Internet search giants Google and Yahoo may be the most visited sites for online surfers around the world, but for users in Taiwan and other Chinese-speaking areas, logging on to Wretch (無名小站) has also become part of their daily routine.
Wretch, founded by six college students in 1999 in the form of a campus bulletin board system (BBS) at National Chiao Tung University, is now the largest photo-sharing and blog service portal in the country.
According to market rankings from independent industry source Alexa.com, Wretch has the 27th highest traffic in the world, ahead of CNN, AOL, photo-sharing portal Flickr, and Geocities -- the largest online space provider in the US.
The explosive success of Wretch has attracted Yahoo Inc, which has reportedly offered NT$700 million (US$21.15 million) to acquire Wretch.
Although the two companies have refused to confirm the deal, Wretch is undeniably riding high on the so-called "Web 2.0" concept, a term that has been discussed and debated fervently after the dotcom bubble burst in the fall of 2001, and is considered representative of the Internet industry's grand comeback.
Web 2.0, a term coined by Tim O'Reilly, founder of O'Reilly Media, in 2004, refers to a host of second-generation Internet-based services that allow users to share information and promote online interaction.
Prominent successful examples of Web 2.0 businesses include YouTube, a popular free video sharing Web site founded in February last year that is reportedly being wooed by Google Inc for US$1.6 billion, and Flickr, a popular photo-sharing site that was purchased by Yahoo in March last year.
Other well-known Web 2.0 firms such as MySpace, De.lic.ous, digg, Facebook and other Web 2.0 startups are mushrooming to vie for the attention of a growing number of Internet addicts.
The founders of many of these sites merely wanted to share their photos or video clips with their friends in the beginning, but accidentally hit the jackpot and drew a web of followers.
In Taiwan, in addition to Wretch, iPartment (
Although Taiwan may be a rather late entrant, many are eager to jump on the bandwagon. Such eagerness could be seen in the number of people who attended an international conference on Web 2.0 held in Taipei at the end of last month. More than 3,500 Web 2.0 entrepreneur wannabes took notes and asked questions on how to enter the business.
But will the Web 2.0 hype turn into another Internet bubble?
"Although the industry is growing, most companies are still looking for a business model that would create profits," said Shine Chen (
Chen's remark echoed the tone and mood at the conference, in which speakers talked about their companies and services but few elaborated on how to grow these companies into cash cows.
In order to attract users and boost their market presence, the services offered on most Web 2.0 sites are free. These sites earn most of their revenues from ads and value-added services.
As Internet users are used to enjoying these services for free, collecting subscription fees is not going to happen soon. The sites could be great advertising tools to target specific groups, but users are quick to complain about the growing number of ads.
While emerging Web 2.0 busi-nesses could be an investment target for venture capitalists, few of these firms have come out with concrete and profitable business models, said Max Fang (
Many Web 2.0 sites are capable of accumulating subscribers in a short period of time, but transforming the large volume of visitors into profit remains a puzzle for these companies, Fang said.
"I think capitalists in Taiwan still don't have a clear picture of the industry," Fang said.
"People thinking of going into the Web 2.0 business should be more careful before getting sucked into another bubble," he said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the