For a native English speaker such as myself, teaching English as a second language here in Korea leaves me with plenty of free time. Although I work 7 hours a day, my commute time is zero, which leaves me 14 hours a day to indulge myself in other activities. For the past year, I have been actively engaged in another job, more for the enjoyment of creating than any monetary reward. I am the Editor and Chief Technical Officer of UlsanOnline.com, a website for foreigners here in Ulsan, Korea.

I joined the website when it was in its infancy at a time when I was just coming off as Editor of the Korea Sun – a slick glossy magazine that failed after only six months in publication. The Korea Sun had never even published the issue I started working on before dying, so I was more than ready to jump into another creative endeavour. The founder of UlsanOnline is Fin Madden, the first foreigner I had ever met here in Ulsan back in May of 2004. He and I were rock climbing partners and would spend mornings and weekends out at Munsu Mountain. He is also one of founders (and I, a contributor) of “The Ulsan Pear” a now defunct newspaper that filled the same niche of English language local and events news for foreigners here. Both the Korea Sun and the Ulsan Pear failed, as so many other paper publications have: simply due to costs. It wasn’t feasible to pay for paper, ink, printing, distribution and rely on the advertising or paper sales. Print is dead. Or dying rapidly. Since we have no paper, ink, printing or distribution costs other than the webserver we are much more financially viable.

For the last year, the website has been doing quite well. While we are small relative to the big websites, we fill a needed niche in Ulsan and provide a valuable service to the ever changing population of English speaking foreigners here. We haven’t made much, but since I enjoy both writing and programming, getting anything for doing it was a kick. I’ve made much more fame than fortune and I’m very happy with where things stand.

But as the old saw goes, “nothing is permanent.”

After almost 7 years in Korea, Fin is leaving the country and returning to Canada. He hasn’t been much involved in the website in the past few months so I have been the defacto Editor in Chief. But he still retains 50% ownership. I have the other 50%.

With his departure now less than a month away, he’s now focused on getting out completely and is considering selling his half of the site. Aaron, a New Zealander, is interesting in buying Fin’s half. Jared, an American of Korean descent, is also interested in buying in.

Aaron, Jared and I will meet this afternoon to hammer out where we want to take things in 2010 and how we might improve our readership, community standing and revenue. I am a little apprehensive about the two new guys, but only because it’s a lot of unknowns. I’ll know more – and feel differently – as things progress.