[CHINABANG] VentureBeat and ReadWriteWeb Open ChinaBang, Gang Covers the Key Tech Trends in China

ChinaBang went live this morning. Opening with an energetic LinkinPark rift, the Chief Editors of VentureBeat (Matt Marshall) and ReadWriteWeb (Richard Macmanus) via video recording both described this generation as the best time to start a tech company. Why? Because there have been huge advances in internet and many large scale platforms have been laid out like Facebook and Weibo in China.

Lu Gang opened up the conference by describing China’s huge market opportunity with a massive 485 million internet users and by describing the hottest topics in tech today, mobile SNS, applications plus other emerging China tech trends.

Places to meet and create start-ups

One trend that emerged from late 2010 has been a recent explosion in collateral services to help support start-ups including incubators like Innovation Works and ChinaAccelerator as well as co-working cafes like Garage Cafe and Big Bang Cafe. Such establishments have been created to allow entrepreneurs to meet and work together in a very energetic environment where ideas can grow into businesses.

Copycats – the springboard to innovation

‘Shanzhai’ or copying is probably the most talked about topic in China start-ups. But like or not, it is  the standard. Many criticize it for lack of creativity or even ethics, but for China as a developing country, copying allows start-ups to start with an already tested model and tweak it to China. It is up to the entrepreneur to tweak the model and adapt it to the China market. This is called micro-innovation.

More money, more Angel Investors

Now that China’s economy has created an abundance of wealth, many are thinking what they can do with their money. Ever the opportunistic type, Chinese want to invest their money and make more. This has created many so-called ‘Angel Investors’ from professionals, to celebrities such as Yao Ming the former-NBA player. Even universities like the famous Tsinghua University have created a ‘campus fund’ to invest in their brightest students. Often equity is exchanged for funding, resources and most importantly in China, relationships.

O20 – Online to Offline Services

The 020 trend has hit China. This means people make a transaction online and consume offline. In many respects this has been happening for a long time already but it has evolved. Especially after the group-buying model spread across China and smart-phones became the norm with location based check-in services, Chinese are now searching and paying online, consuming offline at the shops and sharing their experience with their friends through social networks.