Shanghai China Snippets Observations about living in Shanghai and China in general

Since March 2006 Google has again added China to their monthly zeitgeist.

[tag]Zeitgeist[/tag] is described by Google as:

a cumulative snapshot of interesting queries people are asking – some over time, some within country domains, and some on [tag]Google.com[/tag] – that perhaps reveal a bit of the human condition.

The queries show trends and are not necessarily the top searches but they give an indication of what is popular and what is not. They are, as John Battelle named them, the “Database of intentions”

Zeitgeist disappeared and came back

Around August 2005 the China Zeitgeist disappeared strangely enough. After launching their sanitized search version [tag]Google.cn[/tag], [tag]Google[/tag] felt it probably approproate to include them again.

This last part is speculation on my side as it may as well be that they use Google.com search queries in [tag]Chinese[/tag]. Chances are though, that they use the Google.cn queries.

What are the trends in [tag]China[/tag]?

On first sight the constant searches are Games, Software and the [tag]Super Girl[/tag] (the Chinese version of [tag]American Idol[/tag]) winner [tag]Li Yu Chun[/tag] (categorized under Music).

See this chart where I have divided the searches in different categories spread over the period March – July 2006

What else is popular

• The months April, May and June show that the new moral guidelines by President [tag]Hu Jintao[/tag], the 8 honors, 8 disgraces, were popular online.

  In July these guidelines have been overtaken again by even more games.

• In June and July the World Cup [tag]Football[/tag] is popular.
• China Mobile and China Merchant Bank for some reason are pretty constant.
• Seasonal searches take place in June with the “college entrance examination” taking place and “Psychology test”

Click for a bigger chart here

All this is in no way scientific or whatever. It’s just a little excercise done by me out of curiosity. It does however give an indication that the focus of the Chinese using search is on fun things.

Any questions, comments are very welcome. If you some see errors please point them out.

In the full chart I have translated the Chinese keywords to English and there is a big chance it’s not always perfect.

The latest numbers from CNNIC ([tag]China[/tag] [tag]Internet[/tag] Network Information Center) about internet usage in China show that usage is rising faster than before. [tag]CNNIC[/tag] says that China now (July 2006) has 123 Million users. That’s 12 million more than the last survey.

January 2006 vs July 2006

The last time CNNIC published numbers was in [tag]January[/tag] 2006. At that time the total number stood at 111 Million. Compared to the previous period (July 2005 until January 2006 where there was an increase of 8 million) it showed a lower growth rate indicating the China internet user population wasn’t growing as fast anymore. The opposite seems to have taken place now. The last half year has added 12 million new users.

Changing Numbers

It’s not really clear why suddenly usage is increasing faster. 4 million users extra growth over half a year is a lot. It could be that the results are part of a never published 5-year plan that needs to be followed rigorously. Or maybe it indeed grew faster.

[tag]Chinese[/tag] Online Friend-Maker Market

Other research, this time from Iresearch, talks about the Online Friend-Maker market. The title should speak for itself but just to be sure, this online friend making ranges from finding pen pals, marriage material to one night stands.

The widest known website offering this kind of services is probably the friendfinder network. 96333.com and Yeeyoo are players in the Chinese hemisphere.

Iresearch says China had 46.4 million friend seekers at the end of 2005. It predicts there will be 111.6 million users (trying) to make friends in 2008.

I use this friend-maker research as an example to show how wobbly the statistics seem. Year on Year growth of the total internet population is somewhere between 16 and 20 million, at least according to CNNIC Right now there are the said 123 million.

That would make 160 million users in 2008, in the most ideal scenario.

If 111.6 million of them are going to be looking for friends online that would equal 70 percent of the internet users. That’s a lot.

Sources:

CNNIC – Chinese

Iresearch – The information about the online friend maker market came to me by email and I am unable to find the article on their site. Then again, it’s pretty much impossible to find anything there in a logical way.