China 2.0: Shaolin Temple, Baixing.com and free wireless in Beijing
- The famed Shaolin Temple has started its own online store on Taobao, and everything we've seen there looks like a bargain — from this Kinnara engraving (RMB1,800) to this god-knows-what-it-is (RMB9,999). The store, which opened a month ago, has sold a whopping 24 items. Reuters details all the praise Chinese netizens have for the temple's latest commercial venture here.
- Shanghai-based Ebay subsidiary Kijiji.cn has just announced its rebranding to Baixing.com. The company headed by Shanghai blogger Wang Jianshuo hopes the name change from 客齐集 (a phonetic transliteration) to 百姓网 ("bai xing" means the folk / the masses / the people) will help it become more memorable in the minds of Chinese websurfers. CNReviews has more.
- Ken Carroll of Chinesepod tells Thomas Crampton how to learn Chinese using Web 2.0 while Harvard fellow and Duke University professor Vivek Wadhwa disagrees that China is the new Silicon Valley.
- It's been over three weeks since 56.com was shut, and a new Sohu IT report cites an unnamed 56.com employee who says the shutdown order was due to lax supervision on the part of the video-sharing site. While employees are still reported to be going to work "preparing for a revamp", some industry pundits such as the CEO of Yiqi.com Xie Wen say 56.com is "screwed for good unless they have limitless capital".
- China has found a higher tech way to spend its money. A lot of it. China Internet Network Information Center just released the results of its China Online Shopping Survey 2008, showing that total expenditures for four municipalities and 15 cities totaled a whopping 16.2 billion RMB in the first six months of this year. Taobao.com, Dangdang.com and Joyo Amazon take the prize for most popular sites.
- Danwei reports the start of the 'Beijing Wicity Project' by CHINACOMM (中电华通) which will provide free internet access in around 100 square kilometres of downtown Beijing from now till the Olympics are over.
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