2009 ChinaMode Report (Part I) – Twitter Voted Most Recognized International Service in China

[Background: ChinaMode Awards 2009, initiated and operated by the 14 most influential Chinese tech bloggers, including: Appin, Williamlong, Web20share, Kenengba, Jandan, MobiNode, Webleon, Showeb20, Vista2.o, Yunkeji, Riku, Herock, China Web2.0 Review and MobiNode.TV, is the first open and independent award focus on Chinese web industry. The open nomination started at 15th Dec 2009 and closed at 2nd Jan 2010; with the supervision of local and international experts, 10 candidates in 7 categories each are open for public vote started at 11st Jan 2010 and closed at 25th Jan 2010. Please read the official announcement for more details.

Within 2 weeks of public vote stage, 121446 votes in total are counted. And today, we are happy to reveal these best internet service/sites of 2009 voted by Chinese grassroot. The results can not represent every Chinese netizen's opinion, but we believe, it's a honest result which do worth your attention.

Here is the 2009 ChinaMode Report (Part I): Most Recognized International Service of 2009 voted by Chinese netizen]

Chinese web, an market which has never been easy for international Internet service/companies/sites is even getting tougher to enter and conquer: unfortunately, several very popular service are not available in China in 2009. But still, we are wondering which service/sites have drew Chinese users’ attention, and here is the result of Most Recoginzed International Service of 2009 in China.

The Top 10

Ordered by the number of votes, the top 10 international service are: Twitter (20.68%), YouTube (17.75%), Gmail (17.16%), Google Reader (11.09%), Facebook (9.49%), Google Wave (8.58%), Wikipedia (8.08%), Flickr (3.08%), Amazon (2.16%), Dropbox (1.95%).

Surprise and Non-surprise?

1. Although Twitter and YouTube are not available anymore in China, but still they took the No.1 and runner-up. It reflects the top 2 hottest markets right now in China: microblogging and video-sharing.

2. Gmail, one of the best Google products is widely used by Chinese users; Google Reader is also used as the major tool for reading RSS; Google Wave is a bit hit in global market, China is not an exception; Flickr still gets Chinese attention, as Chinese local photo-sharing market is still quiet; Amazon and Wikipedia are relatively ‘old’ and famous name.

3. Dropbox, this very convenient cross-platform file-sharing and sync startup service, surprisingly, takes the 10th. No similar service in China.

4. No one knows what will happen to Google China in 2010, but what so ever, YouTube, Gmail, Google Reader and Google Wave, result shows Google has big impact on Chinese web, although it’s beaten by Baidu in Chinese web search market.

5. We wrote about Facebook in China months ago, and 50 comments left by our readers. If you are wondering the current status of Facebook in China, it is also not available but unlike Twitter and YouTube, the result says Facebook is only voted the 5th although it continues growing and making profit in global space.

January 31, 2010 · Filed Under China Web2

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Yahoo China, Might Be The Next To Say Goodbye

yahoo_logo Google is thinking of leaving China, but it might not be the first or only one planning on this. Different resources told us lately, they suspected another famous international brand, Yahoo! is going to stop Yahoo China’s locally operating too.

Five-Year Contract?

In August 2005, Yahoo! announced that it purchased a 40% stake in Alibaba Group for US$1bn plus Yahoo!’s Chinese assets. Alibaba Group then took charge of China Yahoo!, and Alibaba Group’s founder Jack Ma remained in charge of Alibaba Group. This is the official annoucement everyone knows, but there might be one detail missing in that statement, i.e. how long Alibaba Group can own Yahoo!’s Chinese assets? One resource told me (but he is not able to prove it) that it’s 5 years. That means both parties have to make the decision soon if it worths continuing the contract and operate the Yahoo China which is struggling in Chinese portal market for a long while.

Yahoo! Is Unhappy!

The relationship between Yahoo! and Alibaba Group started to change after Jerry Yang’s stepping down.

Yahoo China is based in Beijing. But in June 2009, Yahoo! announced its new Research Center in Beijing. According to the official statement, “The base will develop products for Yahoo globally and be independent from Alibaba Group”. Then Alibaba Group said: They had the agreement with Yahoo! that the new research center would not do anything conflicts with Yahoo China’s web business.

Another story is even interesting. In September, Yahoo sold $150 million worth of Alibaba.com share when Alibaba Group was celebrating its 10 year anniversary. Jack Ma was not happy.

Carol Bartz, the new CEO of Yahoo!, was “very unhappy” about Alibaba’s failure to run Yahoo China more successfully than Yahoo had.

No Place For Yahoo China in Alibaba’s Kingdom

If you read our earlier post about Jack Ma’s Alibaba kingdom, you might have found that Yahoo China is actually missing in the big map. Alibaba, Taobao, Alipay and so on, we heard news about Alibaba Group’s every day, but it seems no one knows what Yahoo China is doing and wants to do. Nevertheless, Yahoo China had its 8th CEO and had a major revamp of the site for the 7th time last week (report in Chinese).

The Latest

Google said it would stop censoring in search result and threaten to stop its operation in China. Most of the international giants keep quiet on commenting on Google’s decision, but Yahoo! is one exception: Yahoo! has said it was “aligned” with Google’s position. Obviously, Yahoo! ‘forgot’ its Yahoo China is operated by the Chinese Alibaba Group which respond: Yahoo! is ‘reckless’ on Google stance.

So far, nobody can confirm that Yahoo! and Alibaba Group’s partnership on Yahoo China will discontinue soon this year. So what’s your view on this? Our readers, please leave your comments.

January 18, 2010 · Filed Under China Web2