Think About Your Customers

When you design a website, think about your visitors and how they going to use your website. Too often, webmasters do not put themselves in the position of the people who are going to use their websites.

Here's an example. The BBS website has two editions: English and Dzongkha. Toward the top of each page there are two links that allow you to switch editions.

Say a visitor speaks only English, but happens to land on a Dzongkha news page. Where does she click to escape into the English site? Everything's in Dzongkha, even the link to the English edition. That's not a good idea.

Here is the website as it looks today:

Uh? What do I  click now?

Here is a more usable version. Notice the difference?

Phew...

The same issue also exists in the English version. There's a link to the Dzongkha edition, but it's in English.

Most media houses in #Bhutan are not participating in the big party

Many media houses in Bhutan have set up their own websites: BBS, Kuensel, Bhutan Today, Bhutan Observer, Business Bhutan, and The Bhutanese all run news websites (the last two, by the way, having the most user-friendly interfaces).

Obviously, media outlets want as much traffic as possible to their websites. This can be seen by the "visit our website" promotions in the local print and broadcast media. However, currently the private newspaper websites - as well as BBS - are missing out on millions of potential readers outside of Bhutan. Why? Two words: Google News. Launched exactly ten years ago, Google News aggregates news articles from more than 50,000 online sources, and automatically compiles a 'front page' every few minutes. Google News has become the de-facto news destination for millions of users around the world. Users visit Google News to check out the recent happenings around the world, then click on news articles which takes them to the source (the website of the media house that published the article).

Some staggering statistics: About 1,000,000,000 (one billion!) unique users visit Google News every week. And each month, indexed news websites receive more than 4 billion visits that originate from Google News, as well as from the automatic news links generated by Google Search.

Bhutan's private newspapers are currently not participating in this party. When you search for Bhutan on Google News, the only Bhutanese news source that currently comes up is Kuensel. The other websites - Business Bhutan, Bhutan Observer, BBS, etc. - are not showing any results. Why? They are not indexed by Google News.

The solution is quite simple. If you are the publisher or editor of a media house in Bhutan, read Getting into Google News, then fill the form. and expect a surge in international traffic. More information for publishers is available here.

BBS on YouTube? @namgayzam @dawabbs

I often enjoy watching Dawa's People's Voice and Namgay Zam's Talking Matters. The most recent episodes of these (and other) programs are available for streaming on the BBS website. (In fact, since BBS1 is still not available off-the-air, the website is currently my only of watching BBS1) Older episodes, however, are taken offline because the server cannot handle the load.

YouTube can offer serious help. BBS can create an official channel on YouTube (it's free), upload all videos to that channel, and then users can watch all programs directly on YouTube. This approach has various advantages: An unlimited number of videos; people around the world have a fast and reliable access to the BBS content; the BBS servers are now totally off-loaded;  and lastly, a copy of the content is stored on Google's servers for free - a crucial backup in case of a disaster.

A YouTube channel can be of use for other organizations as well. Here's more information about YouTube for Businesses.

BBS Thimphu Transmitter Down

BBS?

While most people in Thimphu watch BBS via fee-based cable service, some of us are still using the old (and free) antenna ("off-the-air") method. A few days ago I turned on the TV to watch the news, but there was no signal. I tried again yesterday, but again to no avail. I called BBS today, which is a challenge by itself - their phone number is neither listed in the phone directory, nor available on their website (the number, for future reference, is 02-323071).

I finally managed to get hold of a technician who explained that their transmitter is undergoing maintenance, and is expected to be back in operation within a few days.

BBS has a few venues for disseminating information about outages: BBS TV, BBS Radio, the BBS website,  the BBS Facebook page, and BBS twitter page. Let's hope these will be used in the future.

PS: BBS live streaming, which was set up just before the royal wedding, is also dead.

Update (26/10/2011): Transmitter is now back to service. Just in time for Diwali!

BBS TV offers live streaming

On your desktop: BBS TV Live 

About three and a half years ago, BBS Radio went online and started streaming its programmes on the Internet. And now, BBS TV has introduced live streaming on its website. This is a great service for NRBs (Non-Resident Bhutanese) who would like to watch Bhutan's only television channel. It will also allow anyone to follow the upcoming Royal Wedding celebrations. To access, go to the BBS home page and click on the "Watch BBS TV" logo on the left sidebar. You will need a broadband connection.
I've tried watching BBS TV using the Internet and it worked great. The video was relatively smooth - a few glitches here and there, but nothing annoying - and the audio quality was adequate. As more and more users connect to the BBS TV live stream, the load on the BBS server - as well as on the Internet link - will increase. Is there enough capacity to handle the demand, especially during the Royal Wedding celebrations? We'll soon find out.

A new poll. Topic: BBS News.

Our Facebook poll is now closed. 42% of participants - almost half - check their FB account more than once a day. 29% of users check their FB about once a day. 19% log on to FB less than once a day. And only 10% do not have an FB account.

And now to this month's poll: BBS news. We are interested to know which editions of the news, if any, you watch. The English version, The Dzongkha one, both, or neither?

Don't Forget the www!

Although BBS TV proudly displays its web address - bbs.com.bt - every evening on the top-left corner of the screen, the specified web address does not work!

You will need to use the longer version with the "www" prefix to access the BBS home page: www.bbs.com.bt.

This seems to be a common issue with most - if not all - domains in Bhutan. The bt domains are not forgiving in that respect, so remember to always prefix the website address with www.