OUDAM.COM

Hi Everyone,

I have been contacted by Mariko, a representative of Ning, the software platform on which Khmercity.net is built, about having our community featured as one of the six networks (out of 275,000) displayed on their homepage.

Our site is just 1 member short of the 1000-member milestone. This milestone, achieved in just six months, along with Ning’s recognition, attests to the stunning success of our online community, which is made possible only through the contributions of our members.

Below are my answers to a questionnaire posed to me by Mariko. I thought I’d share them with you since all members of Khmercity.net, especially the active members, have played a role in the growth of our online community.

If you’re not yet a member of Khmercity.net, I encourage you to sign up today!

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How did you hear about Ning?

I learned about Ning while exploring options (through Googling) for creating an online community for the Khmer diaspora throughout the world. After careful consideration of hosted and non-hosted solutions, I felt Ning offered the best combination of social networking features, architecture, and support.

What is your favourite feature?

My personal favorite is the forum which exists in the context of a social network. As opposed to stand-alone forums, the Ning forum fosters a climate of friendship and respect and discourages anonymity, flaming, harrassments and other abusive practices often associated with internet message boards.

How have your members reacted to the network?

Many of my fellow Khmers have expressed great excitement and gratitude that an online community is created to bring together Cambodians from all over the world to make friends, share music and photos, and celebrate our rich culture and heritage. In just six months since its launch, Khmercity.net has reached the 1000-member milestone.

What have you found most surprising in the process of creating this network?

Despite some limitations of a hosted solution, I was surprised how little time I had to put into maintaing and tweaking the site to ensure that it runs smoothly, allowing me to devote more time to content development.

Have your members met each other outside of cyberspace?

Some of my real-life friends are also members of Khmer City. One member wrote to thank me that Khmer City has enabled him to find his soulmate. They are set to be engaged, but I’m not sure if they have met offline, yet.

What is your vision for your network?

As a “survivor” of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, I’ve always had a penchant to help my people and my native country Cambodia in some way. Having grown up mostly in U.S. and as a full-time web developer, this is the only way I know how to contribute. Presently, Khmercity.net serves mostly to bring together Cambodian people scattered all over the world to chat, make friends and share photos and ideas.

My vision for Khmer City as it continues to grow, through increased membership, exposure and recognition, is to use it as a vehicle for positive changes within Khmer communities worldwide and to contribute to the rebuilding of Cambodia, which in many ways is still reeling from a very tragic recent past.

Is there anything else that you would like to share?

We have some of the greatest human beings on our site!

Is there any specific area of your network that you would like me to focus my blog post on?

I trust your judgement on this. But I’d stress the role of the internet as a unifying medium for a proud, intelligent and dignified people victimized by one of greatest human tragedies of all time.

Thank you for your kind consideration!

Oudam Em
Network creator

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As you may have noticed, the Khmercity.net music player is now even cooler than ever! You can now switch between “Normal play”, “Shuffle”, and “Repeat” so that you don’t have to play songs in the same order all the time.

If you like a song on someone else’s page, you can click on “Add to My Page” to have it appear on your personal playlist (in your KC page). This allows members to share songs without uploading duplicate songs to KC.

You can now launch the music player as a pop-up window so that the music does not playing when you navigate around KC (or to other sites).

Visit Khmercity.net

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The Khmer Community Toolbar is now more useful than ever!

If you have the toolbar already installed on your browser, you’ll notice the new “Gadgets” drop-down menu (pictured right) that lets you watch online TV, play games, keep a “to-do” list, convert units, count calories, and much, much more.

Our FREE Khmer Community Toolbar is an integral component of Oudam.com and Khmercity.net, giving you access to the full range of on-site and external features, including Khmer radio, news feeds, and easy access to Khmer music and movies.

Over 3,000 people have downloaded and installed our popular toolbar on their browsers. If you have not done so already, I recommend that you download it today!

Download Khmer Community Toolbar

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By the end of this year www.oudam.com will have been exactly one year old. I want to thank everyone for helping to make this site a stunning success. Oudam.com now reaches over 1,500 unique visitors everyday accounting for over 100,000 visits per month. We are now the third most popular Khmer site on the web, trailing only Everyday.com.kh and Cambodia.org.

I’ve just launched a new website, www.khmercity.net, for the Khmer community. It is a social networking site which brings Cambodians from all over the world together into a virtual community to chat, make friends, share photos, and interact with one another in a fun, friendly environment. I think Khmercity.net will one day surpass even Oudam.com in popularity.

Thanks to everyone who has registered to become a member of Khmercity.net and I hope others will get on board soon to help build the largest Khmer community on the web.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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Dear Friends,

I am very excited to announce the launch of KhmerCity.net, a social networking website devoted to the Cambodian community worldwide.

Many visitors have asked me for more interactive features on www.oudam.com, such as a forums, member pages, and the ability to post photos, videos, and blog entries.

Well, KhmerCity.net is the answer! Rather than attempting to adapt www.oudam.com into a community website, I have decided to create Khmercity.net specifically for that purpose. Oudam.com was set up as personal blog, and the Wordpress platform on which it is based is not easily amenable to the full-fledged social networking features that one might expect from a community site.

Think of KhmerCity.net as MySpace.com for the Cambodian people. Members may create their own personalized profile pages, post photos, share music, and interact with one another through live chat and forums. Become a member today to make friends, share ideas, create interest groups, and much, much more!

I know there is not very much on KhmerCity.net yet, as it is brand new, but I plan to add lots of content and cool gadgets soon to encourage people to sign up. By the way, membership is free.

In the coming weeks I will be integrating KhmerCity.net into Oudam.com and our popular Khmer Community Toolbar. KhmerCity.net is the 59th website that I’ve developed and second devoted to the Cambodian community. In just a year after launch, Oudam.com has become the third most popular Khmer site on the internet (according to Quantcast.com) as is poised to become #1 soon. I will use the same strategy, namely fresh, quality content and aggressive, innovative marketing, to promote KhmerCity.net as I did Oudam.com.

But the most important factor is you! You can help get KhmerCity.net off the ground by signing up for a FREE account today and start posting your profile, photos, music, videos, etc.

Sign up today and help build the largest Khmer community on the web!

Visit KhmerCity.net

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