Site moved - please visit us at new address

Our book's formal website: redwiredrevolution.com is finally ready. Please visit us at the new address.

Google China Chief Lee Kaifu Resigned

In a sudden move, Google China President Lee Kaifu said he would leave the company later this month.

But, industry insiders have been talking about that Lee Kaifu is only the face person for Google China for a long time. The real person in charge is John Liu, the head of sales, Google hired from SK Telecom in 2008.

Lee used to the only one left among the first batch of executives Google hired in China, now, every one of them has gone. This is in fact good for Google, as they are not the right kind anyway - too many of them come from multinational companies, and they are not familiar with local culture.

John Liu understands Chinese users and Chinese business environment better, if he is in charge and if he is also in charge of Google's R&D direction in China, Google can have a better chance of coming up with popular applications in China - and catch up with Baidu.

Lee's ideas are similar to Google headquarters’, but they seemed too sophisticate to the ordinary Chinese internet users - who are just young people looking for fun, and friend, online. That's why Baidu's MP3 and now Post Bar are magnet to them.

Foreign entrepreneurs in the China Internet

For people interested in founding their own ventures in the China, this week's article in Global Times might be an inspiration to them. Many foreigners worked in the country’s first Internet ventures. And many have arrived since. We look at several stories of westerners who founded their own companies in China – people who had only a smattering of Mandarin at the start and ended up running companies where everyone else is Chinese.

Dutchman Marc van der Chijs found China's leading video sharing site, Tudou, with his Chinese partner Gary Wang, a colleague of his wife, before setting up the Asian division of a Dutch online game company, Spil Game Asia. American T.R. Harrington found his own search engine marketing firm, Darwin marketing, after struggling for a few years. Read complete article in Global Times.

How eBay lost the China market - an insider account

This week's article at Global Times is about eBay. It is the Editor's Choice.

Many believe Taobao beat global online auction king eBay in China by being free, but not EachNet founder Bo Shao (the person in the picture) who sold the company to eBay in July 2003. A key catalyst was “migration”, the decision to terminate EachNet’s homegrown technology platform and move all EachNet users to the eBay US platform, said Shao.

On the day of the migration, traffic to eBay China dropped by half. Despite the serious customer losses, Meg Whitman, then CEO of eBay, only learned about it a month after it occurred, on a visit to Shanghai. Whitman was shocked and very upset. Apparently, even the head of eBay International at the time, who was one of the most ardent proponents of migration, did not tell Whitman about it. Read the article in Global Times.

Facebook joins forces with advertisers

Major advertisers finally embrace social networking sites. More than 80 per cent of the largest US advertisers are using Facebook to promote themselves, suggesting that corporate America has embraced the social networking site as a mainstream promotional platform. This marks a striking shift. Companies were initially hesitant to advertise on social networks because users appeared resistant to advertising and there were fears that corporate logos might appear alongside offensive content. Read article in Financial Times.

Yesterday's Xiaonei => Today's Renren

China's leading social network site, Xiaonei, changed its name to Renren, which means "everyone" in Chinese on August 4. (Read announcement from official site.) It is quite strange that an already famous brand would change its name, as this might alienate exisiting and potential users.

But, Xiaonei, which means "inside the school", might not be situable anymore, as the facebook-like online community is no longer just an alumni site for university students. Today its members include many office workers. In the future, people from all sorts of life might be its members, too. At least, that is the ambition of the site's CEO, Joe Chen, who wants to be the king of China's Web 2.0. Chen, through his company Oak Pacific, also controls community sites, Mop.com, Kaixin.com and several web game companies.

Industry insider said eventual Chen is going to merge his social networks with online games.

“In China, online games are huge. Social games and web games can be an important way to generate revenue on our site. A small percentage of paying users is enough,” said Chen in an early interview.

Alibaba: Opening global markets for small businesses

This week's article in Global Times is about Alibaba. Of all the China Internet companies, Alibaba is the most original. While others replicated successful western models, there was no booming western company doing what Alibaba does. Jack Ma (the person in the picture), an ex-English teacher, become one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country by having the simple idea of setting up an electronic message board for small businessmen in China and entrepreneurs around the world to exchange trade information. Read more in Global Times