Social media makes Hanoi debut

When Tom Lancaster, a British-born, American-raised software developer came to Hanoi in 2005, he was, like many expatriates in any foreign city, in need of help with assimilation from locals in the know. What Lancaster soon recognized was the absence of a central hub for sharing information about services in Hanoi.

So he did what any enterprising person in the 21st century would do upon discovering a service gap: He founded Hanoi’s first social networking site for expats: The New Hanoian (

http://newhanoian.xemzi.com),

As stays for expats in foreign cities can be a fleeting affair, Lancaster, now 37, and cofounder Elliott Price, a 35-year-old Missouri native, set out to create a platform for expatriates and locals alike to review businesses and share tips on how to get by in a city which can be daunting for non-natives. 

Five years later, The New Hanoian has become a 20,000-user strong network. 

“Elliott and I agreed on the need for a resource that would serve as a community database and help to prevent the loss of information that happens when a knowledgeable expat leaves for their next assignment,” Lancaster said via email about the project’s origins. 

In a nation where just one in four citizens has Internet access, The New Hanoian is a new phenomenon. Before Lancaster and Price’s venture, there was no platform for sharing insights on restaurants, bars, hotels and other services. As such, The New Hanoian, now approaching one million hits per month according to Lancaster and Price, illustrates both how this Southeast Asian nation’s capital is becoming more Internet savvy, and how some web ingenuity can link both locals and visitors in an increasingly dynamic, interconnected city.

Lancaster noted that while he does not believe that the expatriate community has grown much in size since his arrival here, he feels the site came into existence at just the right moment in Hanoi, as local establishments continue to attempt to provide higher-quality services for a population which, with greater buying power, is demanding more and more amenities and products. Concurrently, businesses are attempting to increase their visibility on the web, as Vietnam’s Internet infrastructure continues to expand.

“Certainly the overall volume of leisure-oriented business has ballooned here, but that's driven more by the new wealth that's been created among Vietnamese,” said Lancaster.

“If our readership and membership continues to grow, it's more because there are more young Vietnamese who are interested in eating out, and among them there are increasing numbers who are comfortable reading (and to a lesser extent writing) English,” he added.

The New Hanoian has grown to the point where it now offers user-contributed reviews of more than 1,500 Hanoi destinations: nearly 600 restaurants, more than 100 bars and clubs, some 250 cafes and sandwich shops (some of which overlap with the restaurant section), nearly 250 hotels and places of lodging, more than 350 shopping destinations, and reviews of multiple other services and establishments such as fitness clubs, parks, cinemas and spas. 

Beyond offering menus and reviews, TNH (as its developers refer to it), pioneered the “Ask ANH” feature, which allows newcomers to pose a question to The New Hanoian community, similar to Yahoo! Answers, but on a localized basis. 

“We drew the idea for Ask ANH from Metafilter,” Lancaster noted. 

Users now post questions on everything from how to travel from Hanoi and where to play baseball to where to find Western products. “Ask ANH” also affords users the ability to refine their questions along certain topics, like etiquette for adjusting to Vietnamese customs paperwork (which aims to help users avoid messy dealings with Vietnam’s often difficult bureaucracy), bread and milk (which indexes questions on where to find staples and necessities), and several other topics. 

The site also facilitates interaction among locals and expats through its “groups” tab, where users can connect over common interests. New Hanoians organize everything from rock shows to NBA-watch parties through the groups page, reflecting the New Hanoi’s composition and shifting interests on this new web platform.

As Hanoi’s tastes and preferences become more diverse, so, too, does TNH. There have been 150,000 messages exchanged between users in the group section since that function was developed, according to Lancaster, and The New Hanoian has doubled its revenue from last year and hired five employees just this year. 

In Lancaster’s words, The New Hanoian represents the new Vietnam.

“What you're seeing in TNH is a reflection of the ways that Hanoi is changing: more business activity, more luxury businesses, more social activity, [and] a strong attraction to the English language among Hanoian youth.”