The Year of the Rat is the first in the 12 year Chinese zodiac because, as legend has it, when the Jade Emperor invited all the animals to a party, the rat convinced the ox to ferry him across the celestial river and upon reaching the other side jumped off and was the first to arrive. The story serves as an apt allegory for China’s Internet development.
Long after Western companies entered China, domestic companies like Tencent QQ and Xiaonei continue to stride ahead having jumped off the heads of their Western counterparts. The book Catching Up Fast: PR and Marketing in a Web 2.0 China relates how Chinese versions of successful American concepts still dominate the Chinese marketplace: “Global giants have been losing the Chinese battle. Online auction leader eBay has failed to conquer China due to Jack Ma’s Taobao and instead signed a deal with the portal Tom. Google is behind Baidu, just like Skype, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger are behind QQ.”
Though Western companies cry foul, these Chinese companies have done much more than rip off Western designs. QQ, which stands poised to become the Wal-Mart of China’s cyber world, has done a masterful job tailoring its content to the unique habits of Chinese netizens. By molding elements of Facebook, AOL Messenger and Youtube, QQ created a one-stop web platform for young Chinese to shop, network and info-swap. Ten QQ also provides services that connect straight to people’s mobile phones, playing to the needs of customers who spend an ever increasing percentage of their lives commuting to and from work. In his recent article in The Independent, Clifford Coonan explains that Chinese web companies figured out early on that the main priority for Chinese web users is entertainment, not information.
This revelation has been a huge boon for China 2.0. However, for Chinese web users, the trend of treating the Internet not as a way to learn about the real world, but to replace it entirely has yielded a number of completely new social opportunities as well as problems. For every Chinese who becomes a millionaire on Second Life (www.danwei.org), there is another who kills someone for selling their Legend of Mir3 cyber sword (www.abc.net.au).
Now Internet therapy clinics may have to start providing marriage counseling as well. Recently www.gamasutra.com reported that Mr. Wang married Ms. Ye Huibei after Wang saved her character from being killed in Legend of Mir 2. Sadly, even this act of chivalry was not enough to keep the couple together and last summer the two filed for divorce. Things turned ugly, however, when it came time to divide their virtual assets. “When it came time to divide their 10 Mir 2 accounts containing high level characters with a combined value of about US$8,000, Wang wanted to keep the virtual stuff and give Ye their real life apartment to keep. Ye, on the other hand, wanted to split everything equally, including the virtual assets,” the website reports.
Leave Your Comments