The Nation And Thaivisa.com Sign Internet Forum Deal

[george]

PRESS RELEASE

29 January 2009

For immediate release

The Nation and ThaiVisa.com sign Internet forum deal

BANGKOK: -- The Nation Multimedia Group has signed a joint-venture agreement with ThaiVisa.com to provide an English-language community forum on the Internet.

"The partnership will help to forge better communications on Thailand-related issues to meet the needs of both Thais and the expat community on subjects of mutual interest as well as their individual interests. Our joint efforts represent a growing force, and we are pleased to work with ThaiVisa.com as the leading community/social networking English-language website on Thailand," says The Nation COO Pana Janviroj.

"We are very excited about this venture," says Barry Main, marketing director of ThaiVisa.com. This extends the user base for us, and we see synergy effects and marketing possibilities working with a large news organisation. With this growth in the user base we hope to increase the variety of content and reach a wider section of the foreign and Thai community," says Barry Main.

The forum is located at http://www.thaivisa.com/forum

The Nation Multimedia Group, one of Thailand's leading multimedia companies, was founded in 1971 to publish the country's first Thai-owned and run English newspaper. Since then The Nation Multimedia Group has expanded operations to broadcast media, including The Nation Channel and The Nation Radio, and have launched several other media publications. The company is listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET).

ThaiVisa.com owns Asia's largest expatriate-oriented community website, with over 70,000 registered members. The ThaiVisa Expat Forum launched in 2002, and today boasts more than 20,000 unique visitors per day and serves more than four million pages per month. In addition to its very active forum, ThaiVisa also operates travel and hotel booking services, insurance services and online classified ads.

---

Nation Multimedia Group Public Co., Ltd

www.nationgroup.com

Khun Pana Janviroj, COO

email: jpana[at]nationgroup.com

www.Thaivisa.com

Mr. Barry Main, Marketing Director

email: marketing[at]thaivisa.com

-- The Nation 2009-01-29

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotne...rnet-forum-deal

[Splatter]

Excellent idea by The Nation.

Do they expect Thai Visa members to help their journalists with a spell and grammar check service?

[wedders]

Considerable misgivings, given the rather obvious bias of this particular journal in recent times.

[mrtoad]

Not good.

The Nation is a joke, and it also has unpleasant political leanings.

Will they now start asking for moderation of posts that are critical of their crap journalism or political beliefs?

[LifeConvo]

Great, another biased internet forum.

End of a good run though I suppose.

[MyphuketLife]

Not good.

The Nation is a joke, and it also has unpleasant political leanings.

Will they now start asking for moderation of posts that are critical of their crap journalism or political beliefs?

We will all know soon enough when the mods snip or delete your post

I don't see the big deal, the nation will link to thaivisa.com/forum.... what is specail about this...? and the PR people thaivisa is a "social networking" site... get real internet forum and social networking sites are not one in the same thing.

Edited January 29, 2009 by MyphuketLife

[sangfroid]

The Nation....It is in dire financial straits isn't it?

[Martin]

Yes, 'Wedders'.

Considerable misgivings are appropriate, no matter what bias such a partner has.

This could rebound on the expatriate community quite badly.

Perhaps someone should start a 'stand alone' website that we can point to as being neutral to head off the stereotyping that is likely to occur in the minds of influential Thais---especially if it is stirred up by the NoFIMBY (No farangs in my backyard) brigade.

[george]

Yen yen. This is a marketing deal, not a management deal. Nobody will change the way Thaivisa forum get its news och how we present them.

Do not worry.

[Mobi]

Could someone kindly explain what this announcement means in practical terms, and what ar the ramifications are, if any, on the Thai Visa forums as we now know them.

Thank you.

[sbk]

From my understanding, The Nation will have no control over forum rules or moderator behavior whatsoever. Posts get snipped for breaking the rules, if you have difficulty being civil then you will find your posts deleted

[fred2007]

Excellent idea by The Nation.

Do they expect Thai Visa members to help their journalists with a spell and grammar check service?

[mrtoad]

Yes, 'Wedders'.

Considerable misgivings are appropriate, no matter what bias such a partner has.

This could rebound on the expatriate community quite badly.

Perhaps someone should start a 'stand alone' website that we can point to as being neutral to head off the stereotyping that is likely to occur in the minds of influential Thais---especially if it is stirred up by the NoFIMBY (No farangs in my backyard) brigade.

A good point as always.

This has the potential to cause problems, and having a newspaper working in collaberation with an open forum means that there could be a number of conflicts of interest. It'll will take a lot more convincing from Admin on this. At the moment, it just doesn't sit right.

[george]

Could someone kindly explain what this announcement means in practical terms, and what ar the ramifications are, if any, on the Thai Visa forums as we now know them.

Thank you.

The only thing that you will notice is the re-branding plus an influx of new members/readers. This is called branding/marketing and has nothing to do with management.

The Nation and Thaivisa has been friends for many years, and now we reflect that in a co-branding and some marketing synergies.

Both The Nation and Thaivisa are separate entities with separate management. We will continue so.

[george]

This has the potential to cause problems, and having a newspaper working in collaberation with an open forum means that there could be a number of conflicts of interest. It'll will take a lot more convincing from Admin on this. At the moment, it just doesn't sit right.

See my reply above. It will be no difference in content or policies.

[Merangue]

Will watch this intently. I have serious misgivings about this and i doubt that this will have no impact on the lack of bias on this forum no matter how good the intentions are.

Simple fact is that the forum is now allied with a news outlet that is not free from political leanings.

[Merangue]

This has the potential to cause problems, and having a newspaper working in collaberation with an open forum means that there could be a number of conflicts of interest. It'll will take a lot more convincing from Admin on this. At the moment, it just doesn't sit right.

See my reply above. It will be no difference in content or policies.

Not wishing to jump in but that will remain to be seen and i for one, will reserve judgement until some time has passed and we can actually see for ourselves what, if any, impact there is.

[otton]

i doubt that this will have no impact on the lack of bias on this forum no matter how good the intentions are.

Had to come out of my more or less self imposed exile for this one... No worries, this 1 post only

[mrtoad]

This has the potential to cause problems, and having a newspaper working in collaberation with an open forum means that there could be a number of conflicts of interest. It'll will take a lot more convincing from Admin on this. At the moment, it just doesn't sit right.

See my reply above. It will be no difference in content or policies.

George, thank you for your assurances., which are well intentioned. I will continue to remain sceptical about the link up with The Nation until it has been proven to be otherwise. I am sure you can understand why.

[cclub75]

Not good.

The Nation is a joke, and it also has unpleasant political leanings.

Will they now start asking for moderation of posts that are critical of their crap journalism or political beliefs?

Indeed. it's a big, big mistake.

We all know that Nation is nothing but a joke. Why ThaiVisa (who is doing great) would need such a bunch of clowns ?

I didn't read all the reactions... but it seems that many members are not happy.

Certainly, I'm not.

[dotcom]

The greatest falang web community in Thailand speads it temtacles into print media.

Still prefer the Post.

[LifeConvo]

Just out of interest, but given that thaivisa is what it is becuase of the users(all 70,000 of us). Why was there no market research done to test members positions?

Obviously I respect your comments that nothing will change in regard to content, but find it very hard to believe that the nation will be sending new users this way out of the goodness of their hearts.

[Scott]

All new ideas are bad ideas....maybe I am getting old!

Hope it works.

[Scott]

Oh quit bitching folks, it could be worse. They could have gone into partnership with that Pattaya newspaper!

[yamaharr1]

Do they expect Thai Visa members to help their journalists with a spell and grammar check service?

The Nation given an English language forum when they can hardly write in English.

I am so shocked ThaiVisa did this without hinting at the slightest to the community members to see how we felt having a puppet of the government prowling around.

I know it would never happen but I wish the users of this forum would treat you to such a surprise as you have treated us to by everyone just not coming here anymore, and watch your advertisement revenue go down the toilet. Hey ThaiVisa thanks for looking out for us great job sell out.

[kingwillly]

The only thing that you will notice is the re-branding plus an influx of new members/readers. This is called branding/marketing and has nothing to do with management.

The Nation and Thaivisa has been friends for many years, and now we reflect that in a co-branding and some marketing synergies.

Both The Nation and Thaivisa are separate entities with separate management. We will continue so.

Wooow. this is awesome, I see where admin is headed with this, and it is great, TV is already great and will just pick up more great posters along the way!

Well done to thai-visa. (again)

The awesomest forum in Thailand.

Edited January 29, 2009 by soundman
Fixed quote formatting.

[sbk]

A suggestion to all members to read the rules before posting.

I hope this is clear enough .

[hagler]

Have I fallen into a coma and woken up on April 1st ?

[A_Traveller]

Sometime people do foolish things.

Hope that is opaque enough.

Regards

Edited January 29, 2009 by A_Traveller

[Jingthing]

TV is a business. It is a business that has provided a lot of value to its many thousands of users. For free to the users. Of course, we the users provide the content that creates most of the business value for the site. In these hard times, businesses gotta do what they gotta do. You can't stay the same. In my view, there are businesses that hopefully make a good profit that are a great benefit to people and then there are those which hurt people. TV is in the former except for posting addicts like myself who of course need to get a life. Congrats on the new step, tv management.