Monthly Archives: November 2008
You can take the Huang out of the streets…
The big news in the Chinese tech sector this week is the ongoing drama of Huang Guangyu, founder and chairman of China’s largest electronics retailer GOME. Huang, one of the richest men in China, is currently being held under investigation for “suspected economic crimes”.
I find it somewhat astounding, but a bit unsurprising, that Huang may have sacrificed his career, status and fortune to help bump up his brother’s drugs/medical equipment company, Shandong Jintai Group, with a bit of illegal share price manipulation.
Exploring Shanghai startups with China 2.0–Part 2
What follows is the continuation of my recent tour of Shanghai’s burgeoning collection of innovative Web companies as part of the China 2.0 tour (see Part 1).
Friday morning I caught up with the rest of the crew for an enlightening breakfast meeting with Gary Rieschel, founder and managing director of Qiming Venture Partners, where we discussed some of the major differences that foreign businesses face when doing business in China. One of the most interesting topics that came up revolved around the fact that Chinese tend not to host company in their home like we do in the West.
A few changes around here
For a few months now I’ve wanted to change the look of this site, but never seem to have the time to do it. So, in an effort to at least get the site partly doing what I want it to, I’ve started making some changes. I’ll be tweaking some design elements over the next …
Exploring Shanghai startups with China 2.0–Part 1
I was recently invited to take part in the inaugural edition of the China 2.0 Tour, an event organized by The China Business Network, CNReviews and Web2Asia.The tour was designed to allow high-profile Western bloggers and industry professionals access to some of the most exciting Chinese Web companies, in an effort to spread better understanding of both China and the Chinese market globally.
So far away
It’s rare that I feel much in the way of homesickness. The ties that pulled at me when I first left Canada slowly loosened and then let go at some indeterminate moment of my expatdome. But today, today they drew tight and pulled hard. I love you grandma, and I’ll never forget the infinite ways …
G-Fox gets Juice’d
Upon the release of Google Chrome back at the start of September, I closed down Firefox with a tear in my eye.Chrome, like its namesake, is one slick customer, and for the most part I’ve not regretted the switch for my daily browsing habits. However, I do miss the addons. Like, really, miss them.
China Two Point Oh Yeah!
As anyone following me on Twitter no doubt knows, I hit up the Shanghai leg of the China 2.0 tour this past Thursday and Friday. I’m a bit behind in posting about it, as it took me a few days to process the massive amount of brain-feed I crammed into those 48 hours. Though I’m …
Karmatic Moment of the Week: Snake Rescue
I got an early phone call from my friend and neighbour Kevin today. It’s not odd that he called, he often calls, but it did seem weird it was only 9 a.m. “Ryan, can you come outside for a minute, I need a hand.” In slippers and pajamas I wander out into the apartment building’s …
My tech-nically perfect Xmas wishlist
Though I feel that it’s a bit early, both in my presence here on CNET and just generally in a seasonal sense, to start asking for things, I’m happy to participate in the CNET Asia bloggers X’mas Wishlist group writing project.And so, Santa, check your “nice” list and get out your stylus, as what follows is my X’mas 2008 Wishlist (in no particular order):
China’s microblogging platforms
A new post at Adam Schokora’s 56minus1 has a great rundown of China’s various microblogging platforms. Like the seminal Twitter, many of the Chinese counterparts adhere to what have become microblogging norms: Using @’s to reply to other users, a set limit to size (i.e. Twitter’s 140 character limit) and various SMS and Instant Messaging …
