Share thisHere is the podcast of our complete interview with them, and a brief summary of what we discussed follows...
John believes that responsible blogging should more aptly be called responsible participation - particularly since most issues raised by the government have been more bulletin board and forum issues. No huge blogger issues have come up in the last twelve months. Responsible participation is about being sensible, being respectful of other people, and having the same decency online as you would have offline. There is no particular code of conduct that defines responsible participation, especially since it is too hard to police and to get people to sign up to it. Most online communities are self policing.
According to Mark, the blogosphere in Singapore hasn’t evolved much. Pretty much the same topics continue to be discussed - the mainstream blogs still discuss lifestyle, food and fashion. However, people have begun to commercialize their blogs. John believes that the Singapore blogosphere is very different from the rest of the world. A perception exists in Singapore, that people who engage online only care about frivolous and gossipy stuff - which he says is not necessarily true.
Talking about the social media uptake in Singapore, John draws into the fact that Singapore has the highest broadband penetration in the world, and that online is now mainstream for the average Singaporean. However, from a business perspective there is still a lag in using online as a communication channel to consumers. The government here is very supportive of online as a channel, and he believes that a lot of local businesses will begin to use social media as a marketing and communication channel. In terms of uptake of social media, Singapore is among the top 5 in the world, and in terms of harnessing it in terms of business, we’re at the beginning of the second tier.
Discussing the Edelman Trust Barometer, John states that in Asia, trust in business is the highest. The #4 most trusted source of information about a company is the employees of the company - and therefore, giving employees a voice and shaping the brand online is very important. The Trust Barometer also says that social media adoption across the Asian region is on the rise, and trust in blogs has risen from 2% to 19%. Particularly in a crises situation, a company needs to be in a position to fully exercise the power of social media to 'communicate, communicate, communicate'
John and Mark also emphatically say that traditional media is not dead. Online is meant to compliment offline in an integrated way, and the two channels work together.
