Re: {BootHK} How hard it is to create a better Craiglist?

[Steve Holmes]

Technically it's fairly easy to create.

The hard part is getting people to use it. Needs lots of cash for marketing etc.

In HK you have asiaxpat and geoexpat that already serve the expat community. Both of these are equally rubbish. Not sure what the local leaders are. It's getting people to switch from these that is the hard part.

On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 5:15 PM, Jim Chim <chimka...@gmail.com> wrote:

There are now more reports on how Craiglist is trying to ban services that use its data to create a more user friendly service. 

Since Craiglist is not exactly a hit here in Hong Kong, I took a look at it and found it is still very primeval in terms of how it works.

Let aside the point that Craiglist can or cannot copyright the content posted on the site, or if Craiglist as an non-profit organization are stopping third parties to help it serve the community.

Why no one have successfully re-create a better craiglist? (As I think there is no such thing as "A good idea that no one tried")

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[Jonas S Karlsson (☯大鱼)]

It's been forgotten how the first version of google maps had an instant mashup feature. It worked like this. They crawled webpages if it had an business address on it it would 'put the web page on the map'. I found out by mistake by searching for my website domain and it'd plot my public address book (wiki app based). It was pretty amazing to see ones data automashedup. Actual 'mashup' was invented later. Now sadly enough this no longer works...

Actually there is no reason why google could not have a search result that displayed craigslist data on a map. It's just another visualization. But somehow it's ok to index the web (and craigslist) and show as list but not display in other ways. If Web indexing was invented and launched today it would never be allowed....

As for visualizations...

For example when i want to see a movie and search for it could show me on a map where the cinema are when they playing, how much it cost and time how to get there ordered by leaving time from current location. Expand for any kind of types of events.

[Pyeek]

What is your definition of "better"?

Or maybe a better question is, what do you envision a "better" craigslist would look like?

[布艾德 - Elliott Polk]

Taobao is probably the number one reason Craigslist is not too popular in HK . There also seems to be a large loyalty to Yahoo HK. Not sure why that is, but I see a lot of the typical Craigslist-like transactions happening there.

[Leon FONG]

HK people like to watch more than read...

So pictures are the key.  For example the video page for apple daily (local newspaper), on tv cc - another media site owned by a news agency.

For forums: discuss.com.hk, uwants.com, hkgolden.

Leon FONG

E-mail: leon...@hotmail.com

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Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2012 23:18:47 +0800
Subject: Re: {BootHK} How hard it is to create a better Craiglist?
From: tak...@gmail.com
To: hkco...@googlegroups.com

[Jim Chim]

Holmes,

I understand what you are saying, but don't any of you consider a web 2.0 version of Craiglist would be way better? 

And that's why I define better, Pyeek.

If people are allowed to limit resources to circulate only among it's social circle, while they are also allowed to post it publicly, a good chance is that people will be willing to share more meaning information on a site like this. Wouldn't they? 

Agree that Hong Kong people are more willing to consume information rather than digest it.

I've personally done traction on Yahoo Auctions a few times, but I think it's kind of not friendly either. That system was like a decade old, and I think the internet deserves an update by now.

[Matthew Rudy Jacobs]

On 10 October 2012 14:06, Jim Chim <chimka...@gmail.com> wrote:

Holmes,

I understand what you are saying, but don't any of you consider a web 2.0 version of Craiglist would be way better? 

Dude, web 2.0 is so 5 years ago.

I am on web 23.0 right now.

[Jim Chim]

Ah... what's web 23.0?

--

[Mingfai]

Dude, web 23.0 is so yesterday. I'm working on web 28.0 already ;-)

>HK people like to watch more than read

hi everyone. it's my first post to this mail list and I'm probably one of those "like to watch more than ... um... " people 

[布艾德 - Elliott Polk]

If you can bring the vendors and the prices from taobao and provide modern, simplistic and minimalist features you'll be able to.

Aside from getting that crowd, the biggest challenge and time sink is fighting scammers and spammers.

On Oct 10, 2012 2:20 PM, "Matthew Rudy Jacobs" <matthewr...@gmail.com> wrote:

--

[布艾德 - Elliott Polk]

The one after web 22.9

[John Erik Metcalf]

Good point about fighting scammers and spammers. 

Regarding getting people to move to a new service (apologies if this is old news): I saw a bus yesterday covered with a WeChat ad!

In case you dont share my awe in this. ...My mind is just wired to think that for apps you just CANT do tradition marketing. Traditional maketing is lame and dead, right? ... I don't know. I bet that bus ad is working well. 

[Matthew Rudy Jacobs]

On 10 October 2012 16:24, John Erik Metcalf <jmetc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Regarding getting people to move to a new service (apologies if this is old news): I saw a bus yesterday covered with a WeChat ad!

I prefer WeiXin as a name,

and find it odd when people call it WeChat. 

[Leon FONG]

U can do giveaways. Chinese LOVES free stuff to target at young people to office people

Leon FONG

E-mail: leon...@hotmail.com

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From: jmetc...@gmail.com
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2012 16:24:36 +0800

Subject: Re: {BootHK} How hard it is to create a better Craiglist?

To: hkco...@googlegroups.com

Good point about fighting scammers and spammers. 

Regarding getting people to move to a new service (apologies if this is old news): I saw a bus yesterday covered with a WeChat ad!

In case you dont share my awe in this. ...My mind is just wired to think that for apps you just CANT do tradition marketing. Traditional maketing is lame and dead, right? ... I don't know. I bet that bus ad is working well. 

[Jonas S Karlsson (☯大鱼)]

I don't know why a pack of napkins give-away haven't happened in China....

It was very common in Japan before and well if you been to China you know why people would take them....

[Leon FONG]

I remembered once I was at the HK Airport few years ago, they handout condoms.  Funny thing.

Guys, what's your plan?

Leon FONG

E-mail: leon...@hotmail.com

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Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2012 10:54:18 +0000
Subject: RE: {BootHK} How hard it is to create a better Craiglist?
From: j...@yesco.org
To: hkco...@googlegroups.com

[Jianyang]

Interesting discussion. After reading all the posts, I'd like to add a few points. First of all, HK people's shopping pattern is very different from that of the States. When I was in the States, I primarily use craigslist to sell or give away the stuff I cannot sell on eBay (too heavy to ship etc.). In HK, how many people buy used stuff? And in HK, it's so convenient to buy the stuff you need, pretty much downstairs or a few MTR stations away. In the US, you buy stuff from other States. You have to pay more if you want overnight delivery. As for other stuff like services, HK people either get it from downstairs or rely on word of mouth. So, there is no need to check online. I am not saying there is no need to extend your reach, but most likely there are sites you go for those info, be it child education or discussing cool gadgets. I feel that's the primary reason craigslist is not popular here. 

I agree with you guys that the look and feel of craigslist doesn't work well here in Asia in general. Even though I don't like those Chinese sites with all stuff crammed together, I think most people in HK prefer visually appealing sites. 

Jianyang Tai | 408-890-6957 (US) +(852) 6015-2887 (Hong Kong)
--------------------------------------------------------
Success consists of going from failure
to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.
- Sir Winston Churchill
Faith . Determination . Endurance
--------------------------------------------------------

[Leon FONG]

People in hk buy online usually - clothing from overseas, bags for female.

But you can look at Groupon hk.  They want cheap stuff and something good.

Leon FONG

E-mail: leon...@hotmail.com

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Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2012 00:11:08 +0800

Subject: Re: {BootHK} How hard it is to create a better Craiglist?

From: jiany...@gmail.com
To: hkco...@googlegroups.com

[Mingfai]

hi Leon,

Just curious if your idea about "HK ppl buy online usually ... cloth" is from sampling of your friends and relatives or got other source of info?

In theory, HK is a small city that people can easily get things in real shop, unlike foreign countries that shops may be geographical distanced. Products that are standardised and with easy to shop package are more suitable for e-commerce, and clothes are not the ideal product. Say, a customer may not know if a "M" size can fit him/her, and a color that look good in photo may be diff in real product...

However, I did purchase custom made team jersey and party dressing from Taobao that could "refute" the above theory. Team jersey is  for a group of people that low price matters. Party dressing is for one off use. For both cases, quality is not important, and the Taobao custom made products are unique by nature. (remarks: I don't think my shopping behaviour is representative)

Mingfai

[Alba HK]

Net-a-porter opened a new distribution center in Hong Kong recently and acquired www.shouke.com to beef up their presence in China.

http://www.fashionunited.com/executive/management/net-a-porter-invests-in-chinese-market-20120103488635

It's easy to find reasons why not to do something but perhaps its easier to drill-down to a niche you know well to see if there is value there.

Expansys seems to do all right with tech stuff, www.bnm.com.hk does next day delivery for baby stuff - if you have kids you know it's nice to have milk formula and diapers delivered ASAP and you don't need to carry it yourself from the shop.

Nishant from boot.hk runs petproject.hk  and he had at least 4 staff working for him just handling orders...

not claiming i know how to do it, but there are others who seem to be doing it well in HK.

[Leon FONG]

I remember TVB did a show on it.  People are buying online and some of them are middle to high income people...  Also, some are buying those limited edition.  I forgot the other brand.

http://www.zalora.com.hk/women/clothing/

Leon FONG

E-mail: leon...@hotmail.com

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Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2012 11:04:56 +0800

Subject: Re: {BootHK} How hard it is to create a better Craiglist?

From: mingf...@gmail.com
To: hkco...@googlegroups.com

[Leon FONG]

Shouke.com is not working.

Thanks for sharing.  Very nice online pet shop

Leon FONG

E-mail: leon...@hotmail.com

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Subject: Re: {BootHK} How hard it is to create a better Craiglist?

From: alb...@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2012 11:57:14 +0800
To: hkco...@googlegroups.com

[Alba HK]

They shutdown shouke.com and rolled it into theoutnet.cn afaik.

[Emmanuel Siegel]

You have other e-commerce website like:
- myfriendswardrobe.com: second hand fashion clothes online shop
- tinyfootprints.com: baby stuff too

On a different note you have site like:
- ecox.com.hk
- price.com.hk
that provides online sale for home applicance

The e-commerce biz in HK seems to grow slowly... 

[Leon FONG]

HK is a very difficult place to do startup.  I guess it is a trial and error.  If i dont try, i wont know how it is taste like to run a start up. LOL!

If you targeted at the expat, it is easier.  selling australian meat in hk: www.meatmarket.com.hk 

Dollarsaver hk.  How about some iPhone apps?

There is an Data saving app (Onavo) invested by Mr. LI Ka Shing, Sequoia capital...etc. wonder if you guys heard of it.  started in Israel, I think. 

Leon FONG

E-mail: leon...@hotmail.com

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Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2012 12:51:45 +0800
From: emmanue...@gmail.com
To: hkco...@googlegroups.com

[Jonathan Buford]

I think for a lot of things, stores are reluctant to post the best
prices online because they are so dependent on foot traffic to stores
to generate sales to cover rent. So, people tend to shop for typical
things offline, and will go online for exceptions or to find out what
the general market price for something is.

For used items that retain their value, there is a large market, but
many people will trade those in to retail stores more frequently than
sell it directly to individuals. So, things like camera, phones,
jewelry, and computers get resold that way. For furniture, I think
many people wind up doing it via word of mouth locally. Expensive bags
and such, there is a second market on Yahoo that is very established.

We order pet supplies online and have it delivered just from a
convenience stand point, the same with baby supplies and similar would
make sense.

Group buying sites are a bargain, but at the same time, many are
selling grey market goods, so are too good to be true for the more
expensive items, like phones.

Then, basic goods, like linens, Taobao is awesome for. We have gotten
very high quality stuff that is likely just seconds from the original
factory. They would be considerably higher purchasing it in HK.

Cheers,

Jon

[Jim Chim]

There are hardly any start-ups here, I would think.

At least from what I am hearing, not even internet business are deeming themselves as start-ups.

The most popular and active local community being hkgolden.com, I attended a seminar with its CEO, Mr. Lam, from what he says, I guess they are treating it more like a standard company.

Just look at what the internet services we are using - Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Taobao, the services we love the most, except those local online communities, are built by foreign companies.

It's not essentially a bad thing, I am simply suggesting locals seems just aren't that much into building new services, we just consume what is popular and already successful.

9 Gags, the recently admitted YC company, originated in Hong Kong, but it serves mostly oversea users. Maybe I am a bit pessimistic, I am still happy what Mr. Orlando and Boot.hk is doing though. As I also believe that start-up would be possibly the only way out of this trapped, unhealthy economy.

Back on the e-commerce services, I started this discussion because we are building something on this direction, we are currently bootstrapping (if I get this word right). Thanks for all the opinions.

I am thinking maybe we should do a little hackathon and build a hacker news like community here, Hong Kong, or even China/Taiwan don't have a community like those, right? And discussion like these are fruitful, but I just don't like how Google Groups work, anyone feel the same?

I don't know how to code though.

[Matthew Rudy Jacobs]

On 11 October 2012 13:46, Jim Chim <j...@getalogue.com> wrote:

There are hardly any start-ups here, I would think.

At least from what I am hearing, not even internet business are deeming themselves as start-ups.

Umm... I don't think this is true.

Fair enough that very few of us have gained international success so far,

but you just wait.

Check out Makible, Aftership, Refer.me, Localiiz, 8Securities, TforTickets, DemystData, and a whole load more.

I am thinking maybe we should do a little hackathon and build a hacker news like community here, Hong Kong, or even China/Taiwan don't have a community like those, right? And discussion like these are fruitful, but I just don't like how Google Groups work, anyone feel the same?

Umm... I think you're hanging out in the wrong places.

Hong Kong Code Camp kicked off last night

with the main event this weekend

http://camp.codeaholics.hk 

And Start Up Weekend is taking place next month.

http://hongkong.startupweekend.org

I suggest you join some mailing lists and groups other than this list (which doesn't really get used)

[Alex Hornstein]

What were the condoms advertising?  It would be hilarious to have a condom that emblazes "sex141.com" on the side of your schlong.

Although something like Jobsdb.com would be pretty funny, too.

[Andrew Ng]

Hi Jim,

Yeah you should consider joining the StartupsHK LinkedIn group. As well as check out the StartupsHK blog and also startupcollege.hk to learn a bit more about the HK startup landscape. 

By the way I'm not sure what you mean by HKGolden running like a standard company and not like a "startup"

What's your definition of a startup?

HKGolden is a media company and you don't often find media companies expanding geographically. Unless you're a giant like News Corp. 

Andrew

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[Leon FONG]

Some special day, they handed out the condoms.

Im planning to target Macau for HK people. lifestyle wise.  Anyone interested???

Cheers & Take care,

Leon FONG

E-mail: leon...@hotmail.com

---

From: bridge...@gmail.com

Subject: Re: {BootHK} How hard it is to create a better Craiglist?

Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2012 12:27:39 +0800
To: hkco...@googlegroups.com

[Jim Chim]

Hello Andrew,

I am embarrassed to admit that I am not familiar with Linkedin. Got an account there though.

Tried to search StartupsHK in Linkedin Groups, returned no result, could you tell me more on this?

Guess you are right on my example of HKGolden, they are a media company, and a heavily localized one. 

What I was suggesting is that there isn't much internet companies, at least for those I know, work in the way of start-up. And by start-up, I consider those companies where rely heavily on new, or newer technology, to create or re-invent a sector, while bearing great ambition and great potential of growth, are start-ups.

I wasn't exactly looking for local hackathon at the moment, I was just think of gather members in this group to help boot.hk, an organization similar to YCombinator, as I understand, to build a local version of Hacker News, in a way of hackathon. 

But I looked into the Cocoon site, which makes me realize how little I know about the startup community in Hong Kong.

Thanks 

Jim 

[Christina Chu]

Hey Kids, I live in Silly Valley. Don't limit your viewpoint to only what you know. Also, Check this out: Shenzhen in on the list. 

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2012/10/next_silicon_valley_map_of_emerging_technology_centers_.html

Christina Chu

"You have to believe in yourself" - Sun Tzu

[Chris Anderson]

On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 11:06 PM, Jim Chim <chimka...@gmail.com> wrote:

Holmes,

I understand what you are saying, but don't any of you consider a web 2.0 version of Craiglist would be way better? 

I can count numerous websites that are significantly worse now that they're "web 2.0". Unless there is a compelling UX reason to make a change I don't see any reason for it. For that matter, craigslist serves its purpose quite well. They've also added a map feature that is at least somewhat on par with all the apartment hunting sites that were scraping their info (and lets be honest, that's pretty much the only group who were scraping it).

But also, as someone else said earlier, users are what matters. No one cares how much javascript, ajax, css and html5 localstorage you threw at a problem unless it's still easy to use and people are actually using it. 

[Matthew Rudy Jacobs]

On 12 October 2012 01:21, Jim Chim <j...@getalogue.com> wrote:

I wasn't exactly looking for local hackathon at the moment, I was just think of gather members in this group to help boot.hk

Unfortunately Boot.hk doesn't exist in the same capacity as it used to.

The coworking space no longer exists, and the Incubator that started earlier in the year has now become acceleratorhk.com which is currently located inside Cocoon.

[Jonathan Buford]

Ah, but that is only temporary. We are about to launch BootHK 2.0 at the HK Commons campuses in Sheung Wan and Lai Chi Kok.

Also, we are gearing up StartupsHK and should have a lot more going on in the next few months.

--

[Jim Chim]

Good to hear that, Jon

[derekgaw]

Hi Jon,

What will the BooHK 2.0 model at HK Commons be like? When I visited HKCommons in Sheung Wan earlier this year, they didn't have a lot of open space, nor was it free and open to the public.

Derek

www.derekgaw.com

[Jonathan Buford]

We are going to have a hotdesk space at both. In Sheung Wan it will be
a separate space, where in Lai Chi Kok it will be hotdesk use of a
large room they have many different fixed desk users in. We will also
have space there (in Sheung Wan) for StartupsHK to start formally
growing. There isn't much open space at either, so not intended for
SUM meetups of larger groups, but we can probably do smaller meetups
there. I'm thinking to start a revised SUM meetup that is more the way
it started, kind of an informal get together of founders sharing what
they are up to and helping each other out.

[paul.orlando]

I don't look at this group often, but I saw my name, so I thought I'd chime in late. I agree with you on the importance of entrepreneurship in helping an economy, or even as an outlet for creativity. 

There are some things going on if you know where to look. Apart from the lists already mentioned, I run a 3-month program out of Cocoon with the generic name "Startup Bootcamp." There are 15 people in it, which I think is not a bad start. And then I'm gearing up for doing AcceleratorHK (another generic name) which will start up next month. I still take these very much as experiments for HK but the feedback has been good so far.

I keep a running list of startups in HK at wearehktech.com. There are over 120 on it now. Take a look at what's going on and add to it if you know of others that it's missing.

Paul