China Mobile, the country's biggest mobile telco, this week installed a long-serving bureaucrat as the new 'Party Chief' at the state-owned firm, perhaps signaling that the government wanted to tighten the reins on China Mobile, after years of it being dogged by corruption scandals. Xi Guohua (pictured, right) is a former vice-minister at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and is now given more power than China Mobile's chairman, thanks to his party status. Last month, a former senior executive at China Mobile was sentenced to the death penalty for taking ...
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![What Makes People Like a Brand on Facebook? [INFOGRAPHIC]](http://www.penn-olson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/facebook-pie-250x250.jpg)
Jul 2 2011
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A Rough June for Renren: But Still Over-Valued at Half-Price?
June has come and gone, leaving a lot of investors wondering if they're either holding on to a new Chinese tech IPO bomb, or in the right spot to grab a bargain. Chief among these is Renren.com (NYSE:RENN), which lost just over 31% of its value in June, taking it to a 50% drop since its IPO first day in early May. Even the online dating site Jiayuan.com (NASDAQ:DATE), which is seen as a more solid long-term bet - a seemingly well-run matchmaking site in a nation of too many bachelors, ...
Jul 1 2011
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What Makes People Like a Brand on Facebook? [INFOGRAPHIC]
The Infographic of the day series visually expresses important stories from Asia and the world of technology. What makes people want to follow a brand on Facebook and Twitter? The folks over at Columnfive and GetSatisfaction explored this question and presented the answers in a neat infographic. Not surprisingly, the majority of the people who become fans of a brand on Facebook do so because of promotions and deals. Another large bulk of ‘likes’ comes from existing customers. Interestingly, only 18.2 percent become a fan of a page because of the actual ...
Jul 1 2011
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658
For Motorola and HTC, Android Success in China Requires Adaptations
When it comes to smartphone sales in China, Motorola and HTC have garnered the most consistent success from their Android platform - although it has required some careful tweaking, adaptation and replacement of apps to make Android sell in China. This week Motorola announced one million smartphones sold in mainland China in Q1 2011 (of course, not all are Android), whilst, at the same time, HTC said they'd triple the number of shops here, to as many as 2000 outlets by the end of this year. But for both HTC and Motorola, ...
Jul 1 2011
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Ringback Tone Adverts Hit Indonesia’s Mobiles
Ringback Tone (RBT) advertising is taking off in Indonesia as a prime form of mobile advertising. Biz-Ring now fully launched its RBT-Ads service on mobile phones with Telkomsel operator. RBT adverts replace the dial tone sounds when someone makes a call to a mobile. Biz-Ring ads were first test-released to mobile phone users in Indonesia two months ago, and have already netted more than 137,000 subscribers. Users who sign up can get free SMS credits and free music ring tones as rewards, as well as a chance to win monthly prizes ...
Jul 1 2011
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Singapore Sets Aside $12 million For Mobile App Development
Earlier this week Infocomm Investment, a subsidiary of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), announced that a group of Singapore governmental bodies has set aside a whopping S$15 million (USD $12.22 million) to incentivize businesses to develop mobile apps for the service sectors. The group includes IDA, NTUC’s Employment and Employability Institute, SPRING Singapore, and the Singapore Tourism Board. This $12 million fund, titled Mobility Solutions Call-for-Collaboration (CFC), is open for all companies in the food & beverage (F&B), retail, hotels and attractions sectors. The goal is to encourage businesses ...
Jun 30 2011
6
368
MTV India: The First Indian Brand on Google+
We’ve received a note from the folks at MTV India today saying that they are now officially on Google+. That's pretty quick. MTV India, to the best of our knowledge, is probably the first brand in India to get on Google+. The channel’s wildly popular reality television show, MTV Roadies, is already on Google+ as well. The MTV India brand is pretty tech savvy with a strong presence on Facebook and Twitter. Similarly, the digital marketers behind the brand also hope to replicate those successes on the search engine's latest social ...
Jun 30 2011
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Singapore Start-up Wants To Be A Drug Dealer
Founded on October 9, 2010, MedF1 is a Singapore-based start-up that aims to be an online connector between medical drug suppliers and buyers (yes, a medical drug dealer). Just like any other industry, the higher the order volume, the more bulk savings you enjoy. Founders Toh Hong Pang, Jamen Loh, and Ryan Teo want to order medical drugs in bulk by aggregating demands from doctors and small clinics across Singapore. The aggregated volume allows MedF1 to keep drug prices low and help doctors enjoy bundle savings. Drugs suppliers win out as ...
Jun 30 2011
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Chinese Web Portal TOM.com Fires 60+ Workers, Struggling to Survive
Chinese web portal TOM.com is struggling to survive, as yesterday 70% of its Sports channel employees were laid off, leaving only about a dozen there. Local news outlets are reporting that TOM Group's entire website division risks being shut-down, after today's purging of "60 to 70 workers". Further employees have been fired from the site's Auto and Entertainment portals, too, albeit in smaller numbers than suffered by the Sports department. All departing workers have been a given severance package plus RMB 2000 (US$ 310) in compensation. However, it seems they were ...
Jun 29 2011
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Chalkboard Partners With HTC Malaysia, Launches Location-based Ads Widget
Chalkboard, a Singapore-based start-up and also Southeast Asia’s leading location-based ads network has just announced its partnership with HTC Malaysia. The partnership will allow all HTC users in Malaysia to enjoy a stream of today’s specials from local businesses. Local business owners can inform customers of new deals and sales. One of the exclusive features of this widget is the “Live” mode, where the stream is automatically updated in real-time. The widget will work on all HTC handsets that run on Android 2.1 and above. To Users can get this free ...
Jun 28 2011
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341
Youku Inks Deal With Warner Bros, Will Add 400+ Premium Titles
Youku today announced it has signed a three-year deal with Warner Bros' China joint-venture, CAV Warner Home Entertainment, to "add a total of 400 to 450 Warner Bros New Releases and Catalog titles" to their pay-to-view Youku Premium site. It's not Youku's first tie-up with the US film studio, having licensed the hit thriller Inception from Warner Bros last year. Just the other day, my colleague Li Chen wrote about how China's video sites are needing to spend big to pay for increasingly pricey copyrighted content. In contrast, Tudou.com, over the weekend, ...
Jun 28 2011
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From Sex Toys to Handbags: 5 Specialist Chinese E-Commerce Sites to Watch
Sex toys, handbags, high heels, baby milk. No, this isn't a review for an upcoming chick-flick movie - those are some of the key ingredients of a successful, specialist, fast-growing Chinese e-commerce website. It has long been a saying in Chinese business circles that "女人和孩子的钱最好赚" - "Women and children are the easiest to earn profits from" - and that adage has proven true in online retailing. In this list of 5 hot, upcoming and fast-growing Chinese B2C online stores, all but one of them caters specifically to women, either for purchasing ...
Taiwan’s EZTABLE Raises $1.5 Million in Series A Round, Heads to Mainland China
Feb 9, 2012
VCotton Wants to Knock Your Socks Off. And Sell You New Ones
Feb 8, 2012
Agate Studio Wants to Make the World Happier With Games
Feb 8, 2012
CyberAgent Ventures Invests in Vietnamese Music Service
Feb 7, 2012
Perx’s ‘Chop Mob’ Helps Coffee Bean Increase 50% in Transaction
Feb 8, 2012