Online Media of the Year: IT News No. 1 HardwareZone

Category: IT News

Owned by: Singapore Press Holdings

CEO: Jackie Lee

Media director: Jereme Wong

The breakneck speed at which HardwareZone has hurtled towards distinguishing itself as Asia's premiere IT site stands testament to its editorial quality and flawless track record with the oft-highly discriminating audience in the technology niche.

In just under nine years, the company, which first started off with one website, managed to add four other localised portals in Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Australia, along with its own offices and magazine (HardwareMAG) locally and regionally. These achievements are even more monumental given that HardwareZone is a homegrown company which did not have the privilege of starting off with the kind of resources those from big foreign networks had.

HardwareZone has clearly been unfazed by such competition, masterfully leaving them behind development after development. In September 2006, Hardwarezone was added by fellow chart topper of Online Media of the Year (search site category) Google, as authorised Reseller bringing Google AdWords to small and medium enterprises in Singapore. For two consecutive years, in 2005 and 2006, hardwarezone.com also achieved top site awards from Hitwise - a respected online competitive intelligence service in three different categories.

Targeted at early adopters of new technology- the tech gurus of their social circles, hardwarezone.com offers exclusive coverage of the latest technology gears, reviews for anything from hardcore PC components to lifestyle gadgets. It also offers daily updated technology news and last but not least, educational and buying guides on the ‘How-tos' of various hardware and software issues.

Locally, the website's traffic was audited at more than 18 million page-views and a total unique visitor count of more than 360,000 page-views and recent clients included big names like Canon and Sony. As an IT community portal, hardwarezone.com has the clout of 200,000 members to date, backing its claim as one of the largest of its kind on the internet, no less.

Our survey revealed that hardwarezone.com enjoyed a slightly stronger local than foreign fan base, garnering 62 votes from respondents from companies of local origin against 54 votes from respondents from companies of foreign origin, with 37.56% of the former respondents ranking hardwarezone.com in the top three places. With that said, voting patterns by respondent origin also reflected the same observation, with the number of respondents of local origin far outstripping the number of respondents of foreign origin who voted for hardwarezone.com.

However, more than twice the number of those with regional responsibilities cast in their votes for hardwarezone.com than those with local responsibilities. This was similarly the case for competing IT news website cnet.com although hardwarezone.com attained a comfortable 1^st ranking from the majority of respondents all around.

An interesting pattern emerged in the course of the survey - survey results showed that hardwarezone.com seemed to appeal to males more than females while its rival cnet.com seemed to appeal to females more than males. Males constituted 53.8% of respondents who voted for hardwarezone.com while females constituted 53.9% of respondents who voted for cnet.com.

Along the agency/client divide, hardwarezone.com was more popular with agencies than clients. Although this was similarly the case with cnet.com, hardwarezone.com managed to haul in more votes from agencies than cnet.com. Although both websites garnered fewer votes from clients, hardwarezone.com hauled in even fewer votes than cnet.com from client-side respondents. This signaled that hardwarezone.com has established a stronger presence with media players while cnet.com has established a stronger presence with clients.

By industry group, hardwarezone.com was most popular with advertising agency creative and media buying professionals while cnet.com was most popular with advertising agency creative and public relations agencies. More relevantly, hardwarezone.com was more popular in the consumer products, education and transport sectors while its rival garnered more votes in the IT and telecommunications sector.

hardwarezone.com held strong across all job functions in the agency-side, falling behind in votes only when it came to getting votes from the head honchos of agencies when compared to cnet.com. The trend reversed with client-side CEOs, who gave more votes to hardwarezone.com than cnet.com. Client-side marketing managers, communication, public relations, events and brand managers registered relatively equal preference for the two big IT portals.

With such firm support locally and regionally, hardwarezone.com looks equipped for a couple of years still in remaining the leading portal in ‘connect(ing) I.T to you', true to what its tagline promises.