360buy.com to establish express company

Jingdong Company, a renowned B2C platform(360buy.com)in China, will
invest 20 million yuan (about 3 million U.S. dollars) to found an
express company, according to media reports on Thursday.

The new express company, temporarily named as "Shanghai Yuanmai
Express Company", will be established in Shanghai, and sets branches
in several major cities, including Suzhou, Hangzhou, Tianjin,
Shenzhen, Nanjing, Wuxi, Ningbo. The company is currently offering a
reward for a better name, which should not be related to Chinese
character "Jingdong".

Jingdong Company, established in June. 18, 1998 by Liu Qiangdong,
boasts itself as the biggest online B2C company selling "3C products,"
namely computer, communication and consumer electronic products.

After a $21 million capital raising in Jan. 2009, the company aims to
improve its service and prepares for going public.

Logistics is regarded as the most important link in the B2C business
chain at present. China does not have very capable and competent
express companies as Sun Wenhai, a copartner of GGV,
said,"this(express) is really a headache" for B2C. It explains the
reason why Jingdong wants to establish an express company.

The name strategy leaves analysts imagination that whether the new
express company may also serve other B2C companies. It may be
Jingdong's new strategy and create a profit-making point. However an
insider of Jingdong denied the saying and said the express company
only serves the mother company.

Kaixin001 finishes its 2nd round of $20 mln capital raising

Kaixin001.com, a Facebook-like SNS platform in China, has just finished its second round of $20 million capital raising, according to media reports on Wednesday.

Kaixin001.com is a website resembling Facebook and becomes suddenly popular among office workers. With a slogan "the power of boredom", Kaixin gains more and more web users.

Kaixin got its first round of VC capital in Sept. 2008 and that was about 4 or 5 million U.S. dollars provided by VC Nothern Light.

People seem enjoying the time-killing programs and they even rise from their beds at late night to move their cars from one parking lot to another, a game also copied from Facebook.

Analysts at first did not regard the website as a profit-making site since its rival copied totally the site and used the domain name kaixin.com. But some VC still believe the team led by its president Cheng Binghao.

President Chen did not make a comment on the capital raising.

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网易邮箱，中国第一大电子邮件服务商

Tianya.cn plans to build SNS business model with new face

Tianya.cn plans to change its structure and add in SNS service featured with social network, online games and e-commerce, a move aiming to profit more, according to its president iong Ming on Wednesday.

 

As a leading online community featured with news comments and heated social topics, Tianya will start its restructure in March, 2009.

 

Tianya President Xiong Ming gave the remark while interviewed by Sohu IT, a news portal in China. Xiong said Tianya wants to become a portal-like website with SNS service, games and even some online e-commerce system. But he didn't give details about the exact timetable.

 

Tianya, founded in March of 1999,  is famous in China for its much renowned news community, which provides a place for grassroot web users and elite users to discuss some sensitive and heated topics, ranging from fake tiger photos, hot web novels to some controversial topics happening in current China.

The regular web users all know that if you want to get attention in China's websites you can leave your words either on Tianya or on Mop.com, which is another famous online community.

 

But after ten years Tianya still struggles for a proper business model. Tianya began to have commercialized service in 2005 but its online advertising can't gain more customers because of its diversified users.

 

Many Tianya users expressed their concerns about the restructure. They said the move may change Tianya and the active users may leave the site to find new place.

 

Xiong Ming refuted the rumor and stressed that Tianya will remain its news feature while enhance its SNS service. But he did not give detailed explanation.

 

Sohu IT says the move indicated that Tianya changes to a likely profitable business model amid unstable economic situation around China. Some other people predicted a personnel reshuffle inside Tianya.

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网易邮箱，中国第一大电子邮件服务商

Netease hopes to restore glory of portal

Netease directs its attention to once familiar model-- web portal and online advertising in a new move, aiming to restore the glory of news-based model and find another profit pillar besides online games.

Yang Bin, the newly named Vice President, will be in charge of content and marketing concerning news and online ad, which is a sign of Netease's return to its portal business.

It's not simply "private reasons" for the resignation of its Chief Operating Officer Dong Ruibao. Dong's leave is the result of poor performance in its content construction and online advertising. Once conferred on the power to build its news and information content, Dong was the choice of Ding Lei, the CEO of Netease Co. But as a result Netease didn't see a large growth in its ad business, and Netease is facing a growing gap with its once rivals Sina and Sohu.

Boasting as one of the top three web portals in China, Netease was just the third in the list. When it faced a dilemma in the so-called "winter of IT" in 2000, Netease began to develop its game sector, which lifts the company and shows good performance even encountering financial woes.

Also at that time the company began to slash its content department with several departments closed. Today when it is deeply in the red sea of online games, it suddenly finds the value of online advertising.

Affected by its community culture and unbridled freedom in news entertainment, Netease's news never become serious and professional. It's the company that is eager to cover every details in the fake tiger photo scandal, which did attact a lot of eyeballs and page views. After that, Netease is not a news portal but basically an entertainment site. The web users of Netease are engaged in Kuso, self-satisfaction and Mo lei tau way of abreaction.

The news portal business of Netease becomes nothing important with poor ad performance. As Sina and Sohu dug deeper in news content, Netease is no more a competent rival. More companies join the news business and newcomer QQ poised a threat to the growing market. Netease is not a legend any more in this sector just like ever Tom.com.