SES China 2006: Initial Thoughts

Posted by Miles Evans

As I write this Johnny Chow, CEO of Google China and Jack Ma, CEO of Alibaba/Yahoo China have just finished their introductory keynote speeches to kick off day one of SES China 2006. Jack Ma, in particular was very impressive. He is definitely a bit of rock star in these parts as he holds the distinction of starting China’s first web page: chinapage.com. Let me come back to Jack. First a bit about what I have seen at the show and what is expected to come...

All the bigwigs of local Chinese search or their representatives are here: tom.com, kijiji.com, bbmao.com,
cgogo.com – they are all out in force, which is really a thrill for all attending. Literally anyone who is anybody in web services in China is here and I think Inway and the guys at SEW have done a simply fantastic job putting this expo together. So props to all of the great people who worked so hard to make this happen. Also the Nanjing conference center might very well be the most impressive expo style building I have ever seen. Photo’s coming.

Skype blocked in China? Not anymore. Skype was here passing out some goodies and supporting the show. I was a bit surprised to see this.

Baidu.com. Where are they? Nobody seems to know. I put the question to a rep from Yahoo and he seemed to think Baidu was out of the loop so to speak on events like the SES. Strange considering their prominence here with local searchers.

The event is truly bilingual as promised! Think UN style radio controlled headsets with real time translations. Hella cool. Again props to the organizers and the actual translators as they are doing a great job with this.

Ok Jack Ma. Jack has a very strong technical background and this really comes off in his speaking. Instead of just another stuffed suit CEO Jack actually knows what he is talking about – and everybody knows it. The guy is really articulate and comes off as a regular dude really excited about the technology. Everyone in attendance was extremely impressed with Jack and the amount of media that stormed the stage, me included, was evidence of that.

So I think perhaps the most interesting comment of the show and the statement that a lot of westerners really paid attention to was the following from Jack:

I think there are some big differences between search in China as opposed to search in the west. Here is an analogy. In the west you go to a restaurant and order your meal. You order a main course, you eat, and you leave. In China you order dish after dish after dish, and you spend some time sitting and enjoying the experience of dining. This is a key difference between our two cultures that a lot of foreign companies tend to miss.

Now anyone visiting some of the big search pages in China will know what this means. Let me explain. Where Google and others employ a minimalist approach to search, companies like Baidu, who by the way enjoy a 54% market share in China, take a completely different approach. For me sites like this look like a mish mash of mayem and almost seem like a poster child of poor web design. This is of course the complete opposite in China and for that matter the rest of Asia included. I expect this topic to come up again and again throughout the show.

Alright I promised media and it is coming. I shot out some very interesting questions to people from Google China and MSN and I will do my best to cut up what video I have and see if I cannot get it uploaded asap for your viewing pleasure. At the very least I will have some audio. Stay tuned for a complete overview of Day 1. I promise you there were some real insights revealed today that took a many of us by surprise.

Posted March 17, 2006 12:25 AM | Permalink | Trackback URL | DIGG!