Archive for the 'Asia' Category
To Inspire You To Donate: PhotoBlog from China
In one of my recent posts, I encouraged others to donate, it actually worked, I know of at least 3 people that donated, I doubt I was the cause, as they had it within them to help. I’m sure many others donated, but didn’t want to say anything.
CNN reports that: “The government estimated death toll rose Thursday to around 20,000 but could eventually top 50,000, Xinhua reported.” as of Thursday, so I fear that things will get worse.
I’ve donated again, this time, my donation was more sizable than the first time around.
You know what to do, consider not going out to that nice dinner, and donate that money to the Red Cross, it would mean a lot to me if you donated, if you don’t have money to spare, blog it, tweet it, Facebook it, spread the word, that means just as much.
I’m Chinese, and have been to China a few times, here’s some of my favorite pictures compiled over a few trips, I hope they inspire…
My wife and I, newlyweds, celebrate our wedding with her family in Zhongshan, China.
Did these photos brighten your day? Consider donating to the Red Cross China Effort, there a lot of suffering, even $20 significantly support this effort.
What’s the impact of these photos? See the comments below, one in particular is really striking:
“your photos are beautiful. you’ve made me stop thinking ‘I should’ and get on and donate”
Thanks Rachel, that’s fantastic news.
36 commentsI Donated to the Red Cross (and others are too)
I realize that this is completely off topic from the Web Strategy blog, but I’ve a loud voice, and there’s many well to do readers of this blog, so this is one of the best ways I can apply my resources.
I’ve got earthquake supplies in my closet and garage, I know the ‘big one’ is going to hit us someday in Silicon Valley and it’s going to be pretty bad, I’m expecting at least a week without proper aid or food. I’m sure that things are much worse in Burma and China, so I’m somewhat sensitive to this disaster.
Death Toll:
Cyclone at Burma: Over 34,000 dead, Updated May 13th
Earthquake in China: Over 12,000 dead Updated May 13th
Update Wed: Over 60,000 are missing, death toll could rise.
I donated some money, although not enough to turn the tide. I’m curious, what are you doing out there? Leave links to organizations that are helping, in particular those that are using the internet to do good.
You can start by donating to the American Red Cross, or World Vision.
Update: over 1000 students are injured, not good.
Update 2: Yo Scoble, I see you’re talking about Twitter and the earthquake, why not do a blogpost pointing to the redcross or some other org that can help? You’ve got 3 times the juice I got. Do something with it!
Update 2.5: Scoble came through and told 22,000+ people on Twitter, thanks!
Update 3: Eric Gonzales, who I’ve known since 2000 has donated and is spreading the word. Daniele has posted that he donated as well, thanks. Eric of CN reviews is posting up pictures, videos, and live reports, staggering. Len Devanna, EMC’s Web Strategist has also donated, he’s someone worth knowing, I’ve met him several times.
Update 4: Tuesday morning, I feel a snowball effect happening, this is great
Update 5: Wednesday Morning: Damon Billian of the mint (and someone I’ve known for a few years) has donated $100, see comment 34. Elliot Ng has put together a list of ways you can donate, not just to the Red Cross.
Update 6: Wednesday Morning: Alright, now we’re getting traction, Sarah Lacy has donated money too!
40 commentsVideo: Marketing in Japan? Think Mobile (4 minutes with Gen Kanai)
Gen Kanai, Mozilla’s (makers of the Firefox Browser) marketing manager in Japan shares with me how mobile has impacted the culture of Japanese. From communications, payment, media consumption, and internet usage, Japan’s mobile culture is unique. Gen also blogs at the Mozilla Asia blog, where you can see how they specifically serve their Asian market.
Recently, I was checking out Forrester’s Jonathan Brown’s blog he focuses on the web and user experience in Japan, a related read. The sound on the video wasn’t that great, just to let you know in advance. Ironically, during this conversation on mobile marketing my cell phone starts to ring.
No commentsVideo: Community Marketing in Japan with Kaori, Mozilla’s Marketing Manager
I met up with Kaori at Mozilla’s headquarters (kicking off a discussion), she was in town from Japan, and I was able to ask her some questions on how community marketing is done in Japan. Learn from her how Mozilla (a company known for giving power to it’s member) has successfully used voices of the community to lead.
Kaori shared with me how Mozilla listens to what users customers and the community have to say –and how it impacts events and future products.
Firefox regionalized their brand experience in Japan, and created this cute and appropriate anime looking Firefox persona, see Foxkeh.
Oh, and if you’re new to my videos, click on the ‘video’ category on the right nav, or ‘web strategy show’ to find others. I’m known for spinning the camera around, so you can both see me, the environment, and then focus in on the guest, I want you to try to experience the moment.
5 commentsEvangelism, Technographics, Culture, and Early Adopters…A lunch time conversation at Mozilla
(Left: Clever HR ploy or relaxed place to work? Mozilla’s “Beach” must keep vacation requests to a minimum)
Update: My host, Seth has responded from his community blog.
I’ve been an observer of the browser market for some time, since I live much of my awake live within one, and have been privy to interview the IE7 team on their launch, and also have been recently got a demo from Flock’s CEO (my thoughts on the opportunities).
Seth Bindernagel, of Mozilla’s Evangelism team invited me to swing by the Mountain View headquarters, I was in luck, as there were folks from out of town like Gen Kanai (Japan) that I’ve been wanting to meet for quite some time. As soon as I walked in the door, it was apparent these was a very, very savvy web team, so I wasn’t sure how much value I could add. Seth and I discussed in advance that success would be to get the teams to talk about the globalization of the web, how different users share products, and how social media impacts product adoption. You see for Firefox, and other Mozilla products, adoption is often done by customer word of mouth and referral –and blogs empower much of this.
There were a few main topics we hit: From Technographics (how different people use technologies depending on their needs) Early adopters vs Laggerds, and how Marketing and Product teams can improve to listen and talk. For most of these topics, each of the respective teams (Executives, Marketing, User Experience, Analytics, Engineering) had a response, so they were for the most part moving forward.
Technographics
Each culture shares differently online, and when you’re applying social media products (which encourage sharing) you need to be sensitive to understand if they are: creators, joiners, critics, collectors, consumers or inactives. Will internet users that just consume the web, and just visit a few websites a week be interested in the advanced functionality of Mozilla products?
Localization
The web is a fascinating medium, many companies think that by slapping on a .cn or a .de, doing some navigation localization will be enough to get product adoption…rarely is that the case.
Early adopters to laggards
For Firefox, many of the early adopters are the ones that are ’sneezing’ the product to others, and Mozilla has been great reaching to those folks. But what happens when the early adopter market becomes saturated with Firefox and now the focus has to shift down the adoption curve. Should Mozilla rely on ‘traditional’ marketing and advertising?
Stay tuned, I did a couple of web strategy videos talking about social media, marketing in Japanese and European perspectives, and even how to improve products with community, so stay tuned over the next few weeks for those.
Oh, and one of the employees (was it John?) made some funny remarks how Firefox was the greatest thing for IE6 innovation, do you agree or disagree?
Video: Cyworld, Social Network with Communication, Collaboration, Self-Expression and “Peeping” (2:30)
Lars Schwenk, General Manager of Cyworld Europe shared with me what it takes to be a community, we were at Forrester’s Consumer forum in Barcelona.
If you’re not familiar with Cyworld that have heavy penetration in South Korea, (50% of Koreans is a member — and that 95 percent of its target youth market is active -Marketwatch) where it was birthed. Find out his four components of community: Communication, Collaboration, Self-Expression and what he calls “Peeping”. Something I swear I’ve never done.
I asked my Twitter network (over 1700 of them) what questions to ask Lars, and David Berkowitz wanted to know what we could learn from Asia’s deployment of Cyworld and what it means to the United States. If you’re interested in social networks in Asia, I was recently in Singapore and asked their top bloggers (video), two months ago I was in HK and talked to many of the web leaders, check out this four part series.
Cyworld launched in North America yet adoption has been very low, I learned from my travels that social technographics vary by culture, so to simply re skin a website for regions doesn’t work. Web Strategists must understand the people who they want to serve first, one size does not fit all!
2 comments3 Min Video: What tech skills are needed in Asia? How do people find jobs?
I interviewed Maneck Mohan (who works for Recruit.net, an Asian job aggregator) to find out what skills are needed for the technology industry, his perspective, from Asia and specifically Hong Kong. Are you surprised by his answer? I’m not. How do people find jobs, and what would be more efficient?
I know I’m a rare case, but I’ve got my two last jobs primarily from blogging. Social media impacts the recruiting process, I saw a stat that indicates that 35% of all employers do an online search about their candidates. I know I do and encourage everyone else to “Google them” and see what comes up. You can learn a lot (aside from the personal stuff), how do they think, how do they write, how do they interact with others, how do they self-represent themselves and their employer.
9 commentsYusuf on Hong Kong: 150% Mobile ownership? Why is Facebook a fad? (2:30 Video)
Yusuf Goolamabbas shares with me from the Oublaze offices in Cyberport (see pics), in this short clip we cover a lot of ground. In the time I spent with him, I learned that he sees the web from a very strategic point of view, and shares his views on the state of the web industry in Hong Kong.
You’ll find out:
1) What’s his view on the web industry in HK?
2) How can 150% cell phone penetration be accurate?
3) Bloggers: creators vs readers
4) Social Networks in Hong Kong, why is Facebook hot, but yet a fad?
Yusaf, wishing you and the rest of the folks over there good wishes, hope all is going well.
8 commentsVideo: Rebecca MacKinnon on Online Journalism
Hong Kong University professor Rebecca MacKinnon shares her insight on online journalism and recent censorship that MSN did for a blogger. She discusses her online debate with former Microsoft Evangelist Robert Scoble, you can read her analysis, his response, and her response.
Rebecca is clearly knowledgeable about this topic area, but I ran out of memory, so the best way to learn more is to subscribe to her blog. Oh, and she certainly impressed me with her ability to handle very spicy food.
No commentsWeb Strategy Field Report: The Hong Kong and China Web Sphere (Part 4 of 4)
(Left: Classical Chinese Garden, Bao Mao Gardens)
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |
Summary
I ventured to Hong Kong and met with many of the web industry leaders, below is the final report of 4 of my Web Strategy Field Report to understand the web sphere in Hong Kong and China. If you’re a web strategist with global responsibilities you’ll need to understand what’s happening in one of the world’s largest internet user base.
Opportunity
To date, there are more Chinese internet users than all of North America combined, and only a portion of China is full online, the potential has not yet been tapped. Simply re-skinning your website in Chinese and adding a ‘.cn’ domain may not be a sufficient strategy.
Purpose
I want to understand the global web better, and am doing what I can to learn more. It’s easy to become very insular in the Silicon Valley bubble, so if you’ve any suggestions, please leave a comment
Methodology
30-60 minute formal or casual interviews. I’ve met several successful Entrepreneurs, Investors, Analysts, Professors, CEOs, Strategists, Bloggers, Podcasters, and Marketers during this period.
Limitations
Please note this field report is incomplete. I’ve neither the time nor resources to do thorough analysis, and do a 360 degrees research. The information and anecdotes collected are from interviews with those that I met. As always, a web strategy and plan should have thorough research completed before starting. If you disagree or have other data points to add (even if it’s just your own opinion, I welcome them in the comments, please don’t be shy).
“In mainland China, the youth don’t know how to communicate to each other, offline or online. MySpace put a .cn as a domain extension…it was lame”
For the online marketer wanting to reach China’s users, simply re-skiinning a website is not sufficient, understand the changes in design, information layout, content requirements, and cultural technographics differences.
“Xiaonei.com is a Facebook Clone”.
“Clone” is the right word, the design looks copy pasted. There is more reports from VentureBeat on this company and a recent acquisition.
“Linkhurst.com is a linkedin clone”
This business like social networking site offers tools similar to popular LinkedIn. There’s some other interesting resources for internet marketers in China.
“Two types of internet users in China: 1) Lower end surfer, likely less education, and will gravitate towards Tencet. May be rural. 2) The Urban and Educated will have a career focus.
I learned this from a CEO in Hong Kong with roots in mainland China, he suggested there are two widening gaps in Chinese culture, society, and thus the web. Understand which segment you’re aiming for, and build accordingly.
“Chinese may not make virtual friends, as web friends doesn’t make sense, real events offer more value.”
Value, is the consistent theme I heard from this CEO, with the differences in online behavior to connect with others, creators of online events need to take extra special care of purpose. Perhaps start with an in person event first.
“Social Networks will not work in the mainland, as the web is used for entertainment [consumption], if there’s no value, usage will be low therefore, networked games and virtual games work as there’s entertainment value”
If the web is used as an entertainment medium, building sites with large interaction may not work, says this CEO.
“The ability to quickly access copyrighted content, young users don’t feel a need to ‘earn’ money for media and content”
Copyright issues have continued to plague western software, media, and music industries, eCommerce strategies around eMedia should be aware and cautious in developing their strategy.
“The change from Web 1.0 which is Information, to Web 2.0, which is People, is challenging for mainland China, trust is important”
This is not a China phenomenon, it’s happening all over the world, the real value of information is what is being delivered, filtered, and exchanged by networks of common interest, and eventually trust.
I really enjoyed Paul’s additional commentary, although he questions why I would visit HK to cover mainland. Most of the people I talked to were from mainland, served mainland, or had their users in mainland, it was all tied. Best find? Paul linked to this Ogilvy blog reporting on Asia, I subscribed.
Love to hear your commentary, this concludes my report series. For additional related interviews, see what Shel has been doing with Andrew Mao on the impacts of Social Media, Culture and the Chinese Culture (part 1, and then read part 2). Also related, Alibaba’s IPO may hit 1.3 billion.
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |
Video: CEO Yat Siu on the state of the Hong Kong Web Industry (2:30 minutes)
The kind Yat Siu the founder and CEO of Outblaze, a web conglomerate based in Hong Kong chats with me in his office. Just minutes before, he toured me around Cyberport, where I took many pictures of the amazing technology campus. I ask him about the state of the web industry in Hong Kong, learn from him what some of the challenges are.
Lastly, I ask him what should someone from Silicon Valley know about the Hong Kong web industry (where most of my readership is), hopefully, we won’t be so insular.
If you’ve been paying attention, I’ve been releasing all my reports and findings from Hong Kong, be sure to see the category tagged Asia.
No commentsVideo: Open source, Barcamps in China (2 Minutes with J Aaron Farr)
Open Source? Apache? Barcamps? We’re quite familiar with these concepts and technologies in Silicon Valley, but not every region on the globe is adopting.
I was able to meet up with J Aaron Farr at the HK blogger dinner in Sept 07, he gives us a quick update to what’s going on in the open source movement in China.
Learn more about Aaron at Cubiclemuses is his personal blog or his organization, Jade Tower “JadeTower is an exciting new startup dedicated to open standards and open technologies”.
Oh, and thanks to David Armano, I found out how to make my videos flash based rather than AVI, I didn’t realize there was an issue for some users. I wish blip made the default setting flash.
No commentsWeb Strategy Field Report: The Hong Kong and China Web Sphere (Part 3 of 4)
(Left: Teacher and her School Children, Mainland China)
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |
Summary
I ventured to Hong Kong and met with many of the web industry leaders, below is part 3 of 4 of my Web Strategy Field Report to understand the web sphere in Hong Kong and China. If you’re a web strategist with global responsibilities you’ll need to understand what’s happening in one of the world’s largest internet user base.
Opportunity
To date, there are more Chinese internet users than all of North America combined, and only a portion of China is full online, the potential has not yet been tapped. Simply re-skinning your website in Chinese and adding a ‘.cn’ domain may not be a sufficient strategy.
Purpose
I want to understand the global web better, and am doing what I can to learn more. It’s easy to become very insular in the Silicon Valley bubble, so if you’ve any suggestions, please leave a comment
Methodology
30-60 minute formal or casual interviews. I’ve met several successful Entrepreneurs, Investors, Analysts, Professors, CEOs, Strategists, Bloggers, Podcasters, and Marketers during this period.
Limitations
Please note this field report is incomplete. I’ve neither the time nor resources to do thorough analysis, and do a 360 degrees research. The information and anecdotes collected are from interviews with those that I met. As always, a web strategy and plan should have thorough research completed before starting. If you disagree or have other data points to add (even if it’s just your own opinion, I welcome them in the comments, please don’t be shy).
“China blocked Feedburner when they were acquired by Google”
thus making stats for subscriptions using Feedburner highly innacuriate. Why? China already has more internet users than all of North America combined…any many are learning English.
“Koreans are separated by 2-3 degrees at the most, but don’t feel comfortable chatting”
The old saying that everyone in the world is connected by 7 degrees may still be true, but in South Korea, folks are highly connected and can easily find others.
“Asians don’t have a recovery system for failure, therefore the dating websites are scary”
In American culture singles (and sometimes the married) clamor for online dating services. In Asia, rejection hurts, is fierce, and there is no recovery from it, so Asian dating sites have a very tough time getting started. Web Strategists should be aware of reward mechanisms and failure systems that allow passing and failure, the culture is different. Who told me this? An already multi-successful web entrepreneur.
“Tencent QQ is a chat feature that’s used as a Social Network for young teens”
Active discussions occur on this IM tool, which is the world’s third largest. There are virtual coins that can be used to upgrade one’s avatar or blog.
“BBS (bulletin boards) are popular and China, so why would Social Networking be important?”
asked a CEO of a stealth startup in Hong Kong’s Innocenter to me. Technographics studies may indicate that individuals may like to join networks, participate, but may not want to demonstrate relationships in the world wide web.
“Chinese Culture [mainland] doesn’t do a lot of real world social activities, so applying that to the web is challenging”
He questions if there’s real value in Social Networks, what can an individual learn or gain in such a network. For many, the process should be: Meet, then exchange contact information, then information, then add real value needs to be shown. For many Chinese, the value is not yet realized.
“Chinese bankers don’t have time to use social networks, they’re going to use the newspaper and their blackberries”
Tells one investor analyst. His focus in his career was to provide research to busy bankers, they’re not likely to share online, unless direct contributions will result in return.
Love to hear your commentary, even if you don’t agree. Stay tuned for part 4 next week.
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |
Video: Amanda of JiJiJa, when actions speak louder than words
A few weeks ago in Hong Kong, I met up with Amanda Lau, who is a founder and VP of Marketing a JiJiJa, a behavioral recommendations engine for eCommerce, social networks, and media websites. Rather than just serving recommended content based upon verbal and preference indicators, this service determines what individuals may want based upon gestures, or non-verbal indicators.
Amanda was kind enough to showed me around HK’s InfoCentre, a government sponsored incubator where her tech startup is located at.
There are other players in this space, see my list of companies that provide behavioral recommendations for websites.
1 commentVideo: 2 Minutes with Napoleon Biggs on the Hong Kong and China Web Industry
Just two weeks ago I was in Hong Kong, meeting some of the top Internet professionals, and I was pleased to find a diverse and mixed culture. For example, Napoleon Biggs shared with me the experience within the internet marketing industry in the area. Find out what advantageous that web marketers have when doing business in Hong Kong and China. You’ll also find out which Social Network has really started to see the “hockey stick” of growth.
Napaleon runs a Web Strategy firm in Hong Kong called Palava, and also is leading the community of web professionals at the monthly Web Wednesday events.
I’m fascinated with the web industry, and whenever I travel outside of the bubble (what I call Silicon Valley) I do what I can to meet the community, check out my other posts tagged Asia.
No commentsVideo: Angus Lau on China’s internet usage
I met up with Angus at the Office 2.0 conference a few weeks ago, he was a big contributor to kicking off the HK blogger dinner that I attended and share with me what he thought of the Hong Kong and Chinese Web industry. At the time of this quick interview, I wasn’t sure what to expect of the industry, but I can now confirm, for the most part, he’s right. The industry is just starting to get legs.
He answers: His opinion on the web industry in China, what type of tools are they using, and what could change all of this
Angus keeps track of the HK web industry and the regional area at 852 Signals.
No commentsWeb Strategy Field Report: The Hong Kong and China Web Sphere (Part 2 of 4)
(Left: Shanghai on a dreary morning)
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |
Summary
I ventured to Hong Kong and met with many of the web industry leaders, below is part 2 of 4 of my Web Strategy Field Report to understand the web sphere in Hong Kong and China. If you’re a web strategist with global responsibilities you’ll need to understand what’s happening in one of the world’s largest internet user base.
Opportunity
To date, there are more Chinese internet users than all of North America combined, and only a portion of China is full online, the potential has not yet been tapped. Simply re-skinning your website in Chinese and adding a ‘.cn’ domain may not be a sufficient strategy.
Purpose
I want to understand the global web better, and am doing what I can to learn more. It’s easy to become very insular in the Silicon Valley bubble, so if you’ve any suggestions, please leave a comment
Methodology
30-60 minute formal or casual interviews. I’ve met several successful Entrepreneurs, Investors, Analysts, Professors, CEOs, Strategists, Bloggers, Podcasters, and Marketers during this period.
Limitations
Please note this field report is incomplete. I’ve neither the time nor resources to do thorough analysis, and do a 360 degrees research. The information and anecdotes collected are from interviews with those that I met. As always, a web strategy and plan should have thorough research completed before starting. If you disagree or have other data points to add (even if it’s just your own opinion, I welcome them in the comments, please don’t be shy).
“Chinese enjoy the web for entertainment purposes, therefore the bright and colorful design patterns are suitable for usage”
A generalization described by developer to me. I too have noticed increased use of animation, bright and colorful fonts, and cute anime like graphics on popular websites. If you compare the top Asian blogs in Technorati 100 to the top Western blogs, you’ll may also see a difference in use of animation color choices, and interaction. Obviously, this needs more research to be conclusive.
“Second Life is soooo 2002”
Said one internet professional to me, as there are so many other virtual worlds that have appeared in Asia, see this limited list by Techcrunch or VW review. Silicon Valley still seems intoxicated with SF local Linden labs without realizing there are over 20 virtual networks that are being heavily used by other cultures. Yet another reason Silicon Valley needs to look out the window more often than look in the mirror.
“In Asia, Cyber Cafes make the web social”
This is a concept unfamiliar with most Americans, the high income of the United States family provides at least 1-4 computers in a home, thereby reducing the need to go to a public facility. In many parts of the world, the Cyber Café is not unlike a real café, where people go to meet, game, play, and communicate. There’s more tactile collaboration and community than Americans may ever know. I had a healthy conversation discussion how web analytics may not be accurate in cultures with cybercafes.
“The internet is an entertainment medium, less than a collaboration medium for China”
Over the discussion with this CEO, he compared the differences between the encouragement of collaboration and sharing within the west online vs the consumption type behavior found in China. If one were to do Technographics research it would be interesting to see the differences in sharing and adoption.
“Since you can’t buy [gaming] consoles in China, the biggest online revenues are online gaming”
One investor told me that online gaming (like Swordsman or World of Warcraft) were very successful, as they meet the ‘entertainment’ value proposition. “Online gaming in China represents one of the largest and fasted growing Internet business sectors in the country. With 137 million Internet users currently active in the PRC, the country now has the second largest online user base in world, second only to the United States of America.” suggests Wikipedia.
“TaoBao, is a consumer version of Alibaba, it rivals eBay of the west”
With the success of Alibaba a consumer version was created, just a few weeks ago, McDonalds and TaoBao entered partnership. BusinessWeek provides some additional insight to the key to branding in China.
Love to hear your commentary, even if you don’t agree. Stay tuned for part 3 next week.
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |
InnoCentre: HongKong’s Government Sponsored Incubator
Amanda Greets me at Innocentre
The Atrium features products and designs
Communal Cafeteria
Grand Atrium
This is another special Silicon Valley Sightings Asia Edition, view the archives.
I had the absolute pleasure to take a tour of Hong Kong’s InnoCentre (on the Kowloon side) from Amanda Lau, head of Marketing of JiJiJa. This is just days after my tour of Cyberport on Hong Kong Island.
InnoCentre is a government sponsored incubator that promotes emerging companies by providing office space, business amenities like meeting rooms, copier rooms, and even funding –without taking any equity. There’s few VCs in Silicon Valley that can boast that type of model.
For startups, even the little things matter, from impressing clients in a real meeting room (rather than meeting at starbucks) or having a real work space, as you know there are few garages in China, so the garage startup is virtually non-existent.
“He said, “we promote applied R&D through funding schemes, infrastructure support, collaboration with Mainland and overseas research institutes. We also endeavor to grow an innovation culture in the community. Most recently, we launched five new R&D centers, in which the Government will invest over US$256.41 million (HK$2 billion). And we will roll out Science Park Phase 2 starting 2007.” -reports HK Economic Trade Office
There were several floors to this amazing building, which also housed product design companies (University of HK was just a few steps away) and had gallery areas to show off new products. For companies that met their three year goals in the program, they were elligable for funding, to launch their company further. As I understand it, a company has to apply to get this special kind of grant, and a few of the companies I met were happy to be there.
While there are some startup incubators around (I think Francine Hardaway would know) in the United States, I’ve never heard of a government sponsored one with so many benefits.
I met with Amanda, who showed me her product Jijija (Which means chatter in Chinese). They help ecommerce and social networks or even media websites become more efficient by providing behavioral based recommendations. This is a viable model as gestures (unspoken actions) can often be more powerful than what users say they will do. Don’t be fooled by their Chinese website, they plan to head globally, although I have the master list of others in their space.
I also checked out ReSpread an do it yourself email marketing tool that has interesting CRM features, for the email marketer, this is an interesting asset for the small and medium sized company.
I spent times with the founders of another company, who wished to remain stealth, they provided me with amazing insight about the Chinese web culture as it applies to the web, you’re seeing that output in other posts.
Web Strategy Field Report: The Hong Kong and China Web Sphere (Part 1 of 4)
(Left: Hong Kong Harbor at night)
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |
Summary
I ventured to Hong Kong and met with many of the web industry leaders, below is part 1 of 4 of my Web Strategy Field Report to understand the web sphere in Hong Kong and China. If you’re a web strategist with global responsibilities you’ll need to understand what’s happening in one of the world’s largest internet user base.
Opportunity
To date, there are more Chinese internet users than all of North America combined, and only a portion of China is full online, the potential has not yet been tapped. Simply re-skinning your website in Chinese and adding a ‘.cn’ domain may not be a sufficient strategy.
Purpose
I want to understand the global web better, and am doing what I can to learn more. It’s easy to become very insular in the Silicon Valley bubble, so if you’ve any suggestions, please leave a comment
Methodology
30-60 minute formal or casual interviews. I’ve met several successful Entrepreneurs, Investors, Analysts, Professors, CEOs, Strategists, Bloggers, Podcasters, and Marketers during this period.
Limitations
Please note this field report is incomplete. I’ve neither the time nor resources to do thorough analysis, and do a 360 degrees research. The information and anecdotes collected are from interviews with those that I met. As always, a web strategy and plan should have thorough research completed before starting. If you disagree or have other data points to add (even if it’s just your own opinion, I welcome them in the comments, please don’t be shy).
“The screen is getting bigger for a reason, some kids are playing 4 MMORPGS at once”
declared Yet Siu, the CEO of Outblaze over lunch at a fine seafood restaurant on Lamma island. He’s noticed that some youths in China and HK are playing up to 4 MMORPGs or web games at the same time…each in it’s own window.
“Mini –Homepy (pronounced mini-home-pie) aggregates one’s network”
Is a new feature coming out of South Korea that aggregates one’s network and is like a filter for an individual. If you want to communicate with an individual, you will go to his mini-homepy and leave a message. It’s a combination of a blog, homepage, aggregator, and message board an individual. I did some searches for this product but didn’t find much.
“America has never seen an Alibaba”
On more than one occasion has a few strategists told me about the success of Alibaba. What is this website? It’s an online marketplace for small to medium sized businesses, a site that has no North American relation or comparison. It sports a storefront (free) for any company, and those that wish to upgrade can add video and other features for a fee. Some companies pay up to $5,000 a year. In fact, the company is due to go public soon, and investors are expecting the stock to split within the first 24 hours of IPO. (so I’m told). Ther are 24 million registered users (compared to how many US users) with
“The internet industry is grouped in the Software industry”
Unlike the United States the internet is listed and categorized as a subset of the Software Industry. In the US, internet is often clearly separated from desktop or enterprise software, and we strive to maintain that separation. Over time, this may change in China as well. For many web professionals, they clearly see the web as an evolution to re-purpose desktop applications in the browser, and then the mobile web.
“There are 1.4 million new broadband users in China every month”
During a presentation from China Mobile various stats were given. Although this growth seems massive only 10% of China is on broadband, I believe the stat in United States is around 70-80% (from memory)
Stick around next week, I’ll be releasing part 2. If this was helpful or even if you have some contradictory information, please leave a comment.
Update: I had a great conversation with Carleen Hawn of GigaOm’s Found|READ, she’s summarized much of what I’m reporting back to you all.
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |
Understanding the Value Virtual Goods… it’s like Luxury Goods in Real Life
Last week, In Hong Kong, I gave a presentation about Virtual worlds and social media to some of Asia’s top investors. A few folks had a hard time understanding the concept of virtual goods, after speaking with Susan Wu, there are a handful of virtual goods that can be sold. She told me that there are three categories of Virtual Goods:
The Three Categories of Virtual Goods (from Susan Wu)
1 Behavioral goods (such as gifting)
2 Decorative goods (like self-expression)
3 Functional goods, (like wielding a swords that grants super powers)
These goods mean a great deal to the players that inhabit these worlds, and in many respects almost all social systems have goods (bloggers have technrorati, podcasters have downloads).
[Virtual Goods, although intangible, have been assigned personal and social value that members of a virtual world will hold it’s worth ]
For many, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would buy these things, but she also stated that such gifts were already being exchanged in Facebook, from hugs, food fights, gifts, and in a way, even the dreaded poke.
[Virtual goods, and luxury items in real life are very similiar; we’ve placed personal and social value on them, often without any additional physical utility]
In fact, there are entire industries in China that collect gold from World of Warcraft and other games, they then sell this virtual gold on the free market for US dollars. I had dinner with one of the CEOs over a year ago in San Jose.
I gave the analogy that until humans cease in giving luxury goods like Fashion Designer purses or high end watches, then virtual goods will continue on. How does that analogy work? Humans have placed personal and social value on high end gifts (like a diamond ring) that doesn’t serve a higher utilitarian purpose of a cheaper counterpart, then we’ve assigned a ‘virtual’ value to these luxury items. In it’s essence, a handbag from Gucci or Payless will serve the same purpose. Sure, some of the materials may be more rare, or cost more to produce, but that doesn’t equal to higher utility.
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