Chinese Startups In News

RSS, one of the key and famous technology of web2.0 used to attract lots of attention in web industry. Although services such as Bloglines, Newsgator and Netvibes are still active, it is Google Reader holds the market dominance. RSS is still important, but lacking of reliable business model may let you think if RSS market is dying. However, a few days ago, Xianguo, one of very few survived Chinese independent online RSS reader announced its first round investment of $1 million. Obviously, the news sent us the signal, there might be some hope there, still.

We had a quick chat with LIANG Gongjun, the ex-Sina staff and founder of Xianguo, a very humble and hard-working guy.

Why Xianguo?

Xianguo is founded by Gongjun in June 2007. It is not the first local service in Chinese online RSS reader market. Zhuaxia used to be the leader but Xianguo quickly beat it with better online platform. Without probably any income for Zhuaxia, sadly rumor already said Zhuaxia has went to the dead pool. Gongjun managed to get Xianguo running for nearly 3 years with the earning from his another small team which is taking web development projects. Now, Xianguo has several millions users and partnered with Baidu, Sina, Hexun, Tom, Yahoo, Alibaba, CSDN, Blogub etc providing RSS reader service.

NO hope, if you only rely on RSS

“If you only rely on simple RSS business (such as RSS subscription), there is NO hope.” Gongjun said so. Besides Google Reader, only QQ Reader and Youdao Reader and Xianguo are active in Chinese rss market, and obviously Xianguo is the only independent service. Google Reader is backed by the giant Google, QQ Reader is operated by Tencent, Youdao is run by the portal, Netease. “Still no reliable revenue model for rss and startups in this market are hard to survive. ” Gongjun said.

The hope is in the Mobile market

$1 million is in the pocket which basically indicates there is some hope. Microblogging service has become a very important resource for people reading and sharing the news. Gongjun understood the trend so Xianguo launched its microblogging service named Lianbo in December 2009. “But we are NOT going to be another Twitter-clone and Lianbo is meant to improve the user experience when users are reading feeds.” Gongjun told us. So what would be the next focus for Xianguo? “The mobile market”, Gongjun said, “More and more users are reading news on their mobile devices. So we want them to be able to easily use Xianguo at anywhere and any time. ” In the latest post on Xianguo’s official blog, we read, “we are looking for iPhone, Android, Symbian, WM and WAP developers”.

You may still question about what exactly Xianguo’s revenue model would be. LIANG Gongjun wouldn’t worry about that in next one or two years, and the answer will be getting more clear when Xianguo become the leading mobile RSS reader. So we have to wait!

Is Chinese online video service getting more complicated or more clear? as Gary Wang, CEO of Tudou predicted, the threat would eventually come from the big guys. Qiyi, Baidu’s online video service is about to launch in March. With $50 millions investment confirmed, the reason for Baidu launching Qiyi is simple, as Gong Yu, director of Qiqi said to a Chinese media: 30%-50% traffic to existing Chinese video sites is driven from Baidu.

Not interested in UGC

Qiyi will be following Hulu’s model. The User-Generated Content (UGC) is not something we are interested in at all, Gong Yu said. Qiyi will focus on High-Definition, Copyrighted video content and the revenue will be from the video-advertisement. Gong said to Sina, “we are developing a powerful advertisement publishing system which will allow us to deploy proper ads according to the user’s profile, such as location, gender, income etc.”

Who is the competitors

“We are not competing with any of existing online video service in China,” Gong said, “although some of them are trying Hulu’s model as well.” Sites like Tudou, Youku, Sohu Video etc started with UGC but recently also spent millions of money on buying licenced content. “It is very difficult to operate the service in both models (UGC and Hulu), and it must have business focus.” when Gong is asked who will be competitor, Gong said, “probably Tencent, it has not really joined this market though.”

Qiyi has around 90 staff (1/3 of which were actually working for other video sites) and plan to recruit 200 more in near year. In March when it is launched, it is expected to host +1,000 licensed movies, +1,000 TV series along with thousands-hours long cartoon, documentary, TV programs etc and some of the content will be exclusive.

We are waiting… waiting for Qiyi’s official launch and waiting for the response from other giants, such as Tencent…

Silicon Valley-based The Founder Institute, a four-month training and mentoring program for technology entrepreneurs, recently announced its first-ever Spring 2010 semester for Singapore. With this expansion, the Institute will be the first Silicon Valley mentoring programme in Singapore, and will now be on pace to graduate over 700 founders creating over 500 companies per year in nine cities worldwide. The expansion is jointly done by the Singapore-based venture advisory and investment firm Battle Ventures and its partnered iAxil, the venture accelerator arm of Ascendas.

Jeffrey Paine, the Managing Director of Battle Ventures said, “Anyone starting a technology company or with a dream to launch an innovative business in Singapore is invited to apply (at http://www.founderinstitute.com/apply/11).” We used to report about Amazon Web Service Expanding To Singapore, and again, this program will definitely booth Singapore’s local startup ecosystem.

Singapore is a relatively small market but it is very international and very open. Jeffrey also shared with us his thoughts on this program and Singapore startups in general.

How do you think of the startups or entrepreneurs environment in Singapore in general?

The Singapore entrepreneurial environment for the technology sector is small but vibrant, there are many ideas and people who are eager to venture out on their own. With strong government support of grants, pre-seed, seed and incubators, 2010 will be an interesting year for Singapore startups. Having said that, this specific eco-system as we know it is still pretty new and is not entrenched into the country’s economic system hence it will take another 5-10 years before we see a stronger pool of entrepreneurs in the tech and new media space.

Why do you expect the Singapore founders will benefit from Founder institute?

Founder Institute brings a structured program that instils company formation and building blocks that are fundamental to anyone starting out on their own. The strength of the program is the combination of US and local/regional mentors who bring a hands on approach to mentoring and imparting company building concepts to the Singapore founders. The program builds a camaraderie between Founders in the class and Mentors especially after the program has concluded, and this relationship will certainly carry into the future.

So you gonna be jealous of Singapore’s young entrepreneurs. In 2009, together with some foreign friends, we were discussing the possibility of setting up an Silicon Valley style incubator because in China there is probably nothing like YCombinator to educate and boost local startups, but we did not follow that well in the end. It’s good to finally have one, Innovation Works led by Kaifu Lee, but seriously, we need more to build a healthy ecosystem so that anyone can possibly benefit from it.

What impressed me most during my trip to Paris two weeks ago? It’s a tweet from Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, french Minister of Development of the Digital Economy, who I met in person in Forum NetExplorateur. First, I did not expect she, as a Minister, is using twitter daily; Secondly, when I was told her twitter id (@nk_m) then sent a tweet asking her for the possibility of tweeting in English (as she usually tweets in French) so that Chinese users can be getting in touch with her, unbelievably, she replied in a very elegant way (tweet here). In the panel, China, the Super Web Power, I said “I would not expect our Minister can be on microblogging service in near future”. But things are changing.

People’s Daily Online’s microblogging service (t.people.com.cn), aka People’s Microblogging is open to the public since 1st February. Despite the fact that it is the first microblogging service launched by a key state-owned news website in China, as a tech blogger, I did not pay much attention to it, until Today.

Premier Hu Jintao’s account

Yep! Premier Hu Jintao has an account set up on People’s Microbogging. And it seems it’s not a fake one, as we found a icon appended to the username, which is basically meaning this account has been verified by the service operator. In other words, our President and more likely his delegate will be using this service (we hope so). So far, he has got 10719 followers, followed zero with no tweet.

Some interesting features

Although I heard that many microblogging service users were not happy with People’s Microblogging, its team definitely wants to introduce some new ideas/strategies. Several features I found are interesting:

1. Identity Verification – If you want to make sure your account can be retrieved when it is hacked, malfunctioned etc, you need fill in your real name and National ID number/Student ID number/Passport Number in your profile for the use of identity verification;

2. Four ways to follow other users – On Twitter, if you want to follow anyone, just click the Follow button then it’s done. On People’s Microblogging, you are required to decided on a further action: How to follow him/her. (see screenshot below) You are given four options: via web, via MSN, via Email and via Gtalk, i.e. you are able to see other’s message on web or directly on your MSN, Gtalk or email.

3. The binding services – The service also allows users to read the content on Qiangguo Forum (bbs.people.com.cn) and other interactive communities on People’s Daily Online. And as it is reported here, it also offers “Opinion Polls,” “Journalists,” “Cool Media” and other characteristic columns. Especially, the “Opinion Polls” focuses on microblogging written by government officials at all levels, as well as officials from local Party and government departments.

People’s Microblogging is still in beta test. Will it become a commercial service in future? And will we see more government officials who are ready for social media? We are waiting for a Reply in microblog-format from our beloved Premier Hu Jintao!

Chinese new year is now here, and happiness is all over the places in China. It’s the time when every Chinese is expected to look back the year passed and long for a fruitful new year. As usual, Google’s wonderful designers drew some nice logos to celebrate this Chinese Tiger year, and also in an internal email sent to Google Chinese staff, Google headquarter were still encouraging its Chinese staff to enjoy their Chinese new year holiday. However, we can not ignore the fact that Google China’s 2009 ended in a dramatic way and the future of Google China is still unclear. Its Chinese staff can not do anything but waiting, as the internal email said, the solution to current situation between the company and China, hopefully, will be given after Chinese New Year.

Leave or stay? Why it takes so long for Google to make a clear final decision? Here are some updates from different resource just for your reference:

1. It is not a “commercial issue” any more. I guess it’s getting more and more obvious according to both governments’ response: Ms. Clinton gave a speech on Internet freedom; All related news disappeared from Chinese main stream media etc. Who are the real driving force, we don’t know. But this issue is much more complicated than we thought, that’s for sure.

2. Although thousands of Google fans in China expressed their sadness on Google’s leaving and support the “Don’t be evil” spirit, but Chinese Googlers (i.e. Google China staff) are definitely not happy with Google headquarter’s decision. “The reason given by the headquarter is crap!”, one Chinese Googler even said that in an internal meeting with the headquarter, we’ve been told.

3. Google said it wanted to negotiate this issue with Chinese government, and this time, it means “Directly”, i.e. the talk is planned to be between Google U.S. and China gov, and seems nothing to do with Google China PR department. But it seems nobody from Google headquarter has sent to China yet.

4. Sergey Brin, one of the co-founders of Google, is the key man behind Google’s threat to leave China. He hosted the first internal meeting and told his Chinese staff that the company will not compromise with Chinese regulation. But it seems that not everyone in Google’s management team agrees with Sergey. Another Google founder, Larry Page, is quiet on this.

Internet is (or reflects) local culture, and everyone should respect it especially when you want money out of it. Google’s logo artists understand it very well. And commerce is commerce, technology is technology, but if they are messed up with something else, we don’t know what it will be ended up with, but one thing for sure, the internet user will not be the beneficiary.

Landed at 5am this morning, still feel a little bit jet-lag, I am happy to say, MOBINODE is now in Paris and if you want to meet China web, please just give me a shout (gang.lu at mobinode.com or tweet @ganglu).

Last year, I was also in NetExplorateur 09 and moderated the panel “The Ubiquitous Society – Towards a Hyperconnected World” which featured Korean web. This year, it is great to see some Chinese face showing up, such as the entrepreneur, Henry Han (Co-founder, China Netcom , CEO, VivaMe) who will talk about “The future of Mobile Service in China“, and Tao Chen whose Sketch2Photo is the winner of TOP10 Netexplorateur award this year. And I will be joining the panel titled “China, the Internet superpower?“, sitting together with Hervé Fischer (WSIM Shenyang,  China), Cindy Guo (Ventech China) and Patrice Nordey (Atelier BNP  Paribas, China), and it is moderated by Pierre Haski (RUE89).

Be honest, I am not sure what conclusion will be drawn at the end of the panel discussion, as Chinese Internet is indeed a massive market, very interesting, but also very complicated. If you are around in Paris and interested in knowing more about China web from different angles, please do drop by NetExplorateur. I will stay in Paris until 8th, so just do drop me a line (gang.lu at mobinode.com), it will be great pleasure to meet you in a lovely French cafe!

After two weeks of public vote, ChinaMode Awards 2009 have received 121446 votes. We are now happy to announce the winners of the first ChinaMode Awards in each 7 categories.

• Best Internet Applications: Taobao, Google, Baidu;
• Best User-Experience Applications: Google Chinese search service, Sogou Pinyin Chinese Input Method, Alipay;
• Most Promising Applications: Google Music, Sina Microblogging, Douban FM;
• Best Mobile Applications: Mobile QQ, UCWeb, Fetion;
• Best Overseas Internet Applications: Twitter, GMail, Youtube; (a detailed analysis on this results on Mobinode）
• Tech Person of the Year: Kaifu Lee, Han Han
• Best BBS/Online Forum: Tianya.cn, Baidu Tieba, Mop

Since ChinaMode Awards are organized by 14 popular tech bloggers in China, it is possible that a high percentage of the voters are regular readers of these blogs, which can not represent the general profile of China’s netizens.

Related posts:

1. ChinaMode Awards Now Open to Nominate
2. ChinaMode: A China’s Web Awards Initiated by Bloggers

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[Background: ChinaMode Awards 2009, initiated and operated by the 14 most influential Chinese tech bloggers, including: Appin, Williamlong, Web20share, Kenengba, Jandan, MobiNode, Webleon, Showeb20, Vista2.o, Yunkeji, Riku, Herock, China Web2.0 Review and MobiNode.TV, is the first open and independent award focus on Chinese web industry. The open nomination started at 15th Dec 2009 and closed at 2nd Jan 2010; with the supervision of local and international experts, 10 candidates in 7 categories each are open for public vote started at 11st Jan 2010 and closed at 25th Jan 2010. Please read the official announcement for more details.

Within 2 weeks of public vote stage, 121446 votes in total are counted. And today, we are happy to reveal these best internet service/sites of 2009 voted by Chinese grassroot. The results can not represent every Chinese netizen's opinion, but we believe, it's a honest result which do worth your attention.

Here is the 2009 ChinaMode Report (Part I): Most Recognized International Service of 2009 voted by Chinese netizen]

Chinese web, an market which has never been easy for international Internet service/companies/sites is even getting tougher to enter and conquer: unfortunately, several very popular service are not available in China  in 2009. But still, we are wondering which service/sites have drew Chinese users’ attention, and here is the result of Most Recoginzed International Service of 2009 in China.

The Top 10

Ordered by the number of votes, the top 10 international service are: Twitter (20.68%), YouTube (17.75%), Gmail (17.16%), Google Reader (11.09%), Facebook (9.49%), Google Wave (8.58%), Wikipedia (8.08%), Flickr (3.08%), Amazon (2.16%), Dropbox (1.95%).

Surprise and Non-surprise?

1. Although Twitter and YouTube are not available anymore in China, but still they took the No.1 and runner-up. It reflects the top 2 hottest markets right now in China: microblogging and video-sharing.

2. Gmail, one of the best Google products is widely used by Chinese users; Google Reader is also used as the major tool for reading RSS; Google Wave is a bit hit in global market, China is not an exception; Flickr still gets Chinese attention, as Chinese local photo-sharing market is still quiet; Amazon and Wikipedia are relatively ‘old’ and famous name.

3. Dropbox, this very convenient cross-platform file-sharing and sync startup service, surprisingly, takes the 10th. No similar service in China.

4. No one knows what will happen to Google China in 2010, but what so ever, YouTube, Gmail, Google Reader and Google Wave, result shows Google has big impact on Chinese web, although it’s beaten by Baidu in Chinese web search market.

5. We wrote about Facebook in China months ago, and 50 comments left by our readers. If you are wondering the current status of Facebook in China, it is also not available but unlike Twitter and YouTube, the result says Facebook is only voted the 5th although it continues growing and making profit in global space.

Douban, a symbol of web 2.0 services in China, announced its $10 million series B financing today. The new round is led by Trustbridge Partners, and co-invested by its existing investor Ceyuan Ventures, who invested in $2 million in 2006.

Douban started from a social networking sites for book lovers, movie lovers and music lovers in 2005, when hype of web 2.0 just began. When people talked about web 2.0 in China, they will talk Douban. Since its inception, Douban is always one of my most favoriate Chinese websites, and I’m also an active user of Douban. Douban’s newest major product development is the release of Douban Radio, which is an personalized online music streaming service powered by a recommend engine to tailor the music just for you. (You can check our previous reports on Douban here)

Currently, Douban’s main revenue source is online advertising, some big brands are Douban’s advertisers already. For Douban Book, it also gain revenues from affiliation with Dangdang, Amazon Joyo and other book ecommerce sites.

Congratulations to Douban and Bo Yang. I strongly believe that Douban can lead to something bigger.

Related posts:

1. Douban To Add Book Series
2. Douban Adds Miniblog Service
3. Douban Launched Blog Recommendation

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Post tags: Douban, funding

6waves, previously highlighted in 2008, has seen their social gaming business expand and become one of the leading developers in the market (Inside Facebook has the details). While their competitors have already raised their series B and C rounds, 6waves has just raised their series A round of $17.5 Million from US based VC, Insight Venture Partners. 6waves plan to use the funding to expand their business and platform.

image from appdata.com

Having already been competitive (and in the green) long before this round of funding, the $17.5M in the bank is a bonus for them. Besides expanding the gaming platform, it’s very likely their company expansion will take them beyond Hong Kong and tap talent from the US and it won’t be surprising to see 6waves operating from both Hong Kong and the US.

Expect some great things from them in 2010.

Possible related posts:

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3. Startup Hong Kong @ Frenzoo Event Recap I wouldn’t call this up to date, but never too...

The post is to introduce an event which our readers might be interested in. The post is drafted by the event organizer.

The Digital Future Symposium (DFS) is a highly successful event first launched in 2007 by the CENTRE FOR CONTENT PROTECTION (CCP). It has conducted successful events in Japan, Singapore, India and Malaysia. Every year, it attracts hundreds of key industry players in the field of content distribution and content protection.

Established in 2007, CCP is a consortium committed to shaping Asia Pacific’s digital future through innovative technologies that provide secure ways for consumers to enjoy anywhere, anytime access to their favourite movies and television programs.

This year, the DFS comes to China, Beijing, in a breakthrough event that aims to bring Chimedia content owners and distributors together to explore new business solutions and opportunities for digital distribution in China and the region.

It targets content owners, producers, technologists, content security companies, Internet businesses, academics, and anyone else in the media and technology industry.

The theme for this year’s DFS, to be held on 24th March at Novotel Peace Beijing, is “Technology, Internet and Content Business”. Major topics to be covered include Internet Distribution and New Media Business in China, Technology, Standards, and Content Protection.

All agendas, updates, and registration information are available at CCP’s website.

Related posts:

1. Event: Web 2.0 in China: What’s Next?
2. [Event] Geeks On A Plan
3. Events: Barcamp Beijing & New Era, New TV Seminar

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Google is thinking of leaving China, but it might not be the first or only one planning on this. Different resources told us lately, they suspected another famous international brand, Yahoo! is going to stop Yahoo China’s locally operating too.

Five-Year Contract?

In August 2005, Yahoo! announced that it purchased a 40% stake in Alibaba Group for US$1bn plus Yahoo!’s Chinese assets. Alibaba Group then took charge of China Yahoo!, and Alibaba Group’s founder Jack Ma remained in charge of Alibaba Group. This is the official annoucement everyone knows, but there might be one detail missing in that statement, i.e. how long Alibaba Group can own Yahoo!’s Chinese assets? One resource told me (but he is not able to prove it)  that it’s 5 years. That means both parties have to make the decision soon if it worths continuing the contract and operate the Yahoo China which is struggling in Chinese portal market for a long while.

Yahoo! Is Unhappy!

The relationship between Yahoo! and Alibaba Group started to change after Jerry Yang’s stepping down.

Yahoo China is based in Beijing. But in June 2009, Yahoo! announced its new Research Center in Beijing. According to the official statement, “The base will develop products for Yahoo globally and be independent from Alibaba Group”.  Then Alibaba Group said: They had the agreement with Yahoo! that the new research center would not do anything conflicts with Yahoo China’s web business.

Another story is even interesting. In September, Yahoo sold $150 million worth of Alibaba.com share when Alibaba Group was celebrating its 10 year anniversary. Jack Ma was not happy.

Carol Bartz, the new CEO of Yahoo!, was “very unhappy” about Alibaba’s failure to run Yahoo China more successfully than Yahoo had.

No Place For Yahoo China in Alibaba’s Kingdom

If you read our earlier post about Jack Ma’s Alibaba kingdom, you might have found that Yahoo China is actually missing in the big map. Alibaba, Taobao, Alipay and so on, we heard news about Alibaba Group’s  every day, but it seems no one knows what Yahoo China is doing and wants to do. Nevertheless, Yahoo China had its 8th CEO and had a major revamp of the site for the 7th time last week (report in Chinese).

The Latest

Google said it would stop censoring in search result and threaten to stop its operation in China. Most of the international giants keep quiet on commenting on Google’s decision, but Yahoo! is one exception: Yahoo! has said it was “aligned” with Google’s position. Obviously, Yahoo! ‘forgot’ its Yahoo China is operated by the Chinese Alibaba Group which respond: Yahoo! is ‘reckless’ on Google stance.

So far, nobody can confirm that Yahoo! and Alibaba Group’s partnership on Yahoo China will discontinue soon this year. So what’s your view on this? Our readers, please leave your comments.

（This is a guest post by Kai Lukoff. Kai Lukoff is an analyst at BloggerInsight and an editor on China Social Games. Follow Kai on Twitter @klukoff. You can find more information on China Social Game at the end of this post. )

The social game market is still in its infancy, but growing up fast. The first smash hits, Friends for Sale! Parking Wars, and Happy Farm are just over a year old in China. Here are 5 predictions for 2010:

1. Social Games Displace Web Games

Social games are reaching unprecedented demographics, including females and middle-aged users. These users are open to casual gaming, but unlikely to seek it out on 3rd party website. Social games go viral by using existing services (social networks) and trusted references (friends). As a result, social games enjoy unprecedented numbers of users. In China, Happy Farm has an estimated 23m daily active users across all platforms. On Facebook, FarmVille has blasted past 27m daily active users in only 6 months. Social games boast a superior distribution model and as in-game content also becomes more social, web games will be left in the dust.

2. Consolidation of Game Developers

The days of a few friends developing a hit from the dorm room are over. The Facebook market has already seen consolidation on a colossal scale, with huge paydays: Playfish (300m USD merger with EA), Zynga (180m USD funding), RockYou! (70m USD funding), and Playdom (43m USD funding). Production values are rising in China too, with RenRen Restaurants (copy of Playfish’s Restaurant City) and Happy Pet (copy of Playfish’s Pet Society). Developers will need more resources, serious teams and finances, to develop the next hit game.

China’s consolidation will be on a miniature scale compared to Facebook though. In fact, it has already begun: Five Minutes, developers of Happy Farm, scored 3.5m USD from Draper Fisher Jurvetson on December 1. And Rekoo, developers of Sunshine Farm, received 1.5m USD from Infinity Venture Partners. Expect more consolidation in 2010.

3. Entry of Western Game Developers

Western social game developers are knocking on the door. RockYou! launched a game on RenRen in June, 2009. PopCap Games followed up with with Bejeweled Blitz 2 on RenRen on November, 2009. China Social Games has spoken to several other players scouting the market.

The themes and mechanics of Facebook games tend to play well in China. The real challenge for foreign developers is managing relations with powerful social networks and the government.

4. Chinese Networks Open Up Their API

The games on RenRen (mostly-open API) blow away those on Kaixin001 and Qzone (closed APIs). RenRen has seen a proliferation of 3rd party developers whose are games are innovative, sticky, and popular. The other networks, especially Kaixin001, did a decent job of copying games in-house at the start. But as social games become more sophisticated and difficult to copy, their offerings look increasingly anemic.

Superior games will slowly drive users to spend more time on RenRen, at the expense of Kaixin001 and Qzone. As these networks realize that they can’t keep up with only in-house developers, they’ll open up their API. Qzone is already experimenting with licensing, starting with Five Minute’s Happy Farm). Expect this, in turn, to increase the leverage of game developers, who will demand greater than the maximum 56% revenue share RenRen currently offers. Chinese game developers are struggling to monetize, but if Kaixin001 and Qzone open up their API it’ll create more opportunities.

5. Family Friendly!

The rules are still being written, but expect social games to be harmonized in 2010. Mafia games are already gone. Happy Farmers are now picking—not stealing—crops. Expect developers, especially foreign ones, to err on the side of caution. All social games will be family friendly!

Bonus: What Will NOT Happen In 2010

1. Social Glue for the Chinese Internet!

While Facebook and Google compete to become of the social glue of the internet (via Connect features), Chinese networks are determined to defend their islands. RenRen, the closest copy of Facebook, is the best contender here, but its efforts (links with Dianping, etc.) all appear to be directed at keeping traffic on its site rather than connecting the internet.

2. Facebook Unblocked!

Dream on. But more and more Facebook games will be ported over to Chinese networks, though its unclear whether it’ll be Western developers or copycats who do it.

About The China Social Games Blog
China Social Games (@CNsocialgames) is a blog dedicated to tracking the hottest games, networks, and trends. It recently released a report for sale (590 USD) on the Top 10 Social Games in China. Though already wildly popular in China (and on Facebook), social gaming is still in its infancy, so the market is evolving, innovative, and competitive. China Social Games offers up-to-the-minute coverage. China Social Games is run by the BloggerInsight team (@BloggerInsight).

Related posts:

1. Is SNS+Game the Next Big Thing?
2. Kaixin001 Has Ads on Apps
3. Kaixin001: A New SNS with High Growth

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Post tags: 2010, China Social Games, prediction, social game

No matter Google will finally withdraw all business from China or not, I think it is time to review Google’s four-year operations in China. So I made the following list, if I omitted anything important or made any mistake, feel free to leave your comments.

• July 19, 2005, Kaifu Lee joined Google, which was also a big thing in tech sector at that time
• January 26, 2006, Google launched Google.cn in China, which filtered search results to obey China’s law and regulations
• March 2, 2006, Tencent launched its search engine service Soso.com, which was powered by Google’s technology. Actually Tencent partnered with Google on search service and search ads on Feb 4, 2005
• April 12, 2006, Eric Schmidt announced Google’s Chinese name 谷歌
• June 26, 2006, Google sold its 2.6% stakes in Baidu
• January 4, 2007, partnership with China Mobile
• January 5, 2007, announced investment in Xunlei, a mega-file downloader
• March 2007, acquired 265.com, the acquisition was announced on May 23, 2008
• March 12, 2007, launched Daohang service, which is a hot sites directory in one page. Daohang is a simple but very China-oriented service
• April 2, 2007, announced its investment in Tianya.cn, one of the biggest BBS in China
• April 4, 2007, launched its Chinese Input software, however which was found to copy the code from Sohu’s Chinese Input software. Later Google acknowledged it and apologized to Sohu
• May 24, 2007, launched China’s life search service, you can search information on housing, jobs, train tickets, restaurants and so on
• June 11, 2007, announced its strategic partnership with Sina, largest online portal in China, on search and adsense service.
• July 1, 2007, Netease announced Yodao, its own search engine, and it will not renew its partnership with Google.
• August 20, 2007, Google announced its new products on Tianya.cn, these two services, Tianya Laiba and Tianya Answer, intended to compete with Baidu’s popular service, Baidu Tieba and Baidu Zhidao.
• September 27, 2007, Google finally got the ICP licence which is required by China’s regulators to operate website in China
• January 30, 2008, Google released a Google map mashup, Spring Festival Mass Transportation Map, which was regarded as a product to show the innovative culture of Google.
• March 26, 2008, announced its $1m investment in Comsenz, a social software developer.
• May 8, 2008, launched its dictionary software which is a partner with Kingsoft
• August 5, 2008, announced its partnership with Top100.cn to operate music search service in China
• March 30, 2009, launched its music mp3 download service in China
• June 18, 2009, China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre (CIIRC) published a report in its frontage condemning Google.cn for spreading obscene contents. The report, titled as “Strongly condem google for spreading indecent and obscene information”. CCTV also made series reports on the issues, which made Google to suspend its Google Suggest and overseas web page search temporarily.
• September 3, 2009, Tencent announced it will start to use its own search technology on Soso.com to replace Google’s search technology.
• September 4, 2009, Kaifu Lee resigned from Google to run his incubator
• October, 13, 2009, Two Chinese writers’ groups claim that Google has scanned Chinese works into an electronic database in violation of international copyright standards.
• January 13, 2010, Google announced its new China approach, and stop filtering search results, and it may pull out of China.

(Image copyright REUTERS/Jason Lee)

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China Web Radar | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Follow us on Twitter| China Tech Events
Post tags: Google, Google-China

Google’s announcement of its new China approach is the biggest tech news today, there are tons of comments and analysis on news, blogs and tweets already. I currently don’t have much more to add to the discussion. I just pick up some posts I read and share with you.

Google’s statement is very controversial, some people believe that it is because of the lose of business in China. Sarah Lacy of Techcunch think “I’m not saying human rights didn’t play into the decision, but this was as much about business”, and ” Google has clearly decided doing business in China isn’t worth it, and are turning what would be a negative into a marketing positive for its business in the rest of the world.” Sun Yunfeng, the Chief Product Designer of Baidu, also questionned Google’s sincerity in his personal blog, “If Google gain 80% search engine market share in China, will Google’s executives announce do no evil and quit China”? (The original post has been deleted from his blog.)

Obviously, Google doesn’t do well in China market, and revenue from China is immaterial, PaidContent pointed out that the estimated Google China’s $600 million revenue in this year “only represents just over two percent of the $26 billion in revenue that most analysts expect Google to post this year.” But it still keeps about 30% market share in this high potential Internet market. Leaving China in this way, without saving face to China’s government is not an easy decision to make.

Robert Scoble quoted, a Google Spokesperson “This is not about market share. While our revenues from China are really immaterial, we did just have our best ever quarter [in China].” Scoble also thought “China is a HUGE market”, “Google has EVERY INCENTIVE to kiss Chinese ass. That’s why this move today impressed me so much….It doesn’t matter to me that Google played footsie up until today, either. They were the first to stop playing footsie and THAT deserves a HUGE round of applause”.

It is not the first time for Google to think leaving China. Keso, the most famous IT blogger in China, said, according to his sources, Google had planned to withdraw from China in the year before last year, but Kaifu Lee sought help from Gary Locke to solve this problem. You should read Scoble’s second post to feel the push and pull of China market.

“As an American I saw two opposite poles [of China]: one of unending opportunity and one of unending frustration of dealing with the government…..I both disagree with [Sarah's article] and agree with it. Why? Because I’m feeling the push and pull of China. Is Google doing this because of business or because of ethics? Probably a little bit of both. Or, maybe, just sheer frustration from the push and the pull of China.”

You should also readJames Fallows’ post, “It is a significant development. Significant for Google; and while only marginally significant for developments inside China potentially very significant for China’s relations with the rest of the world.”

Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba commented that a company will encounter many difficulties when operating in any country. It is easy to leave China, but giving up is the biggest failure for Google. But Xie Wen, a prominent internet commentator, saidhe admires Google, and “China’s Internet companies should not take pleasure in other’s misfortunes, today’s Google China may be your tomorrow”, and “China’s Internet will enter into the Age of Stone”.

You can also find the translations of Chinese Tweets on it, “It’s not Google that’s withdrawing from China, it’s China that’s withdrawing from the world”.

Kaifu Lee responded on his Twitter, “A captain would never run away from his duty, if he knew the ship was sinking”.

It seems the best predictor is Robin Li, in about five years ago he said “we will not see Google in five years”, though he will not know Google will leave in this way.

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3. Four Years of Google In China

China Web Radar | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Follow us on Twitter| China Tech Events
Post tags: Google, Google-China