Vietnamese tech news sites don't reflect local developments

According to an article published by techinasia.com "In Vietnam, if you want to read information about the technology industry, there are tons of sources. News has been on the frontlines of Vietnam’s Internet boom since the very start. A quick look at Alexa’s rankings for Vietnam will reveal that 11 of the top 20 websites are news sites. Unfortunately, when you drill down to technology news, you immediately see that most of these websites don’t cover technology in Vietnam. They’re all talking about news from Silicon Valley. It’s not easy for the layman to get news about new technology companies, new products, or cutting edge trends in Vietnam. It’s still mostly word of mouth."

If you work in the Vietnamese entertainment or events industry, you already know why this is the case. You have to pay newspapers in Vietnam to give you press. And it’s the same in the tech sector here. Startups that want their products to be known typically have to pay the press in order to get coverage. At the same time, these newspapers are giving free press to companies from Korea, Silicon Valley, Japan, and China. It’s a catch–22. Everybody knows about the latest iPhone, nobody knows about Setech Viet. Free press for foreigners, costly and dodgy paid coverage for local startups.