Children Cancer Foundation (CCF) of Singapore was established in 1992 to help children with cancer and their families to live a better life financially, physically and emotionally. However, not many people know about CCF of Singapore. CCF Singaproe website is not using web 2.0 tools except for the flash animation and the e-newsletter. Although they have posted quite a number of photos and videos, not many people viewed their website or explore with it. CCF does not have a facebook account, twitter account, YouTube account, or even a blog.

Although a lot of people posted videos on YouTube regarding events held by CCF, it was a hassle looking for different videos posted without having a channel on its own. on CCF’s website, there are stories and comments by parents and children who received help from CCF but no social media tools was used to help publicizing it.

In addition, the CCF website is not up-to-date as under the calendar of events column, the calendar stops at December 2009 whereby its February 2010 now. Although there are events in February, it was not stated in the calendar of events. The CCF website is indeed colorful but depending on the color alone does not get them more attention. All of the findings above explains that adding more things in website alone is not enough. Publicizing and creating awareness is very important to let others know about the existence of the website.

On another hand, the CURE childhood cancer which was established in 1975 did a great job in creating awareness and generating public interest. The website is engaging and user friendly with a specific column for social network. It uses a lot of social networking websites and have active accounts like facebook, twitter, YouTube, WordPress blog, LinkIn and even a online store. In addition, all of their social media are actively generating public interest and creating awareness. All of their social networking sites provides URL link that links back to their main website, generating more public interest and creating more awareness. Moreover, they are all free. Thus, no charges needed in publicizing.

For CURE childhood cancer facebook account,  it has a total of 8654 fans with people liking their walls and commenting on them. Facebook also links the CURE childhood cancer blog and update the upcoming events under the events column. It also provides a link to the website letting public know that for more information you can refer to the website. This creates more awareness and generates more public interest. In addition, facebook has more than 350 million active users.

CURE childhood cancer shares upcoming events and news in their twitter account almost daily. There are 1440 followers in CURE childhood cancer twitter account. Twitter provides SMS and MMS services that allows updates on the go, and allows public to view twitter through mobiles with internet connectivity. This means that twitter is the evolution of mobile messenging. Twitter is also a type of micro-blogging where user types not more than 140 characters about updates. They can update any time they want.

Moving on to their blog, it is updated almost daily. They blog about family stories of those who were diagnosed with cancer and how they received help from CURE childhood cancer, upcoming events, latest news, how to donate, etc. The blog also provides links to almost all their sites including their main website, facebook, twitter, e-newsletters, donation, online store, etc. Blogging is like writing a journal except it is writing online and can be chosen to allow public to view or only allow certain people to view.

The difference between micro-blogging and blogging is that micro-blogging is like online SMS-ing, but blogging is like writing a journal/diary.

They also made use of YouTube and vodpod, the online video websites for advertising by uploading videos from events, family documentaries, advises, etc.

Thus, I recommend CCF Singapore to use these social networking sites to publicize CCF Singapore and create more public interest by uploading videos of events, volunteers, publicize upcoming events, have quizzes, and attract more people. For all these to work, I also recommend CCF Singapore to recruit a group of IT specialized volunteers to help put updates of CCF Singapore on these sites and maintain the active level of CCF Singapore social networking sites.

http://www.ccf.org.sg/

http://www.curechildhoodcancer.org/

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

http://www.facebook.com/CUREChildhoodCancer?v=wall&ref=ts%94

http://twitter.com/CUREchildcancer

http://curechildhoodcancerblog.wordpress.com/

http://www.youtube.com/curechildhoodcancer1

My group and I will be doing on Children Cancer Foundation of Singapore with comparison to Starlight Children Foundation in United States of America. Desmond will be researching on Twitter, Elleen on blog, Hasif doing Facebook and I will be covering YouTube.

Starlight – YouTube

Starlight Children Foundation is a non-profit organization that aims to helps seriously ill children and their families to cope with their pain, fear and isolation physically and emotionally through the use of entertainment, education and family activities.

Starlight made full use of YouTube, the world’s largest online video community by posting videos since they joined YouTube on august 5th 2008. Starlight’s YouTube account have a total of 8 videos uploaded with 63 subscribers. The number of  their total video views was 6203 with the top video of 2438 ratings. This shows how YouTube is successful in creating awareness for companies. The videos in the Starlight Channel were mainly for advertising their latest events, happenings and family documentaries.

From what I observed, Children Cancer Foundation(CCF) of Singapore does not have any social networking sites. I recommend CCF to sign up for a YouTube account. This is because with a YouTube account, CCF can upload videos to YouTube to let people know more about CCF. The contents of the videos could be what the volunteers do to help the children there, the events that took place, the recent happenings, family documentaries, etc. With the use of YouTube, CCF will definitely gain more attention from public and generate public interest.

Why not advertising on television and radio? This is because YouTube generate more public interest daily than television and radio as more people are viewing videos online than watching shows on television. In addition, YouTube is free but advertising ontelevision and radio are costly. With YouTube, you can remove your video anytime and editing it/ making changes then upload it again. However, for advertising on television and radio, there will be a contract of a certain time limit. Removing of commercial before contract ends will lead to high compensation charges. Thus, editing of video will not be possible within the contract time limit.

In conclusion, the use of Youtube will generate more public interest and create awareness for CCF.

http://www.youtube.com/starlightfriends#p/u/7/hsjMEVxCcJ8

http://www.ccf.org.sg/index.html

http://www.starlight.org/

For records like reading materials, they first separate the book cover from papers inside, cut out all ragged and torn paper protruding out and disinfect the records sent in. They then start on deacidification by using machines and fibers to preserve the paper records. After that, staff brush off excess fibers from papers and repair them. then papers were bundled back into a book.

Staffs also prevent mold and mildew growth in paper records by checking on the temperatures and RH levels frequently. They are also trained to detect mold and mildew growth in the shortest time to prevent mold from spreading. If mold were found, vacuuming and chemical eradication of a microorganism infestation with a biocide are capable of killing mold growths.

Paper records are microfilmed and duplicating of electronic media like still photographs, motion picture films and microfilms were done. Due to the advancing technology, recordings of videos and audios need to be reformat to match the those technologies. Microfilms are used instead of technologies because microfilms can last for 500 years and they do not break down, unlike technologies.

They provide a wide range of services including viewing of videos, listening of audios, providing research database for public, etc. However, some of the copies can only be accessed by going down to the National Archives of Singapore.

They provide online research database for public to access which is one of the Web 2.0 technologies. This help students in their research.  Online exhibits are also available.

Lionel Chin talks about the different types of web hosting. There are free servers like WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, etc. and paid servers where you have to pay a certain amount of money per month or year depending on the web host. The price also depends on how many people are you sharing with, or are you using the server alone.I personally feel that web hosting is a good technology as it made online journalism/blogging possible.

He also mentions about the usefulness of twitter. With twitter, a company’s fame can increase fast through social networking. He also said that twitter is a wonderful technology. I agree on what he said as twitter draw closer bonds by letting others be aware of what is happening in your life that very moment.

He explained the difference of being a free-lance web designer and a web designer in a company. The cost of the project done by a free-lance web designer is obviously lower than the cost of the project done by a web designer in a company. In addition, working in a company means having the pressure to meet their expectations. Thus, it is hard for free-lance web designers to adapt the environment the web designers in companies are in.

For web designing, it is not about you liking or disliking the website design. It is all about the clients preferences. You might have taken few months to complete the web, but if the clients are unhappy about it, you will have to redo the parts the clients are unhappy about. I feel that web designing is a very tough job as it gets you stress up.

In a celebrity blogger, Wendy Cheng’s (XiaXue) blog, she was privileged that she could send photos from her phone to her blog instantly. This is very convenient as it saves time sitting in front of the laptop/personal computer, waiting for the photo to finish uploading.

What inspired me from the lecture was the pressure given by companies to complete the project given in consideration of the clients’ preference. This is because pressure is like a challenge to me. Another thing that inspired me was their design of the web. It was professionally done. Through this lecture, i was amazed on what twitter can do and the impact of twitter.

I think that having a guest speaker to share his/her experience is very useful as we get to know more about the working society, what they faced and how they handle the situation. Through all this, we will take note of what to do and what not to do. Also, we get a clearer idea of what their job scope is. All this will be a great help when we graduate from polytechnic and start stepping into the working society.

From the article, it stated that due to the increasing number of people viewing WordPress via mobiles, WordPress has come up with 2 new mobile themes for WordPress blogs. These themes are more user-friendly when viewing on mobiles as it will help your site to load faster. The theme will be automatically compatible with the mobile you are using. For example, if you are using iPhone, the theme will be like the version of WPtouch where you can easily access to posts, archives, etc. If you are using other types of mobile, it will become a WordPress Mobile Edition where it will display more relevant information about your blog and it helps your site to load faster.

After reading the article, I feel that mobiles and internet are few of the biggest impact of new media as almost everyone owns a mobile and uses the internet. Because of this, communication is made easier as you can communicate with someone overseas easily. However,  this also cause a negative impact as human fully utilized the use of mobiles and internet that face-to-face communication do not seem that important anymore.

In the past, mobiles are huge and their displays are monochrome graphic. The only function they have is calls. Now, Short Messaging Service (SMS), Mobile Address Book(phone contacts) and games seems compulsory in every mobile phone. The size of mobiles are much smaller and have a display of 16 million of colors. Mobiles now have more and more new functions and has become part of everyone’s life.

Humans are too dependent on mobiles that if their mobiles are missing, they would panicked as if the world has come to an end. This is because a mobile can store a lot of important information like contacts, schedule, photos, etc. To some people, losing their mobile is equivalent  to losing their jobs. The reason being that in this century, a mobile can be represented as many things like a camera, a music player, handheld computer, a radio and many more.

Next factor is the internet. The internet has its pros and cons.The internet has become so efficient that you will never get bored with it. With the internet, you can have an overseas meeting without traveling to that particular country using Skype or other online video conferencing program. You can also work at home, where you will just have to submit your work online via the E-mail. The internet saves you time and money.

However, it can also be an distraction for people with programs like online games. Violation of privacy is done much more easier with the use of internet. That resulted in huge loss of money. Violation of privacy also cause the number of sales decreased that resulted in low Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita.

To summarize, I feel that new media as affected us  both positively and negatively.

cds was alright. PoC [psychology of creativity] was fun! i enjoyed it. the lecturer was a humourous person. and stupid is creativity. lol. im serious, that what he said. and think bout it, its true. like the magic the gathering cards was a combination of collection and games. it was so successful that alot other companies developed the similar ideas like pokemon cards, yugioh cards, etc. but at first, everyone thought that the magic the gathering cards was a huge laughing stock. but they succeed and earn millions. dare to be creative needs courage because usually it will be failures, but once you succeed, it will be very very very successful. :D

intro to psychology was alright i guess. its very theory based. but im amazed that psychology can be split into many parts like cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, etc. its interesting and it keeps me wondering what is this and that and makes me want to find out more.

however, i dont really like the lectures. too many people already. its like those that are having lectures on different dates come to friday’s lecture. zzz. the lecture hall was so full that some have to sit on the stairs. imagine that. and i cannot even see properly as i was seating at the side. i dont really like business lecture halls. its different from iit lecture hall cos’ iit lecture hall is short in width but long in height. so we still get to see the projector clearly. but business lecture halls are very wide, but very short in height. so its like difficult to see from the sides.

what worse is the lecturer did not use a mic. and there are some other students talking, hard to hear what he is saying. D: and students are coming in so late like every 5 mins or so during lectures you can hear the loud chattering outside. so distracting. zzz. hard to concentrate. and im trying my best to.

the tutorial was alright. the lecturer was a nice person i guess. although she was abit loud maybe cos’ im sitting in front. and my head was hurting like no other people’s business. cos’ i’ve got migraine. if you dont know what it is, google it. it seriously sucks having migraine cos’ im like a vampire. i see strong sun my head will pain like hell. and the medicine is like useless. D: this sucks. and i can’t even blast music anymore!! sucks ehhhh. but my hearing become more sensitive.

if there is a cure for migraine, please let me know. thanks~~ :D i think you have enough of my blabbering for now, so bye readers. off to pack my stuff for tomorrow’s lessons 9am – 6pm and damce 6pm -10pm. i tihnk. will be super tired tomorrow i think. i dont even know if i can stand the blasting of music while dancing. D: hope i can, even though i know 99% is impossible. D:

P.S. this has nothing to do with what i typed earlier. but i wana say, the songs in backstreet boys latest album are quite nice. :D you might wana go and listen. album title: this is us

i was too lazy to blog, so i practically copied the post from my blogger.

Tomorrow is Friday and I named it CDS day because I take 2 CDS on Friday. I know, its obvious.[ like duh.] I’m looking forward to my first CDS, Psychology of Creativity because it sounds fun. However, I start school at 9am all the way till 4pm. And, I only have 1hour of break! Nah, i guess is alright. At least, I get to meet my boyfriend after that. [is it alright if i mention my boyfriend in this "module work" blog?] It’s my blog right? So i guess its alright. Alright, I shall go off to bed. Bye, readers. :D

P.S. i have difficulty typing the i as caps. .____.  and typing the normal standard way of typing. like Capital letters after fullstop. forget it. im gonna type it my way from.. now onwards. (: since afterall, its MY blog.