March 06, 2006

400 Million Phones in China

According to Digital Media Asia by way of China Herald, the Ministry of Information Industry China is reporting over 400 million cell phone subscribers in China. I think everyone's watching the wrong market in that whole Yahoo, Google, MSN desktop search thing. Cell phone apps are already the bigger market.

Posted by Jake at 09:38 AM | Comments (0)

February 08, 2006

Chinese Internet Police

Hot on the heels of the Google.cn debate, EastSouthWestNorth provides a translation of a reporters experience as part of the Chinese Internet Police. While we could suppose that the reporter in question was censored from the real tasks at hand, it's still interesting to see that Internet police find most of what's on the Internet just as lame as the rest of us do.

Posted by Jake at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)

January 29, 2006

Why Google China is the right move

A long list of technologists are taking Google to task for complying with China's censorship demands in the launch of Google.cn. The citizens of China have long had access to Google.com as censored by the government in China. Google.cn is a specifically localized version in compliance with local laws. What everyone in the tech community seems to be overlooking, with the notable exceptions of Weblogs, Inc. frontman Jason Calacanis and David Weinberger, is the Chinese people are generally better off with a somewhat neutered version of Google than with no Google at all. In the United States we take for granted the right of free speech and the free market capitalism provides, including the abundance of choice in virtually every product we purchase. At this point, the choices available in China, for virtually all categories of products and services, are dramatically more limited. By offering Google.cn to the citizens of China, even in a censored form, Google is helping to expand the choices available in online search.

The many respected technologists taking a hard line opposition to Google's move, including John Battelle, Danny Sullivan, and Philipp Lenssen, live safely in places where free speech is standard fare; Lenssen being an exception in that Google censors Nazi-related searches by government mandate where he resides in Germany. If you read the opinions of bloggers living and working in China, the picture is vastly different and largely supportive of Google.cn.

Imagethief, a blog written by Will, an American living in Beijing, is praising the Google decision, because as he puts it:

For the record, Imagethief thinks that Google is doing the right thing, and taking a reasonable approach to the conundrum of operating in China. I have to confess some disagreement with RSF's take-no-prisoners approach to complicity with the Chinese government censorship regime, despite my respect for them as an organization. I believe that American Internet firms should remain in China, but should take as many reasonable steps as they can to avoid putting themselves in untenable situations, such as turning over e-mail communications belonging to Chinese dissidents or journalists.

Will goes on to further explain why American companies in China are important even if services don't offer everything we get here at home:

As to why I support US Internet firms being in China, it's a matter of providing choice for Chinese users, even if that choice isn't as rich as what users in other countries would get. This is essentially what Google has offered up as an explanation, and I accept it. We need to be clear with ourselves what group we're trying to serve by pressuring US (and European) Internet firms to withdraw from China. It certainly isn't average Chinese users. Perhaps I see this issue through too much of a personal filter. (Perhaps all of us bloggers working and living in China do; we seem to have similar opinions on this issue.) I work with seventy Chinese colleagues, almost all of whom use Google to run searches as part of their work and 100% of whom use MSN messenger to chat with friends, colleagues etc. (Don't ask me why; that's what they like. I'm an AIM user myself.) I certainly wouldn't want to be the person wandering around the office explaining that the MSN Messenger servers were no longer accessible to them because Americans felt it was inappropriate for Microsoft to offer it as a service to them as long as it meant following Chinese content restrictions. And I certainly don't see how restricting them to Chinese Internet services only serves their interests, even though it may salve our national conscience.

Danwei, a business blog covering China offers a fairly neutral perspective on the issue, neither commending Google nor condemning them, while pointing out that Google.com often returns unavailable notices or gets redirected to government Web sites in times of crisis now, optimistically hoping this will not be the case with Google.cn. A scan of the Danwei comments offers intelligent discourse on the subject as a whole, with numerous links to additional sources.

EastSouthWestNorth points out that while information is censored, it's not impossible to get at (or at least not yet). The blog suggests strategies for discovering information through search using multiple solutions including both Google.cn and Google.com in addition to China-based Baidu, which is also censored.

The China Stock Blog is an additional voice of reason, stripping the issue of emotion and getting to the crux of the situation:

Is the situation ideal in China ideal? No. Is it better for the Chinese people if they have access to Google, but it be censored? Clearly yes. The government is making a huge mistake in thinking that by blocking terms like democracy, somehow they'll be able to stem a democratic movement. It's the exchange of information, and ideas in general, that will allow popular organization to grow like plants in concrete, ultimately causing huge fissures and cracks. The argument that Google is doing something wrong sounds like the same argument people use when they argue that manufacturers are doing something wrong by not offering workers, in developing countries, Western-level wages and conditions. Ultimately, it's a step.

My point in making comment is the issue isn't as simple as boycotting Google or attempting to force Google out of China altogether until they stand up to the government of China. Taking retaliatory action might make a bunch of political activists in the United States feel good because it creates a common cause to rally round, but it doesn't provide any benefit to the intended beneficiaries: Citizens of China. This has nothing to do with Google's soul; public companies have no soul to lose. The people living in China could be in a far worse position without companies from the outside providing choices, even if those choices aren't identical to what we get here in the United States. No choice is more closely related to no likelihood for improvement in the future.

The real test isn't whether Google stands firm against censorship demands from China in the current climate, but whether Google.cn and other services like it gradually grow more open with incremental improvements happening in China going forward.

Posted by Jake at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

January 23, 2006

Seattle Chinese New Year

Growing up in Iowa, the Chinese New Year wasn't really a celebration anyone paid attention to. I've attended the San Francisco parade once and this year I'll be dropping in on a couple of events in the Seattle area. Magnuson Park is heralding the Year of the Dog with an event featuring the Mak Fai Kung Fu Club Chinese Lion Dancers along with crafts, storytelling and New Year's treats on 27 January 2006. The Well Pacific Cancer Foundation is hosting two events, one at Redmond High School on 28 January 2006 and a second event on 4 February 2006 at the Renton IKEA Performing Arts Center. That second one isn't listed on the calendar, but I got an email from my Mandarin teacher with details that boasts a two-hour show with:

Over 100 performers will present Chinese traditional group dances, songs, instrumental music, Beijing Opera, martial arts, Chinese regional opera, and more, all in a single show.

Posted by Jake at 11:07 PM | Comments (0)

December 16, 2005

Learning Mandarin

I started Mandarin lessons this week. For at least the past three years, maybe longer, I've been contemplating the possibility of learning to speak and read Chinese. Most of my favorite movies are Chinese, like The Missing Gun, which is an awesome detective movie set in a small Chinese town. Understanding what's being said in the native language instead of reading subtitles would go a long way to improving the movie experience for me. I also think there's a ton of exciting stuff happening in technology in China and lacking an understanding of the language means I'm missing out. At first, I thought I might try to learn using The Pimsleur CDs, which are highly rated as the solution for learning to speak just about any language. I'm using them as a supplement to studying with a private tutor, because with all the distractions of working on projects, it's too easy to put off studying with something like a CD. The private lessons put a burden on me to demonstrate some progress to someone else and also create a feedback mechanism for me to know I'm on the right track. More on the lessons as they progress, it's certainly a different experience learning a tonal language when compared to English or the Spanish and French languages I've studied in the past.

Posted by Jake at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)