A China Tale

SEO News Today

An interesting piece with Ross Dunn from Stepforth – I don’t know about you but I found it terribly interesting . Still working on SolidRank site-wise, and biz-wise, hoping to have some content up and a rough biz plan within a month. We’ll see if the pieces come together that way . Sorry for the short entry too busy as usual! Stay Tuned!

Internet Marketing in China – A Horse of a Different color

I’ve been thinking as I’ve been encountering more and more customers in the market for SEO work in China. The voice of the customer can be summed up in a short sentance “I want it to look this way!” Why is that a problem you might ask? Well I’m not in the business of web design – I’m in the business of online marketing. Not to say that a flashy user interface and eye-catching graphics and imagery are going to harm the impression on your customers.. but your not going to have any eyeballs on your site if it’s not properly marketed. It’s much like having an attractive storefront without any windows for people to see your work through. The Chinese seo marketplace seems, to say the least, underdeveloped.

People don’t care about marketing aspects of their site, actually it’s worse – they are completely unaware that aspect of site development even exists. Educating a customer to a place where they are comfortable enough to sign a contract for that service takes quite a bit of time. *Cute the light bulb!* Why not create an informative site, commodified for this market that isn’t selling anything. A site designed to bring in people who have a website or who are interested in one that know very little to nothing about the wonderful world of websites. A site to build GuanXi and network amongst the reputable sites and key figures in the local SEO industry. Not selling something directly on the site would be a huge differentiator.. however monetizing that arrangement is something I need to consider more fully.

There is also the issue of very similar to “scope creep” in the programming world which seems to be effecting some of our web design projects. Communication is key and that is obviously something that always needs to be worked on when we’re dealing with people who speak English as a 2nd language or worse yet those that we have to speak to through a translator. We try, but there always ends up being miscommunication that results in us having to do more work. Manage Expectations I always say. We’ll have to keep working on the clarity of our work proposals. We also need to properly advise when we run into ambiguity and idealists. Many are looking so far down range they can’t see what they need to focus on now to get to where they want to go later. It’s all our responsibility, a challenge, something I dread and look forward to everyday – there’s money to be made if we can get our formula right.

Google Hits the Chinese Chopping Block

So the earth is beginning to shake over here – at least in Chinese cyberland. The country, according to this press release today, has accused Google of “spreading pornography and breaking Chinese law.” Some of Google’s services have been popping on and off over the past couple days. Yesterday back at my apartment I was unable to access g-mail. Today search engine access began to get chopped off. Unbelievable – if you take the time to read the article you’ll also note that China is vying for mandatory installation of software to screen out pornographic sites. This software would need to be installed on all new computers after July 1 – its called “Green Dam Youth Escort.” I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a spoof porn site pops up in the near future bearing a randition of that name.

On the lighter side of things the article references China as the worlds current largest internet user base. Nice, makes me feel just that much better about uprooting myself and moving here. All the same, being in the IT industry makes me particularly sensitive to issues of blocking. Recently I’ve been contemplating the future of China concerning pornography and whether or not the Chinese people have a sexual revolution to look forward to, makes me curious about the history leading up to our own back in the States. What were the major contributing factors? Are their signs of such a radical change brewing in China? I’ll have to access that train of thought again sometime – could you imagine – can you even fathom the impact an event like that would have on China, I can promise you one thing, I would be as far from the focus of the government as possible if something like that begins to happen.

Hardcore Webdevelopment @ Home

Nice Hat Mike! That Shirt is not Business Casual…

After a hard days work Mike and I returned back to my home a mere 3 mintues walk from the office to get a little R&R… well the thought is what counts I suppose. My newly acquired internet effectively turned all of my time at home and at the office into productive working time. The workaholic in me sings cheers of praise. Last night I ended up in bed around 6am,  well done sir well done!

Baidu 10 Mythical Creatures

The following entry is a tribute to the article linked in the title of this entry.

For anyone that has spent a significant amount of time in China working with the Chinese people this net roots development is inspiring. Why? you might ask – well one of the biggest problems you will run into trying to work with the Chinese is their collective lack of creative problem solving skills – this applies to all arenas of life, business and otherwise. These Baidu 10 mythical creatures were created as a satirical backlash from chinese netizens against the censurship of many words/sites online. In a humorous display of creative defiance they have created mythical creatures with names sounding equivolent to chinese swear words/slang. They also created accompanying explanations/stories of these animals which cleverly refer to the swear/slang words meaning in some fashion. I personally applaud the creativity and hope to see more, hopefully more tasteful applications, of such creativity in the future.