PHUKET: New Year's Day marks Phuketwan's fourth birthday. Looking back at January 2011, the year began with familiar headlines . . .

Phuket Beaches Losing Quality Fast, FC Phuket Wins VIP Coach, 25m Baht Boost, Rohingya Land on Phuket, Aussie Media Damns Phuket's Jet-Ski Scams . . . .

Other Januaries probably told similar stories. We wish it was as easy to predict what will happen this year as it is to flick back through the recent past.

For Phuketwan, some of the future can be foreseen. When we launched Phuketwan officially on January 1, 2008, it was always our intention to supply a Phuket news service for five years, and no longer. That still remains our intention.

Whatever 2012 brings, it will mark the end of Phuketwan as we know it. We'd like to think that, with the Asean economic community coming in 2015, a bold regional publisher will make us an offer.

We'd like to think that even in a wost-case scenario, if we can't find sufficient supporters to make Phuketwan a break-even concern, we haven't wasted our time.

English-language readers with an interest in Phuket at the beginning of 2012 start the year with a much greater awareness of the issues and themes behind the news than they did in 2008, when there weren't enough Phuket news outlets.

Today Phuket is one of the best-served expat communities in Thailand when it comes to news of different kinds and with different values.

Radio is also growing more competitive, and we predict it's only a matter of time now - probably next year or in 2014 - before Phuket has a twice-weekly English language newspaper.

Phuketwan has gone from strength to strength in the past year as in previous years, as those who look at ranking site alexa.com or other ranking sites can tell you.

Our peak audience one day last year was 16,450 visitors, according to Google Analytics. Phuketwan's own statistics, which run about 15 percent higher than Google Analytics, show us attracting around 4500 visits a day through December 2011 - not bad for a site with a fulltime staff of five.

However, we set our only real target as being to bring as much change for the better on Phuket as we could in the space of five years. Love or hate Phuketwan, we think at the least there is now much greater awareness than there once was of the main themes and issues that make Phuket what it is in January, 2012.

With a year to go, we think it's only fair to let our loyal sponsors and readers know that Phuketwan may not be around in this form or any other form in January, 2013.

Whether Phuket will have changed for the better . . . let's wait and see.