Archive for October, 2010

Trip to Holland

I am sitting in a plane back to China after an intensive week in Holland. I left China Sunday night around midnight on the overnight KLM flight. I wasn't feeling completely well (I am having a minor case of the flu for almost 2 weeks already), so I had 3 glasses of champagne and 2 Tylenol and that combination helped me to get over 7 hours of sleep. The plane landed at 5 AM and after waiting for the suitcases for 25 minutes (noticing once again that it takes much longer for your suitcases to...
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Tudou sighted on Times Square in New York

This is pretty cool, an ad for Tudou's original drama series That Love Comes was shown on Times Square in New York. Not that we are suddenly trying to target US users, but it was a nice gesture from PR Newswire. And it seems that That Love Comes is not just seen as an entertainment series, because it's now also used in a university course: The University of Mary Washington uses the series for an extra credit project as "an opportunity to explore and analyze China today through the window...
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Final visit to the Shanghai Expo 2010

I had been to the World Expo a couple of times already over the past 6 months, but it was always business related so I didn't get to see many pavilions yet. I had planned to take a day off from work to go here for a while already, but somehow never managed to do so. And because the Expo will close in less than 2 weeks I decided to bite the bullet despite being flooded with work & travel, and invite my wife and parents-in-law for a VIP visit to the Expo. It seems that it's getting more...
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That Love Comes now with English subtitles on Tudou.com

Tudou.com's first high quality original drama series That Love Comes is now available with English subtitles for non-Chinese audiences. If you want to catch a glimpse of what young Chinese like to watch you can see episode one here and episode two here. Each episode is about 30 minutes. We plan to upload the first episode to YouTube as well for faster viewing outside China, I will add the link here once that's done. I also embed episode one below. The series is now already extremely popular...
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Weekend trip to South-Korea for Joop & Suna’s wedding

This weekend Grace and I flew to Korea for Joop Dorresteijn & Suna Cho's wedding and we had a great time there. The traveling itself did not completely go well, but that's something you get used to in Asia. It started off with the regular two hour delay on the tarmac before take off from Shanghai because of 'air traffic control'. I lost quite a number of working days already sitting on a plane that does not move. If the airline would just let you wait in the lounge it would be okay, but...
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Tudou

This is a copy of a post on TudouChina.com, original post here A quick update that the long...
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Elaine going to school for the first time!

Today Elaine went to the kindergarten in our compound for the first time. She is now 16 months old and is able to walk and talk very well, so she is ready for kindergarten. It is the same one where Scott also went until a couple of months ago, and she went there many times already to take a look. Elaine was very excited when we told her yesterday that she could finally go, and she could not wait this morning to leave the house. Grace dressed her up very nicely (actually, she always gets...
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I’m going to Korea and the exchange rate is….

Later today my wife and I will fly to Seoul and then travel on to Daejeon for the wedding of Joop Dorresteijn. Just now I was checking the weather (cold, only 17 degrees Celsius...) and the Korean Won exchange rate and I was very surprised to see it's exactly KRW 1111,11111 for 1 USD. Easy to...
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Speaking in Rotterdam, Shanghai and Jakarta over the next 3 weeks

Over the next weeks I will be giving a few talks about entrepreneurship, social media and the online casual games industry. Instead of only tweeting about them while at the event itself I decided to put the next ones on my blog as well. On Monday October 25 I will be speaking at the STAR Management Week at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. The topic is entrepreneurship, so I will probably give a personal talk about my career so far, what drives me as an entrepreneur and how I look at the...
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United Styles looking for girls for photo shoot on Oct. 30

I mentioned United Styles a few times on this blog and in other media already, but so far never revealed what the company will be doing. UnitedStyles.com is a website where a mother or a child (or the two of them together) can design kids personalized clothing and immediately see the result in 3D. United Styles will then produce the clothes you designed and mail them to you. The site is is in closed alpha at the moment, and very soon an email will go out to all the people that signed up on...
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1st Shanghai Indoor Rowing Charity Challenge on Nov. 13

A couple of months ago I bought a Concept2 indoor rowing machine and I am using it regularly, especially when I don't feel like running but still want to do an intensive work-out. It seems I am not the only one in Shanghai that likes to row, because a few days ago I came across the 1st Shanghai Indoor Rowing Charity Challenge. This race will be held on Saturday November 13, 2010 from 10 AM to 4 PM at the Shanghai Sharks Practice Facility, Bai Se Road No.1333 (???1333?). There will both be...
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National Holiday luckily almost over

I am not a big fan of the Chinese nationwide vacations, especially when I am staying at home and when most friends are off to some tropical beaches. The past several days we had the October National Holiday in China and I am glad it's almost over. After I came back from TechCrunch Disrupt I was full of new ideas that I wanted to share, but because nobody was working I felt I couldn't do much. That doesn't mean I didn't have a good time, because I certainly enjoyed spending more time at home....
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Jarvis Winery in Napa Valley

Last weekend I had the chance to visit the Jarvis Winery just outside Napa, one of the top wineries in the US. During the summer Will Jarvis (the son of the owners) had visited both Spil Games and Tudou, so I already heard a lot about the wines before my visit and I was really looking forward to seeing the winery operations. On Sunday morning I drove over with some friends, it's a scenic drive to the Jarvis vineyards that are located in the northeastern part of Napa Valley. Once you arrive...
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