With the growing popularity of B2B, B2C and C2C ecommerce websites, ecommerce is looking certain to a future trend. And after a trial period, it has started to enter into a new phase of rapid growth. But the apparent growth has revealed that the growing number of users was, in some way, not proportional to [...]
View full post on China Online Marketing
Follow MarketingTypo on Twitter
Reporting around the explosion in a plastics factory in Nanjing has been patchy. The factory, which has been called a “time bomb” before a gas leak killed 12, was in newspapers in the former capital today.
Modern Express is a Xinhua-run commercial newspaper. Today a black cover points to the explosion in Nanjing, and about how it is testing its people. However, no other major newspaper in the city had the explosion in a featured position on the front page.
The Yangtse Evening Post went with the time allocated for National day holidays and the Pakistan airplane crash;
The Oriental Guardian goes with the anniversary of the Tangshan earthquake, and the government organ Nanjing Daily with a small side banner about the explosion being under control;
The Xinhua Daily (not affiliated with the Xinhua News Agency) marks the ninth ‘double support’ model city commendation ceremony, and mentions the explosion in a small piece at the bottom of the page.
Tip from Media Wang’s Sina microblog.
Tags: factory explosion, Modern Express, Nanjing, Nanjing Daily, Oriental Guardian, Xinhua Daily, Yangtse Evening Post
This article is from Danwei.org.
tweet
facebook
bookmark
HaoHao
onclick="window.open('http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.danwei.org%2Ffront_page_of_the_day%2Fnanjing_papers.php'); return false;" title="Submit this story to digg.">
digg
Mainland accessible mirror on Danwei.TV
Jobs in China: danweijobs.com
View full post on Danwei – Media, Advertising, and Urban Life in China
Follow MarketingTypo on Twitter
Here’s an interesting Social Gaming Summit 2009 panel discussion on player acquisition and retention for social games –
The panelists made several interesting remarks about acquiring and retaining social game players –
1. Facebook is a more superior platform than MySpace for both acquiring and retaining users. Facebook gives game developers more mechanisms for viral growth and Facebook’s international user base is more receptive to game invites. Moreover, Facebook users don’t uninstall apps as they are hidden away, whereas MySpace users churn more quickly as apps show up on their profile pages. This discussion isn’t really relevant outside the US anyways, because Facebook is far ahead in terms of numbers.
2. While Facebook and MySpace platforms are mature enough for game developers to build businesses on top of them, developers will be wise to distribute games across platforms and invest in a destination site to aid discovery and create a customized game experience.
3. Increasingly, retaining users (DAU/ MAU), keeping them engaged and monetizing them is becoming more important in social gaming than acquiring users via CPA ads or viral invites. So, developers should balance fun gameplay with viral game mechanics.
I also found Tagged‘s approach to social gaming very interesting. CEO Greg Tseng explained that Tagged is aiming to become the social network for discovering people around social gaming and dating. However, Tagged isn’t trying to become an open social gaming platform like Hi5. Instead, it’s developing its own games (like Pets and Farm) and striking exclusive deals with game developers like Zynga (for Poker and the now discontinued Mafia Wars and YoVille) and Crowdstar (for Happy Aquarium) to distribute their games.
During the panel, Tseng mentioned that Tagged will also start developing games for the Facebook and mobile platforms. Since then, Tagged has done lightweight sign-up integration with Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, and released an iPhone app. It seems that Tagged is also adding a music and entertainment focus, with recent tie ups with Nas and Damian Marley and Bon Jovi for premiering their songs on the network.
Tagged has 80 million registered users, but its monthly unique visitors has dropped from more than 9 million last year to about 4 million now according to Compete (Tagged has 0.8 million unique users in India as per Vizisense). So, it seems that its social gaming play isn’t really working.
As Facebook transforms itself from a social network to a social platform, second tier social networks like Hi5 and Tagged are turning to social gaming to define a niche for themselves. While Hi5 is positioning itself as an alternative to Facebook as an open gaming platform, Tagged is now trying to become a game developer itself.
I think there’s a play for smaller social networks like Tagged to create a compelling offering around a combination of social gaming, social entertainment and social commerce and build on top of the Facebook and iPhone/ Android platforms. However, to realize this vision, these social networks will have to create innovative games that bridge gaming, entertainment and commerce — Booyah’s Nightclub City comes closest so far — instead of creating Farmville clones.
What do you think? What should second tier social networks like Tagged and India’s Ibibo do? Do share your thoughts in the comments below.
If you would like to interview me for a story or invite me to speak at a conference, please e-mail me at gauravonomics@gmail.com, call me at +91-9999856940, or connect with me on Twitter.
View full post on Gauravonomics Blog For Marketers, Entrepreneurs and Activists
Follow MarketingTypo on Twitter
..the other stuff you need on Twitter itself. Yes, it’s still around and i’m still trying to put together 1+1 but it seems to me that we have something which could revolutionalise payments and revenue generation for twitter while keeping it free for me! Yes, according to ‘The Atlantic’ that slicing is well nigh possible and it got me thinking if Twitter will indeed attempt to make it happen. That is, a subscriber pays model for this veritable source of news and information which is more ubiquitous than the newspaper and even mandatory for Google to highlight.
Unfortunately for that to happen it still needs to mature as a platform. Because the underlying thought is that almost everyone brings something from his/her side to give to his Twitter feed and then reads up on twitter and vendors and payors cannot keep paying for the reader. But for those who think a payment wall is a viable answer, there is definitely a rethink coming too, because there are so many alternates available to the audiences that one medium cannot block itself out, especially when the news is the selling product. And thence asking the news provider to pay is also a tough call, advertisers are no longer going to pony up for a dry ride except in a few markers in India and China where also we’d rather it is a dry ride than suffer itinerant advertising in the content. I really cannot see a way out except a business model innovation that is not a surrogate of any of these earlier attempted ‘enviable’ ventures.
Healthcare’s answer of course was the public option, Canada’s option is complete in that regard, but then even Obama has made a start but it cannot be made in emerging markets unless at a very low cost. Similarily on Twitter we cannot expect providers to pay readers for reading the service and unless the twitter feeds are not ubiquitously available everywhere with the breaking news, it won’t pay the providers . Luckily, it does not seem likely that Twitter will die an untimely death with inane attempts at a making people pay thru the nose model and if your recession can at least be positive we can return to CDP financed twitter streams paid by the big corporations much like advertising in its earlier avatar, but definitely not by advertising. IT is a matter of time, we can’t say when.
Filed under: Social Media 
View full post on Social Networking and New Markets
Follow MarketingTypo on Twitter
View full post on Marketing Practice
Follow MarketingTypo on Twitter
The current issue of China Computerworld (计算机世界) features a cover story on Tencent, the Internet giant that runs the QQ web portal and Internet messaging software and has its fingers in practically every other sector of the online economy.
The report is written from the perspective of Tencent’s competitors in the industry, and it is their exclamation of frustration that provides the feature’s title: Fucking Tencent ().
Critics quoted in the piece complain about Tencent’s lack of creativity: never a first mover, it enters established sectors and muscles out the competition — shamelessly imitating its rivals, according to some accusations:
Tencent is never the first to “eat crab” [to try out new things]. It looks for a space in a mature markets to shove its way in. However, the methods it chooses also invite controversy: imitation, sometimes unscrupulous “shanzhai” copying.
As early as 2006, Sina founder Wang Zhidong openly accused [Tencent founder] Ma Huateng of being the industry’s “plagiarism king,” and of brazen plagiarism at that. Similar voices have been heard in the years since. Most recently, Data Center of the China Internet (DCCI) director Hu Yanping questioned Tencent’s creative abilities, saying that it was not an outstanding innovator, and was actually the mortal enemy of innovation among smaller Internet enterprises.
Beginning with its first product, OICQ (the former incarnation of Tencent QQ), which copied ICQ, Tencent has never been able to bury its “copying gene.” First it brought in QQ Show and a line of value-added products from Korea, then it imitated Sina by building a portal website. In online gaming, it copied Ourgame (联众) by developing a platform, and then like Shanda brought in international players, started in-house development (like Netease). Then there was the C2C e-commerce site Paipai, and the third-party payment service TenPay (财付通). Without exception, these were “shanzhai” products, which lies at the root of the hatred for Tencent.
“Microblogs, anti-virus, e-commerce, and now group purchasing: the business models in these sectors are there for the taking, and everyone is copying. How can you say that Tencent should be generous and not try to make money there?” asked Xie Wen, a long-time Internet professional. In an interview with this reporter, he said that the animosity toward Tencent within the industry is like “whining children,” and “Fifty paces laughing a hundred paces.”
As for the charge of imitation, Ma Huateng’s response is: Imitation is the most reliable form of innovation.
As the excerpt suggests, the article itself is much less of a hit-piece than the provocative cover implies. Nevertheless, Tencent felt it necessary to respond to the brutal assassination of its beloved penguin mascot:
Statement by Tencent
On the cover of its July 26, 2010 issue, China Computerworld made a savage attack on Tencent. The Company makes the following statement:
Tencent is a meticulous and responsible company. QQ is a nationally-recognized trademark. For many years, we have striven to provide superior Internet services to the general public and to make the lives of our users richer and more convenient. We welcome commentary from the media on our products, services, and company development.
However, the China Computerworld feature story, without conducting any interviews with Tencent, used crude language against a responsible enterprise and used a disgusting illustration to damage our trademark and corporate image, creating an extremely adverse reaction and rudely hurting the feelings of the vast numbers of ordinary Tencent users. We strongly condemn this action and reserve the right to take legal action to protect our rights.
Tencent
2010.07.26
Tags: China Computerworld, Tencent
This article is from Danwei.org.
tweet
facebook
bookmark
HaoHao
onclick="window.open('http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.danwei.org%2Finternet%2Ftencent_china_computerworld.php'); return false;" title="Submit this story to digg.">digg
Mainland accessible mirror on Danwei.TV
Jobs in China: danweijobs.com
View full post on Danwei – Media, Advertising, and Urban Life in China
Follow MarketingTypo on Twitter
The Beijing Times headlines today’s newspaper with the story running at the top of Xinhua’s Chinese language website and on a number of papers around the country: the government’s new rules to deal with “naked officials”, i.e. government officials whose family have emigrated to another country and who are therefore considered likely to flee China once they have saved enough money from corrupt practices such as embezzlement and bribery.
The rules are not very harsh. The China Daily explains them thusly:
The rules stipulate that these officials must disclose their rank, the whereabouts of their spouses and children if they have moved overseas, while overseeing any and all roles these officials play in matters of public affairs. These rules also dictate the procedures these officials must follow when applying for personal passports, as well as requiring them to disclose any travel plans to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan prior to departure.
The large photo shows an outdoor stand offering trips to seaside resort Beidaihe. According to the newspaper, the stand is run by a “fake” travel agency. The caption connects the photo with a story reported in the newspaper a days previously in which a travel agency using fake documents had arranged a bus from Beijing to Shenyang. The bus had an accident and three people died.
Another noteworthy headline is at the bottom in the box: “New demolition laws not dead yet”. The story says that a Peking University professor believes new laws governing how residents are removed from their residences to make way for demolition and new development is still on the cards.
He believes the law will be considered together with amendments to China’s land law, which will also cover taxes and levies on peasant farmers’ houses. The professor’s statements come after much media speculation that the new law was already unlikely to pass.
Tags: Beijing Times, naked officials, transparency
This article is from Danwei.org.
tweet
facebook
bookmark
HaoHao
onclick="window.open('http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.danwei.org%2Ffront_page_of_the_day%2Fnaked_officials.php'); return false;" title="Submit this story to digg.">digg
Mainland accessible mirror on Danwei.TV
Jobs in China: danweijobs.com
View full post on Danwei – Media, Advertising, and Urban Life in China
Follow MarketingTypo on Twitter
Brief introduction
Zol.com is the leading IT portal website in China, with 5 million+ registered users, 6 million+ daily unique visits, 41 million daily page views, as they put it, “ZOL.com is affecting the decision-making of 6 million IT buyers everyday”.
Zol.com mainly provide information, news, ecommerce platform, resources, interview, blogs, forums and [...]
View full post on China Online Marketing
Follow MarketingTypo on Twitter
Do watch this fascinating mid-2008 panel discussion on social game design where social game thinkers and designers Amy Jo Kim (@amyjokim), Nicole Lazzaro (@nicolelazzaro) and Ian Bogost (@ibogost) join John Welch from PlayFirst and Jeremy Liew (@jeremysliew) from Lightspeed Venture Partners to discuss, amongst other topics, Parking Wars.
Amy talks about game mechanics, Nicole talks about fun in games, Ian talks about the link between game life and real life and John talks about social game monetization, and, surprisingly, most of the discussion is still topical.
Even more fascinating are the questions that don’t seem topical anymore — like the debate on whether game designers should allow players who have more time than money to buy new skills and artifacts and level up, a tactic that is included by default in most social games now.
As you watch the video, think about how game mechanics can either increase interactions between players or reduce it, so that they have less fun even as they earn more points. How can we improve some of the most popular social games by tweaking the game mechanics to increase collaborative win-win exchanges between players?
Also think about how much social games have evolved over the last two years even though the core game design principles haven’t changed much. What does that tell us about social gaming two years from now?
Do share your insights in the comments section.
View full post on Gauravonomics Blog For Marketers, Entrepreneurs and Activists
Follow MarketingTypo on Twitter
How a $19 billion Coffee business is winning US a cup of coffee but still needs to do more…Despite surviving the recession without changing price points and surviving war with McDonalds over price , localpreneurs and the national saturation line ( Rickman a la carte ), like the ‘proverbial’ rBGH, Starbucks 10 million twitter followers, Four square mayors and more are unable to get it past the post. The usual fireworks and mini launches have been missing at Schulz’s meetings since 2009 and while others search for an elusive topline, this lifestyle icon remains low on the radar after a series of missed targets on business victory planned now for an Olympics
Did you know that Seattle with 15 cafes per 100000 people pours coffee from that corner at Lake Washington through the length and breadth of America without making sure the stuff is organic!!!”
Rickman says Coffee is glue , yecchh! “Coffee is the glue that first provides people a common bond from which springs social dialogue and the exchange of information and new ideas”
Filed under: Digital Media, Lifestyle Brands, Social Media Tagged: Starbucks 
View full post on Social Networking and New Markets
Follow MarketingTypo on Twitter
