各大外电对MySpace.cn发布的报道

各大外电对MySpace.cn发布的报道

华尔街日报的报道

MySpace进中国，艰难时刻的开始

As MySpace Hits China, The Tough Part Begins

BEIJING -- MySpace has finally found a way into China. Now comes the really hard part.

After months of preparation, MySpace China today is launching a test version of its first Web site in the world's second-biggest Internet market in terms of users.

In a departure from the way other big foreign Internet companies have entered China, MySpace China will be run by a Chinese company that is controlled by local management, MySpace China Chief Executive Luo Chuan said. The Chinese social-networking-Web-site operator licenses technology from MySpace and counts the subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. as an investor.

《纽约时报》网站半个小时前的报道：

罗川说，我是MySpace中国CEO，我没有老板。美国人不认为，是Murdoch把MySpace带到了中国。

Murdoch Is Taking MySpace to China

SHANGHAI, April 26 — Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is bringing MySpace.com to China, a latecomer that is betting it can overcome its handicap by competing unconventionally as a start-up.

The News Corporation signed a deal to license the brand for its popular online social networking site and allow local Chinese entrepreneurs who understand their market to pick and choose to build an indigenous business. With this approach, the News Corporation, hopes to succeed where other Western Internet ventures have failed.

The company and two venture capital firms agreed earlier this month to hire a former Microsoft executive to license the MySpace.com brand and technology in China in an attempt to capture some of the business in the world’s fastest-growing Internet market.

MySpace.com is entering China at a time when social-networking and online gaming and entertainment sites are already wildly popular.

“They want to avoid some of the mistakes made by the first and second waves of international Internet companies that came to China,” said William Bao Bean, a partner at Softbank China & India, a venture capital firm. “By putting a local manager in, they give the company a fighting chance. This is a very crowded area with at least 100 companies competing in the same space that MySpace has entered.”

American Internet companies have scrambled to set up operations in China’s booming online marketplace, which already has more than 137 million Internet users, second only to the United States.

But the China operations of Amazon.com, eBay, Yahoo and even Google have all either lost ground or ceded the leading market position that they enjoy abroad to local rivals despite, in some cases, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire established Chinese competitors.

The new company, called MySpace China, will tailor the site to the Chinese market. For instance, while MySpace.com invites newcomers to meet their first friend, Tom, who is a company founder, MySpace China introduces new visitors to a Chinese friend.

Still, it faces stiff competition from China’s home-grown Internet companies, including Baidu, Tencent, Sina and 51.com, as well as dozens of other MySpace.com-like Internet start-ups.

Analysts say that Chinese Internet entrepreneurs like Robin Li of Baidu, Ma Huateng of Tencent and Jack Ma of Alibaba.com, have managed to outmaneuver their Western counterparts, partly because they have a better sense of the needs of Chinese Internet users.

Foreign Internet companies have also struggled to find the right balance between complying with China’s stringent censorship — sometimes having their sites blocked in China — and providing enough interesting content to attract users.

Mr. Murdoch has tried to gain access to the Chinese market for some of his media properties, but has faced difficulties because of tight controls. Now the News Corporation, which acquired MySpace in 2005 for about $580 million, has teamed up with IDG VC, a unit of the Boston-based International Data Group, and China Broadband Capital Partners. In effect, they are financing a Chinese start-up.

Richard Ji, an Internet analyst at Morgan Stanley, said MySpace China might use the News Corporation’s content. “They have a competitive advantage in sports content,” Mr. Ji said. “The Chinese government likes sports content, and so do advertisers here.”

The group, headed by the News Corporation, did not say how much it has committed to investing in MySpace China, but people close to the talks say that the funding is substantial. The strategy and partnership were partly devised with the help of Wendi Deng, Murdoch’s Chinese-born wife, according to people involved in the deal. Ms. Deng is not an officer of the News Corporation, but she has been named to the board of directors of MySpace China, according to people involved in the talks.

According to the deal, the News Corporation, IDG and China Broadband Capital will largely fund the operations of MySpace China. IDG, which is headed in China by Hugo Shong, has more than $800 million under management and has invested in some of China’s biggest Internet start-ups, including Baidu, Tencent, 3721.com and Eachnet.

Luo Chuan, 38, who used to run Microsoft’s MSN portal in China, will be the company’s chief executive. “We want to create a site that allows people to find serious relationships and to share something with new friends,” he said, “to share pain and loneliness.”

法新社的报道：

MySpace launched in China

BEIJING (AFP) - MySpace announced its launch in China Thursday, following months of speculation about the Rupert Murdoch-controlled social networking site's plans for the nation's 137 million Internet users.

MySpace China introduced itself as a "locally owned, operated and managed company" in which News Corp-owned MySpace Inc was only one among several investors.

"Our team here will have the sole right to decide the operation model, the technology platform as well as the product strategy," said MySpace China CEO Luo Chuan, a former Microsoft executive.

"It's very unlike the other multinationals you might have heard about or seen in the Chinese market."

MySpace China may have been spurred to emphasise its local identity by the fact that international Internet companies' attempts to enter China have so far tended to end in failure, observers said.

"I think they're trying to distance themselves from the long line of previous blunders," said William Bao Bean, a partner with Softbank China India Holdings and an expert on Asian technology issues.

"There's no example of foreign Internet companies coming into China and being successful that I can think of," he said.

Despite MySpace China's efforts to differentiate itself, MySpace Inc will be represented with three board members.

They include Murdoch's wife, Wendy Deng, as well as MySpace founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson, Luo said.

Investors in MySpace China also include International Data Group and China Broadband Capital Partners, an investment company founded by former China Netcom Group Corp chief executive Edward Tian.

Luo declined at a briefing to give specific details about the size of the investment or the share that MySpace Inc accounts for.

Analysts have said that it was necessary for MySpace Inc to enter into a partnership with local companies in order to gain access to China's tightly controlled Internet.

"Generally, in order to get a license, especially an Internet license, you have to be a local company," said Bean.

"Most of the 'foreign' sites use a joint venture contract-based structure with a local entity in order to run their business in China."

MySpace is one of the world's most popular websites, but the MySpace China community is still in its test stage, adapted from the US version, and will gradually be developed to meet the needs of Chinese users, the company said.

"Based on the MySpaced global brand and technology platform, we will develop products and features that are tailored to today's Chinese citizens," Luo said.

Negotiations have been in progress since News Corp chairman Murdoch announced last October that he would bring MySpace to China, according to earlier reports.

"In those discussions, there's always something that you need to negotiate back and forth," said Luo, responding to a question about the lengthy wait for the launch.

"Ideally, when rolling out a business in a new market, speed is very, very critical. But more important is the way of doing it, and looking at optimizing the structure and ownership is the critical factor."

国际先驱论坛报的报道：

News Corp. reaches deal to bring MySpace to China

SHANGHAI: Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has signed a deal to bring its popular online social networking site, MySpace.com, to China.

News Corp. and two venture capital firms agreed earlier this month to hire a former Microsoft executive to license the MySpace brand and technology in China in the hope of capturing market share in the world's fastest-growing internet market.

MySpace.com is one of the world's most popular Web sites, but the brand is getting a late start in China, where social networking and online gaming and entertainment sites are already wildly popular.

But by licensing the brand and allowing local entrepreneurs who understand the local market to build a wholly indigenous business, News Corp. hopes to succeed where other Western Internet ventures have failed.

"They want to avoid some of the mistakes made by the first and second waves of international Internet companies that came to China," said William Bao Bean, a partner at Softbank China & India, a venture capital firm.

"By putting a local manager in, they give the company a fighting chance. This is a very crowded area with at least 100 companies competing in the same space that MySpace has entered."

The new company, which is based in Beijing and will go by the name MySpace China, will face stiff competition from China's home-grown Internet companies, including Baidu, Tencent and Sina.com.

American Internet companies have scrambled to set up operations in China's booming online marketplace, which already boasts more 137 million Internet users, second only to the United States.

But the China operations of Amazon, Ebay, Yahoo and even Google have all either lost ground or ceded the leading market position that they enjoy abroad to local rivals despite, in some cases, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire established Chinese competitors.

Analysts say that Chinese Internet entrepreneurs like Robin Li of Baidu, Ma Huateng of Tencent and Jack Ma of Alibaba.com, have managed to outmaneuver their Western counterparts, partly because they have a better sense of the needs of Chinese Internet users.

Foreign Internet companies have also struggled to comply with China's stringent censorship and sometimes have had their sites blocked in China. Murdoch has in recent years been trying to gain access to the Chinese market for some of his media properties, but has faced difficulties in a country where the media is tightly controlled.

But News Corp., which acquired MySpace in 2005 for about $580 million, now plans to build a very local Internet company in China. And to do so, News Corp. has teamed up with IDG VC, a unit of the Boston-based International Data Group, and China Broadband Capital Partners, to, in effect, finance a Chinese start-up rather than importing its own MySpace.com unit.

The group, headed by News Corp., did not say how much it has committed to investing in MySpace China but people close to the talks say that the funding is substantial, at as much as $100 million.

The strategy and partnership were partly devised with the help of Wendi Deng, Murdoch's Chinese-born wife, according to people involved in the deal. Deng is not an officer of News Corp.

According to the deal, News Corp., IDG and China Broadband Capital will largely fund the operations of MySpace China. IDG VC, which is headed in China by Hugo Shong, has over $800 million under management and has invested in some of China's biggest Internet start-ups, including Baidu, Tencent, 3721.com and Eachnet.

China Broadband Capital is run by Edward Tian, the former chief executive of China Netcom Group.

The investors in MySpace China have hired Luo Chuan, a former senior executive at Microsoft in China, as the new company's chief executive. Luo, who is 38, was once in charge of Microsoft's MSN Portal in China.

Luo and his management team will also own a sizeable share of the newly formed company.

In an interview in Beijing this week, Luo - who was born in China and has four degrees from the prestigious Tsinghua University, including a masters in business administration - said that he had the freedom to set the course for the company and would find a way to tailor the offerings to China's burgeoning Internet population.

MySpace China is expected to unveil a beta version in the next few weeks. Luo acknowledged that MySpace was coming late to the Chinese market but said that the company would learn from the mistakes that others have made in the country.

He said one problem American Internet companies have had in China was that they had a lot of money but did not know how to spend it, and that they tended to follow the narrow dictates of executives based in the United States rather than keeping their ears to the ground locally.

"The most important thing is to create the culture of a social networking site," he said in an interview. "We want to create a site that allows people to find serious relationships and to share something with new friends - to share pain and loneliness."