December 18, 2008

Web Wednesday - Social Mixer V20 (Jan 7)

Calling Hong Kong Digerati!

As we all prepare for a thunderous 2009, we're planning the expansion for Web Wednesday across the region and booking speakers for the year.
We will be kicking off the year talking about "The Future of Online Advertising" with Adrian Toy, the APAC Regional Interactive Director for Universal McCann, a global media agency with a client roster that includes Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Intel and Coca Cola. Here's the slogan off their website:



As always, the event is free so do Invite your friends and colleagues to join the Asian Digerati on Wednesday 7th January at Q97.

You can sign up for the event on Facebook here.

Looking forward to seeing old faces and meeting many more new ones,

Napoleon Biggs
Founder & Host - Web Wednesday
Digital Media Consultant & Executive Trainer - Palava Digital Ltd

December 15, 2008

Google's Top Ten List - 谷歌全球搜索关键字排行榜

The end of the year is fast upon us (thank God!) and Google has captured the spirit of the times with it's summary of the most used search terms over the past twelve months. Visit and play with Google Zeitgeist 2008.

You can drill down to our very own little home town of Hong Kong which lists the top ten most popular search terms as:

  1. youtube
  2. facebook
  3. 香港討論區 (Hong Kong fora)
  4. gmail
  5. 天文台 (weather channel)
  6. wikipedia
  7. uwants
  8. hong kong weather
  9. apple daily
  10. hsbc
Sina provides the full list here in Simplified Chinese.

Even more fascinating is the China Journal report from the Wall Street Journal that:

Not only shares it's analysis of the Top Ten for Chinese Googlers, who "tend to be more educated, wealthier and urban than those who use Google’s more popular homegrown rival, Baidu" - an extract below:

1. Edison Chen: Hong Kong actor whose x-rated photos with various local starlets were leaked to the world and aroused huge interest in mainland China.

2. Olympics opening ceremony: our highlights here.

3. Sichuan earthquake: China’s worst natural disaster in three decades.

4. List of substandard milk powders: People searched for this after learning that many brands of milk powder had been laced with melamine, a toxic industrial chemical.

But also takes this a step further and provides a comprehensive list of the latest vocabulary to evolve on the Chinese internet. Another extract:

1. Shanzhai: Originally referred to the mountain strongholds of bandits. Now, the term refers to all manner of knock-off, substandard or improvised goods, such as these makeshift vehicles.

2. 囧 : This is an ancient Chinese character, pronounced jiong, used to mean “light shining through a window” several thousand years ago (kind of what the character itself looks like), among other things. Recently it has found a new life among Chinese youth as an emoticon to express a bad mood, since it also looks like a face crying out in a pictographic version of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”

3. Very yellow, very violent: The year’s first Internet catchphrase came from a CCTV interview with a 13-year-old girl, part of a program on the government’s new regulations on Internet censorship. Netizens who believed the girl had been coached by CCTV into making the statement lashed out against her, launching a human flesh search engine and numerous parodies.

And here is the list of new vocabulary in Chinese, again from Sina:

 年度新词汇

  1 山寨

  2 囧

  3 很黄很暴力

  4 叉腰肌

  5 三个俯卧撑

  6 槑

  7 打酱油

  8 泡良族

  9 凤凰男

  10 做人不能太CNN

If you really want to be up with the times, check out the list of internet terms, expressions, acronyms and slang (some very raunchy!) collected by ChinaSmack. I guess my Shanghainese friends would call me "WDR", "西数人" or "Western Digital person"?

December 12, 2008

Web Wednesday Guangzhou - Dec. 17th


Meet the Guangzhou "Digerati" and greet our guests from around Asia who are leaders on the Internet! Our main goal is to network and meet new people with common interests in the Guangzhou area, learn from our guests and, oh ya, HAVE FUN!

Topic: "How does the Internet continue to shape the spoken and written word?"

  • Scott Tong, American Public Radio Bureau Chief for China
  • Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN Bureau Chief in Beijing and Tokyo, HKU Professor of Journalism, Creative Commons Director in HK and founder of Global Voices Online.

  • (We had the honour of having Rebecca as a guest in Hong Kong back in September 2008).

    Web Wednesday Guangzhou is held every third Wednesday of the month at 6:30 PM at the Paddy Field Irish bar and Restaurant on Hua Le Lu right behind the Garden Hotel. It is managed by Doctor Lonnie Hodge and his super-efficient team at Culture Fish Media

    Sign up for the event on Facebook here.

    I'll be making my way across the border with a bunch of local HK Digerati so see you there, or on the speedy through-train!

    December 5, 2008

    Ending the year with a bang!

    Calling all Hong Kong Digerati!

    Thank you to all our Web Wednesday members for making the Web Wednesday - Social Mixer V19.0 such a fun and insightful event.

    I'm not sure if it was the subject - "Adult Toys - Clicks to Bricks" - or the fact it was this year's last event, but we sure ended 2008 with a bang!

    The buzz was palpable, the venue was packed wall-to-wall with digerati and, as always, there were more new faces then old ones. (Where do you all hide during the day?)

    A special thanks to all our guest speakers throughout 2008 and our sponsors.

    WISHING YOU ALL A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

    My advice: try to see if you can resist the internet over the holidays and just enjoy the physical company of family and friends.

    Our 20th social mixer will be as follows:
    Date: Wednesday 7th January 2009
    Time: 18:30 - 22:30
    Location: Q97 Bar & Lounge, Basement, California Tower, 32 D'Aguilar Street, Lan Kwai Fong
    Topic: "How to reach women online?"

    We'll be posting the interview to our podcast channel

    In the meantime, you can follow my thought-stream on Twitter or join our group on Linked In.

    A special thanks to the people and companies who support this event:
    1. Q97 lounge club - spacious, groovy venue and welcome complimentary cocktail.
    2. The HyperFactory - SMS contest, mobile website and coupon download.
    3. Outblaze - social collaboration software.
    5. Beansbox - email and logo design.
    6. Epsilon Interactive - email marketing platform.
    7. Asia Digital Marketing Association - official industry endorser.
    8. Palava Digital - Event Organiser (Napoleon's company)
    9. Digital Media - promotion to its reader database.

    Napoleon Biggs
    Founder & Host - Web Wednesday
    Managing Consultant - Palava Digital, Social Media Specialists & Digital Media Executive Coaches

    December 2, 2008

    Web Wednesday - Social Mixer V19.0 (Dec 3)

    LAST SOCIAL MIXER OF 2008 - ENDING THE YEAR ON A HOT TOPIC!

    After eleven successful Web Wednesday events in Hong Kong this year, we wanted to say farewell to 2008 with a bang!

    So we've invited a guest speaker who runs a business that is the main driver behind all emerging new technologies...SEX (or perhaps we should be politically correct and call it "adult entertainment".

    Chris Lee is the founder of Wanta.net, a sexual well-being store and a great example of "clicks-to-bricks" with a shop that started on the web and now has a store opposite Times Square in Causeway Bay.

    We're lining up a few fun ideas for the event which I will let you know about in due course.

    It is the end of the year, so do make that special effort to turn up and bring a "friend" or two along. Wanta.net is offering a mystery gift to the first 100 guests!

    Click here for the confirm your spot.

    Date: Wednesday 3rd December 2008
    Time: 18:30 - 22:30
    Location: Q97 Bar & Lounge, Basement, California Tower, 32 D'Aguilar Street, Lan Kwai Fong