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Crying wolf: Barry Diller, the Economist, and China
By
Three updates! Below
The Economist.com takes at face value a silly speech by Barry Diller*, based on a silly survey, and draws silly sky-is-falling conclusions.
The headline on the Economist.com item was: "America's emobyte** deficit: China's youth surpass their American rivals online." The story opened with a quote from Diller:
:
They "seem" to be way ahead? I suppose, in the same sense in which I "seem" to be way taller than Yao Ming. Both of these seem true only if you ignore the actual facts. In a million different ways China deserves to be taken very seriously. But there are only two ways in which Chinese people really do seem to be "ahead" of Americans digitally.
1) Use of mobile phones for text-messaging. Everyone has a phone, and they're in use everywhere. On the subway. In the hinterland. At all tables in busy restaurants. Often people talk on the phones, but even more often they send text messages. Partly this is because China's mobile phone coverage is so vastly much better than America's. Partly it's because text message are so cheap (depending on plans, maybe 1 jiao, 1.3 cents, per message). And largely it is because relatively few people have email. In professional-class America, you can pretty much count on a person getting an email message in real time, via BlackBerry, Sidekick, etc. In China, that's what mobile phones are for.
2) Playing online games. If you walk into a Chinese internet cafe --
The Economist.com takes at face value a silly speech by Barry Diller*, based on a silly survey, and draws silly sky-is-falling conclusions.
The headline on the Economist.com item was: "America's emobyte** deficit: China's youth surpass their American rivals online." The story opened with a quote from Diller:
:
“THE Chinese people seem to be way ahead of Americans in living a digital life,” said Barry Diller, an American media mogul, last week in a speech to students in Beijing...[Diller's data] revealed that in this arena as in so much else, China is surging ahead..
They "seem" to be way ahead? I suppose, in the same sense in which I "seem" to be way taller than Yao Ming. Both of these seem true only if you ignore the actual facts. In a million different ways China deserves to be taken very seriously. But there are only two ways in which Chinese people really do seem to be "ahead" of Americans digitally.
1) Use of mobile phones for text-messaging. Everyone has a phone, and they're in use everywhere. On the subway. In the hinterland. At all tables in busy restaurants. Often people talk on the phones, but even more often they send text messages. Partly this is because China's mobile phone coverage is so vastly much better than America's. Partly it's because text message are so cheap (depending on plans, maybe 1 jiao, 1.3 cents, per message). And largely it is because relatively few people have email. In professional-class America, you can pretty much count on a person getting an email message in real time, via BlackBerry, Sidekick, etc. In China, that's what mobile phones are for.
2) Playing online games. If you walk into a Chinese internet cafe --
