Aw they just don't make movies like that anymore. I would normally have chef rustle us up something, but I might give him the day off so beware ! :-)
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Aw they just don't make movies like that anymore. I would normally have chef rustle us up something, but I might give him the day off so beware ! :-)
Where would the revenue come from? There's no ads on this site. He goes into his own personal pocket to keep this board running, and for that, we should all be grateful. It's unsustainable though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dalewood
He's also spending far more than he needs to. This board could cost around $10/month to run, and I think he's spending around $250/month to keep it online. Up to him
This phpBB software that the Board, here in the back of the site, runs on is unforgiving in it's limits. The WP front end is much more modern in it's capabilities. but doesn't marry well with the phpBB and requires a lot more expertise in the management of both software platforms to keep them integrated with each other. Additionally how media is managed between the two platforms creates redundancies with the amount of files we need to store and managing the storage locations and file libraries, so that these files continue to work (ie. the wallpaper in Smiles" signature).
A few years back I bought vBulletin software for the site that was described to me as a lot more modern for Forums and Message Boards that would address many, if not most of our long standing issues with this site and it's limits. By moving the site from two platforms to one should allow me to shrink the overall disc space the site uses, so that I can move it over to a cheaper server arrangement. I'll also be able to cut the WP portion of the site off and save the monthly fee on that. I'm working on moving us to vBulletin 5 in the near future, which is why I posted the Sawatdee Network Update thread as an announcement.
I'm hopeful that these changes will make the site more manageable for me from a time perspective. more cost effective and more enjoyable for you the user by addressing the issues we've had (viewing the site) and by expanding the functionality of the site for you the membership.
If the site with it's new look and sleek framework becomes more attractive for someone to manage after me, that would be great. I'm going to continue discussions with the one interested party remaining, if he is still interested in taking over the site. If that doesn't pan out then we'll work on making the new site on vBulletin software great, more interactive for you and within the Web to capture and retain the new traffic coming to Thailand.
Surfcrest
Completely agree. Not just social media but even the old TV. I remember going to some villages back 15 years ago, most people lived in wooden shacks with barely a window or electricity let alone TV. Go to the same places now and its modern houses with windows, indoor bathrooms, Satellite TV. A/C and a pick up or two parked outside.Quote:
Originally Posted by Surfcrest
Times have changed, but some of the old die hard sex-pats get quite upset when you point this out.....
I recall spending a few days up in Mai Sai back in the early nineties (I was thirty Smiles...LOL) when there was still gunfire to be heard near the border. There was nothing there back then but paths through the woods and now it's a bustling dusty little border town with big paved roads and all.
Fortunately, the 1 in 10 rule definitely applies in Thailand...maybe leaning more to 2 and if your gaydar is working okay...you should still probably find someone, no matter what corner of the country you're in.
Surfcrest
One simply has to keep up with the times. Entertainment is still easily available, only its moved onto the online platform and I dare say its actually still very very affordable. Sure the peasants no longer live in mud huts but there are more of them thanks to modern medicine and they all want modern shiny objects which can only be obtained via cold hard cash...so onto line, gayromeo, grindr they go.
Sure I do prefer to go to an old style bar where the boys flock around you, treat you like royalty and you get to play/grope several before making a choice, but these establishments are no longer what they used to be as lots of the good stuff is online.
Haven't checked here for a few weeks and find this surprising topic, not really, was mentioned earlier as planned, just not this fast.
It really is a shame that there is nobody out there who actually has the skills and business sense to make something like this work.
That includes the other 2-3 gay Thai forums, just as hopeless.
Somebody mentioned the Singapore website, which I know and in the past sometimes posted on as a guest, which I think is a great feature.
Moderating a forum is done to members if needed, why not guests also. It breaks an extra level which some do not want to take.
Then if I remember correctly, as a new member, your post has to be approved, which can be hours up to a day with 1 moderator.
As I mentioned before and the owner acknowledges, this site is out of date.
My opinion is (not that anybody cares) it is out of date, because new members are not welcomed. View any topic, all gets back to a few hardcore longterm "gay" members, who fight together over about just everything.
Well this is my foolish attempt to get this topic back on track, sorry, I'm a lost cause, always hopeful.
Anyway best to the current and future owner. #-o
PS. I just saw I can not reply to the other topic, it is locked.
I know for a fact my email will not be valid anymore, because for any social media I always use an onetime email address. In this case hushmail, but the free option, that stays valid for 3 weeks. This email address is long deleted in their system, so I guess I will just have to signup as oldfarang2 then or something when the time comes.
I mentioned the Singapore site. I dip in occasionally. Once you sift through the threads/posts geared specifically to the present day's young/very young generation, there are usually some nuggets. I have found more there regarding useful gay travel information about much of the region than on any other Board.Quote:
Originally Posted by oldfarang
But I disagree about guests. Again from my limited reading, it is the guests who provide most of the troll posts there and some guests' personal attacks seem to border on actual libe!! That's not a result of lack of moderators because they seem to have at least 6. It just seems to be a more open Board policy. But that seems to contradict the policy which states upfront - "BlowingWind Board Without An Attitude. A forum for the mature Singapore GAY man." I suppose it is just inevitable that many of the postings pay no attention to the description "mature".
What I do find extraordinary, though, is the latitude given to that Board by the Singapore government and its censors. There have certainly been threads and comments which could never appear in, say, The Straits Times.
The site is hosted by a company in Chennai, India from the looks of things. The Signapore government can't touch it. I guess they could politely request the hosting company takes the site offline, but not much else, and good chance the hosting company would just say, "we like having our monthly invoice paid, so no, we're not taking it down".Quote:
Originally Posted by fountainhall
I guess they could add it to their firewall for Singapore residents, but that's about it. And if the average membership is as young as you say, then they probably all know how to get around a firewall.
Just for clarification, that site is openly accessible in Singapore - and everywhere else, even mainland China.Quote:
Originally Posted by cdnmatt
I mentioned it merely because it is a site with a large active membership which accepts members and guests, some of whom - as another poster has pointed out - are non-Singaporeans. However, it is virtually unique around the region in that English is one of the national languages in Singapore. It's therefore both easily accessible and readable by non-Singaporeans. I'm sure the Thai language chat rooms - and indeed those in Japan, Taiwan and others around the region - have equally large memberships understandably restricted almost exclusively to locals. Readership of the few remaining English chat Boards centred on gay Thailand, however, is limited to a tiny clutch of the expats who live here, mostly centred around Pattaya, and a far tinier fraction of the tourists who visit. Surfcrest is well aware of this. I'm sure the owner of gaythailand.com is also. Yet both sites carry on seemingly losing more members than they gain with many topics returning regularly as the occasional new members seek out information seemingly without bothering to search for it (although some past info is inevitably outdated)!
Having been contributing to various sites over the last 10 years, I don't like being a prophet of doom. But looking at all the changes in travel patterns, technology, society, politics etc. that have taken place in that time, looking at how the bar scene is changing - there is a thread today about yet another bar closing in Sunee - and how the younger Thai bar boys, at least in Bangkok, are increasingly being replaced with guys from Laos, Myanmar and other neighbouring countries, at how so much of the fun has disappeared from the commercial bar scene, sadly I don't see the future with much optimism.
I completely agree with you. As I said previously, if this board stays in its current format, I give it 24 months maximum before it's offline.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's doomed though. Depends what the new owner does with it. There's still lots of Thais out there who are a) looking for a long-term relationship with a farang, and b) willing to take their pants off for a little money. From what you guys say, I guess many of them aren't desperate enough to move to Pattaya and work in a go-go bar, but they're still out there.
I'm not buying the board, but if I was going to, again, I'd revamp it to concentrate on Thai-Farang hook ups, so the Thais out there can keep their exploits low key, and don't have to worry about the social stigma of working in a bar. Huge gamble, more than likely would be a complete flop, but chance it could be quite successful as well.
That's probably because men can still be imprisoned for up to two years for being gay in Singapore although it's rarely enforced. I imagine there's likely to be a lot more activity and interest in countries which are fighting for basic lgbt rights.Quote:
Originally Posted by fountainhall
It'd be incredibly hard to compete with hookup apps like Planet Romeo et al and dating sites like Thai Cupid and Thai Friendly.Quote:
Originally Posted by cdnmatt
Yes, it would be, hence the "huge gamble" part. Definitely possible though. Slant the marketing angle towards Thai-Farang hook ups / relationships, instead of just general dating, and there's a chance of success.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tobi
Costly project though. $3500 isn't bad, but it's another probably $15k of sweat equity, plus about $50k to hire a quality marketer who knows what they're doing. It would have to take off in a huge way to get your money back, but still possible. I've worked on projects that went from $0 to $200k/month within months, so nothing's impossible.
Yup, but why would you want this forum for that? You'd set up a Wordpress site with a theme such as SweetDate http://seventhqueen.com/demo/sweetdatewp-modern/ at the very least, or purchase a turnkey dating solution such as SkaDate https://www.skadate.com
Because Google has some love for this board. $3500 isn't going to get you better marketing than the current search engine rankings.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tobi
Oh, and shame on you for using Wordpress. :)
You won't keep the rankings with a change of format, not that this board ranks for "thailand gay hookups" anyway, and the brand name isn't exactly memorable. You'd be better off starting from scratch than trying to port this site's content to a new format, and use the $3500 to pay for advertising.
Wordpress currently powers 74,652,825 sites, almost a third of the internet, and has some remarkably large players in that number too. ;)
Ranks #3 for "gay thailand" though.
Obviously, you'd keep all the posts for history & link juice, so Google doesn't deindex you. Nonetheless, to rank #3 for terms like "gay thailand" is probably going to cost you more than $3500. Plus it's an aged domain, so that counts for something as well, versus firing up a new domain.
It's actually #6 you need to use an incognito tab so that your previous browsing history doesn't affect the ranking. If you kept all the posts, you'd have exactly what you have now, a Wordpress front end with a bulletin board tacked on the end. I'm afraid that no longer works. Oh, and a memorable brand trumps all. :D
Fired up a VPN + Tor, and sorry, but both google.com and google.ca are #3 ranking for "gay thailand". Not sure which locale you're using.
And yeah, Wordpress would be the first thing to go out the window. Wordpress is meant for throw away sites you setup in 10 minutes, not for proper online operations.
There's ways to revamp everything 100%, while keeping all posting history and URL structure. Link juice wouldn't get affected too much.
Doesn't matter anyway. I'm purely a tech guy, not a marketer, so revamping this place would take a lot of resources that I don't have. I'm not willing to drop say $65k on this place, which is about the minimum it'd be.
You need to use an incognito tab in Chrome to check google.com absolute rankings.Quote:
Originally Posted by cdnmatt
Oh, maybe you should let the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Reuters, et al know that. =))Quote:
Originally Posted by cdnmatt
http://torquemag.io/2015/08/brands-cele ... wordpress/
Which Google site are you using? google.com.au ranks this forum #4 for "gay thailand", and google.co.uk ranks it #7. google.com and google.ca however both rank it #3. The locales matter when it comes to search engine rankings. Google changes the rankings depending on country.
Google changes the ranking depending on a lot of things, whether you're logged in to Google or a Google service such as Gmail or YouTube, cookies stored, previous browsing history, etc. etc. it's why you need to use an incognito tab in Chrome. However, even absolute rankings can change minute-by-minute, depending on the popularity of the keyword. It's also academic as "gay thailand" in this context is a very weak keyword, no-one searching for a hook-up or a date would type that. If you search for "gay thailand hookup" or "gay thailand dating" using an incognito tab in Chrome you'll find that this site appears many pages in, if it ranks at all.
Are you by chance a tech guy, or more of manager? If the latter, take my word for it. VPN + Tor is far more private than an "igconito" tab in Chrome, because if you do that, you're still usng the same IP address which gives you away.
There's a reason Google is king, and it's not because they're stupid. From the sounds of things, your search results are doctored & personalzed more than mine.
I'd say it's a silly idea. Popular hookup apps work anywhere and everywhere, why even focus on the Thai-farang theme that is going out of fashion? Farang who come as visitors can simply use Grindr, Hornet and similar apps. Often they visit addition countries in the region anyway, especially the younger ones. Those who stay long-term can participate in the Thai-language groups on Facebook and Line - I'd say the existing Thai-language hookup web sites are faced with similar prospects as the farang forums.
Hahaha, from the guy that reckons "Wordpress is meant for throw away sites you setup in 10 minutes, not for proper online operations". =))Quote:
Originally Posted by cdnmatt
haha, for the guys who prefer to look for problems instead of solutions.
You are correct about the Law in Singapore. For years the government has said, whilst it is not prepared to abolish the relevant Article, it will not enforce it. And this seems to be more or less true except for those who prey on other guys openly in swimming pools etc. Singapore actually has quite an open gay scene with a number of saunas, gay bars and meeting places. It is also extremely cruisy! There certainly used to be police harassment. That cute guy making overtures to you on the beach was quite likely to be a cop out of uniform wishing to add to his arrest total. That doesn't happen nowadays. But as for fighting for basic rights, very few on that Blowing Wind forum seem to care much. I see occasional posts but the feeling of most Singapore guys I come across is basically don't push the government; live-and-let-live.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tobi
My own gut feeling is that the government is quite happy to keep that site up and running as long as it does not get involved in politics. It can also be monitored. Better to corral the unwanted gay community into one closet where they can talk about their feelings and sex without being a nuisance to law abiding citizens!
I can take Singapore for 3 or 4 days maximum and then I just want to get away!
I only took a peek at Blowing Wind but posts such as "Is Penetration Important?" and "Is Masturbation Sinful?" just gave me the impression of an oppressed or repressed group taking a much needed opportunity to discuss privately what we in the West now happily discuss very, very publicly. In fact, too publicly sometimes!! I was on a train a few weeks ago and earwigged on a group of young men in school uniform. They were unabashedly discussing which of their girlfriends liked anal and whether or not anyone had ever found a girl who would rim them. Oh, how the times have changed. :)
"Oh, how the times have changed"
Really, hmmm maybe not so much as I recall my friends and I having many similar conversations on the school bus, all outdoing each other about how far we were getting with our respective girlfriends and what dirty horny bitches they were and how we were shagging them senseless every other day - when of course the truth was that most of us wouldn't have known a fanny if it had jumped out and bitten us on the cock ! :) Hmmmm, maybe not that different to this board perhaps not that I think of it either if you replace the fanny with paid ( or very VERY very cheap ass - actually the cheaper and more used the better for some it seems) maybe :-)