Next month Toodou.com will have the 1st anniversary of its website. On April 15, 2005 the site officially went live. Only one year, it seems like a much longer time.
To celebrate this we will host a party at our office at the Si Hang Warehouse on Guangfu Lu. More details will follow later, but it will certainly be a party to remember. And it will likely be the last Toodou party in our current office, so if you are in town make sure to drop by on Saturday night, April 15th.
I am in Hong Kong at the moment on a business trip, and did not find enough time to post on my blog yet. Over the past days I had some excellent business meetings here for Spill Group Asia, and I have lots of new ideas about how to build up our business in this city as well. Also I set up the holding company for Spill Group, and that is moving forward quickly as well.
What I noticed about Hong Kong is how expensive it is compared to Shanghai. A decent meal in an non-Chinese restaurant is problably twice as expensive, and a 5-minute ride from the Airport Express to my hotel set me back more than a 30-minute ride would in Shanghai. But I always enjoy this city, it’s lively and has a great mixture of European and southern Chinese culture (especially Soho, where I tend to spend most my nights).
A nice thing is how quickly you can be out of the city and in real nature. I was talking to Marcel Ekkel, and he told me that many of the expats here do not realize that. Just take the MTR a few stops on HK Island, walk for 10 minutes and you are in the middle of a beautiful scenery. Mountains, lakes, and dense vegetation. HK has many trails, so you won’t get lost easily (at least not on HK Island, the New Territories are different).
This is something I definitively miss in my current hometown: Shanghai is a great city to do business, have good food, go out and live a pretty decent life, but there is just no nature. Even after driving for one or two hours you are still surrounded by houses, factories and roads. This gets on my nerves sometimes, and that’s why it’s good to travel a bit every now and then!
I wrote before about the Shanghai tourist tunnel, the somewhat tacky tourist atrraction that takes you from Puxi to Pudong in a small carriage surrounded by sounds and lights.
It seems that not enough people are using this means of transportation, not completely unlogical considering the current entrance price of RMB 30 one-way. So a plan has been developed to turn the attraction into a normal means of commuting. Of course, this means the price would have to be reduced drastically.
I think this is smart, because there are no efficient ways of crossing the river from the Bund to Pudong. The ferries land too far from the main attractions in Pudong (although there is a ferry landing next to the river promenade – but it was never put to use as far as I know), and the subway is no alternative because there is no station close to the Bund. So the only current option is finding a taxi and crossing through the crowded car tunnel.
If this plan indeed becomes reality I hope they will keep the current display of lights and sounds!
I always thought that pharmacists know a lot about the medicine they sell. But it seems that this is not always the case in China for conctraceptive drugs: The Center for Reproductive Health Technical Instruction and Training in Shanghai conducted a survey among 100 pharmacies and found that only 9% of the pharmacists knew that morning-after pills are different from regular contraceptive medicine!
This has of course some negative effects on women who buy these products and get a wrong advice. The Shanghai Daily writes that this lack of expertise has contributed to an outrageous rate of failed contraception. Another survey shows that over 90% of the teenage girls who sought abortion had directly bought morning-after pills in pharmacies. But over 80% failed to prevent a pregnancy, because they took morning-after pills in the same way as the contraceptive pill…
Over the past years many of the old buildings along the Bund have been turned into entertainment venues. It all started with M on the Bund, but many have followed since. Among them Bund 18 with shops, a top restaurant and a bar with huge terrace, and 3 on the Bund with the Armani flagship store, an art gallery, a spa and many good bars and restaurants. The buildings used to be dilapidated, but are now back to their old grandeur. The Bund looks much better than just 2 years ago.
But now the Shanghai government is planning to interfere in the naming. Why? Because the official streetname is not Bund anymore, but has been changed to Zhongshan Road after 1949. According to the bureaucrats this would be confusing. Furthermore, according to Liu Bo, deputy director of the city’s Place-naming Authority: “The Bund is the name of a signature historic area, and people can’t use it without government permission.”
Confusing? Zhongshan Road is much more confusing to me, because this road runs around half Shanghai. And who of the target customers does not know where the Bund is? I think most of them have no idea that the Bund is officially called Zhongshan Road. Even in taxi’s I normally say Waitan (Chinese for Bund) instead of Zhongshan Lu, because Zhongshan Lu is confusing.
But as usual with this kind of proposals I don’t think much will change. I predict that after one week we won’t hear about this proposed regulation anymore, and in two years all venues will still use their current names.
Spill Group Asia launches unique online gaming portal
Shanghai – March 17, 2006 – SPILL GROUP, a leading operator and developer of online gaming portals in Europe and
Youxi.cn is SPILL GROUP
The Youxi.cn launch coincides with the launch of a new promotion tool called ToodouAds. The tool was developed by Toodou.com, the leading Chinese podcasting and video website, and puts short videoclip ads in front of or behind clips that are viewed on the Toodou.com website. Those ads are clickable, meaning that users can click them and will then automatically go to the youxi.cn site. “We are very proud that Toodou.com chose youxi.cn as the launching customer for ToodouAds. ToodouAds is a revolutionary tool that does not exist anywhere yet,” says Marc van der Chijs. “With ToodouAds, many potential players will soon hear about youxi.cn and visit the platform. There, they can experience the gaming enjoyment that the site has to offer.”
Youxi is the Chinese word for game or gaming. The online portal youxi.cn features a wide variety of games like action and adventure games, MMORG’s (massive multiplayer online role-playing games), skill, racing and card games. A team of Chinese casual games experts carefully selected the games for youxi.cn, choosing only the best and most popular ones.
The design of youxi.cn makes it easy for users to find the games they like. The games are classified in different game categories. The top 5 most played games of each category are listed on the home page, all the rest is only one click away. Youxi.cn is free – gamers just need to visit the site and they can start playing right away. And because the site is published in simplified Chinese, the whole of mainland
SPILL GROUP
The Dutch holding company SPILL GROUP was founded in 2001 and has subsidiaries in Europe and
For more information on Spill Group, please visit www.spillgroup.com.
Company Contact
SPILL GROUP
Marc van der Chijs
Tomorrow Spill Group Asia will launch its first site in China: www.youxi.cn. And this caused me a bit of stress today because a lot still had to be done and many people wanted information at the same time. At 6:30 PM I realized that I was in 9 MSN messenger conversations at the same time, while 12 new emails came in within 30 minutes. Next to that I also had some phone calls. I am used to multi-tasking and like doing 3 things at the same time, but for me this was also an extreme situation. Coffee count until now: 7 cups. I think I need to go for a run later!
Lei Feng is an icon in China, although some people doubt he really existed. Born in 1940, he became an orphan after his father was killed during the anti-Japanese war and his mother committed suicide after being harrassed by her landlord. At a young age he joined the People’s Liberation Army and allegedly spent all his spare time and money helping the poor, old and needy. He died at the age of 22 after a telephone pole fell on his head (no kidding – someone drove a truck into a pole that struck Lei Feng), and became a national hero from his selflessness and noble-mindedness.
Chairman Mao Zedong then decided that March 5 would be a national Xiang Lei Feng tongzhi xuexi (Learn from Comrade Lei Feng) day. Suddenly many pictures of Lei Feng doing good deeds turned up, and also his diary was found and published. This year it seems that the Party wants to revive the Lei Feng spirit among younger people, because after 40 years it was suddenly announced that Lei Feng had a girlfriend (did he not write about her in his diary?). This of course led to quite some media articles about him. And according to the Shanghai Daily now there is even an online game starring Lei Feng (according to Xinhua published by Shanda):
To do good deeds, as many as you can, is the trick for passing each level in the online game. The game, so-called “Learn from Lei Feng,” has become very popular among many Guangzhou students as of recent. Hard work, a plain life and willingness to help others are the game’s themes, which is very different from most other online games. “For beginners, sewing and mending socks is the only way to increase experience and to upgrade,” said Jiao Jian, a six-grade pupil in Yuexiu District, quoted by the newspaper. “Every time you are promoted to a higher level, your clothes will become more average,” he said. “You have to do good deeds in order to upgrade, such as contributing and volunteering on building sites. The more you do, the better and higher you get. Thus boosting your reputation.”
The game also sets up tasks like a treasure hunt, which can be found in many online games. But the treasure here is a copy of Chairman Mao’s Collection, unlike the usual swords or jewels. “It’s a novel idea, very interesting.” Jiao said. He also said he likes to battle against the secret agents mainly. “Sometimes the enemy was very strong. The fight almost exhausted me, so I would go to talk with the Party secretary to replenish my vitality at once.” “As long as my experience, reputation, skill and loyalty satisfy the game’s criteria, I will win and meet Chairman Mao,” Jiao noted. “I still have several tasks to go through. I will ‘work hard’ and strive to obtain the Chairman’s autograph as soon as I can.”
It seems like a potential cult game to me, and through viral marketing it could even become a hit outside China. Not sure if there is an English version though.
I managed to get 4 tickets to the Rolling Stones concert on April 8, they were just delivered to my office!
‘I can’t get no satisfaction’? Well, I am pretty satisfied now.
‘You can’t always get what you want’? True, but I managed to get my hands on these tickets.
‘It’s only rock ‘n’ roll’ – good enough for me though!
Anybody else planning to go?
