CTT: Here is an interesting view re the China Google issue from China Daily – also have a look at the comments. In any case – China’s Internet users keep on growing (now close to 400 million), and China is continuing to block sites, such as Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter…and soon (by April 10) also Google (?).
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Google’s actions show that the world’s biggest search engine company has abandoned its business principles and instead shows the world a face that is totally politicized.
First, it claims without any evidence that …

Topics regarded as sensitive include names of political leaders

To police the internet China has employed what is regarded by many as the world’s most formidable censorship machine. But as ever more Chinese get online, more and more users also understand what it means to jump over the government’s “Great Firewall of China”.
The country’s firewall system is complex and multi-layered, says Isaac Mao, one of China’s first bloggers.
“The first layer is technical. The government has invested a lot to build routers and other infrastructure to filter, monitor and block websites and …

eLong will make a list each week of hotels whose price on eLong.com is higher than on Ctrip.com, and compensate users with cash when they book the hotels through eLong and check in, the report said. In an initial comparison, eLong found 90, or less than 1% of its more than 10,000 contracted hotels, offer higher prices on eLong than on Ctrip.com, said the report.
Ctrip.com announced that it had started a best price guarantee promotion for its hotel booking service a few days ago, offering compensation of three times the …

China Mobile hopes to offer both Apple’s iPad and a version of the iPhone that supports China’s homegrown 3G mobile standard, comments by China Mobile’s top executive showed on Thursday.
China Mobile is “interested in the iPad” and has told Apple it hopes to see a version of the iPhone that works with the government-backed 3G standard it is using, Wang Jianzhou, CEO and chairman of China Mobile Limited, said at a news conference.
Wang’s remarks are the first from a Chinese company interested in offering the iPad. Apple has not yet …

It testifies to the power of the Internet in China that a jack of all trades like Yang Hengjun (杨恒均) — expert on international affairs, writer of spy fiction and business executive — can carve out a role for himself as a one-man media powerhouse.
Yang has been online for five years, and seriously blogging for just three. But measured by unique IP visits to his various blog sites, he now averages 150,000 readers a day, writes David Bandurski, Research Associate at the China Media Project

Yang, whose outspoken writing on public affairs has …

The U.S. media were rife with stories in the 1950s and 1960s about how TV, also known as the boob tube, was changing U.S. family lifestyles forever.
Well, the same thing seems to be happening with family Internet use in China these days.
Management consultant McKinsey published a report this month that says people in the 60 biggest Chinese cities spend about 70% of their leisure time on the Internet. In rural towns, the figure is said to be about 50%.
In China, which may soon get a version of U.S. video Web …

The leading social networking site in China, renren.com, started out as a blatant Facebook clone – but it now has tens of millions of users. Despite obvious similarities to Facebook, there is one significant difference from the U.S. in how Renren and other Chinese SNS are used. The bread and butter of these sites is social games using virtual items. Indeed, Farmville originated in China!
In this first post of a series, we outline the most popular social network sites in China. In follow-up posts, we’ll look at Twitter clones, …

Chinese online travel service provider Ctrip.com has announced that it will compensate consumers for any differences in online booking prices.
Ctrip.com said that, from March 10, 2010, all the room rates it provides on its website for hotels in China will be the lowest available. If any consumers find room rates lower than those on its website, it will pay them compensation to the value of three times the price difference.
This is the first time ever that a travel service provider in China has promised to compensate consumers for price …

By Joab Jackson, IDG News Service
During a New York panel discussion on social media and digital activism held Monday, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei secured a promise from Twitter creator Jack Dorsey that his company will offer a Chinese version of its social networking service.
Though Dorsey quickly qualified his response by noting that it may be some time yet before the service will be available for the country, due to technical and legal hurdles.
The exchange took place at the Paley Center in New York, in a session sponsored …

Chinese authorities have warned major partners of Google’s China’s based search engine that they must comply with censorship laws even if Google does not, an industry expert with knowledge of the notice said Sunday.
Chinese government information authorities warned some of Google’s biggest Web partners on Friday that they should prepare backup plans in case Google ceases censoring the results of searches on its local Chinese-language search engine, said the expert, who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation by the government.
The warning was the latest indication that …

In view of the hardening of positions on both sides, Google reportedly has chalked out a detailed strategy for closure of its search engine in China, and it is almost final now as the talks over censorship with the Chinese authorities have reached an apparent deadlock since January of this year. The Chinese government on Friday warned the US based search company, that it was not prepared to compromise on internet censorship with Google in China.

To recap on what happened, it was December last year when the Google – China …

ChinaTravelTrends.com, new interactive platform for China outbound tourism, launched in Berlin, with backing of PATA

Chinese affluent citizens increasingly like to travel abroad, but distrust official information.
With more than 50 million outbound travellers expected to leave China in 2010, the Chinese outbound market is attracting more and more attention of destinations around the world.
As part of the ITB Convention 2010, a workshop organised by the German-based COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute and the Chinese company Dragon Trail, presented Social Media Marketing as the most …

Ctrip.com International Ltd. (Nasdaq: CTRP | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) assures customers that they will get the lowest price for online booking of hotel rooms and promises compensation if they are cheated.
The promise is made in partnership with hotel chains at home and abroad, including …

Reporters Without Borders released its annual report [PDF] on online access today. They call it Enemies of the Internet, and it shows a world where online censorship, intimidation and worse is increasing.
It’s not surprising that as access to the Internet expands, more and more dictators and tyrants will try to suppress it. But what’s troubling about this year’s report is the inclusion of two democratic countries: Australia and South Korea.

Both countries were included in the report’s Under Surveillance list – a sub group of the main Enemies list.
Australia’s proposed online …

Business social media can unlock the door to the world’s second-largest economy
A surge in Chinese exports for January has kicked the world’s fastest-growing economy back into life, at least in the eyes of Westerners. But China is still a difficult place to do business. Is there an opportunity for business social networks to break down trade barriers?
China is celebrating its 4,708th year. It is the year of the tiger and the country is safe in the knowledge that its economy is back on track. The trade figures make promising reading. …

China’s online travel booking users in 2009 reached 30.24 million, increasing 77.9 percent from the previous year, according to a report released recently by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).
Ctrip, the one-stop China travel service, also says its number of members has reached 30 million.
Online travel booking in 2009 saw rapid development and has become a highlight of the tourism market. According to statistics released by the CNNIC, online travel booking users in 2009 increased 77.9 percent to reach 13.24 million. The growth rate is second only to online payment …

The popularity of Twitter has produced a number of clones in China, just as there are Facebook clones. Some of China’s Twitter clones have been closed down by the Chinese government, but some have survived. We take a look at both cases in this post. We also assess Twitter’s chances of success in China, should it ever be freed from the ‘Great Firewall of China.’
Fanfou, Jiwai and Digu were some of the first Twitter clones to become successful in China.
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However all three – plus Twitter itself – were …

According to the US Department of Commerce, a Chinese tourist spends an average of $6,000 USD in the United States. This enormous spending power of the Chinese tourist is the main reason behind the New York City Tourism Bureau to vigorously promote the visit of thousands of Chinese visitors; the largest group in NYC tourism history. According to the Tourism Bureau’s latest news, among the main activities of Chinese tourist, 95% are shopping, followed by dining. Business owners are all smiles upon the arrival of Chinese tourists.

Bloomingdales in NYC, a …

Yahoo and Chinese Yahoo

Sex is definitely the universal theme for Chinese websites, from the major portals to small sites. It is very interesting to compare a US portal with a Chinese portal site to see the difference on this topic. It happens Yahoo is a good example for this since Yahoo has a Chinese Yahoo (Yahoo China) and it is comparable to other major Chinese portals, such as Sina.com.
There is no sex on the front page of Yahoo at all. You basically don’t see any ads or words related to …

Baidu.com:
Baidu (百度) is the Chinese Google. It dominates Chinese language search with about an 80% market share and is one of the biggest sites worldwide. As a local Chinese site it censors it’s search results. Like Google, Baidu offers a number of services apart from search, including Maps, documents, MP3 search, Baidu Space (a social network with over 100 million users) Baidu Encyclopedia, (China’s largest encyclopedia by users) and is launching a new video site called QiYi.com in March.
QQ.com
QQ is a portal that runs a number of services, most notably …