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About Us I'm updating this page April 25, 2004, some 7 years after the first seed was planted that eventually mushroomed into BangkokAtoZ.com. My good friend and former partner in this site, "Doctor" Dennis, had an idea to do a one-off spoof newspaper about our favorite hangout, Bangkok's Washington Square, and asked if I'd like to help him. I thought it was a great idea, and was it ever. Our friends loved The Washington Square Tattler, and clamored for more. They delighted in the jibes and gossip, and all were good-natured when we trained our gun sights on them -- but we were always careful about 2 things in particular: we took potshots at ourselves in every issue, and we were never the slightest mean. The motto of the paper said it all: "For the entertainment, enlightenment, amusement, and embarrassment of all Squaronians (real and wannabes)," followed by the admonishment, "Remember: NO stories about the editors!" After the 2nd or 3rd issue, Dennis simply didn't have the time to devote to the newspaper, as he was still working, traveling extensively throughout all of East Asia, so by default I took over writing it, taking the photos, printing it, and passing it out. The job grew, and as issues got passed around, the number of readers grew. I started sending it out as an e-mail attachment to people who let me know they wanted it. And was I startled when 2 different friends in Australia e-mailed me to report the issues they were printing out were getting copied and copied again. As best as I could guess from what those 2 friends told me -- and they don't know each other -- apparently each issue was being read by at least several hundred and perhaps as many as 1500 people. E-mailing it was quickly becoming impractical. Besides, at the time I was pretty clueless about reducing file sizes, so each issue was a MASSIVE attachment that took folks forever to download -- and that overloaded their e-mailboxes. The answer to that problem is what got me and Dennis (he was still actively interested in the farce) to think about using the Internet in some way: I started putting each issue in a Yahoo! Briefcase so people could read it and then, if they liked, download it. But that quickly ran into problems; the long download times remained problematic, and I kept having to add e-mail addresses to get another briefcase as I filled them up so quickly. Dennis and I talked about it, and we decided to try a free web hosting service. We also decided to try to learn to make the files smaller so people wouldn't have to wait hours to download stuff. That did the trick -- but again we quickly ran out of room, and we were stumped. We weren't making any money from the venture -- we were still partners -- which we weren't excited about spending money for paid hosting service. After floundering around awhile, unhappy with the work-around we had to use in the interval (removing files from the free host the uploading new ones), we put our heads together and came up with the idea of creating a web site centered on Bangkok, a site of news, events, nightlife, etc. -- but to stay completely clear of pornography; we did and I still do regard this site as one suitable for anyone, though parents may well want to supervise their children's viewing certain items, such as the frank discussions of matters such as prostitution and corruption. And we hoped eventually to make it a commercial site. The short version of why we didn't is that Dennis made two sales presentations to two neighborhood hotels for us to do web sites for them centered on public relations; he used this site to show what we could do. Both hotel managers were suitably impressed, and each set up a follow-up appointment with Dennis to iron out the details -- both appointments set for mid-September, 2001. (The first appointments had been in August.) Needless to say, coming, as they did, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the September meetings made clear that we were completely shot out of the water for the foreseeable future, as far as tourism-oriented activities were concerned. Dennis had quit his corporate job earlier in the year. We struggled along awhile, then he had to return to the States for a number of months. At that point, we informally parted, though we didn't draw up the legal documents to divide our 2 sites -- by then we had set up http://dean-barrett-thailand.com -- with me keeping this one and Dennis taking the other. Earlier in 2001, the affable Charlie Brown came to work for us, and he remained with me until a better opportunity beckoned. Soon after, Jon Dodd came to work with me, and stayed until July, 2003, by which time Dennis had begun pursuing an entirely different but still Internet-related venture that was beginning to take off. He offered Jon a spot, and Jon wisely took it. I had pretty much decided by then that this web site was going to continue to be a labor of love, at least for the time being. Dennis, Charlie, Jon, and I all come from the United States, as do Dean Barrett and Rickard K. Diran, both of whom have contributed to this site. Novelist Christopher G. Moore hails from Canada, and gave us invaluable material. The late Hardy Stockmann hailed from Germany, and late in his life graciously allowed use of some of his writings. I believe contributor Sonia Pressman Fuentes is also from the United States, but my memory may be wrong. Since I remain the only one actively involved in BangkokAtoZ.com on a daily basis, I've written a more extensive piece about my life for anyone interested, but put it on a separate page. So there you have it: a bit about us, and how this site (now fairly large, running to the hundreds of pages, if printed out) evolved from an idea meant to be a joke -- once.
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Copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 by Kurt T. Francis, except as noted otherwise. Materials by Christopher G. Moore, Dean Barrett, Richard K. Diran, Sonia Pressman Fuentes, and Hardy Stockmann are copyrighted © by those respective authors. All rights reserved. Please see the Copyright Notice for further information. Click here for our Privacy Statement Please direct all inquiries to mekhongkurt@bangkokatoz.com |
