Hurun listings & more news
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Hurun
Money slipping through China’s wealthiest fingers: Hurun｜WantChinaTimes.com – Hurun is like the Forbes or Sunday Times rich lists. In other countries being on the rich list brings scrounging letters from charities and assorted liggers, possibility heightened security risks due to kidnapping attempts. Being in Hurun also means immense government scrutiny. Even the most politically connected would be wise to not want to appear in Hurun. Yet, Chinese entrepreneurs still view a Hurun listing as a reflection of personal status and prestige that they look to leverage into further business. Hurun is widely used a consultant and partner for luxury brands. Hurun seems to offer everything from contacts to market sizing for luxury brands. I am surprised Rupert Hoogewerf is allowed to run Hurun Report in China given the sensitivity of the information
Branding
China
China’s “One Country, Two Systems” Under Threat | The Diplomat – I am surprised China has managed to resist its Stalinist instincts for this long
China sets leadership succession congress for November 8| Reuters – my money is on the dangerous neo-Stalinist authoritarian ultra-nationalist Xi Jingping. Bo Xilai’s brand of red tub thumping has meant that even though he is out of favour, he has set the agenda politically in the Communist Part of China. Expect a massive consolidation of power coupled with slowing economic growth massive acceleration on lightning rod issues in foreign policy as he plays for the nationalist peanut gallery. He is a leader in the mould of Mao rather than Deng. His views are at odds with the more liberal leanings of his father who was communist party royalty
Information Processing: “… the good things just don’t get shown to Western investors”
Consumer behaviour
China’s younger generation sees changing marriage landscape
Pew: Almost 70 Percent Of Affluent Adults Own Smartphones – a new digital divide?
Double Lives: Study Reveals Germans Less Confident than they Seem – SPIEGEL ONLINE
Economics
Surveys hint at poor level of social mobility in China｜WantChinaTimes.com – I would imagine that this would be pretty similar in many western countries. However it presents a problem of social instability in a middle income country like China which depends on a compact of the people staying out of politics so long as the Party looks after them
More Money, More Problems in South Korea | The Diplomat
S Korea: reasons to be cheerful | beyondbrics – beyond the scary household debt numbers things are looking pretty good
Cellphones Are Eating the Family Budget – WSJ.com – disrupting substitute entertainment products: eating out, children’s confectionery sales. Not at all surprised by this, I was hearing this back at the first MobileYouth conference panels that I spoke at
Factory activity caps worst quarter in three years: Markit| Reuters
Finance
Silicon Valley’s Strangest Sex Scandal Gets More Dramatic Yet – Business Insider – interesting that this hasn’t been settled and they don’t seem to have done anything to help their legal case. Are they hoping legal muscle and strong arm tactics will work or do they have something else that they know? Badly handled from a PR PoV
Ellen Pao Files For Wrongful Termination – Business Insider – one long train wreck in slow-motion
The sociology of risk and the dark side of dot-com parties – SiliconValley.com
Presenting The World’s Biggest Hedge Fund You Have Never Heard Of | ZeroHedge
FMCG
Deal Profile: Kraft’s Snack Spinoff – WSJ – basically a sign that the Cadbury buy didn’t have the desired effect on the Kraft share price
Ideas
Some technology curbs creativity | Monocle
What Happens When We Reach ‘Peak Car’?
AirAsia X to make first 7 rows of economy class child-free zone ‹ Japan Today – interesting move
Innovation
US Defense Biz Outlook Grim, Foreign Sales Won’t Save It: Deloitte
3M buying Ceradyne for about $847 million – The Sacramento Bee – Ceradyne does interesting things with ceramic material innovation including nuclear fuel pellets and ballistic plates
Room Temperature Superconductivity Found in Graphite Grains – Technology Review – IF this is true, things could be getting very interesting
Japan
A New Tech Generation Defies the Odds in Japan – NYTimes.com
Chinese economist weighs up how to inflict damage on Japan
Korea
A Rare Analyst Discussion of Weakness at Samsung – WSJ – Samsung is overleveraged and could damage the Korean government as well
South Korean Companies Give Bonuses as Thanksgiving Nears – WSJ
Luxury
Jing Daily: The Business of Luxury and Culture in China
Mainland Chinese Students Eager to Enroll Abroad, Just Not in Taiwan – WSJ – education could be considered a luxury product in China as it is used by parents to show ‘success’. I have questions about this research. Chinese propaganda doesn’t see Taiwan as the separate country that it obviously is. Secondly, it wouldn’t be viewed as a high status move both of which would impact on the survey and its methodology
How China’s wealthy transfer their assets abroad
Is Chanel the Swatch of luxury? | Material World – is this Chanel becoming vertically integrated and getting a monopoly position
Media
Facebook Lays Out All Of Its New Targeting Techniques In One Easy-To-Read Blog Post – Forbes
Microsoft launching news operation, new MSN | Reuters – I think that this is as much about stepping out of legacy infrastructure of MSN as it is about journalism
Newspapers and TV drag down Zenith’s UK adspend forecast – Brand Republic News – no olympic dividend
Social TV Comes To China: Kaixin001.com Teams With Samsung, Haier, Hisense
Study: Smaller news websites depend more on social media for traffic than larger sites – Poynter
New Google Ad Planner Will Exclude Domains Outside Google Network – Search Engine Watch (#SEW)
Eric Schmidt Says Google Would Love to Replace Microsoft as Yahoo!’s Search Partner – Forbes – but the same antitrust barriers that Microsoft would rake up still remain
Pew study: News consumption up via mobile, social media | Internet & Media – CNET News
Portugal’s prosecutor punts P2P case • The Register
BBC News – Japan introduces piracy penalties for illegal downloads
More spring cleaning | Official Google Blog – with no Adsense for feeds, does feedburner make any sense for Google anymore?
Online
Mobile health is taking off but what’s still in its way? — GigaOM
KitchenAid Twitter Account Sends Offensive Tweet About Obama’s Deceased Grandmother (TWEETS)
Mobile Phones and Tablets Now Account for 1 in 8 U.S. Internet Page Views
Facebook Usage Declining – Business Insider
Friendster Founder Jonathan Abrams Launches Nuzzel: A Fast, Simple, Social News Reader | TechCrunch
Security
Looking inside your screenshots – steganography in real-world application
EU Officials Propose Internet Cops On Patrol, No Anonymity & No Obscure Languages (Because Terrorism!) | Techdirt – because this all worked really well in Korea when Cyworld got cracked and wholesale identity theft occurred
Software
Windows 8 early adoption numbers: low compared with Windows 7 – not as bad as it looks as there aren’t that many PCs would could use all the features of Windows 8 yet
Russia’s Yandex combines Chromium and Opera code for new browser | ZDNet – all of which misses out that WebKit came from KDE Conqueror and Apple’s work on Safari…
Am I An Outlier, Or Are Apple Products No Longer Easy To Use? | John Battelle’s Search Blog
Survey: iOS 6 Leads To Decrease In Device Satisfaction Among iPhone Users | TechCrunch
Samsung plans acquisitions to become a software company – Rethink Wireless – it will be interesting to see how this clashes with Google’s plans
Technology
Thunderbolt, on an iPhone 5? ~ I, Cringely
After a decade of research, Intel shows off its digital radio chip | VentureBeat
Intel Confirms Decline of Server Giants HP, Dell, and IBM | Wired.com
Ten Office Items that Will Be Relics by 2017 – Technology Review
Coding Horror: The PC is Over – hyperbole but some interesting data points
Telecoms
AFP: Japan’s Softbank to buy rival eAccess for $2.3 bn
Web of no web
Apple-Google Maps Talks Crashed Over Voice-Guided Directions – AllThingsD
(24) Maps (iOS app): Why is everyone so obsessed with picking faults with Apple’s new maps on the iPhone? – Quorav- good discussion on everything wrong with Apple’s Maps app
Wireless
Microsoft Surface Phone release date: Windows Phone 8, 2013 launch
StreetInsider.com – Credit Suisse Downgrades Nokia (NOK) to Underperform; Things Aren’t Getting Better, a Break-Up Needed – interesting that Microsoft isn’t seen as a purchaser
Samsung schedules strategy meeting with Google’s Schmidt over Apple’s Android war – SlashGear
TI ready for complete exit from smartphones – Rethink Wireless
Just In Case You Forgot How Far RIM Has Fallen
Nokia: BMO Cuts to Sell, Doubts Windows Phone Appeal – Barrons.com