We are coming up to the end of 2009, and ’tis the season to win awards! Once again, Outblaze has worked diligently not to disappoint its fans. Earlier in the year, we nabbed the Company of the Year Award at the ComputerWorld Hong Kong Awards, as described in my previous blog post. Last night, Outblaze founder and CEO Yat Siu was presented with the Young Entrepreneur Award at the prestigious and highly competitive Hong Kong Business Awards 2009, organized by DHL and the SCMP.
The Young Entrepreneur Award honours persons under 40 years of age who have made proven contributions to a Hong Kong business through the application of outstanding talent, originality, innovation, and managerial skills.
It’s been a great year for Outblaze, a company about to turn 12 years old. If I may quote from the press release:
Yat Siu’s steady leadership and vision steered Outblaze through the Dotcom Bubble and several subsequent crises. Outblaze became a world leader in white label hosted web services, winning numerous awards and accolades. With over 75 million end-users under management, Outblaze secured clients and partners from all over the world and business sectors, including service providers, telecommunications operators, corporations, academia, media and publishing companies.
In April 2009, Outblaze messaging assets were sold to IBM and incorporated in IBM’s LotusLive suite of services. IBM also used the Outblaze assets to open its first cloud computing laboratory in Hong Kong. The transaction established beyond doubt that -like banking and finance services- Hong Kong’s local information technology can compete on a global scale.
Upon accepting the award, Yat wasted no time in reminding the audience in the sumptuous Grand Hyatt ball room that this award is recognition for the efforts of all the good, hard-working people at Outblaze. And, almost as importantly, it is recognition for the efforts of I.T. entrepreneurs everywhere. Congratulations to Yat Siu and congratulations to Outblaze!
Outblaze has been named Tech Company of the Year at the 2009 ComputerWorld Hong Kong Awards. Click to read the award article. The award scheme, organized by CWHK, is a yearly event to recognize the best Enterprise-class products and services in the territory’s IT market. The categories are hardware, storage, networking & communications, security, software, and services. Each category has several sub-categories that would require half a page to list; you can view all the winners and categories on the CWHK Awards Winners page. The winners are chosen by popular vote by CWHK readers.
But that’s not all: every year one single Hong Kong-based company is recognized with the coveted “Tech Company of the Year” award for its hard work and distinguished accomplishments. Unlike the other CWHK awards, the company of the year is chosen by a panel of judges based on several criteria. Last year the award went to PCCW. 2009 was the year of Outblaze, which took the award on the basis of over a decade of developing web-based services.
At the awards ceremony, held at Butterfield’s, CWHK editors Stefan Hammond and Chee Sing Chan cited Outblaze’s innovations, global reach, industry recognition, and of course staying power (11 years!) as the reason the CWHK Awards judges picked Outblaze as THE technology company of the year. We are extremely proud to carry that title and wish to thank the organizers and sponsors for this honour. We would like to congratulate the other winners at the 2009 ComputerWorld Hong Kong Awards, which include IBM, Fuji, HP, Microsoft, Apple, PCCW, Emerson, Cisco, Blackberry, APC, Oracle, Polycom, SAP, Check Point, EMC, Tyco, Symantec, VMware, and CSL among others, in no particular order. Good work!
Interviewed by CWHK for the awards story, Outblaze Founder and CEO Yat Siu offered some insight into how Outblaze got started in the days before the IT boom (and bust) reached these shores:
“Outblaze was founded in Hong Kong in 1998 and was the first company to offer fully hosted multilingual communication services for online communities,” said Outblaze founder and CEO Yat Siu. “We started with four or five people in a run-down office of less than 1,000 square feet with a failing electrical system and single toilet. In our first few months we hired about 20 people, which packed us tight as sardines.”
Fortunately in 2002 we moved to the CyberPort, where we are still headquartered and no longer packed in the highly unpleasant way described by Yat. Read the rest of “Blazing a Trail for Hong Kong Tech” for more background on Outblaze. And to the Outblazers reading this: well done!
Leading media company Axel Springer AG today launched autobild.com.cn, the Chinese online edition of AUTO BILD. Axel Springer is one of the largest publishers in Europe, and AUTO BILD is one of the world’s most popular automobile publications by market and circulation. Outblaze is the technology partner for AUTO BILD China, and we are developing some nice web toys for this project, some of which are already available on the newly launched portal.
autobild.com.cn is a Chinese Web 2.0 driven platform with rich media, social networking and social media services all powered by Outblaze. The primary design goal for this portal was to provide a rich online media experience for automobile enthusiasts in China. Chinese Internet users are increasingly tech-savvy, and static images simply don’t let enthusiasts really explore a car. This meant that Outblaze had to provide solutions not just for standard video content, but also for interactive 3D animations that support user customization.
After all, if you’re looking through a database of cars, wouldn’t you want to be able to view them from multiple angles and in any shade conceivable? Consider how stylish the Lamborghini LP 560-4 looks in pink.
As well as car exteriors, the site also allows you to look around inside 3D interiors - especially useful if you are concerned about leg and head room.
Web sites providing 3D viewing and manipulation of products offer better insight to consumers looking to decide on a purchase, because they let the user get a better feel for the product. And the advertising potential for any web site skyrockets when you give users customization options.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a car portal without plenty of video content, powered by the award-winning OutblazeVideo engine.
In addition to rich media features, autobild.com.cn also allows users to interact and exchange knowledge and ideas among themselves and with the editors of AUTO BILD China. There are user blogs, personal profiles, friends lists, discussion boards, and of course all the regular content you would expect from a seasoned publication like AUTO BILD: a car database, reviews, hints & tips, articles, and much more.
Here’s a few more images. See the action yourself at autobild.com.cn.
Come, speak and learn at BarCamp Hong Kong! The user-generated conference is back in the city that really never sleeps. This event will be bigger and better than the first one, held last December, so don’t miss it. As was the case with the first BarCamp Hong Kong, Outblaze is a proud sponsor and supporter. This time, the venue is provided by Turner.
This is not your average technology conference. Do you get bored out of existence attending run-of-the-mill events? Are you tired of being herded in and out of auditoriums like an over-dressed schoolchild? Have you had it up to here with sales pitches when all you are looking for is genuine information? Has a speaker at a traditional conference ever said something that made you want to ask a crucial question right away, and not 45 minutes later? Are you ever so slightly annoyed at the jumping through hoops required three months in advance just to speak at an event?
If the answers to the above are yes, BarCamp is just what you need. BarCamp is an unstructured, inexpensive, down-to-earth gathering of technologists who get together to share and learn. I said “inexpensive”, but in fact it’s completely free of charge. And if you consider that you get free food and drink, and a chance to win prizes, it’s almost as if BarCamp were paying you to attend.
Without further ado, here are the BarCamp rules and relevant details.
Within hours of the announcement the blogosphere was abuzz with the news that Hello Kitty will have her own MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game). So why are we talking about Hello Kitty here at Outblaze? For one, Outblaze is the provider of all services on SanrioTown, which as any kawaii connoisseur knows is the official home of Hello Kitty and friends. Outblaze also handles the backend for the game Hello Kitty Online - something we also did for adidas in The Impossible Team Online Game, a free title adidas offered during the 2006 FIFA World Cup (the game was taken down after the end of the tournament).
But back to Hello Kitty Online. We were pleasantly surprised by the remarkable display of Kitty Power: within a few hours of the announcement the game site received 30,000 requests for beta accounts and the news was plastered on countless blogs. And we were delighted by the flood of humorous reactions. Here is a small selection.
Kotaku
Kotaku (one of the first to report this news) informs readers that “Only one MMO could possibly release World of Warcraft’s death-grip on the massively multiplayer gaming market - Hello Kitty Online.” They also posted a selection of game screenshots under the heading “Too cute to live”.
Kotaku readers were not to be outdone and produced some lively banter:
User JAML said, in reference to the bright and cheerful palette, “To all Developers out there: More colors that are not some sort of brown please.” I know Yahtzee Croshaw agrees.
TECHKNOW commented, “With all the Player Killing in the Open Beta, lord knows what this will be like when it gets released on the market. I just hope I get to carry over my +9 Lollipop of Destruction”
Probably referring to the super cute screenshots, ICEPICK314 commented, “didn’t know you can code diabetes…”
MELODYKITN said, “Is it bad that this MMO sounds a whole lot like there’s more to do than other free MMOs?”
InventorSpot
The InventorSpot boldly states, “Today Hello Kitty Online, tomorrow the World (of Warcraft)”.
ValleyWag
Like Polonius, this Silicon Valley gossip rag knows that brevity is the soul of wit; in a post titled Why Second Life will fail, they provide an irrefutable argument in just four words: “Hello Kitty Virtual World”.
Plime
Plime.com calls Hello Kitty Online “THE deprogramming tool for WOW addicts” [that's World of Warcraft, for those unfamiliar with the abbreviation].
Japanator
Recovering from the attack of extreme excitement caused by the announcement, Japanator decreed Hello Kitty Online “the most mind blowing MMO ever conceived”. Japanator readers are encouraged to sign up for beta, although they are warned to prepare themselves for “a face-melting cute explosion. The music actually left sugar crust in my ears”.
little. yellow. different.
This blog stated, in a manner incomprehensible to non-gamers, that “today, a new MMORPG has entered a private invitation-only phase that could possibly bring Blizzard to it’s murloc-killing, PVP-flagged, epic-wearing knees” [Blizzard is, of course, the maker of World of Warcraft].
Rock, Paper, Shotgun
The site that’s been covering PC gaming since 1873 did not manage to retain its cool in the face of the Hello Kitty Online announcement, and began dribbling about “The End Of Cute, where Cute will reach critical mass and implode to create some kind of super-dense Hello Kitty merchandising, sucking us all into the candy-coloured abyss”.
New York - Tokyo
Nothing ambiguous in a post titled Hello Kitty takes on World of Warcraft: “World of Warcraft’s days as king of the MMORPG hill are numbered…. it’s only a matter of time until the battlefields of Azeroth are barren and lifeless” [Azeroth, for the uninitiated, is the fantasy world setting of WoW].
Zergwatch
In Zergwatch’s entry titled MMORPG Showdown: Hello Kitty vs Toontown Online we witness how the little kitty soothed the beast’s savage heart: “I quickly realized that this is going to be the cutest goddamn MMORPG we have ever seen. I suddenly lost my angry gaming edge and wanted to cuddle with fluffy pillows and ride unicorns around rainbow filled sky.”
Hello Kitty Hell
We made it a special point to send this fellow a copy of the press release, but we needn’t have bothered - apparently he received over 40 emails about Hello Kitty Online from excited readers. Hello Kitty Hell thoroughly blasts the game, but we can’t help feel that these are just the desperate words of one who has almost succumbed to Kitty Power: “Hello Kitty sticks with her true colors by making money (’The Item Mall allows players to use real money to purchase special items and upgrades for characters’) and creating violence (’Hello Kitty Online has an extensive crafting system with output such as tools & weapons…it has a sophisticated combat system’)”.
He concludes: “Sanrio Digital … where all people working deserve to lose their jobs for thinking for one second that 1. creating this game was a good idea and 2. sending me a press release about it so my wife could know about it was in any way, shape or form a smart thing to do”. OK, Hello Kitty Hell!, we’ll keep you posted on our progress.
I hope you enjoyed this selection. There were many more amusing write-ups and feedback but I can’t possibly capture them all, so if you have any please post them as comments here (please note: comments are moderated and there may be a delay in publishing).
He came to our offices, he fired several volleys of questions, he filmed it all. We are talking, of course, about Thomas Crampton’s whirlwind video tour of Outblaze and the ensuing YouTube videos (embedded below for your convenience).
The interview is split into two video clips, under 20 minutes in total but covering a lot of ground. The first video is Thomas Crampton barging in the Outblaze offices and being shown around, with a bit of company history thrown in. Outblaze started life as a technical services solutions provider, then morphed and expanded its way to the point where we are now a media services and solutions company, as explained by Outblaze CEO and Founder Yat Siu in the interview.
The second video clip focuses primarily on the partnership between Outblaze and Turner, and the reasoning behind the alliance. An alternate recording of that video was posted on our own blog last week in order to answer frequently-asked questions about Outblaze and Turner, however Thomas’s video contains some additional footage - the Director’s Cut, as it were.
Over the last week announcements of the Turner Entertainment and Outblaze project called TurnOut have generated quite a few questions. We’ve taken a video of Thomas Crampton video-interviewing Outblaze CEO and Founder Yat Siu a few days ago on the subject of this cooperation. Thomas Crampton is a former correspondent for the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, currently working for Next Media Hong Kong and of course on his own blog.
Thomas came for a tour of our offices and to catch up on all the exciting work Outblaze and Outblaze sister companies are doing. We recorded the conversation about the Turner / Cartoon Network project in order to illuminate those who may have questions not addressed by the announcements of the last week.
The video is about 8 minutes long. In it, Yat Siu explains how TurnOut is bringing together Turner’s impressive library of brands and characters with Outblaze’s digital services to create compelling Web 2.0 offerings.
On Monday, I got a few hours’ notice that Joi Ito, Chairman of Creative Commons and board member of the Mozilla Foundation, was arriving to our offices en-route to a visit to Macao. This initiated a flurry of activity in the office since Joi is also a board member of Outblaze affiliate SanrioDigital, and it was thus a great opportunity to give Joi some insight into what the team at SanrioDigital has been up to, and to pick his brain and see what else we could be doing.
Joi is a fascinating person and has tremendous insight into popular culture. His ability to absorb information at a rapid pace and provide succint yet insightful comments was extremely valuable to the team. In spite of his pressing schedule, he was also able to meet up with Pindar Wong, Chairman of the Asia & Pacific Internet Association and co-founder of the first licensed ISP in Hong Kong. Pindar and Joi have been associated due to their involvment in ICANN.
Pindar is a big proponent of bringing Creative Commons to Hong Kong along with others such as Rebecca MacKinnon, Charles Mok, and Oiwan Lam . My apologies if I have failed to mention other prominent Hong Kong fans of Creative Commons.
I had the privilege of spending some time with Pindar and Joi and gaining insight into why they think Creative Commons is valuable to Hong Kong and what challenges are faced in localizing CC for this territory. I hope others can help promote the advantages of Creative Commons and provide assistance to the Hong Kong Fans of Creative Commons who at this point are looking for a lawyer specializing in intellectual property to review their draft.
Enjoy the video content and don’t forget to spread the word!
Post interview whilst we were discussing random things, discussion again veered towards Creative Commons and its relevance to Hong Kong and thanks to our intrepid cameraman Jacky Yuk who kept the camera rolling I have another snippet for you to enjoy
On the evening of September 18, 2007, bloggers and members of the Web community in Hong Kong gathered for drinks at one of Hong Kong’s most exclusive establishments, the Prive’ lounge on Wyndham street, in the city’s hottest entertainment district. The event was kickstarted by Angus Lau and Jeremiah Owyang, and sponsored and hosted (and ultimately organized) by Outblaze. The turnout was good: over 80 people signed up at the wiki event page and around 70 showed up. For nearly three hours industry people and enthusiasts mingled, drank, ate, and made merry.
Jeremiah, whom I met at the event for the first time, turned out to be a pleasant and insightful fellow who genuinely cares about social media communities everywhere - traits that will no doubt serve him well in his new role at Forrester Research as social computing senior analyst. He blogged the event and took numerous photos, so have a look at his post.
Do you think this Flickr picture is indecent? The Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority (TELA) and the Obscene Articles Tribunal (OAT) of Hong Kong argue that it is, and are ready to prosecute Oiwan Lam over it. Oiwan Lam is a Hong Kong woman who posted a link to the photo in question on a Hong Kong web site. TELA received one complaint about the link from an unknown prude, and the two agencies collaborated to bring indecency charges against Oiwan Lam. Oiwan’s purpose in linking to the photograph was to protest against the archaic laws that the Obscene Articles Tribunal and TELA unilaterally decided apply to Internet links in an earlier case.
Oiwan certainly proved her point. The indecency charge she now faces in court (probably in September) carries a maximum penalty of HK$ 400,000 (US$ 51,160) and one year in prison.
Well, it has been quite a while since first OFTA (in 2004) and then CITB (in 2006) issued requests for public comment about a proposed UEM (Unsolicited Electronic Messaging) bill to be introduced in Hong Kong. We sent in our responses to both these agencies: OFTA and CITB
Our responses to OFTA and CITB were endorsed and supported by other key industry players, such as various Hong Kong based chambers of commerce, that graciously agreed to submit Outblaze’s response to OFTA and CITB as endorsed by them, and as their joint response with us to the requests for public comment.
Are we well served by our general news media? It sometimes doesn’t seem that way when the subject is one of a scientific (including medical) nature. I came across an article on CNN that tells the story of Shannon Malloy of Nebraska, a woman who survived a horrendous car accident. My sincere wishes for a strong and rapid recovery go to Ms Malloy, but this piece is not about her. It’s about the way her story was reported.
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