Exactly one month from today the 2008 Beijing Olympics will open, on 08-08-08 at 08:08 PM (8 is a lucky number in China). And today I received my tickets for the Beijing Olympics, and of course I had to take a picture of the tickets 🙂

I only bought tickets for the last 9 days of the Olympics, including a ticket for the Closing Ceremony. But a couple of days ago I heard that I am also invited to attend the Opening Ceremony of the Games as a guest of Dell (thanks to Tudou). That means two trips to Beijing during the Olympics, I am looking forward to it!

If you have a restaurant and want to translate that word into English for your sign, but you don’t want to spend money on it, what do you do? You just use free translation software! That’s what the owner of this restaurant likely did. However, he probably did not speak a single word of English, because when the software gave an error message he used that as the translation on his sign…

Thanks to Shanghaiist, that got the picture from Fools Mountain. Whoever took the picture originally: thanks for sharing!

Last Friday we organized a Lunch 2.0 event at the Shanghai office of Spill Group Asia. In case you never heard about Lunch 2.0 before, it is basically a regular event where employees of internet companies visit another start-up during lunch time to learn a bit about that company and its culture, to meet fellow geeks and new friends, to talk about interesting internet topics – and to have a free lunch. The event is loosely organized in several cities all over the world, and one of them is Shanghai.

The roots of Lunch 2.0 lay in Silicon Valley. The San Francisco Chronicle had a nice article on Lunch 2.0 about a year ago, in which they among others describe how the event started:

Unlike in New York or Hollywood, where status is measured in expense accounts and elite restaurants, Silicon Valley usually views lunch as an unwelcome break from the high-speed workday. Google and other high-tech firms even serve up gourmet cuisine to keep their workers in the office.

But a small group of high-tech go-getters, determined to get inside Silicon Valley companies, decided to reinaugurate the business lunch. They created a loose-knit community in search of a free lunch — and social interactions with their peers. They call it Lunch 2.0. Their slogan: “We really want to eat your lunch.”

In Shanghai the concept just started and the Lunch 2.0 at Spill Group Asia was just the second one in this city. A group of about twenty people showed up in our meeting room to talk about entrepreneurship, how to set up a legal entitiy in China and about getting funding for your start-up. Luckily Facebook did not work too well in China in the days before the event, otherwise we may have had too many people for our meeting room (Facebook is the only tool used to promote the Shanghai events and all registrations go through this site). The food was typical for an internet company: we provided everybody with unlimited pizza and soft drinks.

During the event Catherine Morgan from CIA China held a presentation on incorporating offshore companies and foreign companies in China. She mentioned that many start-ups don’t really think about the legal structure of their entity when they set it up, which may lead to problems later when a company gets VCs on board or plans to go IPO. Their company helps them (or the VC) to change the structure, if that’s still possible. One thing she mentioned, is that it’s normally better to set up a Cayman Island company instead of a BVI, as listing in for example HK will be impossible with a BVI. Also we discussed the registered capital of a company, and the reasons to go for a higher or lower capital when setting up the business (e.g. important when you need more capital to run your operations).

Afterwards I held a short talk on angel investing in China, and criteria for angels or VCs to invest (or not to invest) in companies. There were a couple of companies that were funded and a few that are still looking for funding, so it was a nice mix for a discussion. Most important for me is always the entrepreneur: a good entrepreneur can make a weak business plan work, but a bad entrepreneur can make a good plan fail. The plan itself always comes second in the angel funding stage, because the plan can still be adjusted at that time.

I enjoyed having the group over at our office, I hope the participants also enjoyed the talks and the lively discussion. If you’re interested in organizing it in your company, get in touch with Georg Godula on the Shanghai Lunch 2.0 Facebook page. I look forward to the next Lunch 2.0 event!

On Monday I was in Beijing for the recording of an episode of the new Dutch TV program, “TV China”. Interesting was that the studio was on an army base, so I could not just take a taxi to get there. I was picked up by a car with darkened windows so I could get in and out of the studio without being spotted as a foreigner! The studio itself was the same as most film studios I have seen so far, just a big dark room filled with camera’s, sound equipment and huge amounts of cables. The set was quite nice though, with huge pictures of the Forbidden City as background and using classical Chinese furniture. I can tell you that Chinese furniture looks nice, but if you sit on a wooden chair that is a bit too low at a wooden table that is just too high it gets quite uncomfortable after a while!

The format of the program is that short clips of Chinese TV programs (and in my case also Tudou clips) are shown, and that the presenter (Chinese/Dutch author Julie O’Yang) talks with the guests about these clips. I enjoyed doing the program, and we talked for more than 2 hours about all aspects of Chinese society, with an emphasis on youth and youth culture. The final program will be only 45 minutes, so two thirds of the material will not end up in the final cut.

The “China TV” program was produced for VPRO Television in the Netherlands and directed by Pieter Fleury. The program consists of 5 episodes that will be broadcast in The Netherlands from August 11th until August 15th, 2008 (during the Olympics).

Today’s Shanghai Daily has an article on its front page creatively titled “It’s express delivery for a Delta dasher”. The article is about a new high-speed train connection between Nanjing and Shanghai, which construction started yesterday and that should be in operation before July 1, 2010. Pretty fast, but that’s what you get used to in China and the opening date right before the Expo 2010 is probably correct.

When I read the article I noticed a couple of things that cannot be correct, however. The article mentions for example that the ride on the 300 km stretch between Shanghai and Nanjing will be just over 1 hour. Then it mentions that the maximum speed of the train will be 250 km/h. Hold on, if a train goes max. 250 km/h it can not do a 300 km stretch in one hour. Especially not because there are up to 17 stations along the route where the train will stop!

And even more interesting, according to the article “the new train line will be leaving the stations every 3 minutes”. That would mean 20 trains per hour, which seems a bit too much to me – even during rush hour. Should the Shanghai Daily editor-in-chief not carefully read the articles before publishing them on the front page?

Tonight I flew from Beijing to Shanghai with Air China. Because I was tired after my trip I decided to upgrade to First Class, so I would have a bit more space to relax during the flight (I actually ended up working for most of the flight, but that’s my own fault 🙂 and get a decent meal. The plane was supposed to leave at 5:30 PM, and indeed we left the gate a few minutes before that. We taxied to the runway, but halfway we stopped. We stood there for 15 minutes when the pilot came on the intercom telling us that because of congestion we could not take off yet. Quite normal on the busy Beijing-Shanghai route, and because I already expected a delay I just leaned back in my seat and kept on reading.

Because I was in the first row of the plane I could not only look to the side but also a bit to the front. Therefore I could see that all around us planes were taking off, but we did not move. After about one hours of waiting I decided to ask the flight attendant. She looked around as if she had something to hide and then whispered to me: “We have a mechanical problem, the engine is leaking oil and a mechanic will need to repair it.”. That did not make me very happy, but I always prefer safety over trouble during the flight. I was surprised, however, that she just told me. Why not mention this on the intercom, were they afraid people would start to revolt after already being on the runway for over an hour?

I called my wife to tell her about the delay because engine trouble and also Twittered about it while sitting on the plane. A few minutes later the plane finally started to move again, I assumed to taxi back to the gate. But no, I was wrong, it taxied to the starting position. The pilot came on the intercom saying that we would take off in just a minute. I could not believe what I heard, a few minutes earlier I was told we had engine trouble and now we suddenly take off. I managed to send out another Twitter message and indeed off we went.

I am still not sure what happened. Did the flight attendant lie to me (she spoke English with me, so I am 100% sure I understood her correctly)? Did they take a calculated risk, meaning that the flight attendant was not allowed to tell the passengers (which would explain why it was not announced to the rest of the plane)? Or did a mechanic mysteriously manage to look at the engine while we were on the runway? Anyway, the flight itself was uneventful and we safely landed at Hongqiao airport, but I am still a bit puzzled.

I spent a couple of days in Singapore for AdTech, a conference and exhibition about digital marketing. I had been to an AdTech event before in China, but never to the conference in Singapore. But because Spill Group’s Asian sites outside China have grown to a pretty decent size over the past year (game.co.in is in the top 5 of flash sites in India, games.co.id is number 1 in Indonesia) and so advertising on these sites has become more important. I did not speak at this event, but just visited the exhibition and talked with many people from the online ad industry in SE-Asia.

My program was therefore quite flexible, and I could work from my hotel room a few hours per day, so I am not too far behind on mails this time. I also had some time to think a bit more about Spill Group Asia’s strategy. I learned quite some new interesting things about what’s happening in markets where we are not yet active, such as Vietnam or the Philippines. I also got a better understanding of the CPM rates all over Asia (is there actually a site where you can easily see average rates in different countries?), and about ad formats. And of course it was good to meet all the ad networks in person, and hear from them what they can do for us (and what they cannot do). As expected most focus purely on SE-Asia and don’t do much in China, but we still found some agencies that have campaigns that they could launch in China. Many have big plans for China though, let’s see.

I met a lot of new people during the past couple of days, including some people that I had only known online so far. Mark Kamminga from Spill Group in Holland had also flown to Singapore and he introduced me to Marta from eBuddy (web-based messenger) who he met during check-in in Amsterdam. Jacco Bouw (CEO of the fast-growing online marketing company Web Power) was also in Singapore with a colleague, and all of us had dinner and (many) drinks together three nights in a row. Among others I also met with angel investor/VC Nicholas Chan who saw on Twitter that I was in town and sent me this message through Twitter to get in touch. Also Dutch internet entrepreneur Arnout Wagenaar (from Singapore-based ihipo.com) read online that I was in Singapore and got in touch. Just a few years ago I probably would have never met these people, but because of my blog and especially Twitter things change quickly.

Apart from business I had a great time in Singapore. I had not been there in a few years (no real need to travel there on business so far), except to change flights sometimes at Changi airport. A few years ago I used to go here quite frequently and it was nice to be back. I have the feeling that the city has become even better than before. Nightlife was already good, but the past days actually exceeded my expectations. Also the Singapore Flyer close to my hotel (the Mandarin Marina) was impressive. I was told that it’s the world’s biggest ferris wheel with a height of 165 meters (comparable to 42 stories). I did not take the ride, because I feel 30 minutes is a bit too long to look at the city from above, but heard good stories from people who tried it. Also impressive is the Formula One track where on September 28 the first night F1 race will be held. Streets have been widened, a huge grandstand on the waterfront has been erected and lights have partially been installed along the fastest street circuit already. I am sure Singapore will make the race a huge success.

I am now on a plane from Singapore to Beijing for a short (less than 24-hour) business trip. Tomorrow afternoon I am flying back to Shanghai, and plan to stay there for a while. Enough travel lately, I want to spend more time with my little son!

I am typing this from Terminal 2 in Shanghai Pudong airport where I will catch a flight to Singapore in 30 minutes. This is the first time I depart from the new Terminal 2, so far all of my flights over the past week were out of Terminal 1.
I am not particularly fond of Terminal 1, it feels cold, the shops are crappy and there is nothing to do. Terminal 2 is a lot better. It’s brighter than Terminal 1 and it feels warmer, probably because of the carpets on the floor. The new terminal looks very similar to Hong Kong airport actually, even the signs for the gates seem to be the same. There are actually some decent shops, although there is no comparison with the shopping experience at Hong Kong airport.

At Terminal 1 I normally go to one of the lounges, either the KLM one (thanks to my frequent flyer card) or to the China Mobile one (that gave me a VIP card years ago already, thanks to my higher-than-average mobile phone bills). But at Terminal 2 I didn’t know where these lounges are located and I was not in the mood to find them, so I decided to just walk around a bit to check out the place. I ended up at Burger King (take the escalator up at gate D75), not for food, but just for a coffee. It turned out they have a great deal on coffee, for just RMB 8 (EUR 0.80) you get a large one! I am quite sure this is the cheapest coffee on the whole airport, and quite drinkable as well. Just as a comparison I went into the coffee bar next to gate D77 to check their prices. This shop charges RMB 48 for a regular coffee (150 ml), six times as much and for a much smaller cup!

And the best thing is that when you sit at Burger King you have a full free wifi connection. Just go to the “spia-guest” network, it is unprotected but not very fast (but being in China you are probably used to that). This made my day! I walked around a bit on the airport with my laptop, and it seems this network is available all over the place.

If you’re not into coffee or shopping there seem to be a lot of other things to do as well. I noticed signs showing the direction to among others a cinema, meeting rooms, an internet cafe, a hairdresser and even a gym. I do not have time to check them out (my flight is boarding in a few minutes), but next time that I fly from here I will certainly pay them a visit (and likely blog about it).