Chinese People and their Mobile Phones: 2.1 billion short messages sent per day in 2009

Short messages (SMS) sent by Chinese people in 2009 rose 8.4 percent year-on-year to 784.04 billion, or 2.1 billion per day on average, the Beijing Times reported recently citing a source with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Read More »

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Listen to Adrienne Massanari’s “Personas and politics: The Discursive Construction of The User” talk at IA Summit 2009

Adrienne Massanari, Instructor of New/Digital Media in the School of Communication at Loyola University – Chicago, assesses the problematic relationship between new media designers and “users” in texts written about user-centered design. Read More »

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Living in China: 2.54 billion journeys will be made during Spring Festival

China began its annual mass passenger transportation for the traditional Lunar New Year, with an expected 2.54 billion journeys in the coming 40 days. Read More »

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Watch Rory Sutherland’s “Life lessons from an ad man” talk at TED

Advertising adds value to a product by changing our perception, rather than the product itself. Rory Sutherland makes the daring assertion that a change in perceived value can be just as satisfying as what we consider “real” value — and his conclusion has interesting consequences for how we look at life. Read More »

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Internet in China: Internet population hit 384 million in 2009

China’s population of Internet users jumped by nearly a third to 384 million at the end of 2009, an official report showed recently, just a few days after Google threatened to retreat from the expanding market. Read More »

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Watch Barry Schwartz’s “The Paradox of Choice” talk at TED

Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. In Schwartz’s estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied. Read More »

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-07

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Gaming in China: Sales of online gaming industry hit 4 billion US dollars in 2009

The pace of growth of China’s online gaming industry slowed in 2009, growing 30.2 percent to 27.1 billion yuan ($3.97 billion) over the previous year, according to data from research firm iResearch. Read More »

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Watch Tim Brown urge designers to think big at TED

Tim Brown says the design profession is preoccupied with creating nifty, fashionable objects — even as pressing questions like clean water access show it has a bigger role to play. He calls for a shift to local, collaborative, participatory “design thinking.” Read More »

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China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: Shanghai’s sky-high priced luxurious house unveiled

Tomson Group has built a top luxurious housing block in Pudong, Shanghai. Tomson cooperated with Versace Home to built a luxurious show house of more than 900 square meters, with the name “Versace Home at Tomson Riviera”. Read More »

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