In 2008 a significant historical event took place online that seemed to miss the attention of most mainstream new outlet thus staying out of the site of the majority of even those who would consider themselves Internet savvy. The event was that for the first time since the inception of the World Wide Web a country other than the United States had the largest number of “Netizens”. A Netizen is a person who has access to the Internet and uses it on a fairly regular basis.
In 2008 China surpassed the United States with more online users or Netizens. To the average Internet user this may not seem like that big of an event but the implications of this shift will be enormous. The ethos of the Internet has always dominated by western culture and even though this may be so imbedded that it may not change, to think major changes are not coming would be naive.
This shift is only at the beginning and will surely grow as the Asian market, driven with China at the helm only continues to grow. Many forward thinking western companies are already beginning to anticipate the repercussion of these changes and are working to position themselves to capitalize on what will become a much more diverse internet. They are seeing a growing Chinese Netizen base that is only at 24 percent of total citizens but has already surpassed the U.S. that is over 70 percent; this mixed with the fastest growing middle class in the world creates what could become the perfect storm for adventurous entrepreneurs.
Don’t be surprised that at the same time many Asian countries continue to look and feel more and more western the internet will begin to look and feel more and more Asian. Companies will find ways to capitalize on this new wave of Internet users and those who do will help to reshape the new Internet.
Smith Monitoring is one example of a local US based company that has began to look at the Chinese market as an area for potential future growth. Today Smith has a resident office in Chengdu China, the city coined by many multi national companies as China silicon valley. The goal of this recent move is to not only see what China has to offer this growing regional company but also see what services Smith may be able to provide for the Chinese market in the future.
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