How do i contact chinese web design people

February 10, 2008 1:45 PM

How do I find and contact people in China (students/professionals) to discuss web design topics with? - For a while now i have been wondering what the chinese internet business/usage is like but it is hard to get right impression. It would be nice to have someone knowledgable to discuss this with. ... I dont speak chinese
posted by peshay9000 to society & culture (3 answers total)

My impression is that it is noisy, cluttered, with a lot of active-x plugins, and is becoming extremely successful. The current king of the chinese internet, QQ (www.qq.com), has a chat system with integrated blogs, games, and picture galleries. The uploading and image manipulation of the picture galleries are better than anything in the west... it allows cropping, color management, rotation, and a lot more in-browser. The blogs are normal, except for those 1999 style overlays of floating angels and whatnot. The game section works perfectly... avators, scoring systems, response time is perfect.

There are youtube clones, but they recently got taken down or are crippled by the authorities.

It looks like your normal user sticks to the main sites. I think right now a good business would be to start a linked-in for china. Make it grown-up, without all of the dancing roses. The current websites are all about playing right now.

As for contact information with students, I can't help you. This is just someone who knows some web design skills observing what I see.
posted by sleslie at 8:37 PM on February 10, 2008

Check out this post on James Fallows blog were he talk about an economist story about internet use in China. His wife, Deborah Fallows, does research on Chinese internet usage, and several of her papers are linked in the post.

Also look at danwei for chinese media commentary in general and EastSouthWestNorth for stuff about politics and Chinese internet use.

Here's the list of links you get for web design in Chinese (网页设计) at baidu, China's largest search site. Notice how shitty the sites are.

If you just want to find someone to talk to over IM, use MSN or Yahoo. You will be more likely to find someone who speaks english, than if you use qq. Just go into a Chinese chat room and start asking questions. You will probably find someone who want to practice their English.

Most chinese web design is atrocious and either seems to be focused on maximizing ad revenue or follow the Myspace school of asthetics. Trendy upscale sites tend to be a lot better and are more like their western counterparts. Check out Xihutiandi, and upscale restuarant and shopping area in Hangzhou, and Bar Rouge, a club in Shanghai
posted by afu at 9:55 AM on February 11, 2008

woops, here is that bar rouge link
posted by afu at 9:57 AM on February 11, 2008