As a subscriber who just renewed my expired subscription of Malaysiakini after reading your editorial about why Malaysiakini is not financially viable without paid subscriptions, I demand to know why the Bahasa version is accessible free of charge!
I can read both English and BM version without any difficulty so my support is in the hope that Malaysiakini will continue to give us the news that should have been published in the mainstream media but isn’t.
As far as I can recall, no Malay newspapers are free not even the printed edition of “Harakah” by PAS is free. It costs me RM2.50 which I willing paid to support its publication.
You should give your paying subscribers 10 good reasons why the Malay edition is free. I read on Susan Loone’s blog this comment:-
By the way, why does the bahasa malaysia version on Malaysiakini FREE?? The malay are so poor to subscribe? Or what???
What? The Bahasa version on Malaysiakini is free?? Mann, some readers wrote to Malaysiakini asking them to provide the service free and they posted 101 reasons why they can’t do it, which I believe some of the reasons given is quite valid. If only my Bahasa is up to a certain standard!!
Australia
http://sloone.wordpress.com/2008/03/23/denial-syndrome-of-malaysian-leaders/#more-870
There’s even no need to login. So we not only have to pay but we have to identify ourselves too!
Why the double standard? Why the debate?
Whether I choose to read an English, Chinese or Malay newspaper, I have to buy the paper so why not Malaysiakini?
Look forward to your response to all paying subscribers.
Best regards
Victor Chong
The above has been posted at: http://myproxus.vox.com
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
The New Media
The Internet has become the New Media for Malaysians.
The General Elections on March 8 2008 was powered by the ceramahs, SMSes and the Internet blogs of the opposition while the mainstream government controlled media chose to hide behind the skirts of the ruling party.
My first encounter with a political blog was Screenshots by Jeff Ooi. Thanks to his bravado and those of fellow compatriots like Rockybru and Raja Petra Kamarudin, the Internet has become an increasingly influential medium for alternative views on various Malaysian issues.
The fact that Malaysiakini's servers were overhelmed by the huge traffic accessing their site is giving The Star paper, a run for their money.
When we started a business promoting Internet broadband subscriptions, we were lamenting the lack of local content to drive more subscribers to broadband. The rise of Youtube and entertaining video content on the local political scene added exploding sparks to the broadband fire and today we probably have over 1.5 million Internet broadband subscribers. While companies that rolled out portals and news struggled under heavy budgets to produce current and relevant content, user generated content steamrolled their way over companies with antiquated models. Even Internet companies such as Yahoo are struggling to find the best model for business on the Net.
Just the other day, we had 8 subscribers signing up in a single day at our shop where even during TM's broadband attractive promotion last year we had less. More and more Malaysians are signing up to have access to fairer new reporting on local issues, view opinions of local bloggers and starting their own blog as I have.
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