Dear YouMeiTI readers, as some of you may know I have been in the first few years of course work for my phd program. The amount of time I spend on academic writing has seriously decreased my blog activity here - so sad! I will pick up the pace again when I am done with coursework in December 2008!

In the meantime, I will participate in a conference on Chinese, India and US technology and trade policy at the Bangalore Institute of Technology. I am really excited for this conference as it will bring together an impressive list of experts who work in pharmaceuticals, coal and information technology. I look forward to my role as the sociologist to question how national policies interface with everyday life! After that I will be doing fieldwork with my colleague, Shannon Spanhake, from CalIT2, on developing technology for monitoring drinkable water. So if you are in India, send me a an email about any interesting stories to blog! I will be there until the 24th of July.

From Bangalore i will go to Beijing for a few weeks to finish up a project that i've been working on: Beijing Youth Voices, which is a collaboration between Adobe Youth Voices and What Kids Can Do. So send me an email if you will also be in Beijing! Perhaps we can also meet up to talk about technology and policy and of course the Olympics:)!

See you in Bejing!
tricia

e-mail tw ^ the at sign ^ triciawang ^ the dot sign ^ com

Technorati Tags: beijing, china, conference, george mason university, india, olympics, technology

From BBC - China feels the quake online: "One man walked to Chengdu from an area very close to the epicentre of the earthquake.

On the way to the city he took photographs of deep fissures in the ground, collapsed buildings and abandoned vehicles with his mobile phone.

His photographs were uploaded onto a local bulletin board in Sichuan province.

Another Sichuan forum reports on volunteers getting to the earthquake zone. People on this community comment on rumours circulating about the water quality in Sichuan and reassure one another that drinking water is in fact safe.

Sites previously used for light-hearted social networking such as this food, drink and friendship site for Sichuan now carry banners lamenting "Tragedy in Sichuan".....

Global voices has a posted selection of microbloggers by region, including a comprehensive list of posters from Sichuan. The phenomenon of sharing information and support via sites such as Twitter and Fanfou has been well-documented in the media recently, with the BBC writing a blog post about it and the Ogilvy China Digital Watch blog observing that: "Twitter's public nature was of some real value both for ordinary folk and for professional journalists." "
-photo from BBC

Technorati Tags: application, bbs, cellphone, china, earthquake, forum, photograph, bbc, sichuan, twitter, water

Check out the new blog, Beijing Youth Voices, by 6 Chinese youth who live in Beijing--Iris, Siqi, Steven, Linda, E-mail, and Kelan. For the next few months, they will be posting bi-weekly blogs, giving you a peek into their lives and life in China. This blog is a project between the U.S. based-nonprofit What Kids Can Do, Inc. and Adobe Youth Voices.

Over the past few months of preparing this project, I have had the honor to work with What Kids Can Do, Adobe Youth Voices and ChinaPax (a Beijing based Mandarin language program). I am particularly excited about seeing this project come to life after a few months of connecting the most dynamic team of youth bloggers. Despite the number of Chinese blogs (being sited anywhere from 700,000 to 2 million), many blog posts that are written in Chinese rarely make it beyond China. With all the recent news surrounding China's Olympics in Beijing, we thought that in addition to the mass media reports it would be great to just hear what Beijing life is like from the perspective of 6 high school aged youth, who will be telling their stories (in English) of what Beijing means for them and what daily life is like.

Although we cannot stretch their writings to be reflective of life all over China, we can at least gain an intimate inside into life for these particular group of youth from a specific place and background. It is our hopes that through this aggregated blog, you will follow their writings for the next few months, give them encouragement and feedback by leaving comments on their writings. I am constantly amazed by their strength to open up their lives.

Please help spread the word about their blog by forwarding, reposting, or using their posts in your lesson plans! Thanks! -tricia

*Special thanks to Gloria Xu of Chinapax for being such a great facilitator!

Technorati Tags: adobe youth initiative, blog, bloggers, china, china pax, chinese, everyday, life, olympics, online, puppy, stories, website, what kids can do, youth

From ChinaTechNews: Guangdong Mobile Offers Free Telephone Service To Migrants - "Guangdong Mobile has formally launched its "Appreciation to Guangdong" program, a series of activities including 15 minutes of free long-distance call service for each migrant worker in the province every weekend.

Starting with this free telephone service, Guangdong Mobile plans to help solve some hot social issues and difficulties through its technology platforms and offer benefits to companies, students, farmers and migrant workers in the area. Xu Long, general manager of Guangdong Mobile, says that the company's "Appreciation to Guangdong" program is an extension of its "Thank Guangdong" program that ran last year.

Migrant workers who don't have a mobile phone can come to Guangdong Mobile's Communication 100 Service Halls to make their free calls, while those who have mobile phones can enjoy the free service with a Shenzhouxing card. Li Xinze, general manager of Guangdong Mobile's marketing department, says that Guangdong Mobile will also arrange traveling service vehicles next month from which the migrant workers can make their calls." Photo from AP Photo by ELIZABETH DALZIEL

In addition, Guangdong Mobile says that it will build 500 Communication 100 Service Halls to provide free internet service for migrant workers.

"

Technorati Tags: cell phone, cellphone, china, guangdong mobile, migrant, urban

"The India China Institute at The New School, now in its third year of convening fellowships, public debates and trilateral research collaborations between experts in India, China and the United States, is ideally placed to host this major conference on “Prosperity and Inequality: Debates in India and China”.

Drawing on two cohorts of our own fellows from all three counties, as well as a remarkable range of experts who have been researching issues of urbanization, globalization and growth in India and China, this Conference will determine a benchmark assessment of Chinese and Indian urbanization and wealth-formation, of the social and political risks associated with skyrocketing growth in two massive agrarian societies, of alternative designs for future development in each society and of the search, in both societies, for a “third way” of development that combines the virtues of socialism and capitalism without sacrificing the virtues of democracy and grassroots inclusion."

Technorati Tags: china, conference, equality, india, inequality, Prosperity and Inequality: Debates in India and China, the new school

Graham Webster over at CNET's Sinobyte has written a balanced and informative post on how China might handle its information firewall during the 2008 Summer Olympics. I like the article's tone in that it doesn't focus on condemning the Chinese government, rather it focuses on explaining the situation. Webster doubts that "the entire censorship regime will be shut down during the Olympics" and thinks that "likely that some or all filtering will cease during the Olympics, but we'll just have to wait and see." Keep writing more posts like these Graham! I think this is really one of the most interesting aspects to keep an eye on this summer. -tricia

Technorati Tags: 2008 , beijing, china, firewall, graham webster, information, monitor, olympic

Hey readers, after a long winter break that included crashed hard-drives (i back up thankfully -so back yours up now too!), I am beginning to feel the blogging spirit again. I will still cover technology and youth orientated stories, but a lot of the posts will reflect my interests around the 2008 Summer Olympics. Happy readings! -tricia

Technorati Tags: 2008 , beijing, chinese , fuwa, internet, olympics, website

"GGL Global Gaming today announced that it has signed an agreement with the China Internet Gaming Organizing Committee (CIG) to launch The Digital Games" for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

"GGL "will host a series of official amateur online qualifying tournaments around the globe, across multiple gaming genres and platforms. GGL will also hold invitational competitions for professional and celebrity gamers – who will also face off at the welcome events hosted by the China Government leading into the Digital Games Shanghai finals."

Gamers from all around the world will compete to represent their country, with the finalists competing in the Grand Finals event in Shanghai.

“The China Internet Gaming Organizing Committee is proud to be the first in digital sports history to recognize videogames as a competitive sport, and we are pleased to be working with GGL to elevate videogames – the 99th Official Sport of China – to the world stage,” said Fong Hong, Honorary General Secretary of the China Internet Gaming Organizing Committee. “Because of GGL’s global reach, content and community, brand recognition, technical capabilities, tournament expertise, strong ties with the gamer community and a rapidly growing Chinese presence, it was a natural fit when deciding who would be the perfect partner for this event.”

Technorati Tags: china, digital , gaming, olympics

01SJ is the 2nd Biennial 01SJ Global Festival of Art on the Edge, June 4-8, 2008, a multi-disciplinary cultural event on June 4-8, 2008 - San Jose, CA, USA. The festival has a youth program, where they are looking for digital arts made by youth (11-21 years old). They are giving out micro-grants of $500 to individuals/organizations that will support and/or co-produce a youth art project or run a some type of youth arts workshop.
They are looking for youth all around the world so please forward this to your contacts in other countries! But of course since this is a blog focusing on Chinese youth - I want to make sure Chinese youth are represented at the festival! Here are the application details, for more questions, you can contact Liz Slagus. Deadline: Nov. 12th, 2007

Technorati Tags: 2nd biennial, art, art on the edge, arts, california, chinese, digital, ew, exhibit, festival, global, grant, liz slagus, media, micro-grant, san jose, technology, united states, youth, zer01

Hello YouMeiTI readers, as part of my October list to-do's now that I am all settled from traveling- blogging on YouMeiTI was my top priority. But I have a good excuse this week for slowing down again just as I was about to warm up - my city is burning up! Seriously.
I spend quite a lot of time in San Diego, CA - and right now I am surrounded by swaths of uncontained fires. I have friends who are evacuated at my house, and friends who trying to anticipate the direction of the capricious winds.

I usually don't blog about personal events on YouMeiTI, but I thought I this is an appropriate post because I can give you a first hand report about how seriously big the fires are in San Diego. The large news conglomerates in the USA are primarily focusing on the Los Angeles fires because of all their celebrities. But the fires in LA pale in comparison to the SD fires. In addition, when the SD news covers the fire, it mainly focuses on the luxury mansions in North County. In reality, it is also affecting the middle-lower class neighborhoods of South County - where there are more Mexicans - and it is 5-10 miles from the Mexican border.

Just to give you an idea of how big this fire is, here is a map with the city of Manhattan imposed on top of just ONE fire. There are at least 8 large fires burning right now. I am not burning, and neither is my house. The air is so horrific here that I have constant headaches, burning nasal passages and nausea. I am at least 15 miles (and many canyons) from the closest fire. I am updating about the fires on a regular basis at my personal blog where I have some video, pictures and media analysis. So give me a few more days to get myself resettled in San Diego. - tricia

Technorati Tags: california, fire, los angeles, manhattan, san diego, southern california, wildfire

I have finally got around to gathering my notes together from my talk at Leeds University this summer. My talk, The Stratified Global Informal Economy of Virtual Games: The Case of World of Warcraft’s Chinese Goldfarmers, highlights the emergence of the specialized labor of Chinese Goldfarmers. At the end of my notes, I have forecasted some implications.

Here's a summary of my main talking points below and you can click here for the extended notes:

• What we have here is not a new type of economy, but a new type of informal economy - the trading of online world currencies against offline world currencies.
• I believe that we are witnessing a new transition in capitalism, a transition to a virtual economy that transforms the medium in which capital is exchanged, labor is sold, production is organized, and value is created. But a new medium does not mean we are seeing new forms of economy, capital or labor relations. The new medium of virtual markets still reproduces the structures of labor and production of material capitalism.
• The economy of WoW is stratified, much like a complex capitalistic economy, where participants have different roles
• As long as value is a measure of wealth, complex virtual economies reproduce parallel conditions of labor power of material capitalist economies. Any utopian visions for virtual economies to transform social structure should take into account that a change in platforms does not always mean a change in structures.
• in China, we see a persistent loosening of technology skills acquisition but not a loosening of network resources.

Future implications for China, virtual worlds, and labor:

• Play is increasingly commodified in a complex global economy
• • In a post-industrial economy, we see the phenomenon of skill saturated intensive labor in technology sectors. Aneesh's theory of the phenomenon of skill saturation highlights the decisive role of repetitive skills in a post-industrial information technology world. This type of labor means that every action of labor can be monitored and surveillanced.
• • Governments will have a bigger role in virtual economies, for example China Central Bank's inquiry into QQ coins. And in China, how will the great internet-wall effect online global economies?
• • The offline will be increasingly tied to the online and future analysis of online worlds should always be tied to offline worlds.
• • The poor, but not necessarily less skilled, wiil have a larger impact on the formal economy - we will see this in other areas, like the increased ownership of cellphones among migrant laborers in China and India
• China's post-socialist dual economy is already considered to look more like a hybrid of a redistributive and market economy. We may be looking at an emerging tripartite post-socialist economy in China: redistributive, market and virtual. The question is to how they will be integrated and what type of combinations will be prod

Thank you WUN and Leeds University for the research fellowship! Special thank you to Dr. Xiyi Huang and Dr. Flemming Christiansen. It was an honor to meet scholars who's work i've read in journals. If you are in graduate school and you study something related to China, then apply for the WUN 2008 fellowship, which will be located in Brisols, UK. Here are my pictures from Leeds, where I found some great hidden graffiti next to the University. Thanks JimmyDan for this great photo of WoW coke cans in China and of course Jin Ge for your your research on Chinese Goldfarmers - without your generosity of sharing your footage and data, I wouldn't have been able to contribute my part to the discourse on WoW Goldfarmers.

Here are some of my new favorite research articles on China that I learned about during my research at Leeds, which I think will be excellent to read for anyone doing research on contemporary China:

• Martin King Whyte's Rethinking the Rural-Urban Cleavage in Contemporary China
• Wendy Bottero's Stratification: Social Division and Inequality (this one isn't about China, but I think it's useful for those studying inequality in China, and plus Dr. Bottero is really approachable so that always makes it more fun to read their work!)
• Xueguang Zhou's Economic Transformation and Income Inequality in Urban China: Evidence from Panel Data
• Carabine Jean's Unmarried Motherhood 1830-1990: A Genealogical Analysis, in Discourse as Data (this isn't about China either, but she shows step-by-step how to apply Foucauldian Discourse Analysis on illegitimacy in 19th century Britain, that can be easily abstracted to Chinese specific issue)

Technorati Tags: capitalism, carabine Jean, china, chinese, currency, digital, ean carabineJ, economy, game, goldfarmer, internet, labor, leeds, market, Martin King Whyte, material, MMORPG, network, online, platform, migrant, virtual , wendy bottero, world of warcraft, WoW, xueguang zhou, yu guoming

• Shen ma Yi si?
  How can one of the “hottest” blogs (ABC chick in Shanghai) be one that has only two posts between March 29, 2007 and August 23, 2007?
  (tags: Blog abc chick shanghai)
• Facebook, we’ve got a problem…
  While they do create points of interests (some are fun after all), you’ll find yourself spending more time tending to the micro-interactions, which adds up to being a good amount of labor, with almost zero utilitarian value (except as a long tail of ent
  (tags: american facebook socialnetworking)
• Berkman and SET: An Open Letter to the Berkman Community
  Technology is primarily seen as a tool for facilitating SET’s bottom-up approach to rehabilitation: by handing tutorials and equipment to the inmates, they are able to teach themselves and each other skills. This increases the sustainability of the proj
  (tags: Technology inmate prison recidivism policy female)

• New Power in Africa: China’s Trade in Africa Carries a Price Tag
  Ms. Zimba, 40, a quality-control worker at the plant here who asked to be identified only by her common last name because she feared losing her termination benefits, first got a job at the factory in 1989, after moving to Kabwe from the depressed eastern
  (tags: colonialism china africa cotton raw materials)
• A Chinese Century? Maybe It's the Next One
  CHINA claims that its economy is growing at 10 to 11 percent a year, and China's official analysts say that their nation will catch up with the United States long before the 22nd century arrives.
  (tags: statistic statistics china analysis review facts)
• Blind Spots in China's Soft Power
  Traditionally, Chinese diplomacy in Africa has been strong in developing relations with the political elites but weak in engaging African civil society. Beijing's lack of tools and experience in engaging the "African on the street" makes it ill-prepared t
  (tags: china africa policy engaging civil society problem diplomacy responsibility corporate foreign african)
• I Heart Dalian, China
  the article talks about how China's early winners like Beijing, Shanghai and the Guangzhou-Shenzhen area "offered a steady stream of qualified employees, relatively good transportation links and more experience in dealing with foreigners" but are now faci
  (tags: dalian china intel company foreign urban development city industry)
• China inflation reading hits ten year high
  most central bankers and economists are uncomfortable with a number above 2.5 percent. China has been trending between 3 to 4 percent for the past several months. The latest reading is a ten year high.
  (tags: inflation ten year high economy food)
• The Arctic circle: The latest hotspot
  What all this means in dollars and cents is dramatic: Based on a charter cost of $30,000 a day, traveling speed of 22 knots and fuel costs of $170 per tonne, the route from Rotterdam to Shanghai via the Northwest Passage would be $590,000 cheaper than thr
  (tags: pollution arctic china)

Chinese netizens have quickly flipped their opinion of Zola Zhou, who has been hailed as China's first citizen media reporter for covering the Chongqing Nailhouse, but is now hailed as another pesky fame seeker. This is all because of his latest video where he documents his visit to Google over click fraud on his Adsense program and demands that Google compensate him for his losses.

Shanghaiist writes that "In the meanwhile, Zola's blog, appears to have been GFW-ed, and so is his Picasa album (which, the last time we checked, consisted mostly of pictures of himself at "troubled spots"). He says on his new blog, Alouz.com:

这是周曙光的国内镜像网站，老子的官方网站被GFW追杀，换一个IP还是被屏蔽了，火大了！有种就明的来打来杀，给老子一个行政处罚通知给我一个痛快，我建立一个国内镜像，我的电话是13467668333，要删除哪篇文章尽管来电话，有什么与事实不符的内容尽管给我一个诽谤罪，别像GOOGLE一样惩罚老子却列一个罪名表让我对号入座！　我操！没人比我更恨那些拥有不透明权力的机构和组织！操！操！操！ This is Zola Zhou's mirror website in China. My official blog has been GFW-ed, and it still doesn't work even after I've pointed it at another IP! I'm fuming mad! If you've got the guts, come beat me, kill me, or take me to court. I'm establishing a mirror website in China and my number is 13467668333. If there's anything you'd like to see taken off just call me. If there's anything untrue in my posts, just sue me for libel. Don't punish me like Google did. F*ck! Nobody hates those who hide behind unseen powers and organisations more than me! F*ck! F*ck! F*ck! "

"Chinese netizens say he's 'crazy about fame' and 'worse than Furong Jiejie.'" Well you know that you are really being ridiculed when Chinese netizens start comparing you to Furong JieJie. -tricia

Technorati Tags: adsense, china, chongqing, citizen , click fraud, google, media, phone, reporter, zola zhou

It's in Apple's best interest for the iphone to not be that difficult to hack. - tricia
From Shanghaiist - Unlocked iPhones now at Xujiahui: A few weeks ago, an American teenager made headlines by unlocking the American version of the iPhone, which is strictly limited to use on the AT&T mobile network in the U.S. The 17 year old published his work on his blog, forever cementing in place in the annals of nerdery. With the iPhone unlocked, iPhone users can use to phone on any GSM network, as used in Europe and Asia, free them from AT&T's grip. It didn't take that long and it was inevitable, but the iPhone has arrived in China (even though it is manufactured here).
Since one article mentioned Xujiahui as a hotspot for purchasing the phone, Shanghaiist went to look around and took these pictures at the electronics mall, near exit 10 in Xujiahui. Indeed, the phone was for sale. Although the Shanghai Morning Post reported that a 4G iPhone sells for 5800RMB, we found the prices a bit higher. "William", our salesman, informed us that the going price for an iPhone with 4GB will cost about 6300 RMB and an 8GB iPhone runs you more than 7000RMB. Perhaps we were given us the white face discount. Damn that "William"! Thank you to Micah for informing us that iPhones are now for sale on Taobao. Hélène Franchineau contributed to this story. thank you Pete for the photo!

Technorati Tags: china, hack, iphone

HipHop.cn is hosting a contest to find China's next rap star. Winner receives 100,000RMB worth of prizes (which is roughly $13,000). The contest rules state that you are supposed to download HipHip.cn's original beats - so it sounds like they don't want you to use your own beats which I think is really annoying, but maybe they're afraid of legal issues if people used another person's beats? Then you need to upload a video recording by Oct. 8th, and the public will decide the winner. I assume this means they will engage their online audience - so I can't wait to vote!
So far the only good rap artist who has a Chinese background is Jin, but he's Chinese-American (who's now also known at The Emcee). I would love to hear a truly original Chinese rapper - one who isn't trying to mimic the US, or trying to be "down." But one who creates their own hybrid style, fusing the US and Chinese cultures, and spitting lyrics with deep analysis and social commentary. I can't wait to vote! -tricia

Technorati Tags: challenge, china, contest, hip-hop, hiphop, music, rapper, vote, winner

• Thailand lifts YouTube ban
  Technology News: Website to block clips -- Thailand has lifted a five month ban on video website YouTube after the company agreed to block clips offensive to the country's monarch King Bhumibol.
  (tags: thailand youtube ban lift)
• GekTV brings Asian shows to U.S.
  Technology News: New platform to be offered via broadband -- Asian TV shows will have a new avenue into U.S. homes with next month’s bow of feevee platform GekTV Entertainment via broadband Internet.
  (tags: gektv Asia us Internet IPTV home broadband)

Hello YouMeiTI readers, right before I went to Leeds for my talk I had a family emergency. I am back in the States still attending to my family, therefore I will not be blogging until September. Hopefully I can start sooner than that with some lite-fare del.icio.us posts - but for now just check in with YouMeiTI in a few weeks. In the meantime, you can enjoy YouMeiTI's newly updated source list to your right. Yipee! You will see that I've divided my blog roll into several helpful categories :) While you are waiting for my next post, you can read all my source's amazing blogs. I hope the rest of the world is having a great summer or winter! I will post the notes from my talk then too! - tricia
ps the comic above is from one of my favorite artists, Natalie Dee.

Technorati Tags: blog, emergency, family, natalie dee, sorry

I am heading over to Leeds, UK for a research fellowship, where I will be speaking about my research on Digital Inequality in China. So I will take a temporary 1 week hiatus (I know i've taken longer unannounced hiatuses - sorry! I'm changing now!) from blogging - but I will definitely post my notes from my talk.
Specifically, I will be talking about how looking at the online virtual gaming world of World of Warcraft, we see the unequal reproduction of material capitalistic relations of labor and production in the in-game and the out-of-game world. I was inspired to look into the research of WoW and Chinese goldfarmers by my friend Jin Ge, who has done amazing field work on the lives of Chinese goldfarmers. thanks Jin Ge for being such a great friend and a great researcher to think with. you are generous with your laughs and your ideas!

Technorati Tags: chinese, conference, digital, game, goldfarmer, jin ge, leeds, leeds, phones, capitalism, talks, uk, virtual, world of warcraft, wow

• Business Week on Net Neutrality
  But eliminating net neutrality would allow these companies to use the power of discrimination to favor their own content -- that is, they would use their domination of the broadband access market to exert power over the content and applications market.
  (tags: net nuetrality Business week article Internet)
• Help EFF pore over documents regarding possible FBI abuses
  We've had over 8000 downloads so far, and the blogosphere is starting to light up with feedback and analysis of the documents, which were disclosed after EFF sued the government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) earlier this year.
  (tags: fbi eff documents citizen participation participatory national security government freedomofinformationact)
• ROK Comics offers $10k Prize to new Talent
  As well as a prize of $10,000 for the best original comic strip of cartoon published, ROK are also offering the winner of the prize the opportunity to feature front-and-centre online under a new section of the ROK Comics website to be called ‘HOT TALENT
  (tags: comic SMS competition contest artist UK)
• NYC Subway Groper's Cell Phone Pics Tossed
  They first saw him at Union Square, followed him on a train to Grand Central, and then back on a train to Union Square where he was grabbing a woman's rear.
  (tags: NYC subway cell phone mobile legal rights issues law evidence)
• Baidu Local Search Sucks, Ex-Employee Sees It
  When you type location plus business category as the keyword in search box, you will get a list of relevant candidates in the left sidebar and a digital map on the right side with several balloons indicating each store’s location.
  (tags: baidu local online Internet search engine)
• Motorola Adjusts Domestic Channel In China
  Ren says the company plans to develop more stores in cities across the country in order to seize back the market share they have lost in the past years to rivals Nokia [...]
  (tags: motorola domestical channel nokia mobile market cell phone china)
• China Construction Bank Launches Mobile Phone Financial Service
  China Construction Bank has launched a new financial service which enables mobile phone users to easily transfer accounts with their mobile phones.
  (tags: china construction bank financial service cell mobile)
• Top 10 Twitter Apps
  Alert and to-do service Remember the Milk has just combined its range of services with that of Twitter, meaning that if you include ' rtm ' as a friend in your Twitter network, your new task-oriented friend informs all of the web services that you've got
  (tags: twitter application review TOP10)
• On Twitter and Youth Adoption
  They've likely cut more features than they added, which is a design philosophy I really believe in. Its refreshing to see applications like these still viably coming to market - because in the past few months I haven't seen anything on Mashable or Techcru
  (tags: twitter youth application market social network)
• Samsung to Release New Blogging Phone
  Samsung Electronics will launch in Europe this month its Mobile Blog 3G Phone (SGH-L760), which allows users to upload content directly to blog sites on the Internet such as YouTbe, UBlog and Buzzet.
  (tags: SAMsung blog phone cell 3g europe)
• China Businesscast: Mobile Marketing
  Continuing China Businesscast's series on the mobile space in China, David Turchetti is founder and CEO of 21 Communications , a service provider that designs and carries out mobile marketing campaigns for consumer brands in China.
  (tags: china Business marketing mobile businesscast)
• Real Time Rome: Using Cellphones To Model a City's Movements
  Another screen is able to track Romans celebrating major events like the World Cup or the city's annual White Nights festival (Notte Bianca, which will happen on Sept. 9, the evening before the Biennale's architecture exhibition opening).
  (tags: rome cellphone city MIT bradyforrest lab)
• ‘Nomadic work’ workshop
  As pointed by Roberto: “I don’t care about where my colleagues are, they can be in the toilets, as soon as the work is done” “Second Life is a place populated by journalists who have virtual sex with each other to write articles about people havin
  (tags: mobile nomadic cell phone holes)
• Personalizing urban space with our gadgets - PAPER by MIMI ITO
  We've had to delve into literature related to urban space, infrastructures and finances that has taken as far afield from the work on social relations that was central to our earlier mobile phone work.
  (tags: mimiito paper urban gadget city essay)

From Daily Wireless: Hong Kong: Chinese Broadband Wireless - Hong Kong marked 10 years since the end of British rule yesterday with parades and protests that “vividly illustrated its role as China’s beacon of political diversity”. Many in Hong Kong believe the next 10 years will be full of tough challenges for the 7 million people living in this global business center on China's muggy southern coast. They fear Singapore and Shanghai will seize a bigger chunk of the city's key businesses, such as shipping and financial services.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) government has a plan. They want to develop a "knowledge-based" economy, and announced plans to invest some HK$210 million (US$27 million) to build a free Hong Kong-wide WiFi network, explains Tech News.

The government plans to invest HK$50 million (US$6.4 million) in various high-density residential areas of Hong Kong this year to develop more than 1,000 WiFi hotspots, offering wireless broadband connectivity as a community service to the public, said Wai Kay “Ricky” Wong, chairman and cofounder of City Telecom (HK). WiMax at 2.5 GHz is foreseen to be a key enabler in the future. The Hong Kong government will assign broadband spectrum using a market-based approach, based on auction, planned to be conducted in 2008.

Technorati Tags: hong kong, hotspots, internet, china, wifi

I found this piece of news from Shanghaiist YouMeiTI worthy. It's about a young Japanese male looking for a young Beijing female who he saw on a subway and immediately fell in love with. He uploaded the video online of the subway girl, in which he had secretly captured using his cell phone's video camera. Now he is asking the Beijing webosphere to help him find her.

This is a great glimpse into how youth are experimenting with mobiles, social software and real world relationships. Maybe this will prompt some savvy Chinese internet developer to set up an application a la Craiglist's Missed Connections, or a la Dodgeball to spot potential cuties with cell phones?

I also find it interesting to read some of the very encouraging online comments that Shanghaiist posted (it's all about contentious Japanese and Chinese relations).

日本猪都是杂交的东东，劣等岛国习气！变态！杀光日本猪，把日本猪从中国土地上赶出去
Japanese pigs are all the products of inbreeding and incest. They are an evil island nation! What a freak! Kill all Japanese pigs! Drive them out from Chinese soil!

日本狗，她不会跟你这个日本狗的，等我老了，快死了的时候我到日本放“炮竹
Japanese dog, she is not going to come with you. When I am old some day and about to die, I will come to Japan to set off fire crackers.

就这样还要找中国女人。..难道日本慰安妇死光了?
Look at you, and you want a Chinese woman? Have all the comfort women died in Japan?

Ok well let's see if there will be future news of Chinese boys and Chinese girls cell-videoing each other and posting it online - perhaps the Chinese online community will be a bit more supportive ehh? But you've got to give this Japanese guy some credit for picking a very appropriate song as his background song for his video - Bryan Adam's I Will Be Right Here Waiting For You, - tricia

Technorati Tags: beijing, cell phone, china, craigslist , dodgeball, girl, internet, japan, japanese, love, man, missed connections, mobile, bryan adams, relationship, subway, video

From Smart Mobs: Chinese govt. uses texting to warn 150,000 of flood danger - The Chinese government successfully used text messages to warn thousands of people of flood danger in advance:

"More than 150,000 people in southwest China survived an early morning flood thanks to timely government warnings delivered by mobile phone text messages, loudspeakers and door-to-door visits. "The flood was so sudden I would have drowned if I had not received the messages," said Zhang Xue'an, a resident of Qujiang in Quxian in Sichuan Province. He began to receive messages on his mobile phone on July 3, and was told by local flood control authorities that a flood was only a few days away. He bought biscuits and bottled water, which proved very useful when his home was flooded three days later and water and gas supplies were cut off. About half of the 150,000-strong residents in Qujiang have mobile phones, which means text messages are a very rapid means of spreading flood information."

Technorati Tags: cell, china, disaster, flood, mobile, phones, qujiang, quxian, sichuan, sms, text message

• Digital Life vs Life Digital: Our Inevitable Digital Future
  He'd never heard about Second Life, but when I explained to him the concept he had a good laugh and then asked: "So is this for those who did not quite make it in the First Life?"
  (tags: picture SecondLife life digital article research)
• MII Will Publish Names Of Illegal Service Providers
  China's Ministry of Information Industry has issued a circular to its subsidiaries and the four major telecom operators China Mobile, China Unicom, China Netcom and China Telecom, asking them to publish names of law-breaking service providers by July 15.
  (tags: law china internet ministry publish public names)
• SMG Mobile Phone TV Goes Into Action
  Shanghai Media Group has launched a service called No.5 - calls the new service No. 5 Media because it hopes users can receive the latest information within a short period of five minutes.
  (tags: five shanghaimediagroup mobile cell user service china)
• Chinese man killed by exploding mobile
  Link: Exploding mobile battery kills Chinese welder | The Register Motorola and Chinese authorities are working together to discover just how an exploding mobile phone battery claimed the life of a welder at Yingpan Iron Ore Dressing Plant in Gansu’s Ji
  (tags: Chinese killed phone battery mobile cell explosion man)

Stories like this make me think of when we hear old people lament about how youth do crazy things. Well, imagine what the oldies in China are saying right now, "youth these days are crazy, auctioning off their breasts to be surgically removed!" Well this story from Shanghaiist of this web 2.0 savvy teeny, Xu Haojia, is no joke, you can watch her home-made vid below. But Shanghaiist reports that that she will literally surgically remove her breasts to the highest bidder.
Thankfully I wasn't the only person thinking WTF HAOJIA? Shanghaiist ponders, "Even more WTF-worthy, however, is Xu's logic. If large breasts are her ticket to stardom (notorious entertain-agent/snake-oil-huckster Song Zude recommended the breast auction as a way to “become famous overnight”), then what will she do once they're gone? Is it even possible to use one person’s discarded breast tissue in another person’s body? And would it be permitted under China's new anti-organ-harvesting laws? Better hope the lucky winner isn't a foreigner..." -- tricia

Technorati Tags: auction, bid, breast, china, internet, online, publicity, teenager, sxu haojia, video, web 2.0

China will be finally be implementing a universal standard for cell-phone batteries by the end of 2007! "He Guili from the Ministry of Information Industry said the universal battery will be used in phones of different models and brands, and will reduce a great amount of pollution . There will be only three to four standardized batteries to fit all cell phones, in the same way dry batteries are used in electronic products." (From Greenbang) Now let's hope this doesn't limit good cell phone designs :) -tricia

Technorati Tags: battery, battery, cell phone, mobile, standard, universal

From Shanghaiist: Xiamen is mulling over a new rule that will ban anonymous Web postings after residents used the Internet to successfully halt construction of a US$1.4 billion paraxylene plant project because of its health and environmental risks. A total of 1 million mobile phone test messages were sent, and Internet postings were used to organize peaceful rallies that caught the attention of bloggers nationwide and helped push Beijing to pressure the city to suspend work on the factory. However, legal experts have said that Xiamen did not have the right to institute such changes. Only the National People's Congress would have such a right.
(thanks Gemma Kate Thorpe for the great photo!)

Technorati Tags: china, environment, health, internet, posting, private, xiamen

• Mobile/Handheld TV: Killer App?
  Features of the new system may include Free (advertiser supported) television content, mobile and handheld subscription-based TV, video-on-demand (VOD), pay-per-view (PPV) and electronic sell-through (EST) services, non-real-time content download, , Datac
  (tags: tv mobile cell phone killer proposals standard atSC-m/h)
• The Best Web 2.0 Services
  Check out their ten Webware 100 categories
  (tags: web2.0 service best list)
• The materiality of networked cities
  “ in their obsession with the ethereal worlds of cyberspace – with the blizzards of electrons, photons, and bits and bytes on screens – end of city commentators have consistently ignored the fact that it is real wires, real fibers, real ducts, real
  (tags: city urban Technology mobile towers physical cyberspace virtual networked ict vision material)
• Some perspectives on urban computing
  “ The view on mobility they propose is oriented by 3 principles that can help opening up the design space for urban computing: (1) Mobility takes many forms (different type of journey, different means of transport) (2) Movement in space is more than goi
  (tags: urban mobile computing connectivity cell cellphone research networks network)
• Urban Networks Seminar (Day 1)
  When this multi-layer of global network coincides, in a way, then: - economies of synergy takes place into that node (academic research tech…) - this becomes a mega-node: london, NYC (but not Boston) Elements discussed in the Q
  (tags: research castells manuel space of flows network analysis)
• Digital Middle Kingdom
  If China then could learn to innovate on top of the new structures, it has a real opportunity to surprise the world with great productivity leap, with IPRs recognition via distribution of digital products via networks, and with new categories of services.
  (tags: research digital China review cell Technology)
• WHAT WIKIPEDIA CAN TEACH US ABOUT THE NEW MEDIA LITERACIES (PART ONE)
  A participatory culture is one where there are relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, where there is strong support for creating and sharing what you create with others, where there is some kind of informal mentorship whereby
  (tags: wikipedia media literacy Education citing cite academic encyclopedia)
• "Evolution of the Protest" -- short, graphic look at history of smartmobbing
  A protest known as the Battle of Seattle will be used to show how the advances of communication and organization that have been facilitated by mobile communications technologies.12 It is imperative that the protestors of today understand how modern commun
  (tags: pdf smartmob protest communication "evolution book activism)

These are notes from Kippo (who blogs as Beijing Man), on the China Online Gaming Industry Conference. His blog has always been one of my favorites and he just so happened to recently post a really cool walk through on his life history (I feel like he's already my internet friend after reading it).
So back to the conference, his main conclusion was that each panel agreed mobile gaming is where the focus should be. Yet there was no discussion on "how gaming teams and communities get created, their lifecycle, or about "side" communication. But panelists agreed that money lies in the community, in serving the community." Thanks Kippo for the insider update and your childhood picture rocks! -tricia

COMMENTS BY PANELISTS

Comments by SINA:

• Launched onlgame this year: "complexity is increasing and 3D is becoming a norm"
• China's ONLgaming industry is too crowded, 150200 games, consolidation has begun, and quality will raise
• Game developers out China don't understand situation in China even if you explain
• 40% of casual game players are women, at lunch time the highest usage, not just for one hour, they play 3 hours
• At casual game friends meet friends, and game sells accessories and players comment each others "game items"
• Onlgames development cycle is shifting from 2436 months towards 816 months, which then gets piratecopied in 4 months...
• about payment methods:

• best would be payments by mobile, but it's not allowed
• prepaid by calling 0800 or 0900 number is common
• prepaid card is possible but women don't want to go shops to buy them

Comments by Yahoo

• Casual Games are successful; in USA women 30 to 35 spent 25USD per pop
• Expect casual games to be next big thing
• Casual games are multiplayer, deeper than RPGs, and have community: money lies in the community
• Strategy is to launch the game for PC and mobile same time
• Gaming business traditionally is in no. of players, no. of page views, and time spent

How to bring OnlGame product to China market?

• Product an online game
• Distribution via Internet Cafes: this is critical, how to get your product installed? You must verify situation every week!
• Internet Cafes may use stolen games, pirate servers, because they get paid by playtime
• Chinese way towards pirate gaming, once found: "pay me a little bit, not need it all, lets work together..."
• Marketing to be done via the key gaming channels /Internet
• Focus on existing game's service level: it must be good to attract gamers' friends to join, word of mouth

Good in Chinese Programmers

• In China, SCALE is needed, its expensive if games goes down if too many concurrent users
• Chinese have an advantage to understand the realities of scale (vs. Koreans and others)

Problems with Chinese Programmers

• Have no project management
• Chinese see a new feature and want to produce same but be cheaper
• Have unrealistic expectations about getting rich and fast
• Have no confidence on their own ideas

Regulations

• China Mobile CMCC, Ministry of Information Industry MII, Ministry of Culture MoC ... and finally Police for pirates...
• Ministry of Culture controls the onlgames content, their model for control is expected to expand over mobile content, too
• In bigger organizations there are senior people from government, everywhere, this is Chinese tradition
• Policy risks exist in China

Other

• Rapid growth experienced with MMORPGs and next big thing for China will be casual games
• If you license an onlgame you need to have own studio to make changes to it: culturalization, localization, scale
• PC games' piracy is a problem; good cardgame gets copied overnight
• Gametalents are hard to find in China "If you are one, come talk to me!"
• Choosing the right partner: partner evaluations as usual, but especially verify integrity, trust, transparency
• Koreasourced games also need constant changes; flipflop to Korea and back, much work and cost
• Robotic Players, BOTs, based on protocol sniffing, play while human player sleeps or is at work: trouble with flatrated onlgame's "balance"
• Playing online games can be compared to TV viewing; a program with lots of new episodes
• Community is KEY is MONEY; Shanda is successful because it manages to keep it's base of users

Above: Reallife game at Beijing Grab Island, May 2005: "Where are we?"

Panel Members

• Bill Bishop, CEO, Red Mushroom
• Geoff Graber, General Manager, Yahoo! Games
• Hurst Lin, COO, SINA Corporation, Nasdaq "SINA"
• John Lee, Executive Director, Turbine Games
• Michael A. Fong, Regional Manager, China, Vivendi Universal Games
• Yuzhu Xiong, Consultant, Piper Jaffra
• Moderated by Paul Waide, Founding Editor, Pacific Epoch

1

Technorati Tags: china, conference, mobile, online gaming industry

From Textually: Asia Pacific biggest market for replacement phones:
Users in the Asia Pacific region, including Japan, China, and Korea are expected to buy the most replacement phones this year, said Mauro Montanaro, Nokia vice president for customer market operations of Southeast Asia Pacific.
Predicting that 65 percent of phones that will be sold worldwide this year will be mainly replacements, the mobile phone giant stressed that the replacement market remains big in the Asia Pacific region.Last year, Nokia said that 60 percent of phones sold in the global market would be a replacement. [via Asian Journal Onlne]

Technorati Tags: cell, asia, replacement