05/27/2004
I saw some debates on a Free Culture review from Financial Times Chinese Edition in my friends blog. The translator had translated "Free Culture" to a misunderstanding Chinese name "免费文化". I'm not a pickly person but the name was totally misguide people to undersrand what is Free Culture. It forced me to worte a Email to clarify it. I'm not sure FT will correct the name if they accpect my suggestion. the only thing I can do is post my Email over here to correct it in virtual.
To Financial Times Chinese Edition Representative:
Refer to the article: 免费世界堕入艰难时代
I read this article translate from Mr. 李功文. It makes me feel incomprehensibly because of Mr. Li's unacceptable translations! How could this happen to post this misunderstanding translation article in Financial Times! Free Culture not means "免费文化". From the book and the wide well-known concept, we all understand that "free Culture" meaning should be translated to "自由文化". There is a big difference between "自由文化" and "免费文化" in Chinese understanding.
We met Lawrence Lessig (author of "Free Culture") a month ago in "China Digital Future" conference in UC Berkeley; after his keynote speaking, we talk with Mr. Lessig in our Free Culture Translation Project organized by SocialBrain.org. Please see link on these pages, you will find a lot of well-understanding information about Free Culture.
Actually the book is under CreativeCommons license which is a new concept of copyright license. The book we could download from internet for non-commercial purpose only. The type of CreativeCommons license for this book could be found in free-culture.cc site. The publisher penguin group is a pioneer supporter of open copyright. We believe that publish this book in UK or not is concerted by publisher, not Author.
The purpose of writing this email is to clarify the "Free Culture" meaning and point out the misunderstanding translation. Financial Times is widely honored from world wide readers and Medias. As readers, we expect an accurate and particular translation in Chinese version. We know that translation is not only directly from word surface, but also contain in meaning and extend from background knowledge.
Thanks and hope to see your professional opinions.
Kevin
184 Comments
05/24/2004
Since Mena has post on Sixlog asking "How are you using the tool?" Tons of trackback pings answer this question. As I'm a Chinese Blogger, I'm going to answer this question in my point of view from Chinese Blogosphere.
A conservative estimate of more than 300,000 Bloggers exists in China. There are two main types of Bloggers which is the common Blogger and the devoted Blogger. Most of Blogger are common Blogger who are using Blog service to maintain their blogs. Devoted Bloggers are professionals who have technical backgrounds and prefer to build up blog by themselves. They use popular Blog publish systems such as MovableType and WordPrss. Also this group of Bloggers is the most active Bloggers in China. At least 3000 of Chinese Bloggers are using MT system to setup their own site.
So, how are they using the tool? I made myself for an Example. I hosting two major Blog site, one is English, the other one is Chinese. I setup a sidebar blog which I use to collect favorite links from internet (Since I realized that del.icio.us is even better, I removed my sidebar blog). There also two blogs I create in my MT, one is Photoblog and the other one is moblog (I had moved my moblog to TypePad already). The totally of 5 blogs I owned at first and two set of MT installed in different web hosting services point to different domain names. Some of my Blogger friends have the same situation like me to keep update two blog in different languages.
Averagely, there are three blogs were created in MT per Blogger. Include main blog, dairy blog and testing blog. It's very interesting because a lot of guys want to split their post to two blogs, one is for dairy that means more informal, the other one is more serious post to indicate a personal branding or foucs on some professional field. Most of Chinese Bloggers incline to invite their friends or families to join their blog world, that's Chinese culture means "keep open doors" for everybody. So that most likely the total of three blogs and 3 authors in average. It seems that MT3.0 free version is not filling their needs.
In addition, Web Hosting industry in China is not developed as good as in States. Lacking service providers with limited service function and control power, this is a barrier to restrict the MT getting more popular. That's why a lot of devoted Bloggers who had setup their own MT would like to provide individual blogs to their friends and families. Actually I had created some blogs to my close friends too.
In my recent Chinese post, I point out that the free MT service provider is a potential threat to the profit of Typepad hosted by SixApart. (I will translate this Analysis on the MT pricing strategy later). I'd think that is one of major concern for SixApart to change their market strategy. But if they use this kind of price to Chinese market, I'd conclude that SixApart will lose Chinese market. The basic personal edition for $69.95 is too high to Chinese users. I quoted Dave winner's post here:
Yesterday we saw people complain about spending $60 for a big useful piece of software like Movable Type. I paid $60 for a cab ride in Geneva. A good dinner is $100. A hotel room $150...
I do agree this in US, but in China, $150 for a hotel room won't happen in normally. In some small town, $150 means one year of works.
In personal, I will totally support SixApart because of their great works and great people. I was very enjoyed to talk with Joi and Anil in Austin conference. But I also have to say that if MT keeps the price or even the Typepad Keeps the price to current Chinese Bloggers, absolutely they will lose a lot of loyal MT user in China.
482 Comments
05/ 7/2004
I just got back from San Francisco yesterday, I was so tired in this trip since even miss my flight yesterday morning, fortunately I got another available flight after 3 hours standby. Like a Chinese traditional word says: you never know it's bad or good when things happened. I meet Bruce Sterling (a famous columnist in Wired Magazine) on the flight; he was invited to attend another conference in San Francisco.
When I got back home, I was totally passed out. When I wake up this morning I discovered I sleep over 14 hours. Can you imagine that how tired I am!
On this San Fran trip, I meet whole bunch people and a lot of Bloggers. I have a plenty of inspirations and brainstorms from those intelligent guys come all over the world. I really need some time to digest my mind. Actually I will arrange a list of people I met in this trip and write some brief of this trip later. Also there more 800MB pictures I need to deal with!
Some of mobile pix could be found in my moblog.
4 Comments
05/ 6/2004
The last day of my San Fran trip, Robert bring us(liang, Ting and me) to a very beautiful restaurant in Jack London square. Our table is nearby the window, the landscape of the city and bay was touching me. This is the most beautiful dinner I never had before. I think that's why San Fran attract me, it's not only the center of techonolgy, but alos the beauty of the City.
When a Beauty meet Crab, can you imagine that?
9 Comments