Net

Silicon Dragon: How China Is Winning the Tech Race

A year ago I was interviewed by Rebecca Fannin, international editor of the Hong Kong weekly Asian Venture Capital Journal and former International News Editor at Red Herring for her upcoming book: Silicon Dragon: How China Is Winning the Tech Race". The books message is that we shouldn't be surprised if the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates will be coming form China. Through an in-depth account of the new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs that is challenging the U.S. for global high-tech leadership, Rebecca is trying to take the reader behind the scenes to provide an up-to-the-minute account of a phenomenon that is just now breaking the surface in mainstream media and business press. I was one of the entrepreneurs interviewed through my involvement in Maxthon as was Jeff Chen, Maxthon's founder. Rebecca just let me know that the book will be hitting the shelfs anytime soon and you can pre-order it already from Amazon (see link above). I have not yet read the book, but for anybody interested in how the Silicon Dragon is taking on the U.S for global high-tech leadership I think it will be very interesting reading.

Hong Kong Web Startup Meet Up

Last year when I was visiting Hong Kong and met with the Simon Lee & the guys at Bullpoo, they complained that there where not enough web entrepreneurs in Hong Kong. And if there were, they were not aware of each other. I then suggested that the meet up with a few people I had been in contact with and start meeting informally for drinks once a month. Guess what? Today Simon tells me over Skype that the initiative I started have just resulted in the fourth Hong Kong Web Start up Meet up, and they were almost 200! Amazing!

EditGrid hosted the last meetup, Yahoo HK have started to show-up and  Catharina Maracke from Creative Commons was there as well. I am really excited about the fact that it was started on my initiative and in one year has grown to such an extent. There is nothing more gratifying than being able to help and connect people with each other.

And of course, what event/group can be taken seriously if they don't have their own Facebook group? Join HK Web 2.0 on Facebook here.

I for sure will come by next time I have an opportunity to join the meetup. Good luck - and thanks Simon for sharing the story.

Are Virtual Goods the Next Big Business Model?

Last week I attended the First Virtual Goods Summit at Stanford University, organized by CRV's Susan Wu and Charles Hudson
and reported about it here. On the panel "Are virtual goods the next big business model?" I realized that I this really might be the case. 

Accel's, Kevin Efrussy who invested in Facebook, got a lot of question about Facebook's introduction of virtual gifts. Kevin said that if he who is a pretty boring non-cool person with pictures of his kids on his profile got gifts that people have paid $ for - then imagine what people (read attractive girls) who are cool & in receives! 

Susan Wu also reported that prior to the panel she got a virtual pizza thrown in here face by somebody she didn't even knew. And this person paid for that. How weird is that? Although virtual goods is extremely popular in Asia and a huge revenue generator the uptake in the US and Europe has been very slow. Enter Facbook. Min Kim from Nexon, added that Facebooks introduction of virtual goods is paving the way for a general acceptance of virtual goods outside of China, and in particular in the US. Judging from the popularity of virtual goods on Facebook - he just might be right.

But why on earth are people buying bikini's to their girlfriends avatar or virtual flowers that dies after two weeks?

According to Doppelganger's Tim Steven, its a real expression of affection, identity and emotion. People really feel just as proud wearing a pair of branded jeans in a virtual world as in real life walking across the school yard. It's the expression of the same thing. Moderating the panel Susan Wu, clearly stated that she would invest in a company selling virtual goods on Facebook! We have just got used to all the applications being launched on Facebook by companies hoping to gain distribution like a Trojan horse, now be prepared for the same companies getting ready to sell virtual bikinis, pizzas and why on iPhones to make some money too.

So are virtual goods the next big business model? Probably. If Habbo hotel make 90% of their revenues on virtual goods, they sell more furniture than IKEA and girls in Korea spends more money on their virtual haircut than on their real - there must be something in it...

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Nexon, vgsummit, virtual goods, virtual worlds

Piclens A Really Cool Way of Browsing Pictures

I have been following the guys from Cooliris for a bit more than a year now and today they came to see me and demonstrated their new product: Piclens. Piclens delivers an immersive and full-screen experience for viewing photos on the Web. By downloading a browser plugin, you can search and browser images from Google, Flickr, Yahoo, Friendster and more in full-screen theater like mode. I think it really rocks and totally changes the way images can be experienced on the Web. Download Piclens here!

Technorati Tags: piclens

Ideas for the Next Le Web 3

Here are some additional thoughts I have for the next Le Web 3.

1. Lifehacker competition
2. Virtual goods, world & economy panel/speakers
3. Bootstrapping - building the most effective and cheapest bootstrapping budget

Technorati Tags: bootstrapping, leweb3, lifehacking, Lifehacks, vgsummit2007, virtualworld

At the Virtual Goods Summit 2007

I am at the first Virtual Goods Summit taking place on Stanford Campus. Virtual worlds and good are really getting hot and here are some amazing facts:

• Tencent with the QQ IM brand in China has more than 254 unique million users & 28MM simultaneous users
• Neopets: 40 MM registered users and 750, 000 daily transactions
• Nexon: 3.5 MM registered users, virtual goods cost between $0.60-$1.00. People by functional & decorative items like a rainbow colored balloon to use in a game rather than that standard balloon because people don't want to be like all the others.
• Nexon users spend more money on virtual haircuts than on normal haircuts!
• Habbo Hotel sells more furniture than IKEA!

I am really happy that I decided to go here and skip the second day at Supernova. Virtual goods and worlds are going to be so huge - the fun has only got started.

Technorati Tags: Habbo Hotel, Neopets, Nexon, Virtual economy, Virtual worlds, puppy, puppy, QQ, Tencent, Vgsummit2007

Outsourcing My Life

Inspired by Timothy Ferris book "The 4 Hour Workweek" and AJ Jacobs, editor-at-large at Esquire magazine, I have just taken the first steps to outsource my life. Being a Swede/Israeli living in Israel, running the business of Maxthon, based in China while spending lots of time on the road especially in the US and running Mashup Media can be quite a challenge. 

So when I heard Timothy Ferriss speak at the Web 2.0 Expo last month I got inspired. I have always been of the opinion that you don't need to run around, answer all your emails and talk on the phone all the time to get real results. I never picked up the book, but today I stumbled upon Timothy's website and read the account of how AJ Jacobs outsourced his life.

This is music to my ears! I just know that this is the right thing todo. I immediately contacted Brickwork
, and now I am sitting here all excited waiting to take the first step in oursourcing my life. I already work on a daily basis with China, US and Europe, so why not add India to the sauce as well? I've always loved a good curry.

I will let you know how it goes as the story develops..

The Master does nothing,
yet he leaves nothing undone.
The ordinary man is always doing things,
yet many more are left to be done.

Tao Te Ching

Let the story begin..

Technorati Tags: Outsourcing, Timothy Ferris, 4 hour week, AJ Jacobs, Esquire, Brickwork, Maxthon, Mashupmedia, Lifehacks, India

User Generated Maxthon Promotions From China

There is nothing more stimulating than when you see passionate users creating their own stuff to promote their favorite products & services. This is true love. The Maxthon community is a perfect example for this. I digged through the Chinese Maxthon Forum and found a couple of cool banners with a unique twist.

I have no idea what they say yet (Chinese readers - help me out on these two ;) but I like them. And there are tons of them. I will digg some more and see if I can find some more interesting stuff.

Technorati Tags: Maxthon, user generated, marketing

Maxthon Music Video By Chinese Fans

Talking about passionate users! Just got this in from Tony Gang, one of the new guys at Maxthon who posted this on the Maxthon Blog. This music video is made by LinQi and GuangChen ,students of Northwest Polytechnical University of China.

It's in Chinese but Tony have promised to supply one with English subtitles over the next couple of days. Since I know that I have many Chinese readers, why don't we run a competition? The one who sends me an English translation first, will get a U3 key with Maxthon :)

Love it! Keep sending me more.

How LinkedIn Led To Maxthon

I often get the question of how I got involved with Maxthon. I mean how does a Swedish/Israeli guy becomes a partner in a Chinese company? The answer is, thorough LinkedIn. Belive it or not. Not directly, but in-directly. Here's the story:

It all started when I was working at ICQ (an AOL subsidary) and was trying to track down Nicklas Zennstrom from Skype for an idea I wanted to explore. I then found that the missing link between be and Niklas Zennstrom was a Danish fellow called Morten Lund (early Skype investor). To get to Morten I had to go through a contact I had at MTV in London, another Danish guy called Henrik Werdelin - now VP at Joost.

Morten was quick to respond, but said that Nicklas was just too busy those days (I doubt it has changed ) so why don't I come by Copenhagen and he would give me a bunch of more interesting deals... I accepted his invitation, went to Copenhagen and then spend a day with Morten discussing Bullguard (his main baby then) and a number of other ventures for ICQ.

Nothing really came out of this meeting, more due to the lack of action from ICQ and less from Morten. However, it was the beginnning of a friendship that led to countless hours of IM chats for over a year. Morten kept pitching me on behalf of all kinds of ventures he was involved in or was planning to get involved in. At that time, I was really fed up with the total incompetence and lack of understanding of what was going on on the Internet at ICQ (and AOL too for that matter) and had started to look around for the next challenge.

Of all the ventures Morten and I discussed, nothing really seemed attractive to me at that time. Partly because I didnt want to relocate from Israel and partly becasue it just didn't make me excited. But things changed.

One early morning in late November 2005 Morten Skyped me from the Arab Emirates and asked me to have a look at a new browser he had stumbled upon. He was quite excited. 20 Million download in a year! And it was created by a Chinese developer living in Hong Kong!

Since I just had downloaded and converted to Firefox, my inital reaction was" Who needs another browser" ? But Morten just said: "Just download it and you will see.." Said and done, I did. I was converted - again! Maxthon was so cool, and they story behind so fantastic that I agreed to take on the challenge.

Morten wanted me to become a business partner and take the company to the next level. How could I refuse? After I made up my mind I spend the 4 months in endless IM conversations with BloodChen - Mr. Maxthon himself a.k.a. Jeff Chen. It was my first experience in Chinese psychology and negotiations. It taught me a lot of patience..

Jeff and I finally reached an agreement and signed it off - without ever having met...Talking about an original start of a new venture. Two years has passed since I joined and I haven't regretted it for a second. Maxthon is an amazing piece of software, but more than that, Maxthon is more like a movement of passionate fans and co-developers all over the world. We have actually become the only Chinese Internet/Software company with a true global footprint. And we keep on growing like crazy.

That was my little LinkedIn story. Hope you liked it. What is yours?


Technorati Tags: Maxthon, China, LinkedIn, Morten Lund, Skype , China, Joost, icq

An Inside Look At Google China

Here is a very interesting video about Google in China. Kai-Fu Lee, Greater China President (the man Google took from Microsoft that made Steve Ballmer throw a chair across his office in anger ;) taken last week. Kai-Fu spoke about the current development of Google's offices in China and about the challenges and opportunities facing Google China as well as collaboration between the US and China offices. I met Kai-Fu Lee in October last year in Beijing at Google China's Headquarters and guess what...He loves Maxthon!

Chinese-Jewish News

Danwei is pointing out that we have had a record month of Jewish-Chinese coverage in the western media. Since I am slowly but surely immersing more and more into China, and as an observant Jew, I find Chinese-Jewish relations very faschinating.

Here is a great video from the Sexy Beijing, about the opening of the first Mikveh in Beijing in modern times. And by the way, good news for all China visiting Jews! There is finally a kosher restaurant in Beijing !

Chinas Joost Gets Funded

Kaiser reports that the "Chinese Joost" UUSee, just received $23.5 in VC funding from DFJ's Growth Fund, Highland Capital Partners and Steamboat Ventures. P2P is really flourishing in China with such players as Google invested Xunlei - a Maxthon partner, PPLive and PPStream. I agree with Kaiser's prediction that it is only a matter of 3G time until we will see mobile P2P services popping up all over China

Update: Talking about the future of video & P2P, there is an interersting article on Technology Review by Hui Zhang called "Peering into Video's Future".

Technorati Tags: China, Joost, Maxthon, p2p, PPLive, PPStream, UUSee, VC, Venture Capital, Xunlei

A Visit to HiPiHi - Chinas Second Life

After a very good board meeting with Maxthon, I paid a visit to HiPiHi - Chinas answer to Second Life. This came about after I had written a short post on them earlier and got an invitation to swing by their office. Kaiser Kuo (Ogilvy) and Xinhua Liu (early investor in HipiHi & Technology Director at Burson-Marsteller).. also joined me.

Armed with camcorders, cameras and curious minds, we invaded HiPiHi physically and virtually. I must say that I was really impressed. I always felt like Second Life was too geeky and to inaccessible, and therefore had only signed in a couple of times and flied around out of boredom.

Not so at HiPiHi. They have been smart enough to realize that most of us deadly are not geeks and need a more user-friendly user-interface to motivate us enough to play around in this virtual world. Although they are just in private alpha, they have come along way with a team of just 60. The user is offered a bunch of pre-fabricated avatars, buildings, hills, rocks, objects and event water to furnish their own worlds. Should they feel for it later, the user can always customize or create any object from scratch as they see fit.

It is clear that HiPiHi has given much thought into making the virtual world more user-friendly. HiPiHi's CEO Hui Xu (beside me on the picture above) explained to us that the service will be launched in four stages based on traditional Chinese creational mythology (read Kaisers summary for an expansion on this).

Revenues will come from virtual property sales and advertising. And I can definitely see how advertisers will love this. Especially since HiPiHi is targeting the young and cool rather than a bunch of geeks in pajamas or "social media stars".

I shot a couple of short clips of a walk-through in HipiHi-land with a simple digital camera. Comments are both in Chinese & English. More clips here.

I have a very good feeling about HiPiHi and am waiting eagerly for the public launch.

(Image above: Sunset in HiPiHi-land).

Piper Jaffray Conference Day 2

Today I spend the day with knowledge hungry investment bankers, then participated in "Emerging Internet Companies" on behalf on Maxthon before running off to Maxthon's Headquarters for a sneak peak of a very new cool service and some upcoming product features. Looks great!

I also ran into a cool newly launched streetwear fashion clothes company just kicking-off here in China. Nice to meet with non-Internet related business people for a change ;). The name of the company is Eno , and the conversation with them certainly triggered some interesting ideas I want to explore...

Tomorrow, I have a breakfast meeting with a leading advertising agency am then off for a board meeting. Time is certainly running fast here and it's great to see so much activity in the Internet space. Before I head home I am going to pay a visit to HipiHi - the Chinese answer to Second Life. I got an invitation from them after I wrote a short post on them. Will certainly be a lot of fun. Bill Tail & Kaiser Kuo has promised to come along as well. Hopefully I will have time to shoot a short video from the visit - we'll see.

Finally, if you are looking for some new interesting investment oppertunity in China that are not related to the Internet. Digg deeper into alternative energy...it's getting very hot..

Technorati Tags: Altertnative engergy, Beijing, China, Eno, Fashion, Hipihi, China Investments, Second Life

A Conversation With Chinese Users

The Focus group panel, a permanent panel at any Piper Jaffray conference was especially interesting since this time the discussion was with young Chinese users as opposed to US teens.

Key Points:

• Favorite activities seems to be to download movies and mp3's
• Baidu is the favorite search engine mainly because of mp3's
• Google is considered "better" in terms of quality
• Prefer to download movies that are either Asian or European (French!) not Hollywood movies..
• Cannot consider to pay for any content. Especially not for music or movies
• But, are very willing to pay for ringtones, virtual items, avatars etc - One girl even paid to get a doctor to heal her sick QQ pet...
• All users bought online
• All used Alipay to pay for goods online - some cash on delivery

What I found most interesting was they all freely and openly spoke about that as soon as they wanted content forbidden by the government - they went Online to get it. Nobody seemed to be the least concerned with saying that openly. This is what I have been saying over and over: young people in China are not concerned or worried about saying what they want - no one is being arrested for a statement like the above... Censorship is something being practised by all governments, organizations, corporations and even Editors of the "free press" all over the world. It just comes in different colors and shapes..

Technorati Tags: Avatars, Baidu, China, Consumers, Download, Google, Movies, Mp3, Chinese Users, Users

China: The Portal Challengers (Video)

The first day of Piper Jaffrays's Annual Growth Conference is just over here in cold but sunny Beijing. The panel called "The portal Challengers" dealing with mainly video sites as a new and alternative destination sites as opposed to the big portals, was really interesting. CEOs of Tudou, Yoqoo.com and Mop (Oak Pacific Interactive) shared their view of the challenges and experiences of Chinas 150+ YouTube's.

Here are the main points:

• Running a video site is a very expensive business
• Nobody is really thinking of making any real revenues in the near future
• Local regulations makes running a similar business in the US look like a dream
• Main thing is to focus on users, build traffic and distinguish your self from all the other 150 sites..
• Download speed key factor
• Chinese users are opposed to YouTube uses are not really sharing videos with each other
• It is still very early days for video sharing sites in China - far away from being a major activity on the net
• Content is mainly of Asian character - not driven by user generated videos like in the US
• Most popular content is of "copyright challenging character"

In short still a long way to go before any of them are making any serious revenues from video content.

Technorati Tags: Piper Jaffray, YouTube, puppy, Tudou, Video, Yoqoo, YouTube

Off to China & Piper Jaffray Conference

I'm off to China on Sunday for the Fourth Annual Piper Jaffray China Growth Conference, March 6-8 in Beijng. I will be a panelist on "Emerging Internet Companies" talking about Maxthon. Piper Jaffray is known for organizing top events (invitation only) and judging from past events - this one looks very promising indeed with a great line up.

It will be a great opportunity for networking and potential Maxthon deals. Top executives from Chinas major Internet , Wireless, Game and Technology companies will be there. I am in particular interested in the Chinese focus group conversation, since I many times wonder what makes Chinese Internet users tick'.

Following the conference I am meeting with Maxthon Fan & supporter No 1: Kaiser Kuo, rockstar & Group Director at Ogilvy Interactive in China, followed by a Maxthon boardmeeting. It will be great to meet Bill Tai (CRV), David Zhang, Yuzhu (WI Harper), Jeff and Carol (Maxthon) again - just hope it will not be as cold as the last time..

If you want to meet up in Beijing please let me know, schedule is quite tight - but long is the night..;)

Who knows, maybe I even will have time to shoot some cool Beijing street scenes?

Technorati Tags: Beijing, China, Maxthon, Ogilvy

HipiHi - The Chinese Second Life

My good friend Kaiser Kuo, made me aware of a Chinese Second Life wanna be called HiPiHi. It is still in private beta, but there is a demo video on the site that you can download. What I find interesting here is that as Kaiser points out, there is a female element here which seems to indicate that the site is going after female gamers: female narrator and avatar, emphasis on the outfits, the landscaping and the houses.

I agree with Kaiser that it would be interesting to see if they will give HiPiHi a more Chinese touch. I personally would find it much more compelling wandering around in a Chinese environment with a Chinese architecture, marble lions guarding my house entrance etc. And here is my personal advice: Why not offering foreigners like me wandering around in HiPiHi to learn Chinese? I could not think of any better way to learn and practice a new language in a virtual world. Just imagine, taking a taxi from the airport, telling the driver where you want to go., going shopping at the market, or join a Chi Gong class? The reverse could also be a great way for Chinese locals to learn English. I would definately be the first to sign up for such an opportunity.

Finally, Kaiser asks if we are going to see advertisers lining up, companies building themselves a presence there just like in SL? I definatley think that can become very big. Just considering the Olympics 2--8 around the corner. Creating a virtual olympic inside HiPHi could be great fun, enabling you to run with the stars. Then, arrange competitions live that could be broadcasted live as well with prices... The site should obviously implement a full mobile payment mechanism so you can by avatars, apparel and real-estate on the fly. Oh, and HiPiHi should definately provide a mobile version as well.

China is such a huge country with so many opportunities, so why should a virtual China world be a success?

Technorati Tags: Avatars, China, Second Life, Virtual Worlds

Navigation based blogging, Second life & mobile

What does navigation-based blogging, Secondlife-like gaming and mobile phones in common? Well, this is the platform run by Japan based mobile marketing firm Naviblog now looking to enter the Chinese mobile space.

China Business Cast has an interesting interview with Naviblog CEO Mandali Khalesi on saying that mobile marketing will drive the adoption of the mobile Web in China.

New Research:The User Revolution

Piper Jaffray just published a fat report called "The User Revolution: The New Advertising Ecosystem and The Rise of the Internet as a Mass Medium". Here are some of its key findings:

• We expect global online advertising revenue to reach $81.1 billion by 2011, representing a 21% CAGR (2006-2011).

• The User Revolution. The advertising world is going through a revolution, one that we call the "User Revolution" as it is happening primarily with the consumers, who are taking control of content consumption and branding. We believe this trend will cause a significant rise in prominence of the Internet as a major content consumption and marketing medium.

• "Communitainment." The Internet has increasingly become a principal medium for community, communication, and entertainment--three areas that have collided together and are impacting each other's growth--generating a new type of activity that we call communitainment.

• The Internet Is Mainstream. The Internet has become a mainstream media outlet that now rivals traditional media for reach and advertising dollars.

• Media Fragmentation. The proliferation of online and offline media outlets has resulted in shrinking television audiences and an increasingly fragmented media landscape.

• The Golden Search. We believe search continues to gain ground, driven by the rise of search as the New Portal, the increasing use of search in branding campaigns, and the local search opportunity.

• We believe Google's wide variety of non-search-related products creates a virtuous cycle of brand affinity that drives incremental search volume.

• Video Ads Could Drive The Next Wave. We believe Internet video ads could become a game changer for large brand advertisers, who are used to the 15- or 30-second TV commercial

• Internet Usage Patterns Are Changing. Portals maintain the highest reach, but the fastest growing category of destinations is communitainment sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

• Ad networks are experiencing increased demand due to increasing Internet fragmentation, desire for more targeted inventory, increasing usage of networks for branding, and increased site visibility.

• Agencies are rapidly evolving into more sophisticated, technology-savvy entities that combine best of breed offerings.

• Companies to watch: Google (and YouTube), Yahoo!, Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Microsoft, InterActive, Facebook, Craigslist, Brightcove, Yelp, SINA Corp., Baidu, aQuantive, ValueClick, 24/7 Media, Netflix, Wikipedia, MobiTV, Digg, and Hakia to be the most important players to watch.

Like my good friend Kaiser Kuo, Group Director for Digital Strategy, for Ogilvy China, mentions in this new (and great) blog " Ich bin ein Beijinger" : none of this should come as a surprise, but the report is full of eye-opening finding regarding the decline of TV viewing, changing viewing and decline of broadcast TV ad as percentage of total ad spend.

Kaiser who has a unique insight to China (and was very much responsible for Maxthon getting discovered and funded..) is confident that advertisers will flock to video ads and all the opportunities that are opening up for digital media advertising in China .However, he wonders how ready people really are for pre-roll commercials stuffed in to things they want to watch.

I tend to agree with Kaiser, although there is a fantastic opportunity for advertisers, the Internet savvy users might very well prefer to block ads if possible. This is something we have learned at Maxthon and seems to be especially true for Chinese Internet users. Al the sophisticated ad-blockers and filters that come pre-installed in Maxthon has definitely been one of the key driving factors for Maxthon success in China.

Anyway, next week I am flying down to Beijing again to talk on Piper Jaffrays Annual China Growth Conference on behalf of Maxthon. I will then have a chance not only to meet up with Safa and rest of the Piper Jaffray gang, but also to meet with Kaiser again and plot how we can deliver some interesting advertising opportunities together in China.

 

Thanks to Mark Pols for sending me this fat report!

Bonus: Video Interview with Kaiser I made just before he left the Red Herring.

Sign-up: Annual China Venture Conference 2007

A good friend of mine is helping to organize the Annual China Venture Conference 2007 set for April 12 in Beijing. Looks like it’s going to be a great event that will hopefully offer a fresh perspective to the Chinese VC business. My buddies at WI Harper Group is of course going to be there too.

The goal of the event is to provide a forum for investors to plan their future investment strategies in China.Investors from all over the world will meet and share the experiences and wisdom about investing in China and brainstorm about future investment opportunities in the Chinese market. 

The theme of this conference is "Capturing the New“. New trends, new opportunities and new challenges will be discussed at the conference.  New investment strategies will be highlighted.

Get the full program info here. (pdf)

If you are interested in an invitation - please contact me.

The Colbert Report: The Truth About China

Technorati Tags: China, Colbert Show, Fun, Motherload, Video

uiGarden - For Chinese & Western UI Practitioners

I stumbled upon uiGarden, a bilingual Online magazine for Chinese and western user interaction designers. Due to my involvement in Maxthon I often ponder about the differences in Chinese and western user interface design and uiGarden is a welcome resource in trying to make sense of it all. There is both an English & Chinese site, and the great thing about it is that all articles are translated into both languages.

Technorati Tags: Interaction Design, China, uiGarden, Usability, User Experience

How It Will Look When The Chinese Bubble Bursts

Maoxian shows us how it will look when the Chinese Bubble will burst.

137 Million Internet Users in China

During 2006 China got another 14 million Internet users, ending up as the world's second largest Internet market with 137 million users according to CNNIC. Virtual China sums up the most important details from the report:

• 137 million Internet users, a 23% growth rate in 2006, compared with just above 18% growth rate in both 2005 and 2004
• 10.5% Internet penetration rate
• over 30% of Beijing's population is online
• the .CN domain name grew at a rate of over 64% compared to 2005 (probably still fewer in total than .COM, would be my guess). China is said to be entering "the .CN era"
• 75% of Internet users are using broadband connections (xDSL, cable modem, or leased line)
• a bit above 12% of Internet users, or 17 million, have accessed the Internet through their mobile phones (compared to 13 million in July 2006)
• mobile Internet users are primarily male, unmarried, aged 18-24, work in an enterprise, and live in cities and towns
• 72% of mobile Internet users are mainly going online to send and receive email, while 31% are browsing news
• biggest issues for mobile Internet users are the high price and slow connection speed

Technorati Tags: .CN, China, Chinese Internet, CNNIC

Reality Check on China Mania

Seeking alpha has a very good reality check on the China mania as he calls it. Here's the secret recipe:

1. Take tens of thousands of retail investors who assert that conventional valuations based on future earnings have no meaning in this particular bull market.
2. Add several thousand momentum investors clumped together in "privately raised funds."
3. Mix these investors with a dash of the well-known Chinese penchant for gambling.
4. Then, stir in a batter of a remarkably immature investment culture
5. and voila... you have produced "Mania a la Chine." Serve sizzling hot

Another interesting observation is the Chinese way of bookkeeping:

Investors in Chinese companies know little about the companies they are investing in. Any (honest) old China hand will tell you that Chinese firms keep several sets of books :

1. One for the government
2. One for company records
3. One for foreigners
4. One to report what is actually going on...

I cannot speak for all Chinese companies, all I know is that in Maxthon we all run by the book (one that is ;). Finally he finishes off by warning us for looking out for China Enron during 2007. Although I believe we will see that too (and not only in China) I still think there are excellent investment opportunities in China. However, investors need to think more long term and strategic to succeed.

China traded 7 Billion Yuan in Virtual Items 2006

China recorded 7 billion Yuan in gross merchandise volume (GMV) from virtual item trading in 2006, reports Economic Times quoting government statistics. Online game related virtual item trading in China hit 4 billion Yuan GMV in 2006. Amazing! Via Pacific Epoch.


Technorati Tags: China, Virtual items, Avatars, Virtual Trading

VC Investments In Chinese Video Sites

ChinaVenture reports that 17 Chinese Online Video sites got $95.5 million in funding since 2004 with an investment peak of $52.7 million in 2006.
Below is a chart illustrating the investments. As you can see WI Harper invested in Radio.cn but missing from the list is Charles River Ventures investment in Wangyou Media in March 2006.

Technorati Tags: Blogcn, Charles River Ventures, China, CRV, Wangyou media

Online Videos Goes TV in China

Online Video starts invading your TV - at least in China. Pacific Epoc reports that Fujian based South East Television (SETV) will begin including videos from Chinese user-generated online video site Tudou.com in its daily entertainment program Yu Le Le Fan Tian. The new segment of the program, called Bo Ke Feng Bao, will begin broadcasting on January 22. I guess the question is just when we will start seeing YouTube on TV.

Technorati Tags: China, Online Video, China TV, SETV, Tudou, TV, Video, Video, Video

Linux Journal: Maxthon The Real Firefox-Killer!

This is quite amusing. It seems that the interview I gave to ReadWriteWeb a few days ago have stirred up quite some emotions. Believe it or not, Linux Journal calls Maxthon The Real Firefox-Killer...

For the real challenger comes not from Microsoft directly; instead, it's from  a new browser that uses IE's rendering engine,  Trident, but which is produced completely independently of the company. This means  that it can offer all the "benefits" of 100% compatibility with what is still  the dominant Internet browser, together with a host of real improvements -  some of which go beyond even Firefox.        This new competitor is called  Maxthon..

Interesting take. I couldn't agree more with the author. Besides the fact that we are not fighting any browser war. We are just a very good alternative. There is plenty of space for all of us, just like there is a market for more than Ford and Volvo..

BTW, read the comments - quite interesting..

Maxthon for Linux anybody?

Technorati Tags: Maxthon, Linux, IE7, Browsers, Linux Journal, Firefox, Technology

Nice Maxthon Interview on ReadWriteWeb

A few days ago I was interviewed about Maxthon by Gang Lu, a very nice guy I met at Le Web 3 a couple of weeks ago. The interview was published in Read Write Web today.

>Technorati Tags: Maxthon, ReadWriteWeb, Leweb3, Gang Lu, Netanel Jacobsson, China, Web 2.0

The Dragon's web: what can we learn from Internet in China?

LeWeb3 conference, 11-12 December 2006, Paris, France Here is the video from the China panel I participated in at Le Web 3 last week together with Bo Y. Shao, and Pierre Haski. As I have mentioned earlier, to my disappointed the panel never really discussed "what we can learn from Internet in China", but became to focused on freedom of speech and democracy (which would have been fine if that would have been the scope of the panel but it was not). Unfortunately we ran out of time just as we started to discuss that subject, which I really regret. Going forward, I will try to share my experiences and thoughts about what we can learn from Internet in China here instead. Anyway, I want to thank Loic and Ouriel for inviting me and wish them all the best for the next year.

Technorati Tags: China, Entreprenurs, Leweb3