KUALA LUMPUR: The 29th SEA Games and 9th ASEAN Para Games (KL2017) digital platform has been playing a significant role in getting Malaysians hyped up for the events which is only 36 days away.
Its official website (www.kualalumpur2017.com.my) has an average of 50,000 visitors a month since it was launched in 2015.
Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the website had received 54,971 volunteer applications.
Online ticket purchases have been very encouraging with netball and basketball tickets already sold out in less than a week.
"For Pencak Silat, 90 per cent of the tickets have been sold and 75 per cent for the final days of the cycling and swimming and aquatic events," he said today.
Over 12,000 merchandises have also been sold online, with the official KL2017 t-shirts being reprinted three times due to high demand.
Khairy spoke to reporters after launching the KL2017 digital platform; smartphone application, official YouTube channel and official Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
The YouTube channel will host 15 channels with two of which are live for selected events and 13 other for video on demand.
KL2017's Malaysia Organising Committee (Masoc) has 30 in-house journalists, 10 social media journalists and 40 photographers who will be feeding real-time updates on the events, including schedules and the athletes' "behind-the-scene" moments, on the applications.
Besides being an interactive medium, the social media assets have also garnered tens of thousands of organic impressions without any spending on advertising.
"Today's sports fans are very IT-literate and demand instant access to information especially on the latest developments of their favourite athletes, match results, medal tally and so on.
"Through the application launched today, all the information will now be available at their fingertips," he said.
The KL2017 application can now be downloaded on iOS and Android.