Category Archives: Main Page

Cracking the China social networking market

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Hmm, funny how suddenly I see stories about social networking in China as the next big thing.

Firstly, in comments to the recent Econmist article, with news that one of the most profitable sites is QQ:

The best in class is QQ in China: 300 million active accounts, 523 million USD revenues,
224 million USD operating profit. More, advertising represents less than 20% of revenues, most of the rest is digital goods for Internet or mobile. How is it possible to claim this is not a business?
We gave a presentation at a conference recently comparing Facebook and QQ. Seewww.plus8star.com for more info.

Secondly, news that Google has bought into the market. ‘Google Invests $1M In Chinese Social Networking Firm’:

Google Inc., last week disclosed that it has invested $1 million in a start-up company Comsenz Inc., a Chinese company that provides software and services for online community networks. It is nevertheless a different move by Google to expand its foothold in China. Reports of Google’s investment funds in Comsenz showed up in Chinese media last year, although the speculation had it that Google was investing roughly $5 million into the Beijing-based company.

Thirdly, I wonder if Medicexchange, which already has invested in China through medical imaging online through its portal, will extend this to a social networking site aimed at the the lucrative China market?

No longer risk, now uncertainty rules

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Hmm, interesting paragraph on the credit squeeze and the times we live in:

Excerpt from the Complexity Digest: “So the rules of the game have now fundamentally changed. Our global financial system has become so staggeringly complex and opaque that we’ve moved from a world of risk to a world of uncertainty.

“In a world of risk, we can judge dangers and opportunities by using the best evidence at hand to estimate the
probability of a particular outcome. But in a world of uncertainty, we can’t estimate probabilities, because we don’t have any clear basis for making such a judgment. In fact, we might not even know what the possible outcomes are.

“Surprises keep coming out of the blue, because we’re fundamentally ignorant of our own ignorance. We’re surrounded by unknown unknowns.”

* From Risk To Uncertainty, Thomas Homer-Dixon , 08/03/19, Toronto Globe and
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