Is 8TV COO (Ahmad Izham Omar?) still counting?
Many Screenshots readers missed the goats even when they got on to counting them -- I am talking about the 8TV SMS voting system for the "One In A Million" finals that Ghazalie Abdullah questioned yesterday.
Reader Goks, a telco specialist, has given his observation on this in an earlier blog entry, and pointed to the possible clues to the 8TV debacle.
My readers, most of them typical of weblog commenters who often miss the trees for the bush when discussing issues of public interests, had drifted from the exact context of the blog entry. So I had an email conversation with Ghazalie again, yesterday. He has helped me put things in crisper perspective, and I want it to come from a suave communicator like him -- talking facts without high-horsing.
Hi JeffThanks a million (pardon the pun).
My thoughts continued on the matter after posting you.
1. The returned sms regreting ""E1001: Sorry, your request has not been successful. Please try again later." obviously came from the 32728 system employed by 8TV. It wouldn't have been Maxis to do these automated replies, would it? In all my years of using handphones, Maxis has never sent me such a note not even during those congested Happy New Year midnights when text messages would be flying around by the millions.
2. Also what annoys me is that I would be charged, "(RM0.50) OIAM: Sorry, voting has been closed. Thank you. Helpline: 03-55692755". Why should I be charged for text messages that failed to reach 32728 even though they were sent well before the programme hosts had closed the voting.
3. In a Metro Ahad report of 24 September citing irate fans who could not get their votes through, the 8TV COO acknowledged that this has happened before. So if it has, why did 8TV not ensure that it would not fail. Where was their Due Diligence, Good Governance and Risk Management? When RM1 million is involved in prize money, these are important factors to determine accurate voting.
Clearly, 8TV has been somewhat reckless. They rushed the votes for the three contestants to be completed within a matter of two hours so as to close the live TV show with the results on the same night. They knew severe congestion was to be expected, given from their past experience. They knew that there were only 3 contestants to vote with the third contestant having the least time-frame to garner votes. So was it fair? American Idol gave a good 24 hours before determining the winners the following night.
The COO's credibility has gone awry with me. The official OIAM external auditor needs to speak up
Indeed, the official One In A Million auditor -- whoever's son he is -- should tell the truth.
Comments
I did a Google for "e1001 sorry" and found a few links to some local sites.
One of them points to Lelong Forum, where someone commented that he/she had received the same "E1001: Sorry..." message. The message was posted in 2004 and from the posts there, it seems that the number they sent to was 36600.
Then, there's another link to Bluehyppo's forum. The user got the same error message when sending an SMS request to 33722. Message was posted in 2005.
From these two observations, it can be concluded that the error message actually came from the platform used to serve Maxis customers, and not the company who's behind the 32728 number.
For the message with RM0.50 tagged to it, I can safely conclude that its from the company behind 32728. The message is sent in compliance with MCMC's guidelines.
I didn't follow the show, but, curious, is the voting open to Maxis users only? If not, did other telco users face the same problem?
Posted by: darthvader![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 26, 2006 08:49 AM
I have never participared in any of the SMS voting so-called "talent search" contests.
Primary reason - it is not necessarily those with talent who eventually win. More of a popularity contest for the contestants than anything else.
And a big-bucks money generating machine for the producers. SO much so that I puke at the antics of one particular host who does his peminta sedekar act with fail regularly throughtout each episode. "So-and-so is going to be booted out because his/her supposed to be loyal fans have not sent in their SMS in support. Are you going to let your idol down?"
But if others still want to spend their own money sending SMS votes, it is their free choice to do so lah.
But when the voting system may be seriously faulted as detailed by Ghazalie and others who posted their comments, it brings up the serious question of whether there has been lack of due deligience. If there are real grounds to question the accuracy of the vote counting system, then I think the authorities have to step in and investigate.
There is, after all, a lot of money involved. Not only the RM1m prize money in this latest case, but the much higher amount [RM3 - 4 million perhaps?} which the producers have reaped from the contest.
And since this appears to be a repeated problem going by the comments posted, it also raises the question of why the producers did not do the needful - investigate the problems which had cropped up years ago, and revamp the SMS voting system to prevent more of such problems. It makes me wonder if the producers care that such problems occurred.
As for this latest case, though there may well be clauses in the contracts signed by contestants which seem to bar any challenges of the results, given the serious questions now raised about the SMS voting scheme, perhaps some lawyer can advise Faizal, as well as the other contestants who did not win, whether they actually have grounds to pursue the matter in court. I won't be surprised if they can challenge the results legally.
Posted by: Leithaisor![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 26, 2006 01:03 PM
If I am not mistaken when the 8TV COO Ahmad Izham Omar mentioned that he was still counting, he was referring to counting the cumulative votes for the entire week. Is the winner decided based on votes counted on the grand finale night only or since the finals begun? I have to agree that Faizal's last performance brought the curtain down in a spectacular way. It is comparable to Gemilang song rendered by Jackly Victor in Malaysian Idol. But Suki's final song is also excellent, probably the second best for the contest.
Posted by: Anonymous![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 26, 2006 06:40 PM
To my understanding -the "E1001" error message is generated by Maxis when its SMS Center has received the SMS from your mobile to be routed to the service provider's server.
If after certain number of tries or time out or the service providers' server is not reachable, then the SMS Center will send the E1001 message back to the mobile.
If the short code used for the One in A Million voting is 32728 (I didn't watch the program), then it belongs to DAPAT. You can Google "32728" and DAPAT does come up (at No. 2). Perhaps you folks can contact people at DAPAT to find out why the server was not available. FYI Their web site is www.dapat.com. Actually DAPAT is their brand, the company name is Interactive Vista Sdn Bhd, they are based in Glenmarie.
I know this because I used to manage such projects.
Posted by: orion![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 26, 2006 08:25 PM