Shanghaied Weblog

Scott travels in style

Yesterday was Scott's 3-month 'birthday' and today he will take his first flight ever. He will spend a few days in Beijing with my wife, visiting family and of course to celebrate his 100-day anniversary (bai ri, we will organize a party for that).Just now I was looking at his ticket and noticed that he will travel first class on his first flight! Wow, I think I was in my late twenties before I took first class for the first time - and that was only because of a free upgrade. Not that he will...

North-Korea vs. South-Korea match at Hongkou Stadium

Last night I went to Hongkou stadium with several Spill Group colleagues to watch a football match between North Korea and South Korea. Not just a friendly match, but a World Cup 2010 qualifier. The original plan was to hold the match in Pyongyang, but the North-Korean government did not allow FIFA to flag the South-Korean flag nor to play the South-Korean National Anthem. So the match was moved to Shanghai, which was a good thing for South Korea, because there is a huge population of South...

Interactive presentation

In about 10 days a big group (42 people) of mainly Dutch new media and IT executives will visit China for a one-week tour. I am part of the organization of this trip to Shanghai and Chengdu, and just now I gave a talk to all participants at their kick-off meeting in Vak Zuid in Amsterdam. Because I am in Shanghai I gave the talk through Skype, and despite the Great Firewall that went remarkably well.Because many of the participants are on Twitter as well, I could follow their comments while...

First dotAsia domains going live

Today I was reading an article about the new dotAsia domains in the South China Morning Post, where they announced that next week the dotAsia registry will go live. Spill Group Asia, however, already managed to get several of the best game-related names. Among others game.asia and games.asia, and both sites went live today! The current sites will be improved over the next couple of weeks and should become top destinations for online game players in Asia. I typed in several other .asia domains...

Uphill Rush a big hit online

Zlong Games, Spill Group's game development studio, produces a lot of flash games. Most do pretty well, and some become huge hits. The latest blockbuster is Uphill Rush, a racing game with dirt bikes, quads, trucks and skateboards, where you can perform lots of tricks on several obstacle courses. The game is completely free, like all our games, and can be found on thousands of websites all over the internet. The game is so popular that people even started to make their own video's of their...

Spill Group Asia's new office

When I set up Spill Group Asia just over 2 years ago we were just two people, and worked from the China Bay offices (where I was a managing partner at that time). Within a few months we were at 7 people and we had to move to a separate office. We managed to get into the Jiaotong University Incubator Center in Xujiahui, together with tens of other start-ups. A nice working environment for a young company, especially considering the free help from the university and the low rent.But when...

150 days to go – and the excitement is building up

Every day the Shanghai Daily's front page shows how many days are left until 08-08-08, the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Today the front page told me that in exactly 150 days the Olympic Games will start. China already has its dedicated Olympic TV Channel where you can watch Chinese sportsmen and women prepare for the Games, or where they repeat all kinds of sports from past Olympics. It has become my station of choice to watch while running in the gym.Also the preparation for the...

Public shaming

A couple of years ago I had a very nice apartment with a big balcony overlooking the Suzhou creek in Shanghai. Even though the Suzhou creek was not as nice then as it is now (but also not as dirty as 10 years ago), I really enjoyed sitting on my balcony watching the boats pass by while drinking a glass of wine or beer. The only bad thing was that my balcony was about twice as big as the balcony of the 20 stories of apartments above mine. Why was that bad? Because several of my upstairs...

Elevated walkways in Pudong

One of the things I like about Hong Kong is that on Hong Kong Island you can walk from one shopping mall or skyscraper to the other using elevated walkways. Very convenient, you don't need to cross streets and because they are covered you don't even need an umbrella when it rains.Shanghai is now going to copy this in Pudong, the financial and business district where most of the skyscrapers are located. There will be a ring-shaped elevated walkway linking most of the skyscrapers in Lujiazui (the...

Confessions on Twitter

I am using Twitter more and more, it's an excellent tool to keep in touch with people, get some quick information that is difficult to find on the internet, and also a source of entertainment.For the entertainment part I came across a Twitter user today, Confession. You can see the page at http://twitter.com/confession. People can leave their confessions, without other people knowing who posted it. As can expected on the 'anonymous' internet most are sex-related, and it's frankly amazing what...