Archive for March, 2010

Baidu did not gain any market share after Google’s departure

I just read an interesting comment by Sun Zhifeng on my blog post about Baidu's paid search results. The comment stated that Baidu did not gain any market share after Google had left, based on Alexa data. I checked it myself just now, and saw that Baidu's growth is flat, there is hardly any change at all after Google's departure. Of course Alexa's data are not very accurate, especially in China, but for a trend analysis the data should be fine. Actually the one gaining market share seems...
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My blog unblocked in China & GoDaddy’s ‘departure’

After my blog was blocked in China about 2 weeks ago, GoDaddy moved it to a new server and now it works fine. I therefore think that the reason for the block was that GoDaddy's server had some 'non-harmonious' sites on them, causing all the other sites on the server to be blocked as well. Because GoDaddy is not able to check for you whether their servers are blocked in China, and because many of them seem to be blocked here, I had already decided to change from GoDaddy to a European...
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Baidu’s search results turning into pure advertising

Baidu.com, China's leading search engine, has always been more commercial than Google was. It's common knowledge that its results are often not as good as those from Google's algorithms. But because its entertainment results were 'different' (=easier to find illegal material) and most Chinese searches are related to entertainment, it still managed to keep a big lead over Google. One big difference between Baidu and Google is how the paid results are mixed with organic search results. Both...
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Road trip (2) – Death Vally, Los Angeles & the amazing Highway 1

On Monday after lunch we drove from Las Vegas to Death Valley. The hottest (and second lowest) place on earth was not so very hot in mid-March, but still a lot warmer than Vegas. It's a great nature reserve and it's huge. Just driving through it took us several hours (incl. stops). I was very impressed with the place, the natural environment is amazing with large salt pans, desert sand dunes and high mountains. A place you can spend several days in, but we decided that a few hours was...
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Road trip (1) – San Diego, Tijuana & Las Vegas

Last week I took a week off to drive around California with my sister Sonja. She has been on a round the world trip for the past 5 months and coincidentally we were in the US around the same time. So after a busy week at the GDC conference I took a plane from San Francisco to San Diego on Saturday night to meet my sister there. We only had 6 days and we wanted to see a lot, so we decided not to waste time and try to pack as much in these few days as possible. On Sunday morning we got up...
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This blog is now blocked in China…

A few days ago I started to receive messages and tweets that my blog was not working. That happens sometimes so I did not pay much attention to it. Until I realized that I could still see it in the US on my laptop, but not on my China Mobile phone using GPRS. Also all the people that had contacted me were based in China. A quick check revealed that my blog was 'harmonized' as the Chinese euphemistically call it. Why would my blog be blocked? I don't think it's because of the content. I do...
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The King of Kong

Today I was walking over the Game Developers Conference expo floor when I saw a crowd of people around an arcade machine. Out of curiosity I took a look what was going on and then I saw that someone was playing Donkey Kong. That used to be my favorite game in the early 1980's, not on an arcade machine but on a Nintendo Stop & Watch (I still have an old one, but it stopped working years ago). The guy playing was extremely good and when I looked at the sign next to the machine I realized...
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Game Developers Conference 2010 – some observations

Today was the first day of GDC 2010, the yearly Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Despite a short night of sleep I felt pretty awake during most of the day, likely also due to the large number of cups of coffee that I consumed. Coffee is the drink of choice at GDC, every break there is free coffee and during every meeting I drink at least one cup as well. When walking to the Moscone Center this morning I immediately knew who of the crowd around me was going to GDC as well. Game...
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The best way to get over a jet lag…

Four hours ago I arrived in San Francisco after an overnight economy class flight from Shanghai. Despite having the first row of cattle class I still did not manage to sleep much (=not at all) on the plane. But because I have several meetings later today and even a business dinner tonight I need to make sure I get over my jet lag as soon as possible. The easiest solution is of course to take a short nap, but that is more a temporary solution and it can actually make the problem worse. The best...
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Good China Daily interview with Gary Wang

I regularly see interviews with Gary Wang, Tudou's CEO, through Google Alerts and Twitter, but most are more or less the same. However, today's interview with the China Daily is one of the better ones I have seen over the past years. I'm normally not a big fan of the China Daily, but this piece shows Gary like how I have got to know him over the years: As a man who comfortably mixes his work and free time, Wang is happy dealing with business emails while camping during a hike and allows...
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