Toodou.com on CNN

CNN is in town this week, and doing several programs about Shanghai. Most a bit stereotypical, but I guess that’s what the average CNN viewer is looking for. They also approached Toodou for an item about podcasting. This morning I watched the item (luckily my illegal sattelite dish was working today), and I was not too impressed.

The item itself started off OK, but very soon it turned to censorhip in China. Gary gave a good comment by saying that for every page that is blocked there are probably 9 million with similar content that are not blocked. And he is right, the government knows it cannot block everything. But it is not really an issue for the average Chinese netizen: most don’t even want to go to the (mainly foreign) sites that are blocked.

Why does the media always focus on censorhip when they hear China and internet? In most of the interviews that I do the word comes up in the conversation. It is really not a big issue here (for me personally it is sometimes, but not for the average Chinese), and everybody knows there are so many ways around blocked sites that it is more like a joke to me.

Toodou is about entertainment, giving people a platform to show their videos. The site is supposed to be a place to relax, find new interesting videos and share these with friends. By focusing once again on censorship CNN is giving the world a very distorted view of reality in China.

Note: I got some questions about my illegal sattelite dish. Why do I not have a legal one? Simply because my building has no permit for legal (government controlled) dishes, and therefore I cannot buy a legal one. Almost every apartment here has one.

Jiaotong University

Today after lunch Hongtao showed me around the Jiaotong University campus, he used to study here until a few weeks ago. Our new office is in the incubator center right next to the campus, the main gate is just around the corner. Jiaotong University has a very nice campus, with lots of green areas and some old buildings. After going through the gate (nobody checks anything here) you walk straight ahead for about 200 meters and then get to a big lawn (kind of like a park) surrounded by old buildings.

The first thing that struck me that people were sitting and lying on the grass. Normally in China that is not allowed in parks, and guards already start screaming the moment you just consider stepping onto the grass.The weather was beautiful (although a bit colder today, around 15-16 degrees), and the atmosphere was relaxed. Around the campus banners where announcing that the university will turn 110 years this Saturday. A celebration for this will take place on the Universities biggest campus in Minhang.

Hongtao showed me his lab, his former dormitory and of course the library. I was especially interested in the English section, but that was a bit disappointing. The most recent books seemed to be from the early 1980’s. Not unlogical, because students using this library can get all the books they need in Chinese, and English books are 5-10 times as expensive. The library reminded me a bit of the library of the university in Grenoble where I studied many years ago: a bit dusty, wooden desks, and even the card index system to find books, and in serious need of renovation (repainting would already help a lot).

Although the campus is next to one of the busiest places in Shanghai (the Zhaojiabang Lu / Caoxi Bei Lu intersection in Xujiahui surrounded by several shopping malls), it was actually very quiet here. A nice place to go to during the weekend, just lying on the grass reading a book. And you can even bring your laptop: there is wifi everywhere!

Moving office

Today Spill Group Asia moved to its new office in the incubator center of Jiaotong University. A super location, right behind the shopping malls of Xujiahui and a 5 minute walk from the subway station. And right next to a park, not many offices in Shanghai have a view like this I suppose.

The only problem was that the furniture did not arrive yet (they are still making it, it should be finished by this weekend), but we managed to get some old furniture from the university for a few days. The main thing is that the internet connection works, and that was arranged today.

(I was planning to put more pictures here, but for some reason my blogging tool tonight does not like wysiwyg, so I have to do everything in html. I am too lazy (and tired) to make it look nice, so for more pictures see here, here, here and here – or just go to my main photo page)

Would you have invested?

New Google Talk test version

Google Talk has released a new test version, but is seems they are only spreading the word through viral marketing. Through this link you can download the latest version (no April Fools Day joke, by the way).

New in this version:
– buddy icons (put your picture or avatar next to your name)
– chat themes
– contact card: when you move your mouse over a contact you see his/her details

(source: marketingfacts.nl)

game.com.cn live!

Spill Group Asia today launched game.com.cn, our second gaming casual website in China. Youxi.cn is now online for about two weeks and is seeing a healthy growth in traffic.

The next launch of a site in China is planned for mid-April. And then it’s time to start with sites in other Asian countries outside China. Things are moving forward, and that’s a good feeling!

Coca-Cola China's online marketing strategy

Coca-Cola is one of the very few multinationals in China that seem to understand the market. Although it is a foreign product it is known and accepted by almost every Chinese, and it’s available all over China. It might be the only foreign product that can really reach all China’s 1.3 billion customers. I follow their branding and marketing activities, and also there they seem to have a good nose for trends. Last year they partnered with The9 to promote World of Warcraft in China. Coinidence or not, WoW is now the most-played online game in China.

CCTV Internationa l today announced that Coca-Cola set up a strategic partnership with Tencent. In case you don’t follow Chinese internet companies, Tencent is the biggest player in the instant messenger and online gaming market here. Their IM client QQ has a market share of about 80% (!) in China, and because of that they can reach almost every Chinese person who goes online. I think the interaction between the online and the offline world will continue to increase, and Coca-Cola is very smart to make this step. I hope this won’t further increase QQ’s market share though: Tencent is also active in online gaming and therefore a competitor of youxi.cn and the other gaming sites that we plan to set up in China.

Diamond credit card

The China Daily (yes, I sometimes read it…) writes that Minsheng Bank is offering a credit card with a monthly overdraft facility of 3 million RMB. This is already quite some news, because the official maximum overdraft in China is only 50,000 RMB. But even more interesting is one of their main target groups for this diamond credit card: senior government officials.

Outside China this would not raise too many eyebrows, but a vice-minister level official in China only earns about 3000 RMB per month. This means that even after working for a lifetime he or she could not have earned 3 million RMB. The only other way to get so much money is by being corrupt and taking bribes. So if the government really wants to do something about corruption, they now have an easy way. Just compare the list of succesful applicants for this card with a list of all government employees!

I have a nice apartment in Shanghai, but certainly not as luxurious as the expat compounds that I used to live in while working for DaimlerChrysler. So to my surprise I noted a Maybach that was parked right in front of the entrance to my apartment building. Did one of my neighbours win the lottery?