This government game allows players to fight corrupt officials and their bikini-clad mistresses

Consulting firm iResearch reports the market size of Internet-based economy was RMB14.63 billion ($2.15 billion) between July and September, a growth of 52.2% on the same period of last year, or 9.8% on the second quarter of this year.

In the second quarter the year-on-year growth rate was 62.8% and the quarter-on-quarter growth was 14.9% .

Advertising and games continued to be major sources for Internet business revenue, combining to account for 72.7% of the total income of the web-based economy.

The market volume of Internet ads amounted to RMB5.16 billion in the third quarter, up 12.9%. The growth was attributable mainly to the Beijing Olympics.

As demand from abroad was driven down by the financial turmoil, the B2B e-commerce market grew only 0.7% to RMB1.46 billion. Meanwhile, growth in Internet-based job-hunting business slowed to 4%, due largely to difficulties in corporate operations and ensuing less employment.

The tourism reservation market increased by only 1.3% to RMB712 million, as a result of shrinking logistics and travel for the Beijing Olympics being affected by tightened security control.
Source: China Daily

Taobao.com

Chinese online auction and e-commerce website Taobao.com has recently announced its latest consumer protection plan, which (at first appearances quite strangely) includes blocking the search engines of Baidu, Google and Yahoo.

Apparently Taobao.com completely blocked the search engine of Baidu and it also partly blocks that of Google and Yahoo.

Taobao.com says that the blocks of search engines aim to eliminate fraud caused by ill-intentioned merchants. Through different blocking degrees over different search engines, it can prevent consumers from being cheated by illegal merchants who gain consumers trust by pay per click and search optimization techniques.

Statistics offered by Taobao.com show that over 80% of consumers complaints are caused by a small number of unscrupulous businesses. Comments on blogs query the reasons for this blocking of search sites.

Taobao.com is owned by Alibaba Group in China.
Source: Yahoo

Marketing pitch not welcome

There is a surging wave of the transfer of commerce to mobile Internet. Whether this is to be viewed as an advance depends on, first, whether it is voluntary and, second, whether it works from an existing database.

Data from CCW Research shows that mobile commercial business is developing rapidly in China at a compound annual growth rate of more than 30%. In 2008, the market scale will amount to over RMB30 billion. The advent of 3G mobile phone technology will advance it considerably.

Zhang Yong, an expert on mobile business from China Academy of Telecommunication Research, sees mobile e-commerce becoming a major core area of marketing. His view is that mobile marketing, by such features as being accurate, efficient, prompt, and interactive, is becoming a new marketing mode.

Certainly, what attracts enterprises and merchants is the amount of mobile-phone users in China, which nearly amounts to 600 million, far more than the over 200 million netizens.

If, however, the result is going to be a massive increase in spam on mobile telephones the question has to be: who is going to pay for it? The user or the merchant.

Nie Hailin, a Deputy Director of Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Commerce, expressed that with mobile e-commerce, an innovation had been realized in the field of e-commerce application.
Much more on this complex question HERE.
Source: China Economic Net

Dell Vostro

Dell has announced four new computers. Two notebooks will be available in more than 20 countries, starting at about $475. The cheaper of the two desktop computers — part of the company’s Vostro line — will start at about $440, including a screen.

The new models are aimed at helping Dell deepen its hold on developing markets as sales have slowed in mature markets including the United States.

Stephen Felice, Dell’s president for operations in the Asia Pacific region, speaking in Beijing, said, ‘Within the world’s emerging economies, millions of new businesses are demanding just the technology they need, at the prices the can afford, from a vendor they can trust.’

One only has to search blogs for Dell complaints to realize that the last part of that — a vendor they can trust —  does not apply to all users.

Dell is one of many companies offering low-price, no-frills computers in China and other developing countries.

Last year, Asustek, a Taiwanese computer-maker, released the Asus Eee PC, a line of small laptops that retail for between $300 and $500. Acer released a small notebook in July that retails in Taiwan for about $350 while Hewlett-Packard unveiled a similar product in April.
Source: Austin American Statesman

George Chen of E-Ha

According to owner George Chen, E-Ha’s goal is simple. Take advantage of China’s wide use of cell phone text messaging to offer discounts and get diners into restaurants, particularly on slow nights. Start in Shanghai and hope that it can spread from there.

E-Ha lets users search online for Shanghai restaurants by cuisine, neighborhood, price and ratings.  The service concentrates on finding discounted meals.

On the mobile end, users can request restaurant recommendations by text message and then book a table from their cell phone.

Still the project faces considerable challenges.

For example, in preparation for the Olympics, the Chinese government cracked down on text messaging.

The order shut down E-Ha’s text messaging service, forcing the start-up to reapply for an operating license. By the time E-Ha was able to resume its service a few weeks later, it had lost momentum.

It also required users to reprogram their cell phones with a new number. Now it is trying again.
Source: SF Gate San Francisco Chronicle

Ctrip publicity brochures

Revenues and profits from China’s major online travel business rose strongly in the second quarter of the year.

Ctrip.com saw quarterly revenue rise by 30% to $55 million, compared to the same period one year earlier.

Net profits were up 34% over the same period, reaching $17 million.

The company’s positive results were driven by a surge in online sales of air tickets.

Ticketing revenues rose 44% to $25m.

China’s increasingly affluent population is using air travel more for business trips, vacations and family visits. In addition, China has recently phased out paper tickets in favour of e-tickets, allowing ticket sales to be transacted completely online.

Apart from air ticket sales, Ctrip’s other main revenue generator is its hotel bookings business, which increased 14% over the year to $29 million.
Source: VNU Net