Here are some interesting startup news from China, not only in its capital, Beijing, but also other startup hubs such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, Hangzhou, and many more.

(1) UMeng, an Innovation Works affiliate which raised tens of millions in US dollars from venture capital firm Matrix, just released its latest Android usage report which highlighted the accelerating usage of the app. This points to an increased prominence of mobile internet in China in the second quarter of this year.

(2) Reuters reported that Renren, one of China’s dominant social networks, signed an agreement of co-operation with Microsoft’s MSN messenger.The co-operation centers on enhancing the integration between the two services. Both platforms will have a universal login and share photos and status updates.

(3) Currently, the Tencent QQ Penguin is crushing the instant messaging market in China with over 800 million active users. But now, Qihoo 360, better known for its free anti-virus software, is entering the IM arena with a mobile messenger.

(4) Due to the stock market wobbles in the past few weeks, not only has the market lost ground, but damage has been done to some US-listed Chinese companies. Mecox Lane Limited, China’s leading online retailer of apparel and accessories (M18.com), which got listed on NASDAQ for less than a year, has dropped from $17.26 to less than $ 2 now, resulting in Mecox Lane investors Sina and China Dongxiang Group losing more than US$69 million.

(5) According to China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom’s latest release of operating data, 3G users in China now account for 9.5% of all mobile users, with 37.597 million 3G subscribers of China Mobile, 25.819 million of China Unicom and 23.56 million of China Telecom.

(6) IDC, a market research firm has revealed that for the first time, China became the world’s biggest PC market during the second quarter of this year.

(7) According to iResearch, the total revenue generated on mobile application advertising platforms was around rmb70 million (around US$11m) in 2010, but by end of 2011 the figure is expected to reach rmb310 millions (US$48.7m), with around 342.9% market growth.

(8) NOKIA and LBS service Jiepang are leading NFC technology adoption in China. NOKIA launched 3 brand-new NFC smartphones, the NOKIA 600, NOKIA 700, and NOKIA 701 that use the Symbian Belle system last night. At the same time, Jiepang is also releasing new stickers that support NFC check-ins to replace the old ones.

(9) Lenovo, China’s largest PC maker by market share, will open more than 1,200 new stores in tier 1 and 2 cities across China to strengthen its position as the world’s biggest market.

(10) According to people familiar with the matter, Gaopeng, the joint-venture between Groupon and Tencent in China, has fired one-thirds of its Chinese staff (including both execs and rank-and-file employees) while shutting down nearly 50% to 80% of its China branch offices. Gaopeng’s general manager pointed out that the significant downsize was the result of Tencent’s delay in funding the joint-venture.

(11) Sina Weibo wants to be not only a gaming platform, but also an eCommerce platform. 360buy announced its strategic partnership with Sina Weibo, become the first eCommerce partner who can sell products directly on its official Weibo account page.

(12) Kabam, the leading developer of hardcore social games, announced it is teaming up with Paramount Digital Entertainment to bring the massively popular and critically acclaimed The Godfather movie franchise to social gaming in The Godfather: Five Families.

(13) According to Cloudary’s latest filing with the SEC, the online literary service belonging to gaming powerhouse Shanda lost US$ 2.19 million on revenue of US$48.18 million in the first half of this year. For Q2 of this year, Cloudary lost US$ 1.64 million on revenue of US$27 million.

(14) Pan Haidong, CEO of Hudong.com, announced on Weibo that the company has recently raised RMB100 million (US$15.6 million) in its third round of financing. The company intends to use the funding to accelerate monetization and to enhance its presence in the mobile Internet sector.

(15) China Daily reported that China’s Ministry of Culture has ordered domestic online websites to stop allowing users to play and download over a 100 songs that have failed to go through “official approval procedures.”

(16) Punchbox, the game vendor behind hit iOS game Fishing Joy, has just raised over US$14 million in Series B from Sequoia China and Steamboat Ventures with a total funding of over US$15.6 million to date, according to its founder and CEO Chen Haozi.

(17) Tencent is reportedly spending hundreds of millions of RMB to strengthen and expand its online video node infrastructure network.

(18) China’s telecom giants are building up a war-chest of patents to help give them an edge in the legal battles raging between the world’s smartphone makers, aided by Beijing’s push to transform the country from workshop to innovator.

We thank nordicfactory for the flag image.

• 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?

• iPhone takes 4.9% market share in Japan: The surprise with Apple gaining 4.9% market share in the overall mobile market & 72% of the smart-phone market. How did Apple manage such a feat in Japan? We also discuss the recent loss of the iPhone 4G by an employee from Apple and provide our Asian perspective to the issue.
• Lenovo leads the chase for Palm after HTC drops the bid: With HTC dropping the ball, is Lenovo primed for the takeover with Palm? Are there other candidates? We offer a few more, from Microsoft to Facebook. While discussing this issue, we also take a perspective on how this takeover of Palm will mean for the “war” between Apple and Google.
• Potentialpark Acquires iHipo: iHipo (which is also invested by BL) from Thymos Capital and MDA has been acquired by Potential Park. We brought Kamal on board to discuss how start-ups in Singapore and Malaysia should stop thinking about getting government grants and go building prototypes instead.

Our friends at Tech65 starts off this week with their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape: [1] Nexus One, [2] 3D TV at CES, [3] Microsoft and HP show off ’slate’ PC, [4] Ford brings smartphone Web apps to cars, [5] Palm unveils new Pre and Pixi handsets, [6] Alienware M11x, [7] Lenovo’s Tablet Docks to Form a Notebook, [8] Lenovo RapidDrive Technology, [9] Skiff, [10] Sanyo Xacti VPC-CS1: a full 1080p camcorder in your pocket. Do click and check out their latest podcast here. You can now also listen to the Tech65 podcast here as well by coming to the blog post directly.

Envisioned to be China’s version of Silicon Valley or Route 128 by Chen Chunxian, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) during the early 1980s, the technology cluster sits right in an area sperated between the top two universities of China: Peking University and Tsinghua University. The technology park is located in Beijing city, in an area between the north west direction of 3rd Ring Road and 4th Ring Road (Note that the best way to navigate around Beijing city is to think of concentric rings roads, for example, the famous Tiananmen where the central government is located is in the first ring road).

It was an honest stripped down Howie Lau and Stanley Tan we saw. Mr Lau is the General Manager and Executive Director, Lenovo ASEAN/Korea; while Mr Tan is the Chairman of the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre. Both speakers were engaging, sincere and spoke freely when questions were asked. It was like a two-hour long mass mentoring session (quite a good number in the audience).

The session was split into three sections with moderator Prof Tan of SMU spending 20 mins each with Mr Lau and Mr Tan, and lastly a panel discussion with the two speakers on stage.

20 MINUTES WITH MR HOWIE LAU

When you were in NUS, did you have any idea what you were going to do?

I didn’t think very hard about what I wanted to do, except that I wanted to join a marketing organization. Didn’t matter which industry, as long as it’s marketing.

I wanted to equip myself with the skills to run my own company in 10 years. Slowly got me to where I wanted to be. Till today, not my own boss yet, I am still working for someone else, but one day.

On luck

Luck has a lot to play in what I am today. For example, my first round interviewer at Lenovo had been in the same secondary school as me. I believe that luck is a function of preparation meeting opportunity. You must be prepared enough such that you will be able to harness an opportunity when you chance upon one.

“Luck is a function of preparation meeting opportunity.”

What happens if you have an employee who is a very poor performer?

The hardest thing in a job is to release someone. But if we are in a competitive environment, if a fish can’t swim, and you can’t change the water, you gotta change the fish.

An even more difficult situation is when the company is downsizing. Then it is not about a show of poor performance from the employee, it is about telling them that the job is no longer available.

In all situations, a boss needs to handle it with the right level of dignity and respect. The soon-to-be laid off employee may not like the news, but they’ll appreciate your respect.

Do you constantly switch your leadership styles? Or do you maintain one style?

A mentor once told me that I needed to steer away from being too people-dependent to be more dependent on metrics or KPIs. If not, it would be harder to scale. In a big organization, I will not be able to have the same level of attention with every single person.

One thing I’ll always remember though is to never become the boss I would love to hate.

“Don’t ever become the boss you love to hate.”

On networking: how to build and keep those networks?

There is an art and science to it. Science is when I practise scanning all my namecards and write notes on each person. Perhaps where we met, what we talked about. This helps the next time I meet someone. Most of us like to be remembered one way or another.

“Most of us like to be remembered one way or another.”

20 MINUTES WITH MR STANLEY TAN

On Giving

All giving is good. If you feel like you can only give time and effort, it’s a good thing. You don’t always have to donate. Once you are unwilling to give, it is no longer a gift.

On compassion

I don’t think you can teach compassion, but you can bring out compassion in people. As long as your money can do good, I’m willing to take it from you.

Giving empowers

I think very often we measure what we achieve by what we get. But more important, it’s what other people receive from what we do. Giving empowers as you can feel the effect on those other pple who are blessed by what you did.

How to encourage people to give money?

All of us have two sides, a good side and a dark side. I don’t think giving is something you have to sell to people; people know it’s good. I believe that most of my donors come forward because they will be achieving something they have always wanted to achieve all along. To succeed, you need to be able to align causes and beliefs.

Mission trips abroad

Very often volunteer trips are thought with volunteers in mind but little goes to thinking what the host group gets out of you. You don’t have to go to a poor community to know what poverty is. But if you want to go and serve them, make sure you have a true serving element in there.

[The author would like to add that many 'mission trips' or volun-tours only contain a very small part of actual volunteering. 90% of your itinerary could be spent 'exploring landmarks' aka tourist spots. Please check carefully and make sure you are truly doing something good for the society. Don't help build a school when they don't even have homes.]

What is lacking in young people today?

I think Singaporeans are trained to be great managers. Trained to perform, meet KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). I would encourage pple to be purpose-driven rather that just achievement-driven.

“Giving empowers.”

PANEL DISCUSSION WITH MR HOWIE LAU AND MR STANLEY TAN

Oxymoron? Students forced to do Community Involvement Programme in schools

A student asked if Stanley thought that the CIP scheme in schools was an oxymoron, whereby students need to volunteer for 6 hours to fulfill their curriculum. Stanley believes that in itself, it’s a good opportunity. But the way that we have implemented it does more harm than good. For young kids, it is more important to expose them to volunteerism rather than for them to actually volunteer. It is more important for them to understand the values that the programme espouses. And these lessons will be much more valuable than say getting them to clean drains or toilets or shelf library books.

The problem is that the CIP is usually run by teachers who themselves don’t like the task anyway. So while Stanley is for CIP, he is against how the CIP has been implemented.

Insincere Corporate Social Responsibility programmes in companies?

While arguments against CSR programmes cite anything from insincerity and ‘for marketing hype’, both Mr Tan and Mr Lau agree that no matter the intention behind the CSR programme, if it does enable good to be brought about, that’s all that matters.

What is a distinguishing trait between a leader and a follower?

Again, Mr Lau emphasized the importance of people skills and he believes that a lot of what makes a leader boils down to that. The reason why is that these skills enable the leader to help guide the group along. But one can also be a leader yet be a follower at other times.

What are businesses that really bring about social change?

Instead of answering with types or industries of businesses, Mr Tan replied that he believes that the most effective form of social change is actually economic development. Nothing is more sustainable than the good economy of a nation. And thus, a good businessman is a great problem-solver and is helping society change for the better.

But there will also be pockets that you can’t solve with economic development. While not a global panacea, a good economy with integrity and social consciousness will uplift far more people and provide a good basis for social change.

“The most effective form of social change is actually economic development.”

How does a person find a purpose for oneself?

Mr Tan gave the example of YellowPages. The company has always been taught that their purpose is to print yellow-paged thick phonebook. But they forget that this 3-inch thick wad is actually a search engine whose purpose is to help people search for what they want to find. Being purpose-driven is a question of first understanding your mission.

Being purpose-driven is a question of first understanding your mission.

After an exciting 100th episode event, our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: [1] ‘Curse of Silence’ exploit squelches inbound SMS/MMS to Nokia S60 devices, [2] IDA proposes shorter telco deals, [3] Meet the Ophone from Lenovo, [4]Macworld 2009 Preview, [5] CES 2009 Preview, [6] Palm to come up with a new OS, Palm Nova, [7] Sony to launch a new Netbook, the Viao P series, [8] Creative Zii and the Byte of The Week: Google Sites. Do click and check out their podcast. Also check out their new show: Gear65 Episode 2.