Live from Beijing!

When people ask me to name a “unique to China” website, I usually start with Flashempire.  Maybe something like this exists in Japan or Korea, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing like it in the US.

The site is the central hang-out for China’s Adobe Flash developers.  It has the latest news about Flash, lots of tutorials, and a job board.  None of this is especially unique of course.

The main attraction, however, is the “Top 10″ section.  The site regularly runs contests for their members, asking them to create short-form Flash animations.  The community votes on the submissions, and the winner gets a prize. 

It’s simple, but really worth checking out.  Why? 

• The quality of the posts is simply amazing — the top entries feature rich, sophisticated animations and sometimes original music.  Most are created by bored high-school ad college students who seem to have lots of time on their hands.
• The most-popular posts provide a visual insight into what this young crowd finds interesting.  Not surprisingly, many posts are about unrequited love, but a surprising number are pretty political (couched in historical metaphors, a long-time favorite of skittish Chinese critics)
• Unlike YouTube-like video sharing sites (of which there are many in China), Flashempire’s posts requite a great deal of work to create, and therefore (presumably) reflect deeper thinking by their creators.

Then again, maybe I’m reading too much into all of this…