Archive for May, 2010

Spil Games Asia outing 2010 in Moganshan and Nanxun

Last weekend Spil Games Asia went on its annual outing. This year we went to Moganshan (a mountain in Zhejiang) and Nanxun (a water town) for our two day trip. We had a bit of bad luck with the weather, because despite the forecast of sunshine it rained on Friday when we left Shanghai. The rain followed us to Moganshan where clouds and fog joined us as well. The result: none of our staff could enjoy the beautiful views of the bamboo forest covered mountains and some of the old European...
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The past days in pictures

Lots of fun and interesting things happened over the past days, but I didn't find the time yet to write blog posts about it. Because I likely won't have much time over the next days either I decided to just put some pictures with short descriptions online. A picture says more than a thousand words, right? Elaine had her 1st birthday last Friday and we had a nice dinner (Beijing Duck) at home for her birthday. Because my wife and I both had to work we decided to postpone the real celebrations...
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Tudou moving to original web content – some insights

Last week Tudou announced the launch of its made-for-Internet original content production plan ("Orange Box") and an independent filmmakers' incubation program ("Warehouse no. 6"). The announcement may appear to be yet another entertainment initiative, but Tudou's move is actually a calculated and strategic attempt to expand its content offerings, learning from the television model. Many companies are jumping to capitalize on the growth of the online video industry in China, as they see the...
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Am I really a geek?

Ahead of the Geeks On A Plane tour to Asia CNNgo.com interviewed - as they call it - 5 of China's biggest geeks. I was one of them, so I guess now I am officially a geek. The other people interviewed for the article are gaming guru Frank Yu, Youku consultant & rock star Kaiser Kuo, Tudou CEO Gary Wang and Qifang CEO Calvin Chin. It's a small world in China, because we all know each other. In the interview I mention the geek project that gets me most excited: an investment in a...
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Miffy site takeover on Spil Games’ Chinese portals

Over the past week we had a site takeover ad campaign for Miffy on game.com.cn and xiaoyouxi.cn. I wanted to share the screen shots before the campaign goes offline tonight. The whole homepage was Miffy branded during the takeover, meaning that look and feel was changed into Miffy style. After opening the homepage you would see Miffy floating in a basket with balloons in our A1 location (left corner) with several kites on the left and right sides of the screen. Then suddenly the basket...
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Visit of EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes to Tudou

Last week I received a call whether it would be possible for me to give a presentation at Tudou to Mrs. Neelie Kroes, vice-president of the European Commission and in charge of the EU Digital Agenda. Of course I was honored and I immediately invited her to visit the Tudou office. Mrs. Kroes came to visit us this morning with a small EU delegation and several journalists. We started the visit with a tour around Tudou's headquarters in Shanghai (Tudou has 2 offices in Shanghai and other...
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Geeks on a Plane Asia 2010

Next week Geeks on a Plane will once again visit Shanghai, and there is a great line up of entrepreneurs, VCs, journalists and bloggers. During the last visit in June 2009 I gave a talk to the group at Spil Games Asia and Gary did a Lunch 2.0 talk at Tudou for them. This year I am not sure what my exact obligations are, I think I promised Christine Lu to do a presentation (but I can't locate the email anymore, we probably communicated by Twitter - help me out Christine...) and I will be on...
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Sunday morning interviews at home

It's a busy period for journalists in Shanghai, because of the Expo they all want to file stories about business in China. On Tuesday the Dutch Crown Prince will be here, so Dutch media all need to finish their Expo stories by then. Normally I do the interviews at Spil Games Asia, but because it's Sunday I decided to take some at home. Scott was luckily relatively quiet, and Elaine slept through the whole episode. The pictures were taken during a TV interview in my study with Dutch...
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Adobe loves Apple – or not?

Adobe spent some major money today on ads to tell the world about its dispute with Apple. Not only appeared an ad below almost every tech related post in my Google Reader, but on every TechCrunch post that I clicked on in my RSS feed a pop-up ad from Adobe appeared. I did not even know that pop-up ads still existed outside China, and I certainly had not expected TechCrunch to sell them. I guess they felt they would get away with one like this, and they were right - I even blog about it...
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Tudou to Stream 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa Online

This press release went out earlier today and I decided to put it on my blog as well. This is another great milestone for Tudou. During the last World Cup I could not have imagined that we would ever send a Tudou crew to a football World Cup to shoot our own programs and stream all matches on Tudou! -- Leading online video licensing deal with national broadcaster CCTV to serve young, sports savvy audience in China (May 13, 2010 - Beijing, China) While the...
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PressReader on the iPad: Amazing!

Today I checked out the new PressReader app on the iPad, and I was totally sold on it! It is so cool, this app *might* be the future of media and just having this app justifies buying an iPad for me. Downloading on the iPad goes very fast PressReader is a website with an app that lets you read 1500 newspapers and magazines worldwide on your computer, your iPhone or your iPad. You pay USD 0.99 per newspaper, or you can have a 1-month subscription for USD 9.99 that allows you to download 31...
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Spil Games Asia looking for a COO

Spil Games Asia is looking for an experienced manager for the role of Chief Operating Officer for its China operations. You will be part of the Management Team of Spil Games Asia in...
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Tan Yuan Yuan on Google homepage today

Tan Yuan Yuan, China's most famous ballet dancer (and incidentally also a personal friend), made it into the doodle on Google's homepage today! The doodle depicting the Google logo was created together with the San Francisco Ballet for Tchaikovsky's 170th birthday. Very cool for Yuan Yuan and her dance partner Tiit Helimets, hundreds of millions of people will see her in action there...
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iPad #fail

This afternoon I was sitting in my garden trying to read some mails and an ebook on my iPad (today was an official holiday in Shanghai because of the Expo). Not a good combination, because it's hard to see the iPad screen when the sun shines. For me that's a big reason why the iPad is not the right gadget to use as a primary ebook reader, but that's a different story (try e-ink readers to see what a real ebook reader looks like). Next to the fact that you can hardly see anything on the...
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Queensday in Shanghai

Yesterday was the Dutch National Holiday of Queensday, basically a day to honor the royal family. The Queen and her family always visit one or more places in Holland and in most other towns and cities there are celebrations. Also Dutch embassies and consulates all over the world organize Queensday events, and because yesterday coincided with the opening of the World Expo 2010, this year a high-level Dutch government delegation was in Shanghai to join the celebrations. In the morning some...
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