From time to time people would say that here in Singapore or Southeast Asia we needed a big money exit – you know, like X acquires Y for $100 million. That would inspire folks to step out and build businesses, because let's face it, who wouldn’t want to get out with bags of money. But the idea of building a business to sell kind of sucks . While there’s nothing wrong selling a business, the mentality of starting a business and gearing it up to get acquired one day isn’t ...
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![LinkedIn Advises Users to Banish CV Buzzwords – Here’s Your Top 10, Singapore [INFOGRAPHIC]](http://www.penn-olson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/LinkedIn-Singapore-250x245.jpg)
Jan 13 2012
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Youku’s Video Search Engine is Blocked by Several Rivals
In a sign of growing hostility amongst video-streaming services in China, three such sites have reportedly blocked access to a video search engine owned by the market leader, Youku (NYSE:YOKU). Its Soku.com search feature indexes and lists videos from across the Chinese web, including those of its rivals. But Tudou (NASDAQ:TUDO), LeTV, and Sohu’s (NASDAQ:SOHU) video portal have all teamed up to tackle Youku over what they claim to be unfair search results on Soku. And so the Tudou, LeTV, and Sohu TV sites have blocked Soku from indexing its content, ...
Jan 11 2012
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Tmall Sells 100 Billion RMB Worth of Stuff, Decides to Change Its Name
Alibaba’s B2C e-commerce site, Tmall.com, which stands for Taobao Mall, is changing its Chinese name in a bid to give itself more distinctive branding. Starting next month, it’ll be called ‘Tian Mao’ in Chinese, which roughly means Sky Cat, and will have a new logo and mascot to match. But the URL - and its English moniker - will remain the same. Tmall was launched on its own domain in November 2010, and last summer was spun off as a separate company. It grew from the wildly popular Taobao C2C shopping ...
Jan 10 2012
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With an Eye on Japanese Products, China’s 360Buy Makes an Acquisition
360Buy.com, China’s second-largest B2C e-commerce site, has acquired Minitiao.com, a specialist online mall for imported Japanese products. It gives 360Buy - also known as Jingdong Mall - a whole new range of supply channels from Japan for items such as clothing and cutesy toys. The acquisition of the small Chinese company reportedly took place earlier this month but is only now being made public. The financial details have not been revealed, or whether the site will continue at its own domain or be absorbed into the 360Buy domain. Minitiao gives 360Buy a ...
Jan 9 2012
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How China’s Smaller Cities Can Be a Sweeter Deal for Startups
We’ve seen recently that Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong are the three main hubs for startups in China. But due to the rising costs of labour and office space, smaller cities - known as second-tier ones - are increasingly attractive to young tech companies. And so 2012 could see a trend in which startups scatter across China to places where rent, wages, and living costs are substantially lower - and yet which still offer plenty of talent to hire and relatively quick broadband speeds. The Chinese site Techweb illustrates this today by ...
Jan 2 2012
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Nokia China Hopes for Better Year Under New Leader, Starting Today
Nokia China employees going back to work this week, after a short break for the new year, will find they have a new chief executive in the form of Gustavo Eichelmann (pictured right). Based in Beijing, he will have the formidable task of turning round Nokia’s (HEL:NOK1V; NYSE:NOK) sinking business in China, where tens of millions of Android devices and iPhones are now dominating smartphone usage. Eichelmann has had plenty of time to prepare for the role, having been officially appointed months ago. It came after the shocking departure of Liang ...
Dec 19 2011
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Ku6 Closes Shanghai Office, as its NASDAQ Shares Dip Below $1
It has never been a smooth ride for Ku6.com (NASDAQ:KUTV), which is currently China’s fifth-largest video-streaming and sharing site. And now, as its stock sinks to below US$1 per share, some staff are facing job losses, which are being portrayed in some sections of the Chinese media as “violent cuts” to its staff and operations. Ku6 - which was acquired by Shanda Interactive (NASDAQ:SNDA) in 2009, but has proven problematic and unprofitable for Shanda - insists it’s just restructuring. The company says that its games and music video channels, which were ...
Dec 14 2011
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LinkedIn Advises Users to Banish CV Buzzwords – Here’s Your Top 10, Singapore [INFOGRAPHIC]
The Infographic of the Day series visually expresses important stories from Asia and the world of technology. Motivated. Dynamic. Innovative. Three much-used - indeed, overused - adjectives on many people’s CVs. There are other resumé regulars, too - such as “interpersonal skills,” “track record” - that have become cliché and tiresome, used unthinkingly, and which are blasts from the past that really ought to be avoided like the plague and used few and far between. D’oh! LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), the business-oriented social network, has picked through the buzzwords on the profiles of its ...
Dec 12 2011
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China’s 8 Most Profitable US-Listed Tech Stocks in 2011
Despite fears of a very bad year for Chinese tech stocks after the fraud at Longtop (formerly NASDAQ: LFT), a new list from China Analyst reveals that the majority of the top ten most profitable U.S.-listed Chinese stocks for the last 12 months were tech/web companies. It’s actually doubly surprising, after an IPO Dashboard study back in October showed that tech IPOs were performing the worst, with an average growth rate of -19.43 percent. Yep, that’s a minus symbol right there. But, from the look of the top ten list, a ...
Dec 5 2011
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Japan’s Mobile Giant I-Freek Opens First International Office in Singapore
I-Freek (3845:Hercules) is a listed company that business revolves around the mobile Internet sector in Japan, including everything from content to games, consulting to marketing. Eyeing opportunities outside of Japan, I-Freek took its first step outward and planted its flag in sunny Singapore. The official launch of the office was held last Friday. To understand more about I-Freek, I met up with two of its members, Hisanroi Kaneshiro (who heads the Singapore operation) and Masanori Sugiura, over the weekend to have lunch together. While the company is successful in Japan, they admit ...
Nov 16 2011
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Google Smartphone User Study Shows China’s Mobile Advertising Opportunities Are Huge
Guest author Julia Q. Zhu is a leading expert on international e-commerce in China and the Asia Pacific region. She formerly held multiple management positions for Alibaba Group, China’s largest e-commerce company. Prior to Alibaba, Julia worked for iResearch in Beijing, China’s equivalent to ComScore. Follow Julia on Twitter @juliaqzhu. Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) released a new report earlier this week on smartphone usage in China’s urban areas. According to this study, China has one of the world’s highest levels of smartphone penetration – of the 97 percent of Chinese urban residents who own ...
Oct 20 2011
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Jack Ma at AsiaD: Money is Not the Problem, Yahoo Just Needs to Say Yes
Jack Ma’s onstage interview at the AsiaD conference in Hong Kong has just come to an end, which gave the Alibaba Group founder and CEO a chance to air some of his views on recent issues, such as the prospective purchase of Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), and the virtual protest by some small businesses on his Tmall.com B2C platform. In effect, Mr Ma didn’t say too much that was new, but it was good to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Here’s what Ma had to say this morning on a number of key ...
Shanghai Boy Imitates Mobile Game, Jumps Off Five-Story Building
Feb 7, 2012
James Tong: How IDA and Gobi Ventures Help Startups Expand Into China
Feb 7, 2012
Thailand’s Ensogo Reflects on Success, Aspires to Expand in 2012
Feb 7, 2012
Jumpsurf Provides You With Cross-Border Mobile Wifi
Feb 6, 2012
FC2 Continues to Expand Web Services to Big Markets
Feb 7, 2012