An interesting post today from Eddie Choi on CEO blogging in the B2B world in Asia. He lists a number of blogs generated by the major B2B sites, most of which I wasn't previously aware of. So, thanks for this Eddie:
- Alibaba Business Blog, Jack Ma Blog
- Globalsources Blog
- Tootoo Blog
- Dhgate Blog
- HC360 Blog
- NetSun Businessmen Forum
They're worth a look because each of them has a distinct 'signature' look and feel which makes it absolutely clear where they come from. The Global Sources blog unashamedly promotes Global Sources and not much else. DH Gate's blog tries to tell the story of trading online with China while Tootoo's blog is a bit confusing.
The Netsun Forum has more of the feel of a BBS which, while out of favour in many other places, remains very popular in China.
Friday, December 07, 2007
Asian B2Blogs
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4 comments:
Paul, thanks for the reblog.
What I also have thought about from these B2B blogs are the languages which might have something to do with the business focus.
We all know these players have different emphases in B2B whatever local-to-local or local-to-international. The language that they are adopting definitely predominates the reach of audiences, foreigner buyer china market or vice versa.
Besides Global Sources and Dhgate, all other blogs are composed using Chinese. Does it mean something? or it is just the marketers' preference.
- Eddie.
Eddie - right. That's a good point. Interestingly, the tootoo 'blog' is in English too although it's a bit difficult to see how you're supposed to use it.
Certainly the fact that the Alibaba ones are both in Chinese shows where both their core strength and their development focus lay.
HC360 has always been primarily focused on the domestic market.
With the B2B world continously shrinking to include buyers and sellers from ever more countries, it will be interesting to see how these blogs develop to break through language, culture and dialect barriers. We may be witnessing the one of the few limits in blog technology. Thanks for the stimulating thought.
It's an interesting point and a number of people are grappling with hit. However, it's difficult to see how the complexities of international trade transactions could really be managed without a common, unifying language. For the foreseeable future, that seems likely to be English.
We have looked with a few clients at whether there would be any value in translating sourcing sites into local languages. The problems is, if you promote to someone who speaks only Polish, how are you going to fulfil their order from Yiwu, China in a meaningful way? Finding the product is just the first step.
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