Draper’s (a character in that show) twitter account. On her profile is a list of the other Mad Men characters which she has listed in her rolodex. It’s incredibly fun to read if you’re a fan of Mad Men like me. Betty also has a list of other people she finds interesting and she has them listed in Mad Men of the future (today’s mad men and women).

3. A brand’s staff/member list can also tell others who work or belong to that organization. Especially useful when someone in your organization deals with other people representing your company. When @xyz representing a publication asks me for an interview for example, I’d like to know if they are legit. Seeing their name listed on the staff list of the publication’s (account verified) twitter account gives me some confidence that he or she isn’t a competitor who just wants to get information on a new product I’ve released to the press that’s under embargo. Good example is the New York Times staff list.

Only three from me. There’s more from the many articles written by twitter pundits which you can do a search on. Final note, if you manage a brand or an organization on twitter, do get your list up soon.

After accidentally recovering 30MB of free space on my Nokia N96’s phone memory, the phone started to work like new again. So I updated the n-gage app and downloaded Age of Empires III yesterday. Been wanting to play it since it came out couple of months back. I’m on mission #13 now, skill level veteran (a notch up from wimp level ‘Recruit’).

You have two game options: tackle missions or skirmishes. The missions are usually short and fast on smaller maps while the skirmishes throw you into the deep end where the battles are longer and the maps are bigger. Before going into combat, you will have to populate a small town and manage a crew of settlers who has to gather resources needed to build up your army. It’s SIM City-ish but it works well with the game play.

Graphics quality is awesome (for a small screen) with visual effects to match. I usually play with the music off to hear the sound effects which is not bad but not great, only a slight rush from bombs going off and clanging from the blade-on-blade fights. I still like the thumb-trembling sound effects from Resident Evil more, the zombie boss’ roar is still in my head.

Overall — great game! Very n-gaging. Lots of variety in the missions, challenging skirmishes and a community scoreboard to feed your gamer’s ego.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

I forgot to add that there is an Ngage arena where you can connect to and play with other players, live. This is the best part because you really don’t know what to expect from the other party.