The Dragon's Web and Asia Internet

The Dragon’s Web & Asian Internet Dr. Gang Lu Founder & Chief Editor of MOBINODE.com Co-founder of OpenWeb.Asia Workgroup Co-organizer of OpenWebAsia Conference

An Open ‘Me’ Ad hoc Networks 3G Application JBoss Netvibes TechCrunch ReadWriteWeb Universal Widget API Blogger Evangelist OpenWeb.Asia Entrepreneur MOBINODE.com Widgetized Open Web 2002 China/Asia Web Now

Dragon’s Web

316million Internet users, ~2.9million Chinese web sites.

The Internet penetration has reached only around 25% .

107million bloggers by end of 2008.

670million mobile subscribers, ~117million users surfing Internet on their mobile devices

The Evolution of Dragon’s Web

Fact One - Copycats

The C2C (Copy-2-China) Model:

YouTube - Youku , Tudou , Ku6 , 56 etc

Facebook - Xiaonei , Hainei , Xiaoyou , Tongxue, Kaixin001 etc

Twitter - Fanfou , Jiwai , Zuosa , Digu etc

Linkedin - Wealink , Tianji , Linklist etc

* Unlike copycats in other countries, Chinese copycats can not only survive , and also dominate the local market.

Fact Two - Reformation

Social Networking - Kaixin001 .com skyrocketed to 30 million registered users from the middle of last year focusing on white collar users with social gaming; 51.com implemented Virtual Coin and payment API into its open platform and the API will be integrated into OpenSocial and already implemented in Hi5.com ;

Microblogging (Twitter) - Digu .com is turning Twitter like service from a Tool for sharing information to Entertainment to attract Chinese young generation and non-geeks.

Fact Three - Innovation

Social Networks can be distributed - Comsenz developed UCHome a mini version of Facebook-like SNS which can downloaded for free . Over 150K downloads so far ;

Combination of Traditional business and Web 2.0 - Dianpin .com is very popular place to search for restaurant; Alipay .com allows you to pay after you receive the goods; Liba .com provides a full package for your living (housing, wedding etc).

Internet Culture

QQ - by end of 2008, 891.9millions registered user accounts, 376.6millions active user accounts; 31.4millions Fee-based Internet value-added services registered subscriptions; 14.7millions fee-based mobile and telecommunications value-added services registered subscriptions. Tencent, owner of QQ has RMB 7.15billion revenue, its gross profit reached RMB 4.98billion .

Bulletin Board System (BBS) - In China the registered BBS users have reached 3000+ millions ; ~80% of Chinese sites are running their own BBS and the total daily page view is over 1600 millions and 10 millions posts are published every day. In China around 36.3% users spend 1-3 hours on BBS, about 44.7% users spend 3-8 hours and even 15.1% users are on BBS for more than 8 hours a day. Over 60% of users will login at least 3 BBS more than 3 times each every week.

Ads Market: from Offline to Online

In China, Ads are everywhere in your real life.

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

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When West Internet Culture Meets Dragon

Many foreign Internet companies fail in Chinese web market, including MySpace , eBay , AOL etc, Google is doing OK but just takes ~30% market share; It is too late for Facebook ; Netvibes is too complex; Twitter is still for geeks; YouTube has very strong competitors ;

However , many foreigners are now setting up their startups in China, e.g. Qifang won Technology Pioneer award from WEF; ChinesePod was TOP10 podcast site by TIME; CMUNE creates a new web-based cross-platform 3D engine; Neocha is one of the leading SNS focus on artists and indie musicians;

Asia Web

US/EU Web and Asia Web

In US/Europe Web

Becoming an International company is relatively Easier!

Language is Not huge barrier,e.g. Le Web 3

In Asia web

China has a huge market; Japan has a very advanced Mobile market ( Felica Networks ); Korea is leading the online gaming ( Nexon )

Hardly find a cross-country web company or service.

It is very interesting that Asia local industry seldom or never talked to its neighbours despite the culture is similar.

What is Really Happening in Asia 1 Japan - Mobile market is far ahead of the rest of world,e.g. Mixi , GREE , FelicaNetworks ; Always the entry market for western service, e.g. Youtube, Facebook, Twitter etc; There are some clones, but with more innovations, Nicovideo.jp ; HongKong - Not many startups, but they focus on global market, EditGrid , AliveNotDead ;Some companies have their office set up in GZ/BJ/SH, e.g. CityIN , Moochi etc; Taiwan - You can always find some influencial and successful person are from Taiwan, e.g. the co-founder of YouTube; Korea - has very good infrastructure; Naver still dominating the market; Online gaming is conquering the world, e.g. Nexon , CMUNE ; CyWorld is operating outside the Korea; StoryBlender won TechCrunch 40; Wisia . us has very good implementation and cool design!

What is Really Happening in Asia 2 Singapore - Small market but its government is very supportive and the centre of SouthEast Asia; Israel - Many startups actually are founded by Israel entrepreneurs; Vietnam - The battle place when those big names decide to go abroad; China - 289 million users, 162 million users blog, 118 million users surfing web from mobile device; SNS, Video-sharing, Open platform, P2P, B2B, C2C etc, the market is so promising; Many startups founded by foreigners but are based in China, e.g. Qifang , Neocha , Chinesepod etc are doing great work. Mobile market is much larger than wired web market and more mature; 3G just arrived; Web market is still very young and still entertainment-centric. India - is Not really in Web2.0 yet; But they don’t have the language barrier and very active in western market, e.g. SlideShare.net ; Startups are getting hot, e.g. Burrp , Picsquare etc;

We Need an Open Web in Asia OpenWeb.Asia Workgroup

Missions of OpenWeb.Asia Workgroup

OpenWeb.Asia Workgroup is an independent organization focus on Asia web/mobile market, we are

Building an efficient channel connecting the Western and Eastern web;

Bringing more Asian countries/regions into the big family and bridging Asian local markets;

Building an ecosystem, recognizes the great startups, companies, individuals from Asia and bring them to the greater stage;

OWA Union

Local Communities

WebWednesday (hk) 5G Group (cn) Barcamp (cn) Lunch 2.0 (cn) Bangke (cn) E27 (sg) TokyoWeb2.0 (jp) PunchParty (tw) OWA India iDrink (is) OpenWeb.Asia Union - Unite the Local Communities BossOnly (cn)

The first truly pan-Asia international conference focus on Asia web industry has been held in Seoul Korea at 14th Oct, 2008 , in association with the 9th World Knowledge Forum .

Speakers include Loic Le Meur , Jason Calacanis , Yongseok Jang , James W.Kim , Arthur Chang , Kevin Day , Shusaku Maruko and many others.

Companies include Friendster , Yahoo Korea , Felica Networks , Nexon , 51 , Opera Asia , Alibaba , Mahalo , etc

Sponsored MCST and Naver , and media partners include 163 .net (China), CNET Japan , ReadWriteWeb , Maeil Business (Korea), Mashable , Sohu (China) etc.

Visit www.openwebasia.com for detail.

OpenWebAsia ‘08

OWA Ecosystem OWA Union Angel Fund Venture Capital Incubators OpenWebAsia Conference Startups Experts Individual s Asian Audience TechCrunch NetExplorateur DLD LIFT Talk to Asia, Identify the Best, Introduce them to the World Le Web

Thank You!