Soon you will be able to have a username
Starting on Saturday, June 13th, at 12:01pm in your time zone (GMT +8), you’ll be able to choose a username for your Facebook account to easily direct friends, family, and coworkers to your profile.
Check out the Facebook Blog for more information.

There’s less than a few hours left to claim your own http://www.facebook.com/username URL. If your name is publicly general, e.g. John Smith, then please sit tight and make sure you’re the first one who submit your claim as they’re doing it on a First Come First Serve basis. So if your name is John Smith, like a few thousands more out there, you better make sure you’re the first, or you’ve gotta settle for http://www.facebook.com/johnsmith2 or 3 or 4, or maybe other nicknames.

Claim your Facebook username url at http://www.facebook.com/username. Good luck in claiming your own name!

Below are the e-mails corresponding to this issue.

Mail No.1 from Advertlets Support

As soon as I’ve published the Advertlets Scam blog post, Jess Ong from Advertlets Support department responded with an e-mail within 24 hours. Talk about efficiency.

Hi Alex,

We note that your payment has not been received. Unfortunately, some areas are prone to missing mail more than others, especially East Malaysia. If you recall, there was also a similiar case sometime back in your exact area as well, Miri.

To rectify this, we now allow payment through direct bank in. Could you let us know your bank account details, and we can do a direct transfer to your account. We will need your account name, number and bank name. We will be able to process it within two weeks of receiving your details.

Regards,

Jess Ong
Advertlets Support

I’m sorry, but Jess Ong, I don’t follow Advertlets as closely as you would’ve liked, so I don’t recall any of the mails missing in the jungles of Sarawak. By the way, I’m in Sibu, not Miri. Where did you get my location from?

It is ridiculous that one is blaming the postal service when they themselves are not doing the job properly. The payment status in my earnings page clearly stated “Unpaid”. In contrary to their claim that the mail was loss/missed in delivery. If you’ve sent the pay cheque, won’t the status be “Sent” or “Paid”?

If you’re sending a cheque, I bet you’ll be sending them via Registered Mail, which is traceable and trackable. You can always check with the postal service and feedback with viable evidence to show that you’ve really done your job. But I understand, I’m just a miscellaneous blogger with 15,000 uniques and 800,000 page impressions per month with traffic mostly coming from the U.S who’re trying to squeeze something out of your bank account, there’s no requirement whatsoever to entertain me.

Last but not least, please don’t use the lame excuse of mail loss because we’re living in “East Malaysia” regions, we don’t live on trees anymore. Even mails to remote longhouses were being successfully delivered. I live at the heart of the town, please give a better excuse next time.

So you told me that you’re finally allowing payment through direct bank in, then why didn’t you tell me earlier, in all my 5 enquiries sent to you? Before the damage is being done? Before I need to rant about this? Don’t tell me you didn’t get the e-mails because it was sent from Sarawak.

My reply to Mail No.1

Jess,

Thank you for your prompt reply. Did you also missed the 3 enquiries I’ve submitted from the helpdesk regarding the cash out payments, and 2 more via my mail to info@advertlets.com, did you also miss that? If you did miss them, I would urge you to check your helpdesk/e-mail system for any errors or bugs.

I’m sending you the account details instantly, and the cashout request had been issued in January, 2009. I don’t think you’ll need two weeks to process the payment? I’m expecting it to be deposited within a week.

Following is the account details:
Account No.:1612xxxxxxxx
Account Holder Name: Ling Zi Neng
Bank: MAYBANK

Actually I have planned to place advertlets ads on several of my other sites, and forums as well. But your non-existent payout scheme and the ignorant support just killed my intention off.

About the missing mails, are you saying the mail were loss? That’s just an excuse, frankly Like I said, I hope you didn’t miss the mails I’ve sent to info@advertlets.com

Please check your info@advertlets.com from alexallied@gmail.com regarding my application to become one of the TITAN members. It was sent about a week or two ago, but, no one entertained me.

Thank you again for your prompt reply. I hope I’m not too harsh about this issue.

Regards,
Alex Ling.

I was away to Kuching for the Gawaii holidays, Josh Lim called. I appreciate his gesture for calling and confirming that they had bank-ed in my earnings. Towards the end of the conversation, which I think is the prime reason for the call as I’ve already expected, he’s requesting me to update the readers, change the Advertlets Scam title, as they leave a bad impression on visitors.

I did not promise.

Mail No.2 – Further Plea to Amend Post

Hi Alex,

The amount has been transferred to your account, this is the receipt:

Amount: RM100.99 Status: Successful
Reference number: 1316550820
Transaction date: 03 Jun 2009
Transaction time: 04:20:00
From Account 51412333xxxx SP PCA
To 3rd Party Account Number: 1612xxxxxxxx
Account Holder Name: LING ZI NENG
Effective date: Today
Description of transaction: alexallied

As the situation is now resolved, we appreciate if you can update your readers on the situation, and amend your blog post to reflect that we have paid. Appreciate if you can also change the title of the blog post as it definitely does not reflect the situation accurately.

In future, please do let us know also if your query is not responded to within 48 hours. We also have a phone contact at 03-78049282 and a special e-mail: urgent@advertlets.com if you wish for a more immediate response.

Regarding your TITAN application, we can only offer increased earnings under that program for blogs at the moment. We will notify you if we accept forums in future.

Regards,

Jess Ong
Advertlets Support

As the situation is now resolved, I’ll have a dedicated post regarding the situation, and keep the old one as a kind reminder to Advertlets and company.

Now they’re telling me that they have an urgent e-mail address for a more immediate response!

Firstly, I’m not asking for a more immediate response, I’m merely asking for a RESPONSE for God’s sake! After 6 months of waiting, there’s no response whatsoever for all the 5 enquiries I’ve made to info@advertlets.com. What’s the use of an URGENT mail, when you can’t even respond to a normal enquiry after 6 months?

So if you have any questions at all, just send all your mails to their URGENT e-mail address at urgent@advertlets.com. Their normal mailbox at info@advertlets.com will not be responded for more than 6 months, especially when it comes to payment.

Final Words

Josh,

I really hope that your company will improve with so many complaints and feedback, I think it’s more than enough rants you’ve read on the Internet that, they will at least worth your consideration into making the Advertlets network a more credible company to work with.

I hope publishers will not have to write such rants to grab your attention and attending to their payout requests. All the best to Advertlets, and cheers to those who have been paid!

Now I can pay my bills with the extra RM100.99!

If you’ve yet to receive payments from Advertlets, please write a blog post about it and include the URL in the comment box below. Please also state your unpaid amount. I’ll link you from under this post.

This is a high ranking post on Google search term of “Advertlets” and it attracts a good amount of attention. I’m hopeful that this will help those who’ve yet to receive their hard-earned money. Good luck!

I’ve a very bad experience with Advertlets, their previous slogan “The better blog advertising network”, didn’t really suit their means. That’s why they’ve changed to their new slogan, “More Love for your Blogs and Brands”. If you’re really the better one, why would you change it in the first place? I’m not gonna start to compare Advertlets with Nuffnang here, this is not an issue with which company is better. Comparison do no justice, but just look at Advertlets payout ratio, the number of people who’re actually getting paid, you’ll see the real issue. A simple Google search on the “Advertlets not paying” will get you almost 2,000 unsatisfied publishers’/bloggers’ rant on their payout process.

I believe it’s not just me who’re being “scammed” of advertising revenues, but hundreds and maybe thousands of them. Let’s do a simple math. Let’s just estimate a small amount of the unsatisfied bloggers who’re not getting paid, to be around 200. Let’s take the minimum cashout quota of RM100 and multiply it with the 200 people.

RM200 x 100 = RM20,000.

That makes it RM20,000. Now, that’s just the estimation. Who knows how much money did Advertlets actually holds up in their wicked bank account? 2,000 unsatisfied bloggers? You do the math.

Advertlet’s RM100 Minimum Payout Quota

Advertlets set their minimum payout quota at RM100. So what? Are they really gonna be paying it? I bet you got fooled. Me, too! Bloggers work their heart out in giving Advertlets a good ad placements, all the work and codings go into account. Some even experiment different placements for better click through rate. After half a year, some lucky ones will reach the magic RM100 mark. For all the hard work and patience, you thought your cash out process would be swift and you can enjoy the fruits of your hard labor in a form of a cheque payment from Advertlets.

Truth is, you’ll get shit. Oh no, you don’t even get shits, cause they won’t even care to reply your enquiries for cashing out. They’re indirectly telling you, “You’re worth no shit to us”. So at this point, do you continue to display their ads? Or remove them?

If you remove them, there’s no way to retrieve that hard-earned RM100.
If you opt to stay with them, you’ve no guarantee that you’ll get paid.

I call it quit after RM125 worth of traffic and clicks.

Cashed out in January, 2009. Several inquiries sent. No reply whatsoever from Advertlets.

Below is an article on Advertlet’s support page, question “I have not received my earnings. What should I do?”

If you have not received your earnings 30-45 days from the end of the month which you cashed out, please contact us.

So I’ve contacted you, what next? I’ve contact you guys 5 times and I’ve got nothing. Not even a single reply.

For your information, you will be able to see several different status options of your Cashout Request. Please see the following for details.

Unpaid
The cashout request has just been received and action has not been taken yet.

Processing
The payment is being processed. If you see that the payment has been in Processing status for more than a month, please contact us. There may be outstanding issues with regards to your payment including: Full Payee Name not filled in, Incomplete Postal Address, or other factors such as a prolonged click fraud audit. It will usually take between 1-2 months to audit fully for click fraud – removing illegitimate earnings is a tedious process that takes a lot of human intervention and server log processing. Your earnings will only be audited if the amount of click fraud is not excessive. An excessive amount of click fraud will result in either that particular Cashout Request being denied or your account banned.

The terms really freaks me out. How do I know if I’ve got click frauds? Let’s take an example.
I go about other people’s blog with Advertlet’s ads running. I sit there and click their ads 10-50 times a day, everyday for a month. So if you consider that as click fraud, then Advertlets, you’ll have a fucken big problem. No one’s gonna get paid in the end, but Advertlets themselves.

No one knows exactly how they define “excessive” click fraud, and you won’t get their server logs, too. It basically means, if I don’t like to pay you, I’ll just categorize you in the Click Fraud group. Done. Case closed.

Sent
The payment has already been sent by post and should reach you shortly. Let us know if it doesn’t reach you.

Denied
The cashout request has been denied due to a high amount of click fraud. A payment such as this will not be received as the system has automatically determined that the earnings present in that Cashout have been highly or occasionally, fully consisting of fraudulent earnings. If your cash out function has not been disabled, you are allowed to continue earning with Advertlets, however only legit future payments besides the Denied Payment will be sent. In most cases, you will only have 1 Cashout Request denied before being banned completely.

I’m not gonna waste my time over the click fraud system again. The statement I’ve made above clearly tells you how bad their payout system is.

This is my recent earning status. High impressions doesn’t guarantee high payouts. But that’s not the case with last year, where I only get one or two thousand impressions, but the payout is like RM1-RM2/day, which was good.

On 5/5/2009, I’ve got 5808 impressions, but 0 clicks. I get RM1.277.
On 27/5/2009, I’ve got 10356 impressions, 5 clicks. And I get RM0.539.

How can anyone justify that? I need an explanation from Advertlets. But it seems that it might be too late.

Only a Handful of Loyal Bloggers get Paid

It’s true that they only serve bloggers who supports them and ONLY them. Blogger who’re better in traffic rankings. Meaning, they hand pick their favorite bloggers for the payout. For those who blog for fun and thinks that you’ll make some side income with Advertlets, stop dreaming. You might as well put on some Google ads and get better revenue with them, albeit the long wait, but at least they pay!

I’ve sent 5 enquiries through their so-called friendly Helpdesk requesting for the status of my payment. Until today, I haven’t got a single reply from them. Talking of respect, this is customer service at the rock bottom level.

Advertlets advertisers, Have you heard us?

HP, Nikon, Ruumz, Tourism Australia, and some government advertisers promoting Crime Free campaing. I really wonder why would Advertisers still be funding their ads campaign on Advertlets, when everyone is complaining about the payout problems. Haven’t they realize the failed system that Advertlets have? The non-existent payout system? How long can they survive with their scarce publishers/bloggers?

Advertisers, save your cash, advertise on Google or Facebook. More and more publishers/bloggers are taking down their Advertlets ads due to non-payment of their ads revenues. Are you part of their conspiracy that cheats us our hard-earned revenue? I hope you’re not.

Final Words

If you’re still dangling in around, swinging on the pendulum and still considering whether to go on displaying Advertlets’ ads or remove them for good, I hope this will be it. Please call it quit if you’ve yet to get payments from Advertlets.

I won’t stay with a company where the boss doesn’t pay for the 1 year work I’ve done. Will you?

Got something to tell Advertlets? Say it here!

Haven’t got your payment even though you’ve requested cash out months ago? Advertlets never reply your enquiries? Need attention from Advertlets?

All you need to do is make a blog post about the non-payment, plus the amount owed, and explain in details that painful process of waiting and expecting something that never comes. I’ll personally link you with your post title, displayed right under here!

You can also put this button up your blogs and spread the words. We want real actions and real payments from Advertlets!

115 x 84 pixels button.

<a href=”http://www.alexallied.com/reviews/advertlets-scam”><img src=”http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2459/3616188686_c1b1e5bf3a.jpg?v=0″ alt=”Advertlets Not Paying? Rant here!” title=”Advertlets Not Paying? Rant here!”/></a>

255 x 150 pixels button.

<a href=”http://www.alexallied.com/reviews/advertlets-scam”><img src=”http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3663/3615346339_06dbd7fcd3.jpg?v=0″ alt=”Advertlets Not Paying? Rant here!” title=”Advertlets Not Paying? Rant here!”/></a>

The Victims

Local Blog Advertising Network “Advertlets” Not Paying Up – Tomorrow.sg
Do Not Trust Advertlets – eMocha.net
An Open Letter to Advertlets – The Fire in my Life
Screenshot of the denied RM500+ earnings – Sulaiman Sabur gave up his RM500+ earnings in Advertlets because they claimed he had click frauds.
Advertlets, where are my cheques? – Jialat.com
Stupid Questions Advertlets asks Publishers in a suspected “non”-Fraud Case – Webmaster Malaysia Discussion Board.
Advertising with Advertlets was just as bad – Larry Lim’s rants from an Advertiser’s perspective.

Put your links here! Just comment below. I’ll fetch and add in.

While you Facebook users are busy updating statuses, sharing links, and photos, money is spinning at the back of the social network website and in the executive rooms. A Russian investment firm has offered to buy $200 million of preferred stock in Facebook at a $10 billion valuation.

How did Facebook came about?

Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his Harvard dorm room on February 4, 2004. It started off as just a “Harvard-Thing,” until Zuckerberg then decided to spread Facebook to other schools and enlisted the help of roommate Dustin Moskovitz.

They first spread it to Stanford, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell and Yale, and then to other schools with social contacts with Harvard. By the beginning of the summer, Zuckerberg and Moskovitz had released Facebook at almost forty-five schools and hundreds of thousands of people were using it. Zuckerberg was a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity while at Harvard.

- Wikipedia

Who’s creating such a huge value in Facebook?

You and I.

Please hands up if you meet the following criteria…

- Are you the one who’re all over Facebook while working in the office?
- Are you the one keeps updating on Facebook via your mobile device?
- Are you the one who says, “Let me check my facebook, I haven’t check for 2 hours already!”
- Are you the one who take quizzes and swear on the lameness of the quiz, but then still invite your friends to take it?
- Are you feeling uneasy for not logging onto Facebook for more than 1 day?
- Are you feeling the stress when Facebook takes forever to load? (With 10 million visitors/day, you would expect some bottleneck there)

Facebook addicts from all over the world are pumping millions of dollars worth of value into the company, with your pro-active participation and your ever-so-valuable personal information and preferences (remember Facebook is all about information formality and accuracy, not some funky Friendster profile with all those bling-bling and starry alphanumeric non-Unicode characters).

Advertisers would surely love to get their hands on more than 225 million unique users. The ads are pin-pointed to match your personal profile and statuses – Targeted ads at its best.

Their ads are actually somewhat intelligent. For example, as soon as I changed my status to “engaged” the ads were all about photographers, rings, wedding planners, and related stuff. When I traveled to Jamaica and used Facebook while there, the ads were all about resorts & vacation planning.

quote Natpatben, a Digg user

But will this merely be just a moment of short-lived hype?

I don’t think so. Facebook had just started over 5 years ago, and it really didn’t took off until the last couple of years. And look at how much they’ve grown. Over 250 million users worldwide and 300 million unique visits per month. With that mammoth amount of loyal users and profile database on your hand, it’s too big to fail.

As they’re working on a payment platform, it’s only going to get bigger and richer as they step into e-commerce and virtual economies.

When AIG and GM failed in the real world, the US government provided cash bailout, in the Internet world, Google and Microsoft is the government providing the bailout money. Like I said, it’s too big to fail. We’ve only just seen the tip of the success story that Facebook has to offer.

P/s: Friendster was close to becoming part of something big in 2003, with a proposed $30 million buyout offer from Google. But the management declined the offer and the rest was history. Following that, a collective investments were gathered from various firms which totaled in around less than $40million. I guess that should be the turning point of Friendster. With majority of users from the South East Asia, they won’t be get anywhere with it.

Fake profiles with pictures of hot chicks are the common sights in Friendster. Credibility becomes an issue. So, if you want real friends, go to Facebook.

I have to say, this should be the biggest news in Malaysia since my cat gave birth to a little kitten.

The news was published on a full page of major newspapers throughout Malaysia, so it should be the biggest news so far.

The No. 1 in Malaysia poster even bears the resemblance of the latest vision by our current Prime Minister – 1 Malaysia.

“Everything we’ve done is because of you. Every award we’ve won represent the level of confidence in our service. We sincerely thank you for your support.”

This post is proudly brought to you via TM Streamyx, the best Broadband provider of the year. Sorry for the late congratulatory post because I get an unstable connection and suffer lots of packet loss and were unable to properly load my blog to post this up in time.

On another story, not long ago, me and my girlfriend were on a trip to Bangkok. We were walking on an old street and suddenly the urge struck and I had to go to the toilet. There’s only this old wooden toilet nearby and we couldn’t see any proper public toilets for miles stretch. So I had to resort to this old smelly wooden toilet with no toilet paper and proper pipe water to wash the shit down the toilet bowl.

It’s such a shitty toilet, but what to do? I had no choice but to use it. Because it’s the ONLY ONE we had.

Now you can Stalk them!

With TweetStalk and Firefox, you can now be following your friends or foes without letting them know they’re being followed!

How Does it Work?
1) Install the Firefox Addon

Download and install the Firefox Add-on. Restart Firefox and then go to a Twitter account you want to stalk.
2) Click on the Stalk Button

Twitter Stalk Button
3) Confirm the Twitter Account

If you’re not already logged in, you may need to login or register if it’s your first time using TweetStalk. Confirm the username and click on the Stalk button. You can now follow your Stalkees.

The following are some of the desktops being shown on deskography.com

Pretty impressive aren’t they?

We seek professional help, but professional newsletter maker cost a fortune for small business owner. But thanks to Toddle.com, you can now kiss the old school, plain-text newsletter’s ass, good bye.

With its simple, straight-forward approach to creating a newsletter, you can easily get one done in minutes! Provided you have all your content ready. For all the time and money saved, all they’ll ask for a return is the little credit at the bottom of the newsletter, which I think is fair and unobstructive at all.