Learn before foraying into China Corporates

So, my globetrotting over internet has landed me again on a Wonderful Column. I think, One of most well researched article before coming on paper, beautifully written by Chinmoy Mohanty on Rediff.
Its about google's foray into China, obstacles they faced and challenges ahead. Why Yahoo could not make it big in China, and lessons learnt by google from yahoo. The part which baffled me was about, how and why google was blocked in CHINA by its government, Great Firewall of CHINA. It gives an insight about how CHINA is different from rest of the world, and what should be your modus operandi if you are planning to enter in CHINA. Its a must read, Hope you would like it, it begins with ......

"Probably you guessed it already; yes this is about Google's stance in China. On April 12, 2006, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google; Kaifu Lee, vice president of Google China, and Johnny Chou, president of Google China, unveiled the new Chinese-language Google brand name at a press conference in Beijing.

The new brand name 'Gu Ge' or 'Valley Song,' draws on Chinese rural traditions to describe a fruitful and rewarding experience, according to Google. This innovative marketing strategy from Google of gaining popularity in the Chinese market with a Chinese name has not been overly successful as an overwhelming number of Chinese Web browsers ask: "Does the Chinese name for Google "Guge" befit the world's No. 1 search engine?

Some Google fans don't think it does. They have created an online petition called www.noguge.com to get the search engine to change its Chinese name. Reasons cited for the petition are the name is "weird," "unsophisticated" and could damage the "cool" image of Google in China.

"Google, we love you, but we don't love Guge," said the Web site, which has received 16,370 signatures till now and counting. Domestic media were quick to pounce on the "harvesting song," saying the Chinese name reflects the US-based company's lack of understanding of the local psyche. Guge in Chinese also means a valley song or a grain song.

The name Google came from the word "Googol," which denotes the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. "Google gives us an individualistic feel, yet Guge sounds traditional and rustic ... in other words, it's outdated," said a blogger on another Chinese website. Industry analysts also told Shanghai Daily that Google could have picked a better name. But Google China is unfazed by the commotion.

"Guge is not a substitute for Google, rather, it will complement Google," the company said in response to queries from Shanghai Daily.

"Names such as Gougou (dog dog) are unable to fulfill the responsibilities of a corporate, brand or product name, nor do they reflect fully our goals and mission," it said in reference to the more literal suggestions from net users.

A survey conducted last year by the China Internet Network Information Company revealed that more than half of respondents could not correctly spell "Google," a glitch, which the company hopes to rectify with the new Chinese name.

The statement also said the name aims to cater to users unfamiliar with English usage of the search engine. "It would be unfair to ignore their needs," it said.

Baidu vs Google

Google has been trying hard to attract increasing number of users in China and one of the key points in having this Chinese name strategy is to divert users from Bai Du, the most popular Chinese search engine.

For those of you who are not aware, a recent study from Alexa Internet states that Bai Du is the most popular website in the world. Baidu certainly looks like Google. There's an equally sparse white home page, decorated in simple primary colors, and centered on a plain search box.

Even Baidu's name and logo evoke Google. The name 'Baidu' references a line in a classical poem referring to a very large number, echoing Google's creative misspelling of Googol (10 to the power of 100). And in China, the Baidu logo, a dog's paw print, trades on a common local mispronunciation of the word 'Google' - which makes it sound similar to the Chinese for 'dog'.

A recent survey of urban Internet users shows Baidu well ahead of Google in China's Internet search market (with other competitors trailing far behind). But these figures give a misleading impression.

For example, Baidu's usage figures are boosted by searches for pirated mp3s, says Shanghai-based analyst Jim Sun, of Evolution Securities. This does not look like a tenable long-term business, and Baidu has already faced two lawsuits over the service.

Moreover, Google has considerably more high-income and highly-educated users than Baidu in China. This group holds a disproportionate share of wealth, is more likely to be able to buy items online with credit cards, is more likely to be within reach of product distribution networks, and is therefore worth much more to advertisers. While Google has been held back by a lack of local connections, recent deals with local partners have changed that.

Who is Kai-Fu Lee?

For many young people in China, Kai-Fu Lee (vice president of Google China) is a celebrity. Not quite on the level of a movie star like Edison Chen or the singers in the boy band F4, but for a 44-year-old computer scientist who invariably appears in a somber dark suit, he can really draw a crowd.

It is not hard to see why Lee has become a cult figure for China's high-tech youth. He grew up in Taiwan, went to Columbia and Carnegie-Mellon and is fluent in both English and Mandarin. Before joining Google last year, he worked for Apple in California and then for Microsoft in China; he set up Microsoft Research Asia, the company's research-and-development lab in Beijing.

Lee has been with Google since only last summer, but he wears the company's earnest, utopian ethos on his sleeve: when he was hired away from Microsoft, he published a gushingly emotional open letter on his personal Web site, praising Google's mission to bring information to the masses. He concluded with an exuberant equation that translates as "youth + freedom + equality + bottom-up innovation + user focus + don't be evil = The Miracle of Google."

Though Lee claims to be an idealist in his heart yet Google's conduct in China has in recent months seemed considerably less than idealistic

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