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.
i am in vegas for three days to attend the asian american marketing conference that is hosted by the asian american advertising federation. today, yul kwon, the korean american who won survivor, was the keynote. tomorrow, i am most excited about the giant robot talk which will be given by eric nakamura. i’ve been a fan of their company for years:)
this is the first asian marketing conference i have ever attended and am getting to know the small and tight-knit group of advertising professionals that handle this niche market. some things i’ve learned:
- the folks in this industry are very dedicated to making sure mainstream products are marketed to asians as well.
- the asian ad market is WAY behind in terms of internet trends – they still think newspapers are the way to go.
- no one knows about soompi!
this last point is the one that amazes me the most. in some ways, since soompi’s demographic is younger than the staff at most of these agencies, it makes sense that they haven’t been on the site. BUT, if they are doing their research, they would know we are a big player in the asian american online space. on the bright side, i am talking to alot of people about our site (perhaps something i should have done earlier, but in all honestly, product development and community management already takes up 110% of our time).
regarding point number two – i know i am a bit spoiled being from san francisco where everyone speaks web. but honestly, if you are at any ad agency in this day and age, you need to know the basic vocabulary of pageviews, traffic rankings, monthly unique visitors, etc. the reality is that people are consuming their news, entertainment, and lives online and you need to follow your customers. not a hard concept to grasp.