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March 17, 2006
Keynote Speeches and Day 1 at SES
The morning went along smoothly with 2 keynotes, 1 by Johnny Chou (president of Google China) and 1 by Jack Ma (Ceo of Alibaba and Yahoo China), these 2 guys along with Robin Li (Ceo of Baidu, and not present) are probably the 3 most powerful in Search in China in 2006.
Johnny Chou did his session in English and came across as another Googler, very passionate about the company and his 0000s of co workers around the world, he outlined Googles vision for China as part of their global strategy along with the huge opportunity offered here in an emerging search marketplace where Paid Listings is still in its infancy.
Jack Ma was a pleasure to watch (and started of by saying he was going to speak in Chinese which recieved a round of applause), he made some interesting comments, especially involving a story where he said "on my first visit to the USA, I got kidnapped", this is a new 1 for me as I had never heard of this event before, unfortunatley as is common in China, the questions being asked by Chris Sherman were not necessarily the 1s being answered here if you get my drift, a lot of the session involved mentions of Google, eBay and Baidu, and specifically Jack's view that the WEB and Search in China is NOT the same as in the West when it comes to user behaviour and expections. I must say that Jack Ma carries enormous respect amongst the Chinese people and especially the folks involved in the web industry, no wonder these guys can get stuff done here and probably why Yahoo made the move to team up with Jack last year.
Posted by shak at March 17, 2006 10:43 AM