April 22, 2008 11:58 PM PDT
WWW2008 - Snippets from William Chang of Baidu, plus some on the semantic web
Other than highlighting Baidu Chief Scientist William Chang's statement that China doesn't need Wikipedia, here is a selection from the Twitterati (including me) on his presentation, and a concurrent one on the semantic web.
- web2asia: Robin Li of Baidu could not make it to his key note, Chief Scientist Dr. William Chang is taking over
- web2asia: facts on chinese internet: only 1/8 internet users earn usd 5000/year
- me: Baidu's William Chang: Only 1/8 of Chinese internet users earn $5,000/year.
- me: Chang: Half of Chinese users over 25, half under 25, according to CNNIC
- me: Chang: Wahaha drinks tie-in with Tencent's QQ and engage virtual currency.
- me: 很黄很暴力。(adult and violent content.) This will be solved along with copyright infringement, eventually -Chang at
- me: Baidu rep: China doesn't need Wikipedia
- me: Chang: "One could say Taobao defeated eBay in China by not charging a fee."
- web2asia: @gwbstr taobao promised not to charge for 3 years - this is the 3rd year. so the same thing will happen to them once baidu c2c gets big
- web2asia: chang now listing reasons for foreign companies failing in china, winners will b the ones that r willing to try new business models
- ullrich: W3C track, Open Your Data!: China Southeast university is strong in Semantic Web:SW search engine Falcons http://snurl.com/25ef3
- ullrich: APEX group from Shanghai Jiao Tong University also strong.
- web2asia: according to chang baidu will have significantly more than > 1000 engineers by end of 2008
- ullrich: Also strong in Semantic Web in China: KEG from Tsinghua University 2:44 PMullrich: Another strong Chinese Semantic Web research group: Dartgrid from Zhejiang University
Formerly a journalist and consultant in Beijing, Graham Webster is a graduate student studying East Asia at Harvard University. At Sinobyte, he follows the effects of technology on Chinese politics, the environment, and global affairs. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
