ASEANNOW.com - Thaivisa.com rebrands and expands beyond Thailand

[JamesBird]

I see a good idea to open up the whole area info globally, "All in One" is what could drive more visitors indeed, but its going to be a considerable amount of work & investment to gain the targeted audiences. Meanwhile a lot well done via ThaiVisa that could be improved on some main Thai/English topics that would drive more views/visitors in my point of views.
Anyway interesting, ... 
Best,
J.

[Phoenix Rising]

Hope they bring back an international news section cause I now find myself "liking" posts from members I previously just argued with:)

BBB - Bring Back Bickering!

Edited July 2, 2021 by Phoenix Rising

[Johnny Mac]

All about the money innit.

 

 

[Johnny Mac]

20 minutes ago, Oxx said:

Why did the person who chose the new domain name want "a Sean now"? Is he/she desperate for an Irish man?

 

Sorry, but that;s about as funny as a poke in the eye.

 

C- must do better.

[Poet]

27 minutes ago, mrmicbkktxl said:

How much would be the costs to do so?How much would be the monthly costs if you start without advertisers?

The main cost in setting up a new forum is time. Servers are now essentially free and excellent forum software is also free.

Starting from scratch, you would have the advantage of being able to use more modern, more cleverly designed forum software such as Discourse. It allows your contributors to build their reputation in an enjoyable, gamified way, and has a lot of small features that make it easier for them to add content and encourage engagement on your forum

Discourse is free if you install and manage it on your own server.

Cloud servers start at €2.49 per month for a cloud server with 2 GB of RAM but you would be better off starting at €4.90 for 4 GB of RAM, to give you more headroom. Increase the RAM as you gain more users, but it will be a while before you need to do that.

You can also rent a managed version of Discourse for around $100 per month with they run for you on their server, you simply login with your admin username and password. Personally I think that is wildly overpriced, but it might be worth it if you are uncomfortable with the technical stuff and just want to focus on building your community.

There are, of course, many other types of software forum. The point is to find one that will make it as easy as possible for your users to become engaged. The really old types of forum software, such as vBulletin or the IPB sofware used by ThaiVisa, have been updated over the decades but, at heart, they are dinosaurs. They only survive because big forums don't have much choice apart from sticking with the software they started with.

[Poet]

1 hour ago, Neeranam said:

OMG, I can still see posters that I blocked ages ago! 

Hello Sexy!

[Ginkas]

16 minutes ago, Chris.B said:

The type is too hard to read, please make it darker.

Agreed.

Light Grey against Off-White background is difficult for old eyes to see.

[kotsak]

2 hours ago, J Town said:

What the hell?!? The font just went back to suck and the option to change the Theme was removed.

Not bad for day #1 ????

[kotsak]

4 minutes ago, Ginkas said:

Agreed.

Light Grey against Off-White background is difficult for old eyes to see.

Old or young, this combo sucks big time..

[Poet]

1 hour ago, kingstonkid said:

One of the things I remember the most about here was the GRAND OPENING of the THAI VISA BAR.

 

 

1 hour ago, John Drake said:

I remember their advertising member parties for the bar. I often wondered is there were any fistfights that happened.

I presume all the moderators got glassed within a week of opening.

 

[ThLT]

Jack of all trades, master of none. . . Now more like "master of one, trying to be a jack of all trades"?
 

How is trying to group expats from multiple different countries all on one website in any way beneficial (and not lead to a cacophony of non-useful information)?

[jomtienisgood]

9 hours ago, edwardandtubs said:

Uninspiring name and I'm sure the non-Thai forums will remain largely empty. Expats in the Philippines and elsewhere have their own places to hang out.

Me too, Soi Nana.. 5555

[josephbloggs]

Great, now we get to find out if expats in the other countries are as sad, bitter, and negative as the the ones in Thailand.

[jomtienisgood]

9 hours ago, edwardandtubs said:

Uninspiring name and I'm sure the non-Thai forums will remain largely empty. Expats in the Philippines and elsewhere have their own places to hang out.

Me too, Soi Nana... 

[jacko45k]

2 minutes ago, josephbloggs said:

Great, now we get to find out if expats in the other countries are as sad, bitter, and negative as the the ones in Thailand.

Or more so.......

[rumak]

15 hours ago, Poet said:

Despite the TAT-style claims about how well the forum has been doing, we all know the reality, and we all know why it has happened, no point going into that. Suffice to say that the turnover of good contributors has been high, while the dregs and loonies tend to accumulate.

 

very good post.    ( only exception i take is to the "we all know the reality". )  

I am not so sure the dregs and loonies which accumulate know the reality .

in fact they are probably enjoying the dumbing down of all content.

No more audacious people with opposing and often intelligent views.  

"OK RUMAK,   You're outta here " !

 

 

[Poet]

2 minutes ago, josthomz said:

And you think a €4.90/month server with 4GB of RAM is anywhere near enough to being able to withstand the amount of Thai Bashing that gets posted to this forum per second?

No. Read what I wrote. It takes time, lots of time, to build a community. You could actually run Discourse on 2 GB but I am suggesting 4 GB to deal with spikes of usage when you might have a few hundred people online.

There is zero reason to increase that to 6 or 8 GB until you are dealing with significantly more users and that sort of growth is not going to happen overnight.

People who don't understand servers always make your mistake of wildly overestimating how many users they will have on Day One. The reality is that you would be lucky to get more then a few dozen visitors per hour during your first few months.

When you do need more RAM, you press a button. Simple.

 

 

7 minutes ago, josthomz said:

What a joke, a €4.90/month server might easily run out of resources with 10 concurrent users…. 

Absolute nonsense. You have no idea what you are talking about.

Your lack of clue is amply demonstrated by the fact that you are focusing on the price of the server rather than the resources. Prices vary wildly depending on supplier. No one with actual experience of running servers would ever measure their capacity by price.

 

 

13 minutes ago, josthomz said:

If you wanna test your website, your probably better off hosting it on your own computer using your own home internet than in one of those cheapish, limited 4€ servers. 

Sweet Jesus.

 

[Bangkok Barry]

8 hours ago, bermondburi said:

Why care. 

 

It's just a forum on t'internet for people with too much time on their hands.

 

You think? Then why do you read it? And have you never found any of the information on the site useful?

[grantbkk]

I remember that it all changed when someone tied all this to a new health insurance business. The Apple and Android apps went dead. I got a day off for asking about clickbait.

I’m sure my data is protected and the management will not hand over any personal data. 

[JeffersLos]

8 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

What... you mean you were inspired to join this forum initially because it was called ThaiVisa ????

 

No, but typing in Thai Visa to the search engine brought me here.

 

Anybody looking for requirements to get an Asian Now will now have just as much success. :) 

[EricTh]

I find the new fonts in this new forum difficult to read . Could someone make the fonts darker and more 3D?

[VBF]

8 hours ago, misterjames said:

I agree, and not only that but if our user data has been transferred to another country we should have been notified.

 

We should also have the choice to accept or decline our user data being transferred with an option to close our accounts and have all of our data removed if we do not accept.

Well if you are unwise enough to include ANY critical user data on ANY forum you only have yourself to blame.

Board name, unique email address, whatever you WISH people to know about you - that's it.

There are a few personal friends / acquaintances who could identify me here....because I set it that way.

Up to you.

Edited July 2, 2021 by VBF

[newnative]

Not a fan at all of this change.  I liked the website being focused on Thailand.

[Mr Meeseeks]

It was always nice that Thai expats had a place to call their own online here, now it seems this re-brand will destroy the exclusivity of a loyal, Thai-based community that Thaivisa worked so hard to achieve.

 

So many other forums have gone by the wayside over the years since the days of the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree (that was the first Thai online forum fyi).

 

In the words of Oates to Scott of the Antarctic, "I am just going outside and may be some time."

 

 

[kynikoi]

Combined two words where letters double up. Website windows 95 era no-no.

 

aseannow  nn

 

Oops

[J Town]

57 minutes ago, Poet said:

OMG, I can still see posters that I blocked ages ago! 

We're BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

[J Town]

10 minutes ago, EricTh said:

I find the new fonts in this new forum difficult to read . Could someone make the fonts darker and more 3D?

I just found a CHROME extension called Dark Mode. I fiddle farted with Stylus and didn't like it. This Dark Mode extension worked instantly and is easier on both your monitor and your eyes.

[VBF]

3 hours ago, Jingthing said:

That's an interesting point. 

I think the vast majority of expats living in Asean know what Asean means compared to Asia. But if you ask the average American on the street for example, I would presume only a small percentage would have a clue what Asean means. 

Ducking for cover, when I lived in USA, I found the average American on the street didn't even know where Asia WAS!

Often referred to as part of "that there overseas"     I too, wish the emojis were working! 

[Michael Hare]

Took me a little while to find the Thai farming forum which is my main interest. The font is not clear at all. 

 

[trainman34014]

The last Paragraph reminds me of what happened when a small, staff caring Family Business i worked for, got swallowed up by a huge Conglomorate basically only interested in 'The Bottom Line'.    At the new owners briefing they said   ''No need to worry, for you the staff nothing will change and you carry on as normal''.   Within two years they had stripped out the company and fired off (redundant) over 100 of the staff !