Friday, February 09, 2007

Isaac to Google: show us the money

VC Isaac Mao is one of the China bloggers better known outside the mainland. Lot's of people pick up on his posts. So, a fair bit of attention is being given this evening to his "Dear Sergey and Brin" open letter to the founders of Google.

His recipe for their future success in China is a three step programme:

  1. Set up a 1B US$ corporate venture fund to invest in China's Internet pioneer sites and cutting edge companies.
  2. Develop anti-censorship tools and service for global Internet users.
  3. Increase the incentive to Chinese Google Adsense users.
Speaking as someone whose lifetime Adsense earnings over 18 months has just gone soaring past US$42, I certainly have sympathy for 3.

The China Web 2.0 Review is sceptical about 2., noting:

We wonder if this will work. In fact there’re lots of anti-censorship project in the world. Experienced users already can reduce the effect of censorship into a minimum level. The problem in China is that if you are an influential service, you should cooperate with the government, or you will be cut, like Technorati.

Overall, though, we think it's an interesting piece and well worth a read. It's a nice complement to the Shaun Rein piece we commented on the other day.

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