China
Tencent to Acquire Comsenz?
(Thu, 17 Jun 2010)
There has been rumor on the market that Tencent will invest $10 million into Comsenz, the leading social softwares developer in China since May. It is said the new investment will take over the stakes held by Google China. Today, a report on Sina said Tencent will acquire Comsenz instead of just investment. Comsenz, well [...] Related posts: Comsenz Acquired EcShop UCenter Home: Comsenz Helps You to Build Your Own Facebook Comsenz Sells ECShop To ShopEX
>> read more
3 Reasons Why Tencent’s Qzone, the Largest Social Network in China, is a Failure (Wed, 17 Mar 2010)
（This is a guest post by Kai Lukoff. Kai Lukoff is an analyst at BloggerInsight and an editor on China Social Games. Follow Kai on Twitter @klukoff. You can find more information on China Social Game at the end of this post. ) Qzone, “the largest social network in China,” and Tencent’s other SNS (QQ Campus [...] Related posts: Tencent to Acquire Comsenz? Qzone Recorded Over 200 Million Monthly Users News Roundup: Douban, Qzone, iNeZha and Tianji
>> read more
Announcing ChinaMode Winners (Tue, 02 Feb 2010)
After two weeks of public vote, ChinaMode Awards 2009 have received 121446 votes. We are now happy to announce the winners of the first ChinaMode Awards in each 7 categories. Best Internet Applications: Taobao, Google, Baidu; Best User-Experience Applications: Google Chinese search service, Sogou Pinyin Chinese Input Method, Alipay; Most Promising Applications: Google Music, Sina [...] Related posts: ChinaMode Awards Now Open to Nominate ChinaMode: A China’s Web Awards Initiated by Bloggers
>> read more
Douban Raised $10M in Series B (Mon, 25 Jan 2010)
Douban, a symbol of web 2.0 services in China, announced its $10 million series B financing today. The new round is led by Trustbridge Partners, and co-invested by its existing investor Ceyuan Ventures, who invested in $2 million in 2006. Douban started from a social networking sites for book lovers, movie lovers and music lovers [...] Related posts: Douban To Add Book Series Douban Adds Miniblog Service Douban Launched Blog Recommendation
>> read more
[Event] Third Digital Future Symposium Beijing (Thu, 21 Jan 2010)
The post is to introduce an event which our readers might be interested in. The post is drafted by the event organizer. The Digital Future Symposium (DFS) is a highly successful event first launched in 2007 by the CENTRE FOR CONTENT PROTECTION (CCP). It has conducted successful events in Japan, Singapore, India and Malaysia. [...] Related posts: [Event] Geeks On A Plan Events: Barcamp Beijing & New Era, New TV Seminar Event: Web 2.0 in China: What’s Next?
>> read more
There has been rumor on the market that Tencent will invest $10 million into Comsenz, the leading social softwares developer in China since May. It is said the new investment will take over the stakes held by Google China. Today, a report on Sina said Tencent will acquire Comsenz instead of just investment. Comsenz, well [...] Related posts: Comsenz Acquired EcShop UCenter Home: Comsenz Helps You to Build Your Own Facebook Comsenz Sells ECShop To ShopEX
>> read more
3 Reasons Why Tencent’s Qzone, the Largest Social Network in China, is a Failure (Wed, 17 Mar 2010)
（This is a guest post by Kai Lukoff. Kai Lukoff is an analyst at BloggerInsight and an editor on China Social Games. Follow Kai on Twitter @klukoff. You can find more information on China Social Game at the end of this post. ) Qzone, “the largest social network in China,” and Tencent’s other SNS (QQ Campus [...] Related posts: Tencent to Acquire Comsenz? Qzone Recorded Over 200 Million Monthly Users News Roundup: Douban, Qzone, iNeZha and Tianji
>> read more
Announcing ChinaMode Winners (Tue, 02 Feb 2010)
After two weeks of public vote, ChinaMode Awards 2009 have received 121446 votes. We are now happy to announce the winners of the first ChinaMode Awards in each 7 categories. Best Internet Applications: Taobao, Google, Baidu; Best User-Experience Applications: Google Chinese search service, Sogou Pinyin Chinese Input Method, Alipay; Most Promising Applications: Google Music, Sina [...] Related posts: ChinaMode Awards Now Open to Nominate ChinaMode: A China’s Web Awards Initiated by Bloggers
>> read more
Douban Raised $10M in Series B (Mon, 25 Jan 2010)
Douban, a symbol of web 2.0 services in China, announced its $10 million series B financing today. The new round is led by Trustbridge Partners, and co-invested by its existing investor Ceyuan Ventures, who invested in $2 million in 2006. Douban started from a social networking sites for book lovers, movie lovers and music lovers [...] Related posts: Douban To Add Book Series Douban Adds Miniblog Service Douban Launched Blog Recommendation
>> read more
[Event] Third Digital Future Symposium Beijing (Thu, 21 Jan 2010)
The post is to introduce an event which our readers might be interested in. The post is drafted by the event organizer. The Digital Future Symposium (DFS) is a highly successful event first launched in 2007 by the CENTRE FOR CONTENT PROTECTION (CCP). It has conducted successful events in Japan, Singapore, India and Malaysia. [...] Related posts: [Event] Geeks On A Plan Events: Barcamp Beijing & New Era, New TV Seminar Event: Web 2.0 in China: What’s Next?
>> read more
New Tag Results, from Technorati and Ingboo
(Fri, 05 Mar 2010)
Technorati and Ingboo have partnered together to provide an all new kind of subscription experience for Technorati content, including tagged posts. Look for a blue Ingboo icon for a full range of subscription options. Feeds are also available for: Hottest Blogosphere Posts Latest Original Articles from Technorati The Technorati Blog We also have channel feeds, writer feeds, and editorial tag feeds, which can be found on their respective pages.
>> read more
Technorati and Ingboo have partnered together to provide an all new kind of subscription experience for Technorati content, including tagged posts. Look for a blue Ingboo icon for a full range of subscription options. Feeds are also available for: Hottest Blogosphere Posts Latest Original Articles from Technorati The Technorati Blog We also have channel feeds, writer feeds, and editorial tag feeds, which can be found on their respective pages.
>> read more
MediaTek $100 Android Phone is Coming, Game-Changing for Shanzhai Phone Market?
(Sat, 28 Aug 2010)
On 12nd July, MediaTek whose phone chips and “Turn-key” (from chips to software design) solution has enabled hundreds of Chinese Shanzhai phone manufacturers to make phones easily, made an announcement saying that it joined the Open Handset Alliance and decided to play with Android market. One month later, in a talk with a friend from [...]
>> read more
Breaking! Tencent Acquires Comsenz and Becomes the Dominator of Chinese BBS (Sun, 22 Aug 2010)
Soon, you would see million of Chinese sites are Powered by Tencent (instead of Powered by Discuz!). Although the news has not been confirmed by both parties, it is today proved by the Whois information of Comsenz’s two domain: Comsenz.com and Discuz.net. Both domains are now registered under the name of Tencent Technology (Beijing) Company [...]
>> read more
Tips for Luxury Brands in Chinese e-Commerce Market (Fri, 13 Aug 2010)
Sales of luxury goods grew 12% in 2009, to $9.6 billion, accounting for 27.5% of the global market, according to Bain & Co. In the next five years, China’s luxury spending will increase to $14.6 billion, making it the No. 1 luxury market globally. In 2009, China overtook the U.S. to become the world’s second-largest [...]
>> read more
StartupsWatch Report (August Edition) Released (Thu, 12 Aug 2010)
This year, no matter what kind of discussion on innovation we have, it seems that people just cannot help but come back to a few key topics: microblogging, location-based services, group purchasing, the iPad, and mobile networks. Thus, it’s not surprising that in the space of one year we’ve seen a massive explosion in group-purchase [...]
>> read more
Chinese Microblogging Startup, Zuosa is Looking for Buyer (Thu, 22 Jul 2010)
Back to May 10, 2009, I asked Mr. Zhang from a Japanese investment company, CyberAgent for his opinion on microblogging service. (read the full coverage in Chinese). He said he understood the real-time information generated by this type of service would be very valuable data, but he doubted that most of the Twitter-like startups would [...]
>> read more
On 12nd July, MediaTek whose phone chips and “Turn-key” (from chips to software design) solution has enabled hundreds of Chinese Shanzhai phone manufacturers to make phones easily, made an announcement saying that it joined the Open Handset Alliance and decided to play with Android market. One month later, in a talk with a friend from [...]
>> read more
Breaking! Tencent Acquires Comsenz and Becomes the Dominator of Chinese BBS (Sun, 22 Aug 2010)
Soon, you would see million of Chinese sites are Powered by Tencent (instead of Powered by Discuz!). Although the news has not been confirmed by both parties, it is today proved by the Whois information of Comsenz’s two domain: Comsenz.com and Discuz.net. Both domains are now registered under the name of Tencent Technology (Beijing) Company [...]
>> read more
Tips for Luxury Brands in Chinese e-Commerce Market (Fri, 13 Aug 2010)
Sales of luxury goods grew 12% in 2009, to $9.6 billion, accounting for 27.5% of the global market, according to Bain & Co. In the next five years, China’s luxury spending will increase to $14.6 billion, making it the No. 1 luxury market globally. In 2009, China overtook the U.S. to become the world’s second-largest [...]
>> read more
StartupsWatch Report (August Edition) Released (Thu, 12 Aug 2010)
This year, no matter what kind of discussion on innovation we have, it seems that people just cannot help but come back to a few key topics: microblogging, location-based services, group purchasing, the iPad, and mobile networks. Thus, it’s not surprising that in the space of one year we’ve seen a massive explosion in group-purchase [...]
>> read more
Chinese Microblogging Startup, Zuosa is Looking for Buyer (Thu, 22 Jul 2010)
Back to May 10, 2009, I asked Mr. Zhang from a Japanese investment company, CyberAgent for his opinion on microblogging service. (read the full coverage in Chinese). He said he understood the real-time information generated by this type of service would be very valuable data, but he doubted that most of the Twitter-like startups would [...]
>> read more
techblog86: Chinese government launches its own Google, "powered by" People's Daily, communist party newspaper. No tanks. http://is.gd/cX0QC #techblog86
(Mon, 21 Jun 2010)
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techblog86: WordPress 3.0 in simplified Chinese, thanks to @roamlog. It's here: http://is.gd/cWZPs #techblog86 (Mon, 21 Jun 2010)
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techblog86: RT @judyrey: Notice the Trending Topic's has a "Promoted" Tweet for Toy Story. Is Twitter finally making $$$? (Thu, 17 Jun 2010)
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techblog86: RT @DavidFeng: Shanghai’s Apple Store: Good For Mid-July? http://bit.ly/aXmDG6 on @techblog86 — @faytoday 用了「阿拉儂上海」的啦，哈 :-P 陸家嘴要開果子店了! (Thu, 17 Jun 2010)
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techblog86: RT @DavidFeng: Great stuff! RT @ricowyder: Singapore's getting 1GBit/s. I like! http://nyti.ms/bIR0g8 (Thu, 17 Jun 2010)
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techblog86: WordPress 3.0 in simplified Chinese, thanks to @roamlog. It's here: http://is.gd/cWZPs #techblog86 (Mon, 21 Jun 2010)
>> read more
techblog86: RT @judyrey: Notice the Trending Topic's has a "Promoted" Tweet for Toy Story. Is Twitter finally making $$$? (Thu, 17 Jun 2010)
>> read more
techblog86: RT @DavidFeng: Shanghai’s Apple Store: Good For Mid-July? http://bit.ly/aXmDG6 on @techblog86 — @faytoday 用了「阿拉儂上海」的啦，哈 :-P 陸家嘴要開果子店了! (Thu, 17 Jun 2010)
>> read more
techblog86: RT @DavidFeng: Great stuff! RT @ricowyder: Singapore's getting 1GBit/s. I like! http://nyti.ms/bIR0g8 (Thu, 17 Jun 2010)
>> read more
Rumor: Is this the new iPhone?
(Thu, 15 Apr 2010)
Was kicking back on a Thursday night and caught the following on a Naver commercial on the tube. The brief encounter with a familiar UI and a unfamiliar circle at the top had me searching through the web. I did find the video and was able to pause it to capture what appears to be [...] Possible related posts: The iPhone 3GS with something special So I finally got my Apple iPhone 3GS, but to...
>> read more
6waves – Social Gaming Developer Raises $17.5M (Fri, 22 Jan 2010)
6waves, previously highlighted in 2008, has seen their social gaming business expand and become one of the leading developers in the market (Inside Facebook has the details). While their competitors have already raised their series B and C rounds, 6waves has just raised their series A round of $17.5 Million from US based VC, Insight [...] Possible related posts: Skype cofounders to invest in Frenzoo Frenzoo, a Hong Kong 3D social networking company, will be... EditGrid lands Series A funding Team and Concepts Limited, the parent company of EditGrid has... Startup Hong Kong @ Frenzoo Event Recap I wouldn’t call this up to date, but never too...
>> read more
Ankoder – Video Encoding in the Cloud (Wed, 23 Dec 2009)
Ankoder brings video transcoding to users and business everywhere. Ankoder uses Amazon’s S3 and Elastic Cloud to provide a proven and scalable solution to anyone or any business working with video. With video becoming a big part of many businesses, any business looking to incorporate their own video site, cloud encoding is something they could [...] Possible related posts: Vcasmo – Online presentation platform Vcasmo is an online presentation service that users can use... Learn Mandarin, web 2.0 style. There is another new site to learn the Mandarin language,... Zendesk – Serve Your Customers Better Zendesk is a Copenhagen-based startup focused on helping companies put...
>> read more
Thumbdive down but not out – focuses on the enterprise (Tue, 01 Sep 2009)
Less than a year and still in private beta, Thumbdive will be shutting down their service. We first profiled their service back in January and found their privacy control approach and a different UI a good change from the other services in the market. I had hope to see it go further, but apparently Airgini, [...] Possible related posts: Thumbdive – Privately share your lifestreams Thumbdive, currently in private beta, is a microblogging/lifestreaming app that... Harbork – Make Money with this Content Driven Community Harbork is a new social network from Hong Kong. It... 3 Hong Kong Doubles the Price of 3G iPhones We all know the 3G iPhone will be a hit,...
>> read more
The iPhone 3GS with something special (Sat, 18 Jul 2009)
So I finally got my Apple iPhone 3GS, but to my surprise it came with something extra. I unpacked it and found a hair stuck in the packaging, appears to be nose hair. This maybe a minor issue to all but I find it kind of disgusting. What do you guys think? Does that look [...] Possible related posts: iPhone 3GS available now in Hong Kong The news is out! The new iPhone 3GS will be... Hong Kong web 2.0 startup meetup Couple days back, I had the opportunity to meet with... iPhone 3G Available without Contracts Now that the hype has died down a bit. Apple...
>> read more
Was kicking back on a Thursday night and caught the following on a Naver commercial on the tube. The brief encounter with a familiar UI and a unfamiliar circle at the top had me searching through the web. I did find the video and was able to pause it to capture what appears to be [...] Possible related posts: The iPhone 3GS with something special So I finally got my Apple iPhone 3GS, but to...
>> read more
6waves – Social Gaming Developer Raises $17.5M (Fri, 22 Jan 2010)
6waves, previously highlighted in 2008, has seen their social gaming business expand and become one of the leading developers in the market (Inside Facebook has the details). While their competitors have already raised their series B and C rounds, 6waves has just raised their series A round of $17.5 Million from US based VC, Insight [...] Possible related posts: Skype cofounders to invest in Frenzoo Frenzoo, a Hong Kong 3D social networking company, will be... EditGrid lands Series A funding Team and Concepts Limited, the parent company of EditGrid has... Startup Hong Kong @ Frenzoo Event Recap I wouldn’t call this up to date, but never too...
>> read more
Ankoder – Video Encoding in the Cloud (Wed, 23 Dec 2009)
Ankoder brings video transcoding to users and business everywhere. Ankoder uses Amazon’s S3 and Elastic Cloud to provide a proven and scalable solution to anyone or any business working with video. With video becoming a big part of many businesses, any business looking to incorporate their own video site, cloud encoding is something they could [...] Possible related posts: Vcasmo – Online presentation platform Vcasmo is an online presentation service that users can use... Learn Mandarin, web 2.0 style. There is another new site to learn the Mandarin language,... Zendesk – Serve Your Customers Better Zendesk is a Copenhagen-based startup focused on helping companies put...
>> read more
Thumbdive down but not out – focuses on the enterprise (Tue, 01 Sep 2009)
Less than a year and still in private beta, Thumbdive will be shutting down their service. We first profiled their service back in January and found their privacy control approach and a different UI a good change from the other services in the market. I had hope to see it go further, but apparently Airgini, [...] Possible related posts: Thumbdive – Privately share your lifestreams Thumbdive, currently in private beta, is a microblogging/lifestreaming app that... Harbork – Make Money with this Content Driven Community Harbork is a new social network from Hong Kong. It... 3 Hong Kong Doubles the Price of 3G iPhones We all know the 3G iPhone will be a hit,...
>> read more
The iPhone 3GS with something special (Sat, 18 Jul 2009)
So I finally got my Apple iPhone 3GS, but to my surprise it came with something extra. I unpacked it and found a hair stuck in the packaging, appears to be nose hair. This maybe a minor issue to all but I find it kind of disgusting. What do you guys think? Does that look [...] Possible related posts: iPhone 3GS available now in Hong Kong The news is out! The new iPhone 3GS will be... Hong Kong web 2.0 startup meetup Couple days back, I had the opportunity to meet with... iPhone 3G Available without Contracts Now that the hype has died down a bit. Apple...
>> read more
Japan
No. of Internet crime cases hits record high in 1st half
(Thu, 02 Sep 2010)
Police responded to a record 2,444 Internet crime cases nationwide in the first half of this year, a National Police Agency survey showed Thursday. The number, up 586 or 31.5 percent from a year earlier, represented a new high since the NPA started gathering statistics for Internet crimes, defined as crimes which use a computer network, on a half-year basis in 2004. Of the total, the number of fraud cases, such as swindling money from a successful bidder by posting false information in an online auction, climbed 22.8 percent to 867 cases. (AP)
>> read more
Half of child prostitution victims met perpetrators through online sites deemed safe (Thu, 19 Aug 2010)
Nearly half of the children victimized by child prostitution and other similar crimes through "non-dating" websites came in contact with their perpetrators through seven Internet sites that had been recognized as safe, police said. Among the top 10 "non-dating" sites through which juvenile victims were subjected to sex-related crimes last year, seven sites had been recognized as "meeting the standards of a sound operational management system" by the Content Evaluation and Monitoring Association (EMA). (Mainichi)
>> read more
Shoppers in the hole after counterfeit online auction deals (Thu, 19 Aug 2010)
Internet shoppers seeking bargains on Yahoo Japan Corp.'s online auction site were taken for a ride by an individual offering brand-name golf products. The items turned out to be fake. More than 100 such items have been sold since July, officials said. The scam, apparently perpetrated by a single individual, and other online auction problems prompted the Consumer Affairs Agency to set up a special task force Wednesday. (Asahi)
>> read more
Rakuten president holds conference in English, announcing all-time high earnings (Fri, 06 Aug 2010)
Internet shopping operator Rakuten Inc. has
announced all-time high earnings for the six month period ending June 30. The company said that overall sales for the company and its subsidiaries grew by 17.4 percent from the previous year to reach
164.1 billion yen, and operating income rose 20.6 percent to reach 28.2 billion yen, both setting all-time records. "The only way the Japanese service companies can survive is go global, I think,"
said Rakuten President Hiroshi Mikitani at a press conference in Tokyo on Aug. 5, speaking only English throughout. (Mainichi)
>> read more
Yahoo Japan vows to stay competitive (Tue, 03 Aug 2010)
Yahoo Japan Corp. will remain competitive with Google Inc. even after adopting Google's Internet search engine and online ad technology, because the two firms will use their own editing and advertising policies, Yahoo Japan President Masahiro Inoue said. "We will operate the search engine under an editing policy that is independent (of Google's) and also have different screening criteria when it comes to advertising," Inoue told reporters, dismissing criticism by Microsoft Corp. that the Yahoo Japan-Google tieup is anticompetitive. (Japan Times)
>> read more
Police responded to a record 2,444 Internet crime cases nationwide in the first half of this year, a National Police Agency survey showed Thursday. The number, up 586 or 31.5 percent from a year earlier, represented a new high since the NPA started gathering statistics for Internet crimes, defined as crimes which use a computer network, on a half-year basis in 2004. Of the total, the number of fraud cases, such as swindling money from a successful bidder by posting false information in an online auction, climbed 22.8 percent to 867 cases. (AP)
>> read more
Half of child prostitution victims met perpetrators through online sites deemed safe (Thu, 19 Aug 2010)
Nearly half of the children victimized by child prostitution and other similar crimes through "non-dating" websites came in contact with their perpetrators through seven Internet sites that had been recognized as safe, police said. Among the top 10 "non-dating" sites through which juvenile victims were subjected to sex-related crimes last year, seven sites had been recognized as "meeting the standards of a sound operational management system" by the Content Evaluation and Monitoring Association (EMA). (Mainichi)
>> read more
Shoppers in the hole after counterfeit online auction deals (Thu, 19 Aug 2010)
Internet shoppers seeking bargains on Yahoo Japan Corp.'s online auction site were taken for a ride by an individual offering brand-name golf products. The items turned out to be fake. More than 100 such items have been sold since July, officials said. The scam, apparently perpetrated by a single individual, and other online auction problems prompted the Consumer Affairs Agency to set up a special task force Wednesday. (Asahi)
>> read more
Rakuten president holds conference in English, announcing all-time high earnings (Fri, 06 Aug 2010)
Internet shopping operator Rakuten Inc. has
announced all-time high earnings for the six month period ending June 30. The company said that overall sales for the company and its subsidiaries grew by 17.4 percent from the previous year to reach
164.1 billion yen, and operating income rose 20.6 percent to reach 28.2 billion yen, both setting all-time records. "The only way the Japanese service companies can survive is go global, I think,"
said Rakuten President Hiroshi Mikitani at a press conference in Tokyo on Aug. 5, speaking only English throughout. (Mainichi)>> read more
Yahoo Japan vows to stay competitive (Tue, 03 Aug 2010)
Yahoo Japan Corp. will remain competitive with Google Inc. even after adopting Google's Internet search engine and online ad technology, because the two firms will use their own editing and advertising policies, Yahoo Japan President Masahiro Inoue said. "We will operate the search engine under an editing policy that is independent (of Google's) and also have different screening criteria when it comes to advertising," Inoue told reporters, dismissing criticism by Microsoft Corp. that the Yahoo Japan-Google tieup is anticompetitive. (Japan Times)
>> read more
New Tag Results, from Technorati and Ingboo
(Fri, 05 Mar 2010)
Technorati and Ingboo have partnered together to provide an all new kind of subscription experience for Technorati content, including tagged posts. Look for a blue Ingboo icon for a full range of subscription options. Feeds are also available for: Hottest Blogosphere Posts Latest Original Articles from Technorati The Technorati Blog We also have channel feeds, writer feeds, and editorial tag feeds, which can be found on their respective pages.
>> read more
Technorati and Ingboo have partnered together to provide an all new kind of subscription experience for Technorati content, including tagged posts. Look for a blue Ingboo icon for a full range of subscription options. Feeds are also available for: Hottest Blogosphere Posts Latest Original Articles from Technorati The Technorati Blog We also have channel feeds, writer feeds, and editorial tag feeds, which can be found on their respective pages.
>> read more
ジョブズ、タートルネックから丸首に：Steve Jobs wears a Crewneck
(Thu, 02 Sep 2010)
>> read more
○×✓（マルバツ）は海外でも通じない：Meaning of tick / check marks, crosses, circles in Japan, UK, US (Tue, 31 Aug 2010)
>> read more
ブロックバスターが来月破産申告？：Blockbuster Bankruptcy Next Month? (Fri, 27 Aug 2010)
>> read more
ウッズのエリン元夫人、心境を語る：Elin Nordegren tells all (Thu, 26 Aug 2010)
>> read more
ジャスティン・ビーバー人気が理解できない人のために：Justin Bieber vs Michael Jackson singing Someday at Christmas (Tue, 24 Aug 2010)
>> read more
>> read more
○×✓（マルバツ）は海外でも通じない：Meaning of tick / check marks, crosses, circles in Japan, UK, US (Tue, 31 Aug 2010)
>> read more
ブロックバスターが来月破産申告？：Blockbuster Bankruptcy Next Month? (Fri, 27 Aug 2010)
>> read more
ウッズのエリン元夫人、心境を語る：Elin Nordegren tells all (Thu, 26 Aug 2010)
>> read more
ジャスティン・ビーバー人気が理解できない人のために：Justin Bieber vs Michael Jackson singing Someday at Christmas (Tue, 24 Aug 2010)
>> read more
Korea
Open Web Asia is Here Again
(Wed, 07 Jul 2010)
Open Web Asia, the conference that I created together with some good folks, was last held in October 2008. In 2009, we nearly held the Open Web Asia '09, but the plan faltered as the main sponsor backed off at the last minute (and besides I was too busy having my freshman year at Google.) But the good spirit lives on, and a group of energetic and capable folks in Malaysia rekindled the pulled off the South East Asia version of Open Web Asia -- dubbed "Open Web Asia South East Asia" or "OWA-SEA". It's a very long name, but as I expect the future Open Web Asia conferences to take place in various cities in Asia, I think it makes more sense if we just go with the city-as-the-postfix system, a la TEDx. Open Web Asia SEA will be held in KL, Malaysia next week. The conference will host great local speakers (and some foreign ones including myself, and Serkan Toto over at Techcrunch), and the conference has already seen 270+ registrants. (You can register here.) I'm really hoping this to become yet another successful Open Web Asia conference. The guy who is doing the bulk of heavy-lifting for this conference is Daniel CerVentus. Daniel and I exchanged many emails and I'm really looking forward to meeting him in person finally. He and I have a lot to catch up, as we both know what it takes to pull off a conference of this scale. Another heads-up for the Open Web Asia conference is that Dr. Gang Lu and his gang (no pun intended ;-) are preparing another Open Web Asia in Taiwan, hopefully to be held this year. Yet another good news is that we have started talks for sponsorship for Open Web Asia Seoul 2011, and it looks very promising so far. (It's too early to share any plans at this point though.) For any future Open Web Asia's, I will check back and share any progresses; For the upcoming one in Malaysia, I will try to cover any interesting companies that catches my attention. But I'm sure Serkan will do a much better job spotting and introducing interesting services anyway.
>> read more
Recapping Geeks on a Plane (Wed, 07 Jul 2010)
Sorry about the long blogging silence -- ever since I became the main product manager at Google's Blogger, I've been too swamped. I am learning tons of new stuff these days, and those are definitely worth a separate post later on. I figured a good place to pick up from where I left off with my blogging was recapping on the Geeks on a Plane Seoul, a conference held about a month ago in Seoul. About 20 "geeks" from Silicon Valley and the rest of the world flew all the way to Asia and spent nearly three weeks learning about Asia's IT and Web (while at it, of course, doing lots of social drinking and friendship building.) I organized the Seoul leg of the conference and it was a blast. Given the short time we had (only one full Sunday), Geeks on a Plane Seoul was squarely focused on startup pitches. Though some companies left room for improvement in their deliveries (Korean startups should hone their elevator pitch skills!), in general the pitches were very good. Thanks to our brave journalist Serkan Toto, we had a very good coverage on Techcrunch. If you are a startup in Seoul Korea, you don't get to be featured on Techcrunch every day. Especially, John Kim of Paprika Lab had the honor of having his big headshot featured on the Techcrunch post. I met with one of the startup CEOs that pitched in GOAP, and he said his company has seen a new, increased level of interest from investors and other folks after the Techcrunch post. There is also a blog with detailed introductions to some of the companies that presented in the GOAP Seoul. The blog is here, and it's running on none other than Google's Blogger platform (what a coincidence! :-) Hope the next year's GOAP will stop by Korea too - next time, hopefully with more folks (so we can have a bigger party!)
>> read more
Are You Kidding Me? A Bizarre Story About Online Gaming (Thu, 04 Mar 2010)
A bizarre, sad story related to online games. A married couple in Suwon, Korea has been arrested by the police for negligence of their parental duties. The couple left their three month old baby starve to death, because they were "too obsessed with online gaming." Ironically enough, it turned out that the online game they were playing to their baby's death was themed around, well guess what, raising a virtual avatar. So in short, the couple were too busy taking care of their "virtual baby" that they kept their "real baby" completely unattended and starved to death. The game is called "Prius Online" and the players can adopt an avatar and grow it. Game players can also buy the avatars virtual items such as clothes, or even write a blog about their avatars, much resembling a parenting diary. The parents in charge are said to have been under great parenting stress, presumably due to their financial difficulties, and as their parenting stresses mounted, they became more and more obsessed with the game -- their "escape" from the real world. This is really unheard of, but I'm afraid the world might see more incidents like this as games become more real and blur the lines between the real world and the virtual world. Unlike packaged games, online games and MMORPGs often do not have a clear ending, forcing users to put in endless amount of time and energy into the game. Some players become seriously obsessed with the game and play it for days straight without a wink of sleep. After days of immersive gaming, they might get to confuse the real world and the virtual world, like the way the characters in the movie Avatar gradually became more familiar with the virtual world.
>> read more
1forME is Korea's Etsy (Tue, 23 Feb 2010)
1forME is a newly launched Korean e-commerce site that sells hand-made, artists-produced goods. That's quite a mouthful, but long story short: 1forME is Etsy of Korea.
Etsy saw a gross merchandise sales of about
US$ 180M last year, showing some 105% year-over-year growth. This shows that the handmade goods e-commerce is a proven business model, and for every proven business model there's always an Asia
opportunity, especially if the model is culture-neutral. Well, both e-commerce and the love for handmade goods seem to be pretty universal concept, I guess.
But according to the company's heatmap, Etsy doesn't seem to have a big Asia presence. This
leaves plenty of room for Asian startups to grab the opportunity. 1forME has just thrown hat in the ring, a move that's expected to be followed by many others in the region.
>> read more
fanatic.fm Allows Fans To Sponsor Musicians (Mon, 08 Feb 2010)
With the rise of internet advertising, there were lots of promises for free music, supported entirely by advertisement. (Remember Spiral Frog, anyone?) But the problem of such free, ads-supported music service was that the ads revenue was never enough to cover the licensing and other costs. Meanwhile, paid streaming services like Spotify (or Korea's Melon et al) seem to be gaining ground fast. A new service called fanatic.fm tries to rethink ads-supported free music streaming service. Taking the same old text ads or banner ads and slapping them onto music streaming service is like trying to put a round peg into a square hole, fanatic.fm says. It's just not the best way to combine the ads and music consuming experience, they say. Instead, fanatic.fm built a better ads system for music streaming service. It's more like a sponsorship system, where individuals or brands can "sponsor" artists so that the sponsors' brands or messages can be presented to their visitors in a more powerful way, fully blended with the right music. For example, Red Bull could strategically sponsor certain rockbands popular among X-gamers. Then people can enjoy the rockbands' songs for free, with "sponsored by Red Bull" messages. This would potentially be a better way to present Red Bull brand than simply placing textual ads next to the rock bands' music videos. Also, the sponsor doesn't have to be a corporate brand -- it could be a group of dedicated fans who would do anything that might help the artists they love, certainly including some sponsorship and donation.
Looking at the website, fanatic.fm doesn't seem to be fully launched yet, but they
had already been mentioned in
the MIDEM, the big music industry event held in Cannes, France, as "a company to pay attention to". fanatic.fm is the brain child of a Korean team (the same folks who did QBox), but as hinted on their website, the service is very much eyeing for the global audience.
>> read more
Open Web Asia, the conference that I created together with some good folks, was last held in October 2008. In 2009, we nearly held the Open Web Asia '09, but the plan faltered as the main sponsor backed off at the last minute (and besides I was too busy having my freshman year at Google.) But the good spirit lives on, and a group of energetic and capable folks in Malaysia rekindled the pulled off the South East Asia version of Open Web Asia -- dubbed "Open Web Asia South East Asia" or "OWA-SEA". It's a very long name, but as I expect the future Open Web Asia conferences to take place in various cities in Asia, I think it makes more sense if we just go with the city-as-the-postfix system, a la TEDx. Open Web Asia SEA will be held in KL, Malaysia next week. The conference will host great local speakers (and some foreign ones including myself, and Serkan Toto over at Techcrunch), and the conference has already seen 270+ registrants. (You can register here.) I'm really hoping this to become yet another successful Open Web Asia conference. The guy who is doing the bulk of heavy-lifting for this conference is Daniel CerVentus. Daniel and I exchanged many emails and I'm really looking forward to meeting him in person finally. He and I have a lot to catch up, as we both know what it takes to pull off a conference of this scale. Another heads-up for the Open Web Asia conference is that Dr. Gang Lu and his gang (no pun intended ;-) are preparing another Open Web Asia in Taiwan, hopefully to be held this year. Yet another good news is that we have started talks for sponsorship for Open Web Asia Seoul 2011, and it looks very promising so far. (It's too early to share any plans at this point though.) For any future Open Web Asia's, I will check back and share any progresses; For the upcoming one in Malaysia, I will try to cover any interesting companies that catches my attention. But I'm sure Serkan will do a much better job spotting and introducing interesting services anyway.
>> read more
Recapping Geeks on a Plane (Wed, 07 Jul 2010)
Sorry about the long blogging silence -- ever since I became the main product manager at Google's Blogger, I've been too swamped. I am learning tons of new stuff these days, and those are definitely worth a separate post later on. I figured a good place to pick up from where I left off with my blogging was recapping on the Geeks on a Plane Seoul, a conference held about a month ago in Seoul. About 20 "geeks" from Silicon Valley and the rest of the world flew all the way to Asia and spent nearly three weeks learning about Asia's IT and Web (while at it, of course, doing lots of social drinking and friendship building.) I organized the Seoul leg of the conference and it was a blast. Given the short time we had (only one full Sunday), Geeks on a Plane Seoul was squarely focused on startup pitches. Though some companies left room for improvement in their deliveries (Korean startups should hone their elevator pitch skills!), in general the pitches were very good. Thanks to our brave journalist Serkan Toto, we had a very good coverage on Techcrunch. If you are a startup in Seoul Korea, you don't get to be featured on Techcrunch every day. Especially, John Kim of Paprika Lab had the honor of having his big headshot featured on the Techcrunch post. I met with one of the startup CEOs that pitched in GOAP, and he said his company has seen a new, increased level of interest from investors and other folks after the Techcrunch post. There is also a blog with detailed introductions to some of the companies that presented in the GOAP Seoul. The blog is here, and it's running on none other than Google's Blogger platform (what a coincidence! :-) Hope the next year's GOAP will stop by Korea too - next time, hopefully with more folks (so we can have a bigger party!)
>> read more
Are You Kidding Me? A Bizarre Story About Online Gaming (Thu, 04 Mar 2010)
A bizarre, sad story related to online games. A married couple in Suwon, Korea has been arrested by the police for negligence of their parental duties. The couple left their three month old baby starve to death, because they were "too obsessed with online gaming." Ironically enough, it turned out that the online game they were playing to their baby's death was themed around, well guess what, raising a virtual avatar. So in short, the couple were too busy taking care of their "virtual baby" that they kept their "real baby" completely unattended and starved to death. The game is called "Prius Online" and the players can adopt an avatar and grow it. Game players can also buy the avatars virtual items such as clothes, or even write a blog about their avatars, much resembling a parenting diary. The parents in charge are said to have been under great parenting stress, presumably due to their financial difficulties, and as their parenting stresses mounted, they became more and more obsessed with the game -- their "escape" from the real world. This is really unheard of, but I'm afraid the world might see more incidents like this as games become more real and blur the lines between the real world and the virtual world. Unlike packaged games, online games and MMORPGs often do not have a clear ending, forcing users to put in endless amount of time and energy into the game. Some players become seriously obsessed with the game and play it for days straight without a wink of sleep. After days of immersive gaming, they might get to confuse the real world and the virtual world, like the way the characters in the movie Avatar gradually became more familiar with the virtual world.
>> read more
1forME is Korea's Etsy (Tue, 23 Feb 2010)
1forME is a newly launched Korean e-commerce site that sells hand-made, artists-produced goods. That's quite a mouthful, but long story short: 1forME is Etsy of Korea.
Etsy saw a gross merchandise sales of about
US$ 180M last year, showing some 105% year-over-year growth. This shows that the handmade goods e-commerce is a proven business model, and for every proven business model there's always an Asia
opportunity, especially if the model is culture-neutral. Well, both e-commerce and the love for handmade goods seem to be pretty universal concept, I guess.
But according to the company's heatmap, Etsy doesn't seem to have a big Asia presence. This
leaves plenty of room for Asian startups to grab the opportunity. 1forME has just thrown hat in the ring, a move that's expected to be followed by many others in the region.
>> read more
fanatic.fm Allows Fans To Sponsor Musicians (Mon, 08 Feb 2010)
With the rise of internet advertising, there were lots of promises for free music, supported entirely by advertisement. (Remember Spiral Frog, anyone?) But the problem of such free, ads-supported music service was that the ads revenue was never enough to cover the licensing and other costs. Meanwhile, paid streaming services like Spotify (or Korea's Melon et al) seem to be gaining ground fast. A new service called fanatic.fm tries to rethink ads-supported free music streaming service. Taking the same old text ads or banner ads and slapping them onto music streaming service is like trying to put a round peg into a square hole, fanatic.fm says. It's just not the best way to combine the ads and music consuming experience, they say. Instead, fanatic.fm built a better ads system for music streaming service. It's more like a sponsorship system, where individuals or brands can "sponsor" artists so that the sponsors' brands or messages can be presented to their visitors in a more powerful way, fully blended with the right music. For example, Red Bull could strategically sponsor certain rockbands popular among X-gamers. Then people can enjoy the rockbands' songs for free, with "sponsored by Red Bull" messages. This would potentially be a better way to present Red Bull brand than simply placing textual ads next to the rock bands' music videos. Also, the sponsor doesn't have to be a corporate brand -- it could be a group of dedicated fans who would do anything that might help the artists they love, certainly including some sponsorship and donation.
Looking at the website, fanatic.fm doesn't seem to be fully launched yet, but they
had already been mentioned in
the MIDEM, the big music industry event held in Cannes, France, as "a company to pay attention to". fanatic.fm is the brain child of a Korean team (the same folks who did QBox), but as hinted on their website, the service is very much eyeing for the global audience.
>> read more
New Tag Results, from Technorati and Ingboo
(Fri, 05 Mar 2010)
Technorati and Ingboo have partnered together to provide an all new kind of subscription experience for Technorati content, including tagged posts. Look for a blue Ingboo icon for a full range of subscription options. Feeds are also available for: Hottest Blogosphere Posts Latest Original Articles from Technorati The Technorati Blog We also have channel feeds, writer feeds, and editorial tag feeds, which can be found on their respective pages.
>> read more
Technorati and Ingboo have partnered together to provide an all new kind of subscription experience for Technorati content, including tagged posts. Look for a blue Ingboo icon for a full range of subscription options. Feeds are also available for: Hottest Blogosphere Posts Latest Original Articles from Technorati The Technorati Blog We also have channel feeds, writer feeds, and editorial tag feeds, which can be found on their respective pages.
>> read more
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