Web 2.0 Asia

It's been some months since I wrote an open letter on this blog, proposing the first-ever Asia Web Conference (the final name of the conference is TBD).

Since that post, I've been talking to bloggers and web experts in Asia, in an "under the water" fashion. And within some weeks (early this year), we had kickstarted the project - here's a brief update.

We now have the following people as the organizers for the Asia Web Conference:

• Angus Lau (852 Signal, Hong Kong)
  
• Benjamin Joffe (Plus8Star, China)
• Bernard Moon (Silicon Moon, US)
• Lu Gang (Mobinode, China)
• John S. Kim (Paprika Lab, Korea)
• Tangos Chan (China Web 2.0 Review, China)
  
• Chang Kim (Web 2.0 Asia, Korea)
  

If you follow blogs about Asian web industry, you should be familiar with these names already. They are some of the best and brightest guys, I'm sure.

As you can see here, we need oranizers from other countries - most notably missing is Japan. If there's anyone reading this blog post from Japan who's interested in making this conference happen, come aboard! Just roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty, it will be fun.

For the last several weeks, we've been exchanging various ideas about the conference via Google Docs (which we're still doing). We recently put together the possible list of speakers and sponsors, and we now have 54 A-list potential speakers on our list. Of course this doesn't mean we'll have all 54 of them on our conference, but I'm sure we'll get some of the best speakers you can find in and out of Asia in our conference.

The central theme of this conference will be "social". We used a couple of criteria when we decided the conference theme: a) the topic should be about an area where Asia has unique strengths, b) the topic should be important/trendy enough to attract participants/speakers/sponsors, and c) it should be where each Asian country has its own market-dominating player, so that some nice cross-country comparisons can be made. We came up with "mobile" and "social" as two best possible topics, and we finally chose "social". Social isn't such a terribly narrow topic either, but the topic shouldn't have to be too restrictive either, we believe.

We still haven't decided on the venue. Well, we didn't even decide which country to hold the conference in, for that matter - I'm still rooting for China but there's the Olympics logistics issue, and the visa requirement doesn't help either. I'm also looking at Korea too, part of the reason being I'm kind of being the main guy pushing this and Korea is my home turf where I can get some help from companies and even the government more easily.

As always, what matters most is the money side. We should find sponsors and come up with the financial plan. To do that, we need big-name speakers, and to do that, we should finalize the venue, dates, and the program, and to do that... well, there's still tons of work to be done.

But in any case, I still firmly believe that the Asia Web Conference is very much in order, as the world's internet industry increasingly sets its eyes on Asia, both for market opportunities (ie. China and India) and for inspirations (e.g. the digital "craziness" of Japan and Korea). Heck, I personally met two big-name Silicon Valley CEOs within three days in Korea!

This was just a brief update, and I'll keep you posted as we go along and get more updates. Of course, if you are interested to be an organizer/speaker/sponsor, don't hesitate to contact me or anyone listed above.

As I said in this post, I will look into opportunities where other great bloggers can share some of their thoughts and insights with the viewers of this blog.

My first guest blogger is Mr Tangos Chan. He is running China's premier Web 2.0 blog, China Web 2.0 Review. Anyone who is interested in Chinese Web 2.0 industry yet can't read Chinese will find this site very resourceful.

I wished to go to China but couldn't, so an email interview was conducted.

1. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself? What are your
current or past activities that made you start Chinese Web 2.0 Review?

In fact, I'm just an ordinary man.  Currently I'm working in an internet company in Guangzhou to deal with some finance-related issues. But I will move to Beijing soon.  Last year, the concept of "web 2.0" sparked the ideas of many internet startups in China, and more and more overseas VCs are eyeing on China's market.  But I realized that there is an information gap between them. Due to language barrier, English-speaking world don't have many effective channels to know what happened in China. I think an English blog would be a good way for me to try to bridge the gap.

2. Can you describe the funding environment for the Chinese web 2.0
industry? (How hot / cold the market is, What's the average size of
funding, Notable success stories, etc)

In fact, I personally don't know much on the funding and investment circle. But I'm sure the market has recovered from the bubble time, and it is hot, many reputable VCs entered or prepared to enter Chinese market. For example, Sequioa Capital, CRV and KPCB. It's hard to tell the average size, since there are many small cases which you may not know.

Oak Pacific's 48 million funding should be the most notable case, other notable cases include Qihoo and Toodou.

3. In your view, what are the 3 most successful Web 2.0 companies (or
initiatives) in China?

Douban should be on the list, you know, in China, when we talked about domestic web 2.0, we often take Douban as an example.
Dianping is also a very successful website, even though when Dianping launched several years ago, no one knew what is "web 2.0"
Sina blog is my third choice. It is a very successful initiatives to attract users and promote the concept of "blog" to the mass.

(Editor: Wow, I didn't know these until I learned them from you ! I'll check them out.)

4. What's your view on the Asian countries, most notably China, Korea,
and Japan, working together on the Web 2.0 ? How do you believe we can
make this seemingly good idea happen?

I don't think it is easy for east Asian countries to work together, since there is big language barrier among three countries. And it seems that there is also quite different web culture in all three countries.

(Well, I begun my Chinese class :-)

5. Who will win this worldcup :) ?

Netherlands is always my favored team, esp. I'm big fans of Van Basten, but I don't think they will be lucky enough to win the game. So I'll bet on Germany. :)

Thanks, Tangos ! If you have any questions for me, I'd be delighted to answer them. Also as I discussed with you, I'll translate this into Korean and post it on my other columns.

Despite being a newbie blogger (28 days of blogging, to be exact), I'd like to invite guest bloggers. It would be a great honor for me.

The first blogger to whom I sent an invitation email (and who kindly accepted it) was Mr. Tangos Chan of the famous China Web 2.0 Review.

I like the word "Beseto", short for Beijing - Seoul - Tokyo. (Sorry that Shanghai folks or people from other Asian countries are not included, but I didn't make the term, sorry). It would be great to see tech companies in Beseto get together at a joint conference, or at least have some online space to exchange information and learn more about the IT industry of the other countries. By the way, a pan-Asia football league like UEFA won't hurt, either :-)

Although I very much anticipate to meet Tangos in person, I'll have to push that to the next time, so I'll interview him by email. You will soon see the email interview right here.