:: the lovely and formidable Mrs. Jenny Zhu recently interviewed me about the Chinese creative community, emerging youth culture, and social media in China. Check it out on her blog. Please pardon the pink // AjS
:: check out Douban-user Chocoholic’s avatar – a Mao Zedong / Barack Obama remix (see below left). Excellent photoshop’ing work. H/T to Joel. I also randomly came across this Obama / Chinese “大字报” poster remix here (see below right). // AjS
:: audio podcasts are fairly scarce on the Chinese Internet, but it’s hard to pinpoint a key reason for this. Perhaps it’s because there are no painless, all-in-one automated subscription systems for downloading podcasts from the Internet comparable to iTunes and similar systems that have had success abroad. The technical aspects of transferring podcast updates to MP3 players and other handheld devices may be a barrier to widespread adoption. Or maybe the rollout of podcast services by major blogging platforms was eclipsed by the rise of video websites in China, which followed closely on their heels.
The Chinese word for podcast, 播客, encompasses both audio and video media these days, but netizen-generated video clips are far more common than audio podcasts. Exclusively audio podcasting platforms have unfortunately all but disappeared on the Chinese Internet.
Likewise, the few independent podcasts that became popular have reached the end of their lifespan with nothing to take their place. Antiwave was wildly popular when it started in 2005, and received significant coverage in the mainstream media over the following two years. But, its creators turned to other pursuits in 2008 and it has updated very rarely since a relaunch late last year.
Listed below are some examples of well-known Chinese podcasts and podcast aggregators.
Princess Remy | 黑米公主
A woman from Taiwan who’s currently living in Europe records podcasts under the name Princess Remy (RSS http://princessremy.podspot.de/rss ). She’s produced more than 550 episodes since 2006; for the first year she released one short episode more or less every day, slowed down slightly the second year, and currently does about one a week. Her subject matter ranges widely, from fashion, to European culture, to issues involving Taiwan. Princess Remy frequently turns up on lists of recommended podcasts that circulate on the Chinese mainland.
Justing | 静雅思听
A wealth of educational podcasts on a wide range of topics, from daily life and contemporary culture to history and law to language learning to stories and anecdotes. One major source of content is blog posts and columns that authors have agreed to let Justing convert into podcasts so that young white-collars can listen to them during dead time when they’re away from their computers: during commutes, waiting in lines, before bed-time, or in particularly boring meetings. The podcast archive (available through iTunes) starts in 2007. Notable contributors include cross-cultural blogger Zhai Hua, popular historian Shel JeAnns, and economist Ding Xueliang.
Piekee | 派派网
This podcasting platform was founded in 2005 and currently offers blogs with integrated podcasting functionality. Featured on the front page this week is a post on Arbor Day (March 12) by leading podcaster Feixiang (DJ飞翔), several dramatic readings, and a history of jeans presented by “Transhon Studios” (书琴杯剑). The site has its own community, but Piekee has made the odd decision to wall itself off from the rest of the Internet: there’s no RSS provided. In addition, listeners are mostly restricted to in-browser media players, unless the podcaster has specifically chosen to make downloading available. Although this follows the practice of major video websites, it doesn’t give these podcasts the wider exposure they’d get through feed subscriptions and iTunes browsing: listeners are unable to transfer most of Piekee’s podcasts to offline MP3 players and handheld devices.
Converted Phoenix TV podcasts
Some of the most popular podcast feeds have been converted from talk shows, with Phoenix TV being one of the major sources. Perhaps the most widely-known is “Behind the headlines with Dou Wentao” (锵锵三人行) (RSS feed), an interview show that discusses the issues of the day. Since the 20-minute daily show is basically all conversation, it works quite well as an audio-only podcast. Noted cultural critic Leung Man-tao hosts another PhoenixTV talk show, “8 Minutes Reading” (开卷八分钟) (RSS feed), which introduces listeners to different book each episode. Lu Yu’s popular celebrity interview show, “A Date with Lu Yu” (鲁豫有约) (RSS feed) is also available in podcast form.
Sohu Holds Forth | 搜狐侃事
This series is a joint project between Sohu, which provides netizen-generated content, and China Radio, which hosts the programs. Episodes come out approximately every week and are about ten minutes long. They’re usually devoted to subject matter taken from one of Sohu’s special focus sections. A host recaps the situation and then reads off BBS postings from netizens. Recent topics have included the boundaries online speech (podcast link). This topic started out with a discussion of the stabbing of well-known blogger Qianliexian to address the question of whether violence is ever a justified response to offensive blog posts, and whether bloggers should be more careful about what they write. Hengyuanxiang’s tasteless Spring Festival commercial (feature, podcast link), and the appropriateness of college students acting as nannies (podcast link) were other popular topics that were recapped on this program. Sohu’s wrap-up is packaged for use on China Radio, which means it has pauses for station breaks and then recaps the issues afterward (to some degree, most Chinese podcasts employ common radio announcer techniques like musical backgrounds and solemn diction). Like Piekee (and like many terrestrial radio stations that have an online presence), it doesn’t offer RSS, which limits its exposure.
For more podcasts in addition to the above examples, the best place to go is probably the Douban Podcast Group. Members share new podcasts they’ve discovered – both Chinese and foreign-language – and exchange tips for the best ways to listen.
// AjS
[Friday 5 is the product of my work at Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]
:: microblogs in Chinese are called 叨客 (pronounced ”dao ke”), a combination of the characters for “chatter” and “blog.” Chinese microblogging providers arose in the wake of the (the original microblogging platform) initial popularity, and some of them adhere quite closely to the Twitter user experience – from external appearances, like the homepage / profile layouts, to internal functionality, like using @username to reply to another user’s post, limiting posts to 140 characters, and providing support for SMS updating and one or more instant messaging services (typically QQ and MSN). However, Chinese microblogging platforms are yet to be supported by any clients (e.g. Twitterific, Tweet Deack, Twirl, etc.). If you know of any clients, please leave a comment.
Twitter itself is the choice of China’s more internationally-oriented digerati: (a) because they were early adopters, before the Chinese clones got off the ground, and (b) because there’s little interoperability among all of the different choices, so users tend to join services where there are already conversations they want to follow.
Included below is a “top 5″ review (in no particular order) of Chinese miroblogging platforms:
Tencent’s entry into the microblog game leverages its vast QQ instant messenger user base to make it one of the most popular domestic Twitter clones. QQ users gain the ability to publish snippets of text through their browser, by updating their QQ signature, or by sending a text message from their mobile phone.
Fanfou’s open API interface allows 3rd party developers to create applications on top of the sites basic functionality. Interesting examples include Gongfan, which overlays comments onto a GoogleMap of China, and Doufan, which inserts a button on Douban user pages to report their activity in their Fanfou stream.
Despite its German URL, this company is actually based in Xuzhou. Jiwaide also features a GoogleMap mashup and an open API for 3rd party developer applications. The site’s off-the-shelf functionality is among the richest of China’s Twitter clones, featuring a front-pag e search box, and a wide array of widgets for most of the popular blog platforms.
“What are you doing?” asks the name of the site, an apt description of what people use microblogs for. Zuosa has native support for including an image in each post, and offers support for video and multimedia links.
5) douban broadcast | 豆瓣广播
Miniblogs are also built in to other specialty social network sites. Douban, a book, music, and movie-oriented SNS, has a “broadcast” feature which reports any actions the user takes (updating their reading list, adding a friend, listening to a new song, etc); users can also write up their own mini-posts to include in the feed.
These are just a few of the many microblogging platforms in China; a more extensive list (without annotations) is available on the Web 2.0 reviews / news site THWS, which shows 27 Twitter-clones and 17 Twitter-like Web sites in China. (The THWS post is from 2007, its likely that some of these sites are no longer functioning.)
// AjS
