By Siobhan O’Leary The Börsenverein (German Publishers and Booksellers Association) and VG Wort held a press conference yesterday in Frankfurt to discuss the implications of the postponement of a Google Settlement “fairness hearing” originally scheduled for October. The Boersenblatt reports that Alexander Skipis, chief executive of the Boersenverein, was delighted about the rejection of the Settlement in its current state …
Can Sina’s Chinese Twitter Clone Succeed Where Others Have Failed?
By Lilian Feng BEIJING: For years, Chinese businessmen have copied various internet ideas from the US, and modified them for the local market. They have YouTube. We have Youku. They have Facebook. We have Xiaonei…and Kaixin and 51 and Sohu Bai, and Sina Space, just to name a few. Some launches have worked and many have failed. Today, the hot …
Bonus Material: Games, Only Children Drive Social Networking in China
By Lilian Feng & Edward Nawotka Social networking has proved immensely popular in China. And, as in much of the world, it is the young and Web savvy who are driving the trend. The most popular SNS service provider in China so far, Kaixin, boasts over 20 million users since its launch at the end of 2007. Users are especially attracted to …
German Buch News: Uyghurs at FBF, Are Books Recession Proof?
By Siobhan O’Leary Die Welt reports that one of China’s daily newspapers, Huanjiu Shibao (Global Times), is sending a message to the organizers of the Frankfurt Book Fair telling them there will be consequences if Rebiya Kadeer, the President of the World Uyghur Congress, attends the Fair as planned. The article also reportedly states that China was not only snubbed …
Bonus Material: Chinese Dissident Artist Ai Weiwei to Attend FBF
By Edward Nawotka Spiegel reports that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is now recovering in Munich from surgery to treat a brain injury likely linked to a beating he endured in Sichuan in August while reporting on the fatalities of school children in last year’s earthquake. We described this project in an earlier edition of Publishing Perspectives. Ai told Spiegel that …
German Buch News: New Frankfurt Statement; New Wireless eReader
By Siobhan O’Leary The Boersenblatt, Buchreport and BuchMarkt picked up another statement from Juergen Boos about the Guest of Honour China controversy, which was released online yesterday. In it, Boos reiterates that the Book Fair does not compromise on freedom of expression. He gives examples of several regime-critical figures from China who attend this year’s Fair, including Chinese Nobel Prize …
Dissidents and Officials Face Off at Frankfurt Book Fair’s China Symposium
By Hannah Johnson FRANKFURT: A crowd of journalists swarmed around two slightly overwhelmed people on Saturday morning, September 12th at the Instituto Cervantes (the Spanish Cultural Institute) in Frankfurt, Germany. Chinese dissidents Bei Ling (貝嶺), a poet and journal editor, and Dai Qing (戴晴), an investigative journalist, had come to attend the much anticipated symposium, “China and the World – …
Bonus Material: Perspectives from the FBF China Symposium
By Hannah Johnson Numerous journalists were on hand at this Saturday’s Frankfurt Book Fair symposium, “China and the World – Perceptions and Realities.” (A list of speaker and panelist bios from the symposium is available here.) Among those were Peter Theisen, Editor, ZDF TV Wiesbaden and Marc Erath, Editor, Deutsche Welle Television Berlin. We also spoke to Peter Weidhaas, former director of …
Bonus Material: China Spends Five Million Euros on Frankfurt Book Fair
By Edward Nawotka The Frankfurter Rundschau reports that China has spent a total of 5 million Euros on its program taking place at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Numerous events relating to China are being held in Frankfurt over the coming weeks leading up to the Fair, starting with this weekend’s symposium, “China and the World – Perceptions and Realities.” You can …
German Buch News: Dissidents Barred from International Symposium on China
By Siobhan O’Leary The international symposium “China and the World – Perceptions and Realities,” scheduled for this weekend in Frankfurt has been overshadowed by a controversy involving the cancelled participation of Chinese dissident writers. As reported in most of the German dailies, including Die Zeit and the Süddeutsche Zeitung, authors Dai Qing (the 68-year-old who is one of China’s leading investigative and environmental journalists) and Bei Ling …