Comparing the Macau East Asian Games and Manila Southeast Asian Games web sites
About one month before the 23rd Southeast Asian Games will be held in Manila, Philippines, Macau SAR of the People's Republic of China will host the 4th East Asian Games.
Somewhat similar in name but a little different in geographical location.
Participants of the Manila SEA Games are Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Timor Leste and host the Philippines.
Participants of East Asian Games are Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Guam, Chinese Taipei and host Macau.
The Games are a little bit of division of Asian Games participants with the exception of countries in Central Asia, South Asia and the Middle East.
Among the two Games, it's quite obvious that the top three sporting powers of Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are bunched together in the East Asian Games while SEA Games will have regional powerhouse Thailand to be challenged by Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the hosts. While Thailand and Indonesia have been able to raise its game internationally -- Thailand winning golds in boxing and weightlifting and Indonesia in badminton -- the rest of the field is comparably minnows in the bigger playing field.
While it remains to be seen which Games will attract hype and fanfare (East Asian Games open tomorrow), what I can do is scrutize the web sites of the two Games.
Focus on the two:
East Asian Games (EAG)
http://www.east-asian-games2005.com/en/index.php
Southeast Asian Games (SEA)
http://www.2005seagames.com.ph/
1. Menu:
While EAG has good color combination, having the menu on the top is still better than the left side.
EAG: 0
SEA: 1
2. Overall Design:
I can guess EAG was done by a professional web development company. SEA was done by happy-go-lucky on the job training students at Trace Computer.
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
3. Page Layout:
EAG has inconsistent layout plus look at this sports schedule page! (hope that gets fixed by the time you view the link) SEA has not fared much better though.
EAG: 0
SEA: 1
4. Navigation:
EAG has a lot of pages to fix since I notice many of such layouts have commented codes which included tags which should appear in the page. SEA pages such as the reader of the Prayer Room News needs to click [Back] to view other stories. Can't click the Maskarra logo!
EAG: 0
SEA: 0
5. Content:
EAG has more or less prepared itself with necessary information. After all, site traffic is starting to build up. Prepare the standby servers. SEA has very poor preparation, to complement with the organizers with the venue which did not help the host athletes train.
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
6. Flexibility:
EAG is using PHP and ASP.NET to better maintain the flow of information through CMS. SEA is using plain HTML (is this only what is taught at Trace? C'mon).
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
7. Necessary Info:
How to apply for accreditation, where to buy tickets, sports information kind of stuff. EAG has done well. SEA is placing text that is not linked to any relevant document. Useless.
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
8. Countdown to Games:
EAG is counting by the minute and visible on every page. SEA is counting by days only found in homepage.
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
9. Language Support:
EAG by virtue of having multilingual participants supports English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and Portuguese (no Mongolian, no Korean, no Japanese). SEA is lucky most countries are well versed with English and the people from Cambodia or Laos hardly complain about web sites.
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
10. Daily Summary
It's interesting how SEA will organize a daily recap of events and results without a centralized system to handle this (at least based on what I see now). EAG also has to live up to the expectations to provide comprehensive daily report based on the nice 'Daily Summaries' feature
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
11. Search engine-friendliness:
Both sites are number one when searched on Google for relevant keywords. But when it comes to individual pages it's SEA which has the edge.
EAG: 0
SEA: 1
12. Color scheme:
Macau has a green flag which I thought would be used sparingly in the site (and they did). Meanwhile SEA has a ridiculous color combination. Take a look at the country participants page. Was there someone from UIC who was part of the web team?
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
13. Photos / Graphics:
SEA has image bank that's bankrupt. Not displaying even the venues? EAG is showing the images of rehearsals and athletes.
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
OK, enough the beating. EAG web site won over SEA web site 9-3 on the 13 categories judged by me. It's a shame that the Vietnam SEA Games web site is better (at par with EAG site) and what the Filipino talent can show (after bragging we are exporting IT to Middle East, Americas and Japan) is this unfinished web site?
Thanks to Trace for volunteering this one anyway. Better look at www.coolhomepages.com for better ideas and inspirations.
Somewhat similar in name but a little different in geographical location.
Participants of the Manila SEA Games are Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Timor Leste and host the Philippines.
Participants of East Asian Games are Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Guam, Chinese Taipei and host Macau.
The Games are a little bit of division of Asian Games participants with the exception of countries in Central Asia, South Asia and the Middle East.
Among the two Games, it's quite obvious that the top three sporting powers of Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are bunched together in the East Asian Games while SEA Games will have regional powerhouse Thailand to be challenged by Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the hosts. While Thailand and Indonesia have been able to raise its game internationally -- Thailand winning golds in boxing and weightlifting and Indonesia in badminton -- the rest of the field is comparably minnows in the bigger playing field.
While it remains to be seen which Games will attract hype and fanfare (East Asian Games open tomorrow), what I can do is scrutize the web sites of the two Games.
Focus on the two:
East Asian Games (EAG)
http://www.east-asian-games2005.com/en/index.php
Southeast Asian Games (SEA)
http://www.2005seagames.com.ph/
1. Menu:
While EAG has good color combination, having the menu on the top is still better than the left side.
EAG: 0
SEA: 1
2. Overall Design:
I can guess EAG was done by a professional web development company. SEA was done by happy-go-lucky on the job training students at Trace Computer.
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
3. Page Layout:
EAG has inconsistent layout plus look at this sports schedule page! (hope that gets fixed by the time you view the link) SEA has not fared much better though.
EAG: 0
SEA: 1
4. Navigation:
EAG has a lot of pages to fix since I notice many of such layouts have commented codes which included tags which should appear in the page. SEA pages such as the reader of the Prayer Room News needs to click [Back] to view other stories. Can't click the Maskarra logo!
EAG: 0
SEA: 0
5. Content:
EAG has more or less prepared itself with necessary information. After all, site traffic is starting to build up. Prepare the standby servers. SEA has very poor preparation, to complement with the organizers with the venue which did not help the host athletes train.
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
6. Flexibility:
EAG is using PHP and ASP.NET to better maintain the flow of information through CMS. SEA is using plain HTML (is this only what is taught at Trace? C'mon).
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
7. Necessary Info:
How to apply for accreditation, where to buy tickets, sports information kind of stuff. EAG has done well. SEA is placing text that is not linked to any relevant document. Useless.
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
8. Countdown to Games:
EAG is counting by the minute and visible on every page. SEA is counting by days only found in homepage.
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
9. Language Support:
EAG by virtue of having multilingual participants supports English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and Portuguese (no Mongolian, no Korean, no Japanese). SEA is lucky most countries are well versed with English and the people from Cambodia or Laos hardly complain about web sites.
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
10. Daily Summary
It's interesting how SEA will organize a daily recap of events and results without a centralized system to handle this (at least based on what I see now). EAG also has to live up to the expectations to provide comprehensive daily report based on the nice 'Daily Summaries' feature
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
11. Search engine-friendliness:
Both sites are number one when searched on Google for relevant keywords. But when it comes to individual pages it's SEA which has the edge.
EAG: 0
SEA: 1
12. Color scheme:
Macau has a green flag which I thought would be used sparingly in the site (and they did). Meanwhile SEA has a ridiculous color combination. Take a look at the country participants page. Was there someone from UIC who was part of the web team?
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
13. Photos / Graphics:
SEA has image bank that's bankrupt. Not displaying even the venues? EAG is showing the images of rehearsals and athletes.
EAG: 1
SEA: 0
OK, enough the beating. EAG web site won over SEA web site 9-3 on the 13 categories judged by me. It's a shame that the Vietnam SEA Games web site is better (at par with EAG site) and what the Filipino talent can show (after bragging we are exporting IT to Middle East, Americas and Japan) is this unfinished web site?
Thanks to Trace for volunteering this one anyway. Better look at www.coolhomepages.com for better ideas and inspirations.
posted by Unknown at
10:51 PM
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