The results of the survey are in and I was very pleased with the number of you that responded. I received 51 responses so I think the results are representative of the readership. If you missed out this time around there’s a very good chance I’ll be sending another survey in the next 4-6 months to get a feel for how you all like the upcoming changes here over that time period. More on that later.

Right now I want to share with you all the results. These are not necessarily in the same order as the questions were asked on the survey. For those of you that didn’t participate there were only 5 questions, 3 of which were multiple choice type questions and two short answer questions to get a better idea of what everyone likes to see here and what they would like to see more of.

Question #1
How did you find out about Thailand Musings?

Heard About From A Friend (8) 16.0%
Google Search (25) 50.0%
Bing Search (0) 0.0%
Yahoo Search (6) 12.0%
Other Search (3) 6.0%
Link From Another Site (9) 18.0%

The results show number of respondents followed by percent of the total respondents. And what did we learn? Not surprisingly most of you found TM through Google. A bit surprising was the fact that 18% of you that followed a link from another site. This is higher than my Google Analytics data that shows roughly 11% of my traffic coming from other sites. What was most surprising to me was the number of people who said they heard about Thailand Musings from friend. Although it does explain the high percentage of traffic Google says I get from people typing the URL directly into their address bar – 24%. Thanks are definitely in order to those who speak well of TM and keep up the good reviews!

Question #2
How Valuable/Useful Do You Find Each Category of Thailand Musings?

I’m not going to get into the exact numbers for this question, but again the results were slightly surprising to me. The top three categories in order were:

1. Thai Culture
2. Thai Food
3. Living in Thailand

Both the Thai Girls and the Bangkok categories were very close 4th and 5th place runner ups to Living in Thailand. Thailand Travel came in 6th and many of those voting in this category found it just Fairly Useful, not Extremely Useful. Thailand Employment was dead last with 50% of all respondents saying it was Not Useful At All.

Also interesting is that both Thai Culture and Living in Thailand had no one say that they were Not Useful At All. And while the rest of the categories got 15-19 responses each the Thai Girls category got a whopping 26 responses. Of those only 2 people said the information was Not Useful At All.

Question #3
I am thinking of adding a forum to Thailand Musings. How often do you think you would visit this forum if it was offered?

Almost everyone who took the survey answered this question (48 out of 51) and almost 80% of you said you would visit the forum on a weekly basis or more often. In fact, more than 35% said they would visit a Thailand Musings forum more than once a week or even daily. Based on this feedback I am going ahead with the plan to add the forum. I know there’s a lot of competition out there in the Thailand forum area, but I still think there is room for 1 more with its own flavor.

Question #4
What topics would you like to see more often on Thailand Musings? You can include both current topics and topics that I may not currently cover.

I will try to give a good overview of the types of responses and will even answer some direct questions since I have no way of knowing who was asking since the survey responses were anonymous.

Two frequent responses were more about Thai culture and more about traveling in Thailand. When asking for more Thai travel information it seems a lot of you want more about off the beaten track places and places to take a family. In regards to culture it seems many are interested in how to speak and interact best with Thai’s and what is expected of farang’s in Thailand. Some of you are also interested in more Thai language articles. These topics I can definitely cover and will include more of going forward.

By far the most frequent response I received revolved around Thai girls…meeting them, dating them, understanding them, visa issues and in quite a few cases the view of western guys in the eyes of Thai girls. I had cut back on these types of articles because I didn’t want the site to become too one dimensional, but I can certainly include more. I especially like the idea of including the Thai girls perspective and will have to come up with a good way to incorporate this idea into Thailand Musings. Pass was kind enough to get the ball rolling here, maybe I can get her to write more. And I do have an idea or two of my own.

Finally (and strangely!) there were numerous people asking for more information about how to get employment in Thailand and stay there long term. I say strangely because this is in direct contrast to question #2 where Employment in Thailand was dead last. Some of these also asked about information on moving to Thailand and comparisons of different places to live in Thailand. I think the people leaving these comments will get a lot from all of my upcoming information about my own personal move to Thailand…the budgeting, the finances and the ramifications. Based on this feedback I will also include some of my own thoughts about settling down in various places in Thailand. Golf and I know where we want to live, but that doesn’t mean it is a fit for everyone. We considered quite a few places and even now aren’t 100% sure where we will eventually settle. Maybe my thought processes on the pros and cons of living in different areas of Thailand will help some others who are thinking about making the move.

There were a few other requests, but the ones above cover the majority of what the Thailand Musings readers want to see. And these will be the things I will be focusing on over the next year. Thai culture, travel within Thailand, Thai girls and especially their perception of the guys and the financial information for making the move to Thailand. Of course there will likely be other things that I write about, but I will try to focus on what you all asked for. I’ve also asked Golf to resurrect the Thai recipes that she did so well with and she has agreed.

Question #5
Please add any other comments or questions about Thailand Musings here.

A lot of comments here giving thanks for the info and letting us know how great you think the site is . Thanks to all of you who wrote expressing your thanks! Here are some other comments I want to address directly:

“What is meant by the word “MUSING?” It is not located in any dictionary.”

– MUSINGS means a thoughtful consideration or contemplation of something, in this case Thailand. You can find the full meaning of the word here at Dictionary.com

“I think you need to post a bit more regularly to get a regular readership going. It was quiet for a few months this year!”

– You are quite right and I am sorry for my lack of posts in 2009. I promise to do better going forward.

“There are many forums already and maybe difficult to compete with Thaivisa, but I think you should try.”

– You are absolutely right. I was worried about the competition, but why not try?
“Nearly every man who develops an idea works at it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then gets discouraged. That’s not the place to become discouraged.” –Thomas Edison

“I met {deleted} online who lives in {deleted}. We shared photos, I sent flowers(twice) and suddenly, she is MIA. I called, but no response. Am I crazy.”

– No, you’re not crazy. Sometimes relationships just don’t work out.

I hope all of you who took part in the survey enjoyed doing it. There’s a good chance I will repeat it every 4-6 months simply because it gives me a chance to take a step back and get a good idea of what everyone wants to read about here. I certainly hope it improves your experience on Thailand Musings going forward.

Some other changes coming in the near future:

• Addition of a forum – Likely January/February 2010
• New look for the site – End of December 2009
• Current budget info – December 2009 (Budget is pretty much done, but we won’t be sticking to it fully until January 2010. Buying of Christmas presents has it all messed up for December. I won’t be falling into that trap next year.)
• Other new themes and features are being planned, but they are more medium term changes and I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

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