8/6/2019 Hop On The Bandwagon - Today Article

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20 TODAY Wednesday April 16, 2008

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Hop on the bandwagonGovt should consider newmedia for better interactivitywith SingaporeansLetter fromNICHOLAS GUAN YONG SHENG

I REFER to the article, PM Lee on In-

ternet lessons (April 14). I applaud Prime

Minister Lee Hsien Loongs statement that

Singapores laws should evolve to keep up

with new media as this is extremely nec-

essary for the growth of our modern nation.

The Government has always advocat-

ed change to bring about improvement. It

has always shown support in promoting

this need of change. However, I find the Gov-ernment lacking in one aspect of change

with regard to new media.

I do agree that the Government must

be careful with the use of the Internet as

a communication channel. However, their

willingness to adopt new media as an al-

ternative communication channel seems

to be overly cautious. I find this a pity as

new media has so much to offer.

We have been fortunate enough to

observe several examples of political figures

in other countries leveraging on new media

to aid their political campaigns. One good ex-

ample would be Barack Obamas extensive

use of new media such as YouTube, Facebook

and MySpace to drive his campaign.

In addition to his strong new mediautilisation, he implements the use of a Cus-

tomer Relationship Management software

to track online activities related to his web

campaigns. His sleek and effective use of

new media has gained him much populari-

ty amongst voters in America.

Malaysias Prime Minister Abdullah

Ahmad Badawi conceded that his partys ig-

norance of the Internet has contributed to

its poor showing in the recent elections. On

the opposition side, Mr Anwar Ibrahim was

sharp enough to harness the power of new

media. He maintains a blog and even a Face-

book account to allow him to connect with

Malaysians on a more personal level. This haswon him many supporters around Malaysia.

The Singapore Government could per-

haps draw lessons from these campaigns that

employed new media as an effective commu-

nication tool to interact with the public.

The reason why new media is so effective

is because of its ability to allow users to interact

with the content creators and each other.

More people are turning to the Internet to gath-

er information from blogs and even social

networks. They do so because they have de-

veloped a trusting relationship with bloggers

and their friends on social networks.

Facebook, for instance, allows an or-

ganisation to create a business page on

which the organisation can post related

content and interact with users on a more

personal basis. It often costs little or noth-

ing to create a presence on new media.Furthermore, the potential of free viral

marketing is superlative in new media be-

cause of its high-trust interactivity. The

key to engaging users on new media is a de-

velopment of trust by catering and inter-

acting sincerely.

It would be a pity if the Singapore Gov-

ernment does not hop on this new media

bandwagon to interact with Singaporeans

in a more personal and effective manner.

CORRECTION

In the article, Boardroom controversyat Swissco (April 15), we reported thatSwissco independent director Kwah

Thiam Hock sits on the boards of sixlisted companies. His sixth directorshipis at ECICS Ltd, which is not a listedcompany but a wholly-owned subsidiaryof mainboard-listed IFS International.

We are sorry for the error.

FAIZAL