Josh Ye

The surging popularity of Clubhouse has many people asking if it will take the mantle as the next up-and-coming startup, and Chinese companies see an opportunity to take advantage of the business model.  Just not in China.  Macro Lai Jinnan, the founder and CEO of Lizhi, a Chinese podcasting app, said in an interview with the  South China Morning Post that Clubhouse-like apps are unlikely to succeed in China because of the country’s strict content regulations, but he believes Chinese companies are still well-positioned to capitalize the new social audio app craze in other countries. “It will be very difficult to create a Clubhouse-like app in China. The form of Clubhouse will most likely be

A new audio-only social media app that cracked China’s firewall and gave a glimpse of what a free speech China might look like, has been shut down by authorities and left millions of fans frustrated. On Monday, the invite-only, voice-chat Clubhouse app appeared to have been blocked in China, just days after Chinese language chat rooms where guests – including Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and Nathan Law, a Hong Kong activist in exile - spoke about politically-charged topics that had been banned on other platforms. When mainland Chinese users of the app tried to log on to the app, they received an error message that read: “SSL error has occurred and a secure connection to the server cannot be made

Clubhouse, the US audio-chat app that had briefly provided a forum for mainland Chinese residents to speak openly about sensitive topics, became inaccessible in the country on Monday evening.  The app had proliferated quickly in China, and it garnered international attention for its online discussions of issues such as the Hong Kong protests, Xinjiang re-education camps and relations with Taiwan.  Users in China said they are unable to connect to the servers of Clubhouse and can only access the service through a virtual private network.  Users have also reported that they cannot receive verification codes via mainland China mobile phone numbers, which is currently the only way to onboard th

Chinese gaming companies such as Tencent Holdings and NetEase are snapping up fictional worlds like Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and Harry Potter in their quest for domination of the global mobile gaming market. By investing heavily in foreign movie studios that create the globally popular fantasy worlds for viewers, Chinese gaming giants are increasing their share of a video games market that’s worth US$175 billion globally, according to industry research firm Newzoo. “While Japan and the US had long dominated the gaming sector since the early arcade and console days during the 1970s, Chinese companies are currently leading the way in 2020 via the mobile wave,” said Owen Soh, founder

Steam, the popular online video game mall, is launching a China-only version, but the news has not been greeted with much enthusiasm from Chinese fans.  China tightly regulates the games that get published, and last year the government required all publishers to obtain a special license.  These tight rules left Steam as the only avenue for its 30 million users to access games that have not been approved in China. Gamers are worried that an official Chinese version will spell the doom of the international Steam site, which is likely to have far more games.  Daniel Ahmad, a senior analyst at market research firm Niko Partners, says the international version of Steam operates in a legal grey a

US President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese apps, including Alipay and WeChat Pay, this week, the latest escalation of the US-China tech war.  But it will be a problem the incoming Biden administration will need to manage, analysts said, and it remains unclear if he plans to implement the order, meant to take effect in 45 days. Trump should have left the presidency by then. The latest executive order from the White House cited national security concerns, saying the Chinese programs could provide the personal data of American citizens to the Chinese government.  The ban will likely only have a limited impact on the companies because of their li

In 2015, China’s bike-sharing start-ups were pedaling towards massive profits, thanks to billions of dollars of investment capital. Following a similar business model as Uber, but for bikes, Mobike and Ofo quickly swept across China, their colorful bikes flooding city streets as they provided an emission-free solution to China’s congestion. Both start-ups quickly became unicorns, surpassing US$1 billion in valuation each and growing to operate in about 20 countries.  But five years later, the dockless bicycle-sharing phenomenon - hailed as one of the world’s hottest start-up trends - has officially gone bust, leaving an array of big-name investors and angry riders in their wake. Last week,

If technology is baffling and you need help in choosing the perfect Christmas gift. We’ve got you covered. Tech reporters from the South China Morning Post have spent all year “playing” with some of the latest, greatest gadgets and gizmos.  Here are their favorites (all prices are for reference only): This Macbook Air has hit a winning nerve with our staunchest PC-loving editor. I have only ever owned two Apple products – a MacBook Pro and iPad Pro – until the new M1 Macbooks were announced. After reading a deluge of incredible reviews, I picked up the baseline M1 MacBook Air the weekend after it came out.  Having used it for about three weeks now, I can confidently say the hype is real. It

Every Tuesday and Thursday, Inkstone Index features a single, illuminating number that helps you make sense of China. 177: the number of apps with links to China that are banned in India. India has banned 177 apps with links to China, including hit mobile games and payment services, as part of its retaliation against Beijing following a border stand-off. The latest ban of 118 apps, announced on September 2, covers some of the most used Chinese apps in the country, including Tencent’s smash-hit game PUBG and Alibaba affiliate Ant Group’s payment app Alipay. Alibaba’s online marketplace Taobao, NetEase’s popular game MARVEL Super War, video platform Youku and dating app Tantan are also among t

US President Donald Trump has ordered fresh restrictions on Chinese-owned apps TikTok and WeChat as tech companies become a focal point of the increasingly bitter stand-off between Beijing and Washington. The Trump administration announced executive orders on Thursday evening banning “to the extent permitted under applicable law, any transaction” with TikTok owner ByteDance, or concerning WeChat via its parent company Tencent, taking effect in 45 days. The executive orders said that the spread of Chinese-owned mobile apps threatened “the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States,” and that data collection by WeChat and TikTok threatened to “allow the Chinese Communis