Random Musings
i heard it a million times – you will never hit your first deadline.
but it still feels horrible when it happens. so what went wrong. data importing, code broke, servers needed constant tweaking, amazon s3 goes sketchy, and the best of all….both bathrooms in the office stopped working. i know, gross. but you guys need to know the truth. its times like this when you have to really like your team members.
we are now 6 days past original beta launch and we are still working on it. but hopefully tomorrow will be the day.(dang it, did i just jinx us…)
on a more positive note, i’m going to LA in 3 weeks and i am scheduling meetings with some awesome bloggers in the asian american and korean pop space.
since taking soompi.com full time this year, i have been trying to do a better job of staying up on the news and following all the players. we have some great talent making a name for themselves in this space! so i am excited that i can meet the some people face to face after reading their blogs for a while. i’ll try to remember to post something here about the meetings.
my new cards just arrived. designed them in a hurry because i am out of cards and the Geeks on a Plane trip starts on sunday – and anyone who has been to asia for business knows how quickly you go through business cards – its like giving candy out on halloween!
next month i will be traveling to tokyo, beijing and shanghai as part of the “geeks on a plane” trip organized by dave mcclure, founders fund and web2asia. we will be meeting with companies, investors, bloggers and other interesting people from the start-up scenes in those three cities.
although i am familiar with online trends and companies in south korea, my knowledge of the burgeoning start-up scenes in japan and mainland china are quite elementary. this trip is designed as a great crash course for those two countries and the conferences will let us delve deeper into two areas that i find interesting – startup metrics and the intersection of entertainment and the internet. i also want to focus on during my trip is learning more about the nature of user interaction in chinese and japanese SNS sites and monetization strategies in asia.
i am also planning meetings with individuals from xiaonei, wang you, livedoor, techcrunch japan and vcs in japan. if you want to recommend anyone else i should meet with while in any of those three cities, please feel free to email me at joyce at soompi dot com.
o – and if you have any recommendations for must-visit restaurants, let me know too;)
its been a while since i’ve posted here. i think my twitter feed is taking over the bulk of my communication with the outside world. so if you come here looking for an update and see nothing – make sure to look to the right hand side for any updates to my twitter feed. more likely than not, that will be the most up to date content here.
reason #2 why i am missing in action. we are busting it out on soompi.com! we have a real, human, breathing team of people working on it now! and it feels good. we have been heads down for the past month making immense progress on the site – estimated relaunch is summer 2009.
what are we working on? single sign on (we have two separate user databases – yes, confusing. but its a long story), better profiles, better groups. the big thing about the site is that it is like an iceberg – there is a HUGE amount of activity on the site, but you only see the tiniest bit if you click around a bit. to really get a sense of the community, you need to spend some time exploring the forums. but we hope to improve all of that soon!
i will be in hiding until relaunch most likely but thank you for checking in on me:) and here is a small laptop pic so you can check out my bat cave! (that blue thing in the lower right corner – yes, that is my snuggie)
The first ever video interview by soompi.com! check it out while we interview Asian pop sensation BoA as she makes her US debut!