China Digest: China’s IT industry closing in on US, Beijing Govt’s microblog real name registration, and more

Here are some startup news snippets from China, not only in its capital, Beijing, but also other startup hubs such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, Hangzhou, and many more.

(1) The future of computing in China is a frequently discussed topic in the tech community. Most recently, NY Times published an article by John Markoff and David Barboza that discusses signals to a near future where China’s computing industry could close in on the US.

(2) The Beijing city government has decreed that real-name registration will be required for microblogs, according to a news report on CCTV, China’s state broadcaster. The move comes amid a crackdown on “Internet rumors”, which the government has likened to drugs.

(3) On 1st December, Gaopeng—a joint venture between Groupon and Tencent— finally made a formal apology for the ‘fake Tissot incident’, over a month after their initial denial. They offered a full refund to everybody that bought a fake Tissot watch from Groupon China as well as an additional 200 yuan in credit.

(4) 2011 was the year of Sina Weibo, but 2012 will be the year of Weixin. Weixin, an instant voice messaging app, just turned one year old, and its development team just released a few staggering facts. It has made a major splash among smartphone users, pulling together all of Tencent’s services into a single mobile app.

(5) Andrew Left, head of Citron Research, joined Xueqiu’s investor community for a conversation on his firm’s latest short, Qihoo 360. Citron has released a series of four reports to-date, calling Qihoo a financial fraud and a terminal business.

We thank nordicfactory for the flag image.

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Dave McClure: “We will Invest in atleast 5-10 Indian Startups in 2012”

As part of GOAP (Geeks on a Plane) trip to India, we had a conversation with Dave McClure on his India trip and importantly 500Startups’ India plans. In this short discussion, Dave talks about his India experience of meeting several entrepreneurs, the angel investment scene in India and importantly, the decision to invest in at least 5-10 Indian startups in 2012.

Angel Funding Scene in India

Currently, the angel investment process in India is like Series C investment! While India is known for the number of fake angels we have, the ones who are serious (or pretend to be) tend to ask questions which mandate one to fake numbers (and in the process turn into Excel dude). And most of the bigger networks tend to take more than 2-3 months to share their decision (which is mostly NO).

And all this needs to change.

500Startups can potentially disrupt the angel funding scene in India, owing to their Non-BS attitude and focus on investing in team.
Watch the video where Dave McClure talks about his take on Indian startup ecosystem, his advice to Indian entrepreneurs (“focus on design/marketing”) and the decision to invest in at least 5-10 Indian startups in the coming days (they have already made 2 investments so far).

PS: Apologies for the video quality. But then, happens when there is just too much of beer.

Related posts:

1. Dave McClure and Bloomberg Capital Invests $1mn in mygola, Travel Planner Startup
2. Qualcomm to invest in Indian startups
3. Calling Angel Investors – Indian Startups Need your support
4. Intel Capital To Invest $20 mn In 6 Indian Startups
5. 15 Indian Startups come together and launch their own fund #DitchVCs #DitchFakeAngels

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So You Think You Are An “Effective” Worker? Would “Creative” Be Better [Linkedin Report]

Using popular buzzwords in Linkedin profiles has been a trend with the white collar workforce worldwide. Linkedin has released an analysis of these keywords and identified some of the most popular ones.

While “Creative” is the most popular word used to describe oneself in the more developed economies, Indian work force still believes in being “Effective”. Here is the list of most overused keywords in Linkedin India profiles:

1. Effective
2. Creative
3. Innovative
4. Dynamic
5. Extensive experience
6. Problem solving
7. Motivated
8. Track record
9. Communication skills
10. Competitive

Most overused keywords in Linkedin Profile Worldwide – Country wise: 

1. Creative: Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States
2. Multinational: Brazil
3. Dynamic: France
4. Effective: India
5. Problem solving: Italy
6. Motivated: Ireland
7. Managerial: Spain
8. Track record: Singapore

Ironically, if you notice, profiles of creative people would never have the word Creative. People who have good communication skills would never mention that as a quality as that is taken for granted. The list actually shows what people want to be perceived as, rather than what they are.

Compare this list with last year’s, you will see a lot of change and a reflection of the Industry demands.

The most overused buzzword in LinkedIn Profiles in 11 countries – 2010

• Extensive Experience – USA, Canada, Australia
• Dynamic – Brazil, India, Spain
• Motivated – UK
• Innovative – France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands

So are you creative or effective?

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1. LinkedIn Most Popular Social Network in India?
2. Linkedin Opens Its Development Center In India, First Outside Mountain View, California
3. NetworkPlay to monetize LinkedIn’s India Traffic
4. LinkedIn Reaches Milestone – Claims 4 million Users from India
5. LinkedIn and the professional networking story in India

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Dave McClure and Bloomberg Capital Invests $1mn in mygola, Travel Planner Startup

Dave McClure and Bloomberg Capital have announced an investment of $1mn in mygola, a India+US based travel planner startup. mygola provides answers to specific travel planning related questions -  how do I get from the airport to the hotel? Will my phone work? Can I rent a stroller in Amsterdam? etc and relies mostly on technology and 10% on human curated answers.

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Our approach is simple – you ask any question about your trip, and one of us will do all the research & bookings for your trip! We then turbocharge this by:

1. Having tens of thousands of travel enthusiasts sign up and train to become travel researchers.

2. Building an amazing technology platform that aggregates the entire travel web and auto-categorizes it – deals, events, hotels, sublets, even tips from locals on foursquare and your friends who’ve recently been there.

We call this the 90% tech + 10% human insight approach. [mygola].

The company has raised $1mn from Blumberg Capital, Dave McClure / 500 Startups, Lewis Cheng, Mac Harman, Sandeep Bapna, Priyavrat Bhartia, Aldo Monteforte and Alvaro Gutierrez.

Essentially, mygola starts where SEO focused travel planner ends.  From our earlier rant, Customer Focus : Why Indian online travel space is not with it, mostly:

The trouble is, the users are looking to travel for a purpose, and the journey/hotel is one piece of the whole experience. They want to be assured of a certain quality and wants a no-hassle experience. And all that’s on offer is inventory, with some lip gloss on top by way of an interface, and possibly sorted by this or that.

What about the guy who wants to fly to Delhi from Madurai and may be open to combination of either a bus+flight or a train+flight ? From either Chennai or Bangalore. What about the NRI-in-India-for-a-month traveling to 3-4 destinations who’d hire a car, a cell, take a couple of domestic flights, perhaps a holiday to some destination while here, maybe even love to have a data card ?
Your users are looking for very different things. Playing “agent” for a ticket transaction, or a hotel reservation, is hardly what I’d call sticky, or a customer delight strategy.

What is the value that you’re creating ? For OTAs – and there are almost as many as airlines – its even fuzzier these days without a deal or discount. Not long term at all, I’d imagine.
And please do not talk to me about the reduction in your cut as a benefit – I really could not care less about that!

Though mygola competes with local tourist guides, focus on technology is what differentiates them (as opposed to consulting services provided by tourist guides). Surely an interesting startup to watch out for.

Important to note that mygola is started by Anshuman Bapna, who earlier started and sold his startup RightHalf when he was studying in IIT Mumbai.

Related posts:

1. Dave McClure: “We will Invest in atleast 5-10 Indian Startups in 2012”
2. NearHop – Travel Planner (across Cities as well as Local routes)
3. Nexus India Capital invests in Sedemac, Energy Efficiency Startup
4. GeoBeats embeds maps and travel info in it’s travel video player
5. Tata Group Invests in Solar Startup, Flisom

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WIHarper Lead $Tens of Millions Round In HTML5 Mobile Games Curator Leiyoo

Venture capital WIHarper announced leading US$ tens of millions round in HTML5 mobile games developer and distributor Leiyoo with Innovation Works participating. Beijing-based Leiyoo is an IW portfolio company.

Founded in September 2010 by Huang He who used to work at Huawei and Tencent holding various positions including engineer, product manager and product director, Leiyoo is focusing on in-house developing and operating mobile games made with HTML5, the next generation of HTML language. The company to date has held a dozen of HTML5 game developing-related patents.

Flash might rule the PC world, but in the mobile world the winner is yet to be announced as Flash lagged behind in the territory. Apple still says no to Flash. Android is also considering switching to HTML5.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs once said that “new open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5 will won on mobile device”, his statement was echoed by Google chairman Eric Schmidt’s prediction that it looks to him like HTML5 will eventually become a way almost all application are built, including those on new phones.

Related posts:

1. Global Mobile Game Awards at GMIC2011 – Submit Your Mobile Game!
2. Microsoft China Director: Windows Phone Has Chance To Win in 3–5 Years in Mobile
3. Dianping: Mixing the Secret Sauce of Reviews, LBS and Group-buying

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Sohu Partners with Lionsgate for More Quality Contents

Sohu announced today the company has reached a strategic cooperation agreement with production company LionsGate which will enable Sohu to have access to 300+ of the latter’s films plus two TV series Mad Men and Weeds. LionsGate will support Sohu with contents and resources sharing whilst Sohu will leverage on its multiple websites (or so-called Sohu Matrix) to promote LionsGate’s blockbusters. The latest team-up is a part of Sohu’s broader move to purchase more quality contents to compete with other rivals such as Youku, Tudou, Qiyi and Tencent Video as Sohu has been splashing money for copyrighted TV series and films.

The Beijing-based portal site has just teamed up with 20th Century Fox couple months ago to buy more than 400 films from the production company over the next 3 years.

 Sohu Video, the online video subsidiary of Sohu ranked No.2 among Chinese video sites in terms of user coverage and video plays in this September, according to market researcher comScore.

The scramble for copyrighted online contents gave rise to the skyrocketing content acquisition costs of Chinese video sites, we mentioned there’s a 1000 Times increase in copyrighted content costs compared to 5 years ago.

However, the current Chinese online market is a war that no player could afford to give up now after all the efforts and money poured into it even though the costs is fast rising and copyright infringement occurs now and then. Tudou and Youku are currently suing  each other over pirating.

Yu Chuyuan, Sohu CFO said at a conference call that Sohu would pay up to US$ 80 million to buy quality contents in 2012.

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2. Christmas Tragedy – CFO of Baidu Passed Away in An Accident
3. Share Your Olympics Moments From Your Mobile Phone

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Start-ups Should Ditch the Strategy Guy

At a recent Start-up Leadership class, we discussed what start-ups need to have to be lean and move quickly. One serial entrepreneur who is from a more technical product background said “A start-up at the start only needs two types of people: product and sales.” You need a Product person because that’s what you are making for customers; and Sales to get the customers to pay for your product. He was rather adamant about ditching the strategy or MBA type of guy who wants to come in and theorize and make nice PowerPoint presentations.

When I first came to Beijing, I faced the same kind of prejudice. I was from a management consulting background and it was engrained in me about how to plan, research, analyze and recommend improvements. Often we would spend hours playing with numbers and making slides to show the client management team. It was vital that we could simplify things and fit them into matrices that made sense out of complex issues. There is no doubt that these skills are important for a company that has been operating for a while and needs direction, but when a start-up is trying to get off the ground, strategy doesn’t add much value. At first I was rather offended that people thought I couldn’t do things, but being in start-ups and observing start-ups, I realized it is true.

Many entrepreneurs look at strategy people and say “entrepreneurs are the street fighters that get things done, strategy people come in and want to tell us what to do but don’t do it themselves.” In many ways, I agree with this. Many consultancies always try and sell themselves as people who execute their strategies but the truth is, they don’t most of the time. Consultants are very good at thinking, but not very good at doing. Start-ups are like little new born chickens that need to fight for survival, otherwise could die very quickly. At the start, it’s about execution and speed to survive and out play the bigger players.

Strategy people often look at entrepreneurs and think they don’t know what they are doing but entrepreneurs look at strategy people and say, “at least we are doing something.” Strategy people have great, intelligent ideas that exist in their heads. Often these ideas will make it to paper and then a 30 page slide deck. Entrepreneurs will not analyze to death what they think could happen, but just do it. They pick a big market, make a good product, find customers, ship it, iterate until they get traction all the while with one or two slides that explain what they are doing and why they can do it better than anyone else.

I’m not saying that start-ups should not ever consider someone who is from a strategy background (otherwise I wouldn’t be here either). Start-ups should utilize the experience and intelligence of the thinkers and idea people by asking them to first humble themselves, teach them how to do the small dirty work and get them to take action which results in measurable outcomes. Don’t ditch strategy, ditch people who just want to talk about strategy.

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2. Check-in your achievements with Kwestr
3. P1- a social network for China’s affluent

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Web, Smartphones, and Social Media are Thriving in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau [INFOGRAPHIC]

The Infographic of the Day series visually expresses important stories from Asia and the world of technology.

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Across Asia, countries seem to be split into those who’re well hooked-up to the high-speed web, and those who access instead from mobiles and PC cafés – with only mainland China somewhat torn between those two states of being.

But in the Greater China area, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau are certainly in the first group – enjoying high rates of internet penetration on an uncensored web whilst also having over 100 percent phone ownership, many of which are smartphones.

That’s the picture painted by We Are Social’s new report on the three areas, which is part of its marathon survey of 24 countries across the region.

Some other highlights from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau include the facts that 35 percent of HK folks own smartphones, and 56 percent of them use their devices to search the web every single day; Taiwan has the world’s most active blog readers and BBS users; and in tiny Macau, more women than men are using Facebook, which bucks the general trend across Asia. Here are the three full slideshows:

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Hong Kong

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Taiwan

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Macau

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Check out all the posts in this Asia-wide series, or hit the source link below to see We Are Social’s analysis as well.

[Source: We Are Social]

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Beijing Markets Get Serious About Software Piracy

eWorld, one of Zhongguancun's four major electronics malls

Beijing’s Zhongguancun area is the bustling heart of its tech scene, home to both startups and tech giants alike. It’s also the heart of the city’s electronics retail market, with several gigantic malls peddling everything from televisions to computer parts and software. One thing it hasn’t been, though, is a bastion of intellectual property rights. As recently as this summer, I recall the Zhongguancun subway stop being plastered with ads begging people to buy the real version of Windows 7 — and then emerging from the station to be immediately confronted by touts selling versions that were of, erm, questionable legality.

But four of Zhongguancun’s biggest electronics malls have taken a step towards eradicating software piracy. After signing an agreement to protect IP rights, the four markets have announced new rules for vendors, and they sound rather strict. The first time a vendor is caught selling pirated software — or computers with a pirate OS installed — they will be fined 1000 RMB ($156). The second time, though, their shop will be forced to close until they’ve cleaned out all their pirated goods. And if it happens a third time, they’ll be kicked out of the mall permanently.

These measures could be an effective deterrent, as locations in any of the four main electronics malls are prime real estate, and vendors aren’t likely to relish the prospect of getting kicked out over a 5 RMB bootleg of Pro Evolution Soccer. However, it’s not entirely clear how well these new rules will be enforced, and we’ve heard similar promises before. If it goes well and is actually enforced, it could serve as a model for the rest of the country. But will it be enforced? We’re crossing our fingers, but we’re not holding our breath.

[Beijing Times via Sina Tech]

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Dell Unveils First Ever Smartphone Running Baidu’s Android-Based OS

This morning in Beijing, the American company Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) is unveiling a smartphone that runs Baidu’s (NASDAQ:BIDU) newly-launched Yi OS. It’s a major partnership that marks the Chinese search engine giant’s biggest move into mobile.

The Dell Streak Pro D43 (pictured above and below) has a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED screen that’s high-definition (aka: qHD at 960 by 540 pixels), an 8-megapixel main camera plus a 1.3-megapixel one for video-chatting, and has WCDMA 3G that’ll run on China Unicom (NYSE:CHU; HKG:0762), the same network that carries the iPhone in the country.

The Baidu Yi OS is based on Google’s mobile system, Android, which is permitted under the software’s open-source structure. And so it features core Android features such as voice commands in Chinese, onto which Baidu has built an ecosystem of its own – with apps such as Ting for its streaming music service, Yue for e-books, and Baidu’s own Maps app as well.

Dell's new smartphone for China, running Baidu's Yi OS. (Source of both images: Sina Tech news)

There’s no word yet on price, but judging by the specs, Dell and Baidu are, with its first-ever Yi handset, aiming for the top-end of the market that’s occupied by the iPhone and the likes of Motorola’s (NYSE:MMI) new customized-for-China MT917 RAZR, which runs standard Android 2.3.

The pictures above, sourced from Sina Tech, show a familiar Android interface mixing app icons with widgets. There seems to be a very iPhone-esque folder icon on there too, which is a sign that Baidu has improved the poor folder system in Android 2.3, which is what the Yi OS is based on.

In due course, Baidu will also release an open API for Yi, with developer tools to allow more deep integration of apps with Baidu services. But for now, any app made for Google’s Android platform will also work on Yi, giving Dell and Baidu the benefit of lots of apps and popular games, such as Angry Birds, ready to play on the new Dell-Yi device.

The press conference is still ongoing, and we’ll update if more juicy details are revealed.

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