Google made a heroic stand 2 months ago when it challenged the Chinese government and said it would stop censoring the search results it shows to mainland China. After 2 months of chewing on its words and thumb twiddling amongst themselves, they realized 2 very important things:

1. You don’t mess with China

2. China is a really HUGE & $PROFITABLE$ market

So, after much deliberation, I would think they flipped a coin and decided that they would give it a gamble – live up to their motto of “Don’t be evil” and still try to milk the cash cow for what it’s worth.

First, let’s look at the facts at hand. Mainland Chinese users who visit Google.cn are now re-directed automatically to Google.com.hk. These users are served up a separate Simplified Chinese version of Google, tailor made for China but served through Google’s servers in Hong Kong, which sits nicely outside the jurisdiction of the Chinese government. Advertisers’ campaigns continue to run without interruption to service as though nothing had happened. Google then sends out an appeal, in the name of freedom of speech, to China pleading with them not to disrupt the services they have in Hong Kong. Knowing full well the extent that China will go to to ensure the “peace” and “security” of their country, it seems absurd that such an appeal would be taken seriously.

Therefore, the Google.com.hk service that we get served up in mainland China is already beginning to crumble at the hands of the ruthless filters. Certain keywords are already being censored and brings up no results. This does not significantly change the search usage of users, but it will most definitely begin to impede search usage in the long term.

To which end, the trend would push search usage towards Baidu, the current dominant leader in China, and would-be only search leader in China. Of course, Google’s exit also provides opportunities for other smaller players to scramble for that minority 30% of the market Google had. No guesses for which company is going to be accelerating on aggression – Bing, from Microsoft.

The market is open and it will be interesting to see how everything plays out when the dust settles.

It was a good trip and a good conference. An eye-opener in many ways. I liked how the conference had invited many local entrepreneurs to share their point of view and discuss the current online space in China now.

There are 253 million internet users in China now and the numbers are increasingly rapidly. A significant percentage of the population are the post 80s generation. These people, like myself, are those who grew up in the age of technology. Technology is “comfort food”! According to some study, 85% of youths today thinks that their mobile phones are even more important their boyfriend/girlfriend.

The “One Child Policy” that has been on on-going for the past 30 years, is now starting to show it’s after effects in society. The policy has resulted in the “loneliest generation” ever. A child usually lives withe their parents and their grandparents. To them the family nucleus becomes very important. The pressure on them to perform academically, emotionally and in society also becomes very great, especially when the hopes and dreams of 6 people rests of their shoulders.

It is this generation of consumers that brands and marketers are now being challenged to attract and win over. The most connected generation of all time. The internet is their playground. It gives them power to be “seen” and “heard” when in reality they might not have been able to obtain. It is about identifying themselves through the community they build up around themselves. 

Points above were taken from keynote speech by Tencent VP, S Y Lau and Pepsi Co CMO, Harry Hui. Both were very impressive speakers with many years of experience in the media industry in China.

While you are glued to this post, let me list a couple of very popular Chinese Sites that you might like to check out:

• xiaonei.com – Social network similar to Facebook
• kaixin001.com – NBT Social network
• fanfou.com – Twitter equivalent
• youku.com – Video Sharing Site (The founder insists that the workings and revenue model is very different from Youtube)

There was someone there which quite a number of people really did not want to meet, but he was literally in your face and one did not really get a chance to get away.

I had previously met him at another event and his follow up email to me was thanking me for my time at another event held at the same time and same place which I had not met him at. Oh well!

These are postcards, that are given free at restaurants, cafes, pubs, bars, etc. It is used by marketers to sell across a promotion, an event, a message, etc.

The problem with these cards is that they are in essence post cards, yet they are fundamentally flawed as a post card, because of the lack of blank space on the card. 

There are 3 types of people who take ZO Cards.

1. The people who collect post cards and take the card for the printed design.

2. The people who want to send messages to their friends and use the post card as a communication tool (Writing message at the back)

3. The people who don’t care about ZO Cards, but need writing material urgently and these cards come in handy at the appropriate moment.

A large portion of the target market I assume would be (2) – people who take the cards and continue to spread the message. This way, a single message goes to not just 1 person, but 2. Yet, nowadays, these cards are sprawled with words from the marketer. No blank space for writing anything, except the addressee’s name and address.

I used to just take the card of the shelf with the coolest design. Now, I would flip the card over and check out the blank space. If it was not 3/4 empty behind, I would not even consider taking the card. Those cards can continue to gather dust on the shelves. The truth be told: most of the cards that are left on the shelf are those which are only fairly good with their design but have little blank real estate behind. No one is going to send a postcard (using their own money to buy stamp) to a friend, without being able to write a decent message on the card.

This is for all you marketers/agencies out there.