Do we need an Asia-Pacific forum?

Putting the question to the vote.

[rencke]

There is a discussion backstage about the possible need for another international forum to complement the UK& Ireland and the European search engine forums. On one hand, there has been a lot of interest in the threads about China recently. On the other hand there is always the risk that the forum is either too narrow or lacks active participants, so that it dies a horrible and humiliating death shortly after arrival.

We're putting the two questions to you folks.
1. Do you want to know about SE:s in places like China, Japan, Australia, India and others?
2. Are you from there and prepared to share your knowledge?

[WebRookie]

Yes, I would like information on these search engines. We have offices in China and Japan. Also submitting to India search engines. Great idea.

[grnidone]

Rencke:

Will you need Kanji characters to do that?
-G

[rcjordan]

Yes. FWIW, I have come across two hard links to my domestic US sites from what appear to be Japanese relocation sites. I also get pretty steady referrals from Australia. They are wired.

I'd like to add to Rencke's call for those from there to speak up and contribute. Just because you may view a directory or SE as a fledgling by comparison to AV in the US, doesn't mean it isn't going to be THE place to be when online in your quadrant.

[bill]

I live in Japan, so I guess I qualify for your target audience/participant. FWIW, I'll do what I can to contribute to this forum.

[Woz]

I'm in!

Glad to help with both Australia and China. Possibly also New Zealand if there are no Kiwis here.

(I'm still putting together the China SE info.... (Been busy lately - sorry for the delay.))

Onya
Woz

[chiyo]

Our people work from Singapore through Shanghai. Korea and Taiwan are very wired with fast acess. Japan too is very Internet savvy, and China is big through limited to the middle and educated classes. Singapore is truly a wired island with the largest proportion of the population on line in the region if not the world.

Running english language Asian sites, we usually use English search engines, both in the US/European and local national based engines, though the former is far more, mainly due to the comprehensiveness of those Search Engines.

Not sure how much I can help with Asian search engines, but can help on a variety of things re promoting Asian- related content to the whole worls as distinct from Asian populations specifically.

Apart from the fact that "Asia Pacific Forum" has got 3 of the terms from our own site name I will certainly try to help and learn from this type of forum if it is launched!

[Gorufu]

G'day from Downunder,

I have been successfully marketing sightseeing and golf tours to the Japanese through Internet for more than six years and I am prepared to help with anything relating to Japanese search engines.

When I decided to use the Internet for marketing to Japanese, in their language, no-one knew anything about it in Australia. I was in virgin territory and had to learn by trial and error. The experience gained has been very beneficial to the success and continued growth of my Inbound Tour business.

Japan has really taken to the Internet in a big way and it is the top country for visits to my website.

BTW: The top ten search engines used by visitors to my site are
yahoo.co.jp
yahoo.com
search.msn.co.jp
excite.co.jp
goo.ne.jp
search.msn.com
altavista.com
lycos.co.jp
excite.com.au
anzwers.com.au

[rencke]

Here are some online population statistics for the major countries in the area (millions):

Australia 7,6
China 16,9
Hong Kong 1,9
India 4,5
Japan 27,1
New Zealand 1,3
Malaysia 1,5
Pakistan 1,2
Phillipines 0,5
Singapore 1,7
South Korea 15,3
Taiwan 6,4
Thailand 1,0

The total for Asia, Australia and the Pacific is 87,6 million users of which 86,0 live in the above countries. By comparison, Europe has 110 million users, USA & Canada 157,3 million and Latin America 13,3 million.

[rcjordan]

Lycos Sets Up Thailand Branch, Plans Portal [newsbytes.com]

[eljefe3]

I'm living in Asia and will be glad to help out wherever possible. All of my clients are in the US, but I do get a large number of visitors from Europe and quite a number from Asia, so please count me in <note> Not so sure about all the Asian Search engines, but it is an important market segment to consider</note>.

[Brett_Tabke]

My general working guide for forum creation is roughly: Atleast 12-15 posts about the subject in other forums.

That gives a good starter set of posts for people to work with and feel encouraged to do some posting. That doesn't always work (excite forum), but sometimes it works good. Other forums are often created just so we have a slot for them (commercial exchange). There are also times (hopefully this is one) where just putting up the forum on the subject is enough to encourage people.

Often the Webmaster General, Search Engine Promotion, and FOO forums are incubators for new forums. After it is clear we need a new forum - I go in and raid posts out of the other ones on the subject. (like we did with Domains, Keywords, Excite, and Euro engines).

I would love to see a forum on Asia, Aus, and the general pacific rim countries. We certainly are growing in regulars from that side of the ocean and I really really want to persue the whole "world" theme we have going here.

There is also serious consideration given to how many active forums we can have going at once. It is critical to me to keep the home page as small as possible.

I will give it some more thought over the weekend, but I am very encouraged by how many people have expressed interest.

Thanks for supporting us.
Brett

[shri]

I'd volunteer to post / reply on an Asia Pac forum. Based in Hong Kong and run a couple of English language Indian websites.

[Brett_Tabke]

Ok, here you go!

I hope we can make a go of this. I've been wanting this forum for awhile.

Thank you for pitching in!

[cyberbear]

Yes, way to go Brett. This forum is long overdue and I am promoting heavily to the international market with a heavy emphasize on China, India, Sinpapore,Australia and just starting Japan and Korea. Havent started in translating my english sites into the languages of the respective countries yet as I was not sure how the search engines would take it. I was concerned that different languages on one site might push me down in the rankings as english sites are given preference on many engines.

I am ready to help with whatever knowledge I have for the better of this community.

[merlin78]

I'm an SEO from Australia and have been looking for a forum like this for a while now.

I would be more than happy to share my knowledge on any Australian Search Engine issues. :)

[Brett_Tabke]

Thank you everyone. If you have any tips for pulling in users for this forum, I would enjoy hearing them. Promoting a forum site is a unique challenge.