… is the Tudou New Year Party. Invitation only, but if you are in town and would like to join give me a call. As you can see on the flyer the party starts at Taikang Lu 288 (so not the Tudou office!) at 7:30 PM.

The most used Dutch-language site to get updates on the latest news is nu.nl. But although they are quick with their reports, they regularly do a very shabby job in terms of research for their articles. The latest example was an article that I read this morning during breakfast, titled (translation) ‘First non-stop flights US-China‘.

I first thought the header was misleading to lure people to read the article, but also the text of the article says that United Airlines will get the first direct route between the US and China. Of course this is totally wrong, there are many direct flights between the US and China. The article should have read that one additional route was added, and that United won the right to fly this lucrative route (Washington DC – Beijing). A one minute Google search learned me that 3 years ago there were already 54 direct flights per week, why did the author of the article not check his facts? I would not be surprised if the un-edited article will end up in several other Dutch papers and websites.

The south wing of the famous Peace Hotel on the Bund will get a USD 50 million upgrade starting in April. The building, constructed in 1906, is indeed in need of a renovation. I stayed in some of the rooms in the hotel several years ago, and I was not overly impressed. The rooms are nicely decorated, but it’s all a bit old-fashioned. The furniture is quite worn out and the dark rooms felt and smelled dusty. And on top of that many things did not work properly, such as the jacuzzi and the TV in the bathroom (I was staying in a suite). The service was even worse, and nothing like it would have been in its heighdays 80 years ago.

However, some people love the ambiance of the hotel and the decoration of the rooms and come back here all the time. And to be honest, the themed national suites (among others the English, German and Indian suites) are fantastic. Business friends stayed in two of these suites a while ago, and I was truly impressed when they showed me their accomodation.

According to the Shanghai Daily’s paper edition, several of the hotel’s regular guests announced to the hotel that they would like to stay one last time in their favourite suites ahead of the renovation. I am not sure if this means that these suites, including the themed suites, will disappear after the renovation? The nation suites are located in the north wing, so I would assume not. Or maybe Shanghai’s only English newspaper messed up by reporting that only the south wing will be renovated? We’ll find out in due time.

But because of the upcoming renovation the hotel decided to slash the prices of their 35 most historic rooms by 80%, including the rates of the nation suites. So this might be your last chance to the feel the grandeur of the Peace Hotel, and that for a relatively modest price! Don’t be surprised however if you wake up in the middle of the night because of construction work. I read somewhere that the renovation of the hotel has already started (I could not check it out myself). Maybe that is the real reason of the lower prices?

Last week game.com.cn, one of Spill Group Asia’s main websites, had a complete redesign, adding lots of functionalities and making it load much faster. Our people worked extremely hard on this: when I went to bed in Holland after midnight the team was still working in China. This means it was after 7 AM in the morning here already, and they had worked 24 hours non-stop to get the site live. Thanks to Demi and her team, you did a great job!

Personally I think the site looks great, and it seems the visitors think so too. This weekend we had a new pageview record, with 1,024,000 pageviews in one day! This was done without any ads on Google or Baidu, so most people on the site are returning visitors. Over the next weeks we will add some more features that will further enhance the user experience, and increase the so-called stickyness of the site. Up to the 2 millon pageviews!

Note: due to the continuing internet problems in China because of the earthquake, game.com.cn will load quite slowly in the rest of the world.

Last week in Holland I used a 3G connection on my mobile for the very first time. It is a huge improvement over the slow GPRS connections that I have in China. I hardly ever surf the internet on my phone, except when I find a wifi spot, because of the slow connections. For email GPRS is sufficient as long as you do not download any files. But I am quite sure that this behaviour will change quicky once 3G becomes available in Shanghai (latest rumours say May/June this year, but nobody really knows).

According to MobileMonday, a survey released in Beijing last week indicated that 77% of Chinese mobile users plan to buy 3G handsets when they become avialable. An additional 17% says they are still unsure. Note that 3G is still not available in China, so people are now already interested to buy a phone with this technology without even trying it (they must be fed up with GRPS). I lost track of exactly how many mobile phone users there are in China, but I think the latest figure was somewhere around 400 million phones. That will be a huge demand for 3G phones, over 300 million new handsets!

And these users will be looking for 3G content. Good news for Tudou I think, and likely also an interesting market for online games. Wouldn’t it be nice to play high-quality games against friends who are also online on your mobile phone while commuting to work? I am sure 3G will bring a whole new group of start-ups to the Chinese market. I personally believe in mobile internet and mobile applications, as long as the handsets have a big enough screen (like my E61) and the connections are fast enough. In China people will likely adjust fast to 3G, Europe and especially the US will lag behind.

But don’t expect the whole of China to be on the mobile internet next year, the main hurdle will be the price. Both the price of the handsets (75% of Chinese users want to spend less than EUR 250 on this) and the price of the subscription or bandwidth usage (China mobile likely wants to use its quasi-monopoly position to earn good cash). But those will come down eventually, and I would not be surprised if in a few years the mobile internet in China will be bigger than surfing on computers. To prepare for this Spill Group Asia already bought lots of .mobi domain names!

After spending almost two weeks abroad, it takes a bit of time to get used to some of the negative aspects of living in China. It started with a motorbike that I almost hit last night, when I drove back from work. I was a bit tired (I did not sleep much on the overnight flight to Shanghai) and it was dark and foggy outside so it was difficult to see things clearly. Suddenly a motorbike without lights crossed the road right in front of me, and I had to swerve to the right in order not to hit it (luckily there were no bicycles next to me). I wonder what was in the person’s mind, my car lights were on and I was driving at a normal speed. I know that in two days time I would not even write about this anymore, because it happens all the time and then I am used to it again.

At home the reception of my mobile phone was almost zero, and even standing close to the window made making phone calls a nightmare. Generally, you have good connections in China on your mobile, but living on the 37th floor is the culprit. Sometimes it’s fine, sometimes there is no connection at all. The management of our compound promised to install some piece of equipment to enhance the reception months ago, but of course that has not happened so far.

Then I decided to make calls using Skype, but that did not work well either. Not only because of China’s firewall, but also because of the still very slow internet after the Taiwan earthquake. Also many of the other sites that I visit regularly do not load, and even uploading my holiday pictures to Flickr was impossible. But luckily my blog is still working!

It’s all about expectations I guess. Now if I need to make a phonecall I use the fixed line or take the elevator to the lobby. And when I drive at night I just need to drive even more slowly at roads that are poorly lighted. The websites will be up and running eventually, just no new pictures on my Flickr account for the next couple of days.

But after being away for a short while, you also notice the nice things in life that you normally take for granted. When we arrived home from the airport around lunchtime our ayi was already waiting downstairs to help us carry the suitcases (she waited outside for an hour in the cold, because we had a delay – we tried to call her but we could not reach her). And when we came into the apartment, a nice lunch was already waiting for us. The fridge was full of fresh products, we did not have to go shopping ourselves. Overall I certainly prefer Shanghai!

Sitting in the business lounge at Amsterdam Schiphol airport right now using the expensive internet that Dutch provider KPN offers here (EUR 6 for 30 min). They should learn from many airports in Asia where internet is available for free. Even Shanghai now offers free wifi in the KLM lounge.

I still cannot retrieve my Spillgroup Asia email, so I checked my RSS feeds instead. And what is the first thing I read online? A China Eastern yet landed at Shanghai’s Hongqiao airport yesterday, and bursted 4 tires while doing this. The whole airport was closed for 5 hours because of their almost crash-landing. Not the first time this happens to China Eastern, in May last year they manage to burst 12 tires on one airplane. China Eastern has a horrible reputation anyway (remember their crash in Baotou two years ago, and I try to avoid it when flying.

I also came across an interesting article by Micah Sittig about the translation of movie titles into English. The latest James Bond (the first to be shown in China) is called Casino Royale. But because gambling is not allowed in China, it was renamed to 007??????, which Micah translates as “007’s War on Casino Royale”!

2007 will be the Year of the Pig according to the Chinese calendar, and Tudou celebrates that with a temporary change to its logo!