China's Top Web 2.0 Companies

   

  [China's Top Web 2.0 companies, the categories & potential Western rivals. Photo by Shel]

Georg Godula, founder & managing director of Web2Asia, an incubator for Western Interactive Media companies in Asia, served as our very over-qualified tour guide on our China 2.0 tour. His group co-produced this first-ever event with The China Business Network and my sense is that Georg had the contacts that gave us access to so many high quality entrepreneurs.

When he was not striking poses that reminded me of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, in often frustrating attempts to gather an unruly bus load of bloggers, and keep us on a schedule we resisted,  he proved to be extremely knowledgeable on Web 2.0 companies in China.

The above photo was taken from his PowerPoint presentation at Tudou, an internet video company. We met with senior executives from a majority of the companies in the slide and I was impressed with many of them. Yes, some may have copied ideas that originated in the West, but the key to their success has been to localize their sites to accommodate the needs and interests of the burgeoning China market. Understanding the customer rivals any other ingredient required of a successful early phase company, and these companies are incredibly tuned in to what the China market wants. I would not bet against any of them against a Western challenge.

      
[Georg Godula at Forbidden City, wondering where his bus load of bloggers went. Photo by Shel]

Comments

[Sampad Swain]

Thanks for sharing the information.

Interestingly not a single global player features in top 10 list of China'a Web 2.0 companies.

Will be watching this space for more inputs from you.

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Sampad

[shel Israel]

I will be watching China a lot moving forward. I should have also pointed out that nearly all these companies are inwardly focused. China is such a huge market.

[George]

Thank you very much for the praise, Shel! I'm honored and humbled to have been a part of this unique tour and a part of such a cool group of people. I felt uncomfortable having to play the bad guy and literally chase all you highly acknowledged bloggers & writers through China on such a tight schedule (like a bus of school kids as @mbites put it). ;-) So I really appreciate your comments! I sincerely hope you can visit China soon again and have more time to explore.

btw: I couldn’t find a pic of the “real” John Travolta pose yet bus as far as I remember @fotograaf took one in front of the giant Apple logo in Beijing …

[Ming Li]

I am from China and I admit that some Chinese company may have copied ideas that originated in the West. But we also have a lot of original ideas, like alibaba.com.
China is developing so fast now. :)

[Ronit Rozen]

China is a huge market but the copyright is a big problem. China is still the heaven of the pirates.

[Imran Anwar]

I wonder, in today's globally connected world, do we have to expect future rivals only to come from China. Can't, say, some day a Pakistani or Burmese company be an equally viable contender to be the greatest search engine or social interaction site?

Your thoughts?

Imran
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