Sina's microblogging homepage, courtesy: sina.com

A new business wave has arrived, with the disclosure of China’s “Top Philanthropist,” predictions of the future power of microblogs by Charles Chao and a glance into Baidu’s social media strategy. It’s been a rough week for Mengniu Dairy, while Jack Ma stoutly defends e-commerce.

What Mengniu Dairy Denies Someone microblogged a video captured from a 2008 Shenzhen satellite TV program, in which Mengniu CFO Tongshan Yao declared at a Hong Kong media conference that the quality of products sent to Hong Kong is the same as their exports, “absolutely better in quality and safer in standards” [than the products sold in mainland China].  Mengniu Dairy apologized accordingly, saying what was said back then was completely wrong and that he had in fact corrected himself immediately afterwards. With the poisonous milk crisis still fresh in consumers’ minds, it seems Mengniu Dairy cannot catch a break. Source: money.163.com

What’s Baidu’s social media strategy? Robin Li, the CEO of Baidu, talked for the first time about their social media strategy. Despite the flood of new SNS websites, Baidu is not planning to develop their own social media platform. Instead, the social media elements should be integrated into their core products; currently, social media search services constitute a quarter of the total traffic. Since search engine is the most important service that Baidu provides, as one of the most critical Internet applications in China, Baidu still expects a long-term development of their search engine business in the future. Source: Sina

Microblog Social Networking Charles Chao, CEO of Sina Technology, gave a speech entitled “Development of microblogs and mobile Internet” at the GMIC (Global Mobile Internet Conference) 2011. According to Chao, the market share of mobile computing will eventually be ten times bigger than what PC Internet terminals currently have. It is expected that in the next year or two, the number of mobile Internet users will exceed those using PC Internet. Meanwhile, the perfect marriage of microblogs and mobile Internet leads to more efficient communications compared with SNS websites like Facebook. At this stage, the focus for microblogs is to expand the number of users as much as possible. Source: Sina

Antidote of Fake Goods Considering the recently exposed lack of action taken about fake products on Taobao and consumer rights issues, Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma pointed out that counterfeiting is the main culprit in this case while online shopping is the antidote. Though some blame online shopping platforms as the breeding ground of piracy, Jack Ma believes that the e-commerce programs make it possible to capture accurate transaction information and thereby trace fake goods back to their manufacturers, whereas the traditional business model limits the possibilities due to lack of monitoring. All in all, Ma believes, citing a Chinese proverb, it’s not a good idea to grasp at the shadows and lose the substance. Source: tech.163.com

Top Philanthropist in China The China Charity List was released on April 26, 2011, with the anointing of a 2010 “Top Philanthropist” – Dewang Cao, the chairman of Fuyao Group, which specializes in producing automotive safety glass and industrial technological glass. It has been noticed that the previous year’s “Top Philanthropist,” Guangbiao Chen, is nowhere to be found on this year’s list of people who have donated more than a million RMB. Organizers explained that it was difficult to verify the monetary value of Chen’s donations (which mainly consisted of actual goods and cash). Source: money.163.com