Johor being the "new kid" on the block was raw as the organisers had their first taste of running an international open tournament. So it was to be expected that there were areas found lacking in Johor Open compared to other "seasoned" chess opens like the Malaysian Open, Selangor Open and Penang Open.

From the dates above, we can safely say that Johor had significantly more "exposure" based on all my chess blog traffic compared to Penang. Even more surprising is that with the many failed tries in Johor the 'live' broadcast in Penang was definitely better and yet Penang Open traffic did not surpass Johor's.

I do not know the real reason but can only come up with my own theory and reason:

internet access.

Johor had fast fixed line (UNIFI) internet so it was easy to make postings and broadcast live videos etc. whereas in Penang, I had no access to the hotel wifi, relying heavily on my own Maxis prepaid and PCA's P1 which ran out of quota multiple times and was expensive so in the end live video had to be cut on day 2 and relying instead on the chess move broadcast which took less bandwidth.

My personal conclusion is that fast stable internet is crucial for internet coverage for a chess event. Of course, the other big factor is maybe my lack of postings and updates for Penang, but that again is attributed to technical problems with getting the DGT boards online as well as limited internet connection.