Alibaba unveils U.S.-based investment organisation

News this week: China’s leading e-commerce company, Alibaba Group, announced the establishment of a U.S.-based investment organisation that will focus on supporting innovative platforms, products and ideas in e-commerce and emerging technologies.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the team will be led by Michael Zeisser as chairman of U.S. Investments for Alibaba Group. Zeisser has previous experience with Liberty Media’s eCommerce Group for strategies in digital media and Internet commerce. So far, three U.S. companies have received growth funding from Alibaba, including Fanatics, ShopRunner and Quixey.

Joe Tsai, executive vice chairman of Alibaba and head of Alibaba’s strategic investments, commented, “Alibaba is run by entrepreneurs, and we believe in supporting entrepreneurs with great vision and a strong sense of mission for their companies.”

This post is excerpted from BSG's weekly e-newsletter which is part of our subscription research service, BSG Tracker. Visit our website to find out more about this service. You can also follow us on Twitter for all the latest updates.

Alibaba is most valuable private tech company

News this week: According to the latest media reports, Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group is now the most valuable private tech company in the world. Alibaba is now worth an estimated US$40 billion based on the company’s recent buyback of half of the shares held by Yahoo.

According to a ranking list compiled by Business Insider, Alibaba’s next closest competitors are financial news outlet Bloomberg (US$35 billion), micro-blogging network – Twitter (US$5.3 billion), and the competing Chinese e-commerce platform 360buy.com (US$5 billion).

As reported in Yahoo’s latest stock filings in the U.S., Alibaba Group recorded a net profit of US$235 million in the first quarter of 2012, up 356% year-on-year.  Alibaba’s consumer-focused subsidiaries, Taobao and Tmall, are expecting more than US$157 billion worth of transactions this year, up 150% from the US$63.7 billion recorded in 2010.

This post is excerpted from BSG's weekly e-newsletter which is part of our subscription research service, BSG Tracker. Visit our website to find out more about this service. You can also follow us on Twitter for all the latest updates.

eMedia launches electronics database and mobile app

News this week: eMedia Asia Limited, a joint venture subsidiary of B2B media company Global Sources, announced the launch of an IC and electronic components online database, DatasheetsChina.com, in partnership with SiliconExpert Technologies Inc. Reportedly the world’s largest, the Chinese-language database houses data of over 185 million ICs and components from more than 10,000 global suppliers.

In a separate report this week, eMedia Asia also announced the launch of mobile app eeWeibo to deliver online mobile content to mainland China’s electronics industry professionals. eeWeibo is a Chinese-language mobile app that filters electronics industry-specific content on Chinese microblogging platform Sina Weibo.

According to Global Sources, the launch of the new app has attracted over 10,000 active mainland Chinese engineer users in the opening weeks. Users of the app can post and respond to comments, with pre-set content channels including ‘Editor’s Recommendation’, ‘Portable Devices’, ‘Consumer Electronics’, ‘Telecommunication & Security Electronics’, ‘Industry & Medical Electronics’, and ‘Automobile Electronics’.

This post is excerpted from BSG's weekly e-newsletter which is part of our subscription research service, BSG Tracker. Visit our website to find out more about this service. You can also follow us on Twitter for all the latest updates.

HKTDC opens shop on Taobao

The Hong Kong Trade Development Council's (HKTDC) Design Gallery has opened a sales channel on Alibaba's Taobao.com. The HKTDC uses the Design Gallery to promote and sell products designed in Hong Kong. There are Design Gallery retail shops on-site at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, the Hong Kong airport and in Beijing, but this is its first serious online effort.

The site on Taobao gives the HKTDC access to Taobao's impressive 143 million registered users in China.

The HKTDC is proving to be quite open to experimenting new platforms and applications. In November last year, the trade promotion body launched iPhone and Blackberry apps for all of its 30+ Hong Kong-based exhibitions. If we are not mistaken, the HKTDC was the first exhibition organiser to offer these type of apps. It will be worth watching where the HKTDC takes this next. There are plenty of emerging opportunities to link exhibitions with online platforms and the HKTDC seems to be willing to explore.

Events and technology

My friend Joanne Kelleway has recently started a new blog which focuses on her main area of interest and expertise; events and technology. For those of you who don't know Joanne (shame on you; what remote hole do you live in?), she runs from Australia the Info Salons registration business whose reach now extends to China, Dubai and soon, we're all sure, the rest of the world.

She's already written about one of my pet topics; mobile technology and our business. Today she links to an interesting video interview with technology futurist Mark Pesce. Add Joanne's blog to your blog reader. It will make you a better person...

...that will be one Turkish coffee in Istanbul next week, please Joanne.

Technology vs. the human touch

Eddie Choi has posted some interesting thoughts over on his Marketing, Technology and Entrepreneurial Experience blog. The post is titled Private Label B2B and he's talking about the opportunities for competing in the B2B area with relatively simple and inexpensive technology tools.

I do like the concept of private label B2B he proposes for companies such as trade fair organisers. I don't agree with everything in the post and you can see comments on it at the bottom of Eddie's post. My concerns are focused on the capacity of technology alone to generate useful new B2B businesses.

I haven't yet come across a B2B business which can convert good technology into a great business without a number of other solid assets in place and without a substantial hands-on face-to-face sales effort. Even the most successful businesses out there are using pretty basic technology and I'm not sure they're any the worse for that. Mind you, some of the databases underpinning the big players are pretty good.

Great databases and strong sales teams. I suspect that's at the heart of good B2B media businesses in Asia just as much as elsewhere.