daphnemaia.sg

How To Destroy Your Online Reputation. Instantly.

When you provide a service that is built on Twitter, one of the world’s biggest and most popular social media tool / network, like Tweet.sg does, it would only make sense that you understand the importance of social media, and how it works. Or so I assumed.

Some background info: Tweet.sg, run by 33 year old software security engineer and entrepreneur Jym Cheong, and powered by Ennovative Pte Ltd, is a free service that allows Singapore Tweeters to update their Twitter page by sending an SMS to a local Singapore number. Prior to this, we could only update by sending an SMS to a UK number, or update via Twitter’s mobile web page.

Tonight, after seeing a re-Tweet by shenheng, I got curious:

So I headed over to TweetSG’s Twitter profile page to check out what in the world was going on.

Before I begin, let me say that I have used Tweet.sg before. In fact, when they first launched, I tried the service. However, I soon left Twitter for Plurk, and never continued using the service. When I got back to Twitter last month, I was pleasantly surprised to see that a lot of people were using Tweet.sg - “another startup that succeeded,” I thought.

So tonight, I was really a little surprised, hearing the announcement via shenheng that they’re halting / slowing down. From what I know, not many companies go down this path - it is, afterall, a step backwards.

I arrived at TweetSG’s Twitter profile page fully intending to find out what had caused them to disable new signups. Never did I expect that I’d see a whole flurry of angry Tweets from the founder and creator (who also Tweets as jymster). I scrolled through a couple of pages of the Twitter history for the user profile of TweetSG, and found out that the founder’s anger was due to the fact that users had been questioning the reason for a lag between time that SMS-Twitter update had been sent, and the time Tweet.sg actually posts the update to Twitter.com.

Much to my shock and horror, TweetSG (aka jymster) had begun lashing out at people, asking them to unfollow him and discontinue using the service that he has been providing, free of charge. Worse, he threatened to remove users who complained, from the Tweet.sg database, thereby disallowing them to continue using the service.

Wow. Epic social media fail.

Immediately, a flurry of angry Tweets from TweetSG followed, some directed at me, asking me to just shut up about my “social media shit talk”, and reminding me that Twitter is a free space where he can type anything he wants. He also mentioned that it would do me good to remember that Tweet.sg “is not an entitlement”!

Ah. Right. Of course it’s none of my business how he runs his company / service. However, as a Netizen, I have every right to Tweet about it, or blog about it! Well, to quote the man, “Twitter is a space that I type what i please.” [sic]

And interestingly, he states that he’s the same person, online and offline, and that if he doesn’t like a person, he will “just whack” [local lingo for "just attack"]. While being the same person online and offline is a good thing, I’m not sure how many people would openly admit to being a mad / unprofessional person online AND offline.

So here’s what I have to say about this whole issue (and social media in the corporate world) (and my own personal experiences prior):

It takes a long time to build a good reputation, but only a minute to ruin it.
Do not undermine the importance of social media in building a business or reputation that exists in the digital space.
Businesses should always remember that the Twitter / Facebook account that is used to communicate with users is an official representation of the organization.
You may not care about what people think about you right now, but in time, the bad bits of your reputation will surface and will precede you.
As an entrepreneur, this speaks volume about how you handle a business, and you might want to start worrying about how this will affect future partnerships.
In a world where everything is Google-able (and cached), you can never really fully delete yourself. As the Chinese saying goes, Paper can never keep fire under wraps.

So I guess what once promised to be a good product is now tainted by this founder-and-users dispute, and I see many people already calling for fellow Tweeters to move to another similar service called sgBEAT.com, which Claudia claims (backed by many re-Tweets by fellow users) is a “101% friendlier and nicer” service compared to “the other one“.

BTW, at the recommendation of my frend, victan, I’ve tried instead, yet another similar service called SMSyo.com.

With it’s clean and intuitive interface, quick updating service, and SMS numbers for Singapore and Malaysia Tweeters, I can see SMSyo.com rising quickly in the ranks of SMS-Twitter services available in Singapore. Do give it a shot and tell me if you like it! I do hope they have Plurk integration soon!

In the mean time, let’s all steer clear of Tweet.sg - who knows when the founder might just delete our accounts and send our Tweets into a Twitter blackhole?

(Was hesitating to write, until Uniquefrequency’s post on this issue was published, making me want to air my views too!)

Tags: claudia, corporate, entrepreneur, epic fail, free service, Google, jymster, online, plurk, reputation, sgBEAT, shenheng, SMSyo, Social Media, tweet.sg, twitter, uniquefrequency, victan

Marketing, People, Relationships, Reviews, Social Media | daphnemaia | July 15, 2009 1:26 am

28 Comments

By Heather, July 15, 2009 @ 1:42 am

I can’t believe supposedly “professional” and adult people would act this way. It completely blows my mind that a) they’d bother building up a service and not have the desire to continue with it and b) that they’d speak this way with people who are using that service. O_O I can’t get over it. If only something could be done about this.
By Mark, July 15, 2009 @ 1:53 am

wow. he/she must be having a really bad day
By Zhen Kai, July 15, 2009 @ 1:56 am

(Was hesitating to write, until Uniquefrequency’s post on this issue was published, making me want to air my views too!)

LOL.
By Midus, July 15, 2009 @ 2:14 am

Yikes.
By daphnemaia, July 15, 2009 @ 2:53 am

Heather: I know how easy it is to get carried away when one is angry, but this is completely ridiculous! I dunno what he expected - for people to kowtow to him to thank him for providing the service? Such jobs are always thankless jobs. People don’t praise you when things go well, but complain when you screw up. He should understand that before he started this service, and before he started lashing out at dissatisfied users.

Mark: I think ‘bad day’ doesn’t even begin to describe it!

Zhen Kai: I have to be careful of what I write! I actually wrote it part way, and then saved it in drafts, but later continued only afte reading Daryl’s post, haha.

Midus: I think it’s more like, Oh dear. How sad.
By Mary Jane, July 15, 2009 @ 3:07 am

I bet he’ll wake up one day and realize that he screwed things up big time! I pity him Daphne.
By ladyironchef, July 15, 2009 @ 8:52 am

ahh.. no wonder my tweets update via the sms was laggy!
By PG, July 15, 2009 @ 10:02 am

A clear and well written post. I like stuff on the web which are ‘99% free of grammatical errors’ (quote from you).
By daphnemaia, July 15, 2009 @ 10:30 am

Mary Jane: i’m hoping it’s today! it’s a slow day at work and i want some entertainment!

ladyironchef: try SMSYO! It really sends instantly!

PG: thank you and welcome to my blog! and oh, that old thing I wrote. haha. i should update it.
By Jay, July 15, 2009 @ 11:09 am

Hi, i so agree with what you’ve said. I too am a user of TweetSG and i’m really very much pissed by the way he types.

Anyway, i can’t sign up for SMSYO!
By Daryl Tay, July 15, 2009 @ 2:13 pm

I think it’s fine to air one’s views, just as long as it’s in a nice clear manner and not getting personal
By Shuoling Teo, July 15, 2009 @ 6:38 pm

Am featured inside. Yes, running a system IS a thankless job, but sorry, if you’re cursing/swearing at your users- time to unfollow and stop using the service. It just reflects on the attitude and upbringing. No offence.
By iammyy, July 15, 2009 @ 8:29 pm

I agree that it’s good to be “the same person” as who you are online/offline. But if you’re a service provider, I think his attitude/behavior says alot about what kind of person he is. No offense.

I agree with Daryl, it’s fine to air one’s view but that was totally personal attack on both users and you,Daphne.

Then again, if everyone were to unfollow/stop using the service. Those remaining users won’t have the lag time problem anymore ! Maybe that’s his strategy !(HAHA)
By Shuoling Teo, July 16, 2009 @ 12:17 am

iammyy , but he don’t have to keep swearing! He’ve obviously overdone it, no?
By daphnemaia, July 16, 2009 @ 12:31 am

iammyy does mean to say that it WAS wrong for him to attack us, Shuoling.

anyway, iammyy, perhaps now it will be less laggy, but iirc, it was laggy even at the beginning whn i first tested the service out. perhaps it’s just gotten worse during the time i stopped using it.
By Miccheng, July 16, 2009 @ 1:26 am

Good product. Crap customer service. But heck, its a free service anyways… if u don’t like it, just leave, and leave the fella alone. If u bite the hand that feeds u, kill the golden goose of this free service, its game over. Simple as that.
By daphnemaia, July 16, 2009 @ 9:26 am

yea it’s a free service, but really, like i mentioned to daryl on his post, twitter and plurk are free too. they don’t treat users like that.

i understand where u’re coming from. but in the end, his temper and inability to control his anger is gonna pose a lot of problems for him, whether in his work or business partnerships in future.

“u don’t like the way i do things, just leave! just leave!!”

is that the type of partnerships that people seek these days? definitely not. not for me.

anyway, like u said, his is also not the only service around, so if people don’t like it, they can just leave and he doesn’t care. well, that’s all fine and dandy, if that’s one’s preferred formula to running a business / site.
By xianfeng, July 23, 2009 @ 11:08 am

Pride comes with adverse effects such as tarnishing one’s reputation when handled unwisely.

Though social platforms are ought to be credited for its service, they should suggestively hold tolerance for conviction, or rather improvement.

Integrating personal judgement into corporate professionalism can be unwelcomed in the books of netizen’s culture.

Still I applaud for such an initiative taken by a local entrepreneurial film who holds insights of greater convenience for the general public.

However, things can’t be any better if there were disagreements. Accommodation, between two sides could be attempted I believe.

p/s: can’t help to write this much after witnessing such a long written post!
By Passerby, August 1, 2009 @ 6:55 pm

Hey does smsyo.com charge for texts to twitter?
By daphnemaia, August 1, 2009 @ 7:43 pm

hi there, @Passerby.

i’m not sure which country you’re from. SMSyo.com operates with a Singapore cell number, so any texts to that number would be charged at standard rates (5 cents for local SMS if you’re in Singapore, or global SMS rates to Singapore numbers, if u’re overseas).

if u’re in Singapore and you have free local SMS, it can be deducted from your monthly free SMS bundle.

if you have any questions about this, you can leave me a message again. cheers.
By Passerby, August 2, 2009 @ 1:55 pm

Im from SG btw. Currently using SGbeat to text to Twitter. Im also using unlimited texting plan. Thanks anyway!
By Passerby, August 2, 2009 @ 1:59 pm

Btw SGbeat is also free right?
By daphnemaia, August 2, 2009 @ 6:52 pm

yeah it’s free too.
By vc, August 18, 2009 @ 1:40 pm

Not the first time he lashed out. Think he’s abit siao.
By huangxinyi, August 31, 2009 @ 6:10 pm

I agreee. That jym guy seriously gone overboard. If he’s not happy about users complaining, he shouldnt even create this service. Like as if the world would die without that pathetic service of his.
By lmf2046, September 2, 2009 @ 12:38 pm

smsyo just support Plurk.