Name of your website?Living in Saigon, Vietnam
Your name?
Fred
Your Location (city, etc)
Ho Chi Minh City
Please give us a short summary of your website?
An American living and teaching ESL in Saigon, Vietnam since March, 2001.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
Wanting to share my vast knowledge and experience :) and also because living as an expat can make one feel rather isolated and a blog gives me contact with the world.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
I've launched a couple of other versions over the years, but didn't stick with them. This one started just a couple of months ago.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
I don't really like the name, it's too long. But it contains important keywords and avoids being ambiguous- these days the name 'Saigon' also applies to a certain rap artist.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
I offer up-to-date, on-the-ground, experience and knowledge of this location. Other HCMC blogs are from tourists who don't have much experience, or people who blog about many other topics, or focus on other topics besides Saigon itself, etc.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Just to have enough time to write about my experiences, hopefully help people who decide to or are deciding to live in Vietnam. I haven't started writing about teaching ESL yet, but that is a major topic I will start to include soon. (Thought about starting a different site for ESL, but I think including it in this blog will be better.)
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Hehe, what success? I wish I had more time for writing.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
A few years back I messed around with building a general site for the city with forums, classifieds, business directory, etc., but it got to be too big for me to build by myself. Nowadays a few of those type of sites are opening up for HCMC, so I probably wouldn't try to compete with them even if I had a budget. Now I'm content with my little blog.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Registering with expat blog directories has brought a lot of visitors and given me a high position in Google even though the blog is new.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
I have a handful of people visiting the site every day already; I really expected to have zero readers for months.
What else would you like to say to people reading this?
I'd really appreciate people visiting my blog, leaving comments, linking to it, asking me questions about Vietnam and Saigon, offering suggestions on how to improve the site. Thanks!
What is your website address?
Living in Saigon, Vietnam
