Survey Will Show If Western Web 2.0 Has Opportunities in Asia
October 17, 2008 |
I often find it depressing how little we know about the web as it is in Asia – their projects and web celebrities or trends maybe. Most often we hear from Asia is when some of the western internet companies (Google anyone?) buys a local company or a startup in Asia – otherwise Asia seems to be very much isolated.
It is also a well-known fact that more often than not Asian consumers and internet users prefer to stick to their local products and services. Earlier this week the first pan-Asian web conference – Open Web Asia – took place in Seoul, Korea, and we published impressions of an attendee here as well. It is absolutely obvious that Western companies rarely (if ever) have good prospects in the Asian markets – unless they have some local representatives. And here is where the organizers of this conference arrive with yet another initiative intended to solve this problem – a survey that is supposed to reveal what western startups and established companies think about expansion to Asia and what prevents them from using the huge potential of the region.
The survey is already available online and I invite all our readers particulate to help Asian and Western companies and entrepreneurs understand each other and our goals better.
The survey only took me about 10 minutes to answer all the questions. The questions are intended to reveal attitudes of Western internet businesses to expanding to Asia and – most importantly – the factors that prevent more companies from going East and reaching out to potential customers or workforce in China, Japan, Korea or other Asian countries.
If you have a business operating in the fields of web 2.0, mobile services, online gaming, e-commerce, I think your input will be appreciated by the organizers and will also help Asian businesses and authorities figure out how they can best help you and other businesses achieve desired results in the Asian markets. The survey will run through October 28 at GoingEast.Asia. The results of the survey will be announced on November 14th during the China 2.0 Blogger Tour (featuring Robert Scoble, Shel Israel, and others). Media partners (including Profy) will also help distribute the findings of the survey. So stay tuned, we will soon find out if we should expect large-scale expansion of web businesses to Asia.
