Welcome to China this week! This past week in China saw action in particular from Alibaba, Baidu, and Amazon. We also have several interesting reports that show Apple’s dominance in China; and another one by iResearch which reveals that a whopping 39 percent of emails sent went missing in the country.
1. Lee Kai Fu’s speech at Qinghua University
Founder and CEO of Innovation Works, Lee Kai Fu, was a guest speaker at Beijing’s renowned Qinghua University on Saturday night, speaking with a group of budding/aspiring entrepreneurs. He spoke about the mobile internet trend in China and how Innovation Works works.
2. Alibaba Creates 1 Billion RMB “Cloud Fund” For Cloud Apps, Start-Ups
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba this week started a 1 billion RMB (US$156.9 million) “cloud fund” that will invest in cloud-oriented web companies and start-ups. There’s also a separate 1 million RMB in prizes for the software developers who create the best web apps for the company’s Aliyun mobile OS.
3. Etao Product Search Engine: Some E-Commerce Sites Embrace It, Some Block It
Etao is the product search engine that was created by Alibaba Group, China’s biggest e-commerce company. But its origins are cause for reticence among some e-commerce sites. On Tuesday, we reported that 360buy has blocked Etao from crawling and indexing its site. And now the High Street retailer turned e-commerce newcomer Suning (SHE:002024) has followed suit. Suning’s online store now also blocks Etao’s spiders from cataloging the site (pictured above).
4. Baidu Reader: A Desktop Reading App Integrated with Baidu Services
This week, Baidu announced the launch of a new product called Baidu Reader. It’s a reading app for the PC that combines the functionality of document-reading software with Baidu’s massive library content, allowing readers to browse and purchase books online as well as search for and read documents from a variety of Baidu services, such as their mega-encyclopedia, Baidu Baike. Users can also read their own documents in-app. The app is available for free download here and runs on XP, Vista, and Windows 7.
5. Nearly 40% of Emails in China Go Missing
According to an iResearch report based on data from Returnpath for the first half of this year, China’s lost email ratio — the percent of emails sent that never make it to the recipient — is 39 percent, way higher than the world average of 12 percent and the Asia average, which is 16 percent. So what are the causes of this? Click to find out
6. Amazon Goes It Alone in China, With a New Name and URL
The American e-commerce site Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has made some big changes to its China site today – there’s now a new name and a new short URL, in a sign that the company is ready to stand alone on its global brand. Formerly called “Joyo Amazon” – after buying out Joyo.com seven years ago in order to enter China – the name is, starting this morning, simplified to just “Amazon.” The new Z.cn URL serves as an easy-to-remember shortcut to the ongoing Amazon.cn homepage.
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