http://kentridgecommon.com/?p=4731
The Kent Ridge Common, 26 Jul 2009, Kelvin Teo
STOMPing the path of the old
Sammyboy forums
SINGAPORE – Sex sells. That is the reality. Sexual themes tend to
be crowd pullers; a sex site or porn magazine will be able to draw
in more audiences than a financial news daily for instance. No
prizes for guessing which publication between Playboy magazine and
Financial Times have a greater number of readers.
Some of the readers may be familiar with Sammyboy forums. At least,
the reporters or journalists from The Straits Times and The New
Paper should be, having quoted from Sammyboy forummers on certain
occasions. The Sammyboy forum had erotic beginnings as a sex forum
initially. At a certain point of time, forummers began to discuss
and exchange views on non-sexual related topics ranging from
sociopolitical issues to hobbies. Thus, the forum host set up the
Sammyboy Alfresco Coffeeshop/Kopitiam to meet this end.
Stomp is attempting to emulate
Sammyboy in this respect. It came up with a StarBlog section that
comprises celebrities and mini-celebrities such as Maia Lee, Jamie
Yeo and Dawn Yang. From the very outset, this
Starblog section was meant to be a crowd puller. But there is more.
Sometime back, each celebrity
shared their sexual experiences or opinion of sex, something that
was a usual feature in Sammyboy sex forums (Not Sammyboy Alfresco
Coffeeshop). One of the eye-catchers was Jamie’s account of her
first sexual experience and her first act of masturbation at
6. Whether it is considered positive or negative
will depend on which perspective you are coming from.
When Stomp was first set up, there were some who initially feared
that the former will establish a hegemony over popular sites that
Singaporeans tend to visit. Others charged that Stomp was set up to divert traffic
from popular sites with little or no censorship that Singaporeans
tend to visit and this was the establishment’s way of ‘managing the
Internet’ because Stomp is after all a Straits
Times venture, and the Straits Times is notoriously known to some
as the establishment’s mouthpiece.
Whatever the reasons behind Stomp’s establishment, the question is
whether they will be able to emulate Sammyboy by making use of the
proven “sex sells” mantra. It depends on the raison d’etre of Stomp
and other extenuating circumstances. Stomp may be relatively
successful in attracting certain sections of the crowd – those whom
are into gossip chatter, tabloid materials, FHM or/and Maxim
magazines and anything related to sex appeal. An importance difference between the
establishment of Sammyboy Alfresco Coffeeshop and Stomp is the
difference in eras in which they are
established.
Sammyboy Alfresco Coffeeshop was
established in an era where blogging was considered alien to many
Internet users. And the technologies involved in
the establishment of a blog such as the ones we see at Wordpress or
Blogspot were probably in their primitive stages then. Thus, users
usually expressed their views in the forums. When Stomp was established in 2006, blogging
was already in fad, and there are a number of established
technologies available that allows any user to seamlessly create a
blog. Thus, if the other purpose of Stomp is to be
a repository of opinions, it will face stiff competition from
Wordpress and Blogspot. Simply put, if Stomp wants to play host to
a myriad of views and opinions, it will have to do a Wordpress and
Blogspot. But, Stomp from the outset was never in the molds of both
blog publishing services.
If Stomp intends to be magnet to attract all kinds of audiences, it
may fail in this respect. It may not get the better of Blogspot and
Wordpress in terms of attracting opinionated netizens although it
may attract others. Simply put, it is never in a position to
compete with sites that provide intellectual-based contents. For
those who worry that Stomp will divert traffic away from the
intellectual sites, they can sleep easy at night.
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