There’s an interesting on the Chinese internet in Economist, which basically sums up that the Chinese internet community is a world unto itself. And it really is. Some Western internet companies have tried a failed there: like for online shopping, the Chinese use Taobao instead of Ebay, and for Social networks, they use Xiaonei instead of Facebook. Also, Google isn’t the dominant search engine either. Instead it’s Baidu, a Chinese owned search engine.
China’s population (1.3 billion) makes up one fifth of the world’s total; it’s economy is the second largest in the world; it’s the fastest growing major country for the last 25 years and is one of the largest importers and exporters. It’s an emerging Superpower according to Wikipedia.
“And why is all this relevant to public relations?” you might ask. The main reason I would think is that most of the Western internet companies haven’t do enough work to understand the complex Chinese market. I am taking Google and the Chinese Google- Baidu as an example:
The market reality is that millions of Chinese Internet users download free music online. Baidu understands this reality and its music search product — which presents a list of links for free music downloads when people search by song, singer, or label — is extremely popular, while Google is unable to do this. The truth is that very new market is a new challenge; just because you are number one at home does not mean you will be number one in every country you enter. Baidu may enter the US market some day, it will face many of the same challenges that Google is now facing in China.
China’s population (1.3 billion) makes up one fifth of the world’s total; it’s economy is the second largest in the world; it’s the fastest growing major country for the last 25 years and is one of the largest importers and exporters. It’s an emerging Superpower according to Wikipedia.
“And why is all this relevant to public relations?” you might ask. The main reason I would think is that most of the Western internet companies haven’t do enough work to understand the complex Chinese market. I am taking Google and the Chinese Google- Baidu as an example:
The market reality is that millions of Chinese Internet users download free music online. Baidu understands this reality and its music search product — which presents a list of links for free music downloads when people search by song, singer, or label — is extremely popular, while Google is unable to do this. The truth is that very new market is a new challenge; just because you are number one at home does not mean you will be number one in every country you enter. Baidu may enter the US market some day, it will face many of the same challenges that Google is now facing in China.
