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So I talked about how I was interviewd by AppleDaily yesterday… well apparantely the editors thought it was a funny thing to do to slap me on their frontpage as headline news LOL.
Take a look:
I said I was going to translate it, but it turns out to be too difficult. Here’s the link to the online version of the article (it’s exactly the same):
Perhaps you could use Google Translator or get one of your Chinese friends to translate it. I’ll just give a very brief summary: First they give an introduction about me (15 year old etc, what I do). Then second section talks about my current projects - a charity site, magic tricks site, a search engine related site… and of course eMillions. Then it goes through my experiences of interviewing those people and putting this book together. The final section is about how my dream is to go to Stanford.
Just as you would expect from AppleDaily, there are plenty of bulls and exaggerations and quotes put out of context, so don’t believe in everything you read in that article. Just goes to show you shouldn’t believe 100% in the news nowadays - “It’s news when we say it is” (some quote from a media mogul)
And obviously with any successful stories brings controversial comments. Here are just a couple of quotes I swiped off the local forums (some of them are quite funny - as in ignorant):
this news is so stupid especially it’s in the headlines!! i’m sure there are many smart kids out there… but i dunt think neither it is concerned by public nor more important than our current financial situation… it sucks…
A blatent attempt to get into college… Actually setting a business/publishing books is not uncommon among college -thirsty teens at all. I have a handful of friends (15-17) who have their own companies, registered ngo, published novels — cleverly plotted frosting by rich parents on their kids’ college resumes. I’ll bet anyone a thousand bucks that the kid established the company for college and for college alone. btw with his grades and his attitude he will not get into stanford.
(how the hell can you tell one’s attitude from reading a news article. He doesn’t even know my SAT grades - heck I don’t even know them (they come out this Thursday) )
Is he writing a book call “Business for Dummy” ?
anyway he earn another couple grands of being on the newspaper cover for free! LOL.geez… first off, stanford is not a top school… if you wanna go to top school, go to harvard or oxford or stuff like that. stanford is just a school full of brats!! and second, a little boy shallow like him will never succeed because he believes in brand name!
And my favorite of all…
Is this a Front Page advertisment ??
You Might Be Wondering, Why Aren’t You Pissed Off Stanley?
Well, if this was to happened to me BEFORE I conducted those interviews with these internet gurus, then yes, I probably would have been extremely angry and upset. But Mark Joyner taught me one of the most powerful lessons I’ve ever heard. Here’s an extract from my book eMillions (page 33-34):
I’ll tell you a story about two teenage girls – and you’ll be surprised when you hear who these two girls were. Their level of thinking was so profound. Someone was interviewing one of these girls and asked, “You’ve been getting a lot of negative press in the tabloids lately. How does that make you feel?”
And the girl said one of the most profound business lessons I have ever heard in my life, “I don’t pay attention to our press, be it the negative press or the positive press; we’re too busy doing things.”
I thought, “Wow. That’s so amazing.” Anyone who gets any kind of public
recognition or is spoken about in public at all, getting caught up in all of that
pulls them out of the loop of taking action.Sitting there and reading your own press, be it positive or negative, does absolutely nothing at all in terms of your accomplishment – there is absolutely no impact. Do you know who these two girls were? They’re teenage billionaires – Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. Would you ever expect that kind of business wisdom to come from two kids?
So like I said, don’t get too obsessed with the media. There are always gonig to be people bashing you no matter what you do. Some of the most controversial books in the world were mega best-sellers: The Da Vinci Code and The Secret. Plus it’s never a bad thing to get frontpage coverage when you get this (keep in mind that this is over a period of 15 hours - the reason it is on two separate days is because of the different time zones that the tracking system uses):
Now that’s what I call book marketing at its best 
So what can YOU do to get on a frontpage cover? Make sure you get yourself noticed and take the initiative to contact those reporters. Think about it: those reporters are desparately looking for something to write about so you are actually doing THEM a favor. And remember, behind every successful buzz marketing campaign is a STORY. So what’s your story?
16 responses so far ↓
1 Khai // Oct 20, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Hi Stanley,
I understand the frustrations.
Even though ‘Personal Money ‘ (Malaysian local financial magazine) gave me a good, favorable write up about my Internet business, still I find that there is no way any newspaper or magazine can accurately represent the information about Internet marketers.
Normally it is due to a lack of space, lack of knowledge on how the Internet works and the tendency to hype things up.
Interesting headline though - 15 year old
Genius Kid Opens Corporation To Earn Big Money.
2 Extra Paycheck // Oct 20, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Hey, Stanley!
Congrats on being featured in Apple Daily, and the haters - well, there’ll always exist! I like your attitude, making fun of them
Probably some jealous folks who haven’t achieved much in their life… because they spend too much time on forums complaining about the successful ones
Cheers,
Alex
3 Rachel Solomon // Oct 20, 2008 at 3:21 pm
You do arouse some citizens’ attention.
Keep on doing and we will be read your story ten years later.
Prove us that your talent and patient.
4 Peter Koning // Oct 20, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Visits are nice but what about conversion to list signups, other conversions (sales, etc.)?
5 Chris // Oct 20, 2008 at 3:26 pm
The most negative comments are based on the envy factor, and your ego should clearly come.
I think that thee thy will be quite successful.
p.s.: the text is translated with google and i hope reading it is not painful.
6 Stanley Tang // Oct 20, 2008 at 3:39 pm
@Khai Great to see you hear. Yeah, agree. Not too many reporters really understand internet marketing. But AppleDaily has certainly hyped it up “too” much and exaggerated many of my quotes… I guess this is why people call them tabloids.
@Alex LOL
@Rachel Thanks
@Peter Obviously you wouldn’t expect killer conversion rates from offline traffic, especially newspapers. Got around 40 optins out of… 12000 visits. You do the maths. However, with things such as frontpage coverage, there’s more to it than just conversion rates. Ever since it got released today, I’ve already received tons of interview requests for additional publications as well as numerous joint venture opportunities. I guess it’s the things that you normally wouldn’t be able to get if it wasnt for this media coverage that makes this valuable.
@Chris thanks.
7 Peter Koning // Oct 20, 2008 at 3:44 pm
@Stanley good points. I forgot to mention “Congratulations!”
Keep up the good work.
Cheers.
8 ATLANTA WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER // Oct 20, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Great Job stanley. I think that you are right in that the most important thing about the front page is exposure and that you will be viewed as somewhat an expert at what you do. Great Job!
9 Albert Yau // Oct 20, 2008 at 8:42 pm
See how the great increase in hit rate the scarce comments. In contrast, if any youngster died or committed suicide and made to the headline in Hong Kong, his/her xanga/blog will be filled with hundreds or thousands of comments like “R.I.P.”, “Although I don’t know you, but…”
How interesting? That’s why I protected/friend-locked most of my online blogs/photo albums just in case…
10 Stanley Tang // Oct 21, 2008 at 3:40 am
@Peter thanks man!
@Peter (atlanta) Thanks. Absolutely. Leveraging the media
@Albert great to see you hear. Absolutely… 100% agree with you.
11 The AppleDaily Effect | Stanley Tang dot Com - A Teen Entrepreneur's Journey To Internet Success // Oct 21, 2008 at 6:20 am
[...] Click here to read the full case study [...]
12 Waldo // Oct 21, 2008 at 7:42 am
Dude, you were featured on the front page of a local Chinese newspaper here in Malaysia too. How did you do it? Mind telling me your secret?
13 Ragnar // Oct 22, 2008 at 10:50 am
Gratz on the “apple daily effect”, weird that people would react like that, they sound like jealous teenagers o.O
14 Alex Rankings Are CRAP | Stanley Tang dot Com - A Teen Entrepreneur's Journey To Internet Success // Oct 28, 2008 at 12:35 pm
[...] it received over 12,000 unique visitors in a 24 hour period after being featured on the frontpage of AppleDaily, yet Alexa says it only has a ranking of 73,000. On the otherhand, emillionsblog.com received just [...]
15 Ask And You Will Receive | Stanley Tang dot Com - A Teen Entrepreneur's Journey To Internet Success // Nov 15, 2008 at 12:13 pm
[...] Just goes to show that when you ask, you will receive. People will be willing to help you out for free if you have a good STORY (just like how I got onto the frontpage of Apple Daily) [...]
16 Ari Lestariono // Jan 14, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Thanks for sharing story, it’s effect like Digg effect, only temporary, what we need to set steadt traffic and loyal readers visiting …i think that’s most important and rate conversions….don’t bother about alexa rank crap or any social bookmarking crap….great work bro keep it up
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