Old Stories New Media

NEW MEDIA

OLD STORIES

Painting the LANDSCAPE

Tracks 112.8 million blogs

Total: 185.62 million blogs

Tracks 72.82 million Chinese blogs

Bloggers in SingaporeThe Straits Times – Digital Life, 17 July

2007

862,000

This means that on average, almost one in five are bloggers

Half of all teens in Singapore aged 15 to 19 are on the Internet, blogging or podcasting

120,000 blogs by these youngsters

Among those aged 20 to 24, just under half, or 46% blogs

18% of the 39 to 49 age group are bloggers

Source: Media Development Authority of Singapore, 9 November 2007

Trends of Blogging in Singapore

Curious and adaptable

Looking for self-expression

Socialise online through social media platforms

Are used to receiving information instantaneously

Profile of Digital Natives

Values high levels of interactivity

Prefer to do it themselves

Distrust corporate marketing

Demand open, honest interaction

Often under peer pressure

Profile of Digital Natives

Web 2.0 Tools

Measurement StrategySetup measurement goals firstNew attributes to measure

Measurement Tools Analytics Feedreader Technorati Bloglines Newsgator Google Google Alerts Aggregators like Digg and Techmeme

Listening Tools

Source: PodTech.net

Community Tools

ForumsWikis PublicSquare (BoA)IdeastormSocial Networking white

labelVirtual Worlds (Second

Life, Active Worlds)

Source: PodTech.net

Publishing Tools

Blogs Audio Podcasts Online Videos Twitter Live Streaming Plurk!

Source: PodTech.net

More than 100 million active users

Facebook is the 4th most-trafficked website in the world (comScore)

Facebook is the most-trafficked social media site in the world (comScore)

The fastest growing demographic is those 25 years old and older

No. 1 photo sharing application on the Web (comScore)

Photo application draws more than twice as much traffic as the next three sites combined (comScore)

Source: Facebook.com

Gain ‘street cred’ by having various independent voices championing your cause

Powerful platform for Word Of Mouth (WOM) marketing

Reach web-savvy and largely young audiences

Reasons for Blogging

Document and capture stories, facts, photos, videos, audio clips and other rich content

Crowdsource

Instantaneous and immediate

Low cost

Reasons for Blogging

A Few Words of

Caution …

Set your expectations right

Don’t bet the housePrepare to get your

hands dirtyA marathon rather

than a sprintIt ain’t always

glamorous

Possible Caveats

The Tale of

+ =

Blogs

Heritage

Strange Bedfellows?

Genesis of

Aug 05 – Started a test blog on blogger (HeritageSG)

Oct 05 – Nov 05 – Befriended heritage enthusiasts

Nov 05 - Secured seed funding from parent Ministry

Dec 05 – Jan 06 – Developed direction and policies for yesterday.sg

Jan 06 – Engaged freelance editor to assist in writing and editing

Oct – Nov 06 – Yesterday.sg as official online media for Explore Singapore!

May 07 – Yesterday.sg featured in International Museum Day 2007

Aug 07 – SGCOOL Blogging Contest on yesterday.sg

Jan - Feb 06 – Design, implementation and test of website

Feb 06 – Finalised list of volunteers and friendsMar 06 – Launched yesterday.sg

Sep 07 – Launched New Kids on the Blog

Aug 08 – Hosted our first

Social Media Breakfast at ACM

Sep 08 – Launched Heritage Starbloggers contest

Jan 09 – Relaunch of yesterday.sg as a portal

Jan 09 – Start of YEAH! and Project Darkstar

Presenting…

The FOYers*

*Friends Of Yesterday

Volunteers who are passionate heritage enthusiasts

Champions of Singapore’s museums, heritage and nostalgia

Discuss developments, progress and improvements to yesterday.sg

Provide independent and alternative voices

Set the editorial direction of yesterday.sg & contribute posts

Policy

Blogging

Nothing religious

Nothing slanderous

Nothing seditious

Nothing foul or abusive

Nothing political

Technical Bits

Powered by Expression Engine (EE)

Enable banning of words, members and IP addresses

Multi-user administration, registration and posting

Allows editorial workflows (i.e., edit, approve, reject or schedule

posts)

Ability to create photo-galleries

Sample

POSTS

TheChallenges

Occasional technical difficulties

Niche content

Growing our membership base

Sustaining and growing visitorship

Increasing participation rates

Contest fatigue

Social media saturation

The Bill

Technical & Design Cost S$5000

Editing (monthly) S$600

Initial marketing efforts S$80,000

KeySpreading

the Word

MyBlogLog E-Marketing

Sponsored results on Google

Sponsored results on Yahoo

Search Engine Optimisation

The Key is Keywords

Relevant keywords to drive search traffic

Descriptive and accurate

Popular keywords on search engines (e.g. Google)

Keyword variants (e.g. Singapore Museums and Museums Singapore)

What Others Are Saying

“I was surprised at the surge of visitors I have been getting from yesterday.sg… So when I checked, to my utmost delight”… Huiqi

http://escapismdefined.com/2006/nostalgia/

It was so good that I couldn’t stop readingdespite my stomach screaming for life supply.”

http://www.farflungcraft.com/blogs/SLS/

“features even more information about Singapore… as it was yesterday. Great site.

Worth a read!”

Media Coverage

The New Paper

The Straits Times

TODAY

ST Digital LifeLianhe ZaoBao

STOMPOMY

My Paper

Business Times

CNA Prime Time MorningNews Radio 93.8 Breakfast ShowCapital 95.8FM93.8Live

Radio Singapore InternationalCleo Magazine

Challenge Magazine

What it all means …

30000 Page Views Per Month

300 Reads Per Post

15000 Unique Visitors Per Month

2223 Registered Members

40 Friends of yesterday.sg

Yesterday.sg

By Museums and the Web 2007

The State of Museum Blogosphere

Ranked as the

5th

museum blog in

the world!

Ranked 58,288 out of 112.8 million blogs around

the world

The Road Ahead

yesterday.sg 2.0

After two years, it’s time for an upgrade!In a survey in July 2008 we found…

• Most readers of the site are in their mid 20s to mid 30s

• Majority found us through search engines …

What’s hot!Top reasons for coming to yesterday.sg:

- Research - school projects- Learn about Singapore’s heritage and history- Interested in local nostalgia - Museum happenings

What’s not! Users rated site 8/10 for positive user experience but said…

- Information not relevant- Information not comprehensive - Navigation is not user-friendly

Focus on:

Content

Communities

Campaigns

Channels

Action Plan

Fresh new look Easier navigation Better sorting & tagging of posts Discussion forum, photos, polls Integration with existing web 2.0 apps (Youtube, Flickr, slideshare, Twitter, Facebook)Widgets, widgets, widgets! Mobile bloggingAnd of course….Heritage TV!

From metablog social media platform

Content

This is just a mock-up!

Engaging Our FOYersMore regular gatherings

Exhibition previews/ events

Expanding and growing community

Involving them in our plans

Free museum passes!

Reaching new communitiesPing.sgTomorrow.sgThe Digital Movement Social Media BreakfastPodcamp Entrepreneur 27University interest groups (eg NUS Geographic Society)Others…

Communities

Campaigns

Project DarkStarCompetition for youths and young adults to develop web-based games with heritage appeal

Young Envoys for Arts & Heritage (YEAH!)Enlist, engage and empower Recruit 10 advocates as influencers and sneezersOnline and offline mashup – from facebook to face-to-face

Generate buzz and WOM

We’re on … Facebook: More than 400 friends in Explore Singapore! – Let’s Have Fun

Friendster: 80 friends

YouTube: Videos uploaded – NHB corporate video, National Day Video etc In the pipeline …

Expansion of NHB’s Twitter and Flickr accounts

Heritage TV (NHB’s social media vodcast)

Accounts in Plurk, Jaiku and others

Entries in Wikipedia

Content on Slideshare

RazorTV, Omy.sg, Yebber, Blog2u etc

Channels

Page Views:At least 20% increase

Unique visitors: At least 20% increase

Advocates:20 new social media affiliates

Our Targets? (20/20/20 rule)

Our Aim …

To keep Yesterday.sg

Contemporary

Comfortable

Compelling

Connected

Thank You