Monday, July 28, 2008

China Surpasses US in number of Internet Users

New York Times-"China said the number of Internet users in the country reached about 253 million last month, putting it ahead of the United States as the world's biggest Internet market. The estimate, based on a national phone survey and released on Thursday by the China Internet Network Information Center in Beijing, showed a powerful surge in Internet adoption in this country over the last few years, particularly among teenagers. "

Though the percentage of Internet users in China is still lower than U.S., 19 percent compared with 70 percent, it shows a new generation of Chinese citizens already grows bigger and bigger. Most of them are younger than 30, born as the only child in the family, speak English, and have time to surf on the Internet. They are the one growing up with a PC at home, just like baby boomers in U.S. growing up with TV 50 years ago. They will have their own generation problem, very much different from their parents, but no doube they will have a big impact on where China will go.

In London, I am shocked to see the poor knowledge on China of a lot of Europeans. In their mind, China is still a scary country without freedom of speech and human rights. Thanks to a lot of western media's coverage, people's mind still stays on the same page as twenty years ago. It is pitiful for China to be recognized in the world, and it is also pitiful for the world in the other way.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Mobilize the social network

Working in London means getting more access to the European start-ups. Today I heard the name ZYB from a colleague. It was quite an interesting website helping people getting an easy life when changing to a new phone. It has a cool website name called http://www.igotanewphone.com/

It will be quite helpful to people who constantly change phones. I still remeber I have to write down all hundreds of contact from my old phone, and input it to the new phone, which is quite a mess. It turns out that I have to carry two phones in Europe, because I have all my China contact on one phone, and all my U.S. contact on the other.

This website is kinda of doing sth more innovative beyond uploading and downloading contacts. It tries to make use of those contacts to set up a network for people to share calendar and contacts. Vodafone bought this company in May, which I can see a lot of opportunity for Vodafone to develop in this space. However, the biggest concern in the mobile networking is how much people are willing to share their mobile numbers since they are more private info compared with facebook account or even email account. Imagine when you want to introduce a friend to another, people normally use facebook or send out email, instead of text the friend another friends' number. But who knows? people always change.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

National Gallery P.S. MoMa

They are the top two art museum in the world, one is in London, and one is in New York.

They both have the most famous piece from Vincent Van Gogh, one has SunFlower, and the other has Stary Night.

I love National Gallery because of its old style and the heavy history of over one thousand history.

I also love MoMa in New York as of its modern architecture and decoration, and possibly delicious soup in the canteen.

They are both precious belongings left by our precedents to us.

and what we will leave to our next next next generation?

I am back

Sorry for being absent for two weeks. I am now doing my summer intern in London. The weather this week is quite nice and cool, but I still quite miss the sun in California.

Europe is a very interesting place, especially London. Very multinational, very not-efficient, very long history, very respected culture and very lovely people. I am yet to say I love London, but I can sense the creativity & knowledge of the Londoners (if people call themselves Londoners). Living here for a whole summer is very different from my last short visit two years before. I feel the city every day.

I visited Germany last week, and some photos to share. still thinking of going to France and Italy. Berlin is my favorite and definitely recommended to everyone.