The perils of Chinese press conferences

Anybody who has ever done business in China will know that the world of press conferences there is fraught with complications: from the wide-eyed amazement of western executives when told by their Chinese PR people that they have to bribe journalists to come (envelopes of 'taxi money' are routinely inserted into press packs and many will not write stories if they are forgotten) to the potential for miscommunication.

Several people (including Fons Tuinstra here) report on Business Week's story about the MySpace China press conference snafu which is worth passing on. The article more generally reports on MySpace's 'slow start' in China. In particular, it notes "Luo Chuan, chief executive of MySpace China, told reporters in Shanghai that the new Chinese version of News Corp.'s popular social-networking site aims to launch an instant messaging (IM) service "as soon as possible." Local scribes took him at his word. The Chinese media began reporting that MySpace China was calling its new IM product "ASAP." MySpace China quickly issued a clarification explaining that the company had not actually decided on a name yet and cited a communication failure for the mistake".