ONLINE forums are the most popular online platforms that Singaporeans use to discuss technology brands, a recent study has found.

And SPH Magazines' HardwareZone information-technology forums have been the dominant site for technology discussions here.

Coming out tops is HardwareZone's general discussion sub-forum titled Eat Drink Man Woman, with nearly 11,000 online mentions of technology brands from July to last month, the period of the study.

This put it ahead of second-placed Twitter, which had 4,600 online mentions of technology brands.

HardwareZone's other sub-forums, iPhone Chatroom, Notebook Clinic and Samsung User Group, clinched the third, ninth and 10th spot respectively.

HardwareZone editor Vijay Anand said: "The results show that we've made good decisions in nurturing a community that is now strongly attached to our content channels, such as the forums."

The website has been using online social-media sites, like Facebook, and face-to-face sessions between users and its editorial team, like its PlayTest event, to share IT expertise and exchange views with its users.

The study, called the Digital Brand Index, was done by public-relations firm Edelman and online intelligence-services firm Brandtology. It tracked almost 75,000 online posts here on 58 major IT brands, across 560 online channels.

While some technology companies shared the latest news and products with bloggers during the three-month study, few firms proactively did so on forums and news sites, where nine in 10 online technology conversations took place.

The findings show that technology firms should not ignore these online platforms and consider communicating with users in both online and offline ways, said Mr Sanjay Nair, director for technology practice in South-east Asia at Edelman.

This could be through social-networking sites or product events to address matters of interest to platform users.

The study also found that telco SingTel was the most-talked-about technology brand online, with 9,100 mentions, ahead of second-placed Google that had 6,000 mentions.

SingTel was mentioned across the greatest number of online platforms, too.

A SingTel spokesman said: "Today, our customers are constantly online. It is therefore essential that we engage and start conversations with them through non-traditional media like blogs, YouTube and Twitter."

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