Chinese Blogger Con 2007

Word of Mouth Marketing and Business Bottom Line
Keso, Blogger god
Jim Sang
Lu Xinxin, Feedsky
Liu Xinhua (Moderator)
Vista
Kaiser Kuoboo!

What kind of word of mouth marketing is acceptable, profitable?
——–
Lu Xinxin:
Talking about having read about books on high-profile bloggers, who recommend them, and from there going to buy them…blogs/2.0 websites have the same effect…
——–
Keso:
Ref. to Lu Xinxin’s purchase choice above…would you still buy those books if you knew the blogger had received money to recommend those books? How to know someone is recommending books because they really like them? Corporations can’t tell the difference between word-of-mouth and advertising….and authentic word-of-mouth cannot be bought.
——-
Vista:
Re: bloggers taking money to get paid to blog (parallel to authors)
It’s important to differentiate just who it is that’s making the recommendation, what taste, ideas they put forth
——-
Unknown:
Talking about BlogBus.com having run an ad for a bar in Shanghai, and users being split between seeing it as an ad for a bar, and confusion that BlogBus itself was inviting them out to party…what’s key is looking at who is making the message (or advertisement), and how it’s being made…
——-
Jim Sang:

-W-O-M happens among people who share the same values, views, identification
-Talking about Apple employees having been offered the last Apple OS and not having much response
compared with Apple fans who stayed up night and day installing it, working out the bugs etc…and which has the most potential to spread buzz
-All companies want to get W-o-M buzz, but not all do, which again comes down to disparity between values of the company/product image…and what users/bloggers/readers are thinking/perceiving
-Potential for W-o-M exists, and the potential is great
——-
word of mouth is a virus
characteristics of virus
infectious…and..?
——–
The W-o-M role blogs play in a marketing campaign being explained
Gave them the product..
Communicated with them..
They blogged about it..
Readers responded..
[really advanced stuff!]
………..
…………………
………………………..
……….
…
…………….
Keso:
You might bring me a few customers, but the overall effect isn’t so great
Affects image
Bloggers are there for discussion
Not to be used to issue purchase orders etc
What response is given needs to be considered
A company needs to understand what its product users are thinking
Some companies think too simply of bloggers
Just a post or two and the customers will come buying
But things don’t work like this
Companies who think like this need to change their perspective
——-
Vista:
A lot of companies in Taiwan and Hong Kong approach WoM at the expense of integrity
What would be a good way of approaching WoM? Only time will tell………………

[A lot of what's being said on this panel seems too obvious to bother writing down, but I can't rule out the possibility that I'm missing their points. Is anyone reading this? Questions from the floor is coming soon...leave a question in the comments and I'll rush the microphone for you.]

Keso:
Some companies are in a big hurry to get buzz out on their product, I can understand that
But as a blogger, what you do online piles up
Sina, for example, trying to co-opt A-list bloggers, who refused
….
Explaining obvious cases of blogger promoting something they’ve clearly never tried, tested, used….advice to the companies: it’s completely transparent and we don’t like it at all.
—–
[I've lost hope on finding revelations from this panel. Where's Jenny? I need a prize, to get my mojo back. Although a balloon would suffice.]
….
[We're 55 minutes behind schedule...1 more panel before lunch.]
….
[I'd say only half the number of people that showed up yesterday is here now]
….
[gossip: Livid was actually here yesterday, but for those reasons that everyone seems to intuitively assume, he hid when it was his time to go up on stage]
…
[a rough list of those who ditched us: Rose Garden/LuQiu LuWei, Kaiser Kuo, Andrew Lih]

Music 2.0: The Conflicts and Value of Social Music Sharing
Terry (Moderator)
Yang Bo
Allen Guo
David Ding
Zhang Youwei
and special guests

Re: Music sharing overseas portrayed as a revolutionary sort of phenomenon

Yang Bo, from Douban.com
-many on stage work in the music industry
-half the music discussed on Douban is Chinese-language music, the other half non-Chinese
-Douban/web 2.0 brings those with obscure interests together (ie. Tibetan music groups more dynamic than Jay Chou groups)
——
Allen Guo
Talking about different ways to bring songs to users
Baidu Search
Digg model
the need for something that takes the work away from users to search songs down, and put what they want where they want it
——
(David Ding?)
There are users for every kind of music taste there is no matter how obscure
Key is how to allow these users to find each other
Experience tells us that ‘European’ and independent music is the….panacea for music sharing sites
Popular music is too easy to find
Sharing, finding and recommending of music
-Like when you find a song you like, how best to introduce that to a friend?
-And how to find it in the first place?
-Users need to be able to find the kind of music they like
——-
Zhang Youwei:
-Music recommendation software have the best prospects
-Users might not have a clear goal on what songs they want to find, just know that the kind of music they like can be found there
-The value is in this recommendation function
-Re: User activity, search histories are easy to analyze
-ie) Fans of Jay Chou also tend to like Jolin(?) Tsai, and power is in being able to make this connection
——
“Lucy”
Centre of Excellence for…Creation? Australia?
Researches the connectio/mutual influence between music and interactive internet
Particulary China
Which has developed a commercial music industry at a time when technology is forcing music companies from around the world to reconsider the impact of internet on content, but developed late, and copyright enforcement not strict, China has possibilities for experimentation that might not exist in somewhere like the US.
The global music industry being forced to reconsider their business models…with internet, mobiles
These companies stand to benefit to learn from China, for the above reasons
With all copyright debates, it’s in the interest of businesses to minimize risk for themselves (they need to make money, and copyright has traditionally been the key tool to that end)….business will always tend to stick with copyright, to control markets and keep making money
The tendency for users is to maximize cost
Look at how Chinese companies trying to make money are operating in China’s copyright environment…
Which is hard to accomplish if music/content is seen as a product
COmpared to thinking in terms of services, music services, and how those…generate wealth
As opposed to selling copyright on individual songs
-With web 2.0, this is the future (services)
———
Should record companies give money to 2.0 companies in exchange for promotion services?

Bo Yang: Conflicted…copyright needs to be protected, but…
-some record companies offer Douban free copyright to promote their artists
-record companies are getting clearer on the way things on the internet are going, but Chinese companies are not so clear
——-
(David Ding?)
Users expecting music for free is a reality that music companies cannot avoid…
That said, music companies need to think up new business models
The future will bring ‘artist development companies’, different modes of revenue
China still lacks a clear solution to the conflict btwn record companies and users/listeners (and artists)
——–
Zhang Youwei
“recommenders” of music very important
music sharing websites in China at present, in several aspects, are not that strong
———
David Ding
What’s most important is not developing a new business model (for record companies) so much as focussing on improving services to users
———-
…talking about independent/underground (internet?) musicians, and how they can expect to make money in this digital music file age…nothing new being said
———
Questions from the floor:
Q: How can music be better used in an educational context?
Lucy: What’s made commercial players so important in other markets, is their ability to maintain control over copyright, who pays for what….what will have to happen in China eventually is a transparent method of tracking what users are listening to, what they’re paying for….for artists associations or independent monitoring groups….and until then artists will remain disconnected from the profit system
———-
[time's up]

Keynote: Sharing Economy
Joichi Ito (伊藤穰一), Chairman, Creative Commons

Looking at sharing economy historically
The days when computers and devices could not be connected to phone lines
Then the internet came
Layers of open innovation:
TCP/IP: connecting the network
Ethernet: Connecting computers
Prior to TCP/IP, computers could not communicate with each other
When TCP/IP was released, possibly not the smartest move, but it was released for free
Ppl started using it
IP addresses were the advent of the internet
And then we had the WWW
The Web: Connecting content
TCP/IP (?) The beginnings of the Web could have been patented, but it was not
To our benefit

In the old days, one company would try and do all these things (ethernet, tcp/ip, the web, and even content)
Imagine a tel company trying to create employees doing all the things that we do
That’s how things used to be

What most of you here today won’t remember,
Before the internet
It was impossible to have open communication
What’s most important is that all these components are free….and shared
It’s a philosophy
Keep it open, don’t make it closed, share, everyone can cooperate
(more…)

Not naming names, but there are some missing faces this morning
Suckas
I’ll get all Jenny’s prizes today
Joi Ito is here
So is Livid
And Liu Xiaoyuan
And…I could go on
But could you stand it?
Back to Joi
Almost all I know about him is what I’ve read on Danah Boyd’s blog

And here’s some of what Wikipedia has on the 2.0 guru:

Ito returned to the U.S. to attend Tufts University near Boston as a computer science major, where he met, among others, Pierre Omidyar, later founder of eBay. Finding his course work too rigid and believing that learning computer science in school was “stupid”, Ito dropped out of Tufts to briefly work for ECD. Ovshinsky encouraged him to return to school. He enrolled at the University of Chicago in physics but dropped out on discovering, in his opinion, the program at Chicago to be to more oriented towards producing practical engineers than teaching physics with a goal toward intuitive understanding of the science.
…
Ito became a disk jockey working in nightclubs in Chicago such as The Limelight and The Smart Bar and to work with Metasystems Design Group to start a virtual community in Tokyo. Later, Ito ran a nightclub in Roppongi, Japan called XY Relax with help from Joe Shanahan of Metro Chicago/Smart Bar. He helped bring industrial music from Chicago (Wax Trax) and later the rave scene, including importing Anarchic Adjustment to Japan.

Ito was the Associate to Mr. Mount (the executive producer) on the film The Indian Runner.

Ito’s sister is Mizuko Ito, a cultural anthropologist studying media technology use, and the musician Cornelius (musician) is his second cousin.

Ito was one of Timothy Leary’s so-called “God Sons” – a close non-traditional family-like relationship said to have been conceived by Leary for a few of his friends.
…
Ito has written opinion editorials for the Asian Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and has published articles in numerous other magazines and newspapers. He has had regular columns in The Daily Yomiuri, Mac World Japan, Asahi Pasocom, Asahi Doors, and other media sources. His photographs have been used in the New York Times Online, BusinessWeek and American Heritage. He was on the early editorial mastheads of Wired Magazine and Mondo 2000. He has authored and co-authored a number of books including Dialog – Ryu Murakami X Joichi Ito with Ryu Murakami. He has hosted televisions shows including The New Breed and SimTV shows on NHK.
…
Ito is a venture capital and angel investor and was an early stage investor in Six Apart, Technorati, Flickr, SocialText, Dopplr, Rupture, Kongregate and other Internet companies.
…
Ito was listed by Time Magazine as a member of the “Cyber-Elite” in 1997. Ito was listed as one of the 50 “Stars of Asia” in the “Entrepreneurs and Dealmakers” category by BusinessWeek and commended by the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications for supporting the advancement of IT in 2000. He was selected by the World Economic Forum in 2001 as one of the “Global Leaders for Tomorrow” chosen by Newsweek as a member of the “Leaders of The Pack (high technology industry)” in 2005, and listed by Vanity Fair as a member of “The Next Establishment” in the October Issue, 2007.

Anything planned in coordination with the Con? I hear there’s a Peking Duck run (no, not you Richard) somewhere nearby tonight!

We are 20 minutes ahead of schedule! Balloon fight in my row after this talk:
Wikipedia in China
Shi Zhao
Andrew Lih partied too hard last night
Mountain/Mingli Yuan (moderator)
KJ
Someone else

What Wikipedia offers (aside to an answer to YeeYan’s earlier question) is the option for people to read an entry in their own language that is not English.

There are two versions of every Wikipedia page: the stable/saved version which is what the un-logined reader sees, and the behind-the-scenes version for everyone else.

Wikimania 2007 is in Taipei/Chinese Wikipedia Conference
43 countries attended

Wikipedia China is preparing for a ‘Wikipedia inspection team’
As Chinese Wikipedia Conference 2008 approaches

A Wikipedian conference was held in Hong Kong in August last year, and had people from all across the region.

[Feng37 asks: did you know that Wikipedia has both a simplified and a traditional Chinese version?]

Mingli Yuan puts forth a topic conversation:
What’s the difference between the blogging community and the wiki community?

Suddenly appeared guy says arguments do occur, but more often in wikipedia as users deal directly with each other, the difference it has compared to blogs (individual, personal).

Shi Zhao: says there is little overlap between Wikimaniacs and Bloggers, bloggers seldom making Wikipedia edits, and Wikimaniacs seldom keeping blogs. Why?

In Taiwan, KJ says, blogs are about ego…where people express themselves, can be very intense.
But wikipedia has a goal, and it also has its rules. (ie. u won’t find restaurant reviews there), and while overlap is also limited, it’s this which leads to conflicts.

Question from the floor:
Q: What motivates you to ‘write’ (modify) Wikipedia? Especially since it takes away from your blogging time.
Shi Zhao: What I like about WIkipedia, you can share your knowledge; wikipedia posts are written by groups, and while initially you shared one little part, in the end you learn about several others. It’s also a source of happines.

Wikipedia comes from open source software, and what it is is open source knowledge, very influenced by open source in general.
Q2: What if there were no “wall” between users and Wikipedia?
The suddenly appeared guy: Wikipedia’s spring will only arrive when people in China (are able to) make a habit of using it.

Shi Zhao: The wall isn’t so big a problem, WIkipedia is not-for-profit, so being blocked isn’t a problem…won’t be…

Q3[inaudible]
Shi Zhao: The problem is not as big as people imagine.
S.A.G.: Is WIkipedia’s group production style incompatible with Chinese culture? No, look at people that are doing it.
——
Shi Zhao: Only 10-20,000 regular editors of Wikipedia…(Chinese or English?)

Q4: I’m an elementary school teacher, and say my class wanted to use it to write a story
But there’s a problem, children’s grammar isn’t so good
So when discussing the difference btwn bloggers (more) and wikipedians (less), blogging is basic, anyone can do it….wikipedia too complex….so is there a way to make it more accommodating?
Shi Zhao: Global Voices’ Lingua project does just that, translating things into English.

KJ: There is something called WikiMedia (?) (Media Extension?) that you can download…like Global Voices’ Chinese-language site, which I helped set up….you can see who makes changes to blog posts, it’s not difficult…

Jenny found some eye-glasses…talk to her…and she’ll give you a present! (kidding, but you can try it and let me know what happens….btw day 1 of Chinese BlogCon 2007 is now over)

Dr. Pan Haidong
CEO and founder of Hoodong.com
I shouldn’t be here, he said, I don’t even have a blog
Something about hemorrhoids…
I didn’t get it but everyone else did!

‘I promise to wrap this up within 30 minutes’
And please respect me, he says, and so I gave Beifeng a sharp elbow in the ribs (he was sneaking a call)

Hoodong.com (“We do CHINESE WIKI”) is:
-the largest Chinese-language wiki in the world
-with 2,000,000 articles
-5,000,000 edits
-20,200,000,000 Chinese characters

-Hoodong sits in a rather awkward position
-Up against Chinese Wikipedia
-Started in July 2005
-Something like Wiki needs to localize before it can localize
-All the people he’s talked to, Jimmy Wales etc., have all agreed with that
-But how?
-HDWiki is the most-used Chinese wiki software
-Clear goal to make a brand name, and so on
-Characteristic of Chinese internet is focus on the entertainment (QQ)
-
[btw this guy is really funny, but a lot of the jokes r flying over my head...tomorrow I'm sitting at the back]
-HDWiki has been downloaded 200,000 times
-Hoodong is not responsible for zh.Wikipedia’s having been blocked (funny but serious too)

He’s got a picture of the Chinese Great Encyclopedia Complete Edition as it was from 1978-1993, shiny faded yellow plasticized hard covers…20,672 peoples’ efforts…77,859 entries….19800 RMB （approx. USD 2,655.00)

Wikinomics has had huge impact on him and his company, and he sees it as relevant to social development.

“Veni, Vedi, Wiki”
Pan Haidong
phd@hoodong.com

-emphasizing the import of applied wiki in education, for teachers, students and parents

Jenny’s looking for a woman to put forth a question
Asks Pan to give some examples
One teacher in Wenzhou, had students type 1-1o out for her, to see how far they’d progressed

Up on the irc overhead screen someone has written: ‘wikis with no users are not good wikis’

Starting soon
Jenny’s teasing us again about the 200 copies on the Facebook book she’s about to give away
Want one? Find a creative way to translate the feed in ‘rss feed’ into Chinese, write it down on a card, and throw it down in the bag down on the stage!

Gotcha! Jenny’s sticking to the plan and it’s actually Innovative Use of Wiki up next. Seems they’ve been whisked away by Jenny….so bathroom break go GO GO if you gotta….go.

Net translator, that is
YeeYan
Just one of the terrifying geniuses here this weekend, is on stage now
In 1996 he went to the US as an exchange student
He’s got a picture of a big hamburger on the overhead now
But this was 1996
Remember how ignorant we all were back then? We didn’t even have Carrefour in 1996!
So I went to the supermarket
Starving
Didn’t have my dictionary with me
So went all the way down the aisle
Finally found a word I recognized
“Hamburger”
Grabbed a bunch and went home
Opened up the bag
All hamburger buns
—–
Why do I think what I do is so important?
Because there’s such a huge gap between Chinese and English (not to mention other languages)
——
Zhang Lei’s got a PP up
1/7 of all women will develop breast cancer
China’s population is greater than the US’ at a ratio of 5:1
A search for “breast cancer” on Google brings up 70,000,000 hits
But the equivalent term in Chinese on Baidu brings up only 5,700,000.
——
YeeYan, which is actually a translation group/website, went online in Dec. 2006
And to date have translated over 3000 pieces, all on the internet
Over 500 translators
And an English site
….
Reading some samples of those now…

A lot of what YeeYan translates are articles related to health and medicine, and he’s just read one comment from a reader with a family member dealing with a serious illness.

Zhang Lei
www.yeeyan.com
lei@yeeyan.com

Question from the floor:
Q: Translation’s such a grueling task, how have you managed to get so many people motivated and organized?
A: If something is significant, finding people to do the task is easy…and it wasn’t overnight…lots had to be translated before people starting recognizing the website…

-over-

One comment so far…and it’s from the Scobleizer! How many of you reading this Google Alerts your own name? Come on, I do it too, tell the truth!