Korean Job Discussion Forums

Real Reality · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Location: Seoul

Pioneering ESL Web Site Keeps Growing
And nowhere has his influence been greater than in South Korea.

With a fee of $75 per ad, or $550 for 12, Sperling is onto a good thing.

"South Korea seems to be a frantic market," he said. "You can see from the tone of the job ads their desperation for hiring teachers.... The number of ads for jobs in South Korea spiked at more than 400 last month,...

"The best teachers are those who are interested in everything -- the country's food, culture, everything," he said.... Sperling encouraged young teachers to savor their time and not complain....
By Reuben Staines, Korea Times (January 24, 2006)
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/special/200601/kt2006012419023167670.htm

AbbeFaria · Joined: 17 May 2005 Location: Gangnam

kangnam mafioso · Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Location: Teheranno

i would be curious to know how much the cafe makes in an average year.

it must be pretty low overhead.

mithridates · Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 6:42 am Post subject:

Bulsajo · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

OH MY GOD!
By posting here I'm actually helping someone else make money!!!
Let's all form a union and demand a dollar per post...

noguri · Joined: 28 Nov 2005 Location: korea

There was a website called Missy USA that was used by Korean women living in the US. It was their community forum for everything, all the issues they face living in the US. It also had columnists who wrote regular columns in addition to having different forums for postings.

Missy USA was relied on because it had a searchable database. If you're having problems with your child's pediatrician, you could do a search and see all the threads related to that problem...

SUddenly the owner of the not-for-profit site sold it to a Korean company. THe ajumas were furious. They boycotted Missy USA and started their own sites. A series of new sites were founded, I think there are one or two that are now emerging as the leaders.

The ajumas were outraged when the site was sold because they felt that their postings had been stolen by someone making a profit. The new websites don't have the database with years of accumulated postings that that site has.

But I am a miguk ajashi not a hanguk ajuma. To me it is NOT irksome that D. Sperling makes a profit from this site because SOMEONE has to provide it for us. Do I get mad at Walmart because they make a profit by providing a place for me to buy stuff? If I do get mad, then I'll just shop at a co-op with the granola-heads who donate free labor and in return get a discount on their purchase. Me, I'm too lazy so I just buy what I have to at Walmart.

Demophobe · Joined: 17 May 2004

Yeah....I'm not sure why people think Dave shouldn't make some cash. We pay for things all the time and don't really complain... the CEO of Samsung is getting rich from people who buy Samsung products, yet nobody says anything.

Heck, we don't even pay for this place. It's called business, which is usually for-profit...why should Dave be an exception to that? He had a good idea and it took off.

laogaiguk · Joined: 06 Dec 2005 Location: somewhere in Korea

If the guy is actually making that much cash, he can bloody well fix that phb problem. There is no reason other than greed or laziness not to (I was an enterprise application developer for a couple of years). At the very least, make a fricken custom error page for it with an "I'm sorry."

EDIT

Funny, right after posting this, I got that error Wink

As a professional, that error and the page that is shown when it happens is horrible. Maybe it bothers me a bit more than others because that was my profession. But for a commercial website (which I don't care about, he can make millions for all I care, he had a good idea and implemented it and it benefits me) that error is unprofessional.

SuperHero · Joined: 10 Dec 2003 Location: Superhero Hideout

The King of Kwangju · Joined: 10 Feb 2003 Location: New York City

I'm one of the programmers Dave hires from time to time to help him out. As such I know the site inside and out, backwards and forwards, in many ways better than Dave.

Your estimate is off by a bit there, Mith.

Since I met Dave and started working on his site, the one thing that amazed me is that he's broken almost every web startup "rule" there is. All of them except for one or two good ones.

The other surprising thing, which the article alludes to, is that he never planned to make money off of it. It just kind of happened. And instead of seeking out Korea, Korea sought him, which is really where the money came from.

It's really an interesting story, as far as web business is concerned.

mithridates · Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 5:48 am Post subject:

chronicpride · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Mith is actually quite close. I broke all of this down in detail a few months ago. Including the banner ads, intl job board ads, korea board ads, and ballparked the publicly unverifiable resume board subscriptions and bulk discounting for the job ads. Its about $50-60K/month, all told, and that's assuming that most Korean advertisers aren't paying for the resume board subscription, given that few resumes are on there that are specifically looking for Korea work or are open to anything. If the Korean advertising base is desperate enough to drop the cash on the resume board, then add another $5-10K to the monthly total.

Captain Corea · Joined: 28 Feb 2005 Location: Seoul

He makes coin. Anyone who thinks he doesn't is fooling themselves.

Bulsajo · Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Yes he makes coin. does anybody have a problem with that? Why?

mithridates · Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:07 am Post subject:

No, just the php error - everything else I don't care about. Same opinion as laogaiguk.

What's more interesting is the toughest animal thread. For a land animal I think it's the wolverine but that weird bloop is the creepiest thing I've ever heard. Reminds me of H.P. Lovecraft and how people are more scared of what they don't know. I don't have a clue what it is. Most definitely not a squid.