Ged Carroll

Category: china | 中國 | 중국 | 中華

Ni hao – this category features any blog posts that relate to the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese communist party, Chinese citizens, consumer behaviour, business, and Chinese business abroad.

It is likely the post will also in other categories too.  For example a post about Tong Ren Tang might end up in the business section as well. Inevitably everything is inherently political in nature. At the moment, I don’t take suggestions for subject areas or comments on content for this category, it just isn’t worth the hassle.

Why have posts on China? I have been involved in projects there and had Chinese clients. China has some interesting things happening in art, advertising, architecture, design and manufacturing. I have managed to experience some great and not so great aspects of the country and its businesses.

Opinions have been managed by the omnipresent party and this has affected consumer behaviour. Lotte was boycotted and harassed out of the country. Toyota and Honda cars occasionally go through damage by consumer action during particularly high tensions with Japan.

I put stuff here to allow readers to make up their own  minds about the PRC. The size of the place makes things complicated and the only constants are change, death, taxes and the party. Things get even more complicated on the global stage.

The unique nature of the Chinese internet and sheltered business sectors means that interesting Galapagos syndrome type things happen.

I have separate sections for Taiwan and Hong Kong, for posts that are specific to them.

  • UC Web + other news

    UC Web

    Alibaba buys up UC Web in ‘biggest merger in the history of China’s Internet’ | VentureBeat – or really expensive deal to get on the chrome. UC Web made a web browser that was popular in China and South East Asia. UC Web has created a joint venture with Alibaba that will help with Alibaba’s international expansion

    Beauty

    How red lipstick helped win an election | CNBC – interesting involvement of oligarchs in Korean politics

    Consumer behaviour

    Seven Digital Deadly Sins – really nice build by The Guardian; some nice consumer insights

    Meet the Chinese Parents Who Go On Dates for Their Kids | VICE United Kingdom – interesting insight into Chinese marriage culture

    Ethics

    Dark Patterns – User Interfaces Designed to Trick People – really nasty shit

    Finance

    Safaricom’s M-Pesa Turns Kenya Into a Mobile Payment Paradise – Businessweek – interesting article on how the service works from the perspective a of a neophyte

    Ideas

    Rage Against the Machine: The Rise of Anti-Politics Across Europe | The New Republic – the headline explains things better than most articles that I have seen

    Japan

    43.3% of Japanese use LINE Professionally, 29.6% use Facebook | PixelBits – interesting stats from Mona Nomura

    Legal

    Google may soon let you know when it’s required to hide something from you | VentureBeat – this could be interesting as knowledge of the void could be more damaging than the content

    Media

    The Works Recruitment – How recruiters use LinkedIn – no real surprises but handy primer

    RIAA tax filing reveals a record industry that’s less interested in paying for piracy lawsuits | VentureBeat – music industry preparing for new reality

    The truth about Paddy Power’s stunt in the Amazon rainforest | Paddy Power Blog – cutting things uncomfortably close

    Nike And Amazon Explore And Experience Big On Small Screen NKE AMZN – Investors.com – Larry Weber on social. Very much on the ongoing activity rather than campaign school of thought

    Online

    百度保障 – Baidu launches verified programme on it’s knowledge search / Q&A product

    Introducing Secret Dens — Secret Den — Medium – this sounds like an internal comms person’s worst nightmare

    Sogou Launched Wechat Search — China Internet Watch – this is big, adds a little bit of a window into the black hole of OTT messaging platforms

    No Logging Into Flickr Via Facebook After June 30 | AllFacebook – smart move by Yahoo!

    Retailing

    Amazon expands middleman role in latest online payments push | Reuters – Amazon already does payments, for instance KickStarter projects. This is about recurring payments

    Security

    Privacy As A Competitive Vector | AVC – Fred Wilson on the market for privacy. The difference that I don’t think Wilson addresses is the demand for privacy and the price people put on it. I think that there is a market, but the business model is critical as I don’t think consumers put a high price on privacy yet

    Life sentences for serious cyberattacks are proposed in Queen’s speech | theguardian.com – call me cynical, but is this is much about ringfencing GCHQ’s domestic activities or the UK governments lack of digital savvy? Park your data and services outside the UK, move R&D or quality assurance for digital services outside the UK

    Software

    A tiny technical change in iOS 8 could stop marketers spying on you – Quartz – does this you also can’t a lock out devices to a wi-fi network based on MAC address as well as password?

    Technology

    Sony tops game console sales for 1st time in 8 years- Nikkei Asian Review – Nintendo slide 31 per cent in Japan!

    A fast look at Swift, Apple’s new programming language | Ars Technica – interesting overview of Swift

    Sharp reveals concept products for new business plan | Asahi Shimbun – some of this stuff sounds really cool. Also good to see that they are innovating out of trouble rather than letting loose a bunch of management consultants

    Web of no web

    Japanese carrier Docomo wants to move your phone’s SIM card into a wearable | Engadget – this is really interesting. More related content here

    Google Now Has The Perfect Feature For Sleepy Commuters And Late Night Party Animals – smart use of contextual location based data

    Wireless

    ZTE to cut smartphone models by half | SCMP – cut half of its smartphone models available in the domestic market this year, while expecting total shipments in the world’s biggest smartphone market to remain stable, a company official said yesterday (paywall) – potentially smart move to reduce number of SKUs