Internet and Politics

In the last presidential elections in America, we see a very good example of how politicians are beginning to make use of the Internet for their political campaigns.

Barack Obama was particularly known for his effective use of the Internet to rally his supporters and make his policies known to the masses. President Obama's use of the Internet was mainly targeted at people aged between 18-29, which is also the group most reliant on new media for political information for the election. Obama's campaign managers were well aware that they also have to cater to the needs of these younger people in order to capture their attention in the campaign. Obama built support by connecting with his supporters and would-be supporters through the use of MySpace and Facebook. He developed trust from these supporters, which led them to rally their local communities.

In addition, the campaign was also extended to computer games, which also caters to the younger voters. Campaigns were incorporated into the games, where gamers can see certain information about Obama, including signs asking people to "Vote for Change".

Furthermore, Obama's policies were all being posted online for easy access. Updates were even being sent to subscribers of his political party by means of text messages and emails. We could see from interviews that Obama's campaign was strengthened by McCain's comparatively limited use of the Internet. Although McCain also did a lot of speaking during the campaigning, he did not capitalize on the benefits Internet could possibly bring and hence, lost the support of many young voters.

This is not only seen in America. According to reports, in the upcoming General Elections in Singapore, the People's Action Party is also making use of the Internet by posting activities which their upcoming candidates are involved in. This include texts, photos and even videos of events organized in the various housing estates. They have also extended their use by using Facebook instead of only their party's website. At the same time, other parties such as the Workers' Party and the Singapore Democratic Alliance are also using online sources to garner support. This also includes their policies and photos of what their members are doing to help the community. This will definitely reach out to more of the younger voters, who might be voting for the very first time to make informed choices when the elections come.

Apple's Multimedia Marketing Strategy

Compared to many other brands, I would say that Apple's marketing strategy is one of the best.
I will be focusing on how Apple did marketing for the iPhone.





As with all Apple marketing, the iPhone marketing strategy is very clear, simple yet clever. With the plain and simple Apple icon, Apple focuses on the pure innovative style of their products without all the "fluff".

The first 4 iPhone commercials flaunted the convenience and usefulness of a single product with the functionality of not just a phone or a music device, but a product that can, among other things, listen to music, watch videos, make conference calls, check e-mail, browse the web and even view maps.

Not only does Apple utilize television for their marketing strategy, but they make full use of their website by posting videos online and publishing a handful of press releases that could have been issued in one single document. Apple often uses this tactic to build up hype and leave the consumer wanting more.

The official iPhone website does more than just provide information about the product. The website provides top tips and tricks for the use of an iPhone, as well as a huge focus on applications. Almost the entire iPhone page displays images of applications and provides the "App of the Week". The website also contains sections which are titled "Apps for Everything" and the "Top Apps". This is a great marketing tool for both current iPhone users and consumers that have an interest in purchasing the iPhone. This effective use of multimedia in the promotion of the apps will create a stronger source of revenue for Apple. As consumers see top-rated applications, they are more likely to download the application, rather than search through more than 25,000 applications to find an application that is of value to them.


Another reason why people use the website often is because it is very user-friendly. All the various categories are clearly slated and arranged in a way easy for the consumer to access information on the particular category. All these described above can be accessed on the iPhone itself by iPhone consumers. This provides the convenience, which is definitely a factor of consideration for most people who decide to purchase a smart phone. Hence, we can see that Apple has indeed thought through the various factors before deciding on their multimedia strategy.With relation to the applications, users can also search for and access multimedia content such as music and videos easily and download the ones which they want. This adds on to the revenue of Apple.

Cyber-crime - Have you experienced it?

Every single time we use the Internet, we are actually opening ourselves to possible risks of becoming the next cyber-crime victim.

According to a new study carried out by Symantec consumer division Norton, revealed that 70% of Internet users in Singapore have fallen victim to cyber-crimes, including computer viruses, online credit card fraud and identity theft.

Despite the prevalance of cyber-crimes in the recent years, the study showed that about 71% of internet users do not expect cyber-crime criminals to be brought to justice. Many have experienced such cyber-crimes and choose to keep quiet about it. This is being termed as the silent digital epidemic.

Although cyber-crime can be prevented with security softwares, along with the use of multiple passwords and the regular updates of these passwords, we cannot be totally free from cyber-crime because many such criminals operate from other countries.

In 2007, one serious case of cyber-crime was being reported and the criminal was nabbed. The Singapore hacker, Lin Zhenghuang, 21, was charged with posting a fake bomb threat on a technology website after successfully hacking it, and 60 counts of illegally accessing nine wireless networks between July 2005 and February 2006. This resulted in 180 years in prison. To add on to that, he was fined US$6500 for each charge. He has been charged with violating Singapore's Computer Misuse Act.

From this case, we can see how serious cyber-crime can be. In fact, I feel that the Internet might be used by terrorists in the near future to recruit new terrorists and to change people's opinions and perspectives. This could result in serious wars. We might have anti-virus programs and softwares, but how are we going to fight against cyber terrorism?

Governments at all levels should require its contractors to have advanced security measures in place. This is because the federal government is usually the nation's largest consumer. If it steps up its cyber-security requirements, most companies will follow suit. This serves to enhance cyber-security of business and government networks online.

Internet tools

There are so many different kinds of Internet tools which one can use to search for things online. The two search engines I use most often are Google and Bing.

I use Google mainly to search for articles if I decide not to use the university library resources website to do so when I have to write a research paper. In fact, Google has a special engine called the Google Scholar, which I feel is almost as good as the university's library resources site. Google Scholar is especially useful whenever we have to churn out a research paper. As compared to a normal search engine, it is more convenient and helps to save the time spent looking through hundreds, thousands or even millions of search results. This is so as it sieves out just scholarly articles or articles which can be used for academic work. In this way, it also reduces the chances of us reading unnecessary material.

The search engine I use most often is Bing. Bing is a search engine from Microsoft and was formerly known as Live Search, Windows Live Search and MSN Search. Somehow, I feel that Bing allows me to search what I want more easily and with greater accuracy. I used to try Yahoo to look for things such as entertainment news and for korean language help. However, when Bing started, I decided to try it out and realized that the information found by Bing is more accurate than the information I found using Yahoo, especially the language tools. In addition, I also feel that Bing is more current and since it has a partnership with Mediacorp, it enables us to access news and entertainment even more easily because its new homepage(xinmsn) contains a variety of different links, including news links and video links.

Due to some equipment constraints, I am unable to do a brand new video. However, I'll describe my previous experiences of making a video.

My previous experience of making a video was during my internship where I needed to go out to take certain shots and later collate them to become a short video. It was interesting because there were many aspects which I had to take into account all the way from taking the shots to editing the video itself. I had to keep in mind how to link a particular shot with another so that the different shots will be linked and that it'll be easier to put in transitions between the different shots during the process of editing as the shots cannot change too abruptly. It was quite difficult at first because firstly, I used an editing program that was different from the usual Microsoft Movie Maker. It was a graphics machine and I had to familiarize myself with the operations of the different keyboard such as cutting using a particular key and to input the points where I wanted to link the different shots. However, it was indeed a good experience in making a video.