There is another Geeks on a Plane Asia tour with Dave McClure upcoming shortly! Kick-off will be in Shanghai on May 23rd and the tour will then continue through Beijing & Seoul ending in Singapore on June 2nd. You can find the basic overview here http://geeksonaplane.com/, details will be added shortly. The tour will incl. visits to the re:think event series in Shanghai, CHINICT conference in Beijing, Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing, Startup pitches in Korea and the echelon21 conference in Singapore. In between there will be Startup2Startup dinners hosted by Dave.

For Shanghai we will post the agenda for May 24th re:think events shortly (sneak peak here http://shanghai.rethink.cc/). In the meantime I would like to invite you to check out http://shanghai.rethink.cc/2010/05/ignite-shanghai-is-may-24th-submit-a-talk/ and submit an idea for a talk! Ignite consists of short, 5-minute talks. We’d love all sorts of topics–anything that would appear to tech geeks or to the ReThink Shanghai audience.

See you there!

At TEDxShanghai 2009, Stefano Negri gave a talk based on his research for McKinsey & Co. concerning urbanization or the growth of cities in China, offering some great observations about how China's cities have developed over the past 30 years, and some ideas on how China should approach continued urbanization.

But first, an TEDxShanghai introduction of Stefano:

Stefano Negri helps cities juggle their growing urbanization challenge. Literally. After juggling his way through Europe, one public square at a time, Stefano graduated as a Land Planning and Environmental Engineer. He worked for NGOs counting crocodiles in Colombia's lagoons, cows in Tanzania, trees and cars in Italy. In 2001 he figured out he could have a greater impact on the planet by advisng private and public sector companies for management consulting company McKinsey & Co. Recently, as part of the mcKinsey Global Institute, he authored several macroeconomic research articles and reports including "Preparing for China's Urban Billion", which analyses the evolution of urbanization in China and its implications for businesses and policy makers. Currently, he lives in Shanghai and juggles a wife, two kids, and McKinsey's City Service line - advising cities on smarter, more efficient ways of urbanizing.

Negri starts off by explaining the big question he started off with in his research: What is the ideal size of a city?

The joke: An American urban planner answers "about half a million." The Chinese planner says "something between 10-15 million." And the Italian? "For every 300-500 people, as long as there is a church a place to get a good cup of coffee."

[It wasn't really funny for me either, but I'm not Italian.]

Negri asks, "but is there an ideal size for a city?"

30 years ago, Shenzen was a fisherman village with maybe a few thousand people. Today, it is a massive metropolis home to 8 million people.

An Zhu (安猪) is something of a nickname for Andrew Yu, who gave a presentation at TEDxShanghai 2009 introducing his NGO 1kg More and how travelers like himself can "change the world", you guessed it, 1kg at a time.

An Zhu is a travel lover who has been through most of China's southwestern provinces. In 2004, having seen many rural schools, he founded 1kg More to encourage everyone to help these schools with their travel. The concept is simple. 1KG more encourages travelers to bring 1 kg of books or supplies to schools on their travels. To date 1kg More has helped more than 700 rural schools. An Zhu believes in "participatory democracy", and adds that charity should not be by a small number of experts or beholden to great philanthropists; the world's progress must be driven by the countless ordinary people.

An Zhu started his talk by sharing pictures of rural Chinese children in China he has met in his travels. There are 66 million impoverished children in China, prompting him to ask himself how people like himself can help them and make a difference. There are 300 million people who travel (for leisure) in China, and 300 million > than 66 million.

But how do you mobilize these 300 million people? How do you make it easier for them to act, to contribute, without the act itself discouraging them before they get started? Hence, the simple idea of merely bringing 1kg extra worth of luggage as they travel, with that luggage being books or materials they can drop off and donate to the poor schools these travelers encounter at their destinations and in their travels.

Going further, Andrew's 1kg More utilizes the internet to organize all the schools participating in their program, what they need (so travelers aren't always bringing the same thing over and over again, like "pencils"), and where they are, to efficiently guide travelers with the heart to do their bit.

1kg More now has over 700 participating schools, up from 120+ last April, and 98 in 2007. 50+ events happen each month.

We've written about Andrew and 1kg More before. Be sure to read our past posts, Grass-roots NGO in China: 1kg More 多背一公斤 and Belated Happy Birthday to "1kg More" and Updates, for much more information on how they do what they do, and how you can help. More TEDxShanghai 2009 coverage here.

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.

Jenny Bai wasn't at Barcamp Shanghai 2009 to present a product or a company but rather a topic for discussion: How do we "brand" China and create a cross-border youth market?

According to Jenny, China doesn't have a "cool factor" in the United States, despite often being in the news. It is stuck at a "niche" level, dominated by business, teaching English, and Chinese language learning because these are still the predominant reasons for why people come to China. People don't come to China because it is "cool," but rather because something needs to be done here. So, Jenny asks, how do we create buzz for China?

We need to "brand" China, she says. As one member of the audience later said, the current China "brand" is essentially all the "negative news" about China. By "branding" China, Jenny seems to be mean that we need uncover and deliver China's "cool" to outside audiences. Toward this end, Jenny wants to tap into Chinese pop culture, and bridge it with the pop culture elsewhere, specifically the United States and thus create a "cross-border youth market." Yet, while this is where she says it must start, she believes pop culture is often in its own bubble, thus necessitating a "disruptive" force. This force needs to active and not passive, like merely importing a pop star and holding concerts. By active, she wants "engagement" from both sides.

This engagement, Jenny believes, will involve a lot of technology and creative ideas. One idea? Launching a virtual event such as a "ridiculously viral competition, something ridiculous but hasn't been done before" between the youth in China and the United States. She'd keep the competitors amongst their own initially, "where they are most comfortable", and then presumably bring them together. How? One way would be to record these competitions and allow both sides to watch each other over the internet.

In discussion with the audience, Jenny agreed that language is a major barrier and therefore believes it needs to be "visual", also agreeing with audience members who suggested art, fashion, "looks", etc. Music too could work. For Jenny, the "cool" in China already exists in its people, but it is a question of bringing it out, building the community around it, and ostensibly integrating that "cool" into a cross-border consciousness.

Renee Hartmann talked about selling to China's youth market at Barcamp Shanghai 2009 by sharing her story and experiences co-founding eno, a Chinese casual youth apparel brand she co-founded with ex-Nike China partners in 2006. Today, their t-shirts and clothing are sold through 40 outlets in China and through their online shop.

They first started the company when they were working on developing China youth sports leagues, and felt there was an emerging trend of Chinese youth trying to express themselves more individualistically. Apparel was previously designed outside, brought in, and then localized for the Chinese market. They decided to start up a new brand that would be 100% focused on and designed in China. Their designs come from different methods, including in-house from their local Chinese designers, all under 25-years-old, as well as crowdsourced (a la Threadless).

Renee's observations and insights:

• Some of the things that work in the US don't work in China and vice versa. This is obvious. However, generalization like "only foreigners like Chinese characters and locals do not" is sometimes true, and sometimes not.

• Most Nike, Adidas, Kappa, etc. stores are franchised and the biggest challenge in China is a different retail process and environment. For example, there are less boutique stores that you can sell your brand in, unlike in the US where you might have Pacific Sunwear or Urban Outfitters.

• Shopping is social in China, with shoppers tending to come in couples or groups and less so alone. This affects both preferences and the decision-making process for purchases.

• People shop online in China for "really cheap stuff." The online market is definitely growing, with examples being Taobao and Alipay, though most online purchases are still paid COD (Cash On Delivery).

• The youth retail apparel market is very sports-oriented, as opposed to lifestyle-oriented, which is flipped from the rest of the world. However, she sees this trend changing a bit, especially now with the Olympics having passed and a growing saturation of the sports-oriented apparel market (i.e. too many Nike stores on one street).

Renee shared that their challenge for themselves is to go from their current niche market to the mass market but do intent on remaining focused on China without expanding overseas.

An audience member asked the age-old China question of how eno handles counterfeiting. Renee says that eno tries to keep designs and trends moving fast and using limited editions to stay ahead of the counterfeiters.

Beyond clothing, eno is also enoVate, a design and marketing firm, and enoise, which is involved in music. More CNR Barcamp Shanghai 2009 coverage here.

John Fan introduced his Facebook Application development company, Cardinal Blue Software, along with their headline app/game, Friend Stock, at Barcamp Shanghai 2009, while sharing some insights on Social Network Gaming and operating his development team in Taipei, Taiwan.

Observations shared by John and the audience:

• Online gaming revenues are heavily skewed, going beyond the 80/20 notion where 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your users. The numbers he's seeing through his own app is described, half-jokingly, as 90/2.

• There's a lot of good talent in Taiwan, but even if they are not all at Yahoo, the environment is dominated by Yahoo.

• With regards to making inroads into the mainland China market, John feels that Taiwanese online gaming companies really need to be in China and not try operating remotely from abroad in Taiwan.

• Another major issue for Taiwanese companies is suddenly finding their website and service completely blocked by China's GFW simply due to some content on their websites. The ensuing outage would naturally severely impact the company's service and growth.

• An audience member also astutely pointed out that apps or games hosted abroad tend to be much slower than those hosted domestically in China. The speed of an internet application or game has a big influence on whether Chinese netizens or gamers will use or not use, play or not play.

Internet Memes are quick moving internet trends online that affect the offline masses, creating a ultra competitive market that is driving innovation. China-specific examples include "Little Fatty" and reactions to China's Green Dam.

Companies trying to engage consumers online and market through social media are having mixed success. One of the main reasons for failures has been the lack of genuine engagement with Lead Users.

With their network of Chinese expert bloggers, BloggerInsight explicitly tries to address this problem. Leveraging these experts helps companies to find new ideas for products and online marketing campaigns. This instant access to and immediate feedback from independent 3rd parties is a great way to localize for the Chinese market, develop a business strategy and track trends to stay ahead of the market.

Toine Roojimans shared a presentation on payment systems, infrastructure, and habits in China at Barcamp Shanghai 2009, a key topic of interest for anyone hoping to do ecommerce or any online business involving actually collecting money from online customers ...online.

Here's a rundown of his slideshow and talk:

The China market (for online payment settlement) is fragmented.

• There is no Paypal for the Chinese market.

• Why? Because Paypal doesn't really target Chinese consumers. They target overseas merchants.

• Alipay, a Chinese payment-settlement service similar to PayPal run by Alibaba, has a lot of political enemies.

• They don't share with Unionpay (see below).

• Some other payment settlement services: Yeepay, 95bill

Yeepay, Alipay, 95bill?

What is UnionPay?

• Government appointed authority on payment.

• Takes a cut on every transaction.

• Banks hate them (they're a monopoly that makes money doing nothing).

What about credit cards?

• Credit cards don't actually exist in China. They're really "post-paid" Unionpay cards, where the payment is actually processed by Unionpay. Visa (for example) only works (or is involved) outside of China.

• Credit cards have to be co-issued with foreign banks. They are like hybrid cards, half Unionpay (used domestically) as issued by a local Chinese bank and half-credit card (used abroad) as issued by a foreign bank (such as HSBC).

• Most Chinese people don't have credit cards.

• However, there is a hard push for issuing and adopting credit cards. For example, go to any busy commercial area and you're likely to see small booths and stands where you can sign up for "Lock&Lock" storage containers.

• These are operated by credit card representatives who are paid a "bounty" of 80-100 RMB per card issued. They take some of this money to buy these "free gifts" that are in turn used to attract more people to sign up.

• While the above is true for first-tier cities, 2nd and 3rd tier cities are "still miles away.

• For reference, even Shanghai only has ~500k POS (point of sale) terminals.

• Market penetration of credit card POS terminals is only 20%...of what it "should" be compared to other western cities. Thus, there is certainly a lot of growth potential.

How do I pay online?

• Most common is COD (cash on delivery).

• Taobao -> Alipay

• Get a bank account:

          1. Activate online payment (2 forms, 4 stamps)
          2. Set quota for online payment/month/day (if go over, must call to reset

              quota)
          3. Sign in to online banking (get out your random number generator or your

              SMS)
          4. Get another code
          5. Pay

• Chinese people love stored value cards, where a user purchases online "credit" or "points" offline through convenience stores or other vendors. These cards usually contain codes that are entered into online accounts, crediting those accounts with online currency/points. Toine says these are China's "answer to micropayment."

Circle Pleasure, the company Toine works for, makes 3D worlds in Korea and are entering China. How do they plan on handling online payment transactions in China? Will they use Alipay like others?

Their idea is to "do it better." This has involved them becoming one of 67 companies in China licensed to sell pre-paid stored-value cards. Their twist is to make their cards and online currency open and "available to everybody" in the sense that they are willing to partner with anyone, allowing the stored value to be used for other people's services, goods, and businesses. All they ask for is a 1% flat transaction fee. They also offer tax invoices (those who understand China's tax system will better understand the implications involved in this).

Going forward, they recognize that what they're doing isn't really different from what already exists in China, so they also want to import fancy Korean technology and develop a next-generation licensed secure payment system around a USB key with integrated RFID, security chip, memory, etc. The idea here appears to be creating a portable physical device and new payment infrastructure that can be used to pay for many things and transfer money from other systems, such as banks, and offer other perks, such as e-coupons and discounts.

Sounds ambitious, right?

Internet culture

QQ (by end of 2008):

• 891.9 million registered user accounts

• 376.6 million active user accounts

• 31.4 million registered subscriptions for fee-based internet value-added services

• 14.7 million registered subscriptions for fee-based mobile and telecommunications value-added services

Tencent, owner of QQ has revenues of 7.15 billion RMB (1.05 billion USD), and a gross profit of 4.98 billion RMB (732 million USD).

BBS discussion forums:

• 3000+ million registered BBS users

• ~80% of Chinese websites are running their own BBS

• Total daily pageviews over 1600 million

• 10 million posts published every day.

Sina, the biggest Chinese news portal acquired Focus Media, the leading outdoor media operator.

Korea:

• Has very good infrastructure.

• Naver still dominating the market.

• Online gaming is conquering the world (e.g. Nexon).

• Cyworld is operating outside Korea.

• Story Blender won Techcrunch 40.

Wisia.us has very good implementation and cool design! (Note: Interesting, Gang Lu told everyone to check this out, and upon navigating to the site, it had a notice of its English non-Korean service being terminated!)

Japan:

• Mobile market far ahead of the rest of the world.

• Mixi, GREE, Felica Networks.

• Always the entry market for western services (e.g. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), as in that Western service tend to enter Japan before other Asian markets.

There are some clones but with more innovation (e.g. Nicovideo.jp).

Perhaps the most refreshing presentation of the day came from Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, President of Google China, who admitted that Google has had a difficult time breaking into the Chinese market and competing against Baidu, the dominant search engine here. He attributed the slow advances in their marketshare to patience and humility, explaining that Google has had to carefully learn about the market and how it differs from those in the West.

This was a trend that appeared throughout many of the presentations. Foreign companies who try to localize for China are often outgunned by Chinese competitors who know the culture and business environment here better. They also tend to suffer from a litany of other missteps, such as entering China too late, failing to set up a local development team, getting blocked by complex local legislation, and simply being outwitted by local competitors with better ideas.

Lee gave an overview of how Chinese internet usage differs from what we see in the United States. According to studies, the Chinese read news and conduct searches at a similar level to their American counterparts. But they read and write email a lower frequency, preferring other communication methods like instant messaging (Twitter, for that reason, has the potential to take off here...if numerous other clones like Digu, Fanfou or Zuosa don't take the wind out of its sails first). The Chinese also consume a lot more music, almost all of which is pirated or provided by free by companies like Google. Gaming and blogging are also two popular activities, while ecommerce still plays a comparatively smaller role in the web industry.

Kaiser Kuo, a technology commentator in Beijing, presented the Startonomics crowd with a balanced view of how censorship works in China. On the one hand, it poses a definite human rights issue that needs to be solved over time. On the other hand, reports of censorship in China are often over-exaggerated, especially when they affect Western services like Twitter (which is only used by a very, very small fraction of the population here).

He was keen on pointing out that the Chinese government isn't like a bogeyman always lurking around the corner ready to crush out any and all vocalized signs of dissent. Instead, it tends to focus on preventing organized resistance, while leaving most individuals who air their grievances online alone. If anything, censorship plays out indirectly, with the government putting pressure on web companies to patrol their own users' content. Pornography, for example, is strictly banned here, so companies need to police their services vigilantly or suffer penalties.

The biggest trend we saw throughout the presentations was just how big gaming is for Chinese youth. While mobile technologies aren't as big here as in Japan, the Chinese spend a lot of time and money on casual games, especially in internet cafes. The industry is lucrative, with a fraction of wealthy gamers (~10%) willing to shell out lots of money for virtual goods. It's no surprise then that 6 of the biggest 10 internet companies are game publishers.

World of Warcraft is unusually popular, given that it's made by a Western company (Blizzard), although legacy games such as Starcraft and Counterstrike also make the rounds via piracy. Other big players include the Chinese companies Netease, Giant Interactive (who among other titles developed Zhengtu Online), Kingsoft and the9. While there's been a shift from console to browser-based games in the last few years, the impulse has remained the same: Chinese youth play games not particularly because of the challenge or entertainment, but rather because they are lonely and have few other recreational options.

Steve Mushero of ChinaNetCloud, an internet service provider, gave a detailed overview of how fractured the internet infrastructure is here. Unlike the mesh of networks that carry data across the United States, data served up in China tends to stay on the network of one monopoly. Unfortunately, these monopolies tend to be region-specific, making it difficult and costly to send data across the country latency-free. The Chinese also don't apply standard internet protocols such as BGP, complicating life for system admins who already have to deal with data centers that vary widely in quality and price. While bandwidth is a big business here and readily available, connections in and out of the country are flaky - here one day, gone the next.

There's a perception in the West that Chinese web companies clone Western services instead of coming up with their own ideas. My impression has been that this is certainly the case, although not exclusively. There are also web companies trying new things, or at least copying Western services and then remolding them for China; they just tend to get drowned out by the clones, which actually affect Chinese companies as well. The popular social network Kaixin (at kaixin001.com), for example, was cloned by competitor Xiaonei after the latter company bought the domain kaixin.com. Overall, the industry is like the Wild West. There are a slew of startups (unlike what we saw in Japan), many of which are going after the same markets and creating an intense competitive environment for foreign and local companies alike.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank Founders Fund and BlueRun Ventures for helping make this trip possible for the entire GeeksOnAPlane group.

All presentations and videos of the speakers are embedded below:

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.

Take mobile, for example. Before coming here, I had the impression that Japan was light years ahead of the US when it came to mobile technology. I've found that this reputation, while supported by indisputable advantages, belies a more complicated reality. Mobile devices certainly play a far greater role in everyday life here, with something like 90% of the Japanese owning 3G-capable handsets and 85% of all phone subscribers accessing online services while on the go regularly. The Japanese also use their phones for purposes simply not available to Americans such as watching live TV, scanning QR codes, and paying for goods with the proximity readers that are located in stores and subway stations.

However, we've also seen demos of several Japanese mobile applications, and the technological sophistication and design of these apps are surprisingly primitive. The general quality appears more in line with the WAP apps from yesteryear than the powerful iPhone and Android apps that have come upon the scene over the past year or so. And from what I've been told, they operate in a very closed environment akin to Compuserve that gets reinforced by strong carrier lock-ins and family plans.

Speaking of the iPhone, the reaction to it appears to be mixed here. While the iPhone is (generally speaking) more advanced than any other handset on the Japanese market, it poses a number of problems for Japanese consumers. Namely, it doesn't play nicely with the closed suite of online services that Japanese have become accustomed to using on their phones. It doesn't do TV streaming without a $100 hardware add-on. The touch keyboard isn't great for entering Japanese characters. It has a hard time enticing people away from the strong contract lockins they have with other mobile providers. It doesn't contain a proximity chip for mobile payments. And the iPhone service contract is expensive, despite the fact that carriers have begun giving the device itself out for free in exchange for contracts.

Social networking is another area in which familiar trends can be spotted alongside peculiarities. Whereas we in the US track the ongoing struggle between Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, the Japanese witness a mindshare grab between the social networks Mixi, Gree (which had an IPO last year) and DeNA (which operates mobile social network Mobage-town). These networks are very Japan-specific, despite attempts among them to branch out to surrounding geographical areas such as China. Mixi, for example, requires a Japanese phone number and an invitation to join. While Japan doesn't appear to breed the same sort of clones that we see come out of China, Japanese firms don't hesitate to borrow ideas from Western companies. Mixi has forged an open strategy modeled after Facebook with platforms that are designed, and even named, quite similarly (e.g. "Mixi Connect").

Two differences between Japanese and American social networking are particularly conspicuous. The Japanese are much less inclined to put their real identities online, preferring instead to use usernames and avatars that obfuscate their individuality. This is perhaps one reason why Facebook hasn't taken greater hold here, although I've heard from several people that its translations have been rather poor (Twitter, on the other hand, has experienced a modest level of success already). Not surprisingly, Japanese social networkers also tend to spend a lot more time on their mobile devices compared to their American counterparts, with mobile pageviews greatly exceeding desktop pageviews on the predominate social networks.

Entrepreneurialism in Japan is inauspicious despite how good the infrastructure is here. In addition to enjoying an extraordinarily high level of mobile connectivity, many Japanese have access to very cheap and fast broadband in their homes. But for a country that also has a large enough population (~127 million) to form a self-contained market for internet services, Japan isn't home to a large entrepreneurial community. Much of this results from the culture, which discourages people to undertake risky ventures. The government could also be friendlier to small businesses, as it tends to defend incumbent corporations against the encroachments of young upstarts (although luckily web ventures don't butt heads with them as much as others). The country's business laws were also not designed to foster new companies until changes were made recently in 2006. As a consequence, the entrepreneurial community is small enough for people to notice when even individual members leave.

Tonight we're off to Beijing in China to see how things operate in the world's most populous country. Follow our travels - and the media we produce - on Flickr, YouTube, Slideshare, Twitter and our blog.

Background and summary:

Ranked at No. 10 in Alexa Japan, Goo is one of the biggest search engines and portal sites in Japan. Presenter Tomita introduced two NLP (natural language processing)-based tools developed by the company, ‘Blog Sentiment Analysis' and ‘Blog Report Card'. The first tool is available to automatically understand emotions textually expressed within blog postings. It retrieves text from blogs, parses it ("This PC comes with a cool display." as opposed to "This cool PC comes with a display.") and then visualizes the processed data on a results page. The report card tool grades your blog after you type in its URL based on four different factors, i.e. influence or diligence.

Full video of the presentation (English and Japanese, 17:18 min):

Background and summary:
The Geeks particularly enjoyed the great presentation delivered by Michael Yoshitaka on Ubiquity, a project launched by Mozilla Labs last year. Yoshitaka said Ubiquity, a Firefox add-on that unites textual commands acting as mashups for web services, helps users accomplish more online by combining the web with language.

The big idea is to use natural language for the commands, to make using Ubiquity as easy as possible. Let's say you write an email in which you invite someone for dinner in the "Cyber Cafe" in San Francisco and want to include a map. Normally you would have to open a new tab, find a map somewhere and copy the link into the email text.

However, users can open Ubiquity right within the email tab, simply enter "map san francisco" in the text box and insert the Google map that pops up into the email text with a single keystroke (or select the name of the cafe and city and let the tool map it). Type the words "yelp cyber cafe san francisco" and Ubiquity offers you a JPEG that can be included right into the email text and shows the Yelp rating for that cafe. The whole process just takes seconds as you don't have to access sites like Google Maps or Yelp anymore. It all happens within the browser tab that you currently work in.

Mozilla Labs itself labels Ubiquity an experiment and is currently working on localizing the tool.

More on that and other Ubiquity-related stuff in Yoshitaka's video (English and Japanese, made by Yoshitaka himself, 9:10 min) or in his SlideShare:

Background and summary:
Another presentation tickling the fancy of the GoaP group centered on VDS (Voice Delivery System), an API for synthetic speech generation developed by Tokyo-based Knowledge Creation [JP]. Targeted mainly at elderly and disabled web users, VDS lets owners of any site on the Internet add a "reading out" button. Press it and VDS makes sure the text content on the page will be read out loud for you. A total of 30 languages is currently supported.

Great stuff and the best thing is users are not required to download any software. Knowledge Creation offers a free version (for pages containing up to 5,000 characters) and several "pro" versions.

Full video of the presentation (English and Japanese, 13:20 min):

Background and summary:
Tokyo-based American Chris Salzberg, a writer and translator who used to work for international blog network Global Voices Online, spoke about the implications of multilingualism on the web. Salzberg argues that social media on one side and human languages on the other are nothing but materializations of different kinds of solitude.

He argues that community translation is the main key to bridge the gap between these disconnected parts, but couldn't finish his presentation in time (which is why we embedded his slides below).

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.

Geeks On A Plane is all about leveraging the combined cross border networks of Dave McClure, Founders Fund and Web2Asia to offer attendees an opportunity to accelerate the process of meeting and connecting with key contacts in Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai's tech and investment sector.

In depth crash course on Japan and China's tech sectors. Who are the innovators? Who are the investors? What are the trends?

The opportunity to connect with high caliber people in Japan and China's startup and investment community. In one week, you will meet with a number of great people that usually takes foreign companies, entrepreneurs and investors several years, several trips and multiple layers of relationships and introductions to connect with. Accelerate your cross border business strategies. Find local partners. Invest in new technologies. Gain first hand insight into the role that cross cultural understanding and subtle but important nuances plays in doing business in the Far East.

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:

• Tokyo 2.0

• Startonomics conference

• Startup2Startup dinners

• Geeks On A Wall

• Barcamp Shanghai

• TEDxShanghai

• VIP dinners and cocktail receptions

• Break out sessions & individual appointments

• Geeks & Glamour After Party - Geeks On A Plane, TEDxShanghai and the Shanghai International Film Festival