Archive for September, 2006

Spill Group buys majority share in Chinese game developer

Today was an important day for all of us at Spill Group Asia, because we took a majority share in one of China's leading game developers, Zlong Games. This is the first major investment that Spill Group Asia made in China. Spill Group just sent out the following press release about this take over:SPILL GROUP buys majority share in well known Chinese game developerShanghai – September 29, 2006 – SPILL GROUP, leading developer and operator of online gaming portals, today signed a deal with...
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Electricity cut

Shanghai has developed so fast, but when dealing with state-owned companies it's still like the old days: frustration, frustration, frustration. A nice (or actually not-so-nice) example happened this week, when on Wednesday a note from the Shanghai Power company arrived that our electricity would be cut off for a while on Friday. My first reaction was: nice, at least they inform us. But when reading the whole thing I got upset, because the power would be cut from 5 AM to 2 PM! During a normal...
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Ideas

This week two Spill Group colleagues from Holland are visiting, causing a total lack of postings on this blog. But apart from not having time to blog, the trip is going well. We are having lots of discussions with other IT and gaming companies, and I have a ton of new ideas on how to further develop and monetize our Chinese websites and on gaming and game development in general. Some of these ideas will probably be turned into real businesses as part of Spill Group, in cooperation with other...
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Party!

Saturday night Grace and I held a party at our apartment, a combination of our one-year wedding anniversary and a long overdue housewarming party. In total over 60 guests showed up at the party, from all kinds of companies that we worked at or with over the past years in Shanghai (Spill Group, Tudou, SVP, Bertelsmann, Roland Berger) and of course lost of friends and business partners.We had hired a catering service for finger food (Dragon Party), and they did a great job – good value for...
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BarCamp Shanghai

This weekend BarCamp Shanghai takes place, the first time a BarCamp takes place in China. In case you are not familiar with the concept, the organizer's website gives the following description:BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.All attendees must give a demo, a session, or help with one. Prepare in advance, but come early to get a slot on the...
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Street business

Lots of bloggable things happened this week, but no time to blog so far... Some things I wanted to write about, but did not find the time for yet:- Ho-Pin Tung's Formula 3 championship (in a car with game.com.cn on it)- Gary Wang (Tudou's CEO) who is sudddenly becoming a famous Chinese writer- A cool big band jazz concert with Rolf Becker in the Grand Hyatt last night- Several anecdotes about a large group of Dutch tourists (members of Dutch broadcasting station the Tros) who are on a so-called...
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Background music during phone calls

As I mentioned before on this blog, I do not like it very much when people use personalized "ringtones". This means that you are forced to listen to the favourite song of the person you are calling, instead of the traditional beeps. More and more people are using this service, because China Mobile is actively pushing the product.But things seem to be getting worse according to Pacific Epoch. According to them, a Chinese WAP site recently launched a service that allows users to select a tone or...
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Business idea for backpackers

One thing I did not understand about Yangshuo, is that there is no decent map of the city and (especially) the countryside around it. There is a map that is widely sold, which shows the main attractions around the city, but that map only has a few roads on it and the scale is not correct. Because there are hundreds or maybe even thousands of tourists every day in Yangshuo I immediately saw a small business opportunity.If I would have had time I would base myself in Yangshuo for a few weeks, buy...
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Guilin and Yangshuo pictures online

In case you are interested, I put some of the pictures we took last week in Guilin and Yangshuo online. I created a set that can be viewed here. If you have never been to these places, take a look and you'll understand why I think this is one of the nicest areas in...
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Running in Yangshuo

Yangshuo is great for outdoor sports, and running is one of them. Except for the karst mountains the landscape is nearly flat, so you can do some great long distance runs here. Because the locals are used to foreigners this was the first time I did an outside run in China without hearing anyone scream “Laowai” (foreigner) at me. Quite nice for a change. But used to runners they are not yet here: this morning I was running along the Ju Long river, about 7 km outside Yangshuo, when a farmer...
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Yangshuo without a Lonely Planet

After a couple of days in Guilin we took a boat to Yangshuo. There is no way to rent a private boat, you have to go on a boat that is full of tour groups. And they are quite expensive, the boat we took was a cool RMB 420 per person. But that’s the way it is when a city discovers tourists, and I am sure prices will keep on rising. Why? Because the boat trip is absolutely stunning, and it is one of the things that you must have done at least once if you visit this part of China. If you have the...
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Caves or Disneyland?

One of the main attractions in and around Guilin are the karst stone formations. These mountains, that pop out of a mainly flat landscape, contain many caves and some of these can be explored.Having visited a fair share of caves in my life, but mainly in Europe, the caves here surprised me a bit. All of the ones that can be visited are lighted in all colors of the rainbow! Furthermore, the Chinese visitors have to be entertained, so all kinds of structures that look like an animal, plant or...
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Taxi drivers

As I already noted in my post about our first day in Guilin, taxi drivers are quite commercial here. Every time we take a taxi the driver starts to talk with us, and every time he or she (many female drivers here) tries to sell us tickets or wants to drive us to another tourist location. I am not exactly sure how it works, but in the meantime I have figured out that there is something behind all of this. This morning we drove to the Seven Stars Cave, close to downtown Guilin, when the driver...
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Gourmets Coffee Café

Monday we had breakfast at Gourmets Coffee Café (118, Bin Jiang Road – on the river, 100 meters north of the Sheraton). When we sat down we noticed a sign saying that if you order a coffee you get a free breakfasts. I first thought that they made an English mistake, and that they meant to say “if you order breakfast you get a free coffee’, but it really was the other way around. Coffee was great by the way. The owner is a retired couple, the woman from Guilin, the man from Taiwan, who...
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Do not disturb

One thing I do not like about Chinese hotels is the fact that the “Do not disturb” sign is often totally ignored. You put the “Do not disturb” light on or put the card on the door, but the cleaning lady will walk into your room anyway in the morning. It happened to me several times in the past already (but, to be fair, also once in a 5-star hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia), and this morning it happened to us again. Luckily the cleaning lady first rang the doorbell. Trying to explain that we...
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Guilin – first impressions

After a flight of over just two hours from Shanghai our plane landed in Guilin, the former capital of Guangxi province. The airport is (like most airports in China) located about 30 kilometers out of the city, so we took a taxi to our hotel. All taxi’s are metered, which spares you the hassle of negotiating a price. The young driver immediately tried to strike up a conversation, and within a few minutes the conversation turned to a sales pitch for cheaper tickets for boats and shows that he...
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One year ago…

... we got married today (pictures!). On 9-9 we did the registration, and on the 10th we had a big party. Time flies, but my wife and I look back at a very nice first year of our marriage. An exciting year, that started off with a honeymoon in the Philippines, and later included trips to among others Hong Kong, France, Italy and Holland. Workwise it was an extremely busy year for both of us, but it was also quite succesful. A year ago Spill Group Asia did not even exist yet, now it's a...
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New features for game.com.cn

Today we went live with several new functions for our Chinese flagship site game.com.cn. We decided to add some interactive features to the gaming site, and more will follow soon. One feature we added is a rating system for games. If a user is logged in, he/she can give a game a rating of between one and five stars. Based on this we calculate which games are the highest rated games on our site, and we can publish a ranking.Another feature is that you can leave comments about the game (they can...
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Graffiti @ Spill Group Asia

What do you expect when visiting a gaming company? A silent office with white walls? No, I feel that does not work in this industry. Spill Group Asia's office is therefore quite lively with among others a recreation room where you can play a game or watch a DVD. And now we also have some great graffiti on some of our...
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Shanghai Rugby Sevens

Thirty years ago the Rugby 7's started in Hong Kong, and became a huge success there almost overnight. In its first edition already teams from 7 countries competeted against each other, and this year's event had 24 participating countries and 40,000 spectators. The event is so big now that hotels in Hong Kong raise their prices during the Sevens, and it's very difficult to find a room during the weekend of the event.Last year, Shanghai also started organizing its own 7's. And this weekend the...
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