Shifting the Goalposts in Shanghai

Outlook cloudy in Shanghai - mainly because of the smog...

I share the recent concern by the Paris based Reporters Without Borders about the heavy clampdown going on in China regarding the media (both new and traditional). Jamming of international broadcasters continues - it looks like the Chinese authorities are taking no chances in the run-up to the Olympics. As mentioned earlier, my concern is that the games in 2008 will be struck by a heatwave - it was 39 in Beijing just a few weeks ago and employees were sent home to conserve the energy costs.

On the other hand, the media market in China is expanding so fast, I am sure we can expect the Chinese to introduce their own standards for HD DVD, audio codecs in "MP3" players, perhaps even their own operating system. Why pay Western royalties? Despite stories that there has been a clampdown on illegal software, there is no problem to get both software and the manuals of most PC based software.

Andy Sennitt has a good commentary on the Media Network main website