On Tuesday, Shibuya-based Q&A portal site OK Wave officially released its Chinese edition[C] in association with Chubun Industry[J] which publishes a Chinese-language newsletter[C] and provides a multi-channel IPTV service[C] for Chinese residents in Japan, and Aoyama Data Center[J] which has data center facilities in both capital cities of Japan and Mainland China.
(Asiajin has not yet confirmed if any access to the website from Mainland China is not blocked by China’s Great Firewall. The website seems to be physically located in Japan since its IP address is registered as one of NEC Personal Products‘ network.)
The portal site basically targets Chinese residents in Japan and Chinese visitors to Japan. Japanese/Chinese and Chinese/Japanese translation feature will be added by the end of this year.
Three companies plan to develop an advertising business model specifically designed for Chinese market, and also to provide Chinese well-known portal sites with their Q&A system on an ASP basis. The companies expects to earn 2 million users and 50 million PVs by June 2010.
OK Wave says, it’s hard for Chinese residents and visitors in Japan to find where they can buy what they want to have despite their population is so large that daily life information should be provided in their mother tongue. Currently the population of Chinese residents in Japan is 650,000, and the number of annual Chinese visitors to Japan exceeded 9 million in late 2008.
The site is reportedly targeting Chinese living in Japan, but its domain name ending with Chinese country code makes us aware that the site is going to target Chinese people living in Mainland China as well.
Masaru IKEDA
OK Wave ‘s Chinese site is not blocked in China now,I can access it.
Hmm,I like this site.
I thought I would test it with a FireFox plug-in called China Channel which reproduces an environment as though I would browse it from one of Chinese ISPs.
But your information is more useful and real. Thanks for your comment.