The more I talk to the Youth Olympic Games folks to uncover stories for Digital Life, the more I find out that some of the really interesting YOG social media content is hidden behind “official” content and not given enough publicity.

Take a look at the Youth Guru YouTube video below. It’s quite a hilarious series, with 15 videos to date. *Chio peng* (aka ROTFLMAO in hokkien dialect). Well done Youth Guru folks!

The content in this series is far more fun than many of the videos on the official Singapore2010 channel on YouTube. Youth Guru should have its own YouTube channel, or just highlighted instead of being lost in the array of official videos on the main channel.

As I’ve said before, I think some of the social media content for YOG needs more love. For example, this Youth Guru series is hilarious. Others, like the Odyssey Singapore 2010 virtual world, needs a little bit more work.

The key issue is that all of them could use a little more publicity. And as I’ve said before, one relatively easy way is to reach out to the Singaporean blogs!

It’s the oldest trick in the book when it comes to scamming: Play on people’s greed.

Take a look at a current one involving free iPads for beta testing :

The difficulty lies in telling whether a freebie giveaway is a scam sometimes. Some are scams, and some are supposedly real contests giving out free iPads, like the one here at freeipadgear.

When in doubt, it’s probably wise to reconsider: If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

The inaugural Youth Olympic Games, or YOG for short, is running in Singapore this year from 14th to 26th August.

As part of the worldwide promotion to create buzz around the event, the Singapore Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee (SYOGOC), together with the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), is creating a virtual world called Singapore 2010 Odyssey.

Said RADM(NS) Ronnie Tay, Chief Executive Officer of IDA at the official launch on Saturday 6th March: “The Singapore 2010 Odyssey is a unique virtual world platform offering many possibilities for learning, social networking and entertainment, as it reaches out to the youths from all over the world in a fun and interactive way. The development of the 3D virtual world is testimony to Singapore’s infocomm capabilities in innovatively harnessing digital media technologies to support major events like the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games.”

Find the Odyssey at www.singapore2010.sg/o

Of course, what’s more important is the content of this virtual world. I had a preview of the world last Wednesday at a media/blogger session (the news was embargoed till today) but to see how it really was working out, I decided to give it a real life test.

The Internet has been abuzz with Google’s announcement of Buzz, their new social networking platform that they just announced about a day ago.

Of course, Facebook is the king of the hill in the social networking space that Google is going after.

Reams of commentaries and news analysis has been written about this — here are some excellent ones by PC Mag and TechCrunch — so I’m not going to delve into the history and just go straight to the point with my comments.

With Buzz bundled in Gmail natively, my gut feel is that it has a good chance of taking off, especially with the huge Gmail install base. Went to the Buzz website to find out more, but apparently it’s not available for Singapore yet.

Here’s their statement on the site:

We’re still rolling out Buzz to everyone, so if you don’t see it in your Gmail account yet, check back soon.

*Update*: It’s now up for me. That was fast!

That’s about it for the newspoint. The story I really want to write, however, is how Google has been taking over all the tools I’ve been using.

Google Street View Singapore at construction of ION Orchard

Tiny Singapore finally joins the ranks of countries with Street View today, right on the heels of the roll out in Hawaii and large parts of Spain in November.

This also makes Singapore the third Asian country after Japan and Taiwan (Taipei city only) to be mapped in 3D by the Mountain View firm.

LTA and Google representatives posing for the media

Yes, Google has spoken… when it comes to improving its map’s accuracy and ease of use, it’s going to haul ass as it brings in multiple data streams quickly.

At a press conference held in the basement level of the Dhoby Ghaut MRT station in Singapore, LTA and Google announced a new data partnership between the two which promises to help LTA reach its goal of creating a “people-centred land transport system that shows the commuter how to commute seamlessly”, according to Mr Yam Ah Mee, LTA’s chief executive.

Are homegrown online maps being side-lined?
However, it’s interesting to note that this visualisation of the “penultimate” transport network will not be stewarded by homegrown online map providers like gothere (lauded by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in a national speech) and Singapore Press Holdings’ Rednano search engine.

Existing visual routing on the iPhone 3GS

Existing visual routing (highlighted in purple) on the iPhone 3GS which avoids high traffic areas (in red).

Techgoondu is heading down Thursday morning for an announcement by Google and the Land Transport Authority (LTA).

What could it be?
According to the media invite teaser, I am guessing it could well be a data blend between LTA’s live traffic update and Google Maps’ routing feature (that thingamajing which tells you the route to take from point A to B).

Google Maps already employ a crowdsourced solution in certain US states which tracks (anonymously, or so Google says) the movement of mobile phones when users opt in to the My Location feature and aggregates this data into an average representation of prevailing traffic conditions.

Will Singapore’s Google map be a mix of LTA’s data and big G’s crowdsourced solution? Would there be more stuff like SBS Transit’s Intelligent Route Information System (iris) which estimates arrival time of buses from a bus stop built in?

Robot butler at Techfest '09

Singapore does do interesting infotech R&D. But it doesn’t get the publicity it deserves, which is such a waste.

Take for example the recent Techfest ‘09, which was held at Fusionpolis last week from October 8th to 9th. Techfest, which A*Star I2R (Institute of Infocomm Research) started in 2005, is an open-to-public exhibition showcase of emerging technology research in Singapore. A*Star, for those of our readers who are not familiar with the brand, is a government institution dedicated to charting Singapore’s science and technology future.

Now A*Star has interesting research projects that make for great tech stories, but Techfest ‘09 was a bland colourless event. It’s open to the public, but most of the attendees were government folks, and it felt as if many exhibitors — all A*Star folks — were there more because they were “arrowed” into showcasing their work instead of wanting to show off their work to a good audience.

Techgoondu had the chance to be at unConference 2009 held yesterday at the Biopolis, thanks to the kind folks at e27 who had put together an excellent program that brought together some of the top forward-thinkers in the region. Here’s a recap of what I felt were the highlights of the event:

Panel discussion: Innovation in Asia and where is it heading?

SuperModelMe.tv

Think of SuperModelMe.tv as another “America’s Next Top Model” type of show.

Except that it is set in Asia, the episodes of this reality series are available only online, and it is a homegrown experiment by Singapore-based multimedia production agency Refinery Media and Exploit Technologies (subsidiary of government linked company A*STAR).

Set to debut about a month from now on 16th June 2009, SuperModelme.tv is a twice-weekly, 20-episode online model search that will document the trials of ten aspiring models from Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Thailand, Philippines and India. They will compete for a grand prize of S$10,000, with first and second runner up getting S$5,000 and S$4,000 respectively.

Hosted by top local Singapore model Charmaine Harn, the show doesn’t veer from established reality show formats. The models need to impress the resident judges or get voted out, and some judges name-dropped at the swanky announcement event today include fashion photographer Geoff Ang, fashion designer Frederick Lee and celebrity hairstylist David Gan.

The first question a fellow hack at the event said to me when I asked him for his opinion was: “Is this going to be like another S-factor?”