Family Learning Center

Posts Tagged ‘Internet Sponsor’

China’s Top 3 Social Network Sites

The leading social networking site in China, renren.com, started out as a blatant Facebook clone – but it now has tens of millions of users. Despite obvious similarities to Facebook, there is one significant difference from the U.S. in how Renren and other Chinese SNS are used. The bread and butter of these sites is social games using virtual items. Indeed, Farmville originated in China!

In this first post of a series, we outline the most popular social network sites in China. In follow-up posts, we’ll look at Twitter clones, online video, and censorship. This series is based on a discussion I had with Kaiser Kuo, a Beijing-based expert on China’s Internet.

Sponsor

Kaiser Kuo is a Chinese-American who lives in Beijing. He currently works for one of China’s leading online video services, Youku.com, as a consultant on International Business. Previously he was Group Director, Digital Strategy at Ogilvy & Mather China.

There are 3 social networking sites that are clearly in the lead in China, according to Kaiser Kuo.

Renren.com is the leading social network. It began as a Facebook clone called Xiaonei.com – which means ‘on campus’ in Chinese. In August 2009 it changed its name to Renren, which means ‘everybody.’ Renren had 70 million registered users at that point. The site is owned by Oak Pacific Interactive and has had over $400M pumped into it by investors Softbank.

The site was founded in December 2005, shortly after Facebook began to ramp up. Its founder Wang Xing later founded Fanfou, a popular Twitter clone (see our next post in this series).

Xiaonei.com was literally a Facebook clone when it started, sporting the same shade of blue and the same layout. ReadWriteWeb guest writer Gang Lu wrote on this blog in June 2008 that Xiaonei.com "was like a simplified version of Facebook in Chinese when it was first launched." He noted that it had "the same layout, same color scheme and even a very similar logo," which he said "made people wonder if there was an official connection with Facebook."

Kaixin001.com is another very popular social network. Kaiser said that its users are mostly "white collar middle class" and typically come from a "first tier city."

Kaiser noted that Kaixin001.com is extremely popular among people who work for multinational companies, ad agencies and other white collar companies. Accordingly, the site is valuable because of its relatively wealthy user base.

The third social network that is very popular in China is 51.com, which Kaiser said is mostly used by people who live in "lower tier cities" and even rural areas. He noted that it has a "lower brow offering."

Each of these three hugely popular social networks in China has its own niche; from the mainstream Renren, to the more prestigious Kaixin001, to the populist 51.com.

In our next post in this series, we check out China’s Twitter clones.

Discuss

Read the whole story…

McKinsey: Get Ready For Sensor-Driven Business Models

Consulting firm McKinsey has just released a report on the Internet of Things, one of ReadWriteWeb’s top 5 trends of last year. The report, available for free if you sign up as a member of McKinsey Quarterly, focuses on the "new sensor-driven
business models" that Internet of Things brings.

McKinsey sees two categories for emerging applications: "information and analysis" and "automation and control." Many of the applications listed are for large companies or specialized industries (for example automobile manufacturers). But consumers should take note too, because there will be a lot more data about us flowing onto the Internet.

Sponsor

McKinsey defines Internet of Things as "sensors and actuators
embedded in physical objects [...]
linked through wired and wireless networks, often using the same
Internet Protocol (IP) that connects the Internet."

In the "information and analysis" category, McKinsey firstly lists tracking behavior. An example is insurance companies installing location sensors in customers’ cars, allowing them to base the price of policies on "how a car is driven as well
as where it travels." Another example is Tesco’s use of sensors to capture
shoppers’ profile data via membership cards. According to McKinsey, this "can help
close purchases by providing additional information or offering
discounts at the point of sale."

On the B2B side, McKinsey points to companies using sensors to track RFID tags placed on products moving through
supply chains. We’ve written before about IBM’s activities in this market.

The next information and analysis application is enhanced situational awareness.
This is when large numbers of sensors are deployed in infrastructure such
as roads and buildings, in order to report on real-time environmental conditions such as weather or temperature.

Sensor-driven decision analytics shows how revolutionary sensor technologies could be, without most consumers even realizing it! The report explains that some retailers are presently studying ways to gather and
process data from shoppers as they flow through
stores. Sensor readings and videos will be able to "note how long they linger at
individual displays and record what they ultimately buy," data which McKinsey says "will help to increase revenues by optimizing retail
layouts."

The second major category for Internet of Things apps in this report is "automation and control."
By this McKinsey means "converting
the data and analysis collected through the Internet of Things
into instructions that feed back through the network to actuators
that in turn modify processes."

The first class of apps listed under this category is process optimization, for example for chemical production and assembly lines.

Next is optimized resource consumption, for example power companies that provide so-called ’smart meters’ so that customers can better manage their power expenditure. This is particularly useful for companies that use a lot of power every day, because they can "shift energy-intensive processes and
production away from high-priced periods of peak energy demand to
low-priced off-peak hours."

The third and final automation and control use case is complex autonomous systems, which McKinsey calls "the most demanding use of the Internet of Things" because it involves rapid,
real-time sensing of unpredictable conditions. For example the automobile industry is developing systems that can detect imminent
collisions and take evasive action.

The report ends by saying that the Internet of Things holds great promise, but there are many issues to resolve – including privacy, legal and cost of sensors and actuators. However McKinsey thinks that energy consumption efficiency and process
optimization are "good early targets" for businesses using Internet of Things.

Overall, this is an informative, useful report for companies who want to get their heads around the potential business opportunities of the Internet of Things. For ReadWriteWeb’s ongoing coverage and analysis of this important trend, check out our Internet of Things archive and subscribe to our RSS feed.

Discuss

Read the whole story…

Illegal Immigration: There’s an App for That

From a group calling themselves Electronic Civil Disobedience comes the Transborder Immigrant Tool, a simple mobile application intended to aid and abet border-crossers from Mexico to the United States by mapping the safest routes to take.

This GPS app is built to work on the cheapest cell phones available. It brings to mind every petty-but-illegal transgression the casual user could commit and stretches the boundaries of the permissibility of tech’s uses for plausibly illegal means. The next time you use P2P or bit torrent clients to download media or use an iPhone app to detect police radars, think about this mobile application and how it reflects on American law and the Internet.

Sponsor

The app seems to originate from a hacktivist group out of UCSD – hardly a historical hotbed of technological innovation, but close enough to the US-Mexican border to have a significant impact on the politics of technology in that area. The group also advocates DDoS-like digital sit-ins to bog down the resources of websites it deems offensive.

Hundreds of would-be immigrants are killed each year while trying to enter the United States.

Check out this Border Patrol YouTube video on the newly installed double-layered fencing between the U.S. and Mexico, a fence that stretches between 700 and 800 miles along the Rio Grande.

So, what do our readers think? Is a mobile app enabling illegal Mexican immigration to the U.S. a live-saving tool for those who seek better opportunities, or is it simply another law-breaking tool developed by tech hackers for life hackers, a workaround to cheat the system?

Discuss

Read the whole story…