An IAB for the Chinese Internet?

Anyone who works in the world of the Chinese Internet knows that it's plagued by more than just bad designers of the maximalist school (where did I hear it once refered to as the "Las Vegas school of Web design?), and by more than overzealous censors who make us bother with proxies.

A third pox on the Sinic Web is the lack of reliable metrics, and of a neutral regulatory body that can keep everyone more or less honest. It doesn't just hurt advertisers, who can't get a good sense for effectiveness of online ads. It's kept the economics of the Chinese Internet in a state of arrested development. It's created an online landscape plagued by forced pop-ups (they drive page-views, after all) and all sorts of malware created by Internet entrepreneurs to impress gullible Sandhill Road venture capitalists. In fact, the lack of trustworthy numbers perpetuates the pack-the-page full, make-everything-blink look of Chinese Web sites: in this world without reliable metrics, the portals can't be blamed for selling online advertising by time and page placement rather than on a CPM or CPC basis, and for crowding their most popular pages with ads.

Help is on its way, I'm told. The director of the Internet Society of China, Hu Yanping, pictured above, stopped by the office briefly today to talk to me about an upcoming conference on Internet video and advertising, and to enlist Ogilvy's support in an initiative now underway to create a sort of Chinese IAB. Glad to see they're involving the agencies on this. The Internet Society's efforts should dovetail well with Amcham's Online Audit Initiative, headed up by Tom Melcher, Anne Stevenson-Yang, and Matt Roberts. (Anne in particular has worked hard to write an excellent white paper for the Amcham Media & Entertainment Forum, of which this is initiative is a part).

No one expects things to improve overnight, but it's encouraging to see that Hu's group is working with Nielsen/NetRatings and with the IAB to establish industry standards where none really exist. I expect Hu will come speak to the Amcham group about what they're trying to do and how they're going about it. He's said he's very interested in their perspectives. The one Online Audit Initiative meeting I attended was well-attended, which I took to be an encouraging sign.

Comments

[ChinaRedux]

Thanks for shedding light on this important issue. I've wondered for a long time how the VC's in China (not to mention advertisers) are getting reliable stats on Chinese web properties. Turns out they're not. I can't say I'm surprised, and not because of some plague on honest business in China but because the same is true of the Internet industry in America. IAB or no, web metrics are still a shadowy scene, and progress will be slow.

[Rebecca MacKinnon]

Thanks Kaiser. Really interesting and good to know.

Speaking of malware and such, maybe China needs its own version of http://stopbadware.org/ I'm sure the people who run that project (at the Berkman center, my old haunt) would be psyched to work with some folks in China. Maybe a consortium of companies should fund a Chinese non-profit or academic institution to do it.

[Kaiser Kuo]

Hi Rebecca. Your wish has already come true: http://www.fanlm.com/ - the 中国反流氓软件联盟, or Anti-Malware Alliance. (I love how malware is "hooligan-ware" in Chinese).
These guys have been suing everyone, without fear: Qihoo, Yahoo, Oak Pacific Interactive, Baidu, even CNNIC. I don't know anyone there personally, but I'm sure I could facilitate an introduction to the Berkman folks if they want to throw 'em support (and money!)

[davesgonechina]

Kaiser, man, I gotta pick your brain one of these days. China and metrics is something I've been trying to dig stuff up for months now.

[Kaiser Kuo]

@Dave - Pick it any time after tomorrow. The AmCham online audit committee is meeting, and we'll be hearing from Hu Yanping in some detail, I hope, about his activities. By great good fortune he was able to come to the meeting on short notice.

[Sergey]

7 years ago U.S. was going through the same chaos, what changed all that was the increasing experience of an average user - which then drove demand for higher quality tools. Let's not forget that high adoption rate doesn't equal long experience. In other words, all of this is a matter of time. And as far as this org., from the guy's face I can already tell HE IS A BIG PHONY - what more can be said about IAB... Why change anything if people don't demand it?

[chineseguide]

This issue became more very urgent and serious, as I heard from number of boards that webmasters blocking entire chinese Ip addresses due to spam and other malbehaivours.

[nibbler]

There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in Features also.