Just thought I’d mention that the UK came 4th in the medals in Beijing. Best performance in 100 years, makes me all nostalgic <sniff> … but then I look out of my office window down to the Pacific Ocean…
There’s a great lecture from Carnegie Mellon University on iTunesU by Kai-Fu Lee who heads up Google China about, curiously, Google in China. Its an hour or so long but worth watching. He spends a few minutes on the difference between China and the U.S. which has some fascinating stats, reproduced for your digesting pleasure:
| U.S. | China | Implications | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alternatives to the Internet for Information | Plenty | None | Much higher Internet usage |
| Average Age [on the Internet] | 45 | 25 | Higher entertainment community usage |
| Internet usage from i-Cafes | 1% | 33% | First time user sees Internet as gaming/music |
| Internet Music | iTunes, iPod | Baidu, PC | Monetization difficult |
| Software Piracy Rate | 21% | 96% | Ready for high-quality, free software as service |
| Number of Credit Cards | 2/person | 0.02/person | COD and local e-commerce more applicable |
| Number of mobile phones | 190M | 510M | Mobile Internet users never touched a PC |
I love the opportunity that Google sees from software piracy, now that really is making lemonade from lemons. I love the credit card stats, which is why they are prototyping credit based on your phone account, in that you use your phone to buy stuff and its charged to your phone bill. I love the age discrepancy, speaking of which, there’s a U.K. survey just released by Logicalis about the Realtime Generation – How UK 13-17 year-olds are coping in a digital, dangerous and dynamic world:
- UK 13-17 year-olds are far more aware of the risks of social networking than we seem to think
- 78% do not post personal information on social networking sites, are more concerned about their security or have stopped using those sites altogether
- 46% say that social networking is less important or used less than in the past
- 23% thought that the credit crunch in 2008 would equate to a career crisis in 2012
- 43% are activity considering studying closer to home to save money or worrying about taking on debt to attend University
I have small kids, I’m kicking them out at 18 so they’d better be ready. The whole point of going to college is to leave home, isn’t it? … <sigh>
Back to the China and the credit card stat. The Chinese use the Internet as a kind of transaction setup with fulfilment and payment happening in the real world. Apparently this happened for the Olympics, people would “buy” their Bird’s Nest or Water Cube tickets and then someone would turn up on a bicycle at their door with the tickets – COD.
The most compelling stat for me is the number of mobile phones and the fact that many Chinese have bypassed using a PC and gone straight to mobile. For much of the mobile Internet population there is no concept of “getting online”, as in “I’ll just go online and check my email” – they are always online. There is also no concept of sync’ing, e.g. with your email, etc. – they just have the one device. As they owner of three email accounts for different things, I wish…
