Convergence Conversation

Connecting the dragon

Just a couple of articles that have caught my eye in the last few days. Firstly a nub from The Economist detailing how China has overtaken the US in having the greatest number of people online in the world: 253 million according to Neilsen research, standing imperiously above the US's 223 million people. The growth in China's internet users has been rapid—91m people have come online in the past year alone. And with a population of some 1.3 billion, there will be plenty more to come. Here's the graph from the paper.:

And from The Guardian comes this 'Google has launched a music service in China offering users free track downloads, funded by advertising to be split between the music industry and downloading site Top100.cn, Google said: "We believe this partnership will help foster a thriving and legitimate music business in China by providing music labels and publishers with a new channel to distribute, promote and monetise their valuable music content."

The growth of China has been THE story of global economics over the last few years but to date the concentration has largely been around its insatiable thirst for commodities to help fuel the large scale construction projects taking place and feed the desires of a burgeoning middle class. What these couple of stories may herald are the first steps away from a commodities focused market in China towards ecommerce companies trying to tap into a potentially huge target market of Chinese online retail. One to watch.