Some of you may know already, that these blogs are produced by the Paknam Web Network. It is a company here in Thailand that I set up with a group of my ex-students. The picture above shows our office and some of the students hard at work. We not only produce the thai-blogs.com web site, but also more than 30 others which include: thailandlife.com, learningthai.com, thailandguidebook.com, ethaimusic.com, thailandQA.com, thaichatbox.com and enjoythaifood.com. These web sites are among the most popular in Thailand as we get more than 50,000 visitors every day. The blogs themselves are now averaging about 5,000 visitors a day with a one-day record of 8,000 visitors the other day.

This popularity may all sound very good, but it is starting to prove to be very expensive for us. Although the blogs don’t have as many visitors as some of our other sites, it is actually our second most expensive web site to run.  In the beginning, the web sites were supported with profits from our online book store. But now the server and other expenses are costing us thousands of dollars every year. We recently did a major upgrade which cost us a lot of money. However, it didn’t help for long. Some of you may have noticed periods of time when the blogs are opening very slowly. This is happening between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. Thai time. This is peak time for our major web sites and the server is having a hard time coping with so many people connecting at the same time. We now have to do another upgrade.

We were planning on continuing to pay for these upgrades ourselves. But someone came up with the idea of the Million Baht Project. This is basically how much we would need to keep these web sites running for about three years. We have recently had people come up to us offering to donate money to help keep the web sites running. This is basically what the Million Baht Project is about. If you make a donation you will become part of the history of the making of Paknam Web Network. You can also have some fun as everyone who donates has a chance of winning a portable DVD player!

If you would like to make a donation, then please visit www.millionbahtproject.com

Comments (1)

How about the Google Adsense and stuff....
written by Teesha, 2007-08-09 15:10:42

Some Paknam Network sites have the Google Ads. Don't they spill in enough money. If not, why not enforce the use of such ds. I just think that way the Paknam sites could carry themselves without external help. Just with donations you will have the same problem in three years again.