9spaces -- China/US Business Portal

New and different Chinese business website: 9spaces.com. It has big ambitions and people and funding behind it such that it may actually realize them.

9spaces bills itself as the online portal for managing your US/China relationships, research and referrals:

Starting a business in China? Looking for contacts or employees? Incorporating a WOFE? Need insight into legal issues? 9SPACES is your premier site for cross-border (China/US) professional networking, business information, quality resources and services. 9SPACES helps you mange your RELATIONSHIPS, RESEARCH and REFERRALS.

Kristi Heim of the Seattle Times describes 9spaces as "a bilingual, cross-border networking site for business people in the U.S. and China. Based in Bellevue with offices in Guangzhou."

The site lets people post profiles, connect with groups, find events, and access an online data base of research papers, articles, and interviews. The research ranges "from basics about whether to do business in China to custom reports and business-plan development." Its white papers and podcasts cover "law, accounting, culture and other topics." All content is in both English and Chinese and the site is for both Western companies involved with China and Chinese companies seeking information and contacts in the United States.

9spaces' CEO and co-founder, Dave Parker, has a long and storied high tech job history, including a stint on the board at classmates.com, where 9spaces' chief technical officer and co-founder, David Dong, was lead developer. 9spaces has six employees in Bellevue, Washington and 17 employees in Guangzhou. Last I knew, it was being self-funded and funded by angel investors, with plans to secure venture capital (VC) investment soon. Its name comes from (sort of) the Temple of Heaven in Beijing that is surrounded by nine stones.

Mr. Parker interviewed me a few months ago on the legal basics for conducting business in China and I thought he did a very good job of quickly pulling out the rudiments of foreign company formation in China (joint ventures (JV), wholly foreign owned entity (WFOE) and representative offices (rep office)), Chinese intellectual property (IP) protection (trademarks, copyrights and patents) and contracting (mostly OEM contracts and NDAs). You can read it here as a pdf or go here to listen to it as a podcast.

There is a wealth of valuable China business information on the site and, a large aspect of it being social/business networking, the more people who use it, the more valuable it will become.

Comments

Maybe they should invest also a tiny bit in a decent server: I could not download the site on a quiet Saturday morning.

Posted by: Fons Tuinstra | December 22, 2006 5:00 PM

I'm EXTREMELY skeptical about this concept.

As an information portal, that's fine. Go 9spaces.com!! As a social networking site, no way.

I have over 100 first degree connections on LinkedIn, including some pretty high level people. See http://doiop.com/dslinchina . But I have intentionally STOPPED adding contacts in China. Yet, as you can see from my e-newsletter (see doiop.com/china ), I have a lot of contacts in China, probably a few thousand at this point, probably another two hundred that I'd feel comfortable adding as first degree connections on LinkedIn.

But will I? No way. Guanxi means a lot in China. We all know this. Exposing one's network may NOT be the wisest thing in China. In the States, it might help paint a picture of which sandbox a person is playing in: Marc Benioff (CEO, Salesforce.com), Ann Winblad (Hummer-Winblad), Jeff Wacker (EDS Fellow & Futurist) are among my LinkedIn first degree connections.

Yet, in China, whom somebody REALLY knows might be better left unsaid -- better to remain a mystery. Also, there might be serious professional or legal consequences if certain relationships were exposed. Who wants to take this risk? In China, it's the equivalent of showing one's cards. Why would any rational person do this? In the States, yes. In China, no way. Plain stupid in China.

Social networking in China is a contact sport, NOT My Space (or even Second Life).

Posted by: David Scott Lewis | December 23, 2006 5:18 AM

Fons (China Herald) --

Let he who has never had server problems AND is confident he never will have such problems throw the first stone.

If this is a persistent problem (and I have no idea whether it is or is not), then I agree with you.

Posted by: China Law Blog | December 23, 2006 8:22 AM

Mr. Lewis --

Thanks for checking in. Frankly, I am not at all impressed with the social networking sites in the US. I just do not believe any high (or even medium level) business is done through them. I am on Linkedin (not even sure why) with plenty of good links, but so what?

I like Plaxo, but not for networking, just for keeping my address book in some semblance of updating.

That's my long way of saying I agree with you. It's good to hear it from a Techie like you though. I thought I was just being a Luddite.

Posted by: China Law Blog | December 23, 2006 8:26 AM