skylee Posted November 16, 2011 at 10:30 AM Report Posted November 16, 2011 at 10:30 AM I have recently received a few messages from a work contact who uses an email account @126.com. I was curious about the website so I have taken a look at it. It seems to me that its services look a bit like gmail. Is my impression correct? Is it a popular / dominant email service provider (comparable to gmail, hotmail etc)? How good is it? It seems to me that China is trying to develop its own version of every (perhaps not every ) popular online/similar service, e.g. taobao vs ebay; youku vs youtube; alipay vs paypal; UnionPay vs VISA; TD-SCDMA vs CDMA; etc. Are people happy with this trend (if there is indeed such a trend)? Does it make China more independent, having such services based in China and under control? Or does it make China more isolated from the rest of the world? Or does it make no difference? Views? Quote
xiaocai Posted November 16, 2011 at 10:48 AM Report Posted November 16, 2011 at 10:48 AM 126 is one of the oldest email providers in China. It started its service back in 2001, before the foundation of Gmail. The main advantages of it, then, were 1) simplified Chinese interface and 2) better support for GB encoding. Quote
skylee Posted November 16, 2011 at 10:52 AM Author Report Posted November 16, 2011 at 10:52 AM baidu vs google? Quote
xiaocai Posted November 16, 2011 at 11:12 AM Report Posted November 16, 2011 at 11:12 AM AFAIK, Li and the two founders of Google "started exploring similar strategy about the same time" (see Wikipedia). And Google did not do a very good job in supporting search with simplified Chinese in the beginning. The Chinese interface was not introduced until 2005. And later it withdrew from mainland China market voluntarily, claiming that "the internet censorship policies of China conflict with it motto, 'Don't be evil'". (However, it seems that "borrowing" codes from Sogou Pinyin, the simplified Chinese IME developed by Sohu, somehow does not.) Quote
skylee Posted November 16, 2011 at 11:31 AM Author Report Posted November 16, 2011 at 11:31 AM Your point is？ international websites can't meet the needs of Chinese users？ Quote
xiaocai Posted November 16, 2011 at 11:40 AM Report Posted November 16, 2011 at 11:40 AM Of course they can. Just many of them did not (or maybe, were not bothered to) spend much effort on localisation, such as eBay. Anyway, I think China is more isolated from the rest of world. I think the main reason is the censorship and protectionism imposed by the Chinese government and CCP. Maybe Chinese people are not really very happy with this, but it not by our choice. But I don't really think it will make a big difference to ordinary Chinese like me. Quote
roddy Posted November 16, 2011 at 12:30 PM Report Posted November 16, 2011 at 12:30 PM "However, it seems that "borrowing" codes from Sogou Pinyin, the simplified Chinese IME developed by Sohu, somehow does not." If that's the worst thing Google's done, yay Google. What actually happened is here, it's hardly cutting-edge industrial espionage. Quote
xiaocai Posted November 16, 2011 at 02:26 PM Report Posted November 16, 2011 at 02:26 PM I'm quite curious about where the scapegoat intern is now. Quote
gato Posted November 16, 2011 at 02:29 PM Report Posted November 16, 2011 at 02:29 PM Working for Sohu probably. Hehe. 1 Quote
xiaocai Posted November 16, 2011 at 02:33 PM Report Posted November 16, 2011 at 02:33 PM Hmm, Kai-Fu Lee definitely set a good example for his employee then... Quote
New Members cantybrianch Posted January 25, 2021 at 03:39 AM New Members Report Posted January 25, 2021 at 03:39 AM how can I send email to a 126.com when I am using aol.com or yahoo.com email Quote
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