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This week I had the chance to send Max from SiteHoppin some interview questions that he gladly got back to me with the answers. A few questions to get to know the man behind Sitehoppin and get a look at the present and future plans for the site. I would like to thank Max for his time and getting back quickly with the answers, I’m sure he had a lot of other important things to do. Why not hope over to SiteHoppin and check it out and the blog to learn more about Max and what is going on over at the site. Also on a quick note Max is throwing a nice contest to win some SiteHoppin Beer Credits and Beer Stocks. You can learn more about that by going over to Zedomax and go ahead and enter, to win you simply have to enter a few other contest that are also giving away SiteHoppin goodies.

Who is Max?
Max is a Korean immigrant from Korea when he was 9 years old, now he’s officially Korean-American and some of his friends call him the “Asian RedNeck” or the “Crazy Korean Guy”. I used to get so drunk in college and grab every chic’s booties in the bar. I usually did get kicked out but sometimes I scored.

I live in San Francisco, California and love it here. I have a lot of friends in different fields of life. In fact, most of my friends are a funky mix of white, black, and asian people, from completely different backgrounds and up-bringing. I really enjoy the diversity and freedom of speech in America. That’s why I live in San Francisco. If they can accept gay people, they must be oblivious to all the other stuff.

Why Sitehoppin?
Well, SiteHopping.com was taken so I had to go without the g. It’s a character shorter too. But yes, I did like to go bar hopping and club hopping. I used to go to every club every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday while working full time as an IT manager.

What other sites do you run?
My main blog and the blog that got me started with all my sites was Zedomax.com. It’s a name I made when I was 9 years old. I had a sign of Zedomax logo on my bedroom door and called myself “President”. My mom and dad had to call me, “Sir”, for awhile there…

You also blog, tell us a bit about your blogs.
I blog on Zedomax.com mostly, but I did start blogs like Bedzine.com, Keetsa.com, Sleepzine.com, Mattresszine.com for another company. Now I simply manage the writers and do the backend technical work so they all run smoothly.

Zedomax.com is a blog I started when I used to work for Cubloc.com, a company that sells micro-computers. Heck, I only started the site because my boss wouldn’t pay for a dedicated server. So I made my own domain and paid for the server fees. After that, I kept blogging and blogging…

My personal blogs include Zedomax.com, ProGolferDigest.com, SFBlogg.com, and some others but I won’t bore you with all of them.

Your always cooking. Ever though of doing a drunken cooking blog?
Well, that’s really what SiteHoppin is about. It’s all about cooking new food, I feel that’s the future of Web2.0+. SiteHoppin is really a “web” version of my food.

Has Sitehoppin become more popular than you expected?
Well, my expectations are always higher than the results. It’s still in the works so one day it will get there for sheezy.

Do you think it will get bigger?
Oh for sure, we just got started. We haven’t even released the SiteHoppin Toolbar.

Any ideas on expanding the site?
The SiteHoppin Toolbar will change everything. As far as technical stuff, it runs on MediaWiki, software that powered Wikipedia, it’s built on mass collaboration and massive growth.

What marketing strategies do you use for Sitehoppin?
Well, I’ve been trying to network with bigger bloggers and internet marketers by attending shows like AdTech and Web2.0 Expo. Since I live in San Francisco, all the shows come to me, I simply gotta go to them and meet more people that can help grow the site bigger. It’s who knows you, not who you know, my dad always told me.

What are the future plans for Beer Stocks?
Beer Stocks will eventually be split into Beer Shares (way down the road), where Beer Stock owners can sell a “share” of their Beer Stock web traffic. (This is top-secret and you can’t tell anybody!)

How’s the toolbar coming?
Well, I am still stuck on Beer Bottles, at least I am drinking them too. Once the Beer Bottle rating system is done, everything else is pretty much piece of cake. It’s just taking me a long time because I am trying to code everything from scratch. By keeping the code completely proprietary, the Toolbar will allow you to surf much faster.

A lot of people find the site confusing, any plans to fix that?
Yes, eventually, but my initial idea was too keep things a little confusing to get people’s interst. People will invest in complex systems, not simple systems that everybody can understand.

Reverse psychology I think it’s called. It might be working but maybe I will change it to be more simpler in the future if more users start complaining.

Where do you see Sitehoppin in 2 years?
Well, my goal is to make SiteHoppin one of the biggest social networking sites like Digg.com or StumbleUpon.com, where users can rate sites and also find new interesting sites. Plus, if we do get that big, we will open-source everything so anyone can make site like SiteHoppin.com.

How many hours a day do you work on the site?
I work on the site pretty much all day long, about 12 hours when I am working full time on it. I try keep things going a little slower because sometimes I do get “burned” out from working too much. Anytime I am not working on SiteHoppin, I blog on Zedomax.com and my other various blogs. I also do some web consulting for other companies, so it’s a pretty hectic day whether it’s Monday or Sunday, I feel no difference between the two. I haven’t taken a real vacation in about 3-4 years so
yes, I do work like a slave.

Have any secrets for our users to maximize the Sitehoppin experiance?
Well, start using SiteHoppin Toolbar! Yes, it’s still in development, that’s all I can tell you.

Any other big projects in mind after Sitehoppin?
On the side, I do run a network of blogs. I am trying to grow a network of about 200 to 300 blogs over at Zedomax.Net. I think blogs are still big and there’s way too much money to be made from it then people realize.

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Tags: interview, max, sitehoppin, zedomax