Book & Man

Startup Grind Guangzhou just posted a new post on China mobile ads market:

http://startupgrind.com/2012/12/the-chinese-mobile-ads-market-chasing-rainbows-or-the-real-deal/

Mobile and social apps are continuing to evolve and diverge. When the tech world is busy turning out the next version of smart phones, makers of traditional electronics in China are already busy with newer version of regular hardware, ones that with RESTful API, that enable infinite integration possibilities with any web services.

I recently had lunch with a LED light bulbs maker in Guangzhou, and he told my company that he’s working on an new LED lights connector that allows any web services or system to easily control his ‘hardware’, the LED lights. We were not surprised that companies with web app expertise unilaterally thought of extending the reach of web apps (or mobile apps) to hardware, but we were surprised to know this gentleman with literally no web knowledge already envision how is hardware can expose an API to any software systems.

My own company has been involved with hardware of these kinds since 2009, although back then my CEO was not aware of this trend and less clear about how the future of connected devices will roll out. As Bill Joy predicted, we’re going to live with ’6 webs’, and smart phone will only be one of them, the ‘here web’. We are realizing that we are realizing ‘the wired web’ which Bill Joy said ‘not existing yet’ back in 2006. Now it does, and we are making it.

To borrow Paul Graham’s words, you won’t be the next Steve Job, but you may become the next <you-name-it-hardware> maker who takes over the world because you know how to put a RESTful API to your hardware and how to work with Chinese engineers.

It’s a great time to live and work in mainland China, especially Guangzhou!

2011年1月18日 — 有谁知道中国真正的需要和发展方向？Russell回答是：中国想成为地球上的经济强国。请注意我说的是“经济强国”，而不是“军事强国”。军事方面，中国仅仅希望能遏制美国，或者说能和美国的军力相当即可。中国很清楚，下一场世界强国的战争没有赢家（双方都将俩败俱伤）。

中国最初步的经济策略就是：使人民币成为世界货币。中国想在世界贸易中让人民币代替美元，作为世界的储备货币（硬通货）。中国正朝着此目标小心但稳步地前进着。

阅读更多：http://www.321gold.com/editorials/russell/russell012011.html

Over my 10+ years working in China’s higher education and tech industry, I saw interesting categories of Chinese technology entrepreneurs by how they got started. The categories I summarized below is by no means exhaustive or definitive. Some entrepreneurs belong to some or all of the categories.

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