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Wang Sicong, the son of Chinese billionaire and investor Wang Jianlin, made yet another splash in Chinese media this week for grabbing over 130 thousand RMB ($19,800 USD) in three days by answering twenty-five questions, covering a wide variety of topics from investment to his sex life on a Chinese online Q&A platform. The price for each question started at 3,000 RMB and has since surged to 4,999 RMB.

Spurred by the news, Fenda, the platform where Wang answered these questions, has received a boost in popularity just one week after their official launch on May 15.

Fenda, which means one-minute answers, is a mix between Quora and Reddit’s AMA, and is operated through a WeChat enterprise account. Answers are delivered via voice messages and are no longer than 60 seconds – hence the name of the service.

Users who are knowledgeable about a particular topic can set a price for their answers and get paid for answering questions from others. If they don’t reply within 48 hours, the money will be reimbursed to those who raised the questions.

In addition to connecting questioners and respondents in the Q&A chat interface, Fenda has an eavesdropping feature to engage more listeners. Anyone who is curious about the dialogue can listen to the reply for 1 RMB, which is split between the user who asked the question and the user who answered. After the completion of dialogue, Fenda will take 10% from the overall income from both parties.

Wang Sicong is not the only figure that has benefited from the platform. Top earners on Fenda are a diverse group of individuals: Zhang Yu, a gynecologist from Peking Union Medical College Hospital; Shi Hang, a prestigious screenwriter; Tong Dawei, A-list actor; and Wang Feng, a pop singer.

In a shift from the traditional fan economy for internet celebs, China’s cyber world is moving towards a knowledge economy which retails expertise to users under a paid business model.

In addition to Fenda, Guokr, the science networking service behind Fenda, is a paid knowledge sharing website that connects industry experts and their advocates.

Just one day before Fenda’s launch, Zhihu, a leading Q&A platform in China, rolled out Zhihu Live, which allows users to join live online one-to-one sessions with experts on specific topics for a fee.

Peer skill-sharing platform Skillbank and Beijing-based Pingo Space are also engaged in skill and expertise sharing sector, although their service and business model take different form with Fenda and Zhihu’s.

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Sameer Singh from Tech-thoughts.net analyzed the recent Apple Q1 2016 earning and challenged the notion whether Apple’s Asia (India and China) and their rumored car strategy will bring them back to growth. Through the lens of the Apple’s rumored car strategy, we dove deeper into a conversation on artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles from the China to the U.S.

Download MP3 (32.6 MB) or Subscribe via RSS

Analyse Asia with Bernard Leong is a weekly podcast dedicated to the pulse of technology, business & media in Asia. They interview thought leaders and leading industry players and gain their insights to how we perceive and understand the market. Analyse Asia is a content partner of TechNode.

TechNode does not endorse any commentary made in the program.

Notes:

• Sameer Singh
• Apple’s iPhone Blip and will their Asia strategy with China and India work?
  • Apple’s recent Q1 2016 earnings: What happened? [1:47]
  • How did the Apple miss the forecast of the iPhone earnings? [3:00]
  • Apple’s upgrade cycle is not a cause but an effect. [4:11]
  • Has the switch from Android back to Apple during the iPhone 6 been saturated? [5:25]
  • Is iPhone SE the solution to push up the upgrades? Is Apple using screen size as a way to price their ASP in the Asia context? [6:10]
  • Has the smartphone industry reached a structural change when the technology is now good enough? [8:30]
  • iPhone 6 cycle depressed the entire Android premium phone industry and allows Samsung to return to profitability with the Galaxy S7. [9:40]
  • What does that mean for Apple in the next iPhone 7 iteration? [10:33]
  • Apple’s “services” narrative will not work in Asia. [11:15]
  • Apple watch as a trojan horse with the watch bands rather than the watch. Taiwanese (happened to be in Asia) Apple analyst Ming Chi Kuo predicts Apple watch sales will fall in 2016.  [13:00]
  • Is Apple’s expansion to India (with their current focus to China) going to save them? [14:48] Note that China has just banned Apple movie and books services.
  • Can Apple’s rumored car restore their growth? [17:50]
• Self Driving Cars, Business Models & Regulation [18:25]
  • The best autonomous cars has to be electric. [18:50]
  • The different models for autonomous and electric vehicles [19:30]
    • On demand transportation which destroys car ownership: Uber, Lyft (and their recent deal with General Motors).
    • Internet services model with web and mobile: Baidu, Google using maps and search linking it with cars.
    • Car OEMs and hardware makers: Tesla, Apple, and car makers such as Toyota, Nissan, VW Group, Audi, BMW.
  • What is the path forward for self driving cars? Full Autonomy vs Incrementalism [20:18]
  • Asia governments testing the concept of self driving car zones. [22:17]
  • Self driving cars are more focused on creating fixed and optimized routes rather than creating complexity to transportation. [23:40]
  • Google’s self driving car and potential ride sharing service. [24:30]
  • AI and self driving cars. [26:23]
  • When a car turns into a computer, how much semiconductors does OEM need? [28:10]
  • Tesla’s hybrid model OEM and services with their supercharging stations. [28:48]
  • China’s foray into electric cars, and the launch of LeSee, with the same backer to the Faraday car.  [29:20]
  • Tesla’s model 3’s successful crowdfunding campaign and what does it mean for the automotive industry in the next few years? [30:00] (Tesla sees 300K orders upon crowdfunding).
  • Uber submits 800 COEs bids in Singapore, changing the game for cars. What does that mean for countries viewing car ownership as a prestige? [33:15]

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FlowerPlus, a subscription flower delivery service, announced on Monday that they have raised a 70 million RMB (US$10 million) Series A round led by New Margin Ventures.

Like its name suggests, FlowerPlus offers customers a no-frills flower delivery service. By following the company’s WeChat enterprise account, users can choose different flower packages through the chat interface, set a time and place for delivery, and pay using WeChat Payment. Compared to prices offered at brick-and-mortar flower shops, FlowerPlus’ prices are more affordable. Prices for single flower bouquets start at 98 RMB (US$14.88) and 168RMB for mixed ones.

Like fresh groceries, the speed of delivery and freshness of the flowers are the top priorities for the flower business. According to Wang Ke, the founder of FlowerPlus, the company will invest its latest round of funding into these two aspects. The Shanghai-based startup currently cooperates with over 500 flower farms, most of them in China’s Yunnan Province, and provides services in major cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Chengdu.

The floral business is a new opportunity for startups targeting China’s rising middle class. In October 2015, China’s middle class reached at total 109 million, the largest in the world, according to research by Credit Suisse.

As a traditional industry, the flower business is ripe for disruption, especially in China. Compared to western countries, there are fewer brick-and-mortar flower stores in China. In addition, in a country where people were struggling for basic necessities like food and clothing just a few years ago, buying flowers on a regular basis is not very common.

However, China’s rapid economic transformation has raised incomes, allowing people to spend more on consumer discretionary products and services. Since physical stores cannot meet the rising demand from customers, online flower delivery has become the preferred option.

Chinese startups are tapping the market from different perspectives: RoseOnly is a high-tier online flower store targeting the gift market; EasyFlower is B2B platform that bridges flower farmers and stores; Floral & Life is an e-commence platform for flowers. To fully capitalize on its logistics network, 24Tidy, an on-demand laundry service, also offers a flower delivery service.

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As if Alibaba’s counterfeit woes weren’t enough, the Chinese tech giant’s e-commerce platforms Taobao and Tmall were hit with more bad news on Monday.

An investigative report by The Beijing News (link in Chinese), a Chinese media company, was published yesterday, revealing China’s illegal market of “empty package scalping” (空包刷单, our translation), whereby shop owners on Taobao and Tmall inflate their sales statistics though fake package deliveries by using “empty package” service websites and delivery services.

“I wasn’t even in China, I never bought anything from these stores,” said one source in the report, who had left China for two months.

In that period of time, she received more than one hundred fake packages filled with toilet paper, shredded paper, and other useless debris. Like other victims of “empty package scalping” schemes, her personal information, including her full name and address, had been leaked online to unscrupulous e-commerce shop owners.

In other “empty package scalping” schemes, shop owners will send packages with the words “Already inspected” (已验视, our translation) stamped on them, so abetting couriers at package delivery warehouses know they’re fake. That way, they can mark the package as “delivered” without having to send it to a final destination.

According to a source who spoke with The Beijing News, those in the package delivery industry are well aware of “empty package scalping”, which has been occurring since at least 2013.

Five package delivery companies were implicated in The Beijing News’ investigative report:  STO Express (申通快递), YT Express (圆通速递), ZTO Express (中通快递), Best Express (百世快递), and Yunda (韵达速递).

“The ’empty package scalping’ incident has shocked us,” stated STO Express in a public announcement. “As one of the largest courier companies in the industry, we cannot be excused for the inadequate management and poor supervision that has been revealed by the ‘scalping’ incident. To our customers and friends, we offer our sincere apologies.”

According to the company’s announcement, STO Express will adopt a “zero tolerance” attitude and work with law enforcement to conduct investigations and crack down on those involved in the empty package scalping schemes. In addition, STO Express claims they will improve their supervision and oversight systems, creating a “blacklist” for dishonest shop owners.

During the 2016 Development Of China’s Express Delivery Industry Conference (2016中国快递行业发展大会, our translation) on Sunday, the CTO of Cainiao, Alibaba’s logistics affiliate, said that it was working with both government officials and delivery companies to investigate the network of “package scalpers.” In addition, the company said it would continue to leverage big data not only to stop stores from plagiarizing goods, but empty package scalping as well.

However, Cainiao’s war against “empty packages” will be hard one to win. Shop owners on Taobao and Tmall rely on their total sales to promote their stores, attract customers and boost the visibility of their shop. Their shop status is influenced by the number of deliveries they successfully complete, as well as user reviews. Both can be bought.

A spokesperson from Alibaba could not be reached in time for comment.

Image credit: Shutterstock

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Just over a year ago Windows users in China found out that they would be getting a free upgrade to Windows 10, whether the current version they were using was pirated or not.

It was a bold play by Microsoft for the Chinese consumer market, but they may have undone a fair bit of that goodwill, as netizens on the mainland are now lashing out against forced upgrades.

Like their U.S. counterparts, Chinese users have been subject to ‘surprise’ reboots by the system, which spontaneously upgrades without giving users the option to opt out.

According to state media outlet Xinhua, netizens on microblogging site Weibo have mentioned the forced reboot issues or reposted stories on it over 1.2 million times.

Xinhua cites a source working for a Beijing PR firm who lost out a 3 million yuan deal when the update spontaneously started during the drafting of a business plan. Other commenters on Weibo claim they lost valuable design work and illustrations when their systems spontaneously rebooted.

“Microsoft is such a rogue, my computer was just rendering images and suddenly upgraded to Windows 10!… So irresponsible, how can I replace such valuable documents?….”

“Lousy Windows, I fear I lost most of the stuff on my computer when it automatically upgraded”

That old sl*t Microsoft just forced me to upgrade to Win10!!! Just Now!!! I totally did not agree!!

While a quick scan on Weibo shows a lot of venom toward the upgrade, it’s worth noting that Chinese netizens are known for their social media vitriol, and the stories by Xinhua have not been verified.

Windows, still the most wide-spread PC operating system in China, has struggled to monetize their consumer-facing systems due to rampant piracy. By offering the free upgrade, the company hopes to bring customers back into the official Windows fold.

The free upgrades will end on July 26, meaning those who manage to avoid the surprise reboots will have to pay for the new system after that date. Due to backlash both at home and abroad, Windows has since posted instructions on how to reinstall older versions of the operating system.

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In a rare glimpse into the secretive Alibaba-Google-backed augmented reality startup, Magic Leap, the company has filed a lawsuit against two former employees, claiming they worked on proprietary robotics technology while building a similar project outside the company for over a year.

The company claims that Gary Bradski, a senior vice president at the company “was aware of and involved in projects and plans that involved deep-learning techniques for robotics.” Bradski and another Magic Leap employee, Adrian Kaehler, allegedly began working on a new company while still employed at Magic Leap.

Magic Leap has attracted its fair share of attention, in part because of its secrecy, and also because it has so far attracted over a billion USD in investment from the likes of Alibaba and Google, valuing the company at around 4.5 billion USD.

So what do we know about them?

Up until now we already knew the company is working on a VR-style headset and imaging technology that allows users to overlay high-quality 3D imagery onto real life scenes. According to the company’s eccentric CEO, Rony Abovitz (who once dressed as an astronaut to deliver a TED talk), the technology “replicates” the field of light human experience in regular sight.

Following the lawsuit it’s clear the technology could have much more diverse applications: “Magic Leap’s Proprietary Technologies are not limited to its head-mounted virtual retinal display”, the lawsuit noted, “and extend to many different applications and devices, including, but not limited to, robotics.”

Before founding Magic Leap, Abovitz built a company specializing in medical robots called Mako, which went on to sell for $1.65 billion USD in 2013. Magic Leap is not developing an optical chip using silicon photonics to bridge the gap between regular and virtual sight – it’s not difficult to see how the company’s technology could encroach on the field of robotics.

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This week we dive into the legal landscape of starting up in China with the man who helped Kai Fu Lee put together the $500 million U.S. dollar fund, incubator and accelerator, Innovation Works. Benjamin left California to become an IP lawyer in Beijing in 2006, then post Innovation Works Benjamin joined Cooley LLP in China before recently joining Loeb & Loeb, so he has an incredible amount of experience and knowledge that he brings to the podcast.

We discuss the state of IP protection in China given the concerns over getting ‘copied’ when entering China, and what are the most important documents and agreements to focus on at an early stage. We also lightly touch on the state of corporate law in China today and its history, as well as uncovering terms such as Most Favored Nation that seem to pop up regularly in investments docs here in China. An amazing cast with an amazing guest; we hope you enjoy!

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Buckle up as we welcome one of China’s top entrepreneurs David Chen, CEO of Strikingly.com. Having quit Goldman Sachs and his studies at the University of Chicago, despite his parent’s wishes to the contrary, David never gave up on his dream and followed it to Silicon Valley despite not getting into Y-Combinator on his first attempt.

David is very much followed the Lean Start-up methodology in his rise to fame. He shares valuable insights on his own lean path to success, eventually landing a spot in Y-Combinator, one of the world’s most renowned accelerator programs in Silicon Valley. David never gave up, admitting this was one of the key attributes top accelerators like Y-Combinator look for in founders. We hope you enjoy.

A huge thank you to our sponsors Chinaccelerator and People-Squared and to our crew, Darren, David, Qi, and Chrystal.

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A treat for the China Startup Pulse as we welcome the man behind one of the most successful VC funds in the world. Sean tells us about his passion for music, engineering and humanitarian work as well as MapInfo, Sean’s first start-up that put street mapping on personal computers (that subsequently went IPO).

Sean talks about his experience launching Chinaccelerator, the first start-up accelerator in China and his broader goals with SOSV. Innovating on previous VC models, Sean launched a series of global accelerators and is a key industry thought leader and investor in entrepreneurial ecosystems.

A huge thank you to our sponsors Chinaccelerator and People-Squared and to our crew, Darren, David, Qi, and our newest member Chrystal.

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Stephany Zoo joins us on this week’s show bringing energy and insight to the art of networking. Founder of The League of Extraordinary Women, Co-Founder of BUNDSHOP, Founding Partner of LeagueX, SH Director of UN Charter School World Acadamy for the Future of Women, (the list continues)…we dip into a variety of topics to hear about Stephany’s vast experiences.

You can learn a lot! From keeping tabs on people while maintaining a wide network, setting up a business in China and pursuing a passion for females and leadership. Stephany is proof that, “experience doesn’t come with age. Experience comes with doing things, trying things or even thinking things!” Listen here to find out why…

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