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Online China's Handbook

Handbook of Online China

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: web trend trends)

This is a comprehensive overview of the online landscape in China. If you need a softcopy, drop me an email. Thanks to the guys at TrendsSpotting.

China Mobile H1 2008 Profit up 44.7%

China Mobile, the world's largest mobile operator by subscribers today unveiled a 44.7 percent increase in first-half net profit and appeared to confirm industry belief that it will deploy TD-SCDMA technology for its commercial nationwide 3G networks.

The operator recorded H1 2008 net profit of RMB54.8 billion (US$8.01 billion) and a 17.9 percent rise in revenue to RMB196.46 billion (US$28.7 billion). Total subscribers and net additions reached 415 million and 45.25 million, respectively.

China Mobile said it will focus on innovations, this includes assisting the parent company in the construction of TD-SCDMA networks, in which current network resources will be fully utilised, and integrating the 2G network into the 3G in preparation for the full introduction of 3G operations. The company will also closely monitor the development of TD-LTE network technology to ensure momentum for future development.

China Mobile plans to expand trial coverage of its TD-SCDMA-based 3G services to 38 cities on the mainland, from the current 10, by the end of June next year.

via China Mobile PR

Beijing Olympic - The $40 billion pricetag is worth every penny of it

It was the best opening and closing that i had ever seen and it will surely be regarded as one of the best Olympic Games ever. Beijing's huge investment in the Olympics will help confirm its place as a world-class city and business center, and leave a legacy of improvements for the Chinese people.

Unlike most of the other previous hosts, where the Games led to a mountain of debt and many of the venues now sit unused, the $40 billion pricetag is a comfortable figure that the Chinese government can afford and a majority of the $40 billion was spent on infrastructure in and around Beijing — not only the sports facilities which Beijing and its many universities lacked, but subways, roads, mass transit systems, inter-city rail, and housing development. That is not wasted money for “image” but a real solid investment for the future. Less than a quarter of the total spend was on purpose-built venues such as the Bird's Nest and Water Cube. With an improved transport system, financial services infrastructure, communications network and hospitality industry, Beijing will be better positioned as a world-class city.

What are the new roles for the newly built Stadiums?

1. Bird's Nest - The new operators of the Bird's Nest, a consortium led by state investment group CITIC, plan to auction the naming rights and make it home to Beijing GuoAn Football Club with a complex of hotels, restaurants and shops built around it. Soon Bird's Nest may be renamed to Coca Cola or Adidas Stadium.

2. Water Cube - The beautiful aquatic center will be transformed to a training and recreation center that includes tennis courts, water slides, retail outlets, night clubs and restaurants.

3. Wukesong Indoor Stadium - AEG Worldwide, a US sports and entertainment management firm hoping to tap into a post-Olympics boom, has already teamed up with the National Basketball Association's NBA China to secure the rights to manage the Wukesong indoor stadium, which staged the basketball competition.

4. National Indoor Stadium - This venue will be used for future sports competitions, arts, cultural and entertainment events and also serve as a fitness center for the people of Beijing.

5. Olympic village - The village will be converted to residential area with the apartments selling from $500,000 upwards apiece.

With the closing of the biggest event of all time, I m sure China has once and for all silent the many critics who had earlier raised many concerns. I dont think there will be any more doubts in their mind whether China has the ability to put on a good show or whether China is ready to take on the world.

The one thing that Beijing Olympic has successfully done for the Chinese people is that it certainly had pushed the people to be more confident and proud of themselves.

How to Guarantee winning an Olympic Swimming Gold Medal?

Check out this brilliant video clip and watch right to the end.

Top 10 Highest-paid US's CEOs

Associated Press published a list of highest-paid public company executives out of S&P 500 index.

1. Larry Ellison, Oracle Corp. (ORCL), $84.6 mln
2. John Thain, Merrill Lynch & Co. (MERPO), $83.1 mln
3. Leslie Moonves, CBS Corp. (CBS), $67.6 mln
4. Richard Adkerson, Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc., $65.3 mln
5. Bob Simpson, XTO Energy Inc. (XTO), $56.6 mln
6. Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), $53.9 mln
7. Kenneth Chenault, American Express Co. (AXP), $51.7 mln
8. Eugene Isenberg, Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR), $44.6 mln
9. John Mack, Morgan Stanley (MS), $41.7 mln
10. Glenn Murphy, Gap Inc. (GPS), $39.1 mln

With that kind of package, why even bother to kickstart a startup. Then again, to reach there isnt easy either as it takes great skills to manage and run a profitable S&P 500 company. While the salaries may sound outrageous, its still a small percentage of the profit that they bring in for the company as a whole in a year.

Worst Olympic Swimming Trial

Mac vs PC

This is a very accurate description of the differences between a Windows system and a Macintosh. The illustration says it all.

Building the Beijing Olympic Village with 160,000 cards in 20 days

Forget about the billions spent and the years needed to build the Beijing Olympic Village, try using 160,000 cards. This dude spent 20 days building the whole thing using just playing cards. Another Olympic record....

Lightning Bolt, the Fastest Man on Earth

On Saturday Jamaica’s Usain “Lightning” Bolt ran the fastest 100 meter and 200 meter in 9.69 and 19.30 seconds respectively, making him the fastest man on Earth. He was so fast off the 100 meter block that he could slow down and look at the crowd some 20 meters before crossing the finishing and still break the world record. How much more faster can Bolt runs?

Like fellow world-class athlete Michael Phelps, Bolt’s daily fitness routine and diet is off the chain. After Bolt demolished the 100 meter world record he was quoted saying, “I woke around 11am and decided to watch some TV and had some nuggets.”

McDonald’s Chicken Nuggets? Thats a bit of stretch for me having watched Super Size Me where filmmaker Morgan Spurlock went on a 30 days only McDonald's food regime and supersize its meal if asked. Spurlock's grueling drive-through diet spirals him into a physical and emotional metamorphosis that will make you think twice about picking up another Big Mac. He actually gained alot of weight and the worst bit his health and life is at stake.

In his breakdown of his daily fitness and diet regiment Bolt admits maintaining his 6′4” 138 lb physique, without supplements, while still being able to enjoy the occasional Guinness and Red Bull. No matter how you cut it, Bolt certainly had marveled all of us and I expect him to continue to break more records no matter what goes into his diet. I m off to McDonalds to super size my nuggets hoping to break some records later.

Michael Phelps, the 8th Wonder of the World

Michael Phelps had finally made it 8 gold medals out of 8 events that he had participated and at the same time created 7 world and 1 Olympic records. Of course out of the 8 gold medals, 3 came from the team relay events where his team had provided a stunning performance helping Phelps to achieve his dream of 8 gold medals.

Most of the events Phelps had won with a decent margin except for 100 meter butterfly where he had almost lost to Serbia's Milorad Cavic. The winning margin was only 0.01. Check out the frame by frame how Phelps had miraculously won the event. Just by looking at the initial frame, you would had thought that there was no way Phelps would had recovered to win. Its an amazing recovery and it will be a record that will stay on for many years to come.

Overseas Chinese Populations

Do you know whats the population of Overseas Chinese? Overseas Chinese are people of Chinese birth or descent who live outside the Greater China region. While China has in excess of 1.35 billion in population, the total number of overseas chinese comes in at an estimated 40 million. Thats more population that many small to mid size countries. Except for Singapore where overseas chinese makes up the majority, most of the others are minorities.

iPhone as a gaming platform

It's already a groundbreaking phone and digital music player, and now Apple's iPhone is emerging as a popular gaming device as well. Of the 1,300 add-on programs currently available for it, about a quarter are games — as are seven of the 10 most popular selections in the Apple App Store, which opened on July 11.

If you had any doubts as to the viability of Apple's iPhone as a gaming platform, Sega has some numbers that might help change your mind. In the 20 days following Super Monkey Ball's launch on the new iPhone App Store, Sega reports over 300,000 copies of the game have been purchased. Purchased, mind you - you don't get shipping numbers on iPhone apps. That's nearly $3 million in revenue!! Not bad for a platform that has only been in a market for such short period of time. That kind of demand, along with plans for more and better offerings, could launch the iPhone into a whole new stratosphere of mobile gaming.

Part of the reason mobile phone gaming hasn't caught on yet is that the games tend to be simplistic or crippled versions of games made for PCs or the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. You find a lot of repeated titles. The gaming experience is poor, and it's hard to discover the games. But the iPhone's entry is going to change the mobile gaming landscape.

Key to the iPhone's success as a gaming platform is a deep portfolio of titles that take advantage of the device's coolest attributes, such as its tilt sensor. The most popular application in the entire App Store today is the free maze game Labyrinth, created by Illusion Labs in Sweden, in part because it responds satisfyingly to even the slightest hand movement as players direct a virtual ball through various mazes. Another sought out game, Sega's $9.99 Super Monkey Ball, which i had mentioned earlier — players tilt the device to navigate a series of increasingly precarious platforms.

But can a mobile phone ever really compete with dedicated handhelds like the Nintendo DS and PSP? Some argued that why buy two separate devices when you can have all-in-one device. The iPhone is a powerful and excellent hardware which maybe able to host both but it remains to be seen. The Apple store is a great channel to host the games and i dont reckon PSP or DS can top that as both of which are still relying on physical cartridges.

100,000,000,000 Dollars

Bet you havent seen this before, 100 billion dollars note!! Thanks to Zimbabwe's mind-boggling hyper inflation, a new 100 billion dollar bank note has recently been issued. Dont expect the single note to buy you any luxury. This note is worth enough to buy a loaf of bread if you can find one on Zimbabwe's depleted store shelves.

Notes in the millions of dollars are useful only as toilet paper and it's cheaper to light a fire with low denomination bills than with newspaper. A hundred billion dollars is worth US$5 at the official rate. So if you want to be a billionaire, just head to Zimbabwe.

The Top Ten Richest Young Hollywood Stars

Who said that you cant be a millionaire when you are under 21. Multi-millionaire children, tweens and teens are as common these days in Hollywood.

Miley Cyrus, 15 years old, from Hanna Montana and Daniel Radcliffe, 19, of Harry Potter socked away a cool $25 million each last year. Others, in order from high to low, are Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, both 22, at $15 million; The Jonas Brothers, Kevin, Joe, and Nick, at $12 million; High School Musical star Zac Efron, 20, toted up almost $6 million along with 23-year-old co-star Ashley Tisdale’s $5.5 million.

Emma Watson, 18, who plays Hermioni in Harry Potter took $5 million to the bank this past 12 months. Hilary Duff, 20, got $5 million as did Rupert Grint, 19 who plays Ron Weasley in Harry Potter; and Vanessa Hudgens, 19, survived some unauthorized web exposure to come in at number ten with a nice $3.2 million.

Guess we must all start to groom our little kids to become superstars. If they dont have the looks, at least give them a golf stick or a tennis racquet. Unfortunately my son would probably end up as a Nintendo DS superstar as he is piling up hours daily on it.

A Guided Tour to Opera Mini

Opera Mini is the most popular mobile phone browser in the world. I m a big fan of it and had been using it since the day i started browsing interent from my mobile phone. Its really a cut down version of the Safari's Mobile but it works well and perfectly for most of my day to day use requirements. Its latest version 4.1 has been downloaded more than 40 million times that number isnt going to stop anytime soon.

Opera Mini enables you to take your full Web experience to your phone. Stay in touch with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, get your e-mail on the go. There are no limits — Opera Mini is the quick, easy and secure way to get any Web page you want.

To download Opera Mini directly to your phone, please visit operamini.com using your existing phone's Web browser.

For a complete introduction, please check out the video presentation below.

Visa Congratulates Michael Phelps in Beijing 2008 Olympics

With the world closely watching the extraordinary performance of Michael Phelps at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Visa was the first to congratulate him on setting the all-time record for most career Olympic gold medals with a commercial that aired on NBC right after his win in the 200 meter butterfly.

Michael has already won 5 gold medals at the Beijing Olympic Games and he is going after 8 which will surely be the most gold medals that any athletes had won in a single Olympic. I hope Michael wins as he has been awesome and in superb shape.

LG Touchscreen Video Ad

LG has a new phone called Secret and put out a sexy video highlighting the touchscreen. The ad is well executed showcasing the features of the new LG Secret's touchscreen phone via a drop dead sexy woman.

After seeing the commercial, you will sure to wonder whether the ad is selling the phone or something else....

Disruptive Bluetooth Headset Ads

It seems most ads nowadays are using a provocative sexual style to grab the attention. Whether or not the audience likes it or not, such tactics had proven many times to be very disruptive and effective.

Jawbone, a stylish award winning military-grade noise eliminating bluetooth headset had produced two very disruptive video ads that will surely encourage you to consider getting one for yourself. I m not sure about you but after watching the ads, I m definitely considering getting one for myself. Let me know what you think of the ads.

$1 billion Apple App Store in the making

Apple’s App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch had already been launched for about one month now. In that time over 60 million applications have been downloaded, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs told The Wall Street Journal in an interview.

Any way you look at it, that number is simply impressive. While most of these were free downloads, the App Store has already churned out a solid $30 million in sales. After Apple’s cut, around $21 million of this will go into the pockets of iPhone developers (Atleast $2 million of which will go to Sega for its 300,000+ Super Monkey Ball sales). And asssuming if the sales stay at current pace, Apple will end up with at least $360 million by the end of the year and soon it will hit the magical $1 billion mark. I dont think anybody had seen this kind of pace of growth for software, its truly an impressive development for Apple and the industry.

Still, Apple has maintained from the beginning that it doesn’t expect to make a lot of money from the App Store. It takes just a 30 percent cut from all sales and has said much of that money would simply be used for store upkeep. Its iTunes music store is much the same way, earning Apple relatively little money, but instead driving iPod sales, where Apple makes a killing. The App Store looks to do the same for iPhone and iPod Touch sales.

Steve believes that going forward, the phone of the future will be differentiated by software and services, a similar strategy adopted by Nokia and Microsoft and Apple certainly has a great head start over its competitors. While the rest are still trying to figure out how to put the pieces together, Apple has surely found the right recipe to entice the developers to develop around the ecosystem created by them and obviously left suffient money on the table to encourage them to keep coming back for more.

This is an amazing money printing ecosystem that Apple has created where it allows any developers be it large or small to have access to Apple's global distribution channel on the internet. So now all you need to do is to come up with a good software and have it uploaded to Apple Store and make your money while sipping a hot Latte at Starbucks. Wouldn't that be ideal!! I wonder what the mobile operators are going to do about this as I m sure Apple Store will eat into their pie. I m quite certain the Operators would want a piece of the action instead of just pushing hardwares and selling data plans. Unless if they are happy to outsource that portion of the business to Apple. Probably not.... Any thoughts?

And just in case if you are unaware, Apple had already sold 3 million units of iPhone 3G in one month after it was launched according to analyst Michael Cote of the Cote Collaborative.

To Prevent Upskirts, Japanese iPhone 3G Always Alerts When Taking Photos

Unlike other country’s versions of the 3G iPhone, the Japanese version will make a shutter sound wherever a picture is taken, even in silent mode. The loud shutter sound is supposed to deter voyeurs from taking sneaky pictures up women’s’ skirts — or down their tops.However, this is nothing new to the island nation, with up-skirt picture-taking so prevalent, most cell phones come with this feature, reports Gizmodo.

As a result, all cell phones sold in Japan make a conspicuous shutter sound, or say the word “cheese” when a snap is taken, according to Nobuyuki Hayashi, a tech reporter based in Tokyo. On almost all new cell phones, the camera shutter sound can not be muted, Hayashi says.

There is a solution though, head over to Pwnage 2.0 and jailbreak your iPhone 3G and you can then do anything you want with your phone.

In the spirit of Olympics, Russia and Georgia will focus on competing

A Georgian competitor embraced her Russian rival on Sunday after they both won Olympic medals, hoping to show that an escalating conflict between their two nations will not spoil the sporting spirit at the Beijing Games. They had also made a call for peace with the hope that the 2 nations will stop the fighting.

Its a pity while the whole world is celebrating peace and joy that the Olympic Games had brought to all of us, the world is at the same time witnessing another bloodbath between 2 nations who are in many ways related to each other. A number of Russian athletes were either born in Georgia or have family members still living there. I do hope that in the spirit of Olympics that both nations will quickly find a middle ground to resolve their issues and peace will once again return to both nations. I hope the governments of both countries can learn something from both the athletes.

You can also check out the video clip below.

Xiao Xiao, the Stick Man on Rampage

A brilliant animated Kung-Fu cum Matrix style production. Its the job of the leading mobile portal in China, 3G. The xiao xiao animated character has been created back in the 90s and had since been enjoyed tremendous stardom on the internet. The fights were well choreographed as always.

The video clip is about how one of the cartoon character who had used the location based technology on her mobile to trigger the locate me feature allowing the hero, the stick man to swing into action.

China should surpass USA in overall medal tally in Beijing Olympic

A graph from the Economist shows that China is on track to catch or pass the USA for gold medals this Olympics. As you can see above, the gap is getting smaller each Olympic Games.

Team USA used to be invincible in the past but things are no longer the same as the team from other countries including China has made huge improvements and with China having home advantage, they are in great position to snatch the top position from Team USA. Go China!!!

New Approach to look for a Job

Joshua Persky, an unemployed financial engineer, stands in front of the Charles Schwab building at 50th Street and Park Avenue with a sign proclaiming 'Experienced MIT Graduate for Hire' June 24, 2008 in New York City. Persky, who lost his job in the volatile banking industry six months ago, thought standing on a corner passing out resumes would be a novel approach over networking and writing emails at home.

What the International Media has got to say about the Grand Beijing Olympic Opening

Beijing held its formal opening ceremony last night for the 2008 Summer Olympics. The ceremony, held in the National Stadium known as the Bird's Nest, was attended by thousands, and watched by millions more on television. I was speechless for the next 4 hours totally sat in front of the TV enjoying what was to me the most successful, glamorous, spectacular and magnificent Opening ever in the history of Olympic. This will certainly raise the bar for all future Olympic Openings and the Londoners will have to think harder how to equal or better it.

This is a night where the Chinese can be really proud of being Chinese and a day that I will remember to share with my future generations as it changes how the world looks at Chinese and more importantly how they perceive our motherland, China.

Here are some of what the International Media are saying about it :

1. China's night of joy, pride as Olympics ceremony captures the world - Xinhua News

2. It was an Amazing thing, showcasing China's greatest asset - The New Zealand Herald

3. China flocks to TV screens to share Olympic pride - LA Times

4. For China, Olympics may be transforming moment - Houston Chronicles

5. A Spectacular Opening to the 29th Olympiad - The Washington Post

6. Clear Messages in a Colorful Show - The Washington Post

7. For Chinese, A Long-Awaited Occasion of Hope and Pride - The Washington Post

8. Olympics: the power and the glory - China leaves world awestruck - The Times Online

9. China’s Leaders Try to Impress and Reassure World - The New York Times

10. The most certain victory of the Olympic Games was duly ratified on Friday when China won the gold medal in the opening ceremony competition - presumably of all time - The Financial Times.

11. An eight became a perfect 10 in Beijing tonight. The world may never witness a ceremony of the magnitude and ingenuity as that which opens the 2008 Olympics at the National Stadium in Beijing - affectionately dubbed the Bird's Nest - The Sydney Morning Herald.

12. It was a stunning beginning for the nation of 1.3 billion people. Media observers said they believe the opening ceremony will be the single most watched television event in history - CNN

Let the Games begin.... 中国加油!!! (Go China)

Below are some highlights of the nearly 4-hour performance.













For more images of the fireworks at the Opening, you can click on this link here.

The video below shows clips from AP’s live coverage of the 08/08/08 games and the lighting of the Oympic torch by Li Ning.

Interactive Olympic Maps - Medal Count From 1896 to 2004

The NY Times have come up with a fascinating interactive map that you can play with to check out the medal counts by country for every Summer Games since the modern Olympic Games began in 1896.

The size of the bubbles in the geographic view correlate to the number of medals won. Mouse over any bubble and the actual number of golds, silvers and bronzes won is displayed. Dragging the tab through all the years reveals historical blips. The massive Eastern Bloc showings for the 1980 and 1988 Games deflated in 1984 when they boycotted the Los Angeles Games. Also revealed is the emergence of Japan and more recently China in the international sports area over several decades.

Lee Byron, Amanda Cox and Matthew Ericson compiled the map based on information from the International Olympic committee.

FedEx Cup Commercial

This is one of my favorite tv commercial. Enjoy it.

The Best Financial Planning Advice

I must thank my wife, Fionne Chan for reminding me how to plan ahead financially. With her background in Finance and 5 years working with Citibank, I m sure she has to be right when comes to long term financial planning. The image above says it all. I m off to the Ferrari showroom later......

All Eyes on Beijing Olympic

Today is an auspicious day for the World. Its a day where everybody comes together to participate and celebrate the spirit of sporting. The main event will be officially opened tonight in Beijing at 8.08 pm Beijing time (+8 GMT). The Olympic torch had already reached Beijing having circled the globe. Below is a video clip of the torch relay passing by the Great Wall of China.

China Expat, the national China portal for China travel, culture and art, has just put up online their guide to the Beijing Olympics. Featuring details on all Olympics venues (including those held in other cities), with dates and schedules of events; a guide to “Olympic Putonghua” (ie: how to say “Please take me to the National Stadium” to a Beijing taxi driver); an interesting comparison of who’s won what over the past six Olympiads and a snapshot of Chinese athletes to watch out for; a 20 page, full color guide can be downloaded here.

The New Nokia e71

The new Nokia e71 looks great, and has all the features that make the phone so appealing. It has a very slim profile, 3.2 mp camera, and the ability to pick your phone service! It features QuickOffice which lets you create, edit and send Word/PowerPoint/Excel files.

The cool factor is the E71 two home screens: one for word apps and one for fun, like audio, video and games. One button toggles between the screens.

Get a glimpse of the e71 below.

The Paris Hilton Presidential Campaign

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

The New Sexy LG Bikini Mobile Phone Ads

LG has the perfect excuse for featuring bikini-clad models in the ad campaign for their KF600 phone. LG has even ingeniously named the phone model, the Bikini. The LG Bikini is actually a revamped version of the LG Venus. The main upgrade over Venus is the HSDPA and Rev A EVDO 3G network support.

Other features include 240×320 QVGA display with a Touch-sensitive InteractPad beneath it, 3 megapixel camera with auto focus, Bluetooth 2.0 and USB connectivity.

As you can tell by the two rectangles drawn in some of the ads, the name inspiration comes from the top and bottom displays, which are similar to the top and bottom of a two-piece bikini. Now you know why LG is hot favorite to unseat Motorola position as the No.3 handset manufacturer.