Exploring China SNS, MicroBlog environments and their differences to the west, Ch. 4

Netizens expectation difference between China and the west

Micro blogging service is like a phone line. By itself, it doesn't do anything. What it gives us is a reliable, simple, infrastructure to communicate with members of our community. Hence, the more terminal device it supports, the more useful it is for the users.

Netizens in China generally expects to go online and the service would come with a bunch of content and services to entertain them.
Netizens of the west has a history of regarding online services as "tool" and they are quite prepared and happy to create their own content and community as long as the online service make things easy for them.

Digu, a Chinese twitter service, has added my name to the recommended list a couple of weeks ago. In the first few days after the list goes online, I have 1000+ new followers. I made a point to visit their home page, and find that many new users ask things like "What's there to do here??"

It is like you enter a very clean, well constructed room, in the middle of nowhere by yourself, and you ask the wall "What kind of fun can I have here?"

Imagine a different scenario...
A college student in United States is told there is a empty house available in town for anyone who likes to use it. You just have to bring your friends and activities there.

The difference is: In the west, netizens are used to look at online services as a platform; and they expect themselves to come up with creative ways to make use of the platform to generate benefits that suit them. The expectation that it provides built in entertainment is very minimal.


French Open, Digu 和 Twitter, Photo Blogging 不同的体驗 (from 白社会 diary)


1. 其中一項分别是上載相片工能. 这一点足以給用户不同的体驗.

Photo integration into the message makes Digu more fun and easier in photo blogging.

前兩天是法國网球公開大賽總決賽, 我剛開始實習用Digu wap 做 photo blogging (相片嘀). Nokia 5800 攝拍LCD电視萤幕的 效果真不錯. 照片幾乎有現場的感覺. 今天的智能手机加上方便的相片嘀工能, photo Digu 有推動寫生日常接觸到有趣味的事物. 昨天晚上帶一鼓跟大家分享的熱誠, 又緊張地捕足 Federer 和 Solderling 特殊的表情,希望能容納到这場法网的精絮. 雖然 Twitter 平台有 Twitpic, 但是在 Twitter 不能同時看到大家上載的相片在條文裡,不爽.

The past two days were French Open finals. I have just started to play around with the Digu WAP site and its Photo Digu feature. The Nokia 5800 takes pretty good pictures of my Low Defintion 30" LCD TV. If you don't know I am watching it on TV from home, you may think that I am watching it live in Paris as some of the photos looks as if taken live at Roland Garros.
Check out the photo digus here: http://digu.com/kittysanhk
The in message photo feature offers a very different photo micro blogging experience because when you see the list of photo messages shown list on the same page, the story telling effect is much more powerful.


2. 中國微博文化處於 Twitter 早期的用户皆段

Micro blogging in China is similar to the early days of Twitter.

先前雖然知道 Fanfou 这个微博平台, 但先入為主在短短兩个月在 Digu 平台累积了不少聊天和分享的朋友. 这群朋友形成了現時研究的核心, 也是每參舆新SNS服務時都希望邀請的朋友. 人本就是群体動物, 是常理吧.
Fanfou 已上綫兩年. Digu 只上綫三个月, 还在 beta 階段. 新上綫的 social media 平台都需要提供主动和新用戶聊天,幫用戶盡快組織黏度,務求達到不斷更新的習慣.


Even though I know Fanfou has been around, my first experience with micro blogging in China is with the latest entry, Digu. In two months time, I have accumulated a lot of 'friends' in the service and I have become very comfortable in using it throughout the day to chat with and share things with this community. This community has also become the 'core' group whom I will invite when I venture to explore other SNS services in China.

Fanfou has been around for about 2 years and Digu has only been live, still in beta, for about 3 months. The China micro blogging service industry is at a very infancy stage much like Twitter's early days. Again, because of the netizens cultural difference from the west, the Chinese micro blogging SP needs to provide more hand holding to the majority of the users to engage them to develop the habit of publish messages

Exploring China SNS, MicroBlog environments and their differences to the west, Ch. 3

By now, I am struggling from being overwhelmed by the many choices, and available SNS, blogging and micro blogging services just in China alone. In the west, there are a large number of applications for the purpose of managing and sync'ing your tweets to other blogs, microblogs and SNS such as the Tweetdeck, Twirls, HelloTxt, FriendFeed, etc...
In China, while there are much less third party apps for the tweeter like services such as FanFou, Digu; these services offer their own sync'ing solutions like Hellotxt. One can easily get into an infinite loop situation if not careful in configuring what sync to what.

Last week, I Deleted my Twitter account "kittysanhk' because I got freaked out by the distraction caused by the many 'interesting' tweets from people I followed. I realize the productivity in my research has reached a situation of information overload, and my brain has become so fragmented and my writing/blogging productivity has dropped to ZERO except for the 140 char micro blogging if you call my conversational and occassional sharing of things I read 'blogging'.

I took a time out from Twitter and in a few days my mind seem to settle and I am able to re-focus my research on China's mobile and social media services and the differences with the west.

I started writing in sohu.com's SNS, called 白社会. It fills a slightly different purpose than this blog. In the 白社会 diary, I feel comfortable to write partial thoughts like I would in the old fashion diary. And that migration fro the 140 char habit, to longer diary entry, clears up my writer's block and allow me to return to this blog post.

My apology for the cut and paste inclusion of my 白社会 diary entry here, some of which are written in Chinese. I will in future include an English translation of the Chinese diaries for this blog.


Translation of my 3rd diary entry in 白社会

June 6, started to explore Fanfou. Fanfou's user interface looks almost identical to Twitter.

I decided NOT to configure 'sync' on any of the social media services. I prefer to use SNS, microblog as a two way conversational relationship with the user community on those services; and not use them as a one way 'broadcast' vehicle.

When I sign on to 白社会 every day, it has a cute feature that asks me to 'punch card', like a worker punch the clock upon arrival at work. Each time I punch the card, I would earn some 'gold coins'. I am still not used to the SNS culture in China where these entertaining features are in their DNA.

I started with 0 follower in FanFou. I wonder how long it would take me to gain the first follower. For the record, I made my first fanfou tweet on June 6, at 5:30pm.

I have used Digu for about 2 months and have 1510 followers as of this afternoon.
I have 0 follower in FanFou. I have re-joined Twitter two days ago and have 12 followers.
I lost a follower in the last hour.. I wonder if it's because today, I tweeted primarily in Chinese.

I updated my Twitter Bio to: Follow me on my journey in exploring SNS, microblog in China and discover the differences with the West.


我的SNS,微博客这兩个月的个人体驗 - 第三回

六月六日,開始飯否旅程..同Twitter UI 一樣...

決定不做同步! 感覺还是做双向溝通那種用户,而不是單向广播的!

还是覺得登陸白社会每天打咔領取5个,10个小金币好挍笑. 内地的SNS都是大家的遊戲室..邊玩邊做傳媒,要慢慢習惯. 難度Learn only when you have fun是这些平台的DNA?

吾知要多久才有飯否用户發現,跟随我呢? 六月六日約5:20pm 在飯否發送第一个信息. 记录

用了Digu兩个月,現有1510跟随者. 在飯否0个跟随者.

剛更新了Twitter的自述: Follow me on my journey in exploring SNS, microblog in China and discover the differences with the West.

白社会 日誌 - 一 : 我的SNS,微博客这兩个月的个人体驗

各位認識我的朋友知道我的中文能力有限. 不过在白社会內我希望盡力用中文. 寫得不好請見谅.

昨天,我删掉了Twitter帳户. 过去四星期,每天安排時間上不同 SNS(Facebook,Linkedin,Wealink),微博客

(Twitter, Digu), 閱讀 blogs, Google Reader feeds; 總是覺得 Twitter 干扰了过往网上研究的集中能力

. 很多following的朋友只是將原來Blog的内容或新聞在Twitter上加以推荐. 发现不知不觉地浪費了不少時間而对研究工作

贡献不大.

但是,在Digu微博平台,有聊天的,也有國内新鲜資信,另有表達各種心情和我較少接觸的中國文化, 不同類的Digu朋友,上Digu時的心惰是很舒服.

之前,一直对 Facebook 不感興趣. 相片喜欢從Flickr分享,有時用Vox做mobile photo blogging, 朋友,家人連係

用Email就完全足够. 不过最近參加了香港Media MeetUp group, Facebook 的Group 和 Event 功能就大派用場.

我一直对 Linkedin 的專業性会員质素十分有好感. 也多次被Head Hunter在Linkedin 找到. 最近參加了幾个Discussion Group. 不幸有不少 "discussion" 都是自我推銷个人,产品,服務等..

下回再跟大家分享: 總括这兩个月的經歷的心德..

Made in Hong Kong, Happenings in Hong Kong

Kanchoo, a Simple and Elegant iPhone app for premium news publishing

Today, I met with Kanchoo, a Hong Kong base startup, and got a life demo of their content management system and the Kanchoo native iPhone application. The web based Content Management System is very easy to use. A news media person will take no time to learn how to enter news categories and articles into the CMS. Within minutes of "Publishing" the newly added articles, the content shows up beautifully on the iPhone. The Kanchoo application has all the nice reader features one expects from reading news on the iPhone. Their web site has a good summary and video demo. The product is scheduled to launch in May. Please wish them the best of success! It is made in Hong Kong!!

Who can use Kanchoo? If you are a news media, government agencies, academic institutions who have a steady volume of news publication and wish to delivered on the iPhone without worrying about the technical know how, Kanchoo can be your answer!


Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, on Charlie Rose Mar 06, 2009 tip #1

The interview has so much good information that I had taken 4 hours to watch the video in many pauses and written almost a full transcript of the interview. Over the next few weeks, I will take apart Schmidt's insight and views on various topics from this interview and apply to the topics discussed in this blog.

#1 How to decide the approach to monetize user generated content?

Since I just met with Kanchoo today, I thought I'll mention a few related comments from Schmidt on the topic of content publishing. Schmidt echoed many content publishers struggle in the challenge in monetizing user generated content. Schmidt categorize user generated content into three groups. If content has a massive audience, well he uses a really massive number: 20 Billion, then advertising is the way to go. If audience is "smaller", say 20 millions, he suggests using micro payment. The micro payment can be in the form of 1 cent, 3 cents, 5 cents for a viewing. If the content is of high premium value, such as research report contents. They have a very small audience but content is of high value to them, and those businesses or individuals likely can afford to pay for the specialized content. This third category is best to use subscription charge.

Well, the beauty of democracy and freedom of speech is it allows varying views to be expressed and heard. Wired Magazine 16.03 has an interesting and yet somewhat extreme view of the future of business, not constrained to content publishing. FREE! Why $0.00 is the future of business.



Web Wednesday, a social mixer for digerati of Hong Kong

Also learned today that Web Wednesday Hong Kong's next social is next Tuesday, April 7! Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress will be speaking about "The Bare, Naked Realities of Blogging". Click here for more information on Web Wednesday.

Why this blog? DIY Mobile University in Hong Kong

The journey to discover and share mobile information in Hong Kong

Have you had an experience when you have a great passion on an idea and find that there was hardly any information available in print or online media? I must say I have taken for granted that anything I am interested to learn about, there's always more information on the web than I can manage to study. However this is not so true about mobile technology and businesses in Hong Kong. Having a great deal of interest in mobile work and living in Hong Kong, it seems starting this blog can benefit many like myself. Here's a journey that focus on mobile information in Hong Kong, but will undoubtedly touch on regional mobile stories for a more comprehensive view of Hong Kong mobile industry.

A note of thanks to Tomi Ahonen

The last time I had a mentor is when I started working for Sun Microsystems in 1988. I knew how having a mentor can make a huge difference in shaping the path and growth both in our personal as well as professional domains.
Tomi is known by many in the world as a visionary in mobile industry. As a debut of this blog, it is only fair for me to say my thanks publicly to Tomi who has been so generous in offering his insights, knowledge and most importantly, encouragement to anyone who has a passion on any idea domain to be free to explore and experiment the world of blogging. "It's the people whom you'll meet and their comments and sharing that result from your blogging that makes it rewarding."

Where does technology belong in media in Hong Kong?

It was an unexpected place but I am happy all the same to find out about the major local media companies in Hong Kong from this BBC page on Hong Kong dated Dec 2008.

Having come back to Hong Kong from Silicon Valley, it's a habit to look for the technology section in the newspaper. Having looked through all the local newspapers listed at this BBC page, I found SCMP has a weekly Technology section. The Standard online technology section has two articles both dated early March. The Chinese papers do not have a separate technology section. The 20 minutes research tells me that this journey is going to be fun and exciting because it'll be challenging!

Talking mobile

There is an iPhone Application Development training class, April 20-22, 2009, in Hong Kong offered by JadeTower, a Hong Kong base technology startup. Disclaimer: I have not met the folks in this company nor taken this training before. But I will be meeting up with them soon and having a look at some of the iPhone technologies they are launching.

Better be late than never.
We just missed the 2nd Mobile Film Festival in Hong Kong last week. Here's the site to watch all the award winning mobile films this year.
Note that these productions are not meant to be generated using the mobile. Rather, these are either short films (3 min) or movie trailers formatted for viewing on the mobile handsets. I hope in the future, the festival will shift towards more mobile generated films.

"Empowering 100 youths to join the fastest growing industry in the world: mobile"

This week, I am start a multi months research to interview students and practitioners in Hong Kong's academic world hoping to learn a few things.

1. What are young people's interest and what motivates them to explore and learn new things
2. What are their views in using mobile to "express" themselves.
3. What tools do they know and what experience do they have to do mobile contents?

I encourage young people to think of the mobile as a utility that influence their everyday way of life. They can expand their relationship to the mobile handset to not limit themselves to be just users. Rather, the mobile is a creative tool which they can both express themselves personally, engage with the industry commercially, and their future work place will see large number of jobs requiring mobile technology skills.

DIY Mobile University, build by the community, use by the community

There are plenty of tools for those with creativity to build user generated content on the web already. The mobile application development industry is growing fast and they too will have many tools to create user generated content for the mobile.

Drop us a comment to share with us any mobile tools and stories that you have.
There is no mobile focus university program today that gives a comprehensive curriculum to train our young minds to become a mobile professional. The Generation-C, a concept well elaborated in Communities Dominate Brands, grow up acquiring much of their knowledge from the internet and mobile services. Why not let the community take the first step in helping to build a DIY Mobile University so Generation-C can have a place to start preparing themselves for the fast growing mobile industry which is in great shortage of mobile skilled workers. We'll do our bit here in this blog to contribute pieces of learning we gathered by taking a close look at HK as well as Asia Pacific mobile industry developments.