Highlighting the slogan of “three-screen display era” (television screen, computer screens, mobile phone screen) and “three-net merge”  (broadcasting network, telecommunications network and Internet), Chinese government is positively developing her electronic and information industry this year.

Economic strategic plan has been already launched on 18 Feb 2009 this year and the promotion of using 3G mobile communication and digital TV will even reach some rural areas.- Gov.cn (2009)

Not long before the launch day, a news of “Mobile blog” in South China Morning Post told us the habit of using mobile phone as a means of visual communication is quite common in Guangzhou. Mobile blog is a project founded by an editor from Guangzhou-based New Express. People take photos with their mobile phone and eight photos will be chosen to show in the newspaper .The photographer will be finally given 100 Yuan phone credit as a reward. Feedback from the public is good and the newspaper received an average of 70 photos each day. (Faces 2009)

Obviously, it is a good example illustrating how a traditional media survived by the aid of a new media. In terms of publishing, I think it is a decisive plan for the government to include mobile device as one of the main development that need supports since most people got a mobile phone rather than a portable computer. Also, because of its mobility and multifunctional, higher possibility of speedy information exchange and more comprehensive report through multi-mode text are the other factors that suggesting a mobile phone publication would be a key genre in the coming future.

Image Source: http://www.morguefile.com

Reference:

Faces, C. 2009, ‘Innovative journalist’s daily Mobile Blog pageputs readers’ photographic perspectives in print’, South China Morning Post, 1 February, viewed 20 August 2009

http://docs.newsbank.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:AWNB:CMPC&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=1267E62743857570&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=33423E33339D4EC1B3420A7B9A272425

‘China approves support plan for electronics and information industry’, GOV.cn, 18 February 2009, viewed 20 August 2009

http://english.gov.cn/2009-02/18/content_1235550.htm

Because of the display restriction on Chinese character, most Mainland Chinese buy Hanlin as their e-reader instead of Amazon’s Kindle(2009), Sony’s Reader(2009), Polymer’s Readius(2009) and Plastic Logic’s D7(2009).

Slightly larger than a Palm, a Hanlin e-reader cost abut 2000 yuan and is able to decode a file of different formats including PDF file.

“There are more than a million mainlanders who read habitually on e- readers today.” said Mr. Zhao Zeqing, chief executive of Mobread.com. ( Chan 2009)

Although such comments reflecting Mr. Zhao’s hope on sales, among those inventory technologies, e-reader is only one of the choices. E-book reading on a Net book (portable computer with size that are relatively smaller than a Notebook) is common, Mobile phone book and QR code (2009) are not really new things at all. However, are these technologies changing our reading habit? Well, you may say “Yes” by comparing main brand newspapers’ declining sales figure to the increasing numbers of Net book owners, but you can also say “No” when you really look into what the people are reading actually.

In Hong Kong, you are not hard to find people holding a piece of free Tabloid sized newspaper in hands. These newspapers are distributed along the gateways of mass transportation network. They contain news that is short in length but many advertisements on each page. Many of them provide navigation address for readers to follow up details on web. Without the technological costs barriers in reading, people still enjoy reading a genre that is free and convenient to obtain. The high exposure to public and the “bridging” function between real world and cyber space are other reasons for its dominance.

Video source:

youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50x8h7fF4DU&feature=related

Reference:

Chan, S. 2009, ‘E-readers becoming last word in books’, South China Morning Post, 8 April 2009, viewed 19 August 2009

http://docs.newsbank.com.ezlibproxy.unisa.edu.au/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:AWNB:CMPC&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=127EA0A16ADBC188&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=33423E33339D4EC1B3420A7B9A272425

Sony Reader, Sony, viewed 19 August 2009

http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/reader-ebook

Kindle, Amazon, viewed 19 August 2009

http://www.amazon.com/kindle-store-ebooks-newspapers-blogs/b/ref=topnav_storetab_kinh?ie=UTF8&node=133141011

QR code, denso-wave, viewed 19 August 2009

http://www.denso-wave.com/qrcode/aboutqr-e.html

Readius, Polymer, viewed 19 August 2009

http://www.readius.com/

Product, Plastic Logic’s,  viewed 19 August 2009

http://www.plasticlogic.com/index.php

‘ Plastic Logic: The Full D7 Demo Video’, allthingsd, viewed 19 August 2009

http://video.allthingsd.com/video/plastic-logic-the-full-d7-demo/E9755752-32CD-47FD-B1F7-F7CF6C70BE7F

On-line creators thus can share their works under a certain degree of protections.

Formulated into six combination of licenses, four license agreement on the usage of an innovation are announced ( Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works, Share Alike).

 After the implementation of this, second-hand sharers of an on-line innovation are no longer out of control in their “copy and paste sharing”. More than a warning sign, this license itself can be seen as a regulation restricting genre change, yet the scheme proposed a specific kind of genre at the same time because people do not know how to read the logo unless they can understand the meanings underneath.

Besides, since the scheme is not yet ported into the copyright law of Hong Kong at this moment, creators should notice the dispute of plagiarism cannot be solved in court right now.-About us 2009

Therefore, “consideration of proportion from whole pieces”, “choice of sites for sharing” and “keeping of a download record” are important decisions that should be made before publishing on-line.

Image Source: http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/presskit/buttons/88×31/png/by-nc-nd.png

Reference:

About us, Creative Commons Hong Kong, viewed 18 August 2009  

http://hk.creativecommons.org/aboutcchk/

Downloads, Creative Commons International, viewed 18 August 2009

http://creativecommons.org/about/downloads

Wong, PT 2008,”Creative Commons – ‘Some Rights Reserved’ “, Media Digest, viewed 18 August 2009 

http://www.rthk.org.hk/mediadigest/20081014_76_122013.html

Originated from Pecha Kucha - 7 minutes   work presentation gathering for young designers and artists firstly organized in Tokyo, Punch Partyis a modified version with greater diversity of interests begins from February 2009 in Hong Kong. It is a famous blogger activities in Taiwan in 2008 and it also fired up Shenzhen bloggers on March 2009.(Siu 2009)

Among participants, there are advertisers, information technicians, sound engineers, teachers, firefighters…etc..(Yopy 2009).The party is an opportunity for bloggers presenting their topic of interest, ranging from blogging experience to fire fighting experience, so as to form communities with  like-minded people and gather  more fruitful face to face comments from blog readers. Some may think it is a channel of self- branding or blog-promotion. Other wish it invites more non-blogger readers or becoming a pressure group on public policies
Within the 7 minutes presentation, people share a similar style of communication in Web 2.0: short and concise. Interestingly, Punch party seems becoming a bridge of cyberspace space and the reality, as well as the bloggers and non-bloggers. Blogger now can be interpreted as an real identity in society, yet one can be qualified as a blogger only if he or she is rich enough to buy a computer and get it connected, thus it is still a voice limited by social status.

Image source: http://punchpartyhk.blogspot.com/

Reference:

Siu, J. 2009, ‘Power Grids’, South China Morning Post, 20 March 2009, viewed 2 August 2009

http://www.jonathansin.com/scmp-interview-punchpartyhk-pphk/#more-1236

Punch party Hong Kong

http://punchpartyhk.blogspot.com/

 ‘Punch Party in China’, Cnbloggercon, viewed 2 August 2009

http://www.cnbloggercon.org/blog/archives/2008/11/05/punch-party-in-china/

‘Punch Party Hong Kong’, Creative Commons Hong Kong, viewed 2 August 2009

http://hk.creativecommons.org/2009/02/12/punch-party-hong-kong/langswitch_lang/en/

‘Punch Rules’, Punch Party.asia, viewed 2 August 2009

http://punchparty.asia/

Yopy 2009, ‘ On Punch Party- The Gathering of Hong Kong Bloggers’,  Yopyblog, viewed 2 August 2009

http://www.yopyblog.com/on-punch-party-the-gathering-of-hong-kong-bloggers/