Today was the second Shanghai Facebook Developer Garage. Congratulations to organizer David Li for a full house at M1NT club and the following great speakers:

• Wei Zhu, Platform Engineer, Facebook Platform
• Are Mack Growen, Director, Playfish China, Design of Social Game
• Ellison Gao, CEO, Five Minutes, Development of Facebook Application
• Zhang Lijun, Openapilabs Use fbopen for SNS extension
• Wang Lin, Platform Architect, Taobao, Shop on Facebook, open platform mashup
• Loc Le, Director of Technology and Vivid Savitri, Creative Director, Trigger
  Theatrical Games on Web, Social Media and iPhone Platform
• Jerry Jin, Director, Tsong, Web3D and FB Apps
• David Li, CTO, Citymoments, Facebook Connect and local business

We're here at Barcamp Shanghai 2009, hosted by The NetCircle at their nifty renovated factory office tucked away in a secluded cul-de-sac on the Suzhou River riverfront. We were hoping to live-blog some of the great mini-presentations going on today from a bunch of cool people but wifi connection was spotty, perhaps partly due to the sheer number of attendees today. Therefore, we had to settle with jotting down notes and our thoughts first, and will be cleaning them up and assembling them into a logical series of posts to be published starting tonight.

On-Stage Interview with the CEO of Mixi:

On their last day in Tokyo, the GeeksOnAPlane were given the chance to meet someone who can perhaps be described as Japan's answer to Mark Zuckerberg, Kenji Kasahara. Kasahara became an instant billionaire at 30 when his company, Mixi (Japan's No. 1 social network), went IPO in 2006.

Kasahara revealed what inspired him to launch Mixi (Friendster's success), how he got the first users to join his site (Amazon gift certificates), how Mixi grew from 0 to 17 million members in a few years (hardly any ads) and how he values his personal wealth (it's stocks, not real cash).

I myself wanted to know from him if the severe competition Mixi faces (particularly from domestic players) lets him sleep at night (listen to what he responds at 35:05 min.). This insolent question I put to Kasahara was easily topped by visiting geek Larry Chiang (at 42:15 min.) who asked how a billionaire like him usually scores chicks ("Do girls want to meet your money or you? Do people pretend they are you to get chicks?").

View the complete on-stage interview with Kasahara in the video below (in English and Japanese, 51:37 min). He was interviewed by Ejovi Nuwere, CEO of Tokyo-based digital media company Land Rush Group.

Imagine taking some of the smartest, richest, and savviest technology folks from the West, throwing them on a plane and booting them to Asia. Actually, do not imagine it, it is happening. They just gathered at San Francisco Airport to be part of the Geeks on a Plane Tour 2009. Organized by Web2Asia, The Founders Fund and Dave McClure, the tour will include international investors and tech entrepreneurs on a 10 day orientation tour of Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai's Internet, Mobile & Gaming sector.

Here is a little more information about the trip:

Objectives:

• Gain insight into tech & innovation trends coming out of East Asia.

• Meet the startup & tech community in Tokyo, Beijing & Shanghai.

• Understand the current investment climate in each respective city.

• Participate in a pro-entrepreneur and pro-investment initiative during a tough global economy.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued new guidelines on internet security that come into effect on the 1st of June 2009. It has been decided that public network security issues will be handled by the China National Computer Network Emergency Response Team (CNCERT).

All companies & organizations have to report security problems according to a 4-level emergency plan. Apart from describing the problem, the report has to include a proposal on how to solve it so the CNCERT can act accordingly.

For the full announcement, please refer to IT168.com (Chinese only)

Toocle, a global B2B marketplace that connects buyers and sellers, released their own Chinese business SNS at sns.toocle.com. After one year of development, Toocle hopes to offer its members a platform to exchange information and develop business relationships and friendships.

Still in its initial stage, the SNS has attracted tens of thousand of companies already but is currently far from being profitable. According to Toocle's President Sun Deliang this isn't a problem as their business circle toocle.com remains their core business.

For more information please refer to the article on Sohu (Chinese only)

Organized by Web2Asia, The Founders Fund and Dave McClure are inviting international investors and tech entrepreneurs on a 10 day orientation tour of Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai's Internet, Mobile & Gaming sector. The tour will take place from June 8th to 16th 2009.

Please click here for details on the itinerary and how you can get involved: www.geeksonaplane.com.

Objectives:

• Gain insight into tech & innovation trends coming out of East Asia.
• Meet the startup & tech community in Tokyo, Beijing & Shanghai.
• Understand the current investment climate in each respective city.
• Participate in a pro-entrepreneur and pro-investment initiative during a tough global economy.

Dave McClure

Itinerary:

• Tokyo, June 8th - 10th 2009
• Beijing, June 11th - 12th 2009
• Shanghai, June 13th - 16th 2009

Each tour stop in Japan and China will offer the opportunity for our tour attendees to connect with the hottest local tech companies, start ups, entrepreneurs and investors via the following formats:

The Chinese Ministry of Culture just issued a new regulation on the import of online games. Key points worth noting are:

• Companies that want to import online games to China have to apply for a license from the Ministry of Culture
• Preliminary testing (e.g. Beta Versions) is limited to 20.000 active users
• Without appropriate license, imposing user fees, engaging users in business cooperations or posting advertisement is illegal
• In case of a significant change in the nature of existing business, a new license is required

For more information visit http://tech.163.com/09/0427/18/57U5O32D000915BF.html (Chinese only)

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) just released its Q1 Report on the Telecommunication Industry:

• China's total telephone subscribers exceed 1 billion.
• Mobile phone users reached 670 million, which is nearly double the fixed telephone subscribers.
• Alone in March, the net increase of mobile phone users nationwide was 10,551,000 - a new monthly record.
  
• Q1 2009 telecommunication industry turnover: RMB 587 billion (US$ 86 Billion), + 10,8%.
  
• Q1 2009 mobile & data communication revenues grew by 10,4% & 7,7% respectively.
  

More in Chinese here: http://tech.sina.com.cn/t/2009-04-24/13453035964.shtml

The Chinese eBook portal du8.com, together with the industry observer CBBR have just released the 2008 China eBook Market Development Report. Here are some of the results:

• Total sales income from eBooks in 2008: RMB 226 Million (US$ 33 Million), 33% increase compared to 2007
• Total number of Chinese eBook readers in 2008: 79 Million, 34% increase compared to 2007
• Mobile application for eBooks increased by 366% in 2008

A current problem faced by eBook providers is the lack of an industry-wide standard. The goal proposed by the report is to develop and promote China's own UOML standard and integrate it with the international OASIS Standard developed by Semi.

Original article by China News (Chinese only)

Back in 2008 Baidu launched its online gaming platform wanba.baidu.com. Now, the Chinese search engine giant has announced a strategic partnership with online gaming company Kylin for their long anticipated MMORPG 'Genghis Khan'.

Beijing based Kylin started development in 2007 and has so far spent RMB 100 Million (US$ 14,7 Million) in producing the game. The company hopes to benefit from Baidu's large user base and their strong media presence. Baidu on the other hand expects to win a substantial share of the online gaming market. So far, the game is still in beta and reached a maximum of 15,000 concurrent users. It is expected to launch on April 29th 2009.

See original article by IT168 here http://d1.it168.com/show/16192.html (Chinese only)

Robin Lee, CEO of leading Chinese search engine Baidu, is currently attending the Boao Forum for Asia. He there announced that his company is planning to heavily expand its international business, hoping to generate 70% of its revenues from foreign markets by 2025 at the latest. Key markets will be the US and Japan, said Lee.

The Boao Forum is an annual conference for Asia's most influential leaders in government, business & academia.

The9, a Shanghai-based online game operator, is about to lose its exclusive license to operate and distribute World of Warcraft (WoW). This was indicated by a internal memo to employees by The9's President Xiaowei Chen, reports newsportal Sina. WoW, which soon became mainland China's largest online game after its launch in June 2005, will in the future be managed by Chinese portal and gaming company NetEase.

The announcement led to an immediate 25% drop of The9's share price on NASDAQ. WoW contributed 94% of The9's Q4 2008 revenues. At the same time NetEase is reported to having spent around RMB 200 Million (US$ 30 Million) for WoW infrastructure already.

The9's WoW license will expire on the 8th of June. For more information and Mr. Chen's full announcement, refer to http://news.cnblogs.com/n/46010/ (Chinese only)