NTN OFFICES, VLADIVOSTOK, RUSSIA – In what is being hailed as “a major breakthrough” by its enthusiastic staff members, Not the Nation, Thailand’s newest and most honest news source, has proven its relevance and popularity with a second page of hits on Google, the world’s leading search engine.
The monumental event was reported late on Sunday night by NTN editorial staff member Winchai Opanant, whose duties include sub-editing, coffee-making, and obsessively Googling “noththenation.com” every twelve minutes to monitor the global dissemination of its content. “It was just after midnight when I did the 78th search of the shift, and sure enough, there it was – 7 hits, pages 1-2. I couldn’t believe it.” Winchai quickly reported the news to the staff and administrators who celebrated with an unrefrigerated bottle of Italian spumante poured in paper cups from the water cooler.
“This kind of high impact on the Thai news world is the NTN mission,” declared the Editor in Chief, whose identity remains hidden for security purposes. “We are now the undisputed owners of the brand ‘Not the Nation’ on the internet, the world’s greatest medium.” He quickly added “that is, if you make sure to use quotation marks in the search field,” apparently referring to a 2002 BBC News story featuring a quote from US President George W. Bush which remains the first hit when Googling the words “not the nation” without punctuation. “Anyway, we’re very proud.”
Launched without fanfare only two months earlier, and bereft of any media marketing or awareness campaigns, Not the Nation has relied largely on word of mouth and the generosity of the internet-using public for acknowledgement of its existence. With its metrics carefully tracked by staff, NTN’s rising awareness has been a hot topic at editorial meetings.
“We had a spike of 98 hits on November 11,” said marketing manager Noppadon Ekkachai. “Later we found out that 61 of those were from [IT manager] Montri re-checking the correction of a graphics bug. But for about twenty minutes it was terribly exciting.” Noppadon said that the second Google page of hits was “totally real, not from our own server or anything.” He credits the surge in interest to the numerous mentions of NTN stories placed on Thailand-related blogs such as Thailandjumpedtheshark.com, Bangkok Pundit, 2Bangkok, BangkokBugle.com, and New Mandala. “These guys have made all the difference,” he noted gratefully. Asked whether NTN would return the favor with some reciprocal links, he hesitated before admitting “Well, we only had enough money to hire a programmer for eight hours, so…anyway I’ve been reading ‘HTML for Dummies’ so maybe, well, we’ll see.”
The Editor-in-Chief dismissed the absence of a full-time programmer or actual business plan as serious obstacles to NTN’s continued success in 2008. “We’re not about profit, or fame, or even credit,” he explained. “We just want to say what needs to be said, and with the continued support of those who appreciate it, we’re going to keep doing it.”
“Well, until they shut us down,” he added.
