Its gaming-design smarts and mega-following have given South Korea major clout in the worldwide online games business

Electronic Arts' (ERTS) $105 million purchase this month of a major stake in Neowiz underscores the growing global clout of South Korean design houses in next-generation online gaming. Gadget-happy South Korea is one of the most wired societies on the planet currently, and its avid young gamers represent the perfect global laboratory to try out new game concepts that will drive future growth in the $28.5 billion global video

Last year, the combined revenues of some 1,200 online gaming companies in Korea reached an estimated $1.94 billion, up from $1.54 billion in 2005, according to the state-funded Korea Game Development and Promotion Institute. The institute forecasts the industry's overall revenues will grow more than 20% to about $2.35 billion in 2007.

Neowiz and other leading Korean gaming companies such as NCsoft and Nexon already dominate in the MMORPG games, but they are also trying to muscle into the larger market for software that plays on game consoles. In recent years, they have been diversifying into more casual games such as racing, shooting, sports, and Web board games as well as card and chess games (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/26/07, "The New Avatar In Town").

Nexon's go-cart racing game, KartRider, for instance, has enjoyed a fanatical following in Korea since it made a debut in 2004. A third of Korea's population of 48 million has registered to play it at least once. It also has wild fans in China, where as many as 800,000 players log on at a given time to join the race (see BusinessWeek.com, 7/24/06, "China's Online Gaming Craze").

"With console games trying to add networking functions, online games are bound to take on greater importance in the global gaming industry in years to come," says Kang Kyung Seog, senior researcher at the Korean game development institute. "Online games are still a relatively small segment of the Western video games market, but I believe they have the potential to be as big there as in Asia."

Research firm DFC Intelligence expects the global online market to grow to $13 billion in 2011 from $3.4 billion in 2005. North America, Europe, and Japan, where most gamers grew up playing on consoles, are expected to offer a significant growth and to account for $9 billion in online game revenue in 2011.

More here 

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(* Source: James @ Trendcatching.com *) 

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(* Source: James @ Trendcatching.com *) 

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(* Source: Pete Cashmore *)

The Bebo Mobile rumor has been making the rounds for months, during which time YouTube Mobile was rolled out and mobile social networking really began to build some steam. Originally it was rumored that the carrier O2 would land the deal, but on Wednesday Bebo will announce that it has partnered with Orange to offer a version on cellphones.

Due to the site’s popularity in the UK, Bebo Mobile will go live there this summer, with expansion to other markets later in 2007. The feature set is vaguely similar to MySpace Mobile: you can edit your Bebo profile, update your blog and add friends from your phone. Presumably you’ll also be able to access Bebo Mail, the internal messaging feature.

Like YouTube Mobile, the deal may have an exclusivity clause, but it’s unlikely that Orange will be the exclusive carrier for Bebo Mobile long term. That would allow O2 and other carriers to offer their own packages for users.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source:  Pete Cashmore *)

In what may be a slight increase to Rupert Murdoch’s claim of $25 million/month (which was only ads, not total revenue), analyst Richard Greenfield noted today that MySpace is now generating “in excess of $30 million” per month in revenue, with about $24 million in US revenue and $6 million internationally.

Monthly revenues are expected to double over the next year, making for an impressive $60M/month by this time next year. No word on whether the Google deal is being taken into account.

Should we be surprised that one of the world’s biggest websites actually has the ability to generate some revenue?

Posted by brian tiong at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jamendo, the P2P music-sharing site, reports that they have distributed, freely and legally, nearly 1.5 million albums; 1 million through BitTorrent alone. Jamendo supports other P2P protocols including Kazaa and eMule/Donkey. Their distribution through these networks has been included in their estimate for their global “Platinum” reach.

Jamendo promotes themselves as a free and legal place for artists to distribute their songs. Users can rate and review artists as well (see initial write-up here). As Jamendo operates under the Creative Commons license, they’ve provided a way for artists to broaden their reach while retaining full ownership of their content.

Users can remix content from other members on Jamendo, helping to usher in the new era of artists rights and the erosion of the middleman. Jamendo also offers a revenue sharing option for artists that would like to earn money from the ads placed on Jamendo’s site.

Their recent growth is in part due to Digg–they are heavy promoters on the bookmark ranking site. Otherwise, this landmark of distributing such a large number of albums via the Internet is quite a feat, and speaks to the attitudes regarding the consumers and the musicians, and how they’ve met a happy middle ground.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fliptrack, which launches on Wednesday, is an online service that lets you put pictures to your music. Instead of laying music over your image slideshow, you choose your song first with Fliptrack, and the images you add will be timed with the song’s beat to make it a seamless integration. In this case, it looks like a more cohesive product, much like a music video.

Fliptrack currently offers over 350 licensed songs to choose from, in addition to the 50+ indie bands that have offered their music for Fliptrack’s purpose. Once you’ve created your video, it can be embedded on your MySpace, hi5, and Piczo profiles for further sharing. Other’s cannot take the embed code directly from the widget, though the video can be sent via email. The site’s emphasis is clearly on the video, as there is no direct way to search for users, though their videos can be rated and commented upon.

Fliptrack is partnering with Barenaked Ladies for their first promotional contest, the winner of which will have their video featured on the popular band’s website. Fliptrack also recognizes the potential for indie artists to offer their content to be mixed, as it’s a great way to let the users further spread their music.

The concept behind Fliptrack has been executed in a unique way, but it is a feature that can easily be added to many of the other services. In order for Fliptrack to at least be on par with other players in the fields, I’d suggest they include the ability to add friends as a way for users to keep track of the site’s activity, and incorporating the ability to search videos by their songs.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Piers Fawkes *) 

As Tower Records closes, HMV slumps and Virgin Megastore becomes Urban Outfitters, Rough Trade - the Indie music label and London record store - has plans to build a large store on London's Brick Lane that will bring new music on disk or through performance.

Rough Trade's store director, Stephen Godfroy, says:

"Our aim is to deliver something we feel has been missing in this country for far too long; an environment that celebrates music as an exciting art form, not just another commercial commodity - but on a scale that is a departure from the traditional perception of an independent record shop."

"The music industry seems to have a lot of doom and gloom about it at the moment, despite people's passion for music being as strong as ever. We certainly hope to put some smiles back on faces with something that reflects the true public appetite for exciting new music."

Reminds us of the energy Amoeba has.

Rough Trade

via NME.COM

Posted by brian tiong at 01:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Steve Rubel *) 

Adobe, today launched the CS3 suite - a massive upgrade to all of its core design products. However, there was some other news too that I thought was cool. And I am not just saying that because we work for Adobe and I want to be nice and all.

The company also unveiled a social network called kuler.  Basically  it's a place for designers to share color combinations for different purposes. The site has tags, RSS feeds and desktop and Apollo widgets as well. Using the site, designers can upload color combinations they used for different projects.

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(* Source: Adam Turinas *)

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(* Source: Gretchen Hyman *)

"But how do you break through and touch an audience?" Mandel asked. What are the most effective vehicles for brand and relationship building?

The following are some of the industry survival strategies Mandel explored and some of the successful campaigns that used creativity and innovation for interacting with consumers on their terms:

Become a better storyteller
Consumers are more likely to pay attention to campaigns based on solid and entertaining storylines. As an example, Mandel referenced the Jerry Seinfeld-Superman-American Express campaign, which was widely successfully because of its integration of online and offline promotional tools and its amusing resurrection of one of America's favorite comic book action heroes. Another example she presented was the "Brawny Academy" campaign and its tie-in to reality TV, as well as its success at integrating Brawny paper towels into the storyline.

Create interaction
Instead of trying to draw the consumer to a campaign, engage the existing community where they are in an interactive experience. For this point, Mandel used Ogilvy's IBM Codestation campaign as an example. Based on research that a high number of people that engage in Second Life are software developers, Ogilvy integrated the campaign into the Second Life environment to tap into that a consumer market most likely to respond to an IBM product.

Mandel stressed the importance of integrating text messaging into a campaign, for which she cited the success of a Dove billboard campaign in New York's Time Square that encouraged consumers to weigh in on how they felt about the image of an older woman. Another example was a campaign titled "Text Messages from God" that successfully connected with the teen 18-21-year-old demographic and yielded 100 percent campaign awareness through texting.

Get them talking
The success rate for viral campaigns can skyrocket a brand to success like never before. Mandel used the "Shave Everywhere" campaign as an example. She also used a Dove spot, Evolution, that had originally been intended for a self esteem workshop that ended up on YouTube and proved more successful than Ogilvy's Super Bowl ad. The Dove spot also spawned numerous spoof videos, proving that a great campaign can experience extended brand recognition when it spurs interaction with consumers.

In summary, Mandel named three key components for winning in the interactive space:

1. On Demand: Get relevant information in front of consumers when and where they want it.
2. Entertainment: Use entertainment to create a consumer connection by being funny, outrageous or pertinent.
3. Community: People are using numerous digital means to communicate, and brands can and should be part of that conversation.

"In today's world, you have to get them to invite you in and agree to interact with your brand," she concluded.

Full article here. 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *) 

At $21 billion in overall spending, the automotive industry is the largest US advertising category, but automakers and dealers continue pulling ad dollars out of traditional media and redirecting them to microsites, digital media, SEM, mobile marketing and VODs.

The Automotive Online report analyzes the trend-setting online and mobile marketing strategies and tactics of the automotive industry. After all, where the auto industry goes – other industries often follow.

eMarketer predicts the automotive category, consisting of manufacturers, dealers and after-market vendors, will account for $2.54 billion, nearly 13%, of the $19.5 billion estimated to be spent on Internet advertising and marketing this year.

About $1.1 billion of that total will go toward search marketing strategies, including paid ads and search engine optimization.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Vito Greto*)

Millsberry.com was introduced to me by my daughter and her friends.  It’s in essence a site to play games, buy things, create an avatar, and travel around the town.  Sound familiar?  It’s like a mini Second Life in that you can be someone else and enjoy this virtual world, except the whole thing is brought to you by a cereal company.

General Mills has created Millsberry town – replete with a downtown core and suburbs. My kids love it because they can get trophies and score mills bucks, which can be exchanged for clothes, toys, and of course General Mills products.

And I thought she wanted the box of Lucky Charms because they were magically delicious!

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How hated is the thought of mobile marketing?

In theory, very hated.

Most people (90%) say that they are not at all interested in getting ads on their mobile phones, according to Harris Interactive.

In theory, that leaves less than 10% of users as an audience for mobile marketing.

In practice, the audience is much larger. As with any medium, once mobile ads are associated with something of value, user interest shoots up. If incentives are involved, it shoots up considerably.

Think about the Internet a decade ago. There was still some debate as to whether companies should be on the Web at all — would corporate influence stifle the free flow of ideas on the fresh new medium? Once companies did move online, consumers were initially reluctant to give out personal information. It took incentives and opt-in agreements to overcome their hesitance.

Right now, mobile is the only interactive medium where the typical user pays for both the cost of network access and the content it delivers. Mobile operators and content providers are finding that besides early adopters and enthusiasts, it is tough to find buyers for paid mobile music downloads, let alone video and games.

Introducing mobile advertising into the revenue mix changes the picture. Many users say that they would be willing to receive mobile marketing in exchange for incentives, so offering free applications, subsidized airtime or other goodies makes sense.

Over a third of adult mobile phone users say that they are willing to accept incentive-based advertisements. Of these, 78% say the best incentive would be cash. Other incentives that resonate include free minutes, free entertainment downloads and discount coupons.

As for ad formats, over half (56%) of those who are at least somewhat interested in receiving ads on their cellphones say they would prefer to receive them as text messages, while 40% would like to receive them as picture messages. Less than a quarter of adults would choose to receive them as videos, while others would have them sent as e-mail, voice mail or something else.

eMarketer estimates that mobile ad spending in the US will reach $4.8 billion by 2011, up from $421 million in 2006.

eMarketer senior analyst and mobile specialist John du Pre Gauntt says that current mobile business models practically beg for an infusion of ad dollars.

"Despite the best efforts to convince people otherwise, there is no mobility 'premium,'" says Mr. Gauntt. "Over time, the justification for charging a 100%-300% markup on a piece of content or service simply because it is delivered over a radio channel will not wash when the same content is available online to be synched with a handset."

Posted by brian tiong at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Fred Guillet *) 

A new online survey across six Asian markets found that 28% of respondents were interested in paying US$1 to download a 30-minute television show, accompanied by advertising. When offered new movies supported by advertising for the same price, even more respondents (62%) said they would be willing to pay for online downloads.

The survey also offered the option to pay US$2 to buy the same content without advertising, but fewer respondents were willing to pay for TV shows (20%) or movies (53%) at the higher price, suggesting that Asian audiences would welcome advertising messages that subsidise the cost of online content downloads.

The survey also found that almost half (49%) of all respondents across the six Asian markets had paid to download content, ranging from the most likely buyers in China (67%) and Taiwan (62%) to 40% in Singapore and 38% in Australia.

MindShare Asia Pacific Insights Director James Chadwick said: “This new data suggests a massive demand in Asia for downloading digital content, and points to the potential for a win-win advertising model in the future.”

He added: “If Asian audiences are willing to pay to download their favorite content online, and prefer brands to subsidise their purchases through advertising or sponsorship, then we are likely to see the emergence of very exciting new marketing communications channels.”

MindShare conducted the survey among a total of 1,500 15-to-35-year-old Internet users in November 2006, using Pulse Group’s research panel across Australia, China, India, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan (250 respondents from each market).

Asians Love Music On Their Phones
The MindShare survey also revealed that Asian downloaders are more likely to play digital music on their mobile phones than on MP3 players. 28% of respondents said they preferred a mobile phone for playing back songs, ranging from Malaysia (37%) and India (34%) to Singapore (33%), China (29%), Australia (25%) and Taiwan (16%).

Looking into the future, 75% of those surveyed expect portable digital video players to become more popular, suggesting they want video-on-the-go to complement their portable music.

Greater Downloading In Greater China
In terms of overall content downloading, whether paid or unpaid, Internet users in China and Taiwan are more likely to download than other Asian users. As shown by the table below, Chinese respondents were most likely to have downloaded movies (41%) and exclusive celebrity interviews (17%) while Taiwanese respondents were most likely to have downloaded TV shows (25%) and music (56%).

Posted by brian tiong at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source:Nathan Eddie *) 

The combined market value of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs or MMOGs) in North America and Europe hit $1 billion in 2006, according to a report from Screen Digest. Subscription services dominated the revenue stream at 87 percent, though microtransactions and in-game advertising played a role in the growth--a trend that is likely to continue as these revenue streams are more broadly integrated. Although the North American subscription market was worth $576 million and the European market was worth $299 million, by 2011 Europe will experience the bulk of the growth, the report predicts. By that time, there will be 10 million subscribers and these accounts will generate $1.5 billion in consumer spending.

"During the past few years the Western landscape for massively multiplayer online games has become increasingly fragmented following the introduction of new genres of games including social networking, virtual pet rearing and virtual world building titles," said the report's author, Piers Harding-Rolls. "These new games and platforms have brought with them many new gamers and also new business models that are generating revenue that is largely incremental to the incumbent subscription business." In comparison, an IDC report in January predicted online gaming in China would be a $3.2 billion business by 2011, although the report did not break down different types of gaming.

For an overview of the report:
- visit the Screen Digest website

Posted by brian tiong at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Ceri Kirkland *)

I am a die-hard Pandora enthusiast. I love being exposed to new music that I don’t hear on mainstream radio, and I enjoy being able to fine-tune my channels to play music that would interest me the most. However, my listening days may be coming to an end, due to a ruling that could put Pandora out of business.

Web radio is fighting back against possible fee increases of the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) that may cripple the industry. The ruling, announced earlier this month, imposes a yearly royalty rate increase set “per performance” from 2006 to 2010. This could be severely detrimental to small web broadcasters, who claim that it could exceed their total revenues. In a WSJ article, the co-founder of Pandora states that if the ruling stands, his company may cease to exist.

Pandora has had some success this year in growing its site visitation by an average of 10% each month. With over 150% growth in unique visitors last year, Pandora’s popularity may come with a steep price. The CRB ruling also indicates that there is a $500 minimum fee “per channel” per year. The ambiguous definition of a “channel” puts websites which offer limitless customized “channels”, like Pandora, in a precarious position.

Live365.com, which allows users to create their own radio stations, is in a similar position. It could face the per channel fee or be subject to royalty rates which will jump from $ .62 per person per month in 2006 to $ .86 in 2007. Unique visitors to the site increase by a mere 0.34% per month on average; however, the royalty fees alone grow at an average rate of 2% a month. If Live365.com has to pay royalty rate fees retroactively as the board has demanded, it could possibly cost them over $3.7 Million in 2006.

*Based on listening statistics reported by BridgeRatings, this analysis was calculated using an estimated 45.5 Listening Hours/Month, and an average song length of 3.5 minutes.

This has the potential to be the nail in the internet radio coffin. By forcing radio stations to pay these increased fees, the level of access and choice to consumers will flatten within six months. Sites like Pandora and Live365 have been urging listeners to sign a petition to overturn the ruling. A rehearing is imminent, so hopefully listeners (myself included) will be able to enjoy the new music we’re exposed to through web radio in the future.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: eMarketer via Laurent Verrier *) 

 


Reaching gamers in their extra lives takes skill.

There's some little video game the kids are playing now called World of Warcraft.

Except that it's not little, and it's often not kids playing. Globally, 8.5 million people play the game, and many pay $15/month for the privilege. South Park recently devoted a whole episode to parodying it.

The game's popularity drove revenues for the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) sector to $576 million in 2006 for North America alone, according to Screen Digest.

"During the past few years the Western landscape for MMOGs has become increasingly fragmented following the introduction of new genres of game including social networking, virtual pet rearing and virtual world building titles," said Piers Harding-Rolls of Screen Digest. "These new games and platforms have brought with them many new gamers and also new business models that are generating revenue that is largely incremental to the incumbent subscription business."

Subscription services account for 87% of the MMOG market in the West, but virtual item sales and in-game advertising are starting to contribute to the revenue mix.

In-game advertising is estimated to reach $589 million in 2010, up from $182 million in 2006, according to a January 2007 study by Oppenheimer & Co. that examined data from IDC, Yankee Group and Parks Associates.

This would all seem to be great news for marketers. The oft-sought-after 18-34-year-old male demographic is heavily into gaming. MMOGs offer the potential for viral communication, both in the games themselves and in dedicated message boards.

Despite the heady estimates, eMarketer senior analyst Paul Verna says that marketers need some perspective when considering how to associate their brands with MMOGs.

"In general, MMOGs do not lend themselves as readily to in-game display advertising or product placements as many console games do," said Mr. Verna. "On the other hand, the fact that MMOG players are, by definition, online makes them attractive to marketers looking to expose their brands to a connected audience.

"It's also worth noting that MMOGs make up about 50% of online gaming revenues on a worldwide basis," Mr. Verna continued. "With online gaming poised to grow at dramatic rates in the next five years, MMOGs should be closely considered for advertising opportunities provided that the brands in question not detract from the game experience."

Beside sweepstakes and other non-intrusive promotions, some actual in-game ads are possible, depending on the MMOG.

In URU Live, the MMOG based on the popular Myst franchise, players start out in the "real" world before being transported to the game's more fantastic settings. Players meet a guide in the "real" world who's got an open bag of Doritos in front of him.

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(* Source: Patrick Dunphy *)

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(* Source: b-side *)

What's up KL?! I'll be in KL next week and will be speaking at a media conference (MMC07). We'd love to hear from anyone involved in some great ventures and projects in the city - just to hang out with and possibly feature on b-side. Drop me an email and we can coordinate.

Looking forward.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Chris Portella *)

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(* Source: Misha Cornes *)

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(* Source: Tangos *) 

The New York Times has just published an article named “Internet Boom in China Is Built on Virtual Fun“, which is mainly on history and development of Tencent. I agree with the key point of the article, that currently Chinese internet users are mainly for entertainment and fun, foreign internet companies need to understand this culture.

While America’s Internet users send e-mail messages and surf for information on their personal computers, young people in China are playing online games, downloading video and music into their cellphones and MP3 players and entering imaginary worlds where they can swap virtual goods and assume online personas. Tencent earns the bulk of its revenue from the entertainment services it sells through the Internet and mobile phones.

Another distinguishing feature is the youthful face of China’s online community. In the United States, roughly 70 percent of Internet users are over the age of 30; in China, it is the other way around — 70 percent of users here are under 30, according to the investment bank Morgan Stanley.

…And in China, the No. 1 priority for Internet users is entertainment; in the U.S., it’s information. That’s why Google is dominant in the U.S., but Tencent rules China.

…Analysts say the American companies struggle here partly because of regulatory restrictions that favor homegrown companies, but also because foreign companies often do not understand China’s Internet market, which is geared primarily to entertainment and mobile phones.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Tangos *) 

Totally 16 companies from China made the Fortuna China Magazine’s 2005 Coolest Companies List, 7 among them are internet companies, their business range from online games and download tool to new online media like podcasing and e-magazine, from mobile search to WAP portal.

3G.net.cn is a Guangzhou-based free WAP(Wireless Application Protocol) portal for mobile users, to provide ringtone and image download, mobile game, news and information and other mobile-based services. By the end of 2005, its users amounted to 10 million. In early 2005, IDG invested 2 million USD in 3G.net.cn, and it is seeking second round financing.

Cgogo, established in 2003, provides wireless search service that enable mobile users to search internet information on their cellular phones. “Cgogo Search is an innovation of dynamic fuzz search for concept clustering.” It generates revenue by the similar way as Baidu does, that is auction-based paid list services for corporates.

ChinaCache, founded in 1998, is the most famous CDN (Content Distribution Network) provider in China, and currently renders services for Sohu, Netease, eBay China, XinhuaNet and many other main stream sites. ChinaCache made break-even in 2002 and become profitable since 2003. Its revenue of 2005 is expected to RMB 62 million Yuan (about 7.65 million USD).

Nineyou mainly provides online casual games One of its most important games is O2Jam, a multi online music play game developed by O2media from Korea. 9you got 20 million USD investment from Carlyle Group and other investors in 2004 and 2005. Its peak concurrent game users reached 600,000 by the end of 2005. Nineyou’s revenue of 2005Q4 amounted to RMB 50 million Yuan (about 6.2 million USD).

Toodou is the only company in the list that we have covered before, and I think our readers are very familiar with it. It seems Toodou has been a representative sites for web2.0 development in China, many main stream media will take Toodou as an example when reporting China’s web2.0. Congradulations, Gary!

Thunder, a IDG invested company, provides a broadband download tool using P2SP/P2P technology.

Xplus (Nu Channel) is a company to distribute online interactive magazines. Its Xplus software takes advantage of P2P service to effectively distribute e-magazines, and will also provide readers analysis for magazine publishers. In the year 2005, total magazine volumes exceed 28 million copies. In April 2005, investors led by Legend Capital and iD Tech Ventures Ltd. (Acer) invested 4.5 million USD into Xplus.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Luyi Chen *) 

Xplus is the online publishing platform of Nu Channel, a company established in 2003. Its shareholders include ID Tech Ventures, Legend Capital, China Merchants & Fortune Venture Investment Group, etc. Originally its main business is online emagazine. Although it has launched a platform for users to upload DIY magazines, but the whole UGC market in China still not matures enough for any serious business to rely on.

What caught our eyes is its new online newspaper publishing platform. It launched by the end of last year. It provides a new navigation style that combines traditional and online newspaper.

The advantage of traditional newspaper is how things are organized on one page, big headlines, fonts, images, etc. You can recognize important stuffs at a glance. Xplus epaper shows you an image of the hardcopy of the newspaper. Users can click the pixel area of any particular article and read it on the right side. Also it provides search, headline view of all the articles on one page and navigation to others pages, etc. In one word, it provides a way just like reading real newspaper and its content is more discoverable. What technology it uses? Seems Flash.

It also has some social features too. Such as people read this newspaper also read the following ones. People can leave comments on the newspaper, although not to each article, but the whole volume of one day. On its about page, they have an image which shows their business model. By showing newspapers in this way, they can track how users find interesting stuffs on a page and this data can be used by publishers to tweak their printing style, advertisers can adjust their strategy accordingly.

As the company said on a 5G seminar, newspapers will never die, and its evolution will last. The other big news about newspaper today is Usatoday’s relaunch with a bunch of social features.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Tangos *) 

Yeeyan is an excellent blog which I tracked daily and added into my RSS reader immediately when I found it in last year.

Why? Yeeyan is a group blog which intends to translate articles, mainly blog posts, on tech, startups and internet into Chinese, to help to bridge the language gap. So far, they have done a terrific job. They update blog almost every day, translate many informative posts from A-list English bloggers, such as Michael Arrington, Richard MacManus and Fred Wilson, thousands of readers subscribe their rss or read the blog, including me. They even got the Chinese copyright of Inside Facebook, and will translate and publish it in China.

But now, I would like to introduce Yeeyan to overseas readers as well, because Yeeyan launched its English version recently, that is to translate Chinese blog posts into English, to help foreigners to know opinions and analysis of Chinese bloggers, such as U.S. internet companies’ top 10 mistakes in China and Yahoo China’s Fiasco.

In fact, in late 2005, we have also tried to summarize some Chinese blog posts in English for our readers each week, but we just can not continue it for various reasons. So I’m extremely happy to see Yeeyan’s English version. I’m sure it would be a must-read for those who want to know more about Chinese blogosphere and internet market but bothered by Chinese language barrier. Forget Google translation, to subscribe Yeeyan.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Luyi Chen *) 

Riku has found a new music service that looks like Pandora, and with a name sounds like Pandora’s brother - Dola.

The company behind Dola is MusicGene, a Shanghai based startup. Some readers have pointed out that their website is much like MusicGenome, an Israel company.

Dola originally was LazyFM. Here’s one of their presentation on a venture conference by the end of last year. You should scroll down to find them, since there’re several companies.

From the report: 1. Their service launched in July 2006. 2. Two main founders, Victor Zhang is responsible for technology, Cao Zhifeng is responsible for marketing.

As of this writing, I have received a mail from Cao Zhifeng, CEO and co-founder of MusicGene. I have written back to ask for more details other than those publicly available.

Of course I remember Yobo is doing similar thing. So I asked Yobo if they have heard of Dola. I expected an answer sounds like no comment. But Allen, CEO and co-founder of Yobo kindly typed more than two words, so that I have something to share with you.

Music analysis is not an easy job. We should seriously treat it. It requires professional teams with enough hard working and passion. Dola is an early project, probably we are both targeting similar market. It’s not suitable for us to comment it. It would be better to leave it to our users.

In this stage, the important thing is doing, with the right attitude and approach, not talking. Yobo is also an early stage project. We are learning while we grow up. It’s inevitable to learn from advanced products and technologies from other countries, but we won’t feel lucky to skip any necessary fundamental steps. Chinese users need someone devoted to work out products they really want, not merely concepts.

Hat tips to Yobo. Yobo’s brand has suddenly risen up in my mind.

I also asked Yobo about the recent “per play per customer” royalty rate proposal. Yobo’s answer is:

Will Chinese authorities make the same policy? I am not sure. But they seem to have too many things more important to deal with. They even haven’t nailed down all the cases with mp3 search engines. On the contrary, we are doing with legal approach. We will become a promoting platform for copyright holders.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(* Source: Luyi Chen *)

Since the latest launches of online music services like Musicpaw and Yobo, we have been tracking online music services that can help you search, organize, listen, share and discover music online.

What differentiates music from other media like article, photo and video is that you would listen to music you like again and again, while you won’t do this with others. And music is a bit difficult to understand, so that you probably don’t know why you like a particular song.

So application for organizing and sharing music must be different from the ones for photos and videos. Besides Musicpaw and Yobo, there’re six other services also worth looking. They are 8box, Douban, Yahoo Musicbox, Baidu Zhangmenren, We@zone and Funbox.

We first look at two search engines. They are the places to look for online music links. Although this has brought copyright issues, search engines still act as a promotion platform for artists.

• Baidu mp3 search is the most frequently used music search engine in China. One year ago, Baidu launched Zhangmenren, which is a service for users to sharing their playlist. To celebrate one year birthday of this service, they have opened several public lists where everyone can distribute their favorite songs.
• Other search engines have similar feature too. My second choice is Yahoo Music. They have human-edited profile page for artists and bands with their album release history. This is useful to music newbie like me. Their music box service, launched in June, lets users keep their own playlist. You can generate playlist more freely in Yahoo music than in Baidu Zhangmenren. Yahoo’s service is more like a private service, while Baidu’s is for public promotion. In Yahoo, you can save music into your music box directly from search result.

Some services don’t act as a music search engine or host any music files, but they provide a place to organize your online playlist, which contains music that you can play directly without downloading them to local storage. Three services result in this category.

• Musicpaw is a new service launched on Nov. 26 2006. I like their tagline, Sketch with music. Hope they really can let us describe music visually like this. Currently you can organize playlist, tag and review music in this community. I think the website is cool especially their command line console, where you can navigate the website and perform all operations of the music player.
• We@zone is in a different style, and I like its simple design. It lauched on June 26, 2006 by Andy, who is located in Beijing, now a product manager of Hexun. On its Digg style homepage, users can share music review, recommend artist, and promote music related event. On users’ personal page, visitors can listen to their music collections though a flash player.
• Funbox is a service launched in July. The main feature is to organize online music links into playlist. It doesn’t provide music review, but it does have quite a lot of embedded code in different styles to publish playlist on other website like blogs.

Although in above three services, you can also discover new music by browsing others people’s profile page or by looking at what they are listening if the service supports this. But chances to find music suitable to you are still small in this way. So you probably want to try some recommendation services.

• 8box is one of the earliest services to provide music recommendation in China. It launched in May 2006. Originally based in Shanghai, now located in Hangzhou. What I like most is the music roaming feature. You can start from one music, then it will guide you though a series of tracks with similar style. After you rating enough tracks for the system to learn about you, it can recommend new music to you based on collaborative filtering technology. We have an interview with 8box in June.
• Yobo is a Pandora like service just launched several days ago. Main part of the service is a big flash player where you can listen to endless music. While you are listening to music, by telling the system whether you like it or not, you can affect future music recommended to you. Based on my own testing, there’re too many duplicates in its current recommendation result. That’s probably because of the small media database.
• Music recommendation feature of Douban is weaker than 8box and Yobo. It launched in July 2005. As we mentioned in the beginning of this article, music is different from book. While few people would say they particularly like one chapter of a book, most of them just like some tracks in an album. On Douban you can only treat music in album level, which makes the service less flexible. But this is still a great place to find useful music reviews.

Summary

Online music is a wonderful world. After you move your listening habit from local to online, you can not only access music from anywhere but also discover more music from others.

Search engine is useful for searching online music links, but you cannot find music you don’t know in this way. Recommendation service as ongoing search will give you more personalized experience and help you find music that you like but you would never discover in other ways.

Music communities that don’t have explicit recommendation feature are also useful for discovering new music. It’s hard to tell which style is better for music community. There’re still rooms for killer applications to show up.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)