I’ve been thinking about how computers work together lately and it’s amazing that one device can connect to the next and then to the next and so on to form the internet. I never really thought much about it. You can say I sort of took things for grants. I started using it almost a decade ago and it’s really exciting to watch it grow. In recent years, the growth seem to be accelerating. Perhaps the dot-com boom is back. Erm, sorry I take that back, speaking of the words ‘dot-com boom’ brings bad luck.
You knoiw - one of the reasons Singapore broadband prices aren’t really cheap is because Singaporeans love to go to the other countries websites. The data has to travel half the globe to reach you! In contrast, countries like Korea, Japan, China, United States, United Kingdom and - erm, United States - have most of their citizens visiting their own country’s website.
Is this because they make better websites than us? Is this because they are more loyal and prefer localized content? Is it because they have cheaper broadband?
Actually the answers for the above questions are all ‘yes’ in my opinion. Our favorite websites are probably YouTube and Friendster. I for one can testify to it, I love United States websites. I do not visit local websites for example (with the exception of ChannelNewsAsia.com and blogs, I love local blogs).
Is there any local websites that you know of? Any top-secret plan to start one? I love to hear what people has to say about this.
I noticed there’s a lot more Singapore-focused activity these days, with tomorrow.sg and other like-minded sites starting up. More traffic for local blogs, which is great
Also food bloggers seem to getting more popular, which is very locally focused and is perfect for those of us who like to eat out!
Although, the traffic will still go overseas if Singapore-focused sites are using overseas hosting providers. For example, a group of our friends started a site called livinginsingapore.org (to help people who are moving here), but it’s still hosted in the US. There were just so many options of hosting providers, couldn’t figure out who was the best locally so it was just easier to go with a US option.
by Ching (Jul 6, 2007 at 5 PM)