Aug

14

Numbers Speak

August 14, 2005 | Leave a Comment

I am generally very interested in numbers, because numbers can give you a big pictures of things, giving you a solid basis for understanding the subject in question and more.

Today I came across the following numbers:

China has 400 million youths, 50 million middle-class households (no number on what qualifies as middle-class, bummer;-) as of 2005. The middle class households in China is expected to triple to 150 million by 2015. Last year (2004), about 5 million cars were manufactured and sold in China, GM China has about 10% market share. Over the next few years, the growth of the automobile industry is expected to be beteew 10-15%. These two number seem to match if you assume that the middle-class status in China is symbolized by the ownership of cars.

Americans bought 2.29 billion books in 2004, published by a total of 83,000 publishers, more than 70,000 of which have 10 or fewer titles. You think Amazon.com is big, but researcher estimates that total online sales of books accounted for only 7-10% of toal US book sales. Do this mean Amazon.com still have room to grow? Independent Book Publisher Association.

Do you know how big a cut Amazon takes from book sales on amazon.com website? 55%. No wonder Amazon can still have some healthy margin.

Aug

11

Many Internet companies in China were founded by oversea returnees (called Hai Gui in Chinese) from the United State. Their business models are also strikingly similar to the Internet companies in U.S. Here is a short who is who in Chinese internet gold rush.

Internet Portal

The largest Internet portal play Sina, Sohu, Tom Online, and China.com are all Nasdaq traded public company.

Internet Search Engines

Baidu.com recently went IPO on Nasdaq with a first day trade pop of almost 400%, making hundreds of its employee paper millionares. Its co-founder Robin Li’s stake is valued at more than US$600 million.

Sogou.com is the home grown search engine of sohu.com.

3721.com, a local search engine, was bought by Yahoo for $120 million. That operation is now part of Alibaba.com, as part of Yahoo’s $1b investment deal in Alibaba.

Internet Auction

Alibaba.com operates Taobao.com, a C2C auction site in China.

EachNet based in Shanghai was bought by eBay for $180 million.

Internet Payment

Alibaba.com operates Alipay.com.

Internet etailer

Joyo.com was bought by Amazon.com for $75 million. DangDang.com is the another big etailer in China.

Internet Media

Job search leader ChinaHR.com sold a 40% stake to monster.com for $50 million.

Travel site eLong.com sold a 52% stake to InteractiveCorp for $168 million.

Aug

11

Mobile Trauma Pod

August 11, 2005 | 2 Comments

The famed SRI International, a nonprofit research institute in Menlo Park, is leading a $12 million research project to design a mobile medics vehicle where robotic arms remotely controlled by surgeons treats wounded soldiers on the battle field.

“The result will be a major step forward in saving lives on the battlefield,” said Scott Seaton, executive director of SRI’s engineering and systems division.

Research fundng comes from the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

“Designing the system won’t be easy. SRI envisions a small, mobile unit containing all the basic tools needed for field surgery. Those tools, manipulated by robotic arms, would be controlled by a doctor miles away, linked to the pod via wireless communications. ”

Reported by SF Chronicles this morning.

Aug

10

First, Apple’s patent application on iPod interface has been rejected. Apple could still re-submit their application within 3 months. But it is obviously a setback to the company.

Second, Google submitted a patent application on “Embedding advertisements in syndicated content”, i.e. RSS. THAT would be a setback for other Internet Ads guys like Yahoo and Ask.com.

I have thought about patents around RSS, podCast, VODcast etc lately. If Google can patent embedded ads in RSS, why can’t I patent embedded ads in PodCast.

Aug

7

There seems to be a lot of complaints on internet forums that PocketPC Emulator - ActiveSync connection does not work. Some also complained that there is not enough documentation to explain how to trouble-shoot PocketPC Emulator - ActiveSync connection problems.

According to my experience, I didnot have any problems at all to make PocketPC Emulator - ActiveSync connection work, i.e. to establish a device partnership in ActiveSync. My only complaint is that the PocketPC Enulator is soooo slow.

If you are having problems connecting PocketPC Emulator with ActiveSync, see if my five step process helps you.

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