Live from Beijing!

Last week I gave a short talk at the ChinICT conference about my observations as a Western net entrepreneur in Beijing.  I won’t bore you with the details, but I am interested to find out what you think about something I said:
 I think that it’s clear that within the world of Chinese internet companies, lying [...]

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The team at CICData keeps blowing me away with their timely and insightful observations.  Check out this useful summary of how Chinese netizens used the net during and after the earthquake: http://www.slideshare.net/CIC_China/iwom-watch-may-special-edition/
You might want to read the numbers outloud to yourself, since they are just so big.

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[I wish this post contained all sorts of "a-ha!" insights. Instead, I hope it simply frames some questions that I find interesting].
Whenever I show Chinese websites to American friends who don’t speak Chinese, the friends universally have the same reaction — “Wow! That site sure is crappy-looking! Guess those guys haven’t learned [...]

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Once you spend some time surfing the Chinese Internet, you’ll quickly notice the heavy use of numbers in URLs.  This has of course been reported elsewhere, since it’s pretty hard to ignore.  But I haven’t seen anyone try to explain why this is so.
The closest I’ve seen is an explanation for the ubiquitous use of [...]

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In the US, naming a website is a hassle, but it’s pretty straightforward.  By “hassle” I mean that you need to check whether the URL you want is still available, and if not how much it will cost to buy it from the person who is inevitably squatting on it.  Because of this, you typically [...]

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For those of us old enough to remember The Well and CompuServe Forums, the term “BBS” evokes memories of dial-up modems and “threads” that were pretty geeky.  AOL changed the game, bringing millions of sex-seeking or otherwise-bored adults and kids online for inane chatter.  As a result, in the United States the BBS has been [...]

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Many people know that China is currently the second largest Internet market in the world, and is poised to overtake the United States sometime soon.  However, little is known outside of China about how Chinese online behavior differs from that in the United States, and what kinds of innovation are taking place within the Chinese [...]

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