Heritage board website revamped to reach out to more youngsters

Kristine Lam, Channel NewsAsia 7 Feb 09;

SINGAPORE: National Heritage Board's three-year-old web portal (http://yesterday.sg/) has undergone a major transformation to become a full-fledged social media platform - one that mimics popular social sites like YouTube and Facebook.

With an easy to navigate YouTube platform, the board hopes contributors will start sharing videos online. The site also has a photo gallery, blog sites and forums for users to learn about the country's heritage and museum offerings.

Before the revamp, the portal got some 30,000 page views per month, with many of its users being youngsters.

"We hope to reach out to more of the younger generation, get them interested in heritage and nostalgia and (get them) to access it (web portal) in a way that they're most comfortable with. Most of them spend a lot of time online, on Facebook, YouTube, Flicker," said Walter Lim, National Heritage Board's director for corporate communications.

- CNA/ir