Similar in spirit to Tokyo’s Akihabara or Thailand’s Pantip Plaza, Wanchai computer center is one of those unique Asia tech bazaars. (Sadly Taipei recently moved their computer center from old bomb shelters to a new building)

This video was done by Tem Hansen and Andrea Fenn to welcome members of Ogilvy’s regional Digital Influence team to Hong Kong for our regional Social Media summit.

It is an internal only meeting, but we plan a Hong Kong Foursquare swarm. Let me know if you want to join!

This year we have a New Orleans theme with great tunes coming from Creedence Clearwater Revisited. It will be a great night!

To book tickets, click here.

Formed in 1995 by former Creedence Clearwater Revival founders Stu Cook (bass) and Doug “Cosmo” Clifford (drums), Creedence Clearwater Revisited continues to play the band’s timeless music to its loyal fans.
“We never really had any intention of playing for the public,” says Stu. “But a friend wanted to promote a couple of concerts. We got talked into it, but didn’t know how it would go over.”

Since then, the reaction to Creedence Clearwater Revisited’s concerts has been astounding as they regale the crowd with CCR classics like “Proud Mary”, “Susie Q”, “Lodi”, “Down on the Corner”, “Fortunate Son” and “Who’ll Stop the Rain”, songs that are staples of radio, tv and movie soundtracks. The concerts have also introduced their classic hits to new generations of rock fans.

Aside from Stu and Cosmo, Creedence Clearwater Revisited is composed of lead singer/ rhythm guitar player John Tistao, lead guitarist Tal Morris and multi-instrumentalist Steve Gunner who plays keyboard, acoustic guitar, percussion, harmonica and sings the high harmonies. The band has knocked out audiences with sold out concerts in North America, South America, New Zealand, Europe and Asia and released their double-live CD “Recollection” that was certified platinum in 2008.

More on the conference via Twitter hashtag: #IMCHK

The ideal candidate should be a native English speaker with proficiency in Mandarin. Other prerequisites are knowledge of digital archive metadata, new media and research experience (Nexis, Factiva, etc.).

Attention to detail, accuracy and an ability to work autonomously in a deadline driven environment are essential. The position is based in Hong Kong.

The job would also require working Sundays and holidays. University degree and prior media experience is preferred. Reply to asiaresumes@iht.com

Read the article here (behind paywall), but some key points raised:

A Facebook group with 84,298 members formed to oppose the pro-establishment DAB was deleted
Kelvin Sit Tak-O, who runs a discussion group that opposes the pro-establishment party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), said his group’s Facebook page was shut down without notice on Thursday. The group had 84,298 members and was aiming for 100,000.

How were they deleted?
The closures could have been triggered by opponents flagging the group as “abusive” with Facebook administrators, Mr. Sit speculated. A spokesperson for Facebook was not immediately available for comment.

This is not the first time it has happened to Hong Kong opposition groups
Controversial Facebook groups were closed in 2008 in the run-up to the Olympic torch relay passing through Hong Kong, as Beijing grew especially sensitive to issues such as Tibetan self-determination. Christina Chan Hau-man, a student protester who waved a Tibetan flag during the torch relay and used Facebook to rally support, had her account closed days before the event. At the time, she said she was told her page had been closed because of “persistent misuse of the site”.

Ironically, this comes as Hong Kong government is pushing to engage citizens online, with a 3-hour online forum taking place today.

Possible shops: RC Outfitters, Pro-Trek, Chamonix, Mountain Equipment, Re:echo, Overlander

Most recommended, so far, from friends:

Re:Echo
Shop 303, 3/F., Windsor House, 311 Gloucester Road,
Causeway Bay, HK
(852) 2367 1131

Overlander
Shop 101, Causeway Bay Plaza I, No.489, Hennessy Road, Causeway Bay.
Tel: (852) 2573-2210
Opening Hours: 11:30am-10:00pm

Media enquiry: jay@charged.mobi , aquarius.chiu@gmail.com

TV Producer, Insider, Hong Kong-NEW00000905*

Thomson Reuters is the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, scientific, healthcare and media markets, powered by the world’s most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs more than 50,000 people in 93 countries. More information about Thomson Reuters and its financial performance can be found on www.ThomsonReuters.com
.

*Responsibilities*

Reuters new financial video service is looking for an experienced financial TV producer to help steer and shape news programming for Asia. The producer will produce live shows from Reuters new Hong Kong studio, and work closely with a virtual team of Insider reporters/producers dotted across the
region.

This is a unique opportunity to be at the forefront of Reuters’ new multimedia push and provide a global audience of finance specialists with important financial stories emanating from Sydney to Seoul.

The producer will be responsible for getting Insider’s live programming to air, steering shows on financial topics ranging from foreign exchange to commodities and breaking general news.

Working on a new multimedia product, the producer should be able to take a fresh perspective on TV production, and be adaptable to new forms of video journalism incorporating the use of computer graphics and sophisticated data.

This position will be offered on local terms and conditions. Contact with questions: tara.joseph@thomsonreuters.com.

*Qualifications*

– Proven track record in live TV production
– Minimum 5 years financial news experience; focus on Asia a plus
– Ability to work under tight deadlines, digesting sometimes complex stories quickly
– Experience with digital editing systems, graphics systems, Reuters screens a plus
– Strong writing, organisational skills and teamwork skills essential

Thomson Reuters employees take pride in providing our customers around the world with information that is timely, accurate, unbiased and trusted. We have a profound respect for the professions and customers we serve and define our success in terms of their success. Our work environment is dynamic, innovative and entrepreneurial. We have a result-oriented culture that demands excellence, agility, and the desire to move quickly and precisely to seize opportunities. Our environment is both challenging and supportive – we give employees the opportunity to develop their skills and do their best work.

Thomson Reuters values diversity of culture and thought and seeks talented, qualified employees in all its operations around the world regardless of race, gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age or any other protected classification under country or local law.

Thomson Reuters is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

*Job*
News/Editorial

* Primary Location
*HKG-Hong Kong-HKG-Hong Kong-10/F Cityplaza 3
*Organization* Markets Editorial Specialists
Schedule Full-time
Job Type Standard
Shift Day Job

Well beyond Dopplr, the philosophy professor-turned Web 2.0-er has long been at the leading edge of thinking about digital.

Marko Ahtisaari has worked previously as Director of Design Strategy at Nokia and serves on the board of directors of F-Secure and Artek. Most recently Ahtisaari has been Head of Brand & Design at Blyk, the free mobile network for young people funded by advertising, and will continue in a role supporting Blyk in its partnering and expansion strategy.

The event – which is free - will take place from 6:30 – 8:30 PM on Tuesday 23 June at Mozart Stub’n, just above Lan Kwai Fung at 8 Glenealy Street

http://www.mozartstubn.com/

“How Digital Influencers Travel”
Dopplr research finds travellers share plans before making them

You are invited to a presentation of fresh data, insight and conversation on the travel patterns of the world’s digital influencers. The speaker is Marko Ahtisaari, CEO of Dopplr, the leading international online service for smarter travel. Dopplr is backed by an premier group of international investors including Tyler Brûlé (Moncole), Thomas Glocer (Thomson Reuters), Esther Dyson, Joi Ito, Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn and Facebook) and Martin Varsavsky.

For a taster please see:
http://blog.dopplr.com/2009/05/11/data-how-the-dopplr-community-travels/

About Dopplr

Dopplr is a service for smart travellers. Dopplr members share personal and business travel plans privately with their networks, and exchange tips on places to stay, eat and explore in cities around the world. Dopplr presents this collective intelligence – the travel patterns, tips and advice of the world’s most frequent travellers – as a Social Atlas – available on your PC or mobile.

Founded in 2007, Dopplr has offices on London’s Silicon Roundabout and the Helsinki seaside. Dopplr is backed by a premier international group of investors including Tyler Brûlé, Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn, Facebook)), Esther Dyson, Thomas Glocer, Martin Varsavsky, Lars Hinrichs (Xing), Joichi Ito and Saul Klein.

Further info on Marko:
http://ahtisaari.typepad.com/about.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marko_Ahtisaari
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopplr

Further on Dopplr:

http://www.dopplr.com/socialatlas
http://blog.dopplr.com

PHOTO BY JOI ITO

In my role as Asia-Pacific Director of 360 Digital Influence at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, I work with a team stretching across 24 cities in 15 Asian territories. Our already strong team aims to be the undisputed leader for social media understanding, strategy and execution in Asia-Pacific.

For my role in this, I have crushing need for an intern.

Are you the right person? If yes, you are:

1- Passionate about social media

You love it, live it and would crawl across broken glass to spend all day working learning about Social Media across Asia.

Required: You must be an active blogger, Twitterer and have accounts on more than one social network.

Bonus points for:
- Blog Googlerank of 2 or higher
- Connections to more than 100 people on any single social network
- More than 150 Twitter followers
- A view on which short URL service is best and why
- A YouTube channel or similar vlogging account

2- Passionate about Asia
If you do not speak an Asian language in addition to English, you must have traveled through the region and read extensively about its cultures.

Below please find the more standard announcement that includes important details. Please contact Camay directly.

Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide – Asia Pacific Region
If you are self¬ motivated person who is interested in Public Relations and always eager to acquire actual work experience, here is a chance for you!

About Ogilvy PR in Asia¬ Pacific Region:
Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide (Ogilvy PR) is an international communications agency and part of the WPP group. Our proven ability to design and deliver successful campaigns, find creative solutions to challenging communications assignments and exceed client expectations has earned us a reputation as a valued partner and industry leader.

Ogilvy PR is Asia’s most influential public relations network ¬more than twice the size of our nearest rival ¬with some 24 offices in 15 countries and employing more than 1,000 people.

About the Job -
¬This role is wide ¬ranging and will never be dull. It will include:
Researching:
¬    – You are responsible for conducting research across almost any given topic.

¬    – Other than just collecting information from the Internet and interviews, you will be required
    to organize the information, analyze the data, and often write up a full report.

¬    – This task will enable you to gain well-¬rounded techniques in conducting both qualitative and
    quantitative research.

Media Monitoring¬:
-    Working as part of the regional network responsible for media coverage reporting, you will be in charge of client media monitoring. ¬
-    Here you will be primarily in charge of sourcing and developing summaries of client news clippings.
-    ¬The task helps develop and train your ability to judge and determine the significance of coverage published by journalists about your clients.

PR Campaign Support¬:
-    Observing the process of strategic planning you will be required to support the team on any number of tasks from sourcing case studies and credentials for new business pitches to researching topics when working on a project and formulating a PR strategy.
-    ¬Directly involved in brainstorms you will help generate and create ideas together with the team for PR campaign development.
-    ¬Some materials development / presentations formatting may also be required.
-    This task enables you to familiarize yourself with the actual process of PR campaign strategy and planning.
 
PR Event:
-    You will involved in the pre and post event production, set-up and follow up.
-    Some support in dealing with the media and ongoing relations will be required. 
-    ¬The task provides you with hands on experience when executing tactical activities as part of your overall PR campaign.
Administration Support:
¬    -    Occasional travel arrangements, bookings and co ordination support.

-     Team financial tasks such as staff expenses, reports and tracking.

-     General in-¬house support across various disciplines such as trainings, meetings for presentation and on-going follow-up.

General:
You are also required to have:
-    ¬good problem solving skills/ ¬good communication and interpersonal skills/ ¬excellent English proficiency/ great enthusiasm for learning/ a responsible and conscientious personality/ ¬a high level of adaptability (in an agency things are changing all the time)

Hours:
The position will be offered on either a full¬time or part¬ time basis subject to work load. For the full¬time role, you are required to work at least 7.5 hours each day (9am to 5.30pm – with one hour for lunch). For the part¬ time role, you will be required to work at least two days a week which can be flexible, subject to University timetable availability.

The contract of the internship that we offer will last for a minimum of six weeks. But can be extended to a maximum of three months if the person turns out to be a right fit.

Visa:
Sponsorship is not offered for this position and it is anticipated that the person will already have a work permit for Hong Kong.

Applications:
If you are interested in this position please send your CV and covering letter outlining your experience to:

Camay Yip, Regional Coordinator
Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
23rd Floor, The Center
99 Queen’s Road Central Hong Kong

Office: +852-2884 8243
Email: camay.yip at ogilvy dot com

By the time we got to the AmCham yesterday, we had our act down fairly smooth and fortunately Hong Kong video production company APV was there to record it. (Apologies to readers in China, but this is only on YouTube.)

APV did a great job of breaking the event into digestible chunks, each of which would be worthy of a blog posting:

Opening remarks:

1. The WordPress story, Part 1
2. The WordPress story, Part 2

Questions and Answers:

1. How would you compare Blogger and WordPress?
2. Blogging as a means of corporate transparency
3. How does your company communicate internally? (Ans: P2)
4. How do you drive traffic to a blog?

While it was difficult to take notes while interviewing Matt, I did jot down a few interesting sites he mentioned. I’ll be moderating a few more events while he is in Hong Kong, so hope to do a video or two before the week is out. Let me know if you have an specific questions.

Microblogging:

Matt says he is a great fan of micro-blogging and uses Twitter all the time. As for those to watch for the greatest innovation, Matt recommended:

1. Plurk
2. Tumblr
3. Twitter
4. Facebook

Blogging:

Matt highlighted two sites as offering interesting new twists on blogging:

1. Posterous – a site that allows you to collect items found while surfing the net, simply by sending in an email
2. P2 – a site Matt advocates as a way to rid yourself of email clutter. P2 combines microblogging with a thread system, allowing you to share short messages among a small group

Asked by a member of the audience about the future of blogging, I limited Matt to the Twitter limit of fewer than 140 characters. His reply:

The future of blogging is Multimodal.

By that, he means that blogging will include more video, image and sound, to reflect the evolution of our online life.

When I heard Matt Mullenweg would be passing through Hong Kong, I immediately urged him to speak to a broader audience than the Internet crowd.

The result is this American Chamber of Commerce luncheon that I will moderate on April 7.

In case you have never heard of Matt, he was recently named alongside Steve Jobs and the Google founders as BusinessWeek’s 25 most influential people on the web in 2009.

Matt has lived a classic Silicon Valley story: Starting by programming on a computer in his mother’s kitchen just six years ago, the 25-year-old college dropout turned WordPress into a cultural phenomenon that has now grown to 13 million registered users worldwide.

Roughly 200 million people per month now read the blogs Matt helped create. Among those using WordPress include CNN, Fox News, The New York Times, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Icelandic rocker Bjork.

Interestingly, Matt has welcomed anyone to copy, use and adapt his work, yet managed to build a global and profitable company.

At this lunch Matt will speak about:

• How Silicon Valley thrives on college drop-outs launching companies
• How to build a community business
• How blogs change media, business and communication
• The newest and key online media trends emerging from Silicon Valley

Other recent honors given to Matt include being named one of PC World¡¦s Top 50 People on the Web, Inc.com’s 30 under 30. Matt will share his story, what it is like to build a company in Silicon Valley and his outlook for new media and blogs.

How Blogging Changed the World
Matt Mullenweg, Founder, WordPress.org

A lunch on Tuesday April 7 from 12-2pm
HKUST Business School Central
Rm 1501-02, 15/F HK Club Bldg
3A Chater Road Central, Hong Kong

Member Fee HK$250; Non Member Fee HK$350; For bookings contact Christy Li cli@amcham.org.hk; Media welcome, contact: Mark Wong mwong@amcham.org.hk

Based in Hong Kong, she has management responsibility for the commercial operations of The Wall Street Journal Asia and the regional web site asia.WSJ.com, the monthly Far Eastern Economic Review, the Chinese-language web site Chinese WSJ.com, and spearheads business development initiatives targeting consumers across Asia, both directly and through partnerships.

Ms. Brendle joined the Journal in February 2006, following a 17-year career with the Hachette Filipacchi publishing group in Asia, the U.S. and Europe.

From 1995 to 2001, Ms. Brendle served as president and chief executive officer of Hachette Filipacchi Asia Pacific, and from 1993 to 1995 served as vice president, Asia Pacific, and managing director, Hong Kong and China.

Ms. Brendle also served in a number of other roles for Hachette Filipacchi: from 1991 to 1993 for Hachette Filipacchi Japan and Time Hachette Japan; from 1988 to 1991 for ELLE Publishing and Hachette Publications Inc. in New York; and from 1984 to 1988 for Hachette Filipacchi Presse S.A. in France.

From 2001 until joining the Journal in 2006, Ms. Brendle had been a media industry consultant and publishing entrepreneur. In 2004, with her partners she launched Daily7 and Daily10, two daily English-language newspapers for children. Since 2000, she also has served as a foreign trade adviser to the French Trade Commission.

Ms. Brendle received an M.B.A. from the Graduate School of Business Administration of Columbia University in New York, and a diploma from ESSEC (Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales) in France.

He has also written articles for the China Web Review and Read/Write Web.

Like all avid social media enthusiasts, he maintains an active Twitter feed – recently telling his followers that he “Just had some Hanu beef, Korean beef is better” and that he’s “given up on Google latitude.”

Market share of visits to Asiaxpat’s Hong Kong portal increased by 30.55% between November 2008 and January 2009, according to Hitwise. The site led the Hitwise Community category in January 2009, accounting for 30.88% market share of visits.

Asiaxpat calls itself a resource for ‘Professionals, Expats and Executives living in Asia’, and includes personals, classified advertisements, and message boards. The professional user-base was reflected in Hitwise’ Clickstream traffic; examples of websites targeted at similar users  in January 2009 included, The Leading Hotels of the World, Xe.com and Bloomberg.

Google Maps was prominent in driving traffic to Asiaxpat in January 2009, highlighting the complimentary business information focus of both websites.

Commercial industries that received significant referral traffic from Expat Hong in January 2009 included Business and Finance with 10.54% of downstream traffic, Travel with 6.89% and Shopping & Classifieds with 5.75%. Community websites, particularly those with niche audiences, potentially offer significant competition to traditional News and Media brands in attracting advertisers.

Real estate prices are sharply down, but as the chart shows, the level still remains well above the last decade’s prices.

Oh, to have bought in 2003 during SARS…

(What is happening to rents?)

Please post any leads here or put them on the Facebook group!

There is a reward (Unspecified)

All these flags were photographed near the check out (mainly a candy section).

Recently heard you can tell the country of origin from those numbers in the Bar Code.

Is it true? Anyone know how to do that?

In the video below, Angus describes the web start-up scene in Hong Kong. What has been happening here sounds like it could be a global trend: Apple swallows the Internet.

As a service to the community, Angus compiled this list of local start ups: BullPoo, Frenzoo, Lifesterblog, EditGrid, Jijija, aNobii, China-8, Moochi, recruit.net, Roompage, Wazhua, Top Web Apps in Hong Kong, Zorpia, Sooff, Ajaxime, iugo, AliveNotDead, Vcasmo, Getogeto, Darizi, Docgle, Stepcase, CityIN, FoodLily, Zendesk, Duedee, Youblog, Harbork, 6 waves, Muecs, ecForm