Thoughts on Web 2.0 and Building Online Communities - DM Fest 2008

I was in the conference day for the Singapore Digital Media Festival 2008. While I have enjoyed myself for the digital film screenings on the first day in the National Museum, the second day is where the people from the industry share their perspective on the business issues confronting digital media from both the technology and creative sides. I arrived in the afternoon, given my work committments, so I was only able to catch the last panel on Web 2.0 and Buidling Online Communities. It might be interesting to summarize the main points of the panel and also add my thoughts on how people are thinking about the web 2.0 space and building online communities.

First of all, I thought that the panel is well assembled, because some of the panelists are directly involved in niche social networks, for example, Lai Kok Fung (CEO, BuzzCity) with mobile communities and Shunjie (Developer, Seesmic) with content communities. In fact, the other panelists S.P. Raja (SOA Architect from IBM), Jonathon (Microsoft) and Aroon Tan (Magma Studios) have also expounded the central lessons involved with the current paradigm of creating, maintaining & directing content in different aspects of web 2.0. Here are some points which might take more elaboration:

• The Limitation of Online Advertising as a business model: Most of the panelists acknowledged that there is a need to go beyond online advertising as a business model to generate revenues in the web 2.0 space. The key is to find the adjacency to the type of internet portal you are building and try to construct a way to channel the community to create real value offline. The discussion of virtual gifts in the Internet with real dollars was one of the talking points in the panel, and surprisingly, the most successful models are not from US but from Europe (Habbo Hotel) and China (Tencent - QQ). 
• Are you sick of registering on another social network?: With too many social networks out there, will more and more people have a registration fatigue to sign on with a social network or other web 2.0 services? One point I thought that the panellists did not explicitly point out is that social networks are not just geographical but also generational. There will always be demand for different online communities depending on the market niche. One panellist pointed out that even the big and generic social networks are moving towards specialization that focuses on their strengths: for e.g. MySpace with music, Linkedin with professionals and Facebook as a communication platform (with photos uploading beating Flickr and PhotoBucket).
• How do you get people to come back to your site? : In the old web 1.0 word, having a site is just enough. In the web 2.0 space, the keyword is stickiness. How do you ensure people keep coming back? From listening to the presentations from panelists, they focus on a lot on entertainment, fashion and lifestyle industry  interwined with excessiveness. Even if you can maintain a huge community, how do you ensure that you can monetize with the content you have? To ensure sustainability of the site, it is not just normal capital but also social capital of users from the site.

Though I wish that I have come earlier for the event since it is a good time to catch up with Coleman, Daniel Goh, Walter, DK, Preetam, Howie (The Digital Movement) I have managed to catch some highlights of the event by pictures:

Dr Lai Kok Fung, CEO of BuzzCity Pte Ltd presenting his thoughts about the topic

The Bloggers Area for the Main Conference. You see Pat Law, Shalabh and Claudia, and the lovely lady is Pamela from Text-100 who has invited us to the event.

Sumin (Text-100) and myself after the conference.

Related Links: Do check out what the bloggers have to say:

• Claudia Lim, LIVE from Singapore Digital Media Festival 2008.
• Daniel Goh, Young Upstarts, It Pays To Follow Your Passion (Most Of The Time)
• DK, Singapore Digital Media Festival 2008
• Walter Lim, Debates, Discussions and Dilemmas at DMFest 2008 
• Shalabh, A Day at the Digital Media Festival
• Armchair Theorist, Takeaways from Singapore Digital Media Festival 2008
• The Digital Movement, DMFest ‘08, Speakers/Bloggers Meetup - Part 1
• The Digital Movement, DMFest ‘08, Speakers/Bloggers Meetup - Part 2
• The Digital Movement, IDM R&D Programme Office partners SiTF on mentorship programme for digital media ideas.

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Comments

[Shalabh]

HI Bernard,
It was great meeting you at the conference. Thanks for mentioning me in your post. Good overall analysis.

We should catch up sometime again soon in a more relaxed setting.
Cheers
Shalabh

[Comment edited and the link of his post is in the Related Links of the Post]