First, I want to thank you all for joining/supporting me and Twitter Community in Vietnam at this Tweetup on Sunday, June 7, 2009.

I must admit that I felt a little bit awkward at first, because none of old Tweetup mates (except Anh Hung, KhanhLNQ, Jishan) came. As Ngon Pham said, I was like lost in an isolate island. I talked to myself: “What is the point of all these things? Why do I have to do that? Where is everybody else?” Yes, I was discouraged. But well, I have to say “Thanks” millions times to people who came join us that day, and billions times for being so active and contributive, for helping me out. We had about 20 people showing up - perfect for a tweetup. The only matter is that it was in Vietnamese, so it wasn’t so convenient for some non-Vietnamese speakers who came late. I’m so sorry about that, and I promise the next Tweetup will be in English as all other tweetups. I’m also sorry to people who couldn’t come because of late update about the venue. To people who didn’t come, please think twice & listen to actual attendees before talking ill about it.  Be thougtful!

Who were there?

1. Chris Tran Huu Luat – from Admax Vietnam.

2. Tuan Tran – ???

3. Tran Dang Khoa – ???

4. Le Nguyen Quoc Khanh – i-Pop Vietnam

5. Minh Phan – i-Pop Vietnam

6. Paul Nguyen Hung – VON

7. Tim (Tuan) Duong – i-Pop Vietnam.

8. Thuy Uong – Admax Vietnam

9. Le Nguyen – Focation

10. Do Dang Khoi – Saigonica

11. Anh Hung – TPL

12. Son Jishan – Frexy

13. Lawrence Sinclair – EastAgile

14. Patrick Kennedy – the US Consulate in Ho Chi Minh

15. Phuong (Pi) – ….

16. Tung Nguyen – RMIT

17. Le Na – ???

18. Phuong Luu - Saga

19. Huyen Chip (me, of course. I love the number 19 :D)

20. Ho Viet Hai – i360

21. Nguyen Duc Khiem – Mobile review

22. Bui Huu Chuong – …

23. Another guy from EastAgile, sorry, what is your name again?

24. …

My memory is really bad, so please correct me if I’m wrong, and please help me fulfill this list! Thanks a lot!

What was it about?

This tweetup was mostly about:

1. Yahoo! 360’s being shut down and its potential substitutes for Vietnam market: Facebook, WordPress, Yume, Yobanbe, Tamtay, etc.

2. The future of Twitter.

3. The market. Yes the truth is Vietnam market is very small, how can we deal with that?

4. Mobilization.

*** You can see/download full report (English) here, thank to our Minh Phan

*** We have some videos here, thank to KhanhLNQ.

*** Official hashtag for all Ho Chi Minh Tweetup is #hcmctweet

*** For more information/latest updates, please join us on Facebook and Googlegroups, or follow us on Twitter.

Thanks a lot!

Tags: facebook, hcmctweet, tweetup, twitter, Vietnam, VON, Yahoo! 360, Yobanbe, Yume

Hey calm down, I’m not gonna make another long speech about macro-economics or noble patriotism. Just some thoughts about the future of Vietnamese web services in relationships with Vietnamese users and esp. early adapters.

One week ago, I had a very interesting discussion over this matter with CEO of VON - Paul Nguyen. His arguments agaisnt exotic products are:

- We Vietnamese people have to use Vietnamese products. Exotic comapnies like Google, etc. they don’t even have offices here, so they don’t have to spend so much money in Vietnam, don’t create jobs for Vietnamese but they still get users. In the mean time, Vietnamese companies have to spend millions US dollars, pay all the taxes, creates thousands jobs for Vietnamese, they should get something in return. In some countries like China, they require exotic companies to open offices in China, hire Chinese, pay taxes for Chinese governments in order to do business in China.

- Exotic products don’t necessarily mean they have better technology than Vietnamese products. Like Yahoo! 360’s technology & concept is such a lame that no where else in the world use it, except Vietnam. Yahoo! 360 plus is just a failed product in HongKong, then brought back to Vietnam. He believes Vietnamese products can do much better than that. But exotic companies have big names, and Vietnamese people are very fond of exotic things.

But he still believes in the future of Vietnamese products in general and Vietnamese social network sites in particular, b/c:

- We early adapters might find Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Linkedin, etc. very useful and interesting. But the gap between early adapters and mass users in Vietnam is just too huge, and the number of early adapters are just so small (we have around 70k-80k facebook users compared to 2-3 millions Yahoo! 360’s users) that every service provider knows where their cash flow should go to and come from. Many Yahoo! 360’s users don’t even know how to upload a picture, they just simply hit the button “compose a blog entry” and type and send. Exotic products might be too complicated for them.

- The Vietnamese love color and show their own styles, while exotic products are normally just too simply designed. Just an example among many other differences in anguages and cultures.

He said, early adapters should use and talk more about Vietnamese products. Because if we just support exotic products, we will gradually kill Vietnamese products, let the foreigners take over us.

Several days ago was the inauguration of Nguyen Thanh Nam - the new CEO of FPT - the biggest Vietnamese IT company at the moment. One idea in his speech that drew public opinion’s attention was that he called for FPT people to use FPT’s products, not because of love only but because of trust in the products’s quality and the future of company. That might sound delirious, but is it absolutely impossible? He has his point, ofcourse.

Hm it has made me think a lot. Are we too enthusiastic about Facebook, Google, WordPress, Twitter, etc. and forget about Vietnamese products? Are we early adapters, and if yes, where do we stay if no service providers care about us?

I’m confused, though I obviously have my own explanation, but I want to hear your opinions first. Every idea is welcome. Thanks.

********************
As you all know, VON’s 3 most noticeable products are Timnhanh - a Viet search engine and Yume - a blog & social networkig site, and Kiemviec - an HR site, of which I’m interested the most in Yume - one of prominent candicates for Yahoo! 360′s substitute together with Tamtay, Yobanbe, YouSecond (Yeah in Vietnam blog means Yahoo! 360 and most people have no idea of what social network is. But well, it’s going to be shut down). According to Paul, Yume is gonna have a risky chance in June, with much more social features learned from Facebook.

Tags: Early Adapters, facebook, FPT, future, Gooogle, patriotism, Paul Nguyen, Tamtay, Timnhanh, twitter, Vietnam, VON, WordPess, Yahoo! 360, Yobanbe, Yume

Now we have official venue and date confirmed for BarCamp Hanoi 2. Congrats the team!

Here is the full message from BarCamp Hanoi:

“We are really glad to announce about the official date and venue of Barcamp Hanoi 2009.

Thanks to RMIT Ho Chi Minh city for supporting for the venue of Barcamp Saigon 1, and once again RMIT Hanoi will support our Barcamp Hanoi 2009. The infratructure of RMIT Hanoi (projectors, rooms, wifi…) is really good and it can hold about 300 attendents. Details:

WHEN

8h 30′ a.m - 5h 00′ p.m, April 19th 2009

WHERE

RMIT International University Vietnam - Hanoi Campus

2/2C Van Phuc Compound - Kim Ma Street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi

Now we have the official venue and date confirmed, please be ready to join and you can think about your session topic for sharing in Barcamp Hanoi 2009.

Thank you very much for you interest, the registration date will be announced soon.

More detail here: http://www.barcamphanoi.org”

_______________________

If you are using Twitter of just interested in what’s going on in Vietnam, please join Twitter Community in Vietnam: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=49597709058

Thanks!

Tags: barcamp, barcamphanoi, twitter, Vietnam

Time: 7pm – 10pm Thursday, Feb 12

Location: Cafe Chim Xanh, 19 Khuc Hao, Hanoi

Agenda:

1. Getting to know each other

2. Twitter and Twitter Clones in Vietnam

3. Is there a crisis among Internet Companies? (CyVee, Faceviet, Vega, VON)

4. BarCamp Hanoi 2

Facebook Group for Twitter Community in Vietnam is here.

Facebook Event is here.

Twitter tag for it is: #twithanoi or #hanoitwit. But next time it should be #hanoitwit only.

Will blog about it after that.

______

Hey just came back from Twitter Offline in Hanoi. It was damn good actually. Thanks everyone for coming. Sorry it was my fault not to clarify that it was cafe only, not dinner.

Who were there?

Jeremi was the first to come, and then me. Actually Chim Xanh was a bit small, and we didn’t have time to talk peer to peer. I’ll write down list of people who were there so that you can easily recall. The problem is I’m pretty absent-minded, so please remind me if I accidentally forget anyone or give any wrong information. Thank you!

1. Jeremi Joslin – Product Manager at eXo Platform.

@jeremi

He was to the first to come, even ealier than me. A nice French guy riding a nice bike

2. Me – The author of this blog post. I’m the 2nd to come.

@chipro

3. Vương – Petalia.org

@tonami

Petalia has Alexa Ranking of 8700 worldwide, wow, not bad at all. Hey Vương, tell me more about yourself and your site. Are you working on it with your sisters & brothers?

4. Nguyễn Đức Hoàng

@hoang188

He is working at BiTTech, researching Google Apps and cloud computing, right?

5. Nguyễn Trung Kiên

@forty4vn

A young and active web designer at a Russian company, Badadu Media.

6. Hoạt Lê

@hoatle

A student at Hanoi University of Technology and Hanoi- Aptech. He just won second prize on Google Open Social Apps contest (right??) He will start working for eXo since next week.

He came with a schoolmate named Huy Dũng. His Twitter: @vannessars

7. Bryan Pelz

@bryanpelz

Many of us already know him, Co-Founder of Vinagame, and he lives part-time in Hanoi hahaa. Such a nice surprise to see you there, Bryan. I always like your humor, and you actually gave us a lot of precious information.

8. Nguyễn Thành Long

@epi_longo

He’s working at the same company as me, ePi Technologies. He has great marketing sense. He’s working a project about GenY.

9. Nguyễn Tuấn Anh

@tradaonline

He’s working on Social Media at VC Corp. He’s really good on WordPress and WordPress MU. He’s a rock fan and also the founder & admin of Rockpassion.

10. Nguyễn Minh Thảo

@cnccom

Chairman & CEO of CNC Software. His company is about to launch a social network for lovers in Vietnam, called http://traitim.vn

11. Lê Ngọc Quốc Khánh

@khanhlnq

One of the best programmer for JavaMobile, admin of JavaVietnam.org. He’s based in HCMC and wow, we are so lucky to have him join us in Hanoi today.

12. Nhữ Đình Thuận

What’s your Twitter account?

Another famous Java programmer, and an admin of JavaVietnam.org as well. He’s now working on his own company, Headvances. A typical product of his is a search engine called Moom.vn

13. Lê Đức Thắng

Chairman of TBWA Vietnam. FYI, TBWA is a son of OmniCom, the largest ads network in the world. The funny thing is that most Vietnamese never ever heard of that name.

14. Nguyễn Hải Linh

A really really talented manager. He’s been in charge of Lenovo Vietnam since he was only 23!!!!! OMG.

15. Sơn Bùi

He was once in charge of Punch Vietnam, but now he’s in a partnership with Baomoi. Secret! I’d love to talk more to you.

Both Thắng, Linh & Sơn haven’t been on Twitter yet, they are together.

16. Rick Rodgers

@rickrodgers

How could I forget you, Rick!!!! He’s in charge of Chodientu- eBay relationship (Peacesoft ofcourse). He’s also an organizer of BarCampSaigon. But you are always so mean to me, Rickkkkk!!

17. ThạchNN

@lockevn

Technical leader at Luften. They are working on a project similar to Twitter for Vietnam with some more features, called Tiutit.com (previous known as Loop.vn).Check out his comment below for more information.

18. Bill Tran (Tuấn Trần)

@

He’s in charge of Luften in Vietnam. Vietnamese - born, Polish – grown and American – educated. Sweet smile.

19. Mike Le (Thành Lê)

Founder and CEO of FaceViet. He’s also working for An Binh Security. His most impressive announcement there was Faceviet didn’t go bankruptcy!!!

20. Ninh Nguyễn

@xoai

A young & talented social guy, a product manager at VC Corp. He’s a product manager. He gave us a pretty nice vision about VC Corp, where LinkHay would be the central point (a platform like Facebook and every other product would be like applications)

21. Bùi Quang Huy

Director of Viettel Media. He told me he couldn’t come, then he arrived a bit late with a Malaysian guy named Joey. He seemed to know many people there. B/c of arriving late, he couldn’t share much. But his friend Joey already shared out an interesting news that he was working with Vinaphone & Mobiphone on lbs project?? (Was it? Anyone plz confirmed for me, I sat to far away from him).

22. Nguyễn Duy Hưng

Another quiet guy from Social Media, VC Corp. I hope you did enjoy it, Hưng. Sorry we couldn’t talk more. Hope to see you soon.

23. Tuấn Nguyễn

@conquerorvn

He’s doing some research but I didn’t understand him clearly ‘cos he was a lil bit far. Hey tell us more abt yourself

24. Thái Mak

@dtlvan

He’s working for VTC Intecom, online game. He’s young, enthusiastic and a good friend

Did I miss anything?

What was happening?

Actually, we didn’t only talk about Twitter, but all about doing Internet in Vietnam (junk, huh?)

Let’s go through some quick facts about Twitter first.

What is the most serious thing we have to face with when doing microblogging in Vietnam?

- People don’t know what micro-blogging is.

- Twitter hasn’t made any money, so how can a Twitter clone make money?

Some interesting information we got from this meetup:

- FaceViet didn’t go bankruptcy – confirmed by FaceViet’s Founder, Mike Le.

- There’s no point to do a Facebook clone in Vietnam (I’m not so sure about it)

- Bad PR can be good, but not always.

- Localization is not only about translation, but also about customization features to get on with cultures and habits.

- VC Corp is trying to make LinkHay a platform like FaceViet, and all other products of VC Corp will work like applications.

- Of all people using OpenID at VC Corp’s products, 90% use Yahoo and only 10% use Google.

- Micro-blogging & iTV will be hot in 2009

- BarcampHanoi 2 will be on April 12.

- Vietnamese and Chinese people like portal websites.

- You name it.

After Chim Xanh, some of us went for a beercamp and dinner on Mã Mây str., then went for some nice bars. It was a totally great evening. Thanks again for everything.

Hope to see you guys very soon! Tell me if you want another meetup like that in Hanoi next time

Tags: baomoi, barcamphanoi, Chip, FaceViet, twitter, Vietnam