Some new media sites

I was pretty surprised to see a sudden spike in readership over the past couple of days.

Thanks to The Singapore Daily blog which put my blog and last blog posting on its page, I’ve received many readers who have been referred by that blog.

According to the Singapore Daily FAQ, “Why start The Singapore Daily?”, I’ve learnt that it’s started by a group of people who realise that “there are so many good blog entries written by less well known Singaporean bloggers that [they] feel should be read by more people”, so they try to help direct readers to [our] postings. Indeed, they have! Thanks, guys!

Now, Asiaone has also jumped onto the New Media bandwagon, and has started AsiaOne Innovation and AsiaOne Multimedia pages. The former focuses on news on new media and social computing, while the latter provides some multimedia elements on its news items. Great, two more interesting pages to check out!

Local blogs part of Singapore’s historical archives

In an earlier posting, I talked about how local bloggers are getting recognition. Further recognition is now given to local blogs as the National Library Board (NLB) has plans to add blogs to Singapore’s historical archives.” Besides adding recognition to local blogs, the move will help to “retain a comprehensive record of online content”.  

The blogs are regarded as “an ‘invaluable’ source of news and social commentary for the present and future generations of Singaporeans”.

Of course, the blogs will be selected and not every Tom-Dick-Harry blog will be archived. So far, eleven have been selected. Two of them include known blogs and bloggers such as Air-Conditioned Nation by media academic Cherian George and the satirical Mr Brown.

NLB will take digital snapshots of the selected blogs at least once a year and post their contents on the NLB web archive, which is free and open to public access.

According to George, the move is a welcomed one that helps to “recognise the value of multiple perspectives in telling the Singapore story.”

New words on the block (blog…..get it?)

In my previous blog posting, I talked about how the Queen has switched to using new media to connect with the people. Not too long after, the Japanese PM was also announced to have used Youtube to give his new year message.

It certainly looks like many politicians and public figures are turning to new forms of media to reach to the masses, especially the younger ones. You can read more about this in the following blog: http://paperstapler.livejournal.com/

In my previous posting, I also talked about new ‘IT’ or ‘new media’ words being included into the dictionary, thus legitimising their usage as mainstream words in everyday vocabulary. Now, the Collins English Dictionary has said that it would include ‘Facebook’ in its list of words. ‘Facebook’ will be indicated as a trademarked noun to mean “a popular social networking website” as well as a verb to mean “to search on a person’s profile on the Facebook website” such as in the sentence “I thought he would make the perfect boyfriend until I facebooked him”. 

So, it looks like we will have many people ‘facebooking’ each other and getting ‘facebooked’ in return!

Happy new year 2008!

A happy new year to one and all! May 2008 be a blessed and fruitful year.

Well, apologies for the brief hiatus. For the past one and half weeks, I was cut off from Internet connection. I didn’t plan on being cut off, but I’m between broadband plans right now and in fact, still don’t have Internet connection.

While the one and half weeks devoid of all online digital contact felt much longer, going cold turkey didn’t seem all that bad after all. I survived. Of course, I was very much preoccupied by other non-virtual pursuits, which I think can be pretty healthy.

Anyway, a lot has happened in the world of new media. In fact, the old have come to embrace new media. Queen Elizabeth gave her annual Christmas message on Youtube, and there’s even a Royal Channel on Youtube to reach out to the digital-literate masses.

And new words have been added and recognised. For instance, the word ‘wiki’. Based on the vocab portal, Workdsmith, “wiki (wiki) noun is a collaborative Web site that can be edited by anyone”…

[From Hawaiian wiki (quick). First citation of the word in English is
from 1995, when programmer Ward Cunningham used it in naming his new
software WikiWikiWeb.] -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

I’m sure the word “Wii” will soonmake it to our daily vocab as well. I wii-ed yesterday and it was fun! I can’t wait to wii again. Pass me the wii-mote!

So here’s to new beginnings!