Thailand Online Business for Sale (ThaiPulse.com)

Online Business for Sale:

Thailand’s Travel Blog Network

If you are an expat in Thailand and you are looking for a way to make money without having to do much of anything, just update your web site every day or so this is a 39,000 baht solution (about $1300 usd) that can start earning you money right away.

This web site is geared toward building a network of writers on the site that write about all different subjects related to Thailand.

It’s an “online business” because you can do whatever you like to the pages I created… filling them with your ads for e-books, Google Adsense ads, Yahoo ads, Text to Link ads, or whatever you choose. There are many ways to monetize (add money-making capability) to your new site. What I’ve done is just add some Google Adsense ads here. I also have an affiliate membership with “Wired-Destinations.com” that provides online hotel reservations that go through my site.

There is really no end to what you could do if you chose to.

If you are undecided about a topic that you want some feedback on - write me an email or find me on chat: Google Talk: thaipulse; Yahoo messenger: Thaipulse_mirror; Skype: thaipulse

I’ll let you know what I think and how we could implement your idea into the site. I am giving away 15 free hours of programming to help you change the site any way that you wish. You can completely customize it and make it any of the following:

• English-Thai Translation site
• Sell your e-Book (Create a Word .DOC and then convert to PDF format. I can show you how)
• Sell your Thai products
• Sell your English Lesson Plans to other teachers
• Create an online Chat Site where you are teaching English through Chat and charging cash by PayPal.
• Create Thailand’s largest movie and photos site. Already there are 500+ photos and 100+ movies for viewing. It may already BE the largest site in Thailand with 390 pages of content.
• Add your blog to the site and make daily updates about whatever topics you like.
• Create reports about each city that expats usually visit.
• Focus on Hotel Reservations
• Focus on Thailand Maps and how to get around.
• Focus on Hostels and Cheap Things to do in Thailand for the backpacker crowd.
• Advertise your real estate services
• Advertise your expat insurance services
• Advertise your web-hosting services
• Advertise your Search Engine Optimization Services
• Advertise your writing skills
• Advertise WHATEVER!

There are already more than 1200 persons per day coming to the site. If you keep adding content - like through writing blog articles a few times per week - in a year you could have something that produces good income and is working to make you money as you’re sleeping.

I think realistically you should be able to quit your teaching job in Thailand after about a year of effort to make this site, your site, something special that brings a benefit of some sort to the readers.

Let me know if you have any ideas and I’ll let you know what I think…

Vern

Thailand Web Site for Sale: www.ThaiPulse.com

Thailand Web Site Business for Sale:

Ok, regular readers will get sick of these posts because all I’m going to talk about is my web site that I put up for sale yesterday. Skip reading for the next week or so until the site is sold because I really need to focus my blog posts about it!

Price: 39,000 Thai baht. Updated stats for ThaiPulse.com >

Why would you buy a web site?

Currently it’s showing about 1200 pages per day. That’s a lot of eyeballs seeing whatever you choose to put up on the site. If you had a product to sell or some service to sell you could add a lot of ads to the pages focused on that product or service and sell more of whatever it is.

The stats for this site are growing all the time since it’s a very new site - End of December it was pretty much done. I’ve been trying to get links to it and marketing it over these months. To go from 0 page views per day to over 1200 is pretty good in 5 months.

I think in the next 5 months traffic should triple. That’s a guess based on what I know about Google and how it works.

If you are adding content to the pages regularly - with a blog that you add to the site (I’ll show you how) then you might expect much better numbers.

You might have another site that is important to you - more important than this site right now… If you bought this site and put links from it to your other site - that other site would appear more respected in Google’s eyes since www.ThaiPulse.com already has a Google Pagerank of 2.

There are over 390 pages on the site. I think the only part that is not complete is the “maps” section - which I’ve just not had the time to go find some that are sized small enough - and yet have enough detail to add to the site.

There is a reservation system for hotels with wired-destinations.com that you could join (free) and earn commission on reservations through the system coming through the site.

Many possibilities…. If you need help getting something going when you buy it - let me know… I’m offering 15 free hours of help to change the site to be focused more on what you have in mind.

Ok - go check it out! I put up recent stats that you can find here:

ThaiPulse Statistics, updated May 28, 2007 >

www.ThaiPulse.com is for Sale!

Ok, there is just no way I can keep all the things going that I have going.

I’m definitely moving back to the states and I think my Thai sites will suffer for it as I will have other projects stateside that I need to take care of.

I will sell the www.ThaiPulse.com web site, domain, hosting for a year and include 15 hours of free custom programming for the buyer(s). Just let me know what changes you want made and I’ll do them for free for you - for 15 hours worth. If you want more than that, additional hours can be bought in groups of 10 hours for 4000 baht.

I think this is VERY fair… If the site was US based I could sell it for around $4000 usd. I’m sure there must be someone here that wants to have their own web site and wants to get one that’s already listed in Google and has PageRank for cheap. It’s a good deal and I’ll help you in whatever way I can with your questions.

This sale does not include the blogs that are linked off the home page or the blogs that reside in subdomains on the site. I’ll remove those. You can continue to link to them if you like, and you can continue to build the Travel Blog Network that I envisioned, or go some other direction entirely - up to you.

Photos, videos, and all mp3, PDF files and what not - can remain on the site. Your license for these is for viewing at this web site. You cannot sell photos or videos or any other PDF, mp3, or other content separately from the site.

Meaning, you can buy the site and resell it - with all rights going with the sale, the next owner can disply the photos and videos, etc. But, nobody can sell the content individually because you do not own it - you have a lease to display it on the site for as long as you own the site.

Ok, good luck… First person or group to send the cash via ATM transfer (ask for numbers) will get it.

There are no refunds as there are no refunds in Thailand… Ask everything you need to know before purchasing! Good Luck… I’ve listed the sale in BahtSold, and will possibly put it at Godaddy site sales as well so at this price it should go quickly.

Running an Internet Web Site or Business in Thailand?

If you’re running an internet business based in Thailand right now

- Is this the place you ought to be?

I started out a couple years ago thinking that the internet space in Thailand is so ripe for some major projects. Some cities have fast service that’s consistent enough to use for movie and photo transfer, FTP’ing whole sites and other info. I started thinking about opportunities here. I moved over here to find out.

Then, the more I used the internet here the more I realized - wow, we are back in 1998 in Communist China.

Expats, please understand something… the Thai government and those that will soon be government (maybe) are feeling the pressure from the international community. Countries like Laos are laughing at Thailand right now because Laos’ government appears more stable and viable than does this one.

In the short-term future there may be a serious backlash against those of you that are running adult sites from Thailand. It’s easy to find you, Google and a WHOIS search will find 70% of you. The other 30% can be found by requesting site owner information from the registrar the site was registered at. We’re all guests here - any one of us can be given the boot back home whenever they choose to do so.

You may soon have your sites blocked in Thailand. They may pursue some charge against you. If you’re teaching you might find your work permit cancelled and you have a trip back to your home country.

Thailand is making it very difficult for foreigners to stay and thrive. By blocking Youtube for instance, they have killed a large part of my marketing for some of my sites. Not killed, but put a serious hole in it. I think the time might be coming over the next couple years where Thailand gets rid of sites like stickmanbangkok, mangosauce, and some of the forums and sites that talk extensively about how to find the dirty business going on in Thailand. They might make efforts to restrict the bar scene in Nana, Patpong, Patong, Pattaya…

I see an effort that appears like they are starting to think seriously about cleaning up their image. There are many Thai people overseas, either as visitors or living. There are those that have high-connections with the Thai elite back here in Bangkok. They read the newspapers in America. They see the news in France, England, Germany… The government is aware of their standing internationally… They used to be on a good footing. They used to almost have some respect. They’re quickly loosing everything though and I think there will be serious efforts to quickly bring the country to a state of balance starting with eliminating the negative influences that exist among us.

The Thais’ hate to lose face, and though they’ve lost more than they can regain in 20 years, they seem to have some ideas about how to gain it back…

The ministry of Tourism is really changing who they market to. I think they believe they can have John & Mary Smith and their 3.4 kids come over from Switzerland and replace the 5 sexpats that are sucking the face right off of Thailand and bragging about it on their blogs.

There is a serious concern with what information is allowed to get across the routers and come into Thailand.

They block WHOLE services, not just a video or two. They block all the blogs from blogger, not just a couple. Do you think they’d think twice about blocking Stickmanbangkok if they wanted to? Do you think they’d think twice because the farangs got all bent out of shape over it? I don’t think so. I think they might do it in the future just so they can gain some face internationally (at least on the surface). Is stickman contributing to the face of Thailand? I’d say not. Though many articles are geared toward explaining Thai culture through the eyes of the visitors, too many articles are focused on the sexpat nature of their visits and what can be found and had in Thailand that can’t be found and had in their own civilized country that has a lot of “Face”.

I think they might clean up - block 2000 or more sites in the future, and celebrate that they cleaned up the internet for Thailand and that Thailand will no longer be seen as a sexpat destination.

Maybe they’ll choose 2008 - with the next electorates in place, to revolutionize the whole country - start a 5 year plan to remove negative influences on Thai people and convert their tourist base from sexpats to Ward and June Cleaver types with their kids Wally and Beaver.

Are you SURE they won’t?

I’m not sure anymore. I don’t like the whole uncertainty that’s here. I don’t feel like I want to be a part of it here really.

I think now would be a good time for those with questionable sites and blogs to diversify a bit and get something else going as well. Focus another site or sites on something positive - something that won’t get closed down. Host your sites and blogs on a server that isn’t related to some major entity. Host your site and a mirror of it - that you can activate if you are blocked at one server IP address.

Think about redundancy because you may need it.

Already if you had posted all your marketing videos and efforts at Youtube you’ve likely switched to Google and others. Think along those lines for everything you do online - and have backup plans since nothing is really stable here anymore. Anything can change tomorrow.

I don’t feel comfortable here anymore and I’m not even locked in here with business interests, a home, property or anything else that would keep me here… I can imagine that some expats that have been here for 5+ years have some things they’d not like to lose.

Time to think about what you have here - and if you had to move back to your home country, what is the process you’d need to go through to do that.

Time to think about - if you lost your web site which is bringing you $500 usd or more per month and is a nice supplement to your income, how could you replace it, mirror it, change it to be acceptable, or ditch it and go with something else quickly, smoothly?

Time to think about what you say on your blog, on your site. I had read something about those that are referring visitors to see banned Youtube videos via proxy servers - are going to themselves be prosecuted. And yet, this morning I saw some posts that talked about how to go find a proxy - and named them. If you’re going to operate a forum or a blog that allows comments you’ve got to be watching things all the time.

Everything you write and say on your blog - or that others write and say will be judged if found. I don’t understand the judging process here as it’s totally subjective and at someone’s whim. I’d rather play it really safe.

Ok - anyway - just something to think about…

Thailand Blocks (Blocked?) Blogger / Blogspot Blogs?

A few blogs are reporting that some internet service providers (ISPs) are blocking internet access to blogger blogs on Blogspot.com. I haven’t experienced any trouble as my blogspot blog is working ok this morning - and I’m accessing through AIS mobile phone modem on GPRS.

One of the bloggers at our network said that his other blog - the one that isn’t hosted at our network is getting blocked - and it is on blogspot.com. Hmm…

Thailand really is looking like a joke lately. It’s like Communist China - blocking web sites where people speak their mind about politics and other subjects. Myself? I like to just shut up about everything. It’s not my country, I’m not a citizen here. I enjoy my blogs. I don’t want to be blocked. I think the government policies are so often times, a joke, but what’s the point in me talking about them - let the Thais’ fix their own country.

I don’t feel like it’s my job. Yes, I feel badly for the Thai people, but they have this mai pen rai attitude that lets it all continue… so why shouldn’t I? I think I should fit into the society, not disrupt it. Yes I think differently, but if the Thais’ aren’t acting out - why should I? I’m not going to change their country. I don’t even want to if they don’t want to.

They could block 100 more or 1000 more public information sites like blogs, video sharing, music sharing, political points of view sites… and you know what? Thai people wouldn’t care enough to do anything about it - so why should I? Foreigners will be climbing the walls with outrage - but Thais? Mai pen rai krup…

Blocking Blogger is something I thought they would do a couple months ago. I thought - there are way too many blogs expressing opinions on Thailand’s farked state of affairs for them to continue letting them through.

It’s obvious to expats and other observers from around the world that those running the government are entirely inexperienced and have no set plan for how to govern their country. It’s a scary thing, but nothing I really want to get involved with since I’m a temporary visitor here - not a citizen.

Catching up on Thaipulse and Internet stuff…

Sorry, I must write about this again since I gave DTAC such a glowing recommendation.

I now think they suck.

The first few days were incredible. I even got the 3G signal on my phone after midnight sometimes. I think maybe they’re testing something late at night. It’s strange since there is not any official word of 3G being anywhere in Thailand yet, but that symbol pops up on the phone where the GPRS and EDGE signals are. It’s quite cool, but it’s a fake since the speeds do NOT go up.

So, DTAC GPRS / EDGE service was great for a couple days but lately it’s gone completely to hell. I switched back to AIS and spend more time at the internet cafe now. Oh, DTAC has a NO REFUND policy for when their internet over phone does suck. They admit it sucked for 4 days - (5 now), and yet they said there is no refund policy for bad service. More Thailand business logic. I’m firmly convinced Thailand is going nowhere at all in business for the next 20 years unless foreigners take over and get something done. It’s so ridiculous as to be outrageous.

Today I got so many things done at the internet cafe that I decided, I’m not selling the thaipulse site and blogs since there is too much good going to happen there in the next 6 months.

Some readers showed interest in buying the site - and a couple offers were reasonable, over 70,000 baht and I guess at this point that is close to what I would have sold for. In 6 months that figure would triple or more.

I finally figured out how to arrange the whole blog network in a way that is the best for Google ranking. I finished that whole process today and I learned a lot.

At the TP network there are about 1000 pages of HTML content focused on Thailand. In 6 months there should be another 500 or so depending on who we add to the network to blog.

One of our future writers is recovering from some bad medicine given to him by a DOCTOR.

One of our future writers is roaming England with only a backpack.

I’ve had a lot of interest from writers that don’t live in Thailand - and I’m sorry, but I don’t see how you’d be able to come up with fresh information 5 times per week that wasn’t copied from someone else’s blog or from the news sources if your’e not living here. SOME could do it, but on the whole - I’m guessing most can’t. I’d rather not have anyone not living here blogging about Thailand unless they have some years of life experience here. Or, maybe they are living back in farang land and they have a Thai wife they brought from Thailand (not bought, brought!). Maybe they can blog about the experiences that they have as a result of culture shock for her…

Ok, that’s it - ThaiPulse won’t be sold for as long as I can handle writing a new article daily.

Jason is kicking big azz on his blogging at Isaan Style… It’s interesting, he has lots of opinion and photos… and it seems like he’s loving it. He might be loving blogging more that me!

Ok, have a great day - it’s cooling off a bit with all this rain and clouds… nice time of year.

ThaiPulse Travel Blog Network: For Sale??

If you Need Help with your Blog…

I’ve never offered before because I wasn’t sure I’d have time, but now that I’ve got the next few months kind of layed out - and since it’s quite easy for me, I think I’ll be able to help some people get up and running online.

If you need help getting your blog set up and you have no idea how to go about it. I can help you get it set up on Blogger or WordPress.

If you’re a newbie - you’re much better off to go with Blogger as it will seem more intuitive to you - you’ll understand most of the buttons and links on the Blogger “Dashboard”, more than you will at WordPress - which I’m still having trouble understanding. Their layout is ridiculous, but finally I’ve gotten it down a bit. I’d say I’m 80% on Wordpress and 100% on Blogger.

If you know you want a blog and you need some specific help give me a write at thaipulse ~at~ gmail ~ com and I’ll help you set it up. I’ll charge a nominal 1000 baht by ATM transfer to do it as it will take some time - mostly explaining to new blog owners what they need to do to post, add photos, add it to their web site, etc.

If you want to add a blog to a new or existing web site I can help you - but it would be a bit more - 2000 baht as I’ll need to log into your web hosting account and manipulate subdomains and domain name service settings with Blogger. With WordPress you can host the entire blog - files and all at your site either at the main url (www.yourmainurl.com) or at a subdomain like “http://blog.yourmaindomain.com”.

This has nothing to do with joining the ThaiPulse network - which is only for established writers and/or bloggers that need a quality outlet for their work.

I’ll also offer to help people set up web sites of any size. Fees are variable as it depends entirely on your expectations and how much I will need to do… like optimizing photos, videos, optimizing for a specific purpose, etc. A small site of 5-10 pages should be 5000 - 10000 baht.

A medium site of 50-70 pages quite a bit more. I’ll guess 60,000 baht. A site of 100+ pages would be something along the lines of paying my salary for 2 months while I work on it (100-150,000 baht). I’ll optimize the sites for Google searches and also give you a lot of tips about how to keep Google happy.

Payment terms are always: Pay 1/2, I’ll deliver the first half. If you like, pay the second half and I’ll complete it. There’s no change from this plan as it’s worked over the 6 years I’ve helped people with their projects. The key to a successful working relationship is that you be as clear as humanly possible what it is you want - and you tell me everything. We write everything down and agree on the points. I give you a quote and you accept it or go find someone to do it cheaper. And you can… I’m cheap in terms of American money where I used to do this for $40-60 dollars per hour… now you’re getting it really cheap. BUT, you’ll find Thais’ or expats here that will do it for very cheap - and yet you’ll end up with just that. I’d rather not do anything cheap and create something cheap. What for? There’s enough of that online here!

OK, that’s it. I’ve been getting a few requests for helping folks since I’ve been talking about blogging and optimization and other topics. Let me know if you need something, I’ll see if I can help.

Another Vern Interview…

A site called expat interviews wrote to ask me to fill out a questionairre for their site. I thought, why not? Lots of people doing interviews lately. I had that idea myself a while back - to make a site interviewing people, talking about what they do… I’d interview some top web site owners in Thailand and see what they’re up to. Interview interesting people. I’ve got too many things going now, and too much competition from sites like this! No point anymore…

The title they chose makes me seem like a monk! But if you know me at all you’d not think that for more than a few seconds.

Sure… it could go that way at any point, but right NOW I’m nowhere near that point… trust me!

Here’s the interview >

Traveling to Thailand? Which Mobile Phone Service is Best?

If you travel to Thailand, which mobile phone service in Thailand is best?

Thailand tourists commonly just sign up for any mobile phone service because they don’t know any better. I didn’t!

When I first arrived in Thailand I used Orange, which is now commonly known as True Move mobile phone service. I was buying someone a lot of MK dinners at that company because I was paying 5 baht per minute for phone calls and 5 baht per SMS. I was horrified to find on my phone a counter that told me I had sent and received so many thousands of SMS messages over a year. I was a real nut with it though, I’d send many each day to many different people. 20 messages in a day was probably the average for a long time.

So, after realizing I had spent around 20,000 baht that year for SMS messages alone I realized I’d better get smart about the mobile phone plans.

I asked my girlfriend.

She used DTAC. I like the idea of AIS since when Taksin was in charge I knew that he would make sure his company was the best or one of them while he was in power. I also liked a rate plan that was offered so I bought a SIM for AIS and threw away the Orange SIM.

I was then getting calls for 3 baht for the first minute and 75 satang for each additional minute. I think SMS was at 2 baht per, or maybe even 1 baht because I bought a special package for that too. There are packages for EVERYTHING and you’ve gotta check them all out to get the best deal.

If you have AIS the number to dial for customer service from your mobile is: 1175.
If you have DTAC the number is: 1678.. . If you want to hear current promotions dial: *1003. If you want to check which promotion you’re currently set up with dial *103#.

You’ll need to an English speaker more than likely and you should be able to at these numbers.

So, I used AIS (also known as 1-2 Call) for over a year. I was pretty satisfied with it. The phone connection was nearly ALWAYS good, but only cut out when I was at a government school I taught at in Surat Thani. I don’t know why but that is the ONLY place I’ve ever had a problem - around the COUNTRY trying to get a signal.

AIS has decent internet service and coverage, including high-speed EDGE service in some major cities.

I recently switched over to DTAC though as a result of their offering a free PUSH MAIL service for 6 months to mobile phones. DTAC is marketed under the “HAPPY” slogan.

PushMail is like this…

You receive an email at your designated PushMail account at one of the following email providers or one of your own pop-3 accounts: hotmail, msn, yahoo, or gmail (google mail). You are then notified by SMS text message that you have an email waiting and you can follow a link (click it) to go straight into your email account and read your email and respond if you like.

AIS has this service available, but you’d need to be on their unlimited internet access plan each month - which runs 999 baht.

DTAC’s service is a bit buggy. They just rolled it out and I can’t get my Gmail to work - but I saw another foreigner on a forum at their site and he got his issue worked out in 2 weeks. We’ll see how long to get mine smoothed over.

Anyway, they DO have a decent internet service - I’m getting EDGE speeds over GPRS and I’m happy just using my phone as a modem for my notebook computer and not having to pay 15-20 baht per hour to use internet at a cafe. I’m cheap, I know. But, when you live here you become cheap.

I’m at the point where if I’m going to spend 50 baht on dinner it better be AWESOME!

DTAC and AIS both have competitive plans that are changing constantly. Your best bet is to call the numbers I gave you.

I am really revved up about DTAC though since I just got it and had such good success with their internet access.

Also, I was bored and looked at their mini info book that came with my SIM. OH MY GOD.

Cool thing number 1:

Did you know DTAC offers a FREE translation service for foreigners?

YES! It’s free if you have a DTAC enabled phone. Just call *1021. You have a personal translator from Thai to English and English to Thai! I’m not joking. You explain what you want to say in Thai to whomever you are with - your girlfriend, you’re massage girl, whatever - and the translator listens… You then hand your phone to the Thai person you want to get the message to and the translator tells them what you said. You can go back and forth like that.

IS THAT COOL or what? You do pay for minutes as if you’re calling anyone else - but still. Come on. AIS does not have this (as of this date).

Cool thing number 2 - and this might be even cooler YET.

If you have zero baht on your phone and you just NEED to make a mobile call - no worries.

DTAC HAS AN…

“EMERGENCY REFILL SERVICE”!

They will loan you 30 baht which you can pay back the next time you refill your SIM with baht!

Is that nuts?

Just dial *110# of you want to talk to someone and set it up.

or

*1010 and follow the computer instructions - not sure if they have an English voice on this - I’ve not called (yet).

They’ll send you an SMS message to confirm that you’re hooked up with a 30 baht loan!

Is that cool or what?

As you can see - lately I’m a cheerleader for DTAC. I think tourists that travel to Thailand should check out at least DTAC and AIS before deciding which one is best. For me, at this time, DTAC is it. No question. Your needs may differ.

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