Google vs China: Washington Corridor Chatter

Below assessment of Google vs China confrontation as seen from Washington is from a report by Chris Nelson prepared for clients of Samuels International Associates, a trade and political consultancy. Chris usually has a pretty good sense of what is being spoken about in DC officialdom with relation to Asia.

The emphasis below is mine to highlight some interesting thoughts.

In public, President Obama is trying to keep the China/Google situation from ballooning into a crisis in the US-China relationship, for obvious reasons…see today’s press briefing trying to say it’s all about censorship.

In private, sources confirm the most serious White House concentration on the facts of China’s cyberwar capabilities and actions now and over the past decade, including how these are used with potentially devastating economic and security effect on both the USG, and major US corporations.

Sources also confirm the accuracy of the Daily Beast “leak” of the classified FBI report on China’s activities but remain unwilling to openly confirm the accuracy of the FBI’s findings per se…even while saying the overall thrust of the FBI’s analysis of China’s actions and threat is “spot on”.

Closed WH “cybersecurity” conference call yesterday saw all major involved US players, and “China/Google” was the major topic, participants say…the facts of how Google penetrated, the implications of a China potentially out of control, and other vital questions.

Some US corporate and business group critical comment today on Google is being mis-interpreted as selling-out to China; experts say this misunderstands how Google perceived by much of US business; also how Google is somewhat unique in having no capital investment in China to lose, so pulling out is a profit loss, nothing more….with some implication of grand-standing.

There were some Congressional statements today demanding that other major US firms “follow Google’s example”.

But major international corporations don’t have this feel-good option, so must continue to try and seize China’s predatory policies as a “teachable moment” which can lead to constructive, remedial reform in Chinese practices…see the international business group letter we’ve been highlighting since December, and again last night.

Assuming, of course, Chinese leaders give a damn and are sincere. A dangerously open question, given the increased tendency toward arrogance and taking a victory lap in bilateral dealings with US negotiators for the past year, and some disappointing multilateral performance, as at Copenhagen.

So whether China IS “teachable” remains to be determined, and is a major part of the challenge facing the Obama Administration. Most US business has no option but to try…same for Obama.

Even without “new” cyber scandals, once the FBI report circulates around Congress, and the media, the question of “trust” is likely to be an increasing problem for supporters of stronger economic ties with China, as with those who continue to argue Beijing is playing a constructive role at the UN on Iran and N. Korean nukes.

Obama needs to find a way to seriously address the cyber problems without endangering the mutual self-interest so far governing “geostrategic” issues. If things fall apart, not just Google may be faced with little option but to quit…and since 1972, US policy toward China has been exactly the opposite.

The world has no realistic option but to help China be a success…but as any good business person will tell you, you have to have a walk-away price. Google is a warning that China may be forcing this Hobson’s Choice, bad news all around.

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WHITE HOUSE BRIEFING TODAY/GOOGLE:

Q Two questions — one is on China and Google. Is there any concern within this administration that this issue could explode to affect the rest of the relationship with China, particularly if it gets wings or legs on Capitol Hill or within the American public? And how do you –

MR. GIBBS: Wings or legs, how?

Q I mean, if this strikes a chord with the American public or with Congress.

MR. GIBBS: Oh, I’m sure it does.

Q This — I mean, you’ve talked a lot –

MR. GIBBS: I think the notion that — right, I think the notion that — the notion of what we’ve seen happen, I can’t imagine that it hasn’t struck a chord. You heard — Helene, you heard the President in Shanghai take a question from the Internet about the universal right of a free Internet. He strongly supports that, and we support Google’s action in a decision to no longer censure searches that happen using the Google platform.

Whether or not it affects our relationship — look, we have, the President has, strong beliefs about the universal rights of men and women throughout the globe. Those don’t — those aren’t carved out for certain countries. That’s why the President answered the way he did in a town hall in Shanghai about the importance of that freedom.

Q So how do you manage — how do you keep it contained, then, to just — you have several different issues with China. You have China on Iran, you have the Google-China issue, but if you start — if we start getting things coming out of Congress, for instance, and this starts to actually strike more of a cord with the public, do you think — how do you manage the larger relationship?

MR. GIBBS: What do you mean — do you mean like legislation or — I don’t know what.

Q I mean, are you worried at all about managing this within the frame of the larger relationship?

MR. GIBBS: I think our concern is with actions that threaten the universal rights of a free Internet.

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So for now, in public, the White House “line” is to try to limit the discussion to internet freedom. OK, fair enough in that this IS a real issue in and with China.

But concerned observers who fear the criticisms of Google today will be misunderstood as some of the business community apologizing for Chinese predatory and other negative actions warn that the free internet question is secondary to the main point:

China increasingly is pursuing industrial policy and promulgating domestic financial, IPR and any other policy it can dream up which will have the effect of promoting its national champion companies against foreign competition.

This certainly applies to Google, where Chinese censorship requirements, and the now-revealed cyberhacking, seems likely to force Google out of China…to the benefit of Google’s domestic Chinese competition.

So as we’ve implied, there’s a potential major PR problem for US companies electing to stay in China, especially any which seem to be criticizing Google.

Here’s the Dow Jones report today on relevant Capitol Hill remarks, including from House Speaker Pelosi:

“A group of Republican lawmakers Thursday called on three U.S. information technology giants to follow Google Inc.’s (GOOG) lead and conduct a full review of their business operations in China.

The lawmakers urged executives at Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), Microsoft Corp. ( MSFT) and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) to engage in a similar review of
their presences in China, saying not to do so is effectively “complicity with this kind of evil.”

“I urge others in the business community who have found themselves victim of China’s spying and flagrant intellectual property violations…to join Google and speak out and take action,” Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.) said at a press conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

Wolf said Google’s move reminded him of U.S. companies withdrawing from South Africa during the Apartheid Era, rather than helping to serve the motives of that regime.

Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.), the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that until Google’s announcement Tuesday, it, along with the other three high-tech companies, had been the “chief violators” in terms of cooperating with the Chinese Government.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said in a statement Wednesday she hoped other companies would follow Google’s lead.”

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So what’s the prognosis? Some experienced business observers continue to feel that progress is not only possible, but can be seen. Here’s something which may offer hope:

“(as you note in referring to the group letter) China’s latest efforts to tie Indigenous Innovation accreditation to government procurement preferences is indeed problematic, as the business community (including USCBC) response has shown, and will be a top bilateral commercial issue in 2010–but let’s see how the advocacy work plays out.

Still, China on Monday released draft government procurement regulations that appear to resolve last year’s big “problem” issue-”domestic products” (which do receive preferences in China’s government procurement generally, as they do in the US) are defined in the draft to include products produced in China by foreign-invested enterprises, whereas previously foreign-invested companies frequently found themselves blocked from government procurement opportunities because they were deemed ‘foreign.’

This is an important step forward and shows advocacy can work. The Indigenous Innovation product preferences are a half-step back, unfortunately - but again, let’s see if we can get that addressed, too. Won’t be easy, but the effort is in the early stages. We win some, we lose some, but the hard work continues and is vitally important.”

But other experienced business observers are more skeptical, and point out continued emerging Chinese government procurement policies which they hope the Obama Administration will seriously (and effectively) challenge.

GW prof and Obama campaign advisor Susan Aaronson adds this:

“Some will jump to challenge China–others will smile and say everything is fine. And while in dollar amount China is world’s largest recipient of investment, one has to wonder if China will remain the fastest growing. I think this is the beginning of the souring…and that people are realizing it’s not just protectionist rhetoric…that the weird mix of business/government that China is creating both a hostile and dangerous environment for socially responsible firms and for information /ideas based firms.“

Popularity: 2% [?]

My Happy New Year From Google: Lower PageRank

In checking the PageRank of my blog in the last hours of the last day of the year, I discovered that Google recently downgraded my blog from a PageRank of 6 to a PageRank of 5.

Note to non-techies: This change in PageRank means that my blog will not turn up so high in search rankings on particular topics. Invented by Google co-founder Larry Page (hence the name PageRank), the system ranks web pages on the basis of how many inbound links they receive. I am not sure why mine has suddenly fallen.

Rather than lament Google’s clear error in judgment, I would like to thank all of the readers from around the world with whom I have enjoyed interacting!

The image here, courtesy of Google Analytics, is a chart of where you are from and how you found my blog. (I have no idea why the total numbers of visitors are different in each of the charts. Another Google mystery.)

Thanks for visiting and - ahem - if you have a friend over at Google, let them know about this terrible mistake.

Happy New Year!

Tom

Popularity: 1% [?]

Great Visualizations of the Internet

John Yunker of Bytelevel Research recently posted some great visualizations showing the popularity of domain names across the Internet. You can buy them as posters.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Technorati Tags: Bytelevel, John Yunker

Chris Reitermann: China Internet Advertising

Chris Reitermann, President of OgilvyOne in China - Ogilvy’s direct response and digital advertising agency, discusses China’s online adspend and what media companies can do to grab a slice of the action. Although Chris - disclosure alert - is a colleague at Ogilvy, this is entirely independent of Ogilvy. Interview by Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei and shot and edited by Eric Mu.

Miles Young, CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide added a few more numbers by email:

Overall, Ogilvy’s revenues from Digital are growing.

Digital business accounts for around 90% of OgilvyOne China’s revenues. Globally, digital accounts for around 60% of OgilvyOne revenues and 25% of O&M WW revenues.

Digital remains the most robust sector of the marketing communications pie, with search, mobile and video being strong performers globally. However, even digital is not immune from the effects of the global recession. In the first half of 2009, online display advertising revenue in the US was down 1% on the previous year, although this pales in comparison to the drop in all media which reached 15% over the same period. (Source: Nielsen)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Technorati Tags: China, Chris Reitermann, Internet Advertising, Ogilvy

Sharon Waxman: NYT Reporter Turned New Media Entrepreneur

Can experienced journalists go solo and use blogging and new media platforms instead of working with a traditional publisher? If so, what are the topics which will work?

One answer that seems to work comes from a former NY Times colleague Sharon Waxman speaks about her transition from LA correspondent to new media entrepreneur with AdAge’s Simon Dumenco.

Rather than return to the Metro desk in New York, Waxman launched a site covering Hollywood news called The Wrap. She had worked as a newspaper per journalist for 20 years, just finished a book and her children and husband were not ready to move to New York.

Starting about two and a half years ago Waxman employed the time-proven method of career change. Taking out a yellow legal pad she wrote down what she could do: Lecture, start her own site, get another job or move to New York. Flirting with the idea of a site, she sketched out a business plan that managed to raise US$500,000 from a few investors for a site covering Hollywood.

Now, less than a year since launch, Waxman says all the industry players who matter know her site and recognize her as “The Wrap” in film festivals.

This comes as Hollywood reporter denied rumors from Nikkie Finke’s Deadline Hollywood that they would abandon a daily print edition.

A few highlights (Highly recommend reading the full article):

Business model: There is display advertising on the site, our e-mail newsletters, sponsorship — sponsorship has to do more with underwriting different pieces of content, and usually that goes with events that we’ve had. British Airways and Four Seasons were two large sponsors. Lifetime is sponsoring an event with us, Blackberry is working with us. Almost all the TV networks during the Emmy campaigns, and we’re just closing advertising agreements with various studios for their Oscar campaigns. People are going to start jockeying for space. We’re also building up our event strategy. We’re having our third event coming up and then we’re having a screening series as well in which we’ll screen a movie that’s an Oscar contender — we’ll do a Q&A — so it’s very synergistic with our content, and then we always cover it, so then there’s that ripple effect for our sponsors. We’re also looking at subscription strategy now.

Alliances: The Wrap just announced a content partnership with Microsoft’s MSN that will see stories from The Wrap distributed throughout Microsoft’s various entertainment destination properties. This  should significantly boost traffic.

Position of the site: We aren’t a traditional trade at all, we aren’t even an untraditional trade — we’re something new and different. What we didn’t count on was that those traditional trades were going to grow so weak and be in such dire financial straits as they have been.

Harder teaching Bloggers to be journalists or journalists to be bloggers? It’s actually harder to get the more traditional journalists to sort of break their chains.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Economist Social Media Video

The Economist just released this riff on the “Did you know” video, focusing on Social Media. In some ways the graphics are more grabbing than the facts. Asia and Europe are remarkably absent!

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Why can’t we print on both sides?

Seems like such an obvious way to reduce waste. Instead of that stack of paper printed on one side that sits next to your printer, why not print on both sides?

Rich Brubaker of Cleaner Green China has started a campaign to encourage double-sided printing. Here’s his plan and how you can help:

A couple months ago, a sustainability director from one of the largest computer / computer accessory companies contacted me about their sustainability program. More specifically, how they were now offering “green products” and looking to find new ways to “green”.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Hong Kong Rules Twitter in Asia

We just did a bit of light-hearted research on Twitter in Asia which shows Hong Kong rules on Twitter.

Singapore is vying for second, followed at a distance by Malaysia and then China.

Now for the Caveats: The measurement is how many people follow the top 3 most followed Twitterers in each market - as found via Twitterholic.

Yes, this is a wildly unscientific and flawed measurement, but we enjoyed it.

Just updated China top 3 list to include @isaac and knock out my own account. Any other corrections welcome! My Twitter account made the list as a top 3 Twitterer in China, but would not make the list in Hong Kong!

Who are the top 3 most followed Twitterers in each market? See list below.

What are Asia’s top Twitterers talking about right now? Wait for a moment and this Yahoo Pipe will tell you:

Asia’s top 3 Twitterers (by followers, by location):
(more…)

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NY Times quotes my blog, but no linkback

I want to say a big THANK YOU to the New York Times and then take my former employer to task for what may be a failure to understand the Internet. (Or just an editing oversight)

The Thank You:

First the thank you: You paid attention to a short post on my simple WordPress blog about how my International Herald Tribune articles were deleted in the merger of the nytimes.com and iht.com sites.

In simple terms, it was as if The New York Times had dragged the IHT archives into the street and burned them.

There were no links or archives to the hundreds of articles I wrote for the IHT in a career spanning five continents and dozens of countries writing about a few disease outbreaks, several civil wars and a great week at the Cannes film festival.

More broadly than my own concerns, however, the NY Times effectively “nuked itself” by needlessly shutting down a valuable web property. With a simple redirect of those links, the NY Times could create a powerhouse site that adds the IHT’s value rather than just shutting it down.

My posting on the issue spread via high influence Twitterers, was quoted by a significant number of high profile blogs and even written about by TIME, Reuters and other mainstream media outlets.

In the fallout, The New York Times has contacted me in the form of the spokesperson, Diane McNulty, the Chief Search Strategist, Marshall Simmonds and the Director of Search Strategy, Matthew Brown.

Now Richard Perez-Pena, one of the great Times reporters with whom I shared a corner of the newsroom, wrote a brief item  detailing incident.

Richard quotes Marc S. Frons, chief technology officer of New York Times Digital, as saying that the problem is 80 percent solved.

I can only presume that many of my stories are among the 20 percent still waiting to be restored. A search of Myanmar and my name only turns up the stories on that country that I wrote for The New York Times, a fraction of the number I have written about that country for the IHT.

In any case, I blogged and you listened. Thank you.

Not meaning to be ungrateful, but:

My thank you is, however, tempered by a shortcoming in Richard’s article that may show a misunderstanding of the blogosphere (or perhaps just an edit desk oversight.)

While the story quotes my blog, it does not - as every blogger would - link to the original posting.

Does this matter?

I think so. The new media landscape is defined by the link economy. By giving more links, bloggers and publications participate in the global online conversation while also improving their standing online.

A further reason: Linkbacks quickly bring readers straight to the source material for a story.

(If The New York Times has a policy against links, they are better than what BusinessWeek used to do: The magazine actually blocked Don MacAskill of Smugmug from deeplinking to an article written about him.)

I therefore conclude this thank you note with one final request: Once you finish with the remaining 20 percent of archiving and links to my stories, please consider adding a link to my blog from the article.

Sincerely,

Thomas Crampton

Popularity: 11% [?]

Technorati Tags: Diane McNulty, iht, International Herald Tribune, Marshall Simmonds, Matthew Brown, New York Times, nytimes, Richard Perez-Pena

Search Expert Danny Sullivan on IHT.com Deletion

Below is a compressed version of an exchange I had with Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land about the implications of the NY Times deleting IHT.com and all links to it.

Although slightly technical, this explanation would interest anyone as obsessed as me about what happened when the NY Times deleted iht.com and what it could mean going forward.

Danny Sullivan:

The mess of the IHT came up a few weeks ago when it first happened, of course. The person who oversees SEO for the NYT, Marshall Simmonds, is extremely savvy, and I was very surprised that things went this way.

I’ve been meaning to check with Marshall to get more of the backstory of what’s happening since I’d have expected things to be solved by now. I’m sure your article will probably put some pressure on them. But it probably isn’t just that they’re all complete idiots.

Thomas Crampton:

Yes, I was so surprised by the move when it happened that I waited almost a full month before posting about it, presuming the NY Times would resolve it quickly.

The NYT is filled with some of the smartest and hardest working people you will meet, which is why I was amazed the situation arose in the first place. Some whom I speak to inside the NYT and IHT say there is little being done to resolve the situation beyond promises that it will be fixed one day. (But perhaps I am not speaking to the right people.)

Hopefully my publicizing - and personalizing - the situation will help empower those inside the NYT who fully grasp the stakes. Part of my frustration is that I very much want the NYT and IHT to succeed on the web.

Danny Sullivan:

Trust me, if any paper is going to make it online, it’s the New York Times. Marshall is one of the smartest people out there and has hugely driven the paper’s traffic, this is what I wrote about him.

Other papers would be lucky to have him. I can’t think of any other major paper with someone who has that much experience running SEO for a web site. There’s absolutely no way he’d have recommended doing what happened.

WHAT MAY HAVE HAPPENED

My guess is there was a fast push that may have happened and then for some odd reason, he can’t get the support to fix it. Part of that might be due to the NYT making use of the first click free system — they might need to literally get these stories put into whatever publishing system that the NYT site uses. And the import might not be going well, or there might be a number of other issues happening.

I’m not sure who you are talking with inside the NYT, but they might not be on the tech side. Then again, they might be assessing the situation correctly.

Certainly, something odd happened.

If you close a site, normally you would build in smart redirects.

Anyway, I have not seen them comment publicly about the situation which, as I said, did come out at the end of March in Gawker.

TECHNICAL ASSESSMENT

In terms of links to the IHT, this search on Google tells me there are over 12,000 articles that link to pages in the iht.com domain

But Google doesn’t report near the number of links that it knows about, on purpose, as they feel this promotes spamming.

So you have to use this search using Yahoo’s tool which shows nearly 4 million links.

As for the amount of Google Juice, well, it’s not easy to say.

Absolutely, some potential traffic and reputation is being lost, but some of the IHT stories were also duplicates of the NYT stories — I did this often when I wanted to link to something that was behind the NYT registration wall.

Some of the stories might be short briefs from the wire services (and wire service stories going down is another frustration — read this).

Some stories might be so specific that they were generating little traffic at all.

LOSS OF LINKS MAY BE TEMPORARY

It’s a loss, no doubt. But it’s also a temporary one.

Try this test:

Click on Rex Swain’s HTTP viewer and fill in this link:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2002/05/07/t1_24.php

Untick auto-follow, and you get a 302 redirect that is temporary.

That tells the search engines not to use the new location (Full explanation here) and that someone probably really is working to figure out how to get the articles over and links from the old place to the new ones.

If they wanted to permanently break the link, they’d do 301 permanent redirects, which could tell the search engines that all is good (and they’d transfer the PageRank/ link credit to the pages out there now, the search page).

On links over from Wikipedia, this search on Yahoo tells me there are 31,700 links to iht.com

I’d really encourage you to tell Wikipedia NOT to start changing things this week. You’ve made a big splash with your post. Give things a week more, at least. If you set them off looking for new articles, first they’re not going to find all the same information. More important, in a week maybe all those articles will be restored — and then a lot of people have wasted a lot of time.

cheers,
danny

————————————————
Danny Sullivan
Editor-In-Chief, Search Engine Land
* Visit Our Sphinn Forums, http://sphinn.com
* See Our Next Conference, http://searchmarketingexpo.com
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Popularity: 14% [?]

Technorati Tags: iht, International Herald Tribune, Marshall Simmonds, New York Times, nyt

WordPitch: Show your blog on stage at SF WordCamp

Matt Mullenweg presents a great opportunity here for any WordPress blogger who wants to give a 3-minute pitch on why people should read their blog.

This is a global competition, with the winners presenting their blogs via live video link-up to WordCamp San Francisco!

The concept:

Groups of at least 5 people can get together in any city worldwide at the same time as the May 30 San Francisco WordCamp. For the first hour, each city will pitch to one another to choose who, in the second hour, will represent their city.

At a pre-appointed time (Matt said it would be sometime in the early evening, Asia time) the winners will have 3-minutes to present in SF, in competition with people from all the other cities and one or two winners in San Francisco.

Anyone interested?

If yes, sign up on this document here.

Any thoughts or refinements?

We need to act quickly!

Background: WordPitch was brainstormed when Matt Mullenweg was in Hong Kong last month. Bonnie Yeung and I started talking about the idea and Matt liked it so much, we did a video there and then.

UPDATE 4/28: Fadzuli in Singapore just blogged the concept, with this logo!

Popularity: 14% [?]

Technorati Tags: Matt Mullenweg, WordPitch, Wordpress

Future of Health: Dr. YouTube

The Internet has become everyone’s number one source of health information - see chart - but what will the next level be?

How about:

eBay for doctors - You bid for their services and then rate them afterwards

Crowdsourcing data about new treatments? This is covered in a recent study by the California Healthcare Foundation looked at “The Wisdom of Patients: Healthcare meets online Social Media“.

Cure by Dr. YouTube -

“Mike Bonifer, author of GameChangers – Improvisation for Business in the Networked World, tells his personal story about Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV). Bonifer had come down with the illness, which is not terribly serious, at the same time as his accountant. But the two had completely different experiences in treating the ailment.

The accountant used the existing health system to get cured–he went to a number of different specialists, and spent $6,000, to get everything sorted out.

Bonifer Googled his symptoms for a few hours, and found a YouTube video of a treatment known as the Epley Maneuver. Then, in a move that will strike fear into the hearts of the insurance companies and malpractice-fearing physicians alike, he followed the instructions in the video and cured himself.”

(Bonifer anecdote from Fastcompany)

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Technorati Tags: Mike Bonifer