TWIA #27: What’s the deal with Softbank?

The TWIA crew returns without our moderator, John Lim. In his place, our co-producer Mike Foong has taken the helm and drive the discussion on the important news that rocked Asia this week. With our guest, Chew Lin Kay (@BlinkBl_nk) from BlinkBl-nk.com and Hackerspace SG, we surveyed the happenings from Barcamp KL, BlinkBl_nk to the launch of Amazon AWS in Asia, and moved to the important news of the week: (i) Ushi.cn, a Chinese Linkedin clone after BL’s rant in the live show that there is no linkedin clone in China from the live show? (ii) Yahoo! Japan and DeNA to run social game site, Yahoo! Mobage, (iii) Japan to adopt Chinese standards for 4G, (iv) Microsoft plans to invest in Kaixin001 and finally (v) Baidu filling up the vacuum for Google China now. You can go directly to TWIA website or listen the podcast here in SGEntrepreneurs.

• Ushi.cn – a Chinese Linkedin?: Since BL’s comment in Barcamp KL about no Chinese Linkedin clone, he got a surprise invitation to join on Ushi.cn, a social network which is poised to be the bridge for Chinese and Western professionals.
• Yahoo! Japan And DeNA To Runs Social Game Site Yahoo! Mobage: We examine the success of Yahoo! Japan and why Google is having such tough time in east Asia. What is Yahoo! doing correctly there?
• Softbank To Stop Further Development Of Japan-Made Mobile Technology And To Take Chinese 4G Standard?: The investor to Yahoo! Japan, Softbank (also well known for other Internet investments like Mixi and Twitter Japan) is adopting the standard from China for 4G. Does that mean that we are seeing a China-Japan nexus on tech happening in our backyard?
• Microsoft plans to invest Kaixin001 – Chinese Social Network: Is Microsoft adopting the same principle to how they invest in Facebook with Kaixin001 in China? BL relates a tale with the CEO of Kaixin001 where he shares how the western media keep getting it wrong to get people to talk. While this investment is rumored to happen, the TWIA crew also talked about the recent acquisition of Palm by HP and wondered why they got it wrong with Lenovo and HTC.
• Baidu sees 165% increase in Profit after departure of Google China: So, with Google China’s exit, Baidu is picking up the profits from the consumers now. So, what else is new for them?

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