The importance of the internet in China - Paul Denlinger

BBS: popular in China
via WikipediaPaul Denlinger tries it again at his weblog: trying to explain to the outside world how important the Internet is to understand China. Especially the BBS, more so than weblogs.

Most westerners who come into the China Internet market have no idea of its power and influence, and instead think that the Chinese Internet is largely the same as the US market, but it isn’t. The Chinese government doesn’t really like BBSes because it really is free (as in free speech), and is the breeding ground for all kinds of weird stuff.

At Chinabiz Speakers we made sure we had a whole row of prominent speakers on the Internet in China, not only Paul Denlinger, but also Jeremy Goldkorn, Isaac Mao, Kaiser Kuo and others, but we got very few assignments in this category.