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CalacanisCastBeta20

Page history last edited by ExposureTim 16 years, 11 months ago

In this episode, Jason sits down with Jason Chiang, who shares his professional insights into the Asian internet markets, and uncovers several interesting details related to blogging in Asia, and Asian search engines.

 

Jason Chiang is a prominent blogger in Taiwan as well as the CEO and founder of insightxplorer.com - a specialized rating system for Asian internet services.

 

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CalacanisCast Beta #20

 

Jason: Ok, welcome everybody. It’s time for CalacanisCast Beta number 19 or 20?

 

 

Jason: And, things are getting better with the show.

Today, we’re going to be doing a two camera shoot.

 

Tyler: Correct.

 

Jason: Not one camera but two.

 

Tyler: One more than one.

 

Jason: One more than one. Cuz people complain that they’re only seeing me.

 

Tyler: Right.

 

Jason: So we’re not going to show you that we have a guest in the studio who I’ll introduce in a minute. But, we also have lavaliere mics.

 

Tyler: Wow.

 

Jason: Wawawewa. It’s gonna be great. Big difference. Hopefully the sound will be a lot better. But people are responding really well to the cast. Huh?

 

Tyler: Yeah. So far…so good.

 

Jason: A lot of emails coming in.

 

Tyler: Lots of emails!

 

Jason: And are any of them relevant or good?

 

Tyler: Yeah. People have really good things to say. You know, looking forward to the discussions. We have even, you know….as good as its been. Some of the guests we have coming up I think are---

 

Jason: Pretty big!

 

Tyler: No offense to Tell Me and Rever…

 

Jason: Right. Tell Me and Rever were great.

 

Tyler: Tell Me and Rever were great but we---

 

Jason: We’ve got some big guests coming.

 

Tyler: Definitely.

 

Jason: Huge.

 

Tyler: Some big ones.

 

Jason: Yeah. And anything else going on that we need to do? Any housekeeping? We have cast@calacaniscast.com. That's CAST@Calacanis.com. You can email. You get both of us. And you’re going to be on camera at some point…I hear.

 

Tyler: We’ll see. You know---

 

Jason: The fan club has been asking.

 

Tyler: I’m still though, you know, your attorneys will get in touch my attorneys and---

 

Jason: Yes. Exactly! Right now we only have you contracted to produce.

 

Tyler: If it’s within the legal parameters---

 

Jason: Exactly. Well, everybody knows that the show is of course, sponsored by GoDaddy. GoDaddy, GoDaddy, GoDaddy! We love GoDaddy. Everybody loves the GoDaddy laughing Scobel kind of thing.

 

Background: (Scobel laughing audio)

 

Jason: Everybody go to GoDaddy.com and use JASON1 as the code…blah, blah, blah. They’re the sponsor. I’m giving disclosure they’re the sponsor. They’re giving their money to a private school in Brooklyn so that a disadvantaged kid can go to school. GoDaddy are good people. They have a good service. There’s no down side.

 

Tyler: No. It’s a win-win.

 

Jason: Win-win all the way around. Go use JASON1 and get 10% off. Also, this show is hosted on?

 

Tyler: Podtech.net.

 

Jason: They don’t have the .com for some reason but they have the .net. They’re doing some great shows and they’re doing Scoble’s show as you know and they did a bunch of stuff they did on South by Southwest I found pretty interesting. So you can go to Podtech.net and check it out. They’re doing good stuff there.

 

Jason: So this week we have a guest on the program. One of my oldest friends from New York and actually was my first employee ever. Jason Chiang is with us. Jason went to NYU and was a combination MBA/IT ---

 

Chiang: Computer Science.

 

Jason: Computer Science MBA. And we worked together in 1995?

 

Chiang: 95-96.

 

Jason: 95-96. Building virtual chatrooms on the Internet.

 

Chiang: Right.

 

Jason: And they became very big and you were one of the first programmers to hookup the web… Static html pages to databases.

 

Chiang: Right.

 

Jason: You went on…you went back to Taiwan.

 

Chiang: Yes.

 

Jason: And you started your own company and you happened to be in LA on business and you called me up and we’re here. We had dinner. You came by the office so you’ve seen Project X.

 

Chiang: And we met here in LA like twelve years ago.

 

Jason: Yeah!

 

Chiang: And now we are here again.

 

Jason: Yeah. That’s exactly right. It’s twelve years later. Very weird how that goes. See Jason Chiang has his own company in Taiwan and the company’s called?

 

Chiang: Insight Explorer. http://www.insightxplorer.com/

 

Jason: Insight Explorer. We’ll put the url in the show notes. He’s also a very big blogger. You’re a very recognized business blogger in Taiwan.

 

Chiang: In Taiwan.

 

Jason: So, I thought we’d have a little chat and maybe talk about blogging, vlogging, and just the market in China, in Taiwan, in Japan, and all that stuff. So tell me a little bit about your company though. What does it do?

 

Chiang: Ok, it’s basically like Nielsen/NetRatings. Basically, we are measuring some people who opt-in to our research. We are measuring their behavior so we could produce a database for our clients to check, ok, who is going to which site? What kind of people are browsing Yahoo News? Those kinds of stats.

 

Jason: Right. So in some ways it’s like Alexa or Nielsen or?

 

Chiang: Yeah, it’s more like Nielsen and their ratings.

 

Jason: Right. So people have like a toolbar where they can track their ---

 

Chiang: More like ComScore media.

 

Jason: Ahh. And so you like, take the data and sell it to whom?

 

Chiang: To, like, all the Internet companies or agencies who are interested in buying inventory from the Net.

 

Jason: I see. So it could be like a Yahoo or a Google or something like that?

 

Chiang: Yes. Basically international companies like Yahoo, MSN or Ebay, Google, those companies are my clients on an annual contract basis.

 

Jason: Right.

 

 

Chiang: And most local newspaper companies and ad agencies pretty much, you know people in the industry, they are my clients.

 

Jason: Ahh, very good. So now, you’re also very involved with blogging. When did you start blogging?

 

Chiang: Around almost two years ago. You know what? The funny thing is I tend to blog but in the beginning I am kind of acting like a boss so I ask my staffs, please blog.

 

Jason: Right.

 

Chiang: Everybody blog one post per day. But I figure it doesn’t work. Because I HAVE to blog first.

 

Jason: Right. Because you set the example.

 

Chiang: You have to act like you believe in this sort of thing. You cannot just order people to blog. So, it turns out to be I kind force myself to write at least a post per day. For I don’t know how many now…maybe six hundred posts by now.

 

Jason: Wow.

 

Chiang: Yeah, so basically I’m reading like a hundred news every day. I summarize and I highlight those things that I want to introduce to the industry in Taiwan.

 

Jason: Right.

 

Chiang: I summarize and I highlight those things that I want to introduce to the industry in Taiwan that you should know this because I read this on, you know, like TechCrunch, like your website.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: Something like that.

 

JC: So what, what sites in America…So you read these sites in America and then you explain it to the people in the Taiwan market.

 

Chiang: Pretty much, it’s like---

 

 

JC: TechCrunch you said…What else do you read?

 

Chiang: Oh, GigaOm, The Next Net, Business 2.0…Lots of them. Pretty much all the 2.0 stuff. So basically my concept is everybody’s reading news, local newspapers or foreign newspapers or whatever. By people in Asia tend to read their own language. Even myself. I can speak and I can read English, but I prefer to read in my own language because it is easier. You can get lazy waiting for newspaper to come out tomorrow.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: So, I thought why not I just go read at the moment, while blogging and help my people there? Kind of like, share my thoughts and stuff. I think it’s a good thing to discuss and all.

 

JC: So how has the blog helped your business? Has it made you a celebrity there?

 

Chiang: Well not so much as a celebrity like a------

 

JC: A Web celebrity!

 

Chiang: A little bit, yeah. But, pretty much it brings me business because actually one of the successful stories, one top Korean porno site, and one of the top executives, he learn Chinese so he can read Chinese, and he keeps searching ‘Taiwan’, ‘online’, ‘market’, those kinds of keywords and he found my blog. The nice thing about blogging is you keep producing content being indexed by Google.

 

JC: Right. Six hundred pages for your blog, good keywords…

 

Chiang: And it’s very niche content while not so many people typing.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: So that’s kind of why I write. I write early and write a lot of things and I write good things. So, basically, he found me. He found my blog and he read my blog and he figured “Jason Chiang, might be somebody who knows about Internet Marketing in Taiwan.” So he called me up and flew me to Taipei and tried to cover himself like a known company. Actually, he’s a puppet company in Korea and he doesn’t want to be really obvious. You know, we are entering Taiwan.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: So, he kind of like pretends to be a normal start-up. We discussed for two hours and I keep telling them about my experience you shouldn’t do this in Taiwan because there is no market. I don’t really want to just make money out of him; I actually try to help as a friend. And so at the end of the day he showed me the real business card which said we are from… We know what we are doing. And I know what you are doing.

 

JC: Right. So he revealed himself.

 

Chiang: He revealed himself, yes. True honesty about blogging that if you share it comes back.

 

JC: Yeah. The more you put out there the more you get back.

 

Chiang: Yeah.

 

JC: So, how many people live in Taiwan? Is it----

 

Chiang: Right now we have, like 23 million.

 

JC: Right. Pretty big.

 

Chiang: Pretty big. And it’s like really centralized in a few cities, like two cities.

 

JC: And is it more affluent? More affluent than mainland China?

 

Chiang: Well, basically we are same. We call ourselves Taiwanese or Chinese but we are sharing a little bit of the same, like language or history but we basically have different culture. It’s hard, it’s a political thing. More separate than, you know—

 

JC: Gotcha. So the market in China. I’m sorry, in Taiwan; in terms of portals is overwhelmingly Yahoo.

 

Chiang: Yeah.

 

JC: I found this very interesting.

 

Chiang: Yeah. I told you 98% of the reach.

 

JC: 98% of the reach.

 

Chiang: Yeah. And if you are talking about market share in terms of dollars spent online for advertisement.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: Like 60%.

 

JC: For Yahoo.

 

Chiang: Taken by Yahoo.

 

JC: Yahoo Taiwan.

 

Chiang: Yahoo Taiwan. We call it Yahoo Kimo because they bought out or acquired a local portal website I think in the year 2000 for about 100 million US dollars.

 

JC: So, why did Yahoo do such a good job in Taiwan and maybe not such a good job in China?

 

Chiang: Yes, because they bought the right thing.

 

JC: Ahh…right, because they bought the right strategy. Got it.

 

Chiang: Well, it’s kind of right strategy. So, probably Jerry Yang did the right decision by supporting the team to acquire a good property while in China.

 

JC: And Jerry Yang is Taiwanese.

 

Chiang: Taiwanese.

 

JC: And is he like a big hero over there? Do people know him?

 

Chiang: Yeah, of course.

 

JC: Does he come frequently?

 

Chiang: Not too much, but people treat him like brothers. We know he was from Taiwan.

 

JC: Really.

 

Chiang: We know he is from here, he grew up here in the States but we know that it’s like we have this connection.

 

JC: Right, right, right, right. So how has blogging taken off in China? Cuz I know you have done blogs in China and Japan and you’ve done business in the whole region. Where is blogging the most popular and how is it different than in the United States?

 

Chiang: Ok. Well in China and Taiwan, blogging, I mean the word, became so popular like in even the magazines or newspapers who never know what IT or Web is but the start to write about blogs and they call me up. I was interviewed for 20 times already for a public purpose….you know magazines press. And they just keep asking, they thought blogging or blog is like a goldmine. It’s like a revolution.

 

JC: Aaahh.

 

Chiang: It’s like a really new thing. I keep telling them that blogging is no different from writing a diary. It’s just being honest and sharing. It’s just writing. It doesn’t make any different about writing a book or online. So, if you really want to talk about the difference, it’s the platform which makes people easy to publish.

 

JC: Right. Sure.

 

Chiang: You and I back in 1994 we had to do stupid html codes.

 

JC: Right, you used Front Page to edit it or yeah it was too hard.

 

Chiang: Right now a twelve year old can log on to say Blogger.com.

 

JC: So why did they make such a big deal out of it you think?

Is it cultural?

 

Chiang: yeah, it’s like cultural because Chinese people or Asian people are more conservative so we don’t really share diaries right?

 

JC: Aaahh.

 

Chiang: We don’t really talk about private stuff. And now blogging is like, I blog about my life and show you all the pictures that were taken yesterday on this street of somebody I don’t know and who could leave a comment and say,"Oh, he looks nice.”

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: So, it’s more like we kind of being affected by this new culture that people start to share what they are feeling.

 

JC: Ahhhh….So it’s actually a big deal. People are, like, who normally didn’t share their feelings and were very private and blogging actually----

 

Chiang: Suddenly they start to share because they found that is easy.

 

JC: And it feels good, maybe?

 

Chiang: Yeah.

 

JC: They like the feeling of sharing. Has that trickled over to people’s lives? Are they more outgoing in day-to-day life in person?

 

Chiang: Oh….maybe not. The good thing is you and I, we have busy job or whatever, but when we go online, we kind of have our second life.

 

JC: Right. Sure.

 

Chiang: So, sort of treat them separately. I probably am like a frequent blogger. I probably don’t really go out with friends. This two things, so blogging in Asia, especially China and Taiwan, Japan the same thing, is about personal…like writing or feeling about something. And I’m not going to…I don’t care if it goes out to anybody. I write to myself. That kind of thing.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: But right here, probably people tend to write like serious stuff. We are talking about this company or we are talking about this technology but right there we just share feelings.

 

JC: Interesting. So, we were looking at the portals before and it’s always interesting to me, I went to China and spent some time there that Chinese web pages are so dense with information.

 

Chiang: Right.

 

JC: They are packed! And lots of flashing, animated gifs, and rotating….just…like maybe ten times the amount of information as Yahoo.com, as Yahoo.co, as Yahoo.jp or Yahoo China, or whatever.

 

Chiang: Yes.

 

JC: Why is that? Why is it so the design is so different there and so busy and loud?

 

Chiang: Noisy or loud.

 

JC: Noisy or loud or crowded when the people are generally quiet? You would think the opposite. You would think they would be more reserved.

 

Chiang: Yes, it’s interesting that you would put it that way. Well, basically one reason is you know the bandwidth and the problem of people using dial-up in China. Not many people got broadband so they tend to load the page completely then read and then figure out whatever they want. That’s what I’m thinking.

 

JC: So, like, click the page and go get a cup of coffee and come back. Let it load the whole way.

 

Chiang: Something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

JC: So they can look at a lot of stuff.

 

Chiang: Otherwise when you click on something you are kind of waiting forever waiting for nothing.

 

JC: Right. You want to wait and get a whole bunch at once.

 

Chiang: That’s before. Right now it’s getting better. But, people get used to that. Also, our culture is more like we want to get all the information at once so I can make a better decision without being bothered or interrupted. Right here, like, when we go to the restaurants. We want to hear the waiter tell us about today’s special and want to communicate about the good stuff that’s not on the menu. So, it’s different.

 

JC: Oh, so in America, people will ask for the specials and want to talk but in China, it will be like, give me the menu with everything on it. I want to read but don’t talk.

 

Chiang: Yes, don’t talk to me. I’ll decide later.

 

JC: You‘ll decide. But they want all the information.

 

Chiang: Yes, because probably we are bogged down by those sales pitches too much that we’d rather think that’s sales talk and I don’t believe it.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: So, I think it’s a bad cycle.

 

JC: Bad cycle, yeah.

So, the developers…the design is getting a little bit lighter now? Maybe? A little bit?

 

Chiang: Yeah. When Yahoo worked with a local company called Ali Baba---

 

JC: Ali Baba, yeah.

 

Chiang: They kind of changed it to the so called, ‘Google Look.’

 

JC: Ahh, right. Clean and simple.

 

Chiang: Clean and simple. The people are like wait and see what’s going to happen because everybody is so noisy and so loud.

 

JC: Right

 

Chiang: And you’re so clean so does that make any difference? After a couple of months they switched back.

 

JC: Aaahh.

 

Chiang: Because they feel people like loud pages.

 

JC: People like loud pages. It’s interesting too. They have on Baidu (Baidu.com) there’s an mp3 search.

 

Chiang: Yeah. Today we saw that.

 

JC: Yeah, yeah. We were looking at this mp3 search right on the top level. It was pretty interesting so….and you could go to Baidu and any of these sites in Asia and so a search for an American artist and get the mp3 if you know how to read it and get the file. It’s just that simple.

 

Chiang: Yes. I know.

 

JC: So, I mean, in terms of copyright, we could just go and go to Baidu and just download any song. But do they have any problem with that? Isn’t Yahoo trying to be a little bit more not putting it up there? Did they take it down for a little bit?

 

Chiang: Yeah, well one thing. They’re all…it’s going to cause big issues. You know, record label companies are now suing you big time.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: So they keep telling the industry that we are removing, like 3 million songs already..

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: But. they keep indexing them.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: So, on one side I realize, I think they realize it’s serious business. They shouldn’t do those so called illegal pirate things. But, on the other hand, by statistics, Baidu got 20, 30, and 40% of the traffic out of the mp3 searches.

 

JC: Wow!

 

Chiang: If you were Baidu owner---

 

JC: Right. You turn it off and---

 

Chang: Probably and see. “I need that traffic.”

 

JC: They need the traffic. Yeah. And so what is the…if you look across Korea, Taiwan, China, and Japan, and you look at them. Which of those four countries do you think has the least piracy? Is the most willing to pay for content? Pay for movies? Pay for music? Or do all of them, sort of, think the same way, like “Oh it’s too expensive and we’ll pay for it down the road.”

 

Chiang: Well, definitely Japanese people tend to buy intelligent properties, the information and music and that sort of stuff. While Korean people, I thought they should …they would go and download an mp3 and stuff but eventually it turns out they are buying because the industry worked together so that it’s like they’ve got online portal service business, I got blog, I got messenger. They are owned by the same company and even they own record companies probably. So, they give you a really good deal that you would rather pay for.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: Because I can download it and share it and play it on my blog----

 

JC: So, it’s not as expensive. They made it easy to do and---

 

Chiang: It makes sense.

 

JC: Yeah. Totally.

 

Chiang: If it’s going to be so expensive than I would go out and get…

 

JC: So, let’s talk about the copying of ideas in China and Asia of American companies.

 

Chiang: OK.

 

JC: We were talking before about companies that----

 

Chiang: Work for hire. Right?

 

JC: Like work for hire companies. How do they work?

 

Chiang: Basically, they said you name a website and pay me I forget how much? It’s like a thousand dollars or something. Then I get it done let’s say, within a month.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: Name, just name any website.

 

JC: So, like a Flickr, YouTube, and they’ll make it.

 

Chiang: But you know what…you and I know better because right now it’s not about technology at all.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: It’s about innovation and it’s about new concepts and it’s about helping people.

 

JC: The brand.

 

Chiang: Branding.

 

JC: Community.

 

Chiang: Yeah. So, it’s about trust.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: OK, a new site comes out. But I don’t know who’s making this company up and I doubt if they’re big guys or whatever. But, I think it’s very important that people have trust.

 

JC: Right, but they do copy it pretty quick, huh?

 

Chiang: Yeah.

 

JC: So, YouTube…do people in China and Asia know what YouTube is?

 

Chiang: Well, Taiwanese people like YouTube.

 

JC: Do they use it?

 

Chiang: According to my stats, we have like 25% of the reach. Pretty good.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: 25% meaning two million people, three million people in Taiwan. They are browsing YouTube because it’s a big thing.

 

JC: Big, yeah!

 

Chiang: That makes YouTube tougher anyways.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: We also got other video blogging hosting sites.

 

JC: Do they have more traffic?

 

Chiang: No, because they don’t have good content either. It’s about content. People all go to YouTube because it’s a good site. But in China, I think there are a 100-200 YouTube like or YouTube wannabe’s.

 

JC: Interesting.

 

Chiang: But, the thing about China is it’s too slow for people to access YouTube.

 

JC: Ahh…too slow because they have----

 

Chiang: I don’t know.

 

JC: Oh, to get across the---

 

Chiang: If you are talking about conspiracy then they tend to make it slow. Who knows?

 

JC: Oh, so you think maybe people in China have made it slow or YouTube makes it slow maybe?

 

Chiang: Probably the government, ISP transfer kind of limit the ---

 

JC: Limit the bandwidth to YouTube---

 

Chiang: And they can grow local properties. I don’t know. Who knows?

 

JC: Interesting. And so the government, I guess, has gotten very pro entrepreneur now?

 

Chiang: Yup.

 

JC: It’s changed a lot in just 7---

 

Chiang: It has changed a lot.

 

JC: How much has it changed in say, the last five years? Because you moved back in 1999-2000?

 

Chiang: Yes, 1999.

 

JC: So, you’ve been there for seven or eight years now. What was it like eight years ago to start a company versus now?

 

Chiang: Well, in Taiwan. Probably not too much different because our market is small. And…some company has dominated or quite dominated the market so you don’t really want to start a company there just to have this YouTube dream.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: But, in China, it’s very different right now because if you have a good idea you could say something like, ‘Ok, Flickr is successful. YouTube is successful.’ You could get a business proposal and say that, ‘I am YouTube in China.”

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: That’s a proposal. I mean, you could get five million dollars.

 

JC: Right. From who? VC’s?

 

Chiang: From VC’s or Angel’s or whatever.

 

JC: Angel investors?

 

Chiang: Like you, maybe someday you’ll think I’d rather gamble there. I should put some money there. Because this is going to be the future.

 

JC: Right. So there are high net worth individuals, Angels, billionaires, who will put a lot of money in there?

 

Chiang: A lot. Yes.

 

JC: There are more billionaires in China now than anywhere, right?

 

Chiang: I know. Right!

 

JC: Nobody knows who they are? I heard if you make a lot of money in China, you don’t want anybody to know!

 

Chiang: Of course. Because you’re like 200 of your relatives are going to come here!

 

JC: Haha. Well that and also that a lot of people maybe don’t want the attention.

 

Chiang: Yeah, yeah. Of course. The gangsters are going to come.

 

JC: Yeah.

 

Chiang: Of course.

 

JC: Yeah.

 

Chiang: You don’t want to get famous.

 

JC: You don’t want to get famous in China. No, no, no.

Very interesting. So, what do you think of the US market and how do the Chinese people look at the entrepreneurial market? Do the entrepreneurs there follow what we do here?

 

Chiang: Yeah. Pretty much. Pretty much. They are following whatever you guys are doing here. But, I there is one thing that we should, people in Asia or Taiwan, we should leverage is…Why couldn’t we work together?

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: You know… if I copy your idea we have a market 3 or 5 years behind. So, even if I make it happen by successfully copying Flickr.com, I have no money to make! So, that doesn’t make sense. So, I think it should be more peaceful.

 

JC: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they should partner with the companies here.

 

Chiang: Something like that. And you know looking at the companies like Ebay, Google, and Yahoo, they probably, to a certain level, are successful here. But in Asia, in China….

 

JC: What is the reputation of Google in China? Do people think of Google, like, it’s really good? Do they even know it? How many people?

 

Chiang: Of course, lots of people know it. But there are two kinds of impressions on Google. One is, if I went aboard to the States for my graduate studies.

 

JC: Yeah.

 

Chiang: I live in here for a while so when I came back I liked Google. I have this kind of Google spirit---

 

JC: Yeah. From having been here.

 

Chiang: Yeah. Maybe local people graduated or grew from Taiwan or China, they use local search engines like Baidu. But the other thing is while it’s like, more like, national…

 

JC: Oh, national pride?

 

Chiang: Yes.

 

JC: They feel nationalistic.

 

Chiang: So, Baidu is a Chinese Google.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: So the reason why you start with is ‘I hate Google.” Google is evil. If somebody don’t like America. Who knows? It’s a big world.

 

JC: Interesting.

 

Chiang: So out of those hate or whatever it’s easier if I am a pure Chinese company and can go out and say go out and say use Baidu to support your people.

 

JC: Right, right, right. Interesting.

 

Well, thanks for being on the program. It’s been great. I’m going to come to Taiwan for the Wikipedia conference, so we can go eat food in Taiwan.

 

Chiang: Great. Great.

 

JC: What’s the food like in Taiwan?

 

Chiang: Oh, it’s a mixture of all Asian foods like Japanese food a little bit. Korean food a little bit. Lots of different Chinese food. We have steak, whatever you have. It’s like a mixture of the world – we have everything.

 

JC: And the currency…is the currency the same as in China or do you have your own currency?

 

JC: Oh, so it’s own currency in Taiwan?

 

Chiang: Yeah, we have our own currency.

 

JC: Aha.

 

Chiang: Own dollar bill and stuff. You know what? Because I have this blog, right? So how about we work together?

 

JC: Ok.

 

Chiang: You know, say a weekly column or something?

 

JC: Ok.

 

Chiang: I pick a topic and you’re going to help us out with your experience. If Jason Calacanis----

 

JC: I can’t write in Chinese. I don’t know how.

 

Chiang: No, we are going to translate.

 

JC: Oh you’re going to translate.

 

Chiang: Yes we will do that with the Chatlog.

 

JC: Oh Chatlog.

 

Chiang: And, I am going to summarize in Chinese.

 

JC: Oh ok. So you ask me question on the chat. I respond and…Oh ok so it’s like an interview?

 

Chiang: Yeah, interview.

 

JC: Ok, we do it every week.

 

Chiang: Every week.

 

JC: And you’ll translate it?

 

Chiang: I will translate on some nights. And I’ll pick the topic. So, the basic concept is if I, Jason Calacanis, worked in Taiwan----

 

JC: This is what I would do.

 

Chiang: This is what you would do.

 

JC: Oh….Ok we can do that.

 

Chiang: Because pure translation doesn’t work.

 

JC: Right.

 

Chiang: That doesn’t help us.

 

JC: You just don’t want to translate TechCrunch you want to understand what Tec Crunch says and how it applies to Taiwan as opposed to----

 

Chiang: Right, because if I read TechCrunch, it’s a good thing much like Bible. It might make sense but doesn’t work.

 

JC: Ahh…very good.

 

Chiang: So, you’re going to help us out.

 

JC: Totally. Absolutely! It’s so funny because now we’re like old men.

 

Chiang: Yes.

 

JC: We used to be, like 25 years old and we worked together in 1995. I can’t believe that was back in New York. We had a nice office.

 

Chiang: You are going to dig out some old pictures and show us.

 

JC: Yeah. We got to dig out some old pictures, Tyler. Show me an old picture of us back when I was skinnier. You stayed skinny! I got fat!

 

Chiang: Yeah. I know.

 

JC: And now I’m getting thinner.

 

Chiang: You’re doing that thing, fatblogging.

 

JC: Fatblogging! You should take fatblogging to China.

 

Chiang: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

JC: But people aren’t overweight in China, are they? Is obesity a problem yet?

 

Chiang: Not much. Not much.

 

JC: Not much, but it’s gonna get worse.

 

Chiang: Yes, of course. Kids especially.

 

JC: Kids? It’s happening?

 

Chiang: McDonald’s.

 

JC: Oh, yeah. People like McDonalds too? Huh?

 

Chiang: I don’t.

 

JC: They’re terrible. You know who was interesting is Starbucks.

 

Chiang: Starbucks.

 

JC: I was at Shanghai, and there was a Starbucks packed and it was $35 or 40 for a Starbucks.

 

Chiang: Yes. It is about 30 something.

 

JC: That’s $4 in US money but for some body in China they might make maybe how much? $10 a day US? $20 per day US?

 

Chiang: Yeah. Something like that. Even less. $10 yeah, something like that.

 

JC: The typical office worker might make $300 - $400 or $500 US. So if they’re making let’s say $500 US, and they spent $4 on coffee they spent on one cup---

 

Chiang: Not that much. Maybe their salary is $100 or $200 per month.

 

JC: $200 US?

 

Chiang: If you are regular worker.

 

JC: Right. Yes. SO a regular worker makes $200 US—

 

Chiang: $4 bucks.

 

JC: $4 bucks is 2 percent of your whole month’s income.

 

Chiang: But you know what? I’ve been there. I’ve been there several times. So, I tried to feel them now.

 

JC: Yeah, it makes no sense. Who are the people?

 

Chiang: It makes sense.

 

JC: Why?

 

Chiang: Because they thought it’s a pride thing…proud thing. I’m different so I sit in there. So the atmosphere there is so different that people there to meet foreign friends… to learn English. Even two Chinese sitting there speaking English because they want to get a taste of what it’s like in the States.

 

JC: Ahh, so it’s like us going to Benihana or something that we feel---

 

Chiang: Yeah, a paying atmosphere.

 

JC: Ahh, so we feel that we are in China because we went Benihana or we feel like we are in Japan because we’re eating sushi.

 

Chiang: Yeah. So if you are sitting there drinking Starbucks and I walk by, maybe I’m richer, but I thought, ‘Damn this guy.’

 

JC: Yeah, he’s like…$4 Starbucks and you’re jealous. I couldn’t believe it, Tyler. You spent a lot of time in Japan…

 

Tyler: And Thailand, they’re both like that. Actually in Japan, Starbucks is very cheap relative to what they make. But in Thailand, it’s just the opposite. It’s very expensive in Thailand.

 

JC: Because if you were making $200 a month, you’re making $10 per day, you’ve spent basically half a day’s salary on a cup of coffee.

 

Chiang: Yeah.

 

JC: I mean, here people spend an hour of their salary. I think they’re crazy. I mean, I have to say we have to do a whole show, Tyler, just on things you can do at your company, like Project X - I’m not telling anybody what I’m doing - I’m just working on Project X. That’s the joke. But things you can do at your company that make people happy. And I have to say the #1 thing you can do, I think, is to instead of letting people go to Starbucks, you get the …you know, the coffee machine I have at my house.

 

Tyler: Right.

 

JC: That you press the one button and it does the whole thing. That machine costs a lot of money. It’s like a $2500 machine but $2500 if five people use a cup of coffee a day, 250 days a year, it’s gonna pay for itself because they’re going to save $4 dollars a day.

 

Chiang: I know.

 

JC: $4 dollars a day…No $20 per day and you’re talking about $5,000 per year they are spending on coffee. Now they don’t have to leave. They get their coffee for free. You can buy the best Kona of beans and still be ahead of the game!

 

Chiang: Yeah.

 

JC: So, if you have a start-up company out there, go buy the Jurra coffee machine that I love. You can put the url thing right here. I’m not getting paid to do that. There’s no Pay Per Post. I just love the machine.

 

Chiang: Yeah.

 

JC: These Pay Per Post guys, this is the funny one, they said that because I’m on the board of ThisNext, which is the social shopping site, that was competitive of Pay Per Post. And I was like, ‘You guys are crazy! You’re paying people to blog about specific products.” ThisNext is a social shopping site where anybody can post anything---

 

Chiang: Wish lists.

 

JC: Wish lists! You can’t compare a wish list to getting paid to promote herbal Viagra, diet pills, or whatever the heck they’re doing on Pay Per Post. I saw these medical things in there. It makes no sense. Crazy. You know, as a wise man once said, “Don’t argue with fools because from a distance you can’t tell who is who?” It was Jay-Z who said that!

 

Anyway!!

 

Chiang: Haha.

 

Tyler: Haha.

 

JC: It’s true. It’s a Jay-Z lyric. You can play it at the end. “Wiseman once said; don’t argue with fools because people from a distance can’t tell who is who.’ Jason, great to have you on the program. I’m so psyched you made it. Thank you for tuning into the CalacanisCast or 20, whatever Tyler feels like doing.

 

And #1) Thank you to Podtech. Podtech. Podtech. Podtech.net. Great company, they’re doing great things friends of mine over there. They are sponsoring the program and the money goes to charity.

 

GoDaddy is sponsoring the program. It goes to charity.

 

If anybody out there would like to donate to charity, totally cool.

 

If anybody wants me for a speaking gig. I just got a speaking gig for ten grand! Donated it to charity. So, now we just got ten thousand dollars more donated to charity. The Bay Ridge Prepatory School Opportunity Fund, that $10,000 is going to put a kid through school for a year, who is a foster kid. You know, a kid without parents. That’s a kind of a big deal.

 

So, if anybody wants me for a speaking gig and they want to drop ten large and donate it, I will say thank you to you on the program if you want.

 

And if you want to sponsor the show, we are going to do fifty a year, at least. So if you do a thousand dollars a week, I’ll do an ad for a grand a week. I’ll talk about you and your products. I’ll talk about GoDaddy, Podtech, I’d like to get one or two more people. And if we get one or two more we would get, like a hundred thousand to send two more kids to school. So if you’re out there and you like my audience of somewhere, I don’t know, somewhere around ten thousand or maybe twenty thousand watching this. Who knows? We have the stats at some point, but if you want to be on the program and make a donation, let me know. And….thank you for tuning in and we’ll see you all next time on the CalacanisCast.

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