For years the Internet in China has been regulated by what we describe as the Great Firewall. China has been blocking online searches of politically sensitive terms, smothering embarrassing news events or simply access to most social networks like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Over all these years, this confined environment has favoured the emergence of a parallel online eco-system. It would be too long to go through all the Chinese online players, but let’s spend some time on the key ones:

Baidu (www.baidu.com)

Founded in 2000, Baidu with 87% of market share is the largest search engine in China. Listed on NASDAQ since 2004, its market cap is currently around US$ 40Bn. Similar to Google, Baidu offers a complete set of search services (web, vertical, social and mobile). In 2011, Baidu invested in Xunar (the largest online meta travel search) and in 2012, they launched their Mobile Cloud computing division.

AliBaba (www.alibaba.com)

Alibaba.com, the flagship company of Alibaba Group, is the world’s largest online business-to-business trading platform for small businesses. The company’s English language international marketplace (www.alibaba.com) serves to bring together importers and exporters from more than 240 countries and regions.

TaoBao (www.taobao.com)

Founded in 2004, Taobao is China’s equivalent to eBay. Part of the AliBaba Group and with 80M unique visitors per day, TaoBao is the largest marketplace in the country. In June 2011, Alibaba Group chairman and CEO Jack Ma revealed that Taobao will be split into three different companies: Taobao Marketplace (a C2C platform), Tmall.com (a B2C platform; then called Taobao Mall), and eTao (a shopping search engine). The private joke is that you can really buy ANYTHING on TaoBao, including a temporary boyfriend!

Boyfriends and girlfriends available for rent on Taobao

AliPay (www.alipay.com)

Launched in 2004 by AliBaba group, Alipay isChina’s Paypal. With 50% market share, Alipay is the biggest online payment platform inChina:

• 500 million active registered accounts as of the end of 2012 (four times the size of Paypal’s)

• Exceeded 20B RMB in a single day on the 1.11.11
• On average, 11M daily transactions

RenRen (www.renren.com)

Like FaceBook, RenRen.com started as a social networking platform for college students. Now open to the general public, it still remains most popular with students. Renren’s platform includes the main social networking website renren.com, the online games centre game.renren.com, the social commerce website nuomi.com and has around 170M active users.

Sina Weibo (www.weibo.com)

Usually described as being the Chinese Twitter, Sina Weibo is, I think, actually more the hybrid son of Facebook and Twitter. With a 140-character limit on page posts, it is definitely considered a micro-blogging site; however, the services that it offers are closer to those of a Facebook on steroids (page, customisation, chat, video,…)! A few stats:

• 1.3hrs average use per day
• > 309M active account holders
• 1.6B page views per day
• 130,000 brand pages

Youku (www.youku.com)

Launched in 2006, Youku is a YouTube with no limitations! It allows users to upload videos of any length but also offers a video library of popular films, TV shows and clips. It is even quite common for some movies to be available first on Youku before the official launch date in cinemas!

Tencent QQ and Qzone (qzone.qq.com)

QQ provides customers with a popular instant messaging software service (similar to MSM), online social games, music, shopping, micro-blogging, and group & voice chat. At the end of 2012, there were 785 million active user accounts with approximately 100 million users online at a time.

The following infographic by CIC describes pretty well the social media landscape in China:

The main reason for my silence was my travel schedule. Over the last few months I have had to go several times to Asia and especially to China, delving into its amazing online landscape.

For hundreds of years, Asia accounted for about half of the world’s economic activity. Then, as Western economies industrialized, this region fell behind — down to only 8 percent of the global economy in 1970. This trend began to reverse in the 1980s, and today, the region accounts for just over 1/5th of global economic activity and is the second largest travel market in the world (behind Europe but ahead of North America). There are innumerable consumers in this region seeking to buy travel products they have never had access to before, and there is an immense amount of financial capital in the region, which favours growth.

The picture below on the left was taken just 30 years ago. Back then, Shenzhen (situated just across the border from Hong Kong) was a small fishing village with a population of about 25,000. Today (picture on the right), Shenzhen is an ultra-modern megalopolis with a population above 10 million.

This is a good representation of the growth the region has experienced over the last few decades. If you had been in the region ten years ago, you wouldn’t recognize it today.

When I was there a couple of months ago, Beijing was a reminder of the two faces of Chinese growth: activity was booming, but the city was just going through one of the highest record days in terms of pollution. Another example of this amazing growth: according to calculations by Vaclav Smil for an upcoming book on materials in modern civilization, China put more concrete into its roads, factories, bridges, and buildings in the three years between 2009 and 2011 than the US did in the infrastructure that it built during the entire 20th century!

The growth of the Chinese online space over the last 5 years has also been mind-boggling, allowing this country to have now the largest online population in the world.

Here are a few stats:

• 564 million Internet users (twice the size of the US base!), 42% penetration rate
• Average time spent online: 20.5 hours per week
• 451 million search engine users, 80% penetration rate
• 420 million mobile Internet users, 75% penetration rate
• 309 million Weibo users (hybrid of Twitter and Facebook), 66% using mobile Weibo
• 242 million Internet shoppers
• 2.7 million websites, increased by 17%

And my favourite one:

In Nov 2012, Taobao.com (Online Market Place) reached US$160B sales – more than the combination of eBay.com and Amazon.com in the US!!

The following infographic by Go-Globe summarizes pretty well some current stats and trends about the Chinese online space:

In November 2012, Monitor was unable to pay its bills and was forced to file for bankruptcy protection. Why didn’t the highly paid consultants of Monitor use Porter’s famous framework to save themselves? An interesting reading from Steve Denning: Click here

NC: Tell me how you first got involved in recruitment, especially recruitment in the digital space.

I was hired directly into recruitment from university 30 years ago. I joined Aquent, the specialist creative and digital recruitment company 12 years ago, and so have been very close to the evolution of the digital industry and of the digital recruitment space. I have such a high level of belief that this sector will boom in the coming years, that we spun off the permanent search division of Aquent to form Firebrand Talent Search, which specialises in digital and online marketing placements.

NC: What has surprised you most about working in this industry?

If you mean the recruitment industry, nothing; 30 years exposes you to just about everything that can happen. If you mean the digital industry, the rate of change continually surprises me.

NC: What do you find most challenging about this industry?

The most challenging aspect of both the recruitment and the digital industries is a lack of skills and talent.

NC: What’s the best/worst thing to happen since you started working in recruitment in the digital space?

The best thing is that it is constantly growing, evolving and companies are investing in digital marketing, driving tremendous opportunities. Without doubt the worst thing to happen was the global downturn in 2008 from which the economy has still not recovered and which makes recruiting an exceptionally tough business to be in.

NC: If you could change one thing about the recruitment industry, what would it be?

The dumb and counter-productive practice of companies multi-listing job orders with many recruiters, which leads to recruitment firms competing on speed instead of quality, which in turn drives down the perception of our industry, our margins and our reputation.

NC: When your friends/family find out that you are in recruitment, what do they say or ask?

Sometimes they ask if I can find them a job, and sometimes they ask if I’m crazy.

NC: What do you think will change about recruitment over the next five years?

The recruitment industry will be heavily affected by social media and other competitors of the 3rd party recruiter model. However, specialist, niche recruiters who develop sophisticated strategies to locate and recruit top talent will thrive.I believe job boards are going to become increasingly ineffective and they will evolve their business model, possibly to a “pay-per-click” pricing arrangement. Certainly for recruiters, banging an ad on a generic job board will be the least differentiated thing you can do in talent sourcing, so that channel will deliver fewer and fewer quality candidates. Increasingly I see a move towards “active” social media recruiting. I don’t mean simply “engaging” with random people on Twitter in the hope that one day you will recruit them, and I certainly don’t mean using social media as a de facto job board. I see the intelligent use of video, for example, as a recruiting tool. Companies, including recruiters, will spend big on sophisticated video, showcasing work environments and opportunities, and this will be integrated with blogs, websites and social media. The nirvana will be recruiting videos going viral! But it won’t only be employers using visual technology. We are already seeing the emergence of the multimedia CV and this will grow. Candidates will use video and other technologies to showcase their talents.

It’s pretty clear that the use of recruitment-based apps created for iPhones, Android and other mobile devices is growing. But I might be a bit of a contrarian on this. Yes, it’s going to boom initially, but developers will need to keep developing sophisticated applications with new and innovative features, to keep people coming back to their phone to look for jobs. Two other trends I can see coming: much more money spent on employer-branding as employers realise traditional recruiting methods no longer work; and also I see someone developing an über-cool online candidate-referral system – I’m not sure what, but a kind of  ‘Groupon’ for recruiting.

NC: If you weren’t in recruitment, what would you be doing instead, or what would your life be like?

If I was not in recruitment, I would now be retired and my life would be a lot less stressful and a lot less interesting.

NC: Can you tell us a few words about Finder.com.au?

Frank and I found that comparing financial products out there was too overwhelming and that Australian consumers could be paying more than they should. Finder.com.au provides a one-stop comparison service for various financial products such as credit cards, personal loans, home loans, saving accounts, life insurance and is now expanding into mobile phones and broadband. Our point of difference in the market is that each site specialises in its own niche. We provide step-by-step resources to research, compare and apply for products. Our sites offer unique comparisons for credit cards, home loans, savings accounts, personal loans, life insurance, broadband and forex trading, and our newest one compares mobile phones. We offer calculator tools and guides to help users through their comparison process.

NC: Did you put in more or fewer hours than you had anticipated?

I would put in more, but unfortunately I have to sleep. I try and not sleep but I get a bit tired after a few weeks! I love our office; we have created a neat little paradise and are planning on building another soon too. Perhaps we should eventually move to Silicon Hills?

NC: How do you think your business will change over the next 5 years

It will be bigger, better and help out and save consumers more. We will have more niches operating and helping more and more Australians every day. It’s a lot of work building a niche so we are going to need a few more people to help us achieve that. I think we will have a group of A-players all striving to create the best comparison service for Australians.

NC: What advice would you give another person who wants to start an online business?

• Be innovative – produce fresh ideas
• Persevere – If you have an idea stick with it and push it until you achieve your goal
• $1 – Just try and make $1 of profit. I am talking $1 in your bank account after you have been paid, you have paid all of your expenses, you have paid your tax and the $1 of profit left over is in your account. Just focus on that and do it in a small-scale manner first, then don’t be smart, just try and make $2 and repeat.

NC: Tell me how you first got involved in the digital space?

I was building sites while I was still studying at university so I grew up with this stuff. I just took to the internet naturally as I had played with computers as a kid and I am quite creative and love visual technology. I loved special maths at uni and I am pretty good with reverse-engineering things and figuring out how to do something that I don’t know how to do. That was a recipe for internet 101, but then I learnt a lot of marketing from Michael Kiely and I spliced that onto the internet and got 100% into internet marketing.

NC: What do you find most challenging about this industry?

Not building sites fast enough, processes and systems development and finding talented staff to join our badass crew.

NC: What’s the best/worst thing to happen since you started working in the online space?

The best thing is more people are going online! There are more people for us to help coming online and comparing products. Comparison as an idea is growing. The worst thing is that Internet Explorer is still dominant and causes us so many pains in our development and the display of our sites. However with a lot of the newer CSS techniques you can get around some of the problems.

NC: Tell me about someone who has influenced your decision to work in this space?

Jeff Bezos, he has made a monster online business. He persisted and innovated in consumer products even. That kind of scope has inspired me to build Finder.com.au into a monster business as there are so many opportunities there. Maybe we could even think of going into space at some stage!

NC: Tell me how you first got involved in digital advertising.

A former colleague at WIN TV who went to ninemsn in 1997 invited me over and gave me a tour. I was hooked and hired weeks later as one of 4 ad-sales reps.

NC: What has surprised you most about working in this industry?

Frist, that people still ask if online advertising works and, secondly, that brands haven’t invested more and more quickly in digital.

NC: What do you find most challenging about this industry?

First , the measurement of online audiences and advertising effectiveness, and, secondly, keeping up with the speed of change.

NC: If you could change one thing about this industry, what would it be?

Brands and media planners and buyers would see online as an effective branding channel and would value online advertising similarly to how they value TV and print advertising.

NC: When your friends/family find out that you are in interactive advertising, what do they say or ask?

« What’s that then? »

NC: Tell me about someone who has influenced your decision to work in this space?

Steve Vamos was my CEO at ninemsn and has been a wise counsel, as has Nick Leeder when he was COO at News Digital Media.

NC: What do you think will change about advertising over the next five years?

All advertising will become digital and interactive, influenced by data; much of it will be traded electronically very fast; most of it will be co-ordinated across many channels and devices.

NC: What sorts of trends do you see in the digital space? And what do you think the next big thing will be?

Trends will include greater use of mobile devices – smartphones and tablets – by consumers and therefore by advertisers and marketers; the use of data will be prevalent and I hope accepted; consumers will have much more control over their advertising and content preferences; programmatic trading will encompass digital media inventory currently seen as TV, print, and radio inventory; media agencies and owners will be structured very differently than they are today; creativity and innovation will be vital components along with data for all campaigns; media brands and content will be more important than channels; touch interfaces will be overtaken by voice and gesture interfaces; Australian broadband speeds will be among the fastest in OECD countries (not 16th as they currently are); nobody will ask if online advertising works. The next big thing: if I had to single out one, it would be NFC and mobile as a transaction device.

NC: If you weren’t in digital advertising, what would you be doing instead, or what would your life be like?

Any job or business that enabled me to take my 2 sons to daycare/school every morning and pick them up every afternoon. In between, I’d go for a paddle, a bike ride, or a run; or I’d read and tell stories and do some motivational speaking.

NC: Neil, tell me how you first got involved in the web analytics space?

One of my first companies was an Internet marketing agency. We provided SEO and Social Media marketing to companies who wanted to increase traffic to their websites. Over the years we learned that companies had struggled to measure the ROI on their marketing campaigns, so we decided to create an analytics product that would help solve that problem. It took a good amount of pivots before we got to where we are today, but we have made a ton of progress over the years.

NC: What has surprised you most about working in this industry?

The biggest shocker to me is how most companies don’t really do anything with their analytics data. They look at their stats and hope that their traffic goes up, but they don’t really try to fine tune things based on the data in front of their eyes.

NC: What do you find most challenging about this industry?

The hardest part about being in the analytics space is to create a product that provides actionable insights. We’ve been working on this for years now and we are getting closer every day. Hopefully one day we will create a product that every business relies on to make business decisions.

NC: What’s the best/worst thing to happen since you started working online?

The worst thing that happened to me is that I lost over a million dollars of borrowed money when I was around 20 or 21 years old.

The best thing that happened is that I learned from my mistakes and improved as an entrepreneur. Knowledge is priceless and I feel that what I’ve learned over the years has helped me succeed in life.

NC: If you could change one thing about this industry, what would it be?

I would love it if companies didn’t focus on tracking vanity metrics, and if they would focus on tracking the metrics that actually affect their bottom line. Metrics like bounce rates, pageviews and time on site aren’t nearly as important as lifetime value per customer, churn, and conversion rates.

NC: When your friends/family find out that you are in the online space, what do they say or ask?

They typically ask what I do. Most of them don’t get it, so I just tell them that I work at Microsoft. I know that’s technically a lie, but it’s easier to say that than it is to explain what I do. Plus, I really love Microsoft; unlike most companies, they given back a lot to the world and they really encourage their employees to get involved in the non-profit sector.

NC: Tell me about someone who has influenced your decision to work in this space?

Elon Musk. He is my favourite entrepreneur by far and I’ve learned a lot by reading about him online. Because of him I no longer try to create small businesses; might as well create a game-changing company that impacts the world.

NC: A few words on the Web Analytics industry, don’t you think it is starting to be overcrowded?

It has been crowded for years. But most of the solutions out there focus on vanity metrics that were popular in the web 1.0 world. Because of this there is room for new players to enter in the space and focus on tracking metrics that are important, such as the lifetime value of your customers.

NC: You mentioned quite a few times vanity metrics and important metrics. Can you explain more for our audience the main differences between them? And which type of outcome should we expect by analysing them?

Vanity metrics are ones that companies track but they don’t add much. For example, whether your bounce rate is high or low, it doesn’t mean your conversion rate is going to be low or high. So instead of tracking vanity metrics, ones that don’t affect your bottom line, it is best to track metrics that help you make more money (shopper rate, conversion rate, etc.).

NC: What sorts of trends do you see in the digital space? And what do you think the next big thing will be?

Before, if you wanted to create an online business you would create a website. These days you can create an online business through things like mobile applications or social applications. The amount of mobile devices out there is growing faster than the number of purchases of laptops or computers. Because of this, businesses are going to have to think differently about how they reach their target audience.

NC: What was your first job, and how did you get it?

If we are talking holiday jobs, it was working at Lands End in Cornwall.  I spent my school day summers there first working on the ice cream stall, before I was promoted to fast food!  After doing that for one summer, I think they saw I would work hard, but also could add up, so they moved me into the cash office where we made sure all the concessions got enough cash each morning, and counted it all at the end of the day.  The middle of the day was spent reading, which didn’t train me well for the real world!

NC: What has surprised you most about working in online travel?

I think how similar it is globally.  Having worked in Europe, the US and Asia, and in both emerged and emerging markets, I’ve noticed there is an awful lot of commonality about the important things in making travel decisions.  There are definitely a lot of subtle differences, but we are globally a lot more similar than different.

NC: What do you find most challenging about this industry?

Figuring out what the global preferences are that really make a difference.  It is easy to fall into stereotypes about how Australians or Japanese or other nations like to travel, but often that is a historical accident, based on how a market began in a particular country, so we need to be careful not to play to those stereotypes.  However there are some things that are important to particular nationalities, or that make the process of buying travel simpler, and these can’t be ignored.  Figuring out which is which is a challenge.

NC: Tell me about someone who has influenced your professional career. 

I was lucky enough to have to host Richard Branson for a lunch before he spoke at my university.  I remember he told a friend and me, whatever we did in life, to make sure it was something you had passion for.  If you have passion for something, you’ll never think of it as work, and will throw all your energy into it, and be amazingly successful.

NC: What have you learned over the years that you’d like to share with the younger generation? 

That you are never qualified to answer this question!  That the more experiences we have, the more we learn, and that we can always look back and see how with more information or experience we could have done things better, but that as long as you are learning all the time, you are getting the most out of life.

NC: When your friends/family find out that you are in online travel, what do they say or ask?

Everyone asks when’s the best time is to book their trips.  Revenue management has created so much confusion that the average traveller doesn’t know whether they should book well in advance or wait for a last-minute deal.

NC: What sorts of trends do you see more generally in the digital space? And what do you think the next big thing will be? 

The obvious one is the increasing digitization of almost all visual consumption.  Whether in the form of mobiles, tablest or points of sale (kiosks, etc.), we are increasingly seeing digital move away from the classic desktop and interact with us in almost all forms of visual communication.  I can only see this continuing, with billboards moving to much more real-time responsive digital formats, TV becoming increasingly personalized and interactive, and books and other forms of written entertainment moving into the digital realms, and allowing interactivity and multi-dimensional story-telling.  All of this will be much more seamlessly linked, creating opportunities for marketers to weave stories across all of these devices.

NC: If you weren’t in online travel, what would you be doing instead, or what would your life be like?

One day I’d like to own a few country hotels, where people can switch off a little and spend more time with the people that are important to them.

An astute hospitality marketer with experience across the United States, the UK and Australia, Dimmi Founder, Stevan Premutico has built a successful business borne out of his own first hand frustrations at the inefficiencies of restaurant reservation systems. Since establishing Dimmi in 2009, Stevan has built the business into Australia’s leading real-time restaurant reservation and review website.

NC : A few words about Dimmi. Key features, service, number of restaurants, etc.

We are Australia’s leading real-time restaurant reservation and review website, partnering with more than 2,000 restaurants nationwide and the country’s leading online restaurant guide to make recommendations and reservations a no-stress affair.  Founded in 2009, it has grown to become a free, one-stop website and iPhone app that takes the guesswork out of finding and booking a great restaurant anywhere in Australia. Since its establishment, Dimmi (Italian for “tell me”) has seated more than 2 million Australian diners at restaurants ranging from hatted fine-dining establishments to more casual suburban eateries.

NC : What motivated you to open your business?

I couldn’t handle the corporate nonsense any more. I saw opportunity and innovation all around me but it would take years to make anything happen. The Titanic was turning much too slowly for me; so I jumped…

NC : Do you put in more or fewer hours than you had anticipated?

mmm…more, much more!

NC : How do you think your business will change in 10 years?

Interesting. Bricks ‘n’ mortar restaurants will always be a part of our lives and, whilst the industry will evolve, food is food and restaurants will always be at the core our social experiences and communities. There is little risk that restaurants will become the next Blockbuster or Dymocks! What I think will become increasingly interesting with time is how customers will search, discover and find new restaurants. At the core of this complex decision matrix will be digital technologies, social media and location-based technologies…and Dimmi hopefully at the core of all of this.

NC : What advice would you give another person who wanted to start an online business?

Just do it. Jump in, strap in and hold on…it will be one crazy roller coaster ride.

NC : Tell me how you first got involved in the digital space.

At the time I was marketing Hilton Hotels inLondonand was seeing industries all around me being “digitized.” There was this massive emergence of the old and the new and I wanted to play in that playground. It was just on the eve of the GFC but I made the big call, quit, spent a year conceptualising Dimmi in an attic in Maida Vale and got Dimmi off the ground.

NC : What do you find most challenging about this industry?

Trying to get a traditionally old-school industry (restaurant operators) to embrace new technologies and move with the times.

NC : What’s the best/worst thing to happen since you started working in the online space?

Best – online continues to become an increasingly core part of everyone’s life.

Worst – I was forced to throw away my HB pencil and replace it with the notes that I now take on my iPhone.

NC : Tell me about someone who has influenced your decision to work in this space?

My brother. Leo heads up a creative agency called Johannes Leonardo inNew York. His mantra is on how great brands can be inspired simply through great products, great experiences and by building communities of brand advocates.

NC: What sorts of trends do you see in the digital space? And what do you think the next big thing will be?

For us in our industry it’s social and it’s location. If I am a restaurant owner and I have 50% of my tables empty for lunch why can’t I communication with the 5,000 people at my doorstep who are all thinking about food right here, right now?

So what is Crowdsourcing? According to Wikipedia, Crowdsourcing is a process that involves outsourcing tasks to a distributed group of people. This process can occur both online and offline, and the difference between crowdsourcing and ordinary outsourcing is that a task or problem is outsourced to an undefined public rather than a specific body, such as paid employees.

The origins of Crowdsourcing are to be found in the early work of Eric Von Hippel, professor at MIT, in the late 70’s: “Users as Innovators” (Technology review, 1978) and “Get New Products from Customers” (HBR, 1982). In the early 2000s, an article in the Business Review, Co-Opting Customer Competence (Ramaswmy and Prahalad , 2000) defined some key pillars in the co-creation model. However, the term was really born in 2006, in an article by a contributing editor at Wired Magazine, Jeff Howe, “The Rise of Crowdsourcing”, and popularised 2 years later through his book, Crowdsourcing, Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business. Click here to see the video of Jeff Howe.

Nowadays, the term crowdsourcing has become commonplace in the business world. This can be verified simply by doing a Google search: there are more than 10M pages that make reference to crowdsourcing.

To get a really good understanding how widespread this phenomenon is, have a look at the Crowdsourcing Landscape Framework produced by Ross Dawson below:

Source: http://www.resultsfromcrowds.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Crowdsourcing_Landscape_v2.pdf

More and more traditional large firms are leveraging the “wisdom of the crowd”. For instance, Starbucks has received 100,000 innovative product ideas from their customers on MyStarBucksIdea.com in 2 years . Since 2007, Dell has received over 17,000 ideas through its site IdeaStorm and implemented 500.

In conclusion, as Bill Joy from Sun Microsystems said, “No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else”. In most cases, pertinent knowledge resides outside one organisation and crowdsourcing is a new way to access to it.