China Digest – 24 Jul

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

(1) The longstanding narrative is that China’s netizens log on to the Internet more for entertainment (games, celebrities, jokes) while the West do so more for information (search, e-commerce, news). A new study by HP Labs on ‘topics that trend’ finds that this old image holds true in aggregate for Sina Weibo vs. Twitter too.

(2) With the launch of Game Center and Weibi, Sina Weibo is now testing 4 monetization models out of the 6 that Sina CEO Charles Chao announced earlier this year at the China International Mobile Conference.

(3) A decade each of online retail later, the outcomes couldn’t be more different: newegg.com became the second largest online-only retailer in the US, while their counterpart in China has incurred operating losses since inception.

(4) Xunlei, China’s leading download client, is likely more concerned about the reactions of foreign investors than the Chinese government when it comes to copyright issues. In fact, Wall Street and the lawyers that accompany it are sometimes the best enforcers of copyright law in China.

(5) 50% of the top Chinese engineering students want to start a company, but only 3% rank it as their top career choice. By comparison, 65% of top American students want to start a company, and 22% choose rank it on top.

(6) Innovation Works’ incubation program Jump-Start is accepting new applications for its third cycle now. Launched in last September, the project had accepted 7 start-ups for the first cycle, out of which 4 have been funded.

(7) Following the success of incubation programs like Y-Combinator, 500 Startups and Techstars in the US, China is setting up its own batch of start-up houses. A new acceleration program called Chinaccelerator (a member of Techstars network) based in Dalian is starting to generate buzz.

(8) According to people familiar with the matter, the Alibaba smartphone will be launched officially by the end of this month.

(9) Microsoft has Internet Explorer, Google has Chrome, so there’s no reason why the leading web search giant, Baidu should not have its own browser. Baidu finally released its rumored browser.

(10) China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released its 28th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China. According to this report, China’s Internet population has reached 485 million by the end of June 2011 and the Internet penetration rate is now 36.2%, increasing 1.9% from 2010.

(11) According to a local report, 24Quan, the fourth largest group-buying service in terms of penetration in China according to market research firm iResearch, is so short of money that the Beijing-based company cannot pay up its campaign bills.

(12) Baidu, the leading search engine in China signed a landmark deal for the distribution of digital music with One-Stop China (OSC), a joint venture whose shareholders are three of the leading global record companies: Universal Music, Warner Music, and Sony Music.