Why Weibo will surpass Twitter - Marc van der Chijs

Marc van der Chijs

China's twitter eauquivalent Sina's Weibo might very soon pass Twitter in popularity, writes Tudou.com co-founder  Marc van der Chijs on his weblog, although the rest of the world is still largely ignorant about this internet service.

Weibo is certainly already miles ahead in terms of functionality. But most people outside China have no idea about the service and its functionality. Beijing-based blogger Bill Bishop therefore put a post on his blog today with an embedded presentation of Weibo’s history and main functions, including lots of screenshots.
Silicon Valley pay attention: this product is much better than Twitter, and Twitter (or other clones or even social network sites) can probably learn a lot just by looking at some of Weibo’s functions. It’s so good that I wonder if it might actually one day be able to take on Twitter.

Marc van der Chijs is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your meeting or conference, do get in touch.

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If I were Groupon - Marc van der Chijs

Image via Wikipedia

China Internet veteran Marc van der Chijs has a thorough look at the already sorrow state of Groupon's effort to enter the China market, together with the domestic giant Tencent. Things go from bad to worse. After Van der Chijs describes what has happened till now, he concludes:

If I were Groupon, I would seriously reconsider their current China market entry. If they want to enter fast they need Tencent, there is no way around it. But if they give themselves a bit more time there are other ways. They made the mistake of mainly hiring foreign managers and focusing in their recruitment drive on consultants and investment bankers with MBAs. That may work in the US, but that’s not what you need to be successful in China.

Marc van der Chijs by Fantake via Flickr

The article was original written for the Silcon Valley Insider. Last night Van der Chijs wrote is last update, and things look even worse now:

Last night an article on the Marbridge Daily named the 2 managing directors for Groupon in Beijing and Shanghai. From their LinkedIn resumes (see here for Mads Faurholt and Raphael Strauch) it looks like they both got their first real jobs in 2007 and have zero operations or China experience. They seem to be very smart, ambitious and aggressive guys, which is perfect for the European or US market, but less so for cooperation with a leading Chinese Internet company. 

More background in his original article.

Marc van der Chijs is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference, do get in touch.

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Inflation pushes business and workers out of big cities - Marc van der Chijs

Many do not return after CNY via Wikipedia

Tudou.com founder Marc van der Chijs warns in his weblog that higher prices and wages is forcing businesses and people out of Shanghai and other larger cities in China, getting critical after Chinese New Year:

For years prices have been rising steadily in China. The price of fuel is about 3 times as high as 10 years ago for example, but also daily necessities such as rice keep on going up in price. That is the same all over China, but especially in the big cities the housing prices are also going through the roof. They are now at such a high level that even white-collar workers cannot afford to buy apartments anymore.
I realized this for the first time about 2 years ago, when an employee came to me with a salary increase request. He wanted to buy a house and could not afford it without a higher salary. I did not grant him the higher pay so he left the company, but it made me contemplate about the relation between the level of salaries and the housing prices. They were getting out of sync fast. But housing prices only kept on rising after that, and at a much faster pace than the average salary increase.

Now the increases have reached a critical level, Van der Chijs writes:

There are signs that this may happen sooner rather than later: in Saturday’s English-language newspaper the Shanghai Daily a reporter wrote that so far 90% of the domestic staff did not return from their hometowns to Shanghai after Chinese New Year. Last year the figure was around 30% at this time. And the staff that come back are asking for wage increases of up to 30%, meaning that a full-time cleaning lady now earns around USD 500 per month. If these people are now all staying in their home towns because of better economic conditions very soon their white-collar colleagues will follow their paths.

More in his weblog.

Marc van der Chijs 

Marc van der Chijs is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Do not invest in Dangdang and Youku - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein by Fantake via Flickr

US investors should be very cautious spending their money on Chinese companies like bookseller Dangdang or video hosting company Youku who have no clear business model or otherwise a hard time to show a profit, warns Shaun Rein in this debate on CNBC.
While China's economy has been doing pretty well, especially Chinese companies who list in the US, because they do not qualify to list in China itself, should not be touched.

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Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference, do get in touch.

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When a China bull becomes a bear - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein by Fantake via Flickr

Derided as the eternal bull on China, Shaun Rein now warns US investors (and others) in Forbes against a dangerous bubble emerging from China: the IPO hype from anything coming from China, including video hosting companies Youku and Tudou.

A mania about China has gripped too many investors. Anything with China in its name gets hot in the way dot-com got people's blood pulsing in the 1990s. Many of America's biggest-gaining initial public offerings this year have been of Chinese firms. Many of those companies deserve high valuations, but not all of them.

Soon two Chinese online video companies, Tudou and Youku, will be going public. Both are run by intelligent, savvy and aggressive management teams that have raised more than $100 million in private equity money. I have friends involved with both companies who will probably be very angry at me for writing this, so I do not say it lightly, but investors need to be very cautious about investing in these companies and understand the risks.

Shaun Rein has serious misgivings about the business models of both loss making companies who pin their hopes on the 420 million internet users in China.

Searching for profits, both Tudou and Youkou have moved into generating more content rather than relying on user-generated content, and they have clamped down on pirated shows. A Hulu-style site might make money more easily than one with user-created content, but the cost of creating content is huge. Tudou and Youkou are not television stations; Hulu's backers, like Newscorp and ABC, can simply broadcast their television content online. Creating content and developing a cool website take totally different management skills. Content, like the movie business, is a risky bet, because it is dependent on one-hit wonders.

More arguments in Forbes.

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Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your meeting or conference, do get in touch.

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Tudou turns to internet TV - Marc van der Chijs

Marc van der Chijs Flickr

Tudou, one of China's largest video hosting companies, is making a surprise move by making the first -made-for-internet soap, explains Marc van der Chijs, co-founder of Tudou, to CNNgo. Not surprisingly, the production wants to reach the 250 younger Chinese at the internet with the theme of "love",
In CNNgo:

Van der Chijs explains that, “Although producing shows ourselves is more expensive than licensing shows we feel it is worth it. Not only does this offer us the opportunity to differentiate ourselves once again from the competition, but also we have more ways to recoup our costs. Instead of having pre-loaders and other advertising as main revenue drivers for our content, we are now able to also use product placement and script placement in the series."

He continues that “Being able to integrate brands into the story line is of course very attractive to brands focusing on a young, urban audience with a high disposable income (Tudou’s core audience).”

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Marc van der Chijs is a successful Dutch entrepreneur in China. He works also with the China Speakers Bureau. Are you interested in having him a a speaker? Do get in touch.

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