Chinese Equivalent of TechCrunch? Not Yet

Posted by Gang Lu on March 29, 2008 · Filed Under China Web2

“If there was a Chinese equivalent of TechCrunch, Gang Lu’s MOBINODE will probably be it“, this is what Rick Martin, blogger of CNET Asia told Thomas Crampton who also blogs for No.1 French blog Loiclemeur.com.

I am absolutely flattered, and it is also such a pressure on me. Thank you, Rick. It is really a great honour. I keep thinking of this, but the fact is: China web is not ready for a TechCrunch.

- There is no Silicon Valley in China

Thanks to web2.0, there are many startups popping up everyday in China. China has such a massive Internet market, and I should have been overwhelmed by the stories. But if you know there are plenty of YouTubes and SNSs, and most of these sites including some very popular ones I don’t even want to spend 1 second on, I have to tell you that sometime I feel nothing to blog about. China Internet is still a follower of Silicon Valley and lacks of innovation, I am very positive the future is brilliant, but that is the fact we have to face right now.

- TechCrunch is to broadcast, what China needs is to bridge

Because TechCrunch is written in English language and also because people all know Silicon Valley is the hottest place of web2.0, what Michael Arrington is doing is to broadcast the breaking news to the world. But China, needs the Bridging more than a Broadcasting. The language barrier, the culture difference, the different Internet atmosphere and so on, all these factors made one fact, Chinese Internet market is isolated to the world. (Sometime we are just happy with being isolated as the local market is big enough to deal with. It is another story to tell.) MOBINODE is written first in English talking about Chinese stories, and the reason to launch it is to create a channel through which the western can have some fresh ideas about Dragon’s web, i.e. to bridge the Chinese web with the global market.

- TechCrunch is the best showstage of western Big Names, how many Chinese Names you know and you seriously care about

If I remember it right, the first milestone for TechCrunch is that it is the first source breaking the news of Google buying YouTube. We all know Yahoo, we all know Microsoft… Which startup has secured its funding, which company has been acquired by a big name, which startup is founded by a well-known entrepreneur… Any news potentially can be Breaking for the global readers. However, if I tell you Tudou, the No.1 video-sharing site is acquired by Baidu, No.1 Chinese web search, how many readers from the global will care? If I did not write a post about Chinese BBS phenomenon, I bet few of non-Chinese can understand what an important role the company Comsenz, owner of Discuz! BBS system plays in China.

MOBINODE is growing, and I will try my most to bring it to a higher level. If a true Chinese equivalent of TechCrunch can be delivered, it counts on everyone, the business leaders, the venture capital guys and the users!

Before you close this page, please check out a full page of RSS feeds from the Best China tech blogs, created by Thomas.

Comments

Gang Lu

Hey Kevin,

Thank you for your suggestion.

Yes. I agree with you. Chinese actually understand the western market much better than they understand ours. We need more channels to help on the communications. They want to know more about China, but sometime we just dont talk and when we talk, they cannot hear and understand.

best,

Kevin

Hi Gang Lu --
I think you're right about "bridging" -- if your readers are English speakers, you need to cater to what interests them.

But I also think you should include the major stories about domestic Chinese issues. For example, many Westerners don't understand the Chinese BBS phenomenon, but that doesn't mean they don't want to know. I think a lot of Westerners would care if they understood why it is important...

Richard Chang

Yeah, an interesting observation is that, while China already have sites like techweb/donews/cnbeta that supply IT news from all over the world in Chinese, there are not as many English sites/blogs that can do the same for China-related IT news.

Mobinode is a good example and I hope we'll see more in the future.

Gang Lu

Hey Jimmy,

Thank you for your comments.

I am reading cnBeta and many other Chinese IT info-front regularly too, they are very good resource but only for Chinese.

Stories pile up, surely I will try to update more often, and I am always looking for bloggers who can join me.

best,

- Lu

Jimmy

hehe, very interesting!
beside the broadcast and bridge argument, i think China has its own IT info-front, e.g. mydrivers, cnBeta.
well, you may argue that mydrivers is not a blog, and cnBeta is only a semi-blog at most. But to be honest, who cares if it's a blog or not?

Anyway, Mobinode is nice indeed, and it would be much attractive if updates more often.