Yesterday China finally issued its 3G licenses, not only for its home-grown TD-SCDMA network, but also for the European W-CDMA and for the US/Japanese/Korean CDMA2000 standard. China Mobile got the first one, China Unicom received the W-CDMA and China Telecom was awarded the CDMA2000 license.

China Mobile, China’s biggest mobile phone provider with over 400 million users, already set up its network a couple of months ago, but the performance was quite bad. They gave away lots of TD-SCDMA phones for free but most people were still unhappy with the service. If I remember correctly 80-90% of all users were dissatisfied! I hope for them that they will get their act together, because they will face some competition soon. The CDMA2000 network will start in the next 4-6 months in Beijing and Shanghai, to be followed by WCDMA.

So far you had to buy a new phone and get a new number to start using TD-SCDMA, but that is not the case anymore. You just need to buy an official 3G TD-SCDMA phone (so far only crappy models are available, but Nokia and Samsung are developing new phones) and plug in your China Mobile SIM card. If you’re currently not a China Mobile user you have bad luck and you will need to apply for a new number. If you are a China Telecom or Unicom user you can use that number for 3G services once their network will be rolled out.

The 3G speed was announced to be up to 14.4 megabit/second, but of course that’s a theoretical speed. Costs are the same as for GPRS. There will not be an unlimited data plan yet, but starting prices are reasonable at RMB 20 (EUR 2.20) for 150 MB.

An online survey by Sina.com showed that 65% of the 130,000 respondents said that they would switch to 3G. If the adoption rate will indeed be so high mobile internet in China will take off very soon, and it will change the Internet landscape considerably. I look forward to all the business opportunities that this will provide.

Although I am normally an early adopter, I will probably wait until decent phones come out before I make the switch to TD-SCDMA. My iPhone won’t work anyway on the China Mobile 3G network, and I do not want to change my number. I am anyway planning to eventually get rid of my iPhone, because it still does not support FlashLite (in my opinion a big mistake by Apple). Hopefully Nokia will roll out its N97 with the Chinese 3G standard, in that case I will switch right away.

I just started reading “400 million customers” by Carl Crow, a book that was originally published in 1937 but that has now been reprinted by Earnshaw Books. The most striking thing about the book is that so many things have not really changed over the past 70 years and that especially foreign business men keep on making the same mistakes in China.

I like to read books about China’s history, especially about the past 100 years or so, but I like film footage even more. So I was quite happy to find a link to a film about Shanghai in 1947 on Danwei today. It’s a still movie, but in between the scenes it gives some comments about what you see in the film.

Also here I notice a lot of similarities between Shanghai 60 years ago and now. Traffic is just as chaotic as it is now, and not only on the streets but also on the water. Go with the flow was also then the best way to get to your destination without getting into accidents. Fake products are not new to China, Carl Crow describes that both Chinese and Japanese factories immediately copy new products. And this can be seen as well in the film, where there is footage of a ‘black market’. The only difference is that fake markets are now mainly frequented by foreign tourists.

Another thing that struck me is that China did not seem to have high value money bills, just like now. In the film someone is selling (or pawning) gold and gets a large stack of money in return. Nowadays China’s largest bill is just RMB 100 (about EUR 11), and because a lot of transactions are still cash-based you can see people leaving or arriving at banks with bags full of money

Human power is still used to transport products from one part of the city to the other. At least once a week I see migrant workers using ropes to pull carts with wooden poles over the steep bridge close to Tudou. Exactly the same as what you see in the film. One thing I noticed is that there were no horses in Shanghai in 1947, I only see boats, cars and bicycles. Were they not allowed in the city?

If you enjoy this kind of films, then also check out this one about Hong Kong in 1938 (h/t Thomas Crampton). Both films are part of The Travel Film Archive on YouTube that has a lot more historical travel footage from all over the world.

A few weeks ago I got my hands on a pre-galley copy of Jeff Jarvis upcoming book What Would Google Do? Judging from the title you might think this is just another book about Google, but it isn’t. It’s a book about seeing the world as Google sees it. What Jarvis did is translating Google’s way of doing business into a set of rules to live and do business by.

I loved the book, not only because it’s a highly entertaining read filled with real life examples, but especially because I think it will open the eyes of many people about how the world has changed because of the Internet, and what they should do to stay ahead or at least keep up. Many of the Google Rules that Jarvis defines are very recognizable to me and several have helped me to grow my businesses over the past years. But others I did not really think through yet, so they were quite thought provoking while reading the book.

The first part of the book is about the Google Rules, the way Google does its business, about 30 in total. Some of the most important include:

– Jeff Jarvis First Law: Give the people trust and we will use it. Don’t and you will lose it. The powerful (companies, institutions and governments) used to be in charge because of the control they had, but the world has changed. They can only win it back by being more transparent and listen to their customers

– Your customer is your advertising agency: Google spends next to nothing in advertising, people spread the word for them. Let your customers do that for you. Good news for Internet Word of Mouth companies like Sam Flemming‘s CIC (in which I am an investor).

– Join the Open Source, Gift Economy: Your customers will help you if you ask them, people like to be generous (look at Wikipedia for example)

– The masses are dead, long live the niches: Aggregation of the long tail replaces the mass. Not one online video will have the ratings of the Superbowl, but together they capture a huge audience

– Free is a business model: Google will find ways to make money by offering services for free. Charging money costs money

– Make mistakes well: It can be a good thing to make mistakes, but it depends on how you handle them. Corrections enhance credibility. You don’t need to launch the perfect product, your customers can (and will) help you to improve it

– Beware of the cash cow in the coal mine: Cash flow can blind you to the strategic necessity of change, tough decisions and innovations

These rules will change the way you will do business. And not just for obvious industries like the Internet or traditional media. In the second part of the book, If Google Ruled The World, Jarvis describes the impact on (or better: opportunities for) many different industries. From media to advertising, from retail to manufacturing, and from the service industry to banking and VC’s. He describes how these industries will be forced to change and how you can become a winner by changing faster than your competition – or lose everything if you believe that your current business model will survive. A thought provoking and very inspiring part of his book. If you’re in one of the industries mentioned above it is a must to read his analysis. Even if you are not convinced by Jarvis analysis, it should make you think about the opportunities and threats the future holds for you.

The final part of the book, Generation G, is more about the impact of Google on personal life. Google will keep people connected: young people will stay linked, likely for the rest of their lives. This improves the nature of friendships and how you treat each other. Past mistakes will be visible forever, but if you made mistakes it not a big issue, because everybody did. An age of transparency must be an age of forgiveness, in Googlespeak: Life is a beta. Privacy is not the issue, but control over your private information is.

A lot of people my age (I’m 36 years old) ask me why I put my whole life online, they do not understand this. This book may help them to understand. And it’s not just me doing this of course, it’s the whole younger generation doing this. Sharing of information is a social act, it is the basis of connections. Sharing brings social benefits that outweigh risks. Withholding information from the collective knowledge may even be considered anti-social. If I look at Twitter and read what other people are for example eating for breakfast, some people may laugh and say it is nonsense to put that online. But Jeff Jarvis calls it ‘ambient intimacy’ and explains that it is good for friendships.

It does not happen often that I read a book that I fully agree with, but this is one of them. Mr. Jarvis puts on paper how I see the world changing around us and how I see people getting left behind because they fail to see it. But he also explains what they can do to keep up or stay ahead of the rest. For people living and working on the Internet like me, a lot of things may not be new, but reading Mr. Jarvis analysis is still very worthwhile. If you do not know all ins and outs of the Internet, this book is a must-read. If there is one non-fiction book you plan to read this year, this should be the one.

What Would Google Do? will be published on January 27, 2009. You can pre-order it here.

What’s the best way to avoid the consequences of a possible recession? Keep on innovating your products and improving your services. So that’s what we have been doing at Spil Games Asia over the past months. One result of this was launched this week: our Chinese web game channel at ol.game.com.cn

Webgames are massive multiplayer online games that you do not need to download, but that you can play directly in a web browser. That means that you can immediately start playing the game on every computer with an internet connection. No download and installation needed!

Our web game channel launches with one game, ???? (Wang Ye San Guo), a cute-looking Three Kingdoms game. The game is free-to-play, with a business model based on virtual items. We have two more games lined up that will launch shortly, and a couple more will follow later this year.

If you have followed me on Twitter you’ll have noticed that I already had a couple of excellent lunches and dinners at M1NT Shanghai over the past weeks. The club’s restaurant is located on the penthouse floor of the Cross Tower, giving diners a spectacular view the city and the Pudong skyline.

What many people may not know is that the restaurant is also open to non-members, so if you are looking for a special place for lunch or dinner keep this place in mind. M1NT now also has a special tasting menu for RMB 388 per person, including a glass of champagne and club access afterward. Recommended!

Bookings: bookings@m1nt.com.cn or call +86 21 6391 2811
24/F, 318 Fuzhou Road, Shanghai (corner of Shandong Road)

Wherever you are in China you know you will get bombarded with advertising, but sometimes it gets a bit too much. The Bund in Shanghai, the waterfront on the Puxi site of town, is a good example of this. Just a few years ago it was a nice location to take some pictures of the Pudong skyline. But about 3 years ago two of the skyscrapers (first the Aurora tower and later the CitiBank tower) have both been converted in huge LCD screens. I hated it at first, but somehow I have gotten used to it – I could see them in the distance from my former apartment and after a while you sort of blank them out in your mind.

But what you cannot ignore are the LCD screen ships that started cruising along the Bund in 2006. It is an extreme case of horizon pollution: you cannot even see the horizon anymore because a 30 meter long LCD billboard is in between you and the scenic other side of the river. I vowed never to use a product or brand advertised on them, but too many brands are using this “new marketing opportunity” nowadays, so it’s become almost impossible.

When you can put a LCD screen on a boat you can of course also put one behind a car, and that’s what some entrepreneurs are doing now as well. I wonder if these mobile LCD screens have caused any accidents so far. Or maybe drivers are so used to all advertising around them that they do not even notice them anymore? That happens me to me in taxi’s in Shanghai, where most have an LCD screen built into the front passenger seat, so you can happily watch commercials while being driven to your destination. I hardly notice the screen anymore. And if I do I turn off the sound and put a coat over it – problem solved.

But if you think LCD screens on buildings, cars and boats cannot be topped, you underestimate Chinese entrepreneurial creativity. A few days ago I was having a drink at the 24th floor bar at M1NT when I suddenly saw an LCD screen right in front of me outside the window. It took me a few seconds to figure out what it was, and then I realized it was a zeppellin with an LCD screen on it. I tried to take a picture, but the combination of taking a photo with an iPhone from a lighted bar while it’s pitch dark outside leads to sub-optimal results (and that’s a big understatement). Hopefully you can just make out the zeppelin in the middle of the picture, just to the right of the Oriental Pearl Tower.

Coincidentally, while writing this during my lunch break I took a glance at today’s Shanghai Daily and what headline do I see? “City to curb those ads on the move”. The city government has drawn up a series of regulation to restrict outdoor advertising on moving platforms, and these should be approved this month. That means that the ads on the skyscrapers may not go away, but the boats and aircraft will be a thing of the past very soon.

The boats “could affect cargo and passenger ships from clearly seeing navigation lights on the river”, according to the paper. For that reason they will not be allowed anymore between the Yangpu and Lupu bridge (which includes the downtown part along the Bund). Not sure why that would not be big issue on other parts of the river, but good to hear!

The environmental watchdog, the government organization in charge of these changes, will also include buses and taxis in their new regulation. Buses, for example, will only be allowed to carry advertising on a reduced space on their exterior. But because the environmental watchdog is not in charge of ads inside buses and taxis we will still have to endure the LCD screens inside the taxis.

I am in a review mood these days, probably because work has not resumed at full speed yet – even though today was a regular working day and I spent the whole day in the office. Last night I walked by one of the DVD shops on Hongmei Lu and noticed that they had Slumdog Millionaire. I read quite a lot about it on Twitter already, so I decided to buy it and watch it right away. It was an excellent choice!

Just like most novels I read, I tend to forget about the movies I watch the next day already. Only a few really good ones stay with me for a long time (Ray for example, or The Thomas Crown Affair are films that come to mind right away). Slumdog Millionaire might be added to that list as well.

If you have not heard about the movie, for example if you live in Europe where the movie has not yet been released in most countries (in Holland for example the first screening will be on February 12 and in Germany only on March 19), I am sure you will hear about it soon. This might be Oscar material, and the movie has already been nominated for 4 Golden Globes.

Slumdog Millionaire, based on the novel Q&A by Vikas Swarup, paints a lively but painful picture of survival in Mumbai, a city full of danger and violence. It gives a fascinating look into life in the underbelly of India, which is not a pretty sight. Jamal, an young orphan from the slums of Mumbai, his brother Salim and another girl from the slums (Latika) try to make a life for themselves after their mother is killed during an anti-muslim riot. Years later the uneducated Jamal ends up in the quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? where he manages to answer all the questions correctly, leading to an interrogation by the police because they think he may be cheating. During the interrogation you learn why Jamal could answer all the questions and what happened during his journey from the slums to the hot seat at the popular quiz show.

I won’t give more of the plot away, but it’s a combination of a fast-paced action movie and a romantic film, with a Indian Bollywood twist. A bit of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist meets 21st century India. I loved it, not only because I visited Mumbai myself and some places are very recognizable, but for the most part because it’s a “from rags to riches” (or better “from rags to rajah”) feel-good story. And others love it as well, on Rotten Tomatoes the film currently has a 94% rating and IMDB shows an 8.7/10 rating (#46 out of all movies).

As a side note, the movie’s soundtrack is great as well. I just downloaded it and am listening to it while writing this blog post. Enjoy!

See the trailer for the movie here: