CNN’s Cherise Fong did a report about the book.  She summed up pretty well what the book is about. I like the following part the most:

“While 25.5 percent of the Chinese population is now online, CNNIC’s 2008 statistics sketch a relatively coherent portrait of the mainstream majority of them: 67 percent are below the age of 30; 73 percent have only a high school education or lower; 33 percent are students; and 28 percent fall into the lowest income bracket of under $75 per month.

Moreover, 78 percent go online at home and 42 percent log on at an Internet cafe. Once connected, 84 percent listen to music, 75 percent instant-message, 63 percent play online games, and only 57 percent e-mail.

In short, for the vast majority of Chinese, Internet means play, not work.

One could conclude that an Internet entrepreneur’s target audience in China is teenage and twenty-something students, low-end consumers in search of entertainment with plenty of time to kill.”

That applies to Tencent, all the online game players, such as Shanda, Netease, Changyou, The9, Perfect World, and so on, and even Baidu. Read complete article in CNN.

I did an interview with CNN last week about the book.  Here is me talking a bit about China Internet.

As the last of the 14-part series in Global Times, this week we will try to sum up what are the key differences and how successful Chinese Internet competitors synthesized components from their Western counterparts, all the while innovating to accommodate the unique characteristics of the Chinese market.  Read article in Global Times.