Be found on the Internet

Moving forward, I’ll be focusing my efforts with my new small business which focuses on Search Engine Optimization in the Seattle area.

Zero to One Million hits (+35,377)

Starting in February of 2007, I started this little blog with very little in terms of expectations.  At the end of the month, I had a total of 27 views to the blog.  Most of them were probably mine.

The month after, I had a whopping 50% increase and jumped to 37 views.  Well, it looks like I increased, but actually I decreased from two hits a day down to one because the month of February was only a short month of blogging.  I think I started somewhere in the middle of the month averaging my views per day to being 2/day.  So, yes, a total of 30 days of work got me a total of a view a day basically.  It was depressing and like many who blog, I’m sure I was wondering “what am I doing?”

Somehow, the 3rd month gave me a little inspiration.  Thanks to wordpress, our posts are not just optimized for the internet, but they also show up in some categories on the blog site where other “wanna be bloggers” are able to see our posts and give their support, if not just their curious fingers clicking on our well thought out post titles. 

It took me another 4 months (yes 7 months total) before I hit the 1000 views+ mark.  In September, I had almost doubled what I had in terms of website traffic in one month.  The google sandbox is reality.  It takes a while to get a blog (and a lot of hard work & energy spent) to get it more traffic.  Just a few months after in December, I increased my traffic 800%!!!

AMERICAN CITIZEN SERVICES NEWSLETTER in South Korea MARCH 2011

U.S. State Department, U.S. Embassy Seoul
Consular Section, American Citizen Services (ACS) Newsletter
MARCH 2011

The U.S. Embassy is transmitting the following monthly newsletter via its warden system as a public service to U.S. citizens in the Republic of Korea.  Please disseminate this message broadly to other U.S. citizens.

In this issue:

1.      Greetings from the ACS Chief
2.      Holiday Closure, March 1
3.      IRS Announces 2011 Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI)
4.      Consular Services in Busan, March 21-22
5.      Making Appointments or Using the Courier Service
6.      Questions of the Month: I have questions about taxes.  Who should I ask?  What’s the current Foreign Earned Income Exclusion amount?
7.      Travel Warnings

See you later Korea…

Four+ years ago, I came back to the motherland to start another chapter in my life.

The time has passed by quicker than expected and I was fortunate to meet many great people here.  I know I’ll be leaving out some of them here, but I want to say a huge thanks to the incredibly great people I was lucky to meet:

Tim, Jareb, Joey, Chris, Matthew, Mike, Petra, Inae, Amy, Ian, JJ, Kitaek, Sidney, Banessa, Bianca, Paul, Mike, Hana, Hyeri, Jiwook, Harry, Mikyung, Mira, Yunjin, Daniel, Ellis, Kelly, Joon, Erica, Eunhae, Harry, Lauren, Jesse, Leona, Lynn, Julia, Robyn, Kyle, David, Levi, Steven, Brenton, Jason, Anthony, Rebecca, Heather, Lee, Sean, Andy, Leo, Jinyoung, Stacy, Noemi, Janet, Tony, Devin, Tamara, Laura, Elissa, Dongmin, Maya, Julie, Amity, Tom, Amanda, Dr. Kwon, Dr. Park, Dr. Han, John, Heejin, Peter, and I’m sure many other great people I’m neglecting here.

I’d normally say “good-bye”, but who knows?  I may be back…

It was a great 4+ years here.  I really enjoyed and sincerely wish all my friends the best.  I’m sorry to be leaving…

Korean media in English

There are a number of blogs out there including mine here that write all about Korea, but what exists when it comes to actual Korean media that is either translated in English or is produced in English to help foreigners learn more about the “land of the morning calm?”

Well, it used to be mainly just the newspapers, The Korea Herald, JoongAng Ilbo (i.e., JoonAng Daily), and the Korea Times.  The AP of Korea, Yonhap News also provides their content in English as well here, but it seems that not all their content is fully translated into English.  Over time, the Chosun Ilbo (or Daily) has converted a bunch of their content here into English.

One of Korea’s leading TV & Radio networks, Korean Broadcasting System (aka KBS) appears to have recently translated a lot of their content here in English.  They have also translated their content in Chinese & Japanese as well. KBS World Radio also is translated in English.  KBS World TV as well is available in English.  It’s the inspiration behind today’s post since I had a bit of difficulty in the past obtaining English information about dramas or other TV content on the other major networks MBC, SBS, & EBS.

Korea more foreigner friendly?

Seoul wants to make expats’ lifestyles easier

April 27, 2010

A blueprint to improve life for foreign residents and entrepreneurs in Seoul was announced yesterday by the Seoul city government, including a one-stop help center for expats, a “global business zone” and new Web sites to help foreigners navigate the city more efficiently.

More here…

Busan News for Monday, March 15th, 2010

Suspect in Busan Middle School Girl Rape & Murder Case Confesses

The police have reported that 김길태, the suspect in the recent kidnap and murder of a middle-school girl, has confessed to part of the crimes yesterday including dumping the body and the possibility of kidnapping, sexual assault, and murder.  The police have attempted to secure an official statement from 김길태 that he committed the crimes of kidnapping, sexual assault, and murder.

Busan News for Friday, March 12th, 2010

Busan Citizens’ Health at a Critical State

Reports show that the number of patients suffering from 5 major later-in-life diseases, including high-blood pressure, cerebrovascular disease, diabetes, arteriosclerosis, and cardiac disorders has increased by about 140 thousand in the period from 2005 to 2009.

Busan already had the highest mortality rate in the country for circulatory organ diseases and ranked 2nd in deaths caused by cancer and endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases in 2008.

Such figures have given Busan the unwelcome title as the “city of diseases,” and reconfirmed the belief that the health condition of local citizens is at a critical level.

World’s richest man shares thoughts…

William Henry Gates III better known as “Bill Gates” is the world’s richest man (at least for now) according to Fortune Magazine.  Many people are fascinated about the man who’s accrued more wealth than anyone else for most of the years Fortune has compiled their list for the past 20 or so years.  I’ll admit I also wonder what the richest person in the world thinks and wonder if what he says and thinks that may inspire me to do the same.

So, where can we find these profound thoughts?  He wrote “The Road Ahead” in 1995.  So, here’s the first chance beyond his emails and communication to his coworkers and friends that the public could read about what he was thinking.  He followed up in 1999 with “Business @ the Speed of Thought. ”  Of course Gates is profiled in the media quite often, but since that’s unpredictable when he’ll be quoted, there’s a few other ways to follow this very successful individual.

Busan News for Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

R & D District to be established in Busan for Materials Industry

The city of Busan has confirmed plans to construct a special district for research and development for the parts and materials industry.

 The city is preparing to designate 57.4 square kilometers to the district from different western areas, including the Busan-Jinhae Free Economy Zone or BJFEZ, the 강서 high-tech industry logistics city, 동아 University, 신라 University and the 녹산 industrial complex.The city is planning to set up organzing and pratical affairs committees with help from the BJFEZ, the Busan Development Institute, the Southeast Economy Institute and the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology or KITECH.

Busan News for Monday, March 8th, 2010

Middle School Student Murder in Busan

Now that the body of the missing middle school girl,  Lee, has been found in Busan, police are concentrating their full efforts on arresting the murder suspect.

 Lee’s body was found around 9:30 pm on the 6th in a water tank on the roof of a one-story house only 50 meters from her house.

 She was stripped naked and her clothes and shoes were placed in a plastic bag and hidden under lime powder and construction tiles in the tank.

Busan News for Friday, March 5th, 2010

Accident Rate in Busan is the Highest among 7 Largest Korean Cities

Reports show that Busan has the highest rate of death by accidents of the 7 largest cities in the country and the economic loss from those deaths amounts to more than 1 trillion 11 billion won.

The results were revealed through a diagnosis of the safety of local communities and were presented by a team led by professor 배정이. The analysis, which is based on 2008, showed that accidents killed nearly 60 out of every 1 thousand people in Busan, compared to 45.5 in Seoul, 49.7 in Ulsan, 57.1 in Daegu, and 57.3 in Incheon.

Busan News for Thursday, March 4th, 2010

East Busan Tourism Complex Sites to be Sold

Sites at the DongBusan tourism complex will be will be divided and sold separatedly now that the project has been delayed for a short time due to a lack of investors. The Busan Metropolitan Corporation said that it is hard to more forward with the project because it has yet to draw in a massive resource of capital. The corporation said that it would find investors by slicing up the complex into individual units and facilities. The entertainment and beach zones will be divided into 185 square meters plots first and investors will be sought after until the 25th. This new tactic has increased the voices of concern about the project now that it is proceeding in a way without unity.

Busan to the North Pole: Discussions Start

Busan News for Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Plans to Enhance Gaming Industry in Busan

The city of Busan is coming up with a plan to boost the gaming industry.

The plan is aimed at building a “2020 game industry center city” that will generate 1 trillion won in sales.

It contains initiatives to attract major domestic players and global research and development teams as well as ramp up local game businesses to the status of a major complex with an investment of 420 billion won.

In particular, the “Busan Culture Contents Complex,” which is being built in Centum City, will be the center for development and integration for the local gaming industry.

The city is also considering plans to draw in a branch center to develop game contents and solutions and create models for the game industry and the global industry of cooperation.

In addition, the successful international game fair, “G-Star,” will be held regularly and an international game machine certification center for exporting arcade games will be launched at Dongseo University.

10 Most Famous Twitters

I haven’t caught on fully in terms of Tweets or Twitter, but it does seem quite interesting to see some of the most famous people including the richest man on the planet talking to me and you and you and you.

Yes, they’re talking to all of us via twitter.  Not everyone’s jumped on, but these are the 10 most famous that I arbitrarily decided are tweeting today.

• Britney Spears @ http://twitter.com/britneyspears
  • Supposedly, she has the 2nd most followers in the Twitter Universe currently, but the twitter account seems more like her management company than her
• Lady Gaga @ http://twitter.com/ladygaga
  • 10th highest number of followers on Twitter
• Lil Wayne @ http://twitter.com/liltunechi
  • while Lil Wayne doesn’t have the traffic now, he’s recently jumped on and if he continues to tweet, I predict he’ll be up there eventually (this story on billboard.com talks about how Lil Wayne jumped on the Twitter bandwagon)
• John Mayer @ http://twitter.com/johncmayer
  • 6th most followed Twitter account
• Bill Gates @ http://twitter.com/billgates
  • MSNBC, a division of his own company verifies that the real Bill Gates did join Twitter.  The latest tweets seem quite real if you read them.