From our global reporters

John (Komsan) Jandamit, Bangkok Post’s web master has been on the job for 12 years, starting out as a trainee and gradually climbing his way up to the top. Jessy and Sam get the details.

John (Komsan) Jandamit, Bangkok Post’s web master explains the categories used on the website to Sam. Photo by Jessy Dahl.

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Master of the Web

"The technology changes almost day by day, so it’s fun to follow the technology," John says. "Sometimes it’s tiring, but it never gets boring." Photo by Jessy Dahl.

Maintaining the website for the Bangkok Post is by now second nature for John (Komsan) Jandamit, Bangkok Post’s web master. He’s been on the job for 12 years, starting out as a trainee and gradually climbing his way up to the top. On Tuesday, he shared with us his experience working at this company and his ideas on how he sees the newspaper/online business advancing in the future.

Jessy: What do you usually do in your job? What are your responsibilities?

John: Updating the site, maintaining it, and supporting the users.

Jessy: Who usually comes to visit the website? Who is the audience that you are trying to reach?

John: The majority would be Americans and Europeans; they’re 70% of our audience. Most of the other 30% would be Thai, so the biggest share of our readers are from abroad, making our audience very different from other Thai sites. I think we are the only Thai-based site that has such a big overseas audience.

Sam: What would you say would be your favourite part of your job?

John: Everything flows so fast and everything is dynamic. The technology changes almost day by day, so it’s fun to follow the technology.  Sometimes it’s tiring, but it never gets boring.

Sam: Are there any difficulties in your job?

John: It would have to be the culture in this company I would say. This company has been around for about 68 years, and they are in the print industry. So, some of the older people don’t accept online at all. Whatever we do, they don’t look at it; they don’t pay any attention to it, so we don’t always get a lot of cooperation.  Since we have so much content, however, we don’t really mind much. They do their part and we do ours.

Tuesday's homepage on www.bangkokpost.com

Jessy: How do you arrange the website? Do you do every single category on the website?

John: Yes. Our team picks every Bangkok Post story from the newspaper and categorises them before six o’clock in the morning. This department actually works 24 hours a day. We work daytime and then there is another guy who comes in at 10 o’clock at night updating the site before six o’clock in the morning. There is also another guy who crosschecks everything, because we still make mistakes – stories go in the wrong category or something like that and we make corrections.

Jessy: How do you feel about the multimedia section of the website?

John: It’s cool! We like it, we like stuff that moves. The newer generation has a smaller attention span, unlike older people who can read the paper for like half a day. Multimedia kind of sums things up, it makes things shorter and it makes us visualise things more easily. So, I think it is a good thing to have; it’s more fun to look at.

Sam: Where do you think the newspaper business is going? Do you think it will eventually be completely online?

John: It will still be parallel, both print and online for quite a while.  In Thailand that probably means the next ten years, because Thais don’t use the Internet that much. Internet penetration is only around 20%, so it won’t replace print yet for awhile. Of course, online will replace print sometime soon, but not that soon.

Sam: Do you think there will be any changes in the future?

John: Of course! When new technology comes in, we have to change according to it. For example, yesterday we just put up a new feature, Google Plus One, on our articles, which is basically like a Facebook “Like” button.  So, new things come in every day.

maintain – to keep in good condition, to keep up-to-date รักษา
responsibility – a duty ความรับผิดชอบ, ความรับผิดชอบ
update – to get or give the most recent information or news about something ให้ข้อมูลใหม่ๆ
audience – the people who watch an event happen, visit a website, etc. ผู้ชม
majority – more than half of the people in a group ส่วนมาก
share – one part of something that is divided between two or more people ส่วน
abroad – in or to a foreign country  ในต่างประเทศ
overseas – connected with foreign countries, especially those separated from your country by the sea or ocean เกี่ยวกับต่างประเทศ, ข้ามทะเล
favourite – something you like the best of all similar things ที่ชอบมาก,ที่โปรดปราน
dynamic – always changing and making progress เปลี่ยนแปลงเสมอ
pay attention – to watch, listen to, or consider something or someone very carefully เอาใจใส่, สนใจ
cooperation – a situation in which people or organisations work together to achieve a result that will benefit all of them  การร่วมมือกัน
category – a group of people or things that have similar qualities หมวดหมู่ ประเภท
categorise - to put people or things into groups with the same features จัดกลุ่ม, จัดประเภท
cross-check – to make sure that information, figures etc. are correct by using a different method or system to check them
cool – used to show that you really like something because it is fashionable, attractive and often different ดีเลิศ (คำสแลง)
generation – a group of people in society who are born and live around the same time รุ่น (คนรุ่นต่างๆ)
attention span – the period of time a person can focus his/her mind on a single subject, event, situation มีสมาธิ
sum up – to summarise; to make a judgment about what someone or something is like สรุป
visualise - to form a picture of someone or something in your mind, in order to imagine or remember them จินตนาการ
parallel – of an event or situation that happens at the same time as and/or is similar to another one คล้ายกัน ขนานกัน
penetration – the level at which a product, service, etc. has succeeded in entering a market ส่วนแบ่ง
replace – to get rid of someone or something, and to put a new person or thing in its place  เลิกใช้และนำสิ่งใหม่มาใช้แทน
feature – something important, interesting or typical of a place or thing คุณสมบัติ