Star Challenge 2008 Website Broken?
As an SEO practitioner, I read with interest the front page article on Today newspaper (Friday, 18 Jan 2008) about the Search Engine Competition - Star Challenge 2008.
- Wanted: The ultimate search engine
- Reward: US$100,000
- A*Star seeks to emulate Google, Yahoo
First of all, let me make it very clear that I think what A*Star is doing is good for Singapore. I want to support such an initiative and that’s the reason why I am writing about it. I believe the Star Challenge 2008 is not about building the ultimate search engine. The aim behind this search engine competition is marketing-driven - to be visible on the world stage so that search engine technology experts and researchers will take note of this small little island, Singapore, and probably come here to work at Fusionpolis.
Star Challenge 2008: A Cheapskate Marketing Campaign?
Star Challenge. Is this the same as President Star Challenge or something to do with the Star Awards by Mediacorp, isn’t it? Huh! Maybe Zoe and Fann can now contest again?!
And it’s a cheapskate marketing campaign to offer US$100,000 for the ultimate search engine. It “cheapens” the value of search engine technology and possible made a mockery of Microsoft’s announcement to pay US$1.23 billion for Fast Search and Transfer! So it is definitely certain that you can’t get the ultimate search engine for US$100,000 - maybe you’ll get only some good ideas.
Advanced Search Engine: Critical Technology for Singapore Economic Growth
Yes. I think the Singapore Government is prepared to invest many millions or even billions of dollar to make Fusionpolis a success. And the top brains at EDB have identified that Advanced Search Engine Technology is critical to Singapore economic growth. So how does the government decision to attract top search engine talent to Fusionpolis affects the man in the street like you and me. Not very much, initially. We don’t invent search engine, we just use it. Hopefully, very soon, we can have a more intelligent search engine and user interface for NLB. Speaking about User Interface, I think the Web design and development industry in Singapore really has to buck up on Web Usability.
Another Example of Poor Web Usability
You can see poor Web usability everywhere - even on the Singapore Star Challenge 2008 website.
A well designed Web page does not need to provide instructions to the visitors, right? Also, what’s “rollover building”? Did the Web designer asked who is the Web page designed for? The geeky and the brainy PhD, right? You mean these people need instructions to use your Web site? I say, go spend some dollars and get a Web usability expert to fix the problem before showing this to the whole world, please!
Is the Star Challenge 2008 Web site Broken?
I also realized that the www.thestarchallenge.sg home page caused my Firefox to freeze momentarily. Same problem with IE 7 too but OK with Safari.
I was unable to click at other tab when the the Star Challenge home page was loading up in Firefox and IE 7. Do you encounter such problem?
I hope A*Star will fix the problem real quick before the whole world finds out about it. Here’s some blogs already talking about the Star Challenge:
January 24th, 2008 at 11:44 am
[...] The Same As Google - GeekSG: Bloggers mocks Singapore’s attempt at a Search Engine - SEO Expert: Star Challenge 2008 Website Broken? - PageTrafficBlog: USD 100,000 To Build A State-of-the-Art Search Engine: Will It [...]
January 24th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Hi Shi,
Thanks for the comment. Interesting point of view that perhaps the ultimate goal is not to create a Google/Yahoo competitor per se, but to use this as a lure instead. $100,000 is not a lot for a marketing effort (at least by Singaporean standards), especially if it’s going to get you in newspapers around the world.
Nice to see a local SEO blog. I think it’s about time people in Singapore take notice of it!
Best,
Daryl
January 25th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
[...] The Same As Google - GeekSG: Bloggers mocks Singapore’s attempt at a Search Engine - SEO Expert: Star Challenge 2008 Website Broken? - PageTrafficBlog: USD 100,000 To Build A State-of-the-Art Search Engine: Will It [...]
January 26th, 2008 at 2:53 am
[...] to have started this conversation, it’s been talked about in other sites like Geek SG and TIMMGuru posted a very Singaporean comment (and I mean that in a good way), about how this isn’t so [...]