Thomas Crampton interviews Ogilvy China’s Kaiser Kuo on the current state of web development in China in the video above. It’s interesting in its entirity as they discuss the growing wave of Web 2.0 development in China, but of particular note is Kuo’s description of Chinese P2P file network Blin.cn.
Kuo claims that Blin.cn is 50 times faster than BitTorrent and when downloading the show 24 season 6 he was able to start watching it with 2.2% downloaded after only 3 minutes, and all in DVD quality.
It’s interesting to consider the broader ramifications of what Kuo is saying. His general argument is that without the artificial market restrictions imposed on P2P networks in the United States by the RIAA and the MPAA, Chinese companies have been free to innovate and are now producing superior web technology in P2P sharing, and a whole range of related industries. If you think it’s bad that China dominates the market for consumer goods, imagine that today companies in China have already created the next wave of P2P innovation and are thriving, perhaps ironically in a Communist country, with more freedoms than their American counterparts. It’s not unreasonable to consider that next year and into the future that much of what we do online may end up being based on Chinese designed technology and programming, and not good ol’ fashioned American know-how.
(via zeropaid)
PHP: European
Linux: European
MP3: European
What’s with the assumption that the US dominates the web?
Considering the amount of Chinese people on the planet, it is inevitable that they will become dominant in culture, technology, language, and everything else.
Nate
fair call, although I was it’s not unfair to say that overall the US (and the Valley in particular) has dominated the web. It’s changing, but I think with more broadband users that the US in the next 12-18 months China will become a new global internet powerhouse that will compete directly with the US.
Duncan - do they talk about the cost for this superfast internet and do they offer plan options w/speed/cost? I hope we see more options as speed and quality increase- my mom for example doesn’t need more than something that is “always-on” vs. me, etc.
I will say that I got 1 mb download yesterday - first time I have ever seen that outside of the corporate environment!
Does it really matter? As long as the web is constantly moving forward I believe origins are meaningless…..
Well USA sure doesnt dominate the web, consider the technologies pointed out by nate on top of that… we dont even feature in top countries for internet bandwidth. Think about the internet connections those homes in south korea have?
Just coz of the valley we canft say we dominate,it is only the people who make money out of web who dominate here not the common consumer…
I can watch 24 streaming from tv-links after waiting for 0 minutes.
Johnny (#5)
as a non-American I totally agree, but there is some xenophobia in the US when it comes to China in particular. It’s also interesting as an observer to note that web development is more free in a communist country than the US.
Re internet speed, I think the technology is now available worldwide. What keeps it from being rolled out is the vested interests of phone and cable companies.
I for one, would like to welcome our new p2p overlords.
I believe that report is tainted. Most of their newly built communities are connected with real fiber, making it very fast for internal traffic. However you probably won’t see the 50x faster traffic if you have to get across the Great Firewall of China.
Success breeds agression be it company or countries, and necessity and a need to prove and limited resources to innovation.
Relating this post to the previous post yesterday about declining dollar :
Do the average american citizen really know that about one half of US debt is now hold by the Chinese government and rich citizens ?
Do the average american citizen really understand the consequences of that, and how much it will be uncomfortable for US citizens to maintain their situation in the futrure ?
I do not think so… and I imagine their reaction when they will realize how much deep the trap is !
Peirre
probably not, the bastion of western democracy is also the most apathetic nation of them all as well. I’ve never understood that, but I’m not American.
Damn, Chinese Comments in OS Software
Quick someone translate blin.cn to an english website along with the software!
Any Chinese/English bloggers here?
#13 Pierre,
You are correct! It is very sad!
I would wager that 8 of 10 Americans DO NOT know the capital of Canada. On this board I bet 7 of 10 Gringos don’t know.
What a weird post.
Hey, if they come up with something good, it’s not like we’ll have to pay for it. We’ll just copy it…
happy to see that techcrunch is pointing out a bit of the ignorance in america…. i have never seen so much complacency as in los gatos about the state of the world and america’s role in that….
Can anyone tell me the name of the media player that Kaiser Kuo mentioned? Said it could play “any format know to man”. I have played the video a few times and can’t pick up the name - don’t know if it is chinese or I just can’t hear! Thanks.
Probably the shittiest quality interview I have ever seen — both in video quality and content. Looks like this guy hasn’t got his Asian fill in Thailand — remind me how he is an expert on China without speaking the language again?
Here’s an interesting website to follow China’s Internet development:
http://www.chinamemes.com/
And the Chinese do not worry about software patents. Programmers just can code, instead of submitting every idea to a legal team.
You start wondering where India is in all this. Streamlining their call centers? Any 1.3 billion dollar Indian IPO lately from the IT sector?
It is also interested to note that the first p2p tv (pplive.com) was launch in China with a handful of other clones, all in China based on a technology done by Chinese researchers (google for Coolstreaming) 4 years ago.
Today, Joost is still nowhere near what pplive can offer.
#21, As it says in the “about us” page, they pointed out that with the technology they called “POT” and “UDNP” it can forward and backward without losing the current downloading pieces. And the software has it’s own protocol as well.
I am a Chinese, but i dont know much about P2P but i know there is a more famous company called xunlei.com who has already providing video streamming with p2p softwares.
50x? P2P has progressed
When you say China gives more freedom to its citizens then the Americans, you may be ferering to the freedom to innovate with technologies for p2p. Because if you think, there is not even freedom on the internet there period. The hole thing is censured by the gov. and a bunch of content is just blocked. I would have to disagre with this point.
What is the point of building this awesome technology to stream or share stuff, but the stuff has to be allowed by your gov, or you will be sent to a boot camp.
I say $¨%& with the RIAA, but still believe there is more freedom to innovate in US then in China.
“… and not good ol’ fashioned American know-how.” made me laugh.
Good or bad, p2p is the killer of IP. Creativity will be discouraged.
Norman
blog: http://familyresource4u.wordpress.com
Yeah, sometimes I read Techcrunch on my iPhone using edge. Right now I’m reading it using broadband at my home.
Conclusion - Firefox is 50 times faster than Safari.
WWW:European
The innovation in american was not only cultured by freedom but more by finanal interests. Not only by inventors, also by venture capitalists. Without the payback of stock options, not one will support the inventions. It is the systems of america which makes US a center of inventions.
As an American who has lived in China, one of the ironies I noted was that, in certain ways, one has more freedom in China than the US.
For example, I could freely drink and drive in China - and even kill a pedestrian in my drunken stupor, as long as he is nobody influential (and that’s about a 9 out of 10 bet).
These freedoms extend to development. But, make no mistake, China is a police state, and can take away all of your freedoms in the blink of an eye. They regularly do.
On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder when people will awaken to the fact that onerous legal requirements, copyrights, ISO standards, etc. will kill Western innovation and business.
The irony is not that a “communist” country is developing faster than a capitalist one. The irony is that the “capitalist” country is more anti-innovation.
More freedom to innovate massive IP infringement engines is less freedom to make money off your IP. Is this really a good thing?
Considering how P2P protocols are working, one have to know that the global capacity and the global broadband of a P2P network depends only of the number of nodes (the PCs) and the bandwidth (upstream and downstream) allowed by each node to the P2p exchanges.
A new technology, even chinese, cannot magically multiply by 50 this capacity, all things being comparable.
It is important to consider “50 times faster” differently from “allowing to start watching after only 2% download time” compared to “after having waited for 100% download”…
“Progressive P2P” already exists, it is totally similar to “progressive download” used by Youtube, a little bit more complicated because the P2P algorithm implemented in the nodes needs to try to send/receive the bytes “located at the beginning of the file” first, in order to allow to start reading the file “as soon as possible”…
Some “progressive P2P” technologies have been succesfully developed by US and European companies for years, I do really not see what Blin.cn brings so disruptive. I suppose that Mr Kuo is not very aware of P2P technologies
That being said, it is true that P2P technologies, both “regular” and “progressive”, are the solution of choice to allow content providers to widely distribute heavy contents (movies, TV series in DVD quality today, HD quality tomorrow) for the lowest possible cost.
Duncan,
The apathy in Western Civilization actually has historical precedent. Prior to the fall of Rome, the same apathy took hold. They were the best. They didn’t have to prove it, they didn’t have to take pride in it, it just was. As such, politics took the place of patriotism and national pride.
The US is headed in this same direction, and has been for quite some time. No need for Terrorists or ’security breahces’. The US will take care of disposing of itself quite nicely.
Barring a situation like that of Rome to hasten the US downfall, there *will* be civil war within 10 years. Of that I have no doubt.
Many folks have already begun immigration to other countries, the Congress has the lowest approval rating *ever*, and the current president is more vilified than Osama bin-Laden in the US press. Drive the nail in, she’s done.
It was a grand experiment. Hopefully people will learn from it.
what was the name of the media player he is talking about that can play every media format known to man?
He says it a little fast for me to make out what it says, balfum of something??
Fanatics of the P2P super power gave birth to the devil.
It is the strongest P2P file sharing system Share NT.
And, Because UDP is used, even the band limiting that the internet service provider does is exceeded.
Reference
Share (P2P) - Wikipedia
Share NT - 2ch.ru
The media player he mentions is Baofeng.
38: You’re a complete idiot. Hopefully that can be blamed on drug abuse, but unfortunately for you I suspect you are just retarded.
Duncan, you need to start fact checking, and actually, just plain common sense checking your articles. Or Mike needs to step up and do it for you. Much of what you write lately is pure crap.
1. Blin.cn is —-NOT— 50 times faster than BitTorrent *unless* you are behind “the great firewall”.
* Fiber connections abroad are great for internal traffic but don’t do much for global internet speeds. Case in point, the many 12-100mb connections available in asia perform like crap when accessing any content from abroad. The bottleneck is still present and will be for some time.
2. You are completely off base here:
“imagine that today companies in China have already created the next wave of P2P innovation and are thriving, perhaps ironically in a Communist country, with more freedoms than their American counterparts. It’s not unreasonable to consider that next year and into the future that much of what we do online may end up being based on Chinese designed technology and programming”
______
More freedoms? Are you kidding? They have no copyright or IP enforcement or protection, of that’s what you mean. And many a technology has been ripped off there, so where’s the innovation? Is that a good thing? I don’t think it is. You shouldn’t either since the only thing you produce is IP.
13: Big deal. Your point is what?
FYI, this phenomenon in some form has existed for years. Please share your doom and gloom situation with me.
It sucks! If you want to watch its movie, the blin player will eat up all your bandwidth and show you some moving pictures!
PPLive and PPstream are the hottest p2p tv software. Blin? huh,who knows
I believe origins do not really matter with the continuous growth of internet.
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com
As someone who lives outside North America, I see a very bleak future for US innovation. The patent system ironically destroys the innovation that it was meant to protect.
I would certainly think twice before I do business there, because the chances of a lawyer stopping me is too great.
Wow, do you guys have any idea on who Kaiser Kuo is?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Kuo
He’s the founding member of the legendary Chinese band, Tang Dynasty.
It’s the equivalent of having a founding guitarist of Led Zeppelin working for you …
48: Now it makes more sense as to why he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I suppose he is as much of an “internet expert” as Kim Jong Ill declares himself to be. He better stick to boy bands.
Kaiser Kuo is a badass.