Singapore Entrepreneurs

During the E27 4our event, the SG Entrepreneurs team met up with many interesting individuals who are involved in the web 2.0 and virtual worlds. Benjamin Koe, a PR consultant in Hill & Knowlton, is also an avid technologist who likes to experiment with marrying public relations (PR) and the social media. He has built Scoopasia.com, a free web resource for the PR and marketing industry in Asia and blogs at eOK.net. With his interesting profile as a PR consultant, SG Entrepreneurs has conducted an interview with Benjamin to discuss his thoughts and tips on virtual worlds, web 2.0 and how entrepreneurs should let others know what they are doing.

SGE: Hello, Benjamin, welcome to SG Entrepreneurs. Can you share with our readers about your background and what you are currently doing.
Benjamin Koe: It all started when I graduated with a degree in journalism from Australia’s oldest and most established journalism school at the University of Queensland in 2003. I went on to work at the IT magazine publisher CMP. I also wrote for the online publication TechPlanet Asia (has closed down since). During my time with TechPlanet Asia I built Scoopasia.com with a friend who was in PR. Not long after the launch of Scoopasia, I was approached by Hill & Knowlton to take on the role of New Media Specialist where I now explore PR in the social media and build digital products and services for our clients. I also blog on http://eok.net.

SGE: We understand that you have created Scoopasia.com, a free web resource for the PR and marketing industry in Asia. What is your motivation behind this web resource? What does it do and how does it help your industry?
Benjamin Koe: Scoopasia was built to help PR professionals communicate their messages in the online space. A lot of media are dependent on the announcements and news from major organisations via press releases and events. Scoopasia is designed to be a free one-stop all encompassing resource for PR and marketing folks to publish their releases, events, and since the whole industry uses it, we let them post job listings too.

The nature of the web has enabled Scoopasia to be used beyond the PR and marketing community. The free service enables smaller companies and entrepreneurs to have the same platform and communications medium as an MNC. This levels the playing field, creates more interesting news (not just from the usual MNCs), and creates an instant permanent resource some in the industry are calling a Social Media Press Release (SMPR).

SGE: In your view as a PR consultant, what are the few possible routes for an entrepreneur to let everyone know about what they are doing?
Benjamin Koe: I trust I don’t have to tell you about the obvious uses of blogs and podcasts for communication and feedback. But other more innovative methods include:

• 1. SMPRs, as mentioned above.
• 2. Put your company and product on the Wikipedia. Even if it is a one off event, it can go down in history on the Wikipedia.
• 3. Make your demos, presentations, images, and other media freely sharable on social media platforms such as YouTube, Flickr, etc.
• 4. Don’t just market the company, market yourselves. Nothing sells more than a true believer.

One really interesting example was done by Apple when the launched the iPod Nano. They created profiles on both MySpace and Facebook where others on the social networks could befriend them for updates and info. The same can be done in Friendster in Singapore where many Singaporeans have accounts.

SGE: Do you have any important advice for the entrepreneurs on the dos and don’ts in soliciting press attention?
Benjamin Koe: I’m not going to tell you about boring old PR tactics, but what’s sometimes interesting to try is to break stories about you or your products via the blogosphere. This will firstly give you a viral platform (if they like your product that is), and the mainstream media often can’t avoid or look like they are missing out on the news that’s buzzing a level below them and will often pick it up too, albeit later.

But even in doing so, try not to piss off the press. You have to remember that blogs, unlike the mainsteam media, are conversations and not publications. Conversations are about friends, personalities, gossip. Make yourself approachable and join the conversations that go on in the blogosphere. Care about those who like your product. At the end of the day, don’t go counting hits audience numbers, what you’re concerned about is creating wild fire, something the social media can do better than the mainstream.

SGE: Do you think that the concepts of web 2.0 (for example, wisdom of crowds, long tail and user generated content) be applied to your industry?
Benjamin Koe: Definitely. Everything from blogs to social media press releases are PR content with a long tail. Wisdom of the Crowds has been used by Dell for feedback on product roll out. UGC is an obvious one with fans and users mixing and uploading content to do with your product. Machinimas (movies made from computer games engines) are a good endorsement of UGC for a commercial product.

SGE: We understand that you are also involved in 2nd Life, a MMORPG which is taking the world by storm. Can you tell us about the community of 2nd Life in Singapore?
Benjamin Koe: I’m not the biggest user of Second Life, but I have joined the SL Singapore group. From what I know, there isn’t a big SL community in Singapore, although MOE and EDB are pushing for Linden Lab to set up shop here. I guess Singapore is a good place for the company to host servers and hire programmers, and there’s a whole eco-system of business that isn’t yet present in Singapore. But of course the total amount of users has to increase first.

SGE: From your experience as a netizen in 2nd Life, are there any interesting lessons which the real world can draw upon? Is there any interesting business opportunities that the technologist to explore in this space?

Benjamin Koe: I feel that there’s a lot of business to do in the real world for companies who want to enter Second Life. Companies such as The Electric Sheep Company, who help clients create buildings, brands, and object in Second Life, are not present in Singapore. There is quite a pressing need as my clients and others I’ve talked to are looking for means and ways to create a presence in Second Life.

What about doing a business where you provide someone to watch over other’s property or deploy a sales person / receptionist in their Second Life shop? Virtual HR.

SGE: Currently, the web 2.0 revolution is sweeping the world with the success stories of MySpace and YouTube, do you think that the wave is already over or is it just beginning to distill into traditional industries in Singapore, for example, the public relations (PR industry)?
Benjamin Koe: I think the revolution or bubble is felt most in the VC space just as it was with the dotcom boom. But to the rest of us, it’s just the social media. I believe a good population are already used to creating and consuming UGC and thus the social media is fast becoming regular media. The same happened with Email and IM for communications, now people are just getting used to social networks and 3D worlds.

In PR, and most other industries, the social media is seen as important but many clients don’t know how to approach the social media for their communication purposes and want to watch and see what happens. But before long, it’ll just be the norm and we’ll look forward to the next disruptive technology.

SGE: Some people call the virtual world as web 3.*, superseding the current web 2.0 phenomenon. What is your opinion about the virtual worlds and how long it will eventually become something common to the user?
Benjamin Koe: When everyone gets 3D acceleration on their computers. =) Virtual worlds as Web 3.* does not even make sense. “Web” means web pages, and anything seen through the Web browser. Virtual worlds are more like chat/IM. A platform to meet with and talk to friends and others. Virtual worlds as we know them now are not useful for reading text, displaying photos, etc, we still need that and HTML is doing a fine job at it. I have no doubt it will become commonplace as IM has, but it really has little overlap with the Web as we know it.

SGE: Ben, we thank you for this interview and we wish you all the best in your endeavours for the year ahead.

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