What is Khmer.be and Why It Matters

Khmer.be is one of the most popular online Khmer community websites in the world. It's a place where you can meet other Cambodian people around the world. It has been created by a Cambodian American student while he was studying for his bachelor degree in Computer Science at Washington State University in Washington.

On Khmer.be website, you can make friends and chat with other Khmer friends around the world. You can participate in forum discussion. You can connect with other Khmer singles around the world or you can just chit chit about whatever. You can upload your photos and share with your friends on the website. To get to know each other you can communicate through messaging. Better yet, it’s all free.

There are many lonely Cambodian in the United and around the world who left their beloved country to live in America or somewhere else and found out quickly that they just lost all their friends. They need a place to meet their fellow Khmer and Khmer.be is one place for that. There are those who were looking for relationship as boyfriend, girlfriend or husband and wife and they can look on Khmer.be ;). There were many couples who met on Khmer.be as friends and later got married. It does have impact on people’s lives.

According to the founder Borey, Khmer.be was built in 2007 to be a social networking site for Khmer people around the world. It was a derivative of its predecessor KhmerNorthwest.com, which was found around 2005 and was only a community website for Khmer. At the time Khmer.be was the best short name available, so it was chosen.

He added, ”It was inspired by a few American social networking websites like: Hi5, Friendster, MySpace and AsianAvenue. I decided to build it after I taught myself software design pattern with ASP.NET/C#/MySQL. I kept building it in college, after doing homework, while attending Washington State University.”

“Over many years, it has been built and maintained during my free time after school and work,” he said.

Recently Khmer.be has gone offline for many months due to unforeseen technical issues. Many former users have been anxiously waiting to use the new website. Unfortunately the website will not be live any time soon. But there is hope.

Borey said, ”There is no plan to shut down Khmer.be, the development might be revisited sometime later, as time allowed.” He is now working full time as a senior software engineer contractor for a very big airline company. He doesn't have much time to get the website up and running as fast as he wanted, but he is not giving up. He said, ”I need to replan this development; I might form a team or something to move it faster.”

At the meantime, a new Khmer.be app has been created. You can signup and create your very own profile, add your picture and start follow other Khmer people around the world. You can post photos, and your followers will see them. When people you follow post any photos, they will show up in your feed. You can like or comment on those photos. Unfortunately, one of the most crucial features is missing. You cannot send private message and chat with anyone yet. However, he is working on a new version which should include the messaging feature, other bug fixes and possibly new or improved functions.

He said, ”The latest version of Khmer.be was redesigned to be a mobile-first photo and video sharing app just like Instagram. The work is still in progress, it's moving too slow due to my busy schedule.”

As of now the app is only available on the App Store for iOS device iPhones.

He is very passionate about it. Currently, he would work on it in the evening after work and during the weekend as time permits.  

To get updates on the progresses and new launches of the Khmer.be app and the website, follow it’s Facebook page @ https://www.facebook.com/khmer.be. The website is https://khmer.be. The link to download the Khmer.be app on the App Store for you iPhone is https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/khmer.be/id1138606309.

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