3 Things you need to know about China - FoundRead

As a Chinese American, I find reading posts like these analogous to hackers reading corporate explanations of what's "web 2.0".

"The Chinese" are in fact pretty diverse, just like Americans. Though web usage is currently dominated by the young gamers, there are many growing niches in the Chinese population. As more people hop online, their patterns of behavior and usage will change. To attempt to understand Chinese users in three simple bullets is doing no one a favor. But to add injury to insult, these bullets were compiled after an interview with someone who didn't even go to the major mainland cities. That's like trying to summarize Americans' web behavior by asking someone who went to London, Toronto, and Miami.

If you really want to serve that population, just go to China. It's not Iraq. It's easily accessible and if you stick to the major cities, you won't even really need to know Chinese (hiring a translator isn't a big deal either).

Random tidbit about China: It is ruled by graduates of Tsinghua University, China's best engineering university. Hu Jintao's undergraduate degree was in hydraulic engineering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsinghua_clique

I imagine America would be a little different if it was ruled by engineers.

Alibaba was founded as an amazon/ebay for manufacturing businesses seeking to find buyers overseas. It is not a Linked-in for businesses.

Alibaba is quite successful. I've seen an interview with the CEO. He looks somewhat different but when he talks you can see the passion in it.