PandaPassport.com – China Blog

For anyone who’s not aware, Facebook is a new (well, relatively new…) social media site that allows you to create and expand a network of friends. If you have a hotmail or yahoo email account, you can search for your contacts automatically, and reconnect with tons of people you haven’t seen in ages.

I’m really surprised by the amount of people who are using facebook. Friends who you would never expect to be anywhere near a computer if their life depended on it, it seems they too love facebook. It’s a really neato tool, and I recommend it highly – even though I just made my account yesterday.

Facebook can also serve the purpose of building small communities here in China. Ryan has already put together the Lost Laowai Facebook Group, which is a group for expats all over China. You can visit the group, or sign up (for free) here:

Lost Laowai China Expat Facebook Group

Lost Laowai is a site for expats in China, and I occasionally contribute when I’m not too busy. Click here to see my latest article, where I go toe-to-toe with a Yale Professor on the subject of China. I swear ta gawd, these guys gotta get out from behind their desks once in a while.

For those of you who keep blogs, Facebook’s Notes function can be integrated via RSS so that your blog posts are brought into Facebook, and posted to My Notes.

For anyone who wants to check out the Chinese equivalent of facebook, you might want to have a look at Xiaonei.com, in case you missed it before.

China Stolen-Media-of-the-Day: 24, Seasons 1 & 2

I know I’m a little late jumping on the 24 bandwagon, but hey, I’m in China – and well – that’s how the media is here.

But in any case, for anyone who wants to take a look back, or for any of you guys who may have missed it the first time around, here is the full first season of 24, and the second season as well. Careful! It’s addictive…

For better or worse, there is an interesting discussion happening on a few China-related blogs these days. A discussion turned into an argument turned into something else altogether. I really enjoy the sites of all parties involved, and I hope everybody manages to keep a level head and not get too carried away.

In a nutshell, the debate is over SEO. Should we adjust our writing, our keywords, our urls — should we make our content more “googlable” so that we might draw in more traffic?

Mark of Toshuo thinks no. While I’ve only just recenty started reading his blog, I guarantee you that Mark will get traffic even if he pays no attention to SEO. He does some really cool work, such as the pinyin tone tool which I use quite often, which would draw traffic even if there was no other content onsite.

Putting the SEO Cart before the Horse

Though I have tried my best to optimize my site for SEO, I do think that putting disproportionate focus on SEO instead of content will most certainly get you in trouble. Your content is everything. What is the point of marketing something that essentially isn’t even worth marketing? Write first. Great content will market itself.

Does your Voice have Value?

If your blog is an online journal, than obviously you don’t care about marketing because these are just your personal writings. In that case, SEO is likely something you don’t need. However, if you are trying to get a message across to readers – if you have a message of some value, which you hope to give to others – then yes, you might want to pay some attention to SEO.

I use only one tool for SEO

That tool is the Wordpress Ultimate Tag Warrior Plugin. There. Go get it, and use it. However, I think there are many things far more valuable than SEO, most notably (as I’ve said) good content. But once you have that covered, then focus on the marketing aspect, if your goal is indeed reaching a wider audience.

Build a readership base

You can get as many google hits as you want, but if a reader doesn’t like what he sees, he’s not coming back to your page. But assuming he does like what you’ve written, you should provide a path for him to return. Using a Feedburner RSS feed you can set up a email subcription box as I have in the top right of my site. I have a modest readership, but it has been steadily climbing since I re-launched back in February. I don’t credit that to any SEO miracles. It’s simply because of more frequent, and more deliberate, thought-out posting.

At least, I like to think so.

Oh yeah, and for those of you who came for the headline, here is that AMAZING YOUNG ASIAN KITTY, as promised.

UPDATE: Typo Report
Uh oh. Looks like I made a typo in the headline, and actually typed “Amazing Young Asian Titty” instead of “Amazing Young Asian Kitty”.
Sorry about that. How embarrassing…
Please accept my most sincere apology:

China Stolen-Media-of-the-Day: Leon / The Professional

And continuing the now two-month old tradition of posting pirated media at the end of every post, here’s Leon / The Professional.

Luc Besson and Jean Reno are always a good combination. Courtesy of tudou.

I was just reading Rebecca MacKinnon’s article about Web innovation, and why Hong Kong lags behind China. I like Rebecca’s site, but – as one of her readers did – I gotta disagree with her on this one. Here’s why:

Slightly Outnumbered…

To compare the web development happening in China (population 1.3 billion) with Hong Kong (6.9 million) is would be similar to making a comparison between India (1.1 billion) and Dalian China (6 or 7 million, depending on who you ask). On a per capita basis, I wouldn’t be surprised if web development isn’t actually a little better in Hong Kong.

The Copy-Cat Syndrome

We all know that China likes to copy stuff. If you’ve been reading this blog lately, you’re especially aware of that (see China Stolen-Media-of-the-Day below). If you ever need two of anything, you might want to consider giving it to a Chinaman, and it most likely it’ll come back in duplicate. NOTE: Have him CC it to another Chinaman if you need three. This phenomenon seems to be prevalent on the internet as well.

Want Proof?

Here examples of some so-called Chinese web 2.0 innovation, and the corresponding site that was ripped off:
Youku.com is a video site very much like youtube.com.
Xiaonei.com is a blatant rip-off of Facebook.com.
Fotolog.com.cn is a Chinese Flickr copy.
Hipihi.com is the Chinese Second Life.
Dingr.com is a clone of Digg.com.
** For the ultimate copy cat story, see how Digg.cn used the exact same layout as digg.com. I can’t seem to access Digg.cn right now though.

Basically, if you can think of a innovative/pioneering web 2.0 app, chances are it’s been copied in China. They may even be so bold as to slap a “.cn” on the end to replace the “.com” domain.

Web 2.0 is about innovation, and if it’s not original — well then, you’s disqualified in my book. Now granted, I’m glad that these clones are making it to China. Even if they are copies, they do make the Chinese internet a much better place.

But I wouldn’t call it innovation. I can’t think of many web innovations that were made in China.

Can anyone prove me wrong?
I hope so…

And appropriately…

China Stolen-Media-of-the-Day: Star Wars Attack of the Clones

Well, actually it’s not just attack of the clones. Some guy went and uploaded a bunch of Star Wars movies to his tudou account. You can watch 5 Star Wars Episodes streamed back-to-back here. And they’re fast too.

By the way, 25 days left and I still can’t speak Japanese.

Well it looks like the youtube wars are heating up, with the team of bullies NBC, U-NewsCorp, FOX, MySpace, MSN, Yahoo, and AOL teaming up to fight the youtube/google threat.

Meanwhile, despite the fact that I can’t get to see a single episode of the Daily Show on youtube anymore (only tiny bullshit clips) — Chinese video sites like tudou, youku, 56.com, 6rooms all can get away with hosting what appears to be full seasons of Prison Break and other shows:
Prison Break on tudou, Prison Break on youku, Prison Break on 56.com, Prison Break on 6rooms

If youtube wants to win the war of online videos, they should just relocate to China, where they’d enjoy apparent immunity like the sites I’ve listed above.

Does this remind you of the mp3 wars a few years ago? Remember when the RIAA subpoenaed those students at Georgia Tech for illegal downloads?

Meanwhile Baidu had, and continues to have, an mp3 section on it’s site. Just some food for thought, I guess…

Are all these Chinese sites untouchable?
Or do all these companies just enjoy picking on the little guys?
Maybe youtube just needs to re-locate to China to solve all their problems?

In any case, as usual, here’s your:

China Stolen-Media-of-the-Day

The entire first season of Lost, courtesy of youku. My friend Casper introduced me to this one, and I got addicted to it right away. It’s one of those shows that you know is kinda stupid, but you just can’t help from watching the next episode anyhow. Anyway, you’ve been warned. I’ll post links the second and third seasons for ya later on.

Well, with the rise of video sites like youtube and all the rest of ‘em, it’s becoming easier and easier for the everyday Joe/Zhou to create his own makeshift TV program. It’s not surprising that we’ve seen a few very well made Video productions spring up in the China Blogosphere. So just in case you haven’t seen them already, here are a few that I like.

Danwei.tv

This show has all the trimmings of professional news show, aside from the fact that our host Jeremy can’t seem to get rid of that friggin’ big yellow hardhat. Still waiting for the rest of the Village People to discover China I imagine. Check out danwei.tv here, or go here to check it out on youtube.
Danwei Highlights to date:
Wang Xiaofeng Sticks it to the Man
Muzimei: Chinese Sex Blogger
Meat-on-a-Stick

Ron Sims: Black Man in China

Ron Sims Black Man in China site gets top marks from me. It’s a very sharp-looking design, and the videos on site are funny and well-edited. My only complaint is that the site doesn’t seem to have an RSS feed. But all his videos are available on youtube, so that’s alright. He’s a talented man, and I encourage you to check out his stuff.
Black Man in China Highlights:

Fuzhou Nights
No Size Fits All
The Haircut

Ryan’s Humanaught V-blog

Well, since Ryan (aka The Humanaught) fucked off and left all off us in Dalian moved on to Suzhou, he’s done a lot of really cool work, including starting up the Hao Hao Report and the team project Lost Laowai. But what you may not have seen are some of his video blog entries (also on youtube). There are only a few of ‘em, but they’re all pretty cool. Are there any more to come, Ryan? You lazy fucker…
Humanaught Vblog Highlights:
The Road to Suzhou
Chuanr! (w/ special guest, ME)
A Chinese Wedding

Now those are just some of the ones one that I’m aware of.

Am I missing anyone?

by the way…

China Stolen-Media-of-the-Day: Ghostbusters

I mean, c’mon… Who doesn’t love this movie? I’m glad that it’s finally catching on in China. The entire Ghostbusters Movie is available for viewing here courtesy of our Piracy-pals over at tudou! And in case you need it in your Chinese vocabulary, Ghostbusters in Chinese is ?????.

This is a neat little trick using a feature of feedburner that some people may not be aware of yet.

Step 1:

If you haven’t yet burned your RSS feed using feedburner, I strongly recommend you do so. Feedburner has a ton of tools, and this feature is just the tip of the iceburg.

Step 2:

After doing that, go to the PUBLICIZE tab on your feed’s management menu.

Step 3:

You will see on the left sidebar, an option called HEADLINE ANIMATOR: Display Rotating Headlines. This will create a box containing your 5 most headlines, displayed in rotation. You can add this box to any html page. This is what mine looks like:

Step 4:

Under the ADD TO drop down box on that page, select EMAIL SIGNATURE. So far, this function can be used in Outlook Express, Yahoo mail, Mozilla Thunderbird, and they also have workarounds for Gmail and Apple mail.

If your email signature supports html, you can click on the Other (just gimme the code). I used the html option in yahoo mail, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it works in hotmail as well.

Step 5:

That’s it! Having your latest 5 rotating headlines tacked on the end of every outgoing email is sure to bring at least a boost to your traffic.

Update: You can use this little hack to use it in Gmail as well.

P.S. China’s Stolen-Media-of-the Day: The entire first season of Friends. The Offender: Yoqoo.com.

I was just reading about Blog Outsourcing on Darren Rowse’s excellent Problogger site.  It got me thinking.  I mean, if we play word accociation for this one, “outsourcing” is definitely gonna bring “China” to mind.

Given the fact that so many industries are being outsourced to China, doesn’t it make sense that blogging – and here I mean Professional Blogging – is outsourced as well?  There are many bloggers out there who are making a good living from doing nothing but writing about certain topics. Ad revenue is their main source of income, and some of them seem to do quite well. 

They do so well in fact that they can often hire on staff to help maintain their sites, and produce content.

Will anyone take advantage of the cheap Chinese labor market, using it to build a profitable and successful website (in English or Chinese)?  I expect having a team of Chinese bloggers write about a topic such as weight loss, or the stock market would be an easy way to draw traffic, and thus ad revenue.  Interesting thought…

Has it been done already? 

I’m curious…  It does make good business sense.