With the approaching 3G market, mobile Internet access will be faster and more convenient. This means mobile phones will be a good channel for Web 2.0 sites.
Shanghai. June 23. INTERFAX-CHINA - Dianping.com, which allows Internet users to post their own comments on specific restaurants, shops and places of entertainment and leisure, sees 3G as a central plank of its development, according to the company's chief executive officer.
"Dianping.com mainly targets female white-collar workers aged between 25 and 40, who have strong buying power with a monthly income of RMB 3,500 ($511.97) or more," Zhang Tao told Interfax in a recent interview. So far, Dianping.com has information on 460,000 shops, restaurants and entertainment venues in over 300 Chinese cities. It has around 10 million visitors per month.
Zhang said that Dianping.com began preparing for the emergence of 3G three years ago, and has been working with China Mobile and terminal manufacturers such as Nokia to offer mobile lifestyle information services. At the beginning of 2008, Dianping.com developed its WAP site, wap.dianping.com, and after one year testing, the site was officially launched in March 2009.
Through the WAP site, mobile phone users can access many of the same services that are available on the main Web site, such as listings, comment boards and discount coupons.
"We will pay more attention to offering mobile Internet services in 2009. With the approaching 3G market, mobile Internet access will be faster and more convenient. This means mobile phones will be a good channel for Web 2.0 sites," Zhang said.
"For example, if you are in a restaurant and want to share your opinion immediately, in the 3G era, you can take pictures or even make videos of the restaurant and upload them, along with your comments, to Dianping.com's WAP site," Zhang said.
"This move to mobile phones will not bring any fundamental change to our business model. Advertising will remain the major source of our revenues from both the Internet and the WAP site," Zhang said.
According to Zhang, Dianping.com adopts "a simple but effective business model," whereby it invites the businesses reviewed on its site to buy advertising, of which it sells two kinds. The first allows companies to pay to be ranked in searches for certain keywords. The second allows companies to pay Dianping.com to host discount coupons for their businesses. Customers can redeem these in person, allowing the business to track the effectiveness of their advertising. The coupon service accounts for the largest proportion of Dianping.com's advertising revenues.
"Dianping.com, as a Web 2.0 site, has advantages over traditional media channels when it comes to selling advertising," Zhang said. "Take newspapers as an example - very few specifically target white-collar workers and carry dining columns. The advertising space around these columns is far too small to accommodate the large number of restaurants that wish to advertise. However, Web 2.0 sites can meet the advertising demands of these restaurants, while helping them reach more of their target audience."
Dianping.com achieved threefold growth last year, and Zhang expects this pace will continue this year and in 2010.
"We will increase our number of employees by 40 percent over 2009. Most of the new positions will be sales related," Zhang said. Dianping.com currently has 281 employees.
"We had planned a new round of financing this year. However, we did not go ahead, as we generated revenue above our expectations last year and now have sufficient cash flow to support future development," Zhang said.
"With our large, loyal user base, we are not concerned of competitors overtaking us by replicating our business model," Zhang said. "The next step for Dianping.com is to diversify the scope of the information it provides. At the beginning of July, we will upgrade our site to carry more lifestyle information channels in which female white-collar workers are interested, such as sports, childcare, weddings, pets and education."
According to Zhang, Dianping.com will prepare for an initial public offering between 2011 and 2012, although he declined to reveal further details.
Pansoft CEO Hugh Wang sees opportunities arising from the government push for consolidation in various industries in China. Pansoft is a leading provider of ERP software solutions and on-demand customized services for the oil and gas industry, and Wang tells Interfax how the company's strategy gels with China's consolidation story. 
A global outsourcing trend has resulted in a boom in the Chinese online game outsourcing market.
