The upcoming cold war in the Internet - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

Key players in the US and China have profoundly different ways to expand, says William Bao Bean, managing director of Chinaccelerator to the Harbinger China. Those major player changed the playing field profoundly, also for startups.

The Harbinger China.

William: In the U.S., companies like Facebook have lagged behind China for a year-and-a-half to two years now. And it's taken about a year-and-a-half for Facebook to develop many of the features that are currently coming out on [Facebook] Messenger and WhatsApp around payment and commerce.

So here's the difference: in China you can go on any social network and pretty much anything that you see you can click and buy, whereas on Facebook, on [Facebook] Messenger, on WhatsApp, on any of these platforms, they have a different business model, or actually, they do not have a business model. They are not making any money. So Facebook played the long game and now they are making lots of money. But it's all advertising based and if you think about basic economics, advertising drives behavior. And usually people want to drive purchasing behavior so advertising revenue is actually a subset of the actual commerce revenues. Advertising drives game revenue; advertising drives commerce revenue. 

Facebook makes money on advertising while in Asia, social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo make money on commerce such that they get a cut of the actual purchase. So if you control the payment platform as well as the user, it's much more powerful than just controlling the advertising. You can potentially have an order of magnitude of greater revenue. So we will see an interesting battle played out in other countries like India, where Facebook and WhatsApp are strong and where Chinese players have backed local commerce companies and local payment companies. So it'll be the Indians backed by the Chinese against U.S. heavyweights like Facebook and Amazon. And that'll be interesting to see how things play out, especially in comparison to China, because the Chinese retail industry is under a huge amount of pressure since people don't carry wallets or buy offline anymore. 

Adam: Given that Facebook is entering new markets like India, and with the other Chinese-backed providers which have payments attached to the virtual and social experiences, how do you think Facebook might localize their products or customize in those particular markets in terms of payments? 

William: Facebook does not localize. They have an “one size fits all” strategy. Facebook in the U.S. is the same as Facebook in India. They can add features, and they are adding payment methods. But the bottom line is that a product designed for one market does not always work in another market. So far Facebook has been very successful in Southeast Asia and same with WhatsApp, but they are somewhat bounded by the fact that they do not localize. So what you'll see play out is global companies like Facebook and Google increasingly going up against local players backed by Chinese companies like Alibaba and Tencent.

I think it is like the next World War. It's not going to be fought with the tanks and bullets and guns, but between global companies. Instead of having 80 percent of the money made by 20 percent of the companies, it's 99 percent of the money being made by 1 percent of the company.

More at the Harbinger China.

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request list.

Are you looking for more experts on innovation at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list. 

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Censorship will prevail, even when Facebook enters China - Kaiser Kuo

Kaiser Kuo

Mark Zuckerberg caused quite some controversy when plans emerged to censor Facebook to facilitate a possible return for the company to China again. Whether you agree or disagree, the way China censors the internet is more than just blocking a few Western sites, and will not go away says internet expert Kaiser Kuo in ChinaFile.

Kaiser Kuo:

Given China’s increasingly strict Internet censorship, it should surprise no one that any re-entry by Facebook would be conditional not only on the company’s acquiescing to censorship, but on its demonstrating the ability to carry it out to Beijing’s satisfaction. Equally if not even more troubling would be the requirement, all but inevitable, that Facebook store Chinese user data on servers in China, making that data accessible to Chinese courts and law enforcement. Even if Beijing deigns to allow Facebook a presence in China, Facebook will face a firestorm of criticism from human rights and data privacy activists. 

It will defend its decision by invoking the same logic that American proponents of engagement have always deployed. Some connectivity is surely better than none, which is essentially what Facebook has today: a tiny, inconsequential handful of China’s over 700 million Internet users are regular users of platforms like Facebook or Twitter. Facebook probably won’t make its case by suggesting that connecting China will bring about political change; it was, after all, suspicion of that sort of thing that got them blocked in the first place. They may instead point to the inherent good in connectedness, and note the evil—mistrust and misunderstanding—that arises in its absence. All this justifies compromise. 

Google faced a similar dilemma when it decided to enter China in early 2006. But the moral calculus has shifted in the intervening 11 years. Google may have been viewed with suspicion even then, but now—after various Color Revolutions and Arab Spring uprisings with the names of American Internet properties conveniently appended to them by the American media—Beijing will exact far greater compromise. China blocks far more foreign websites, and blocks them more aggressively, than it did then. Chinese users have excellent alternatives: social media platforms where their friends already are. They aren’t clamoring for Facebook, and those who want it have little trouble hopping the Great Firewall to get to it: nationalists bent on trolling pro-independence Taiwanese celebs hopped the wall in droves this past summer, after all. So Facebook has little leverage to speak of; it will play by Beijing’s rules or not at all. 

Indeed, Facebook’s only real card is the public relations value to Beijing of letting the company in: “See? All that nonsense about censorship was clearly overblown.” But it’s not. One of the regrettable effects of our use of the “Great Firewall” as a metonym for Chinese Internet censorship is that too many people equate censorship with the blocking of sites such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. In fact, the censorship of domestic Chinese sites is far more onerous, and impacts a far greater number of users. That won’t change with a Facebook entry. 

Whatever your posture toward Facebook for its willingness to compromise on freedom of expression in the name of engagement and greater global connectivity, the unblocking of Facebook to users in the People’s Republic of China, should it come to pass, must not be construed in any way as a loosening of censorship.

More viewpoints in ChinaFile.

Kaiser Kuo is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more internet experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

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Facebook makes more chance than Google in China - Kaiser Kuo

Kaiser Kuo

Western internet companies have a troublesome history in China, but - says internet veteran Kaiser Kuo in the Technology Review - Facebook has a bigger chance to reenter China than Google. "Google is not trusted."

Technology Review:

This past June, Google’s CEO, ­Sundar Pichai, said that he wanted the company to properly return to the country. “We want to be in China, serving Chinese users,” he said, speaking at the Code Conference. Tsui says there have been “rumors” that Google’s Play Store may enter China (the company declined to comment). Google’s Android mobile operating system is wildly popular in China, but the company’s ability to extract revenue from that position is limited because the Play Store isn’t ­available. 

Google’s troubled history with Beijing represents a considerable hurdle, however. “They are certainly not trusted,” says Kaiser Kuo, formerly director of international communications at the Chinese search engine Baidu and now the host of the Sinica podcast at China-focused media startup SupChina. Kuo, a well-respected voice on Chinese Internet issues, thinks Facebook’s China prospects look promising. “It’s likely that they will be in with some of their significant services within the coming year,” he says. “There is fairly high-profile engagement with high-ranking Chinese officials and ranking brass at Facebook. You can’t ignore those signals.”

More in the Technology Review.

Kaiser Kuo is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

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Advertising is dead, Google, Facebook and Whatsapp in trouble - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

The walled gardens of Whatsapp, Facebook and Google have lost great opportunities, and now they have to face Chinese competition as Tencent and others prepare expand into the next four billion users, outside China, told Shanghai-based innovation expert William Bao Bean last week at the Next16 conference in Hamburg. (from verbatim blogging).

Next16:

Tencent had 519 product groups - essentially independent companies. It got a bad reputation for killing startups. Tencent does Not have the innovators dilemma. They are constantly killing their own businesses. WeChat is one example. They killed the competition, and then they killed QQMobile, which was part of Tencent. They're growing 52% year on year - and aren't out of China yet. 

WhatsApp had a huge opportunity - and they sold out. They could have done stickers - but they didn't. Silly. Stickers are agreat way to communicate- efficinet and fun. So, Facebook stuck them in a corner, and built Messages instead. 

We live in a Messaging world. You can buy a car or a coke, you can crowdfund or transact. Facebook started Open, but chose a media model and closed themselves. WeChat has stayed open and become a platform - mainly for social commerce. And it's something not present in the west, but which is taking the rest of the world by storm. Content is king and data is queen. You make money by showing people stuff and getting them to buy it. Your friends sell you things, not advertisers. They've built a social commerce funnel. You enter fans with great content - about 10% will engage with that daily. About 5% of them will hit the store, and then 3% will buy something. 0.45% monthly conversion every month - without you paying out to get that conversion. Advertising is dead. This is the end of Google. 

The last four billion. South East Asia. South America. Africa. They're the next market. And the want the mobile-centric, mobile-only market approach, that is counter-intuitive to us who come from desktops. The walled garden markets of the west? Dead. Think of Google Play and Google Wallet. You need a bank accounts it doesn't work in emerging markets, so you can't make money there. The top companies in emerging markets are Chinese players you've never heard of. They're winning the last four billion. This is a war for future growth. And it's a pay-to-play market. 

Everyone looks up to Zuckerberg, because he launched a great product from his dorm. But he's made it impossible to create another Zuckerberg - because he's created an ecosystem where you need money to get in. When people are taking VC money - and spending most of it on Google and Facebook ads, then VC is broken.

More at Next16.

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more innovation experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Earlier this year we discussed with William Bao Bean how mobile payments are going to hurt traditional banks and credit card companies  

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Facebook faces more than censors in China - Sam Flemming

Sam Flemming

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, has gone to great lenght to appease China´s leadership in an effort to enter the largest internet market again. But, says Sam Flemming, an internet veteran based in Shanghai to Reuters. Local competition might even be a tougher challenge, unlike in the US where Facebook broke new ground.

Reuters:

"The Chinese have been social for years, and Facebook would be just one more option among many," said Sam Flemming, founder of Shanghai-based social media consultancy, CIC. 

"It certainly would have a certain amount of cache, especially among the more internationalized Chinese and foreigners living in China, but it would need a big push in awareness beyond this small group," Flemming said. 

Foreigners and Chinese citizens who want to access Facebook and other blocked sites must use special VPN software to get around China's firewall to do so, meaning a very limited number of Chinese currently use it.

More at Reuters.

Sam Flemming is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speaker´request form.

Are you interested in more internet experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

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China´s e-commerce: better in making money - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

When it comes to making money, Chinese e-commerce is more creative and successful, than any of their US counterparts, says VC William Bao Bean to the Washington Post.  However, Chinese start-ups need to show they can generate enough revenue to make the model work in the middle term.

The Washington Post:

“You go on Facebook and you can’t even buy anything, but on WeChat and Weibo you can buy anything you see,” said William Bao Bean, a Shanghai-based partner at SOS Ventures and the managing director of Chinaccelerator, a start-up accelerator... 

While U.S. firms focus on ad revenue, Chinese companies have become pacesetters in e-commerce. A more recent trend: live-streaming sites where people pay real money to reward performers with virtual gifts. (You sang beautifully, here’s a digital Lamborghini, dear.) 

Bean called the amount of money flowing through these apps “significant.” Like their peers in Palo Alto, Calif., however, Chinese start-ups need to show they can generate enough revenue to make the model work in the middle term.

More in the Washington Post.

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you interested in more e-commerce experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Facebook´s China competitors make real money - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

Most of the American internet companies like Facebook still make money through advertising, while their Chinese competitors like WeChat and Weibo make money through selling all you can think of, tells Shanghai-based VC William Bao Bean to AP. They are way ahead of Facebook.

AP:

Buoyed by that cash, China's tech start-ups are experimenting with new models that have the potential to make real money - and influence people around the globe. 

"You go on Facebook and you can't even buy anything, but on Wechat and Weibo you can buy anything you see," said William Bao Bean, a Shanghai-based partner at SOS Ventures and the managing director of Chinaccelerator, a start-up accelerator.

"Facebook's road map looks like a WeChat clone."... 

Because mass retail is relatively new here, Chinese e-commerce faces less competition from brick-and-mortar shops. And the middle class is exploding, accounting for 4 percent of the population in 2000 and 68 percent in 2012, according to research by McKinsey. By 2022, it will be 75 percent. 

While U.S. firms focus on ad revenue, Chinese companies have become pace-setters in e-commerce. A more recent trend: live-streaming sites where people pay real money to reward performers with virtual gifts. (You sang beautifully, here's a digital Lamborghini, dear.) 

Bean called the amount of money flowing through these apps "significant." Like their peers in Palo Alto, however, Chinese start-ups need to show they can generate enough revenue to make the model work in the middle term.

More in AP.

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more experts on e-commerce at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Earlier this year we discussed with William Bao Bean how Facebook has started to copy its Chinese competitors

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China is winning in social commerce - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

Whether China is copying or innovating is a useless discussion, says VC William Bao Bean to the South China Morning Post. Everybody is building on previous experiences, he says, but certainly in social commerce, how to sell online, China is way ahead compared to other parts of the world.

The South China Morning Post.

Is there any innovation in China, or does a copycat culture still exist?

Everyone copies each other, and talking about who copies whom is a waste of time. China is ahead in certain things and behind in others.

One of the areas in which it’s ahead is in social commerce. If you look at social media networks like Facebook today, you can go into a community or a group, but you can’t buy anything. But if you go into WeChat, anything that you can see, you can buy. WeChat is maybe 1.5 years ahead of Facebook in terms of social commerce.

China’s social networks are innovating far above Facebook and Twitter in social commerce. If you do something before someone else does, that’s innovation in my book.

Another industry where China is ahead in innovation is entertainment. The Chinese gaming market is larger than the US market and many more people are spending more money on entertainment on their phones.

For example, the freemium model for games [where a product or service is offered free but charges are made for other services] was conceived in Korea and later taken up by China. The freemium model came about because users would play pirated games and no one would pay for games in Asia. So the companies had to innovate and come up with a new model for games, where users can play, but are encouraged to pay for items, or boosts, within the game. This is an innovation that started out in Asia, with the West adopting it later.

More in the South China Morning Post.

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more speakers on e-commerce? Do check out this list.

Earlier this year we discussed with William Bao Bean how mobile payments are killing the profits of traditional banks and credit card companies.

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Can a Mark Zuckerberg emerge from Asia? - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

Can Asia produce its own Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook? "No," noted the reporter of E27 from a speech Chinaccelerator director William Bao Bean gave at the Echelon Asia Summit 2016. Unfortunately, the reporter did not wait for the second part of the speech, and William explains why Google and Facebook changed the playing field at Facebook.

E27:

The second day of Echelon Asia Summit 2016 began with a shocking statement by William Bao Bean at the CREATE stage. “What I’m afraid of is that we won’t have any Mark Zuckerberg from Asia,” the MOX MD and SOSV Partner stated. 

“If you look at recent million dollar funds raised lately, all of them are going to ads, transferred to Google and Facebook,” he further elaborated. 

This happens because in mobile-first markets like China, user acquisition and retention are very different from that of the US and Europe. 

“The problem with China is that there is very little virality. If you’re a game developer in the US, you need at least 500,000 users [and then you can get] your product out there,” he said. 

“We see the China market as walled gardens. The route to acquire users is closed and you have to pay. It’s easy to start up today, but as a VC, all my money goes to marketing, and it’s silly,” he explained.

More at E27.

But here is what went wrong in the article, according to William:

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more speakers on innovation at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Earlier this year William Bao Bean discussed the unique way China´s internet giant Tencent is operating.

 

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Why Facebook has a hard time overtaking WeChat - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

Facebook in trying to copy many elements from Tencent´s WeChat, but has a hard time in overtaking the dynamic Chinese service, says innnovation expert William Bao Bean at MumBrella."“WeChat – whether they’re good or bad – the bottom line is they are about 18 months ahead of Facebook."

MumBrella:

“WeChat – whether they’re good or bad – the bottom line is they are about 18 months ahead of Facebook,” he said. “Facebook is pretty old school. If you go on to Facebook and look around you cannot buy anything. You go on to WeChat and look around, you can buy everything,” he noted, referring to the advanced e-commerce features on WeChat that are absent on Facebook. 

“Facebook is a media company. I totally agree with Martin Sorrell [WPP’s chief executive] on this point, at least. Facebook killed virality. But WeChat keep it open, they allow virality and the way they make money is through revenue share on transactions,” Bao Bean explained, adding that Facebook is likely to go down WeChat’s path towards commerce and “clone” its model. 

“I think over time Facebook will have an issue, because if they keep charging everybody [brands] to share something as opposed to moving to a commerce model, where they make money on purchases, they will have a huge monetisation problem in the future,” he predicted. 

“From what I understand of the Facebook roadmap it’s a giant WeChat clone. They will go there, eventually,” he added later in his talk. 

During a candid presentation, Bao Bean, who was previously with SingTel Innov8 before moving on to SOSV, and who is the MD of two accelerator firms, Chinaccelerator and Mobile Only Accelerator (MOX), pressed home the virtues of e-commerce over advertising. 

“In Facebook, there is a community, but you can’t do anything with it, they’re [fans] just sitting there. The key thing with WeChat is that you can drive them to download apps, but more importantly you can drive them to buy shit,” he said.

More at Mumbrella.

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more innovation experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.

Earlier we discussed with William Bao Bean the relationship between Facebook and WeChat.

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Is Facebook a WeChat clone? - William Bao Bean

William Bao Bean

Chinese companies have often been blamed for copying Western innovation and patents. But now China takes the lead in mobile innovations, the argument seems to go the other way. Many of the features we know from WeChat we see now popping up at Facebook. Innovator William Bao Bean discusses whether Facebook has become a WeChat clone.

William Bao Bean is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

Are you looking for more innovation experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list. The year of the monkey is going to be the year of eight disruptive Chinese innovations. Read out list here.
Earlier William Bao Bean discussed earlier the rather revolutionary way Tencent, the mother company of WeChat, has organised its operation. You can hear his contribution here.

New US internet companies succeed by complying with the government - Ben Cavender

Ben Cavender

China has seen a wave of new internet companies, actually succeeding. A surprise after Google, Facebook, Twitter saw them locked out. Business analyst Ben Cavender tells in Quartz what the trick is: complying with the Chinese government. Names? Evernote. LinkedIn. Uber.

Quartz:

After Google’s exit, those three firms have yet to come back. But in recent years, other American internet companies have found a degree of success in China—or at least a bit more stability than their predecessors. 

The solution involves sacrifice—hand over data and control, and the Chinese government will hand you the keys to the market. 

“If you want to develop an internet business in Chinese now, you have to be willing to work with the Chinese government, even if that means censoring content or sharing access to your data,” Ben Cavender, principal at the China Market Research Group, told Quartz... 

By now, some may say that question sounds downright passé. Google and Facebook, the posterboys for internet companies shut out of China, are now knocking on its door. 

Facebook has reportedly opened an office in Beijingand aspires to develop a consumer-facing product. Mark Zuckerberg’s China infatuation seems carefully staged. Google, meanwhile, is rumored to be working on an app store for China, as a way to reach consumers without relying on its search engine. 

“Google decided to take a stand, and they effectively locked themselves out of the market,” Cavender said. Businesses must ask, “How important is China to our growth and what is our long-term perspective on what to do there?” he adds.

More in Quartz.

Ben Cavender is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

Are you looking for more internet experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.  

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Facebook blocks famous Chinese writer - Ian Johnson

+Ian Johnson 

Facebook has suspended the account of the exiled Chinese author Liao Yiwu, writes journalist Ian Johnson in the New York Times. Not or the first time, the censorship of the internet giant hits the wrong person. Liao opposes the move:  "I didn’t knuckle under the Communist Party, and I won’t knuckle under Facebook.”

Ian Johnson:

On Tuesday, the exiled writer, Liao Yiwu, said that he had received a notice from Facebook stating that his account had been temporarily suspended, and that it would be blocked permanently if he continued to violate the site’s rules against nudity.

The move follows Facebook’s decision last week to delete a picture of the self-immolation of a Buddhist monk that had been posted by the Tibetan writer Woeser...

Facebook officials say that all of this is irrelevant to the case involving Mr. Liao, who lives in exile in Germany.

“Facebook has a pretty simple policy with regard to nudity: We prohibit it,” the company said in a statement. “The individual in question repeatedly posted pictures containing nudity. As a result, consistent with our existing policies and standard operating procedure, we removed the pictures and temporarily blocked the account. Any suggestion that we took action because of politics, philosophy or theoretical business interests is complete nonsense.”

Mr. Liao said the case was not that simple. In an interview at his home in Berlin, the 56-year-old writer said he had covered up the genitalia of the streaker in the photo after people pointed out that it might violate Facebook rules. He cut out a picture of the former Chinese leader Mao Zedong and pasted it over the man’s groin in the photo. His account was suspended several days after doing so.

“They said I’d have to change my ways or I’d never post again on Facebook,” Mr. Liao said. “But I didn’t knuckle under the Communist Party, and I won’t knuckle under Facebook.”

The protester in the picture was at a demonstration that is an annual occurrence led by the dissident artist Meng Huang in support of Mr. Liao’s friend, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo. In December 2012, Mr. Liao and Mr. Meng went streaking in Stockholm on the anniversary of the prize ceremony for Mr. Liu, whose absence had been marked by an empty chair. In 2013 and 2014, Mr. Meng streaked alone in Stockholm, but Mr. Liao posted pictures of the events.

Whereas Russia has made direct requests to Facebook to block the pages of protesters and critics, the move against Mr. Liao is unlikely to be the result of a demand by the Chinese government. According to a report on censorship requests from governments that Facebook issued in 2014, the company received no appeals from China in 2013.

Instead, Mr. Liao and others said they believed that Internet trolls on the government payroll — known as the 50-Cent Party for the money they receive for each pro-government comment or post they make — were behind the complaint.

Such tactics are also common in Vietnam, where so-called opinion shapers report online posts by critics of the government, prompting the shutdown of the critics’ pages.

The situation is problematic for Facebook, because it will most likely never be able to satisfy Chinese censors, said Emily Parker, a New York-based writer and the author of “Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices From the Internet Underground,” a book on Internet activism.

“China is a really attractive market, and companies like Facebook would love to get in,” Ms. Parker said in a telephone interview. “But there would be a huge P. R. backlash if they decided to play by Chinese censorship rules.”

“And even if they did play by those rules, they still might not succeed in China,” she continued. “They would likely have to compete with local players who were more trusted by Chinese authorities.”

More at the New York Times.

Liao Yiwu

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How protectionism helped China´s internet players - Shaun Rein

+Shaun Rein 

Author Shaun Rein has to defend his book The End of Copycat China: The Rise of Creativity, Innovation, and Individualism in Asia, against the blockade of internet companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter in an interview with Richard Heffner. This is how China´s protectionism has helped domestic firms.

Richard Heffner´s Open Mind:

HEFFNER: But, but they’re closing off their innovation in the sense that it can’t be an international experience yet and, and Twittter can’t be born out of China because … 

REIN: Well, that’s where I disagree with you. Okay? And, and here’s why … the actual protectionism actually has helped proliferate innovation in China. So, in, in the Internet mobile space … especially mobile space, which is sort of the theme of my new book … The End of Copycat China … because the Chinese players didn’t have to compete against well-funded Twitter/Facebook, they were able to make mistakes. 

Initially they had inferior products, so you had companies like, you know, Sina, like Ren-Ren come up with virtual clones. Because they were protected, Chinese consumers had no choice, they had to use them. 

But over the last five years some of these firms have gotten really great at research and development and they’re actually more powerful than when you … then, then the American companies right now. 

Because they’ve been, you know, competing in a non-competitive environment. And they’ve now started to go abroad. So “WeChat” which is ten cents company, actually has replaced Facebook as the biggest social media population in Indonesia in less than ten months. 

I was in Indonesia in Q1 of 2013 … and Facebook was all the rage. Indonesians had never hear of “WeChat”. By the end of the year when I went back, everybody was using “WeChat”. 

I was in South Africa earlier this year, people everywhere in South Africa were using “WeChat”. So what we’re now …

Much more in Richard Heffner´s Open Mind.

Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

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What Western e-commerce can learn from Taobao - Benjamin Joffe

+Benjamin Joffe 

Alibaba´s e-commerce platform Taobao excels in integrating social functions, says internet expert Benjamin Joffe in CIO. Although it specifically focuses on Chinese buyers, not those in the west.

CIO:

Alibaba is crafting social-networking platforms specifically to complement two of its core operations. The beta version of a Web site with Facebook-style applications and a Twitter-style feed is being grafted onto Taobao.com, Alibaba's auction and retail Web site, a spokeswoman said. A more professional platform that the spokeswoman likened to LinkedIn is being added to Alibaba.com, the group's business-to-business e-commerce operation.

The entertainment-based platform for Taobao in particular combines standard social-networking functions with original features that promote online purchases. It goes a step beyond efforts to mix e-commerce and social networking by Western companies like Amazon.com and Facebook, said Benjamin Joffe, CEO of digital strategy and research company +8* (Plus Eight Star).

Western companies could potentially benefit by adding social functions like those on the Taobao platform, but the site is also uniquely suited for China's young Internet user base, he said...

Taobao's efforts may have more success (than Amazon or Facebook), partly because users will enter its social-networking platform knowing that it is based on an e-commerce site, said Joffe, the analyst. "They don't need to explain too much to their users," said Joffe. "It will feel very natural because commerce is what Taobao is all about in the first place. They are just adding social features to do it better." The young majority in China's base of Internet users has caused online games, entertainment and instant-messaging applications to grow faster then e-commerce in the country, Joffe said. Taobao is now drawing on those proven products to drive its own expansion. It was the first large e-commerce site to offer instant messaging, and social networking is a natural next step for its expansion, said Joffe.

More in CIO. Benjamin Joffe is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form. Are you looking for more internet experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check our recent list. 

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