Taobao & China’s “Me-Commerce” Revolution (BDA)
See also great summary of the report by Thomas Crampton: How Taobao beats eBay in China. 

As a business person in China, Taobao’s dominance is an inspiration. As a consumer in China, Taobao is a must have, where I find there is little that can’t be bought on Taobao.  BDA and Duncan Clark, who has been writing about Chinese e-commerce before my days at Chinapay.com in the late 90’s, released an impressive overview of Taobao, chocked full of interesting statistics about what sells in Chinese e-commerce as well as an overview of “social commerce” (i.e. Me-Commerce). It also analyzes some of eBay’s missteps, quoting from Eachnet’s founder about what happened when eBay took over Eachnet: “It took nine months to implement any major changes and nine weeks to even change a word on the website as everything had to go through the headquarters technology development team,” said Shao, in an article posted on the Taobao parent company website (How eBay lost the China market). It’s worth reviewing such lessons when thinking about Google, MySpace, AOL and any number of foreign companies.

Pepsi to Skip Super Bowl Ads in Favor of $20M Social Media Campaign (Mashable)
Avon to spend $50 million on social networking (Happi)
Pretty strong votes for social media vs. traditional media.  

China Ends U.S.’s Reign as Largest Auto Market (Bloomberg)
“China supplanted the U.S. as the world’s largest auto market after its 2009 vehicle sales jumped 46 percent, ending more than a century of American dominance that started with the Model T Ford.” I’m surprised this didn’t get more coverage. Now it’s time for auto firms to get serious about proper social media strategy, not just carpet bomb messaging. 

Google and China
Much to read, but most of it not grounded in actual context or fact. Best I’ve seen so far:

• Clearing Up Confusion on Google and China (Wall Street Journal)
• Why Google Wasn’t Winning in China Anyway (AdAge)
• Google detonates the China corporate communications script  (Imagethief) 

What is really wrong with market research? (Nigel Hollis)
Nice, balanced overview of the challenges of market research.  He writes: “I am afraid that many clients will demand that new and more relevant insight must come out of research that is done quickly and cheaply. And that, I believe, is the fundamental issue we are facing in market research today.” 

The Buzz Starts Here: Finding the First Mouth for Word-of-Mouth Marketing (Wharton)
“Opinion Leader” marketing is never as simple as tapping the ‘nodes of influence,’ as this research points out. We wrote of such complexity a few years ago: (Really Understanding Efluencers and IWOM)

Harnessing brand advocates (Emarketer)
Online opinion leaders also influence offline: “The most common word-of-mouth activity reported by respondents was helping a friend or family member with a purchase decision, but more than two-fifths also said they had shared advice offline about information they learned on the Web. Significantly fewer Internet users posted their own ratings and reviews online, and only about one-half as many shared links to articles or reviews about products.” 

Alabama defeats Texas, rolls to first national title since 1992 (ESPN)
Ok, nothing to do with China, digital or social media, but still a huge moment for Alabama (my home state). Roll Tide!